Originally Published Dec 31, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/31/2783377.htm?section=w...
The above article is about a group of protesters in Egypt who are opposed to the blockade of Gaza. Most likely if you are reading this it means that you have yet to fall in to the trap of the post-literate world view and are probably aware of Cynthia McKinney's attempts to protest the blockade as well which ended with her being released from an Israeli detention facility.
Many things about this article piqued my interest, but one glaring omission is what motivated me to try to share this with others.
Where are the Palestinians?
In this article there are no Palestinians. There are no Palestinians with a voice. They have become palestinians, this idea/word that steals a voice, that de-politicizes, and therefore dehumanizes. Maybe Palestinians love the blockade its like the greatest thing thats ever happened to some of them. But I don't fucking know that if I view the world through the stimuli available to me such as Disney's ABC. In this life where the world comes to me in sound bites, articles, talking heads/pundits, etc. I have been distanced from the Palestinian, I have been told of the palestinian, that amorphous blob of victims that deserved the collective punishment because they are inhuman.
How am I to know the palestinian? We all know that direct action whether peaceful or violent only has an effect if it has publicity. If I have no methods available to me to access what direct actions Palestinians are taking and what words they are writing/saying I am only learning about how others view the Palestinian, so I am truly only learning about the palestinian.
Where is journalism? Without it a democracy cannot function. Where are readers? Without them a democracy cannot function.
What, if anything, is available to me as an action to effectively achieve the abolition of the blockade? Will these same means help abolish the Cuban blockade? From what I can tell the ability to directly effect either of these things is beyond my economic means(lobbying/corruption), beyond my charismatic means(trying to lead a popular movement), and beyond my intelligence(hacktivism). The only means I have are to speak to others to see if they also see the divide between the human Palestinian and the de-politicizsed palestinian. If I had access to more words of the other, I could disseminate such words this would be effective resistance. Not to speak for the palestinian, but to put the words of the Palestinian through my, albeit small, megaphone is an act of resistance against the blockade. The blockade itself can only be achieved because of the conflation between inhuman de-politicized palestinian and Palestinian in the mainstream media. I can cut away at those assumptions by reproducing the truth of humanity in Palestinians. The truth of the everyday suffering of any human who is proclaimed less than, who is proclaimed a second class citizen, a criminal, a terrorist, who must have their construction helmets marked with a spraypaint X. It is not enough to proclaim the less than human status of the Palestinian, they must be marked off with borders to demarcate where order ends and chaos begins in this fashion the state/identity one was born in to looks so safe. When the other does actually get over the border(because depoliticized subjects make for a great cheap labor source) to do some construction work for example, make sure to spraypaint a large X on their helmets. When a palestinian gets over the border we must mark the border with an X. With this X we can demarcate this inhuman, de-politicized, realm of uncivilized savagery to help us remember that we are peaceful and democratic.
I can't find the picture on the internet, big surprise, and can't remember which book it was in, but palestnians were wearing badges of an x on the helmet when in Israel at certain sites. When certain press outlets found this slightly too dehumanizing it changed because people got angry. We all know that our participation in the dehumanization of Palestinians is part of what keeps it going, but we also know that its wrong. Every last one of us knows at some level as situations like this prove when too big of an increment of change in the ongoing process of dehumanization occur that people actually do get bothered and change it. But of course the adage holds true if you throw a frog in boiling water it jumps right out, if you bring the pot to a boil with the frog in it he'll boil right up. And no the Palestinians are not the frog, you're the frog, we're all the frog who need to re-examine what we take for granted. For example that the water is 10 degrees hotter than it was 10 minutes ago, or that Palestinians are human and have a voice and deserve the opportunity for some sort of self-determination which usually takes the form of the creation of a nation-state as it did for Zionism. Just don't fucking get it, the answer to a depoliticised, dehumanized subject is: a voice, self-determination, and usually a state/autonomy. The problem in creating autonomy/state is everyones already got territory staked out. But in this situation there is already a large chunk of land that nobody has a more legitimate claim to than the Palestinians. They also have the UN backing because Israel according to a UN directive has to relinquish "territories gained in the recent conflict" the UN thing that was written in 1967. The de facto "being on the territory" combined with a UN directive is more than enough legitimacy to create a state. Not to mention that Jordan has formally forfeited all claims on territory outside its current borders.
But Palestinian states have been proclaimed, multiple Palestinian leaders have stepped forward to offer Israel recognition in return for their own recognition. Why is Palestine still not a state?
http://www.amazon.com/Sharon-My-Mother-Law-Ramallah/dp/0375423796
This book "Sharon and my mother in law" by Suad Amiry is an incredible read. It is the words of a Palestinian the voice of a Palestinian, not Disney giving voice to someone speaking for a palestinian. The book is incredible I noticed two great themes in it. First of all the mundane nature of the occupation from an individual's point of view. The occupation is always there a sword of Damocles hanging over everyone's head, but it articulates itself in such interesting ways. The absurdity of the form the occupation takes and its intervention in to the daily lives of humans trying to survive and help their loved ones lends itself to this Kafkaesque world that is: occupation, dehumanization, etc it is all these things. Many argue that Kafka was an anti-colonial writer (this article you may have to sneak on to a college campus library to look at it if you're really interested i can find it and copy paste: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/tae/v008/8.3kohn.html ) that article focuses on the book "in the penal colony". If you've ever read Kafka you will find this book doubly amazing. Of course Edward Said is a Palestinian whose book "Orientalism" was apparently just purged from Scribd.
Showing posts with label arab-israeli conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arab-israeli conflict. Show all posts
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Friday, January 26, 2007
/\/\V/\/1[|-|
Saw the movie Munich for the second time and my opinion has completely changed. First of all I must say that when I saw Munich the first time it was after I had seen Syriana. Now Syriana was a fucking incredible movie Robert Baer is a fucking bad ass. Syriana didn’t lie to me, it wasn’t sentimental it was to the point: Terrorism is exacerbated and allowed to happen because it is always mishandled by the west(whether maliciously or not is a question for another time). So seeing Munich so close after and actually being a little prejudiced knowing that this was spielberg making this. Well the move starts off real real fast, with the black september group sneaking on to the olympic grounds and being helped over the fence by olympians who can imagine nothing but benevolence from other humans in this placid world that is about to be shattered. The hostage takers are beating and pushing the scantily clad jews down who are piled together and clamoring to rise to the surface, holocaust symbolism anyone? So upon my first viewing I tuned out a little for the rest, because I figured this was another “everyone hates islamo-fascists” cog d conditioning for the war weary populace.
Well upon my second viewing this movie really came alive for me. If you don’t know the plot here it is: Black september takes a bunch of Israeli olympic athletes hostage in Munich. Their intention is to somehow further the goal of the creation of Palestine, how exactly this achieves that goal is up for debate, but that IS their intention. So the siege goes on for awhile, they demand to go to an airport, so they give them transportation to the airport. And then the german police fucked up the rescue REEEEEEAAAAAALLLL bad and ALLLLLLLLLLL the hostages died. So germans and jews have no animosity towards eachother at all, and this didn't exacerbate that animosity lol.
So Golda meir herself gives her blessing for MOSSAD hit squads. This is where the movie picks up on its theme. Meir talks about how we can’t afford to be civilized when fighting against such barbarism. So the group goes on killing targets that MOssad has told them are involved. Almost killing children, wounding innocents, and even bunking with PLO. These Mossad hit squads realize that they are terrorists, and now THEY are being hunted as well.
Well the ironic thing about these hit squads is that none of the people killed had anything to do with black september. The targets are given to these individuals in order to further the goals of the mossad. To kill certain leaders in the PLO. The point is, they don’t know who they’re killing. Once in awhile someone will point this out what if they’re just doing internal mossad house cleaning? what if they’re just killing random PLO? It is through this Socratic dialogue that one member of the hit squad exclaims the assumption that they have all believed wholeheartedly in order to undertake such a task, but when said aloud only seems to illustrate the destructiveness and immorality of their actions: “The only blood that matters to me is jewish blood.”
During the portion of the movie in which they bunk with 3 PLO members(the hit squad pretends to be different revolutionary organizations red army, basque, and african national congress). While under this guise they are able to talk with the PLO members peacefully. Ali the individual who speaks with the main character(team leader avner), tells a story about his romanticized vision of the past in which his father owned land in Palestine. He says how having a homeland is everything and that it may take 100 years but as long as we keep having children the war will continue. Avner is dismissive of such a notion to kill and die for so long for a piece of dirt. When he returns home after the hits though he speaks with his mother letting her know that he is suffering from a crisis of conscience because of what he has done. Her response: “we have a homeland, thats what its all about”.
The last part I wanted to talk about was the character Salame. Who is regarded as a leader among the PLO. When Avner tries to pay his underworld contact for info to find Salame, his contact lets him know that Salame is CIA. Avner’s first question: “did the cia know about munich then?”
Munich may have been about Israel and Palestine, but it shares almost every aspect with the United states and al-qaeda. We have become worse than our enemy trying to fight our enemy, only 2 words need be uttered to prove such an assertion: Abu Ghraib.
The most important thing about war is intelligence. We must know our enemy and what the FUCK do we know now???
I”ll tell you what we know, we know that if you read something that wasn’t published by the federal government you’re a conspiracy theorist. I know that if you want your country to abide by the geneva conventions a treaty signed to prevent naziesque atrocities you are a traitor. I know that the vast majority of the United States public will continue to be manipulated by fear.
The movie though which has been criticized as either pro-israeli or pro-palestinian, was beautifully balanced. The look on the face of the Black September members as they basically had to shoot the hostages, because they had threatened they would if the police fucked with them. It is the same face the mossad hit squad wears before they pull the trigger on their first victim. Spielberg is a jew and thus can avoid the label of “anti-semite” which is oft applied with great frivolity. Thusly this movie has a very balanced message and that message is: Terrorism is the same thing as counter-terrorism. War is war is murder is terrorism is counterterrorism is war. This movie just made it so apparent. Avner signs a contract saying he doesn’t work for the mossad and then works for the mossad. The mossad sends him targets without evidence using avner as a hitman. They continue to use him chewing him up, before they finally spit him out. The leaders of the mossad and Israel using their footsoldiers and manipulating them with ideology. Sound similar to jihadi barracks in pakistan? Get a foot soldier tell them their targets are for the good of something and then use them until they are used up. Spit ‘em out and tell ‘em they’re a hero even though they don’t have shit to show for it but a soiled conscience.There has been a vast change in the United States political structure since 911 we are STILL AT WAR. Our mainstream artists have for the most part not addressed this grim reality. Syriana and Munich address this. Munich especially without fear expresses itself, because spielberg is such a powerhouse he could push the envelope. Unfortunately not many others have followed suit.
I want to see more movies that point out the fact that the US is royally fucking up in its response to terrorism. As well as the fact that there is something fishy going on, there are vast overlaps between the intelligence community and what is known as “al-qaeda”.
Well upon my second viewing this movie really came alive for me. If you don’t know the plot here it is: Black september takes a bunch of Israeli olympic athletes hostage in Munich. Their intention is to somehow further the goal of the creation of Palestine, how exactly this achieves that goal is up for debate, but that IS their intention. So the siege goes on for awhile, they demand to go to an airport, so they give them transportation to the airport. And then the german police fucked up the rescue REEEEEEAAAAAALLLL bad and ALLLLLLLLLLL the hostages died. So germans and jews have no animosity towards eachother at all, and this didn't exacerbate that animosity lol.
So Golda meir herself gives her blessing for MOSSAD hit squads. This is where the movie picks up on its theme. Meir talks about how we can’t afford to be civilized when fighting against such barbarism. So the group goes on killing targets that MOssad has told them are involved. Almost killing children, wounding innocents, and even bunking with PLO. These Mossad hit squads realize that they are terrorists, and now THEY are being hunted as well.
Well the ironic thing about these hit squads is that none of the people killed had anything to do with black september. The targets are given to these individuals in order to further the goals of the mossad. To kill certain leaders in the PLO. The point is, they don’t know who they’re killing. Once in awhile someone will point this out what if they’re just doing internal mossad house cleaning? what if they’re just killing random PLO? It is through this Socratic dialogue that one member of the hit squad exclaims the assumption that they have all believed wholeheartedly in order to undertake such a task, but when said aloud only seems to illustrate the destructiveness and immorality of their actions: “The only blood that matters to me is jewish blood.”
During the portion of the movie in which they bunk with 3 PLO members(the hit squad pretends to be different revolutionary organizations red army, basque, and african national congress). While under this guise they are able to talk with the PLO members peacefully. Ali the individual who speaks with the main character(team leader avner), tells a story about his romanticized vision of the past in which his father owned land in Palestine. He says how having a homeland is everything and that it may take 100 years but as long as we keep having children the war will continue. Avner is dismissive of such a notion to kill and die for so long for a piece of dirt. When he returns home after the hits though he speaks with his mother letting her know that he is suffering from a crisis of conscience because of what he has done. Her response: “we have a homeland, thats what its all about”.
The last part I wanted to talk about was the character Salame. Who is regarded as a leader among the PLO. When Avner tries to pay his underworld contact for info to find Salame, his contact lets him know that Salame is CIA. Avner’s first question: “did the cia know about munich then?”
Munich may have been about Israel and Palestine, but it shares almost every aspect with the United states and al-qaeda. We have become worse than our enemy trying to fight our enemy, only 2 words need be uttered to prove such an assertion: Abu Ghraib.
The most important thing about war is intelligence. We must know our enemy and what the FUCK do we know now???
I”ll tell you what we know, we know that if you read something that wasn’t published by the federal government you’re a conspiracy theorist. I know that if you want your country to abide by the geneva conventions a treaty signed to prevent naziesque atrocities you are a traitor. I know that the vast majority of the United States public will continue to be manipulated by fear.
The movie though which has been criticized as either pro-israeli or pro-palestinian, was beautifully balanced. The look on the face of the Black September members as they basically had to shoot the hostages, because they had threatened they would if the police fucked with them. It is the same face the mossad hit squad wears before they pull the trigger on their first victim. Spielberg is a jew and thus can avoid the label of “anti-semite” which is oft applied with great frivolity. Thusly this movie has a very balanced message and that message is: Terrorism is the same thing as counter-terrorism. War is war is murder is terrorism is counterterrorism is war. This movie just made it so apparent. Avner signs a contract saying he doesn’t work for the mossad and then works for the mossad. The mossad sends him targets without evidence using avner as a hitman. They continue to use him chewing him up, before they finally spit him out. The leaders of the mossad and Israel using their footsoldiers and manipulating them with ideology. Sound similar to jihadi barracks in pakistan? Get a foot soldier tell them their targets are for the good of something and then use them until they are used up. Spit ‘em out and tell ‘em they’re a hero even though they don’t have shit to show for it but a soiled conscience.There has been a vast change in the United States political structure since 911 we are STILL AT WAR. Our mainstream artists have for the most part not addressed this grim reality. Syriana and Munich address this. Munich especially without fear expresses itself, because spielberg is such a powerhouse he could push the envelope. Unfortunately not many others have followed suit.
I want to see more movies that point out the fact that the US is royally fucking up in its response to terrorism. As well as the fact that there is something fishy going on, there are vast overlaps between the intelligence community and what is known as “al-qaeda”.
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