Robert Fisk: Posturing and laughter as victims rot
Mahmoud Abbas stepped further into humiliation by saying the only option for Arabs isto make peace with Israel
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Independent Minds
The front page of the Beirut daily As-Safir said it all yesterday. Across the top was a terrible photograph of the bloated body of a Palestinian man newly discovered in the ruins of his home while two male members of his family shrieked and roared their grief. Below, at half the size, was a photograph from Israel of Western leaders joking with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister. Olmert was roaring with laughter. Silvio Berlusconi, arms on the back of Olmert's shoulders, was also joshing and roaring – with laughter, not grief – and on Olmert's right was Nicolas Sarkozy of France wearing his stupidest of smiles. Only Chancellor Merkel appeared to understand the moral collapse. No smiles from Germany.
Europe laughs while Palestinians mourn their dead. No wonder that in the streets of Beirut, shops were doing a flourishing trade in Palestinian scarves and flags. Even some of Palestine's most serious enemies in Lebanon wore the Palestinian keffiyeh in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Over and over again, Al-Jazeera television strapped headlines on to their news reports of Palestinians carrying the decomposing corpses of their dead: "More than 1,300 dead in Gaza, 400 of them women and children – Israeli dead in the war 13, three of them civilians." That, too, said it all.
All day, the Arabs also had to endure watching their own leaders primping and posing in front of the cameras at the Arab summit in Kuwait, where the kings and presidents who claim to rule them also smiled and shook hands and tried to pretend that they were unified behind a Palestinian people who have been sorely betrayed. Even Mahmoud Abbas was there, the powerless, impotent leader of "Palestine" – where is that precisely, one had to ask? – trying to suck some importance from the coat-tails and robes of his betters.
Slipping and sliding on the corpses of Gaza, these assembled supreme beings should perhaps be pitied. What else could they do? Saudi King Abdullah announced £750,000 to rebuild Gaza; but how many times have the Arabs and the Europeans been throwing money at Gaza only to see it torn to shreds by incoming shell-fire?
It has to be said that the two cowled Hamas gunmen who announced that they had won a "victory" in the ruins of Gaza were only fractionally less hypocritical. Still they had not understood that they were not the Hizbollah of Lebanon. Gaza was no longer Beirut. Now, it seemed, Gaza was Stalingrad. But whose uniforms did Hamas think they were wearing: German or Soviet?
"Israel has to understand," the good king said – as if the Israelis were listening – "that the choice between war and peace will not always stay open and that the Arab initiative (for Arab recognition in return for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders of Israel) that is on the table today will not stay on the table." He knew that "an eye for an eye ... did not say an eye for the eyes of a whole city". But how many times – how many bodies have to be pulled from the ruins – before the Saudis realise that time has run out?
The Israelis briskly dismissed land for peace in 2002 but yesterday they suddenly showed their interest again. "We continue to be willing to negotiate with all our neighbours on the basis of that initiative," the Israeli government spokesmen said – as if his own country's original rejection had never been thrown at the Arabs.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, of course, dismissed the whole initiative in Qatar last week as dead, insisting that Israel be declared a "terrorist entity". But Mahmoud Abbas stepped further into humiliation yesterday by announcing that the "only option" for Arabs was to make peace with Israel. It was Arab "shortcomings" that led to the failure of the 2002 Arab initiative. Not Israel's rejection, mark you. No, it was all the fault of the Arabs. And this from the leader of "Palestine".
No wonder America's man in Egypt – a certain Hosni Mubarak – repeated the tired old slogan that "peace in the Middle East is an imperative that cannot be delayed". And then the Emir of Kuwait invited Bashar and Hosni and King Abdullah of Jordan and the other King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to have lunch together – the menu was not disclosed – to end their feuding.
Al-Jazeera showed the ever-more putrid bodies being tugged from beneath cross-beams and crushed concrete as these mighty potentates debated their little disputes. There was really no adequate comment for this charade.
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Comments
When it comes to Israel, the majority of those with any semblance of power to make any difference, make cowardly decisions. Arab leaders gather and bicker over tea and baklava, and write poetic resolutions to hold more meetings. American and European politicians use empty words that leave you pondering them, because they have been made to believe, wrongly, that the omnipotent Zionists can decide their fate come next election.
The average person turns and looks the other way, or at best makes a mockery of him or herself by diluting what should be a strong message about the injustices they are witnessing.
Journalists, a whole heck of a lot of them especially out here in the US, tow the line by writing pro-Israel drivel, because they believe their readers are stupid, and because they are afraid of loosing their jobs if they are critical of Israel in any shape or form.
But every once in a while, some deep rooted value forces us to make the right choice. It's tough, be we feel good about it. And guess what, everyone recognizes our courage, is impressed by it, envious of it, and threatened by it. Some people are a lot more comfortable with making the right choice more frequently. What was it Robert Frost said about making decisions? Something like "and that has made all the difference."
Thank god the Palestinians still have a few brave souls speaking for them and making a big difference. Thank you Mr. Fisk for having the courage to be one of them.
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/
For any loving parent it must be hard to imagine the fear, grief, and anger that one feels when your children are murdered, home is destroyed, society is demolished. The fact alone that the people in gaza for years have had to smuggle in their food through illegal tunnels in order to stay alive is unimaginable.
Now everything is destroyed, everyone lost loved ones, and hamas is still firing rockets.
I do not believe the jews did not realize this would be the case. In other words: this was another attempt to destroy an entire people.
One consolation is that the people of the world will not forget this; the jews have finally emerged in the open as the racist, murderous barbarians that they have been for too long.
It makes me wonder whether our forefathers had already figured this out..
There is no free press in Israel. The fact that during this criminal invasion, journalist were not allowed is quite compelling. What do you have to hide?
I guess the truth hurts
http://vodpod.com/watch/1249063-landsca
Israel wanted to fight hamas, for defending the poor Palestinians who have no one by thier side except a cheater & vile leaders of arab. Israel simply repeating the holocaust.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/01/1
Invalid video URL.
There is a chink of light here and that is prevention, through nailing key criminals up in the International Criminal Courts for war crimes, certainly a life imprisonment will deter possibly more atrocity but it needs men and women of courage not cowardice to force the indictments into action, follow the chain, the suppliers and nail them too, whether they are Russian suppliers, American or British, the governments too knowingly allowing transit of such weapons is also a war crime and it was the suggestion of such that forced the US to abandon its rearmament ship sailing from Greece because they were told point blank that to allow it would indicate complicity in such a crime and suddenly the US got cold feet.
But also these brave men and women can act here in the UK, by petitioning their MP's to back away from Israeli support indicating that any such support will not only cost them YOUR vote but also you will use your influence to ensure that all your neighbours, family and friends drop their vote for that MP too, if a movement got together and worked together as a national framework it is likely that Israeli support outside of Cabinet and corporate level will wither away...
Yet it takes people of vision, the Gazan's are unable to help themselves or defend themselves either from its vantage point in its Kz camp, it is up to decent people, for human beings to act then on their behalf.
Before blaming the Arabs and asking them to recognize Israel, Mahmoud Abbas should ask the Israelis to define their border first. He will be shocked to see the map of Israel according to the Israelis. What a jellyfish!
Regarding the Europeans laughing, one should not be surprised because they consider killing of non-Europeans as a sport just like the Romans did to the early Christians. They have no morals whatsoever. Silvio Berlusconi is a thug just like a mob boss and Sarkozy has always been an agent of Israel and worked for the Israelis.
Thanks to the modern technology the world sees Israel's blatant aggression and atrocities live. Soon, majority of the world will no longer accept the Israelis many excuses such bas Holocaust, God's Chosen People, God gave them the land, etc. to justify their cold-blood murder of innocent people. I wonder for how long the arrogant Israelis with the support of Western leaders will carry on their atrocities before they are stopped once and for all.
Borders: Arabs never respected them and have sistematically attacked Israel. Arabs have enough land, from the Atlantic (Morocco) to the Gulf (Iraq), 22 countries in all.
"Chosen people": By men, by Christians and Muslims. Why have you chosen a Jew to be your saviour? There are thousands of peoples and religions in this world. Don't choose one of us - we are horrible. Muslims: Why have Mohamed chosen Judaism and Christianism (a form of Judaism in the beggining) to copy when he invented this new religion, 1500 years after Judaism and 700 years after Jew Jesus? Strange people. Choose us and hate us. Jew Dr. Freud could have explained it, maybe.
The money could come out of the yearly tribute to its Israeli overlords. Which is actually borrowed from China.
When will the Palestinians learn? Stop attacking Israel and Israel will not attack you. Keep attacking Israel and, well, you will keep losing.
If Palestinians then attack you (even though the rest of the land has been taken away from them , as well) then you can complaint.
While you occupy their land and stop them from creating a viable economy you cannot complaint. These are the things that happen when you invade a land.
And by the way, it was Isarel (as usual) that broke the truce. Once again, you can't kill Hamas militants and expect nothing in return... you know this very well and you use in Palestine, Lebanon and through the region to 'impose' your will
Why should anyone be surprised that the EU leaders were laughing with Olmert? it's an all European- Zionist club..absolutely obscene..
Watch US Professor Norman Finkelstein exposes Israel's Crimes (Google bm5OvSeiAHc)
Israel admits: "No Hamas rockets were fired during ceasefire" (Google uOaLU0wfqdI)
Please distribute and contact your Senator and/or Representative. Peace!
The hateful colonialist supremacist regime in South Africa fell, however, and so eventually will this one. The world has seen Israel for what it is and though our leaders may want to carry on the pretence that it's just dandy to ethnically cleanse, dispossess, exile or imprison an indigenous people, subject them to a two-tier system in which they lose all their rights, land and homes to an incoming population, terrorize, humiliate and casually kill them, build walls around them and make them use checkpoints - and call them terrorists for fighting back - no decent human being will support this any longer. I hope that Palestine's Mandella arrives soon, the world has had enough of Israel being held to different standards to the rest of humanity.
This is just forelock-tugging for the Israeli embassy press watchdogs. Also, it is complete gibberish, putting outdated and irrelevant european ww2 comparisons into the mouths of the apocryphal "Hamas gunmen" (as in "Mafia gunmen", thank you).
The Leaders of Arab world are guilty of total indifference and their only common interest is their capability to continue their lives in untold luxury and at the same time doing all they can with ever increasingly inane efforts to do nothing that would in anyway tilt the balance of power one way or the other.
With regards to Gaza,it is self apparent that Hamas bit off far more than they could chew and by the same measure it is clear the IDF were intent on restoring their deterent factor which they have done most effectively as there are no Arabs who wish to see their capitals turned to dust bowls and this includes Hezbollah.
Europe and the USA have both enjoyed the spectacle of a humbled Hamas and even better an Iran with its tactics now in the dirt with their valiant and vain efforts to make Hamas into an Hezbollah.
Israel fought a good war,it went to war to win,it showed that it has a highly motivated fighting force who were determined to redress the war of 2006,I will guess that this conflict will not be lost on Iran and Hezbollah who will realise that for every action that they may take there will be an even nastier reaction.
Shalom
BM
Israelie army (or IDF as they so cowardly hide it behind an ackronym) lost the 2006 war against a small militia... so to feel strong again they went and slaughtered defensless people of Gaza, or as you refer to it "Fought a good war"
shame on you and anyone who calls slaughter of defensless people a "win"
I do hope Mr. R Fisk doesn't go on to ridicule his critique by writing a book, or two, on this latest debacle.
Oh, hold it, what's that I smell? I've got it, it's freshly sharpened pencils.
John Ahearne. Dubai, UAE.