Robert Sharp

Last week we heard that a large proportion of voters in the UK are considering voting for the BNP (as many as eighty percent in Margaret Hodge’s constituency, she warns us). This prompted the following quip from the highly entertaining Pigdogfucker:

25% of English voters “might be” terrible cunts.

Meanwhile, Tim Newman comments on the nature of democracy in Palestine, and suggests that the Palestinians are stuck with their choice of government. If that has negative consequences for their international funding, as a result of electing a terrorist group to power, then that is their problem. (Via Devil’s Kitchen, who agrees.)

Whenever I hear someone make a throwaway remark of the format “God, I hate Americans,” I point out that actually, they probably don’t. In fact (I say), what they mean is that aspects of American culture annoy them. Those aspects are probably caricatures (gas-guzzlers, homogenising fast-food chains, the NRA, preposeterous statistics about how few Americans have passports) that are not representative of most citizens. At worst, I tell them, they actually hate exactly half the people in America (usually but not exclusively those who voted red). And moreover, they have no way of knowing who those people are, so to hate them seems rather counter-productive, not to mention a bit racist.

Surely the same applies to extreme national or local governments that may be voted in elsewhere. If the BNP do win council seats during the UK local elections, few will follow the Pigdogfucker lead and say “well obviously the people of Barking are… barking,” because for a large proportion of the population that will simply not be true. Not only will it definitely not be true for those who voted for someone other than the BNP… but we will be inclined to extend the courtesy to many of those who did. Rather than blame the voters for being generally racist and ignorant of what is actually good for them, we will instead cite the rise in racist politics as somehow a failure of the incumbent parties on a national and local level.

We do not extend this ‘courtesy’ to the Palestinians. Instead we write them off as people not interested in peace, forgetting that there are plenty of their number who did not vote for terrorism (only one third of the total electorate voted for Hamas, for example). Nor do we seem willing to appreciate any subtlety or difference of opinion within American politics: “God, I hate Americans…”

Remember the old saying, about how an Opposition never wins an elections, but Governments lose them? This is important with regards to how much responsibility the electorate must take for their government. The adage above implies that people vote retrospectively, casting their ballot not on what they expect the new government to do, but on what the old government has done. If extremists are elected to power, this analysis would place a much of the responsibility on the shoulders of the outgoing government! Only when we consider the electorate to be voting prospectively and not retrospectively, does the balance seem to tip in favour of blaming the voters themselves for a poor choice.

Clearly, people vote for a mixture of prospective and retrospective reasons. But the notion of blaming an electorate for the government it has chosen remains problematic. Personally (and I suspect, in common with many others) find it difficult to take any personal responsibility for the recent actions of my own government, because I did not vote for them. Likewise, pointing at a random Palestinian and saying “sorry mate, you brought it on yourself” seems spectacularly unfair, as is calling anyone from Barking a racist.

Democracy is a bizarre thing. Because governments take their legitimacy from the voters, we are encouraged (especially immediately after an election) to ascribe the policies and beliefs of certain sections of the population, to everyone within that population. In actual fact, we know next-to-nothing about the particular individual at the other end of our finger, other than where he lives. He is damned by the tyranny of the majority, and suffers our prejudice as a result.

These are my hurried notes from the end of a long day, 14th February 2005, after witnessing some horrible things.

Walk through the old city of Jerusalem, from Jaffa Gate to Damascus Gate, and you walk from the first world to the third world. Only on the other side of the old city can you find a bus that will take you into the West Bank.

We take a car from Jerusalem to Hebron, to the south. The geography of the region is surprisingly small. In ten minutes we are outside the city, and passing Bethlehem. Not long after and the outskirts of Hebron appear on the horizon.

We meet G, a Norwegian, and D from Italy. Both work for an international NGO in the city. The peace process is like an ailing phoenix, which rises from ashes and then decends into flames on a regular basis. Back in 1994, a Jewish settler massacred 29 people in the Ibrahim Mosque in the centre of Hebron. The NGO’s mandate is to act as observers and report on the interactions – and conflicts – between the Israelis and the Palestinians here. They operate by trust alone. They are unarmed and can only provide an independent account of the events that transpire here. They hope that their presence has a calming effect on the settlers and Palestinians alike.

We descend into the centre of town. Modern, squat skyscrapers hold apartments and shops selling the light industrial goods that are made around the city. Textiles, shoes, jewelry. Taxis and minibuses clog the streets. We see old men in grey blazers and the old traditional Khafir scarves in red or black, a mirror of their dead leader Arafat, now a poster-boy who adorns the walls of the city, alongside his colleague and successor Abu Mazen. Other election posters are half visible too.

Into the old city. Past a road-block first of all, followed by a checkpoint with a nonchalant and bored IDF sentry lurking alongside it. We take a turning down an alley, and in the half-light we can see more old men outside their stalls – fleeces, food, metal work, and a barbers. G and D say “Salam Aleikum” and so do we. Soon I become confident and say it to everyone who passes, and they respond with a smile and a squint.

Halfway down the alley, we look up to see a Israeli settlement that has been built over the old town. A wire mesh has been stretched over the of the alley to catch the rubbish that falls from the settlement into the souq below.

At the other end of the alley, the souq, we encounter another sentry post. Inside I see the soldier playing a game on his mobile phone. We have arrived at the Ibrahami Mosque, the scene of the massacre a few years ago. While G says that they will wait outside because they are wearing a uniform, we are free to wander into the holy place. Although, we cannot wander straight inside. We must first have our bags searched, and pass through a metal detector. Confronted by the IDF solider who is manning the checkpoint, I am struck first of all by the fact that she is a She… and then by the fact that she is a spotty, plump eighteen year old. Our assertion that we are without religion seems to annoy her, but nevertheless she and her two cohorts (lanky boys, also acne-riddled, also with guns slung over their chests) do their duty and check our bags.

Inside the mosque, all is quiet. Three men with the traditional headdresses sit and read, while a couple of young boys lounge against a pillar. At the back of the chamber we can see the tomb of Abraham, enclosed behind bars. Across the crypt though, we can see some young Jewish men, also standing behind bars, praying at the tomb. After the massacre the tomb was enclosed and split in two, so that the two communities would be able to pray separately at the same place. When we go outside again, we see the Jewish entrace to the same building.

In the plaza in front of the temple I can see more IDF solidiers. A pretty girl stands admonishing her friends lightheartedly. If it were not for their green fatigues, I mght think they were just about to go and hang out in the mall together.

We amble up to higher ground to get a good look at the city from above. We can see the white buildings that coat the hillside like molluscs and barnacles on an upturned fishing boat. A few men are rebuilding a wall that has been bulldozed for some reason. G says that these building are many hundreds of years old.

As we talk about the architecture, the lunchtime silence is shattered by an ambulance that speeds down the road behind us. At the same moment, D’s radio tactlessly blurts out the reason why the ambulance was there. The IDF have just shot dead a twelve year old boy, down at the checkpoints near the Ibrahami Mosque. It is difficult to imagine what possible threat he could have posed that required such lethal force. Down in the city we know a mother will be soon be crying. We know one young man will never send a Valentine card, or feel the rush of his first soft kiss. And we know that another boy or a girl with a gun has become a killer. An eighteen year old has killed a twelve year old. This will not make the morning papers.

Wary of what may happen next, we avoid the mosque and take a back route down into the souq again. There seem to be so many children on the street, teenage girls in groups of three or four, gossiping about the strangers walking through their town. I consider saying Salam Aliekum to them, but now it seems inappropriate. Do they know what has just happened less than two hundred yards away?

If they were unaware of any incident, a grenade goes off, and the explosion echoes around the city. As we descend and retreat to the new town, a voice begins to rant over the mosque speakers. Emerging from the same dark alley at the old town boundary, I see that the IDF sentry has become more alert. No longer playing on his mobile phone, he is leaning against his concrete barricade, and his rifle is aimed directly at us. From this angle it is hard to make out the shape of the gun. I can just see a hole at the top of the barrel. There is nothing to do but ignore the soldier, and find the car that we came in. The local residents seem to ignore him too – an old man steers his donkey and cart past us and the gun, into the souq and towards the Ibrahmi mosque.

Once again, I see for myself the capacity of people on this planet to dehumanise one another. Another glimpse into the eyes of the only devil I believe in.

I don’t feel sick. I feel nothing. G and D take their leave of us, and go to collect information for their report of the incident they could not predict, and did not prevent. We on the otherhand, go back to the new town. We get a cup of sweet Arabic coffee, then buy a couple of beautiful woven shawls in red and green. Pure lambswool, you know.

We were wrong, it was not a twelve year old boy. It was Sabri Fayez Al Rjoub, aged 15.

www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2005.html

Intifada Fatalities 2000-2005 (Source: B’Tselem)

Intifada Kid’s Letter From Ramallah sparked an interesting response and debate at Devil’s Kitchen. I’ve had this draft sitting around for a couple of days - updated to take in some of Katy’s comments.

Another aspect of the conflict between Israel and Palestine which annoys me, is the universal insistence on treating it as some sort of zero-sum game. It is as if there is some kind of kudos, a finite substance which travels back and forth accross the mythical and derided Green Line, which both sides try to win back from the other. Perhaps points, or “political capital” would be a better analogy. Acts of violence lose you points, while any kind of olive branch or positive manoeuvre will gain you points. At present, the Israeli Government is ‘up’ (Gaza withdrawl) but the Palestinians are ‘down’ (Hamas voted into power).

The concept of ‘political capital’ or points scoring operates widely in Westminster and Washington (indeed, anywhere with a recognisable leglislative district, I assume), but it is essentially an unjust system that bears no relation to the way the world actually operates. Indeed, just like global warming, it creates a sort of ‘positive feedback’ which actually makes a situation worse, and serves to keep the problem burning.

Consider the situation in Israel and Palestine. Ultimately, the two sides have mutually exclusive dreams on what should come to pass, in the Holy Land they reluctantly share. Since Hamas are branded terrorists, this bizarrely increases Israel’s political capital, and they will soon begin to spend it, moving towards their own vision of a shrunk-in-the-wash West Bank. They move away from reconciliation with the Palestinians, and thus the cycle continues.

And it is retaliation, vengeance, which dominates the region (An Eye For An Eye?). It is this desire, something that both sides have in common, which is the destructive force in the region. I saw the Israeli Ambassador to the UN interviewed on the BBC earlier this week, engaging in a very undignified and slightly sickening numbers game with the news presenter. “But the 4000 we killed were terrorists you know” or some such flawed logic to moralise state sponsored death.

Build bridges not walls

How much better if the conflict was not considered a zero-sum game at all. A vote for Hamas, with covenant couched in fervent fundamentalism, reflects poorly on the Palestinian populous. That should not mean that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank gains extra credence, but somehow it does. Conversely, bulldozers in townships or the death of another stone thrower reflects poorly on the Israelis… but its not an excuse for blowing up a Tel Aviv omnibus. Far better for the two sides to play for the same team - humanity - and shoot towards a common goal. “We will not deal with Hamas” will achieve simply nothing. “How may we help you?” might be a better response. “Your problems are our problems” must be a mandatory mantra.

This is frightfully idealistic, of course. Many will say that neither side has the ability or the desire to have those kinds of conversations. The Hamas covenant certainly precludes this, as do the fundamentalist conceptions of a Jewish state. I agree, and I weep, but merely point out that the political game being played is a flawed one. The exchange of political capital may continue, but the only score that rises is the number of dead bodies on the borders and buses. I am reminded of the tagline for the 2005 box-office gore-fest Alien versus Predator: “Whoever Wins, We Lose”. Humanity cannot win the game being played at present.

Changing the rules of the game must be the answer, because it is the only answer. Everyone must be transferred over to a single team, a single political group called homo sapien. Giving priority to a common humanity, rather than balancing the competing needs of two or more religions, is indeed an idealistic dream. But it is the only possible game that humanity has a chance of winning. Negotiations must begin from this position. Nothing else matters - not religion, not terrorism, not retaliation.

I think an alternative voice is required to continue the analysis of the Palestinian election result (My Edinburgh armchair opining will resume shortly).

Intifada Kid lives in Ramallah, and observed first hand the recent elections. Here he presents a blistering response to those who would write off the Palestinian people.

Ok, I’ve had enough of reading the amateurish and/or wrong-headed analysis provided by people like Devil’s Kitchen and Emanuele Ottolenghi. Both effectively make the same point: that Palestinians democratically electing Hamas vindicates Israel’s argument that there is no peace partner. As Ottolenghi writes:

“[u]nless Hamas reneges on its ideology and endorses a new course, then Israel’s claim that there is no Palestinian partner is vindicated. The resulting Israeli policy of unilateralism is vindicated. Israel’s argument that the Palestinians do not want peace is vindicated. Israel’s argument that Islamists’ nuances and differences of opinion are just tactical, not strategic, is also vindicated. And the prospects of a Palestinian state will become even more remote.”

This is a re-branding of that old Israeli argument: “Palestinians are genocidal anti-Semites who really don’t want peace, and so (even though we’d love to) we can’t reward them with statehood.”

In one stroke, Israel is absolved of responsibility for occupying and colonising Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the past 38 years, for displacing Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, for continuing to discriminate against its own Palestinian citizens in a blatantly racist manner, and for rejecting the appeals of Palestinian leaders like President Abbas to return to negotiations. Instead, the onus is once again on the Palestinians to prove that they are “moderate” enough to deserve a state. If they fail, well, we’ll be forced to keep colonising and occupying their lands, demolishing their homes and shooting their kids- ensuring that they “taste Israeli steel,” as Ottolenghi puts it. And of course, we have to accelerate construction of the Wall: the animals must be encaged.

First off, let’s remember that it is the PLO - not the PA or PLC - that remains responsible for negotiating a final status peace agreement with Israel. Israel isn’t supposed to negotiate with Hamas simply because they are in the PLC, a body elected by the minority of Palestinans who happen to live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel is required to negotiate with the legitimate representatives of all Palestinians everywhere - the PLO.

Hamas may become members of the PLO’s Palestinian National Council by virtue of being in the PLC, but Fateh remains dominant in the PLO. And the PLO has, since the Declaration of Independence in 1988, accepted a two-state solution. To read more about PLO positions on peace, negotiations and final status issues, visit nad-plo.org, the Negotiation Affairs Department of the PLO.

Secondly, far from vindicating Israel’s unilateralist approach, Hamas’ victory is in part a Palestinian response to the relentless occupation and colonisation of their land and Israel’s refusal to negotiate with President Abbas - a man who was, you may remember, elected on a platform of peace and the resumption of negotiations by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian living in the oPt a year ago. Israel’s stubborn refusal to return to negotiations, or even honour its agreements with the Palestinians (the Condoleezza Rice-brokered agreement of November 2005 is only the most recent example) served to undermine President Abbas’s message that Palestinians’ liberty, peace and prosperity could be achieved solely through negotiations with Israel.

One major reason why Palestinians rejected Fateh was that it is the party responsible for leading the PLO’s recognition of Israel in 1993 and a 10 year ‘peace process’ that brought with it no peace. As Saeb Erekat, the Chief Palestinian Negotiator wrote in the Financial Times, Israel’s unilateralism and constant refrain that there was no partner on the Palestinian side was nothing but ‘Bypass Diplomacy’, designed to protect Israel from negotiating with Palestinians before imposing a final-status arrangment on the Palestinians. This would/will probably take the form of a number of cantons with “transportational contiguity” which Israel could label a “state”, but which would lack the natural resources and viability to function as such.

Another reason Fateh were ousted was that their leaders were considered corrupt and self-servicing while Hamas’s leadership has spent over a decade building a functioning network of social services that the PA should have been providing.

Hamas were not voted into office for suicide bombings. Hamas have not even carried out any suicide bombs since 2004. If Palestinians wanted a leadership committed to suicide bombings, they would have followed Islamic Jihad’s call to boycott the elections. It is the (highly marginalised) Islamic Jihad who claimed responsibility for the past few suicide attacks in Israel.

In fact, Palestinians have actually never been more willing to compromise than they are now, as a recent report for the US Institute of Peace concluded.

So how do we resolve the apparent contradiction that the overwhelming majority of Palestinans support the resumption of negotiations with Israel, leading to peace on the basis of a two-state solution, and yet voted Hamas into office at the PLC? Perhaps the Palestinian electorate is very much like the Israeli one. Although all polls suggest most Israelis also want a two-state solution, and peace with Palestinians, they elected the war criminal Ariel Sharon and his ultra nationalist Likud party into office in their last elections. In situations of conflict perhaps people trust their toughest leaders most to make the difficult compromises and display pragmatism.

For Israel to claim now that, after arguing for years that it does not have a Palestinian partner, Hamas’ win only confirms their claim is disingenuous, hypocritical and, worst of all, damaging to the prospects of reaching a peaceful two-state solution - a solution that both Israelis and Palestinians continue to support, and certainly deserve.

Update: Regarding the need for strong leaders, Andrew Sullivan points to a similar sentiment by Jonathan Zasloff at The Reality-Based Community: The American public wants a Democratic policy, enacted by Republicans.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have been re-reading the fantastic Palestine by the graphic artist Joe Sacco. It chronicles his travels through Israel and the Occupied Territories in 1991 and 1992, during the first intifada. Towards the end of the book, he reports an interesting conversation with two young Israeli girls in Tel Aviv:

We just want to live our lives, okay? We have our lives! We have jobs and families and we go out and live just like you do… We don’t think about this stuff all the time, and we get a bit tired hearing about it!

This reminded me of a conversation I had last year, with some young Israelis (a couple of whom were on leave from National Service) in the gents toilets at 3am in a Haifa nightclub.

“We just want peace!”

Yesterday, Israelis reacted to the Hamas parliamentary election victory in a similar manner. As the celebrations and recriminations surrounding the result continue, we hear many such exortations from all sides, and variations thereon. “We just want peace” or “They don’t want peace” or “they must prove they want peace” etcetera. The problem with all these statements is not that they are utopian or simplistic as such, but simply that they are incomplete.

“We just want peace!” Yes, but what kind of peace? The wish is meaningless, unless it is qualified. A ‘peace’ that leaves Israeli soldiers free to harass citizens of people who are apparently part of a different country? A ‘peace’ that allows institutional discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel? A ‘peace’ that allows thousands of people to live in walled enclaves, without freedom of movement? It cannot mean preservation of the status quo, surely.

The flipside is also true. A ‘peace’ that leaves Jerusalem as a tranquil, Islamic holy city might be the vision for some, but it is likely to leave others quite disturbed. This is because ‘peace’ does not simply mean the cessation of violence, but peace of mind too. People need to feel safe, and Israeli ’strong-men’ like Sharon or Netanyahu are perceived to deliver this safety… by going on the offence. So it is with Hamas: a strong and organised group who stand up to the injustices visited daily upon a subjugated people. A vote for Hamas is a vote for a momentary peace of mind, a protest vote not only against the corruption of Fatah, but against the occupation itself.

“So they voted in a bunch of terrorists” is a kindergarten response to the result. This is the democratic action of an electorate who wish to reassert their humanity. By this act, the Palestinians say: “I am here, and I still resist!” This is essentially a positive sentiment, even if the current outlet is a militant organisation, capable of atrocious acts. It is now up to everyone to channel this sentiment into something practical. If not, the vote will have been a pointless excercise, and the peace of mind it brings will be a transient thing, lasting only as long as it takes another gun to fire or a bomb to explode.

I’ve just found a great blog, Raising Yousuf by a journalist living in Gaza. I’m pleased to see she also speaks of people wishing to throw off shackles of oppression: ‘For 6 months, [the man] has been chasing the PA for some medical compensation, and hasn’t received a penny “while those nobody’s travel around in their BMWs. ” “Is that fair? tell me?” Why did Hamas win? Remember, said the man: “The feeling of oppression is a very powerful factor.” ‘

One group of people who get very little attention in the Middle-East are the Arab citizens of Israel. One in five Israelis are Arabs, but as either Muslims or Christians they are effectively second-class citizens in what is, after all, a Jewish State. Even if a utopian reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians were to take place, a two-state solution would still leave discrimmination of Arab Israelis unaddressed.

Israel claims to be an open democracy, but certain recent events remind us of an authoritarian streak that must be tempered if the country wishes all its citizens to live in peace. On Christmas Day, the renowned writer Antwan Shalhat received a travel ban issued by Israel’s Department of Interior. No explanation for why the ban was placed has been given, no time-scale is specified, and the reasons given are “secret”. Furthermore, according to Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, a travel ban violates Mr Shalhat’s constitutional right to leave the country under Article 6 of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

Antwan Shalhat has translated many texts between Hebrew and Arabic, including the work of Yeshayahou Leibowitz. What is most bizarre is that he has no plans to go overseas at present, for speaking engagements or otherwise. The ban seems arbitrary, unjust, and does nothing to engender confidence in the government.

The treatment of Mr Shalhat is not an isolated case. Last autumn, a string of Arab Israeli journalists were detained and interrogated by the Israeli General Security Services (GSS/Shabak). Those detained included Hassan Muwasi, correspondent for Lebanese newspaper, al-Mustaqbal, and Ahmad Abu Hussein, head of www.arabs48.com. The men are not suspected of any illegal activity, but were questioned about their relationships to journalistic contacts, who are in turn suspected to have links with Hezbollah. In addition, the journalists were asked questions unrelated to state security, regarding details of their professional work and political affiliations.

I’lam, the Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel, believes these ’security interrogations’ constitute a breach of Israeli Penal Code Section 114D which specifies that persons in contact with ‘outside agents’ cannot be charged if their intentions do not threaten state security. The journalists have not been secretive regarding their activities, and assert that any contact they have had with people who have, in turn, had links to Hezbollah, are purely professional. I’lam’s press statement says:

[the interrogation] subsumes the professional and cultural rights of Arab journalists to the assumed security needs of the Israeli state. There is no consideration of the crucial role relationships between Arab journalists in Israel and the wider Arab world play in the professional, informational and cultural life of Arab citizens of Israel, nor is there any consideration of the rights of Arabs in Israel to freedom of expression, association and information.

Hamas looks set to win a large proportion of the vote in the imminent Palestinian elections. To ensure that the organisation chooses politics over violence, the freedom of movement for Arab journalists in Israel and Palestine is of vital importance.

On the surface, the political overhaul in Israel looks like a positive development for the Palestinians. The split between Sharon and his Likud over his ordering a withdrawl from Gaza, means the creation of a new centrist party. Coupled with an emboldened Labour Party under its new leader Amir Peretz, perhaps the snap elections will yield a better political climate for the Palestinians.

But in the West Bank, the new developments are hardly a cause for celebration. A contact in Ramallah says I am being naive: “Sharon’s approach to the conflict with Palestinians is that of unilateralism. By its very nature, this approach cannot work for conflict resolution.”

He is in two minds about the effectiveness of Peretz too, and its difficult to predict whether he will be a friend or foe of the Palestinians. Although Peretz has said that the occupation is a moral and economic burden for Israel, and wants to resume negotiations with the PLO, he said recently he supports a ‘united’ Jerusalem, meaning he would maintain the occupation of East Jerusalem. Nor does the new Labour leader support the refugees right of return, to their homes in Israel.

“At this point, the situation is so stark, that Palestinians get excited by any Israeli politician announcing publicly that he is even willing to talk to us,” says my friend, cynically. A new government may bring a freshness to the Knesset, but it seems less likely that spring elections will clean up the mess of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

It was heartening to read that in their moment of tragedy, the family of shot Palestinian Ahmed Khatib have donated one of his kidneys, to an Israeli boy in need of a transplant. 12 year old Ahmed was shot in the head by Israeli Defence Force soldiers on 3rd November. One kidney does not a peace-process make, but it is a powerful gesture of shared humanity.

The act echos a previous donation in 2002, when the kidney of Glaswegian student Yoni Jenser, who killed in a bus suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, was transplanted into an Arab girl from East Jerusalem.

Update: Thanks to Intifada Kid for drawing my attention to Laurie King-Irani’s fascinating article Of transplants and transcendence: Questioning social and symbolic categories in Israel, which mentions the Ahmed Khatib case. It discusses the symbolism of the body in political conflicts.

Ahmed’s parents had many choices of how to react. The choice they made violated the grammar of the conflict and illuminated the intimacy and interconnections between people whom policies and practices divide and separate. Ahmed’s parents decided that their brain-dead son’s organs should be given to people needing transplants. On Sunday, Ahmad’s organs gave new life to six Israelis, Jews and non-Jews alike.

The article discusses suicide bombing and other political (mis)uses of the body.

Remi Kazani reviews FREE THE P! over at The Electronic Intifada. Visit the link to get three free MP3s!

A quote from rapper Tamer Nafar, again emphasising that the goal for Palestinians is mere equality, not a jihad against Jews or Christians:

“It’s not that I don’t love the flag. I do.” … Yet, Nafar doesn’t want the Palestinian flag to be altered with a symbol of exclusion, like the Israeli flag, which focuses on the Star of David. Nafar noted that “Muslims, Christians and Jews” made up Palestine before Zionist gangs pillaged the state, and emphasised that the injustice and racism which has enveloped the Israeli state cannot suffocate or hinder the Palestinian cause, which seeks justice, unity, and peace for all Palestinians. The audience of Muslim, Christians, and Jews erupted as the beat rolled on in the background.

Its also nice to know someone agrees with me about symbols on flags.

The letters page in The Guardian gives severla lucid responses to President Ahmadinejad’s “wipe them from the map” comments. (via DSTPFW)

Dr Nur Masalha, the British-Palestinian author-academic, writes:

I believe we (Palestinian Muslims and Christians) should always make a clear distinction between our political struggle against institutionalised racism and ethnic cleaning in Palestine-Israel and the fact that we and the Israelis would, ultimately, have to live together as equal citizens under some form of secular democracy - and not wipe each other out.

We should concieve of all these global troubles as a civil war within the species of homo sapien. I repeat: The fundamentalists are the enemy, be it Ahmadinejad and his call for a new holocaust; or the ultra-Zionists who declare that the Arabs of Palestine have no right to live in the West Bank.