Tag: Palistians

Gaining a Middle East Perspective, Apart from the Official US Empire/Media Narrative

Lebanese ‘Vision for Peace’ for a brighter future for the people in North America

Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

The Who – “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

By now, one has to understand that it really makes no difference who is president, except for maybe if one has the gift of eloquent speech, another a gift of making it to 3rd base with an intern, another a gift of “duh” while targeting countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, another the gift of racial equality and finally a politician that can create tweets on Twitter and trigger millions. We sure have made “progress”.

However, in the real world, the US Empire has been marching on from CIA assassinating other nation’s democratically elected presidents (1953, Iran) to open US military assassination of other nation’s #2 national leader and hero from his strategy to defeat ISIS (2020, Iran), nothing has halted the evil empire’s advance. Yes, I agree with Oliver Stone that the evil of the USSR in the 1980s has been replaced by the US Empire of the 2000s and beyond.

Things have changed a lot since then, at least for Stone. “Empires fall. Let’s pray that this empire, these evil things… because we are the evil empire,” he said in an interview to RT. “What Reagan said about Russia is true about us.” – Sputnik / Alexei Druzhinin

To get a real picture of what has evolved in the Middle East and how we (US Empire) are not helping, I believe that Eric Margolis’ experience is something that can be drawn on as a starting point where one can research for themselves from there. In his latest piece picked up by the Ron Paul Institute from Lew Rockwell, called “Grand Theft Property”, Eric outlines how this latest Trump “Peace Plan” is nothing more than continued theft of Palestinian land that will only serve to ensure continued violence in the region that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) will love so that their profits are assured. Eric explains:

As they ask in my native New York City, “Is it good for the Jews?”, the answer is a resounding no! The Trump-Bibi theft of ancestral Arab lands condemns Arabs and Jews to another five decades of violence and hatred. The Promised Land was not supposed to be like this.

Ain’t that the truth. The fact is, visions do not create rights. They have no legal grounds. They do not convey legality to anything.

Don’t go away, for the backstory is even better. One needs to know the context and history that brought us to this point where it seems to be accepted that Israel and the US can decide how to partition up the Middle East:

In 1916, as World War I raged on, a British diplomat, Mark Sykes, met with his French counterpart from the Quai d’Orsay, Monsieur Picot, and signed an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire once victory was achieved.

The heart of the Mideast – Palestine, Syria, and Iraq – was divided between Britain and France. Italy and Russia were offered other Ottoman lands: southern Turkey was promised to Italy and Constantinople to Russia. All this was top secret but was later revealed by the Bolsheviks after their 1917 revolution.

Do you see this? World powers, the empires, can just decide where to draw the lines, the benefits of wars go to the state while the cost of war is the burden that those who fought and sometimes died along with their families and the innocent civilians caught up in these great conflicts where life is never the same.

I have heard the term that bigger is better, however, when it comes to states, the bigger the state they more tyrannical they can be. This tyranny extends from the politicians who enable the state and give the state legitimacy, because politicians were “voted” in, all the way to all the people who follow orders blindly, from CIA assets, to the military all the way to the police, from the capital, to the states all the way to the local governments that are dependent on federal funding.

I agree with G.K. Chesterton who said:

“The men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. But the politician is waiting for it. He’s the pestilence of modern times. What we should try to do is make politics as local as possible. Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

That kind of local government could easily have prevented the following:

  • 70 million killed in China
  • 60 million killed in USSR
  • 4 million killed in Cambodia
  • 5 million killed in North Korea
  • 1 million killed in Yugoslavia
  • 1 million killed in Ethiopia
  • 1 million killed in Indonesia
  • 800,000 killed in Rwanda
  • 800,000 killed in US Civil War

Anyway, it appears that the US Empire train, similar to the USSR and Roman ones before it, will continue on down this track until it self destructs, no matter who is the president.

-SF1

Prophets: Ignored and Marginalized .. Every Time

Anyone who has studied the Bible knows that the prophets (not “forth-telling” as in future telling, but “truth-telling”) were routinely seen as strange old men who reside on the edge of crazy and are in fact marginalized or worse, killed. From Noah, Moses and Samuel in the Old Testament to John the Baptist, Jesus, John and Paul in the New Testament, there was usually some tragic period in their life and also some truth-telling that usually had the masses turn away from following them.

Here is a modern day prophet whose message of peace was not well received but he did live until age 94. His name at birth in Germany was Helmut Osterman, born into a prosperous Jewish family in 1922 hear Hanover. His family saw the rise to power of the Nazis and in 1933 moved to Palestine. This 11-year old changed his name to the Hebrew, Uri Avnery.

Eric Margolis, in his Lew Rockwell article today, outlines Uri’s trajectory and allegience as well as his shift in his vision for the future of Israel:

In 1948, the young Avnery joined the underground Jewish guerilla force Irgun, fighting British and Palestinians and, later, Arab regular soldiers. Irgun committed numerous notorious terrorist acts and massacres that played a key role in driving the Palestinian population from their ancestral homes. He was seriously wounded and nearly died. Two years later, he and three friends started a political magazine, “One World.” Avnery was increasingly political and sided with Israeli expansionists.

As with a lot of prophets, there is a period where one’s belief structure is based in the traditional view and they are usually very passionate about it. (i.e. Saul, the best of the Jewish Pharisees, with a resume that is top-notch)

But then one day, or in a series of days, there is a stirring in the heart that something is not right, and that there is a better, although even non-traditional preferred way toward a future that aligns better with nature and its God:

… he gradually came to see that peace and cooperation was the only solution for Israel. After Israel’s smashing victories over the Arabs in the 1956 and 1967 wars, he formed a leftist pro-peace party and won a seat in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. He helped found the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Council and the renowned Gush Shalom peace movement.

Avnery was one of the first Israelis to call for fair treatment of the Palestinians, over a million who had become refugees in 1948 and 1967. He urged Israel to sign a lasting peace accord with the Palestinians and return to them control of the West Bank, the old city of Jerusalem, Golan and Gaza – all occupied by the Israeli Army and growing waves of Jewish settlers.

It is a tough road to hoe when one is a pioneer in new thoughts that would help propagate the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you).

Uri became the target of decades of hatred by right-wing Israelis. He was stabbed. He said things that were not said in public. He kept reminding Israelis that their Jewish ethics demanded fair and decent treatment of Palestinians, whom Israeli leaders preferred to call ‘cockroaches’ and ‘wild animals.’

Yes, but in spite of the attacks (and the truth that when one is on target, one will take on a lot of flak!), Uri continued to share what would be best for all people groups in the region for a peaceful future (something that had been maintained in various areas of the Middle East over the past few centuries, like Syria, Lebanon and even in Iran)

There would never be peace in the region, warned prophet Avnery, until Israel returned at least some land taken from Palestinians, and created a viable Palestinian state with full democratic rights and freedoms … Never one to mince words, Uri called Israel’s right, which just enacted a law making Israel an exclusively Jewish state (thus excluding its 21% Muslim and Christian population) ‘semi-fascist Jews.’

Uri’s dreams seem like they will never come true. He was passionate about a path forward but has found resistance in BOTH Israel and in Washington DC / American Empire:

Avnery became fast friends with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The two leaders could have created a viable Jewish-Arab state or federation. Sadly, Arafat was probably murdered and Avnery politically sidelined. In fact, Israel’s entire pro-peace left has dwindled to a fringe movement, isolated by its right-wing governments and Washington. Days after Uri died, Israel’s Likud coalition announced the expropriation of more Arab land on the West Bank to build 1,000 new homes for Jewish settlers.

As it is with prophets, years later people will find wisdom in the story of their life that may inspire them in another time and place in this world. Until then, it is important to share stories of people like this to give the next generations hope as well as to help them identify prophets in their midst, and take note.

SF1