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By Jeffrey Blankfort

Excerpted from “Yes, Blame the Lobby,” published by Dissident Voice, April 11, 2006

In March 2006, the London Review of Books published “Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” an article by Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steven Walt, Academic Dean of the Kennedy Center at Harvard University, two nationally known academic figures with impeccable credentials. (The authors afterward wrote an even more thorough book on the same topic.)

This article, critical of the Israel lobby in the US, propelled into the mainstream an issue that had long been confined to the margins. This issue had been avoided not only by the efforts of the Israel lobby itself, but also by those on the Left who prefer to view US foreign policy as being determined by corporate elites and who had long worked to prevent public awareness of the Israel lobby and its role in driving U.S. policies.

Jeffrey Blankfort provided a detailed response to claims minimizing the role of the Israel lobby. Below are some of the facts that he provided:

Israel lobby critics do not deny US imperialism

Critics of the Israel lobby have no illusions about the evils of US imperialism that have and will continue to exist, irrespective of the lobby… Serious critics of the Israel lobby do not in any way exonerate the US from responsibility for its actions; however Middle East policies were formed under immense Israeli pressure. Israel and its lobby have pushed the US to launch policies that not in its own interest; US support for Israel has generated serious problems in the region, and has been costly in lives and money.

All presidents told Israel to end the occupation

Every US president since Richard Nixon, with the Rogers Plan in 1969, has made an effort to get Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967, not out of any love for the Palestinians, but because Israel’s continuing occupation of those lands, from the Sinai to the Golan Heights, was creating unnecessary problems in a region where maintaining stability of the regions’ oil resources was and remains a necessity. Every one of those plans was undermined by the lobby.

Gerald Ford

In 1975, Gerald Ford, upset because Israel was refusing to disengage from areas it had taken in the Sinai during the 1973 war, halted aid to Israel and publicly let it be known that he was going to make a major speech that would call for a downsizing of US-Israel relations and demanding that Israel to return to its 1967 borders. Within three weeks, AIPAC presented Ford with a letter signed by 76 senators, from liberal Democrats to extreme right wing Republicans, warning him not to take any steps that would jeopardize Israel’s security. Ford did not make the speech.

Jimmy Carter

Ford’s successor, Jimmy Carter, was repeatedly in conflict with both Israel and the lobby. Neither wanted the Camp David treaty but Carter doggedly pushed it through, although it required a multi-billion dollar bribe to get Begin’s signature. In 1978, before the treaty went into effect, Begin invaded Lebanon, hoping, some speculated, that Egypt would react and the treaty would be nullified since Israel did not want to give up the Sinai. Carter further angered Israel and the lobby by demanding that Begin withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon three months later.

Andrew Young – When he told Begin, publicly, to halt settlement building, the Israeli prime minister responded by announcing the start of 10 new settlements while the lobby criticized Carter for bringing up the subject. When UN Ambassador Andrew Young violated an Israeli demand and a lobby-enforced rule that prohibited US officials from meeting with the PLO, (much like the lobby imposed rule about US officials meeting with Hamas officials today), he was forced to resign. When Carter, like Ford, was considering giving a televised speech in 1979 in which he planned to outline the divergence of interests between the US and Israel and denounce Israeli intransigence on the Palestinian issue, he was warned by the lobby, as one Jewish leader put it, that he would be the first president to “risk opening the gates of anti-Semitism in America.” Carter decided not to give the speech.

Donald McHenry – There was an exception to all those US vetoes and it came during the Carter administration. In March 1980, Young’s successor, Donald McHenry, also an African-American, voted to censure Israel for its settlement policy, including Jerusalem. The lobby was outraged and Carter was forced to apologize. The last straw for the lobby was when Carter called for an international conference in Geneva to settle the Israel-Palestine question that would include the Soviet Union. It didn’t matter that he was forced to apologize for that, too. In 1980, he received 48% of the Jewish vote, the poorest showing of any Democrat since they began counting such things.

Ronald Reagan

When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, both houses of Congress roared their approval, it being, after all, an election year. When the reports of the siege of Beirut were becoming too much to ignore, Reagan asked Sharon to call a halt. Sharon’s response was to bomb the city at 2:42 and 3:38 the next afternoon, those hours, coincidentally, being the numbers of the two UN resolutions calling on Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories. When Reagan, like Carter, also publicly called on Begin to halt settlement building, the Israeli prime minister announced the building of new settlements and sent the president a “Dear Ronnie,” letter letting him know who was making those decisions.

In Reagan’s second term, he tried again to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict with what came to be known as the Shultz Plan, named after his Secretary of State, George Shultz. It called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who had replaced Begin, was having none of it. One cartoon of the day depicted Shamir sitting in a chair, cutting up pieces of paper while Reagan and Shultz looked on. “How cute,” said Reagan, “he’s cutting up paper dolls.” “Those aren’t paper dolls,” responded Shultz. “That’s our peace plan.” Another showed Reagan and Shamir sitting in armchairs across from one another with Shamir holding a smoking gun in his hand while a dove falls from the sky. Reagan says, “You didn’t have to do that.” Shamir’s intransigence finally provoked 30 senators, including some of Israel’s biggest supporters, into sending him a letter asking him to be more cooperative. They were hardly prepared for the firestorm from the lobby that followed that sent each of them stumbling to apologize. The Shultz Plan was effectively dead.

George Bush Senior

When George H. W. Bush succeeded Reagan, he made it clear that he wanted a halt to the settlements and for Israel to get out of the OT, as well. He arranged for the Madrid Peace Conference over the objections of the obstinate Shamir, making concessions as to the composition of the Palestinian delegation to appease both Israel and the lobby. Was this conference, like the one called for by Carter, like the one planned by Reagan just a charade? Before the conference took place, Shamir asked the US for $10 billion in loan guarantees. Bush made compliance with that request contingent on Israel agreeing to halt all settlement building, its agreement not to settle any Russian immigrants in the West Bank, and to wait 120 days, to see if the first two requests had been complied with. An enraged Shamir decided to go over his head to the lobby-controlled Congress.

After receiving a letter signed by 242 members of Congress urging the swift passage of the loan guarantees, Bush realized that the Lobby had enough votes to override his threatened veto of the request. This led him to take the unprecedented step of calling a national press conference on the day when an estimated thousand Jewish lobbyists were on Capitol Hill pushing for a swift passage of Israel’s request. In the press conference, Bush denounced the arrogance of the lobby and told the American people how much aid each Israeli man, woman and child was getting from the US Treasury. The polls the next day showed that 85% of the American public was with him and a month and a half later only 44% of the public supported giving any aid to Israel at all while over 70% supported giving aid to the former Soviet Union.

AIPAC, in the face of Bush’s attack, pulled back, but then launched a steady attack against him which began to be reflected in the US media where even old friends like the NY Times columnist William Safire would eventually desert him for Bill Clinton. Under tremendous pressure and with the election approaching, Bush finally consented to the loan guarantees, but it was too late. The Lobby blamed him for Shamir having been defeated by Rabin and his goose was cooked.

Pro-Israel Neocons

It is no secret that pro-Israel Jewish neocons have been heavily involved in creating the structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the IMF. Indeed, Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Gulf War, is now the head of the World Bank.

Starving and then invading Iraq, threatening to invade Syria, raiding and then sanctioning Libya and Iran, besieging the Palestinians and their leaders must also be blamed on the Israeli lobby and not the US government.

While it was not well known, but no secret, that the Lobby played a key role in getting the votes for the first Gulf War, the reporting of which resulted in the firing of the Washington Jewish Week’s Larry Cohler at the behest of AIPAC inductee Steve Rosen, the orchestration of the current war by a handful of Jewish Likud-connected neocons with the support of the Israel Lobby was widely reported in the mainstream press. If there was a question as to who was the chief architect, it was a choice between Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Scooter Libby.

The “Clean Break” paper that Perle, Feith, and Meyrav Wurmser wrote for Netanyahu in 1996 called for the overthrow of Iraq, Syria and Iran, which Mearsheimer and Walt mention. The “Project for a New American Century,”  was another document drawn up by pro-Israel Jewish neocons. The Office of Special Plans, set up by Feith and run by another Jewish neocon, Abe Shulsky, was directed to provide the phony intelligence that would justify the invasion when the CIA staff was not prepared to do it. Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9-11 commission, admitted that the war in Iraq was for “the security of Israel”: but that would have been a “hard sell” to the American people. And, as for implementing and maintaining the sanctions, the advocacy of the lobby was equally evident.

Lebanon, Iraq, Syria

In 1958, Pres. Eisenhower sent the Marines to Lebanon to prevent what was thought to be a radical nationalist move against the status quo, but the US has only invaded Arab countries twice, Kuwait in 1991, to oust the Iraqis and in 2003. The first required the assistance of the Israel lobby capped by the phony incubator story that was orchestrated by Rep. Tom Lantos, an author or co-sponsor of numerous Iraqi and Syria sanction bills and anti-Palestinian legislation. (According to the Jerusalem Post, Lantos represents Israel in countries where it has no diplomatic recognition.)

Israel and the lobby had anticipated that the Senior Bush would remove Saddam as called for in the Clean Break and when he didn’t they started criticizing him and planning for a future administration that would do the job and the record on that is very clear. AIPAC took credit for writing the anti-Syrian legislation that led to the withdrawal from Lebanon of the relatively small number of Syrian forces that were in the country and more recently the Lobby has been the only sector of US society actively calling for what is unmistakably an armed confrontation with Iran.

Weapons industry does not drive the policy

The Middle East is the only region where a stable environment is required to maintain the oil that fuels much of the world’s economy, including our own. The Middle East is also the only region where there is continued instability. The US has sought political stability, the kind of stability that provides a ready source of raw materials and an outlet for US products.

From the end of the Vietnam War to the beginning of the first Gulf War, the profits of the weapons industry continued to soar, proving that an actual shooting war was not necessary for the arms manufacturers to make windfall profits or the capitalist system to survive. Given that both US political parties are committed to what is euphemistically called “national defense,” there is no debate in Congress over the size of the military budget.

Other countries too prioritize national defense, and buy US-made weaponry, some of which may be used to quiet domestic rebellions, and some, like fighter jets, for national pride and kickbacks on both sides. It is only in the Middle East where a stable environment is required to maintain the oil that fuels much of the world’s economy, including our own, where there is continued instability, and this is the fault of Israel and its lobby.

Cuban Lobby

The Cuba lobby which is, in fact, more properly called the anti-Cuba lobby, not coincidentally, has a strong working relationship with AIPAC for their mutual benefit, but it doesn’t begin to compare with the Israel Lobby’s power although it has seen to it that Florida will stay in the Republican column. Of course, if Israel was a communist or anti-imperialist country, the Jews in the US would no doubt be like the anti-Castro Cubans, calling on the US to liberate it.

Support for Israel endangers Americans

Regarding the families of the marines, soldiers and sailors killed in the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, as well as American diplomats who have been targeted in the region over the years: Had Israel not invaded Lebanon, these American servicemen killed in their barracks might still be alive, as well the members of the CIA who were wiped out in an earlier bombing of the US embassy in Beirut. Furthermore, without getting into the serious questions that remain unanswered about the 9-11 attack, it has been accepted by those who believe the official narrative that US support for Israel was one of the reasons behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. If the authors and others, including this writer have argued are correct, a significant portion of the responsibility for the dead and wounded on both sides in Iraq can be laid at the feet of Israel and the Israel Lobby, but the latter, in particular.

The US, as a country, is not loved or well liked anywhere except, perhaps, Israel. Much depends, of course, on an individual’s political consciousness, but most of the peoples of the world have had a love-hate relationship with the US, despising its policies but colonized by its materialism. The war on Iraq and the US voters’ re-election of Bush have put more weight in the “hate” column, and in Latin America, Bush has proved to be the most unpopular US president since they started taking polls. It is not unlikely that as the war continues and the US continues to make threats against Iran, again pressured by the Lobby, the degree of antagonism towards the US and US products is certain to increase.

Egypt

Israel has never seen the US as its master. Not a single Israeli soldier has shed a drop of blood for US interests and as Ariel Sharon said on Israeli army radio several years ago, the US knows that no Israeli soldier ever will. At the time of Israel’s attack on Egypt in 1967, France was the major arms supplier and the certain sectors of the US government were engaged with members of Egypt’s military. To describe the defeat of Nasser as a service done by Israel for the benefit of the US, is a both an oversimplification as well as a distortion of history. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1973 war, when Israel, under attack by Egypt and Syria, threatened to use its nuclear weapons unless the US came through with a massive conventional arms airlift, that US support for Israel really took off. So did the oil prices as an Arab oil boycott was implemented in response. Was the very real threat of a nuclear war, which would have brought in the Soviet Union, in the US interest? Was the Arab oil embargo?

Latin America and South Africa

Israel’s arms sales in Latin America and South Africa were done to benefit Israel’s arms industry and that they were useful to the US was a secondary factor. What the Lobby was able to do was keep members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including the notable Ron Dellums, from publicly condemning Israel’s arms sales to South Africa in violation of international sanctions, and to silence those members of Congress who were quick to condemn US actions in Central America but afraid to do so when Israel was the malefactor. That fear is no less prevalent in Congress today where any member can get up to criticize George Bush but none dare say a negative word about the Israeli prime minister, irrespective of who holds that office.

Jordan & Syria

Israel’s role in the Jordanian-Palestinian conflict in 1970 is always raised by those who argue for Israel’s usefulness. We are told that Israel was acting at the behest of the US when it threatened to intervene if Syrian tanks moved south to defend the Palestinians under attack by Jordan’s King Hussein and that this prevented the possible overthrow of the US-friendly Hashemite regime. This fits neatly fits into the client state scenario, except it is missing a key element. What was crucial in that situation was the refusal of Hafez Al-Assad, then head of the Syrian air force, and not a supporter of the PLO, to back up the Syrian tank force that had entered Northern Jordan. Shortly thereafter, Al-Assad staged a coup against the pro-Palestinian president Atassi and proceeded to throw hundreds of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian Syrians in prison and break up the radical Syrian-supported militia group, Al-Saika. This bit of history has apparently now been written out of history.

When Israel neutralized the PLO in 1982, it was appreciated in the beginning by many Lebanese, particularly in the south who found some elements of the PLO heavy-handed and were tired of having a liberation war fought on their soil – until they began to experience Israeli occupation for themselves and began to resist. The Israeli attack violated an 11-month cease-fire that had been negotiated by Ambassador Philip Habib and to which the PLO had strictly adhered. The Senior Bush, then vice-president, opposed the Israeli invasion and wanted Israel to be censured and was overruled by Reagan and Alexander Haig. A year before Bush Sr. was angered by Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor and wanted Israel censured at that time, but was again overruled.

Israel did provide training to US troops on the techniques used to occupy and repress a hostile Arab population, only too pleased to have the US join it as the only foreign occupier of Arab soil which may have been one of the reasons the Israeli government (as well as the lobby) wanted the US to invade Iraq. With the US taking the same kind of harsh measures to repress the Iraqis, it would be less likely to complain about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and this has proved to be the case. Israel has been called by Chomsky America’s “cop on the beat” in the Middle East, but when military intervention has been thought necessary it has always been American soldiers that have done the fighting. In fact, US soldiers were sent to Israel during the first Gulf War to operate the Patriot missile batteries to defend the Israelis.

AIPAC

Read our history and see what has befallen those politicians who have challenged the lobby and were subsequently targeted and defeated beginning with Sen. J William Fulbright who in the early 60s sought to restrict the lobby’s growing power. There are several books written by both supporters of the lobby and its critics that clearly demonstrate its influence as well as the tales of former members of Congress who were its victims.

Edward Said on the Israel lobby

Every two years, one hears or reads, regarding some issue that deals with Israel, that “the president” or “Congress” “is not likely to act [against Israel] due to domestic political considerations in an election year.” To a great extent, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a domestic US issue. That the Palestine solidarity movement has ignored that fact is a primary reason that to this point in time it has been an utter failure. This should be a source of embarrassment and reflection, but it so far there is no sign of it.

There was another Columbia professor who had a more profound understanding of the situation who is sorely missed and, perhaps, never more so than at this moment. I refer to the late Edward Said. In his contribution to The New Intifada, entitled, appropriately, “America’s Last Taboo,” he did not mince words:

What explains this [present] state of affairs? The answer lies in the power of Zionist organizations in American politics, whose role throughout the “peace process” has never been sufficiently addressed — a neglect that is absolutely astonishing, given the policy of the PLO has been in essence to throw our fate as a people into the lap of the United States, without any strategic awareness of how American policy is dominated by a small minority whose views about the Middle East are in some ways more extreme than those of Likud itself. (Emphasis added)

And on the subject of AIPAC, Said wrote:

[T]he American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC — has for years been the most powerful single lobby in Washington. Drawing on a well-organized, well-connected, highly visible and wealthy Jewish population, AIPAC inspires an awed fear and respect across the political spectrum. Who is going to stand up to this Moloch in behalf of the Palestinians, when they can offer nothing, and AIPAC can destroy a professional career at the drop of a checkbook? In the past, one or two members of Congress did resist AIPAC openly, but the many political action committees controlled by AIPAC made sure they were never re-elected… If such is the material of the legislature, what can be expected of the executive?

Although it is trying, the Israel Lobby does not yet control our academics. On the critical issue of the lobby’s power, it is time they stop acting like it does.

Jeffrey Blankfort is former editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin, long-time photographer, and has written extensively on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He can be reached at: jblankfort@earthlink.net.

https://israelpalestinenews.org

27 September 2017

By middleeastmonitor.com

A renowned Israeli doctor and human rights activist has issued an impassioned defence of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, saying a boycott is essential for confronting “occupation and apartheid”.

Writing in Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Tuesday, Dr. Ruchama Marton, the founder and president of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, rebutted criticisms of BDS, which she defended as “the only nonviolent lever that can cause Jewish-Israeli society to feel the yoke and pain of the occupation”.

Rather than paying “lip service” to “peace” – something no one opposes – Marton argues that the “present question is the question of occupation and apartheid”, and “the correct struggle…is the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle”.

She adds: “Whoever deludes themselves that they can win this battle without help from the outside holds a mistaken, dangerous illusion, based on Zionist-Israeli macho pride”.

Read: Rabbi denied entry to Israel over support for BDS

Marton compared Jewish Israelis who oppose BDS and “think it is possible to change from within” to “the parable of the rabbit who wanted to change the lion from within. So the lion ate him”.

“To change from within today is an illusion, the radical left cannot think and act in such a way”.

In answer to the claim that boycotting Israel would “drive the entire Israeli public into the arms of the settlers”, Marton suggested a different analysis.

“If the occupation and apartheid lead to economic, cultural and diplomatic suffering because of an international boycott, it is very possible that a change will occur in Israel’s worldview, which is based on one hand on the enormous benefit to the country and its Jewish citizens from the occupation and separation, and on the other hand the cowardice of what is called the Israeli left, or peace camp”.

Marton served in the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade during the 1956 Sinai War, before going on to attend medical school. In her professional life, Marton has worked as a senior psychiatrist and taught at Tel Aviv University.

In 1988, Marton co-founded the Association of Israeli-Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights, now known as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. She is also a co-founder of The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, as well as having been active in a number of other issues.

www.middleeastmonitor.com

27 September 2017

By Shaun King

Last night, the United States experienced the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. At least 58 people are dead and over 500 more wounded. No, that’s not a typo: More than 500 people were injured in one single incident.

As tens of thousands enjoyed a music festival on the streets of Las Vegas, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, was perched 32 floors above them in his Mandalay Bay hotel room. Paddock had 19 rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo — supplies that are plentiful in a nation that has more guns than people. A few minutes after 10 p.m., Paddock opened fire on the unsuspecting crowd. They were sitting ducks.

No expensive wall along the Mexican border would’ve prevented this. No Muslim ban stopping immigrants and refugees from a few randomly selected countries from reaching our shores would’ve slowed this down.

Paddock, like the majority of mass shooters in this country, was a white American. And that simple fact changes absolutely everything about the way this horrible moment gets discussed in the media and the national discourse: Whiteness, somehow, protects men from being labeled terrorists.

The privilege here is that the ultimate conclusion about shootings committed by people from commonly nonwhite groups often leads to determinations about the corrosive or destructive nature of the group itself. When an individual claiming to be Muslim commits a horrible act, many on the right will tell us Islam is the problem. For centuries, when an act of violence has been committed by an African-American, racist tropes follow — and eventually, the criminalization and dehumanization of an entire ethnic group.

Privilege always stands in contrast to how others are treated, and it’s true in this case, too: White men who resort to mass violence are consistently characterized primarily as isolated “lone wolves” — in no way connected to one another — while the most problematic aspects of being white in America are given a pass that nobody else receives.

Stephen Paddock’s whiteness has already afforded him many outrageous protections in the media.

While the blood was still congealing on the streets of Las Vegas, USA Today declared in a headline that Paddock was a “lone wolf.” And yet an investigation into his motivations and background had only just started. Police were only beginning to move to search his home and computers. His travel history had not yet been evaluated. No one had yet thoroughly scrutinized his family, friends, and social networks.

Paddock was declared a “lone wolf” before analysts even started their day, not because an exhaustive investigation produced such a conclusion, but because it is the only available conclusion for a white man in America who commits a mass shooting.

“Lone wolf” is how Americans designate many white suspects in mass shootings. James Holmes was called a “lone wolf” when he shot and killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. And Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who walked into a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and shot and killed the pastor and eight other parishioners, was quickly declared a “lone wolf.”

For people of color, and especially for Muslims, the treatment is often different. Muslims often get labeled as “terrorists” before all the facts have come out.

Just consider President Donald Trump. This morning, Trump tweeted, “My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!” That’s fine, but Trump doesn’t even seem angry. It’s peculiar that he didn’t call the shooter a “son of a bitch,” like he did the NFL players who took a knee during the national anthem. He didn’t create an insulting nickname for Paddock or make an immediate push for a policy proposal.

Compare that to how Trump treats incidents where he believes the assailants are Muslims. After a bomb exploded in the London subway, Trump tweeted that the attackers were “loser terrorists” — before British authorities had even named a suspect. He went on to immediately use the attack to push his Muslim ban.

We must ask ourselves: Why do certain acts of violence absolutely incense Trump and his base while others only elicit warm thoughts and prayers? This is the deadliest mass shooting in American history! Where is the outrage? Where are the policy proposals?

What we are witnessing is the blatant fact that white privilege protects even Stephen Paddock, an alleged mass murderer, not just from being called a terrorist, but from the anger, rage, hellfire, and fury that would surely rain down if he were almost anyone other than a white man. His skin protects him. It also prevents our nation from having an honest conversation about why so many white men do what he did, and why this nation seems absolutely determined to do next to nothing about it.

I spoke to two people this morning, one black and the other Muslim. Both of them said that, when they heard about this awful shooting in Las Vegas, they immediately began hoping that the shooter was not black or Muslim. Why? Because they knew that the blowback on all African-Americans or Muslims would be fierce if the shooter hailed from one of those communities.

Something is deeply wrong when people feel a sense of relief that the shooter is white because they know that means they won’t suffer as a result. White people, on the other hand, had no such feeling this morning, because 400 years of American history tells them that no such consequences will exist for them today as a result of Paddock’s actions.

It is an exemplar of white privilege: not just being given a headstart in society, but also the freedom from certain consequences of individual and group actions.

theintercept.com

3 October 2017

By Imtiaz Muqbil

Apparently unnoticed by any mainstream media, the tragic Las Vegas shooting occurred on the UN International Day of Non-Violence, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Going right to the heart of multiple challenges threatening the future of travel & tourism, it should force some heavy-duty, industry-wide soul-searching about how to deal with them. A deeper debate is now unavoidable. Sweeping the emerging issues under the carpet will be like denying the presence of a cancerous tumour. The travel & tourism industry risks doing that at its peril.

I am raising these issues from a position of unmatched strength. I claim to be the only journalist in Asia to have warned explicitly over the years that America’s love-affair with violence will never end, NEVER. This assertion was repeatedly made in a former column called Soul-Searching which I wrote for the Bangkok Post for 15 years. The Bangkok Post gagged the column in July 2012. In protest, I uploaded the last unpublished column on my website here (along with many other earlier columns which can be read by clicking here):

Here are eight issues that must be put on the table of the travel & tourism industry:

1. The end of Globocop

America’s days as a global judge, jury and executioner are now effectively over. This is one physician who cannot heal himself. A country incapable of curbing such a long-standing and deep-rooted problem as its home-grown gun violence can NEVER establish global peace and order, and should NEVER be relied upon to do so. Indeed, the role of America’s industry of violence is worthy of much deeper introspection. While the U.S. gun lobby faces at least some kind of check-and-balance scrutiny at home, its international equivalent, the U.S. military-industrial complex, faces no scrutiny abroad as the world’s biggest arms exporter. A clear nexus exists between the internal and external violence resulting from U.S. weaponry, and goes a long way towards explaining the presence of so much global mayhem.

2. Disastrous side effects of gambling

What does this mean for the so-called “gaming” industry? Just as promoters and advocates of gay travel sweep issues related to the spread of HIV/AIDS under the carpet, so too do promoters of casinos only wish to portray sunny-side-up images of how much they contribute to jobs, economic growth and GDP. The negative side of gambling — addictions, debts, domestic violence, and now this — has never been publicly discussed at travel industry forums. Perhaps it is time to balance that.

3. Fake News

Media coverage of this tragedy has raised even more questions about the fake-news industry and journalistic professionalism. The so-called “ISIS” supposedly claimed responsibility. The Indian Express fell into the trap and unquestioningly ran the headline. The headline stayed on the Indian Express website for nearly 7 hours before being replaced.

A few months ago, I was in the Philippines, where “ISIS” also claimed responsibility for a similar deranged-gambler shooting at a Manila casino. That, too, turned out to be a fraud. As these ISIS claims are pretty much a work of fiction, it paves the way for deeper investigation of all its past claims, as well as the entire ISIS network. Indeed, there appeared to be a desperate spin attempt to link the shooting to Muslims, even though authorities said they hadn’t found any evidence of a connection.

4. The useless security apparatus

In spite of Las Vegas having one of the world’s most elaborate security networks, including omnipresent CCTV monitoring, this domestic terrorist managed to evade detection, haul a whole stash of guns into the hotel, find a birds-eye location, unload his formidable weapons and open fire. That makes the entire security apparatus look like a bunch of morons. Instead of accepting responsibility for this monstrous failure to protect, and hold itself accountable, the conniving security contractors will seek to convert a crisis into an opportunity by convincing the travel & tourism to throw more good money after bad. Travel & tourism would be even more moronic to dance to this tune.

The rush to pin the blame on “ISIS” makes the security apparatus look even more stupid. According to the Indian Express website, “ISIS” released a statement via its news agency Aamaq, naming the purported attacker as “Abu Abd el-Bar al-Amriki (the American),” saying he responded to calls by the group’s top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to “target the countries of the Crusader coalition” battling the extremist group in Iraq and Syria. Really? How did they communicate with each other? By postcard? If the shooter could evade the entire communications monitoring and surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government, backed by the Israelis, it must be run by a bunch of morons.

5. Curbs on American travellers

Home-grown, white American gunmen are clearly proving to be as dangerous as terrorists of all ilks. Various media outlets compiled extensive figures on the string of American mass shootings over the years. If they had passports, all these American shooters could walk into most countries in the world, without a visa. Why should this continue to be the case? The Donald Trump administration has just put placed strict entry curbs on citizens of six Muslim-majority countries, purportedly on the grounds of security. Why shouldn’t all Americans now face the same curbs worldwide?

6. Double standards on travel advisories

Why aren’t countries around the world putting travel advisories on the United States? If this shooting had taken place in any other city in Asia, Africa or the Arab world, travel advisories would have flowed thick and fast, accompanied by visa restrictions, condemnations and more security. Again, why the weak-kneed reaction and double standards?

7. Brand image of America

The less said the better. The tourism marketing and promotion organisations US Travel and Brand USA, have got some heavy-duty soul-searching ahead of them. This commentary below appeared in June 2017 in an effort to stop the Trump Administration’s effort to disband Brand USA. With the major trade show season now starting worldwide, including ITB Asia and World Travel Mart, American tourism branding gurus have got their work cut out for them explaining how visitors can stay safe in their country.

8. Nomenclature of terrorism

Finally, this collection of media headlines below shows the stark differences in the way mainstream media labels acts of violence. If it’s a Muslim, it’s terrorism. Anyone else is a gunman, a shooter, a lone-wolf, a militant, everything but a terrorist. The Islamic world has now every reason to turn the tables and level the playing field. They are ALL terrorists, regardless of caste, colour, creed, nationality, religion or ethnicity.

www.travel-impact-newswire.com

3 October 2017

By Swami Agnivesh and Valson Thampu

What should worry us is the readiness of the masses to embrace slavery. The denizens of the dens of ‘godmanity’ – the perversion of divinity – are voluntary slaves. Why, in an age that has deified freedom, do millions of human beings freely embrace slavery in the name of spirituality?

The pestilence of ‘godmanity’ will not subside with putting one Gurmeet behind bars. The antidote to this perversion is the education of the people and their all-round development as human beings.(AP)

So-called godmen like Gurmeet Singh and Asaram Bapu among others are meant to deliver the truth and tenets about spirituality to followers. But this begs the question, do we need an angel from heaven to tell us that spirituality and covetousness cannot co-exist? Can we think of a single instance of an authentic spiritual being who became opulent in his lifetime, on account of his work? How is it then, that our hyper-modern godmen and godwomen are rolling in wealth?

Second, is there any precedent in any spiritual tradition of anyone who is godly creating a fortress of secrecy around himself? We associate spirituality with light. Are not dens akin to darkness, rather than light? Do we know of a single instance in which what is good or lawful ever needed iron curtains of secrecy?

Third, who doesn’t know that wherever there is lust for money there will surely be (a) sexual depravity and (b) crime of diverse kinds? It is simply impossible that the sort and scale of crime that Gurmeet and wolves of his ilk perpetrate can be done with assured impunity even in the underworld. Are we to tolerate a situation in which the mask of godliness becomes a cover up for unspeakable depravity?

What should worry us, besides the above, is the readiness of the masses to embrace slavery. The denizens of the dens of ‘godmanity’ – a perversion of divinity – are voluntary slaves. Why, in an age that has deified freedom, do millions of human beings freely embrace slavery in the name of spirituality?

Choice is driven by taste. Taste is a matter of personal development. This puts the spotlight on our growth, on who we are. An animal grows as an animal should; a bird, likewise. So, a human being should grow as a human being. From time immemorial members of our species have known that we are a body-mind-spirit combine. To ‘grow’ humanly, therefore, is to grow in terms of all three dimensions. Fraud godmen thrive on the detritus of rotten religiosity that, by refusing to empower human beings with the light of reason, keeps them vulnerable to the predator that prowls in the darkness of blind faith.

A society that abdicates the duty to propagate a scientific temper and rational outlook abandons people, willy-nilly, to wolves in sheep’s clothing. Mistaking spirituality for psychological dependence, they become like creepers that need something to climb on. They fall short of discernment. This is an open invitation to the Gurmeet Singhs of this world! They are ready with their package of tricks, illusions and delusions to mesmerise even the educated.

We no longer have any excuse for not knowing that our godmen are not a religious phenomenon at all. They are the counterparts of hunters in the wild. Every animal adapts itself to its environment. Our godman predator is no exception to this law of nature. He is an expert in knowing and plying the ropes of society and in donning the attire that serves to deceive his prospective victims and to mask his perverse nature.

The nexus between godmen and what purports to be the secular State is not an accident, but a natural outcome. Godmen need the secular State as a camouflaging device. The public obeisance that ministers and officers of the State proffer to godmen is precisely the camouflage they need. This makes their criminal face inconspicuous to public. Those who provide political cover to these predators prowling with impunity in the society are as culpable as the godmen are. They are partners-in-crime with our fraud-men.

The pestilence of ‘godmanity’ will not subside with putting one Gurmeet behind bars. The antidote to this perversion is the education of the people and their all-round development as human beings. It is certain that no one with even minimal mental and spiritual discernment will succumb to the wiles of these wolves, with their mouths dripping with blood for those who have eyes to see. It is only the territory that the State abandons via quid pro quo that godmen annex. And that is where remedial action needs to begin.

Swami Agnivesh is an Arya Samaj scholar and social activist

Valson Thampu is a Christian theologian and former principal of St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi

www.hindustantimes.com

28 September 2017

By Thomas Kilkauer

On 24th September  2017, elections to Germany’s parliament resulted in the fact that for the first time since 1949, a neo-Nazi party was elected with 12.6%, just behind Merkel’s conservatives (32.9%) and the social-democratic SPD (20.5%). Other parties entering the German parliament are the neo-liberal FDP (10.7%), the Left (9.2%), and the Greens (8.9%).

Unlike the old Nazis who called themselves Nazis, the new Nazis call themselves “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) camouflaging their true ideology. The AfD is also known as “alternative for the dumb” in the best tradition of the AfD’s ideological predecessors. Neither Himmler, Goering or Hitler suffered from intellectualism – they were “men”(!) of brutality and action. Much of Hitler’s almost unreadable “Mein Kampf”, for example, was a fight against German grammar as it was a fight against Jews, workers, and the left. The Nazi’s tradition of stupidity, racism and anti-intellectualism lives on just as the old Nazis used to prevail in Germany’s post-World War II institutions. Apart from a few show trials, most Nazis seamlessly converted into post-war Germany’s political, economic, and legal institutions. These Nazis became government advisors (Globke), others became judges and state premiers (Filbinger), while others made it into Germany’s chancellery (Carstens), etc. They are the ideological forbearers of the AfD.

According to the recent (24th September) election results, the Nazi AfD became the third biggest party after the conservative centre-right CDU and the centre-left SPD.  Merkel’s CDU and the social-democratic SPD have been in a coalition in recent years governing Germany. Like Germany’s old Nazis and the Italian Fasci di Combattimento, capital gave a helping hand in founding the new Nazi’s AfD. Originally, the AfD was a free-market, pro-capitalism, anti-European party establishing itself to the right of Merkel’s conservatives. Today, it favours racism, Nazi glorification, anti-Semitism, is anti-Islamic and staunchly against anything remotely progressive (e.g. the left, trade unions, etc.).

For the most part, the AfD simply exchanged scapegoating Jews (old Nazis) with scapegoating Muslims (new Nazis) warning that Germany – and indeed Europe – will be overrun by Muslims. The AfD occupies the extreme right that is increasingly disillusioned with Germany’s traditional right as Merkel moves towards moderate conservatism. Since years East-Germany’s enlightened protestant Angelika Merkel has moved the CDU towards the political centre favouring strong state programmes, social welfare and giving a helping hand to migrants.

Quite similar to the old Nazis that were generously supported by German capital (Mercedes-Benz, Krupp, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, etc.) and the press (Hugenberg), today’s media are, at least partly, responsible for the electoral growth. It allowed the AfD’s new(ish) Nazi ideology to enter into the mainstream. Virtually all German media channels pushed the AfD’s right-wing extremist ideology by inviting them into their TV studios. That never happened before in post-war Germany.

At the one and only TV debate between chancellor Merkel and her challenger Martin Schulz (social-democrats), for example, Germany’s leading TV channels (ARD, ZDF, RTL, Sat1) offered the AfD a platform allowing it to role out its xenophobic right-wing extremism. TV moderators were asking many questions about non-Germans. Journalists connected terror and immigration pushing the AfD’s ideological agenda. The threat of Nazism to Germany was not worthy of a single question. This is Germany in 2017. German journalist Stefan Niggemeier, for example, tweeted that over half of the 100-minute TV debate sounded like a pro-AfD show. The AfD support received by four of Germany’s leading journalists was shocking to many.

Earlier this month, AfD’s right-wing extremist Alice Weidel (e.g. ”the Wehrmacht did good”) was treated like a mainstream figure. Many are deeply shocked about German media and accuses made for the AfD’s right-wing extremist agenda. This should have no place in public TV.

Despite all this the question still is: what is the Alternative for Germany (AfD)? The party was founded in 2013 by a nationalistic capitalist named Bernd Lucke. Very soon thereafter, much more right-wing extremists took over the party, perhaps in a stark reminder of Hitler’s “night of the long knives”. The AfD’s turn towards Nazism included the election of the recently resigned Ms FraukePetry as head of the party in 2015. Since 2014, the AfD has been elected to several German state parliaments. Its main political ideologies are anti-EU, it defames abortion, promotes ultra-nationalism, racism, a mythical andxenophobic hatred of others, and embraces Germany’s Nazi past.

Fascism often comes with a mass movement. Italy’s fascists had the black-shirts, Hungary the Arrow-Cross and Germany’s old Nazi party had storm-troopers (SA and later SS). In modern fascism, the AfD’s outfit is called PEGIDA. The AfD also supports thousands of very dangerous neo-Nazi punchers. Between 1990 and 2013 alone, 184 people have been killed by neo-Nazis in Germany for political reasons – not to mention the Nazi-killers of the NSU. Nazi victims are mostly German-Turkish people, leftists, punk-rockers, Muslims, homeless people, and refugees, among many others.

The AfD’s head, FraukePetry, wants to reintroduce a core Nazi ideology called “völkisch”, a Nazi-term meaning the Aryan German master race – white power. The two leading campaigners for the AfD campaign, Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland are right-wing extremists. In a recent e-mail Weidel wrote, members of Angela Merkel’s cabinet are “pigs” and “puppets of the winners of World War II”. She believes that Germany is not “sovereign”. This is a common Nazi claim. Hence the AfD’s call to re-introduceReichsbürger (race based citizenship).

The boss of the AfD in the parliament of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, for example, André Poggenburg, openly uses Nazi language against the left in a speech in parliament. Markus Frohnmaier, who is a candidate for the Bundestag in the state of Baden-Württemberg – he is the head of the AfD’s young alternative and a spokesperson for Alice Weidel – has close connections to neo-Nazis such as the  “German Defence League” (GDL). He said that he and the AfD would together “clear the country out” of the left. This is the Nazi language of concentration camps.

DubravkoMandic, an immigrant from Yugoslavia now agitates against immigration seeing the AfD as a right-wing radical network. The AfD agitates against a supposedreplacement of Europeans by people from the Middle East, mainly Muslims. Here Jew hatred and Muslim hatred overlap. Neo-Nazis and America’s extreme right in Charlottesville were chanting, “Jews will not replace us”. Like the AfD, they also believe Jews and Muslims are behind all evil. This is the very same anti-Semitic ideology AfD author Wolfgang Gedeon promotes. For him, all evil comes from the Jews, America, Zionism, Muslims, homosexuals, and the left.

Meanwhile the AfD’s Jens Maier trivialised Norwegian neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Breivik who admitted that a book by the neo-Nazi Fjordman inspired him. Another leading figure of theAfD is Stephan Brandner – an extremely aggressive demagogue who wants Angela Merkel to be locked up. A stark reminder of Trump’s “lock her up”. Brander accuses Germany’s antifascists, the Antifa, as being SA-style Nazis.

AfD’s man in Bremen, Frank Magnitz shares many racist fantasies such as the coming destruction of all of Islam by sharing a picture with the inscription, “if you could push this button and remove Islam from the world forever, would you do it? Like and share for yes!” You see a group of praying Muslims and on the left side a red button. Pushing the button means supporting the destruction of Islam and all Muslims. These are old and new Nazi fantasies of killing an entire religion – ethnic cleansing and race hatred. Much of this is part of the AfD’s political project. Very soon, almost one-hundred of them will become members of Germany’s parliament.

Blogger David Berger will vote AfD as he publicly declared. At an AfD rally in Jena with key AfD politicians such as Alice Weidel, Stephan Brandner, WiebkeMuhsal, some 250 hard-core AfD supporters and 1000 counter-protesters, as well as some neo-Nazi AfD activists shouted, “we will build a subway system to Auschwitz”. This did not occur in 1933. This is Germany in 2017.

Gauland, the party’s no. 2 – many say de facto no. 1 – said recently at a neo-Nazi meeting at mount “Kyffhäuser” (a legendary Nazi pilgrimage site) that he is “proud of German soldiers in World War I and World War II”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#/media/File:Jew_Killings_in_Ivangorod_(1942).jpg

With the AfD, the affirmation of the Holocaust has become mainstream in Germany today. It is the ideology that got the new Nazis of the AfD into Germany’s parliament by deliveringalmost six million votes. Historically, Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht was an essential part of the Holocaust alongside the SS,Police Battalions and others.

One of the AfD’s leading Nazi politicians is BjörnHöcke. He speaks in a manner imitating Joseph Goebbels. He calls Germany’s Holocaust Memorial “a memorial of shame”. Other AfD figures such as Holocaust denier Wilhelm von Gottberg (aged 77) are on the election list of the AfD in the state of Lower Saxony. It might be interesting to pursue a “who voted for Hitler? ” comparison to ‘who voted for the AfD?”

All of this testifies that indeed, there is a nasty climate in Germany these days. Right-wing extremists and Nazis are able to shout the most anti-Semitic, racist and pro-Germanic race slogans such as the old Nazi’s “Germany Awake” or “Whatever it takes for Germany”. Both Nazi slogans are actually forbidden in Germany yet go unpunished.Nazi propaganda, ideology, brutality and murder more often than not were unpunished in the dying years of Weimar.

Today, mainstream Nazi ideology involves some very rich and influential people in Europe. According to a report by investigative journalist Tomasz Konicz, the AfD gets money and support from theMövenpick Company (ice-cream) and from the “Swiss Goal Corporation” that itself includes leading AfD politicians. Billionaire August von Finck junior (born 1930), among the richest people in Germany (he lives in Switzerland), is a supporter of the AfD. Finck’s company bought the name of the gold company “Degussa”. This is the very same Degussa that delivered Zyklon B to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Degussa would also melt down the gold from the teeth of the murdered Jewish victims.

August von Finck’s father was a Nazi who “Aryanised” Jewish banks including the Rothschild Bank and Dreyfus & Co. in Germany. “The Junior”, as he is known, supports several right-wing parties – the most recent being the AfD. AfD politician Beatrix von Storch was, for example, a member of a reactionary “Citizens’ Convent” dedicated to a hard-core neoliberal campaign against Germany’s welfare state. They were generously supported by Finck’s company.Many have highlighted the connection of billionaire von Finck and the AfD. August von Finck is also owner of Mövenpick hotels & resorts. He represents the capitalist establishment in Germany. Not surprisingly, he was a big beneficiary of a tax reform in 2009, carried out by Merkel. Ideologically, the Finck family has a long history of pure Nazism – today culminating in its support for the AfD.

Journalist Marcus Engert of BuzzFeed News has analysed 396 AfD candidates exposing their extremist right-wing agendas. Meanwhile, professor HajoFunke fears that Germany’s parliament isn’t fit to deal with the looming Nazi onslaught. Until a few days ago, post-war Germany never had such a well-organised and strong Nazi party in its federal parliament. Unfortunately, over the years, Germany had dozens, if not hundreds of former individual Nazi party members in its parliament since from 1949 through the 1950s. This ugly German post-war history is well known. As soon as anti-Nazi re-education ended and America discovered that it needs Germany in its newly found Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, ex-Nazis were welcomed into the political-administrative elites of post-war Germany. Others simply continued. Germany never really had a de-Nazification. Nazism has lived on, often silently but it was there. Today, the AfD brings out the racist undercurrent that was kept alive for many years in Germany.

Carrying Nazi ideology into post-war Germany has many features. One includes leading Nazis such as the aforementioned Hans Globke responsible for Nazi race laws. He became minister under Konrad Adenauer in the 1950s. The list of post-war Nazis also includes Kurt-Georg Kiesinger – a Nazi party member – and later Germany’s chancellor (1966–1969). He was courageously and famously slapped by one of Europe’s greatest anti-fascists, BeateKlarsfeld, in 1968. One might also include Nazi-professor Heidegger and Hans Filbinger (CDU). Filbinger was state premier (Baden-Württemberg, 1966–1978). He was a member of the Nazi party. The sheer endless list of Nazis in post-war Germany also includes Carl Carstens – a Nazi party member who became Germany’s president (1979–1984).

Since 24th September 2017, Germany has Nazis in its parliament. Contrary to the 1960s, these days Germanyhas not yet seen another BeateKlarsfeld who will tell the AfD’s anti-Semites, racists, and Holocaust deniers that their politics will not go unchallenged. Today, Nazism is much more widespread compared to the 1960s. Today, we have many young and still a few old Nazis joining forces in an unprecedented way. In the 1960s, old Nazis never had a chance to form their own party and to be elected. In the year 2017, AfD Nazis have already fulfilled some of their ideological missions: honouring the Nazi Wehrmacht, denying the Holocaust, and fighting against democracy and the left.

Being furnished with parliamentarian status will only encourage Germany’s new Nazis. Like in 1933, they will not moderate themselves. If history is anything to go by, the gravest danger for Germany, the left and ultimately Europe and the world comes not only from the new Nazis. It comes also from a conservative coalition government that includes the new Nazis (AfD). By 1933 Hitler’s Nazi party was already in decline in electoral polling. His Nazis actually came to power through a conservative coalition government making Hitler Reichskanzler (chancellor). It was German conservatism that made Hitler possible. In 2017, one might hope that German conservatism has learned its historic lesson.

German born Thomas Klikauer(Pol. Sc. Bremen and Boston): https://klikauer.wordpress.com/

27 September 2017

By M Adil Khan

I urge you, Mr. Xi Jinping, President of Peoples’ Republic of China to take a good look at this photo. Do you see what I see? I see the agony. I see sadness. I also see numerous questions in the eyes of these Rohingya kids that are asking – why are we here, why our parents are not with us, why we do not have our own place to live and why are we without food? They are also asking, who is responsible for inflicting upon us such horrific tragedy? What sins have we committed and why no one is doing anything about us and give back our homes, parents and security?

These Rohingya kids are refugees that have recently been driven out of their homes by the Myanmar military, begging for food at a refugee shelter in Teknaf, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Myanmar government’s ruthless and bloody persecutionsof them have brought them here. They are the world’s most hunted, hungry, humiliated, traumatised and dispossessed kids. This photo also depicts everything that is tragic about Rohingyas -480,000 of them made to flee to Bangladesh to escape Myanmar Military’s mayhem of murder, rape and destruction and another million or so left in Rakhine state facing similar fate. This photo resembles everything that is sad and also everything that is despicable and you Mr. Xi Jinping seems to have sided with the latter.

Your outright support of the tormentor, the Myanmar government that many believe has in fact encouraged them to unleash and expand their mission of ethnic cleansing manifold and with impunity has also put to question your government’s much promised and also much aspired alternative leadership to that of the West who are often derided and for good reasons, as unjust and unfair.Sadly, your government’s backing of Myanmar’s Rohingya persecution is a stark reminder that perhaps the aspiration of an alternative global leadership by China is little premature and that as is evident the leadership orientation of China is also no different from that of the West, it is guided more bycommerce and less by compassion though the empathy that has been demonstrated by West’s media and some of its governments on Rohingya issue has been exemplary.

You, Mr. Xi Jinping, President of China and Chair of 2017 BRICS Summit said that, “We in BRICS countries share the agony of those people who are still caught in chaos and poverty,” and thus commit ourselves to “the well-being of the world in our mind.” These words inspired millions around the world especially those that are disadvantaged and dispossessed. But sadly, the promise of lift people out of “chaos and poverty” did not seem to have translated itself into the policy on Rohingya crisis, a human tragedy of mammoth proportion that is happening right at China’s doorstep. On the contrary, China’s prompt endorsement of Myanmar government’s position that its military’s violence is in response to“the violent attacks”by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a rag tag and poorly armed rebellious group that stormed several Rakhine police outposts with “sticks and knives and killed few officers and fled with light weaponry”while completely ignoring prolonged persecution of Rohingyas that had prompted rise and attacks of ARSA in the first place is a sad reminder that China’s global vision is less global and more parochial. Mr. Xi’s assertion that “as a friendly neighbor,” his government supports “Myanmar’s efforts to maintain peace in the region” may have been taken by the Myanmar government as a license to annihilate the entire Rohingya community. China’s veto at the UN on Security Council resolution on issue echoed its lack of interest in moral leadership.These are disturbing times.

It is evident that China’s ambivalence to Rohingya issue and for that matter its international relations as a whole is guided firstly, by its policy of non- interference in another country’s domestic affairs and secondly, its economic and geostrategic interestsbut exactly how one is delinked from the other is difficult to fathom.

China’s economic and geostrategic interest in Myanmar stems from Xi’s much touted “One Belt, One Road (OBOR)” initiative, a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that purports to connect Asia with Europewhich involves $19.0 billion of direct investment in Myanmar that far exceeds investments inall other countries of whichnearly $3 billion and most of it in Rakhine state, the home of the Rohingyas are expected to be spent by 2017. Therefore, keeping Rakhine ‘trouble free’ at any cost is of utmost importance to China. Buthere is the conundrum for China. It needs to decide whether it is in its best interest to look the other way if not encourage Myanmar in a conflict that is increasingly looking less ‘domestic’,for because of conflict induced massive flow of refugees into Bangladesh, becoming more and more a ‘cross-border’ issue. Secondly, regardless of how much Myanmar or China would prefer the Rohingya issue to go away, given that their grievances are genuine and also that in their struggle theyare also not without friends and the fact that some of their backers arepowerful and in the region itself, the conflict is bound to continue ifget more violent and protracted in the coming days meaning that the Rohingya issue is as much humanitarian as geostrategic.

In these circumstances, China has one of these two options–option one, the so-called ‘peace’ in Rakhine is achieved by annihilating Rohingyas which Myanmar certainly aspires but given their number and the vast sympathy they enjoy especially in countries and among people that are China’s and Myanmar’s neighbours makes this option less tenable. Then there is option two, peace and stability with Rohingyas as citizens of Myanmar and also as active participants in China’s projects. Rohingyas who are also known as hard-working people and thus have the potential to become good resources for both China and also, Myanmar. Choice is China’s.

In recent times when China spoke out “… more forcefully on a range of global concerns” world was delighted and thought that they have finally found a moral alternative. But as is obvious it is going through a testing time. Indeed, its ability to take on global leadership also known as “Xi’s global vision’ depends largely on how it respondsto and balances humanitarianwith its economic and geo-strategic needs both within and across.

Rohingya is an acid test for China. It must find a way to balance moral with economic, it is not one or the other. If China thinks that it can achieve its ‘global vision’by simply throwing money at countries and not take moral stand where this is warranted, they would be like a village money lender (in some societies, the most despised characters) wishing to be called a philanthropist!

The author is a former senior UN policy manager

27 September 2017

ABSTRACT

This is the Abstract of a Keynote delivered by Dr Chandra Muzaffar,at the Second Young Scholars Conference organised by the International Institute of Peace and Development Studies(IIPDS), Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) and the Asian Resource Foundation (ARF) with the co-operation of Chulalongkorn University held at the Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok Thailand on 28 September 2017

Globalisation is a process through which the rapid diffusion of technologies around the world has transformed economies and cultures with implications for every other facet of life. As with other great historical processes, there are both positive and negative consequences emanating from globalisation. It has undoubtedly compelled those who wield power and influence to become more transparent and accountable. At the same time however the new communication technologies have also facilitated the spread of hatred, bigotry and prejudice. Consequently, it has become imperative to distinguish the positive from the negative, right from wrong. In the evolution of human civilisation. It is the values and principles embodied in religious philosophies that serve as the compass for separating good from bad. Asia, as the birth-place of all the great religious philosophies, should once again articulate a set of values and principles that will help to guide globalisation. This has become critical especially since it is Asia — specifically China — that is playing a major role today in shaping the global economy. Guided by the values embodied in their religious and cultural philosophies, Asian countries should be setting the pace in not only determining the direction of the global economy but also in articulating the content of global politics, global culture and global ethnic relations. If the accumulation of wealth in a few hands is not part of the ethic of any religion, we should develop a global economy that ensures equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities. Likewise, if sacrificing principle for power is what drives politics today, Asia should instead practise politics based upon principles. If global culture is largely sensate and superficial we should create a cultural ethos that aims to develop character and human dignity. If ethnic relations in most places are characterised by distrust and suspicion, we should nurture ethnic and religious ties that are signified by respect, empathy and love. This alternative vision of a globalised world is not emerging because even Asian societies which are at the forefront of the global economy have chosen to adjust to the structures and patterns associated with the hegemonic power of the United States and its allies. Besides, when religion is brought to the fore in many instances, the preoccupation is with the form rather than the substance of faith. This is why Asia will not be able to shape the world in a manner that would enable human dignity and social justice to flourish. One hopes that in this situation young people will harness the noble values and principles at the heart of their religious philosophies rooted as they are in a spiritual-moral concept of the human being and make these values and principles the basis of a great transformation that renders globalisation a process that is just, equitable and compassionate.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

Malaysia.

9 September 2017

By Mary Huston

Today, one often hears about the pressing need for interfaith dialogue, mostly in the context of conflict-resolution and peace-building. Since many conflicts in different parts of the world today (as has been the case in much of humanity’s past) are between people who claim to follow different faiths, interfaith dialogue, it is said, is an urgent necessity. If human beings are to learn to live at peace with each other, interfaith interaction and understanding are of paramount importance.

That is true, of course, but there is another reason why interfaith interaction is very useful—and that is, that it can be a wonderful means for our own spiritual evolution. Strangely, though, this aspect is rarely recognized or talked about. When I look back at my own life, it is striking how much I owe to people from different faith backgrounds who have sought to live according to the teachings of their religion. I have learnt a great deal from them, and this has helped me in my own spiritual evolution. I would definitely not be the person I am now had it not been for all the many things I’ve imbibed from the many inspiring, loving, compassionate people from faith communities other than the one I happened to have been born into, whom I have had the good fortune of meeting over the years. These were people who, seeking to be faithful to their religion, led lives of charity and concern for others. Hardly any of them was ‘famous’—most were ‘ordinary’ people who were doing ‘little’ deeds of goodness with great love, deeds are at the heart of what religion ought to be.

I thought of one such person the other day: a young Muslim woman who has been a good friend for many years now.  She prays and fasts regularly, and, even though her income is quite modest, she is very particular about taking out her annual zakat and spending it on the poor and needy. Interestingly, she gives a good proportion of her zakat—in some years, maybe even most of it—to non-Muslims. I can’t say I am even half as generous with ‘my’ money as she is with hers, but I do think that some of her charitableness has rubbed off on me as I’ve witnessed her generosity in action, year after year, that is inspired by the teachings of her faith.

Besides zakat, my friend makes it a point to give what is called sadaqah or charity to one or more poor person when someone in her family falls sick, maybe in the hope of a cure. This beautiful practice, which I had never heard of before, is something that is enjoined upon in Islam, I have since learnt. It is reported that the Prophet Muhammad said: “Treat your sick by giving charity.”

Just the other day, when someone in my family was ill, I was inspired by this practice of sadaqah that I learnt about from my friend to contribute some money in charity. Incidentally, I gave it to a Muslim man who has been arranging for food to be cooked and served almost every day, for several years now, to a large number of very poor people from different religious backgrounds.

Along with giving sadaqah when someone at home or a friend is sick, my friend also prays for them to be cured. Having been brought up to believe that cure is just about potent medicines and a good doctor, my friend taught me a very valuable lesson here, too—about turning to God for healing. It is God that cures, she believes: medicines and doctors are simply a means for cure to happen.

This friend of mine is one of many people from religious traditions other than the one I was born into from whom I have learnt many valuable things, which have played a crucial role in my spiritual growth. I owe them all a very great debt.

Through interaction with people of other faiths, especially by cultivating close friendships, one can learn and adopt good practices that are enjoined in these faiths and that can help one spiritually evolve, as I myself have experienced.

Taking time off to think about and recognizing the many ways in which people of other faiths have transformed our lives for the better and helped us in our spiritual journey is also a great way to overcome deeply-rooted stereotypes that are so easily harnessed to foment hate in the name of religion.  Every one of us has greatly benefited, directly or indirectly, from people of faiths other than the one we claim to follow, although we don’t often or easily acknowledge this fact. If we did so, it would do wonders in healing broken hearts and lives and bringing us all, children of the One God, into closer communion with each other.

25 September 2017