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Nazareth: Two of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are on the brink of signing large arms deals with the US in a move designed to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, according to defence analysts.

By Jonathan Cook

The 2010 summer in the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir, administered by India, has been marked by popular protests by Kashmiris and crackdowns by India’s military. The stream of violence has left more than fifty dead, mostly young protestors. The situation in Kashmir has some parallels with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even borrowing the term intifada to describe the uprising. But the connection is more than analogy — Israel’s pacification efforts against Palestinians have proven valuable for the Indian police, army and intelligence services in their campaigns to pacify Jammu and Kashmir with numerous Indian military and security imports from Israel leading the way.

India and Israel had a limited relationship prior to 1992. India, as a prominent member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), had helped to form the NAM political positions on Palestine as part of the “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism and all forms of expansionism, foreign occupation and domination and hegemony” (1979, Havana Declaration). Beyond its anti-colonial and Third World solidarity politics, India also had realpolitik reasons for keeping a distance from Israel. The nation had a developing economy with a huge need for petroleum resources, of which it had no domestic source. Good relations with the Arab League and the Soviet Union helped to secure access to resources necessary for India to become the regional and global economic power it aspires to be.

With the beginning of the Oslo negotiations process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s and the end of the Cold War, India was free to pursue relations with Israel from a NAM standpoint. An end to the Israeli occupation was assumed a formality under Oslo by most international observers, especially early on — and had, by that time, gained the economic strength to pursue a policy taking it, as described in a US Army War College (USAWC) analysis, “from a position of nonalignment and noncommitment to having specific strategic interests taking it on a path of ‘poly-alignment.'” The report states that India has been in a “scramble to establish ‘strategic relationships’ with most of the major powers and many of the middle powers,” including Israel.

Israel rendered limited military assistance to India in its 1962 war with China and the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. It was not until after the Oslo process began though, that the limited military contacts developed into a fuller strategic relationship. According to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in 1994 “India requested equipment to guard the de facto Indo-Pakistan Kashmiri border. New Delhi was interested in Israeli fences, which use electronic sensors to track human movements” (Thomas Withington, “Israel and India partner up,” January/February 2001, pp.18-19). The remaining years of the decade were peppered with arms sales from Jerusalem to New Delhi, most notably unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare systems.

The strategic military relationship picked up even more steam in the new millennium and annual arms sales average in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The shift of Israel being a major defense supplier to a strategic partner was formalized in a September 2003 state visit by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to India where the Hindu nationalist government then in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party led by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, hosted the Israeli delegation and coauthored the Delhi Statement on Friendship and Cooperation between India and Israel. The statement’s longest segment is on terrorism. It declares that “Israel and India are partners in the battle against this scourge” and that “there cannot be any compromise in the war against terrorism.” The relationship has expanded drastically since 2000 with, in some recent years, Israel even supplanting Russia as India’s largest arms supplier. Surface-to-air missile systems, naval craft, advanced radar systems and other remote sensing technologies, artillery systems and numerous joint production initiatives ranging from munitions to avionics systems have all further boosted the relationship.

But as the Kashmiri uprising enters its third decade, the most telling part of the relationship is the export of Israeli pacification efforts against Palestinians to India, and their use in Jammu and Kashmir (and elsewhere as India faces multiple popular revolts). Israel has trained thousands of Indian military personnel in counterinsurgency since 2003. According to a 2003 JINSA analysis, “Presumably to equip these soldiers, India recently concluded a $30 million agreement with Israel Military Industries (IMI) for 3,400 Tavor assault rifles, 200 Galil sniper rifles, as well as night vision and laser range finding and targeting equipment.”

In 2004, the Israeli intelligence agencies Mossad and General Security Services (Shin Bet) arrived in India “to conduct the first field security surveillance course for Indian Army Intelligence Corps sleuths.” The Globes article on the topic cites an Indian source stating “The course has been designed to look at methods of intelligence gathering in insurgency affected areas, in keeping with the challenges that Israel has faced.” The further acquisition of UAVs, their joint production and the acquisition of other surveillance systems, notably 2010 agreements for both spy satellites and satellite communications systems, have all helped to further India’s pacification campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir. A notable example of how deeply embedded in India the Israeli counterinsurgency and homeland security industries are is the May 2010 agreement whereby Ra’anana-based Nice Systems will provide security systems and a command and control center for India’s parliament. Parliament security head Sandeep Salunke noted the context for the $5 million contract being “In light of the recent increase in global terrorism” (Nice Systems press release, 25 May 2010).

India’s political trend towards poly-alignment whereby it can have both strategic energy agreements with Iran and strategic defense agreements with Israel is part of a broader strategy the USAWC report noted by which “India will fiercely protect its own internal and bilateral issues from becoming part of the international dialog (Kashmir being the most obvious example).” This hostility towards international engagement with its occupation is not the only resemblance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both were born out the the end of the British colonialism, both are seen as front lines of the “War on Terror,” both the Kashmiri and Palestinian armed groups are erroneously seen as illegitimate in their own right, being mere tools of a foreign aggressor (Pakistan for Kashmir and Iran or Syria for Palestine), both have widespread abuses of human rights, and the Israeli public’s general apathy about or hostility towards Palestinian self-determination is surpassed by the domestic discussion in India, where Kashmiri self-determination isn’t even an issue, though pacifying Kashmir and securing the border with Pakistan is.

The analogy between the two conflicts can only be taken so far, but the direct connection by which Israel’s pacification industry exports tools of control developed for use against the Palestinians (and Lebanese) to be deployed against Kashmiris (as well as against the Naxalites and others in India) shows a deep linkage between the two conflicts and how one feeds the other. So long as Israel seeks to maintain control over Palestine it will continue to develop pacification tools, and so long as India continues its campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiris can expect to taste the fruits of Palestinian pacification.

By Jimmy Johnson

19 August, 2010

The Electronic Intifada

Jimmy Johnson is a Detroit-based mechanic and an organizer with the Palestine Cultural Office in Dearborn. He can be reached at johnson [dot] jimmy [at] gmail [dot] com.

Widening income inequality is a major obstacle to the unity and solidarity that 1Malaysia envisions. 

Since Merdeka(Independence) in 1957, the top 20% of income earners in Malaysia have benefited much more from economic growth than the bottom 40%. It is significant that the report of the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) on the New Economic Model (NEM) admits that, “ The bottom 40% of households have experienced the slowest growth of average income, earning less than RM 1,500 per month in 2008.”  The wage trend in Malaysia recorded only an annual 2.6% growth during the past 10 years, compared to the escalating cost of living during the same period. It explains why almost 34% of about 1.3 million workers earn less than RM700 a month, below the poverty line of RM 720 per month— a point emphasised by the Minister of Human Resources, Datuk Dr. S. Subramaniam, recently.

It is not difficult to fathom why workers earn so little and why income disparities are so glaring.  The huge influx of unskilled, lowly paid foreign labour into the country since the late eighties has played a big part in depressing wage levels at one end of the spectrum. At the same time, the liberalisation of the financial sector and the privatisation of public enterprises in Malaysia as in so many other countries have led to the elevation of incomes at the other end of the spectrum, thus contributing to widening inequalities.

The government is attempting to respond to the challenge by reducing our dependence upon foreign workers and by improving wage levels and working conditions in certain sectors of the economy. It plans to increase the percentage of the bottom 40% households with SPM qualification and above, from 30% in 2009 to 45% in 2015.  Both government and private companies are expected to help workers garner new skills that will enable them to earn better incomes.

While there is a degree of support for these measures, many private employers, it appears, are against one of the fundamental demands of workers unions for ameliorating the plight of the poor— namely, a basic minimum wage for all workers. 90% of countries have laws that provide for a minimum wage in one form or another. In most cases, various criteria are taken into account, including the needs of the workers and their families, the prevailing economic situation, and the social environment.

Many economists and sociologists today feel that the term “minimum wage” itself, which is the product of an earlier era, should be replaced with the term “ living income” and linked to the dignity of the human being. A living income is a minimum level of income by which all human beings can provide for themselves and their dependents the five basic

material human needs— food, housing, clothing, health care and education. These needs are vital for protecting human dignity.

It is because governments, the owners of capital, and other powerful elements in the upper strata of society have failed to protect the dignity of the masses that there is  growing alienation and discontent in many parts of the world.  China is an example of a country whose phenomenal growth rates since the early nineties have benefited a minority, rather than the majority, which is why social unrest is on the rise, as the respected Chinese Academy of Social Sciences acknowledges. Similarly, India’s much lauded economic success has not transformed the lives of its teeming millions. A recent United Nations study has shown that one-third of the world’s poor live in conditions of utter destitution in that country. It is one of the reasons for the rapid spread of the Naxalite rebellion in various districts in India. Even the “red shirt” protest movement in Thailand that galvanised a huge segment of the rural poor has been described by some analysts as an expression of the anger and disillusionment of the marginalised.

The bottom 40% in Malaysian society is nowhere as desperate as the poor of China or India or Thailand. Nonetheless, there is alienation. Some of this alienation manifested itself through the ballot-box in the March 2008 General Election. The tremendous increase in crime rates, and numerous cases of social delinquency that surfaced between 2006 and 2008 may also have been the consequences of alienation and marginalisation. It is also quite possible that a segment of those at the bottom of the heap— especially the youths—feel marginalised by a society which they perceive panders more to the glitz and glitter of the elite than to their yearning for recognition and respect. How the alienation of the poor and those who are struggling to make ends meet will express itself in the next few years, no one knows.

This is why it is imperative that the government continues to address the challenge of low incomes and widening inequalities in society. It should not be distracted by a small group motivated by self-interest and blinded by a myopic notion of “market forces determining wages.”  If 1Malaysia is premised upon inclusiveness, it must not only ensure a living income for the bottom 40% but also reduce the yawning economic and social disparities that are an affront to human dignity.

by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the 1Malaysia Foundation and Professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.

8 August 2010.

Most people have been brought up to believe that the competitive, grow-or-die, absentee-shareholder-owned, “free”-trade “market” economy is the only one that works, the only alternative to a socialist, government-run economy. This myth is perpetrated in business and other schools, by the media, by accountants and lawyers and bankers and, of course, in the business world. This amoral-capitalist economic model has “succeeded” in the same hostile way our species has “succeeded” — by brutally suppressing, starving for resources, using power to steal from, and, when all else fails, killing off anything deemed a “competitor” or threat to its monopoly on power and resources. It relies on massive subsidies and near-zero interest rates thanks to well-rewarded political cronies, on political graft and corruption worldwide, on oligopoly and restraint of competition, on wage slavery and worker ignorance, on phony money and unrepayable debt, and on advertising, human insecurity, ego and greed to create an artificial demand for its shoddy, overpriced crap. And, on top of all that, it’s utterly unsustainable.

For an alternative, natural economy to work, we either have to wait for this amoral-capitalist economy to collapse (which it will, but probably not for a few decades), or we have to plant the seeds for this alternative economy in the cracks where the current one is already failing most badly — at the community level where the economy is most obviously failing to produce meaningful work, sucking resources, wealth and opportunity out, and dumping mass-produced and imported crap that ends up in the landfill, and pollutants in our air, water, soil and food that make us sick and contribute to climate change. But before we can plant these seeds we need to unlearn the nonsense we’re taught and told about economics, and learn how a healthy economy actually works.

Perhaps the best way to explain this is by showing models that contrast the features of the amoral-capitalist economy with those of a cooperative natural economy. Let’s start by looking at two enterprises, a traditional amoral-capitalist one and a cooperative natural one:

The diagram above is a slightly cynical but not unfair depiction of how most entrepreneurs taught amoral capitalist economics start and run their businesses (and I advised hundreds of them, so I’m not making this up):

1. It all starts, sadly, with the entrepreneur’s dream that s/he has a better idea, something that the “market” will love as much as s/he does. It’s likely to be something that competes with products or services already offered by established companies, but somehow “differentiated” from them. It’s also likely to be a one-person enterprise to start, and a one-boss enterprise thereafter. Businesspeople who try to do it all themselves are almost sure to overstress themselves, make fatal mistakes, hate most of what they do, and fail, often early and spectacularly.

2. Advised by “professionals” who went to the same business schools, the entrepreneur sets up the company as a for-profit corporation, borrows heavily (and expensively) for “start-up” costs, and then hunts for sources for materials and labour to make his/her products and services. It’s quite possible that investors, seeing this as a high-risk investment, will want a large return (high interest rate) and equity position (controlling interest, especially if profit and growth targets are not met) in return for that risk. Once production is started, the company needs to fund customer receivables, inventories, capital equipment, and lots of start-up expenses. Its balance sheet is scary, with no resilience if there are sudden changes in the economy or market, and with a ton of money tied up and no room for error.

3. Now our poor entrepreneur has to go head-to-head with established competitors to try to attract customers. S/he will often spend an enormous amount on marketing and advertising to do so. The debts pile up, and little has been sold yet. Our entrepreneur is not sleeping well.

4. The idea will now either pay off, or not. Chances are, with incumbents willing and able to take discounts to fend off new competitors, our entrepreneur will not make profit and growth targets. The business might be shut down and liquidated by unhappy lenders and investors, or taken over and the entrepreneur ousted. Or, more simply, it will just run out of cash, and/or make a few naive, fatal decisions.

5. But just maybe it beats the odds and succeeds. Now it has to meet grueling annual growth and profitability targets to meet the investors’ demand for a very high rate of return on their investment, to compensate for the heavy risk they took.

6. And if it grows it will start to attract the attention of large corporate competitors, which can use their money and position for dozens of usually-effective tactics to crush this upstart. And if it still succeeds, they will shrug, sigh, and make the entrepreneur an offer s/he can’t refuse. The exhausted entrepreneur will usually take the money and run. And either retire, or start all over again (probably not as successfully) with another idea.

This unhappy process explains why most traditional enterprises fail, and why the biggest companies in most industries form collusive oligopolies that control the market, the politicians, and the media, and become “too big to fail” (so if they do screw up, the government — the taxpayer — bails them out).

It has evolved this way for simple Darwinian reasons. It’s what works when the “market” is given some simple (amoral, dysfunctional) rules to operate and is then left to its own resources. It’s a Frankenstein monster, but it was inevitable.

Now let’s look at how a community-based, cooperative economy could work, if it were made up of natural enterprises that “flew under the radar” of the corporate giants, and used a completely different set of processes and rules to get established and operate:

1. Our natural entrepreneurs don’t try to do everything alone, and they don’t decide what their offering is to be until they’ve done their market research and identified something in the local community that is needed, and not being met by established companies. As our economy starts to fall apart, such opportunities might be present in just about any essential sector:

> A food co-op, that grows and distributes local, organic foods using permaculture or other sustainable methods (i.e. not dependent on monoculture, wage slave employees, massive oil-based chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and massive irrigation).

> A co-op on the Mondragon model that makes and repairs high-quality, durable, customized clothing from local, sustainable materials.

> An energy co-op that establishes, augments and manages the collective renewable energy of the community.

> Building and furniture co-ops that construct and refurbish buildings and furniture using local materials and labour.

> A housing co-op that builds and co-manages homes and community common spaces for its members and the community at large.

> A local water and water resources stewardship co-op.

> Information, media and technology co-ops that collect, store and disseminate information to the community.

> Theatre, art and recreational co-ops that help the community realize that entertaining yourself is more enjoyable, engaging and fulfilling than consuming packaged entertainment produced elsewhere.

> You get the idea.

2. Now, in a process called Peer Production, the local people interested in becoming suppliers, customers or investors of the offering that will fill the unmet need from step 1 above, self-organize and become partners in the enterprise, and co-design the offering to meet their specific needs. This is not rocket science; the reason it isn’t done in traditional economy companies is that it doesn’t scale well up to the multi-national level that traditional enterprises need to grow to to continue to exist.

3. The partners now decide which of them will work how many hours in the enterprise and what they will be paid (dependent on their time availability, personal income needs, and the needs of the enterprise — but with little differential between highest and lowest hourly rate, and with an appreciation that the enterprise is not for-profit and must manage its costs prudently).

4. They will also decide how much short-term working capital they need (likely to be much less than a traditional enterprise requires, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment), how much the existing partners are willing to invest, and how much they’ll need to obtain from the local Credit Union (which is another local community-based co-op), and what rate of return on investment they will offer (since the product is being made by its potential customers to meet an unfilled need, the risk is low, and so is the needed rate of return). Based on these calculations, they will be able to set a zero-profit price for their offering, and confirm with potential customers that this is viable before even thinking about production.

5. Now the partners can pre-order, and prepay the cost of, the offering that they have co-designed to meet their requirements. Additional customers may be brought in at this stage on the same basis. There are no receivables and no unpaid inventory to have to worry about, or to finance. And the Credit Union which is a partner in the co-op will actually buy the equipment and then lease it to the co-op, knowing that the risk of the enterprise failing is low (and hence the lease payments will carry a low risk premium) — so there is no equipment on the balance sheet either, and no need for capital financing. The enterprise begins its life almost entirely debt-free, and stays that way. And the equity is the partners’ — the workers’ — not that of some absentee outside group demanding huge returns, growth and profitability.

6. Finally, the offering is produced to the customers who have already bought and paid for it. No expenditure is needed for advertising or marketing, and there is no need for the enterprise to grow, or to earn a profit (just enough to cover its costs). The balance sheet is small and lean, giving the enterprise resilience to deal with changes in the economy and market. Because it’s local, it creates local employment, respects local customs, is better for the environment, and minimizes transportation and other distribution costs. Everybody wins.

As co-operatives of many different types have found, the hard part in doing all this is the re-learning of what collaborative enterprise is all about. It takes a lot of practice, but it’s a natural human endeavour. There are excellent facilitators who can help with enterprise formation, the basics of peer production, invitation (of people in the community to identify and explore unmet needs), consensus, and conflict resolution. Most lawyers, accountants, bankers and traditional consultants should be used as little as possible, since they tend to perpetrate the traditional economy myths and lack the information and experience to know what’s needed in cooperative, natural enterprises. In time a new school of professionals practiced in the natural economy will emerge — I’ve heard that Credit Unions in Germany, for example, now offer “turnkey” financing packages for local wind and solar energy co-ops, complete with training.

As we relearn how to make a living for ourselves, we will be able to help each other out, and establish networks and alliances to share skills, knowledge and resources. I can imagine the growth of a Gift Economy (or what I call a Generosity Economy) blossoming in the abundance of appreciation, know-how, saved time and strengthened relationships that a cooperative natural economy engenders. With time, a community might be able to wean itself off dependence on the amoral-capitalist economy entirely, so that when that economy collapses it will already have made the transition to a steady-state natural economy, and be in a position to help other, unprepared communities with the terrible struggles they will then face.

It’s entirely possible, if we have the will to do it. I see it starting to happen already in some progressive communities that have Transition Initiatives underway. But I have a sense that it will take a few more economic, energy and ecological seismic shocks before many will wake up to the need to find a better way to live and make a living. I’m not sure it won’t be too late by then, but, if we’re in time, we’ll have some models and communities to show us the way.

By Dave Pollard

According to a new Oxford University study, 55 percent of India’s population of 1.1 billion, or 645 million people, are living in poverty. Using a newly-developed index, the study found that about one-third of the world’s poor live in India.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has been developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a more precise and comprehensive means of estimating poverty levels. It will replace the Human Poverty Index that has been used in the UNDP’s annual Human Development Report since 1997.

The MPI assesses a range of factors or “deprivations” at the household level as well as income and assets. These include: child mortality, nutrition, access to clean drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel, electricity, and years of schooling and child enrolment. “A person is considered poor if they are deprived in at least 30 percent of the weighted indicators,” the study states.

As measured by the new index, half of the world’s poor are in South Asia (51 percent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million). While poverty in Africa is often highlighted, the Oxford research found that there was more acute poverty in India than many African countries combined. Poverty in eight Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal—exceeded that of the 26 poorest African countries.

The study examined poverty across 28 Indian states, concluding that “81 percent of people are multidimensionally poor in Bihar—more than any other state. Also, poverty in Bihar and Jharkand is most intense—poor people are deprived in 60 percent of the MPI’s weighted indicators. Uttar Pradesh is the home of largest number of poor people—21 percent of India’s poor people live there. West Bengal is home to the third largest number of poor people.”

The last figure is particularly significant as West Bengal has been ruled since 1977 by a Left Front coalition government led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). Far from being “socialist” or “Marxist”, the Stalinist CPM has been responsible for implementing the pro-market agenda of economic restructuring carried out in other states and nationally by openly bourgeois parties. The result has been a decline in living standards for the majority and a deepening divide between rich and poor.

The Oxford University research also exposed high levels of poverty among India’s oppressed castes and tribal peoples. The poverty level among India’s so-called Scheduled Tribes is 81.4 percent. “The intensity of poverty is also very high among Scheduled Tribes, who are deprived in 59.2 percent of weighted indicators on average,” the study stated. The MPI for Scheduled Castes was 65.8 percent and for Other Backward Castes (OBC) was 58.3 percent.

The figures expose the Congress-led government’s claim that India’s economic growth has been “inclusive”. In fact, successive Indian governments led by Congress and the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) are responsible for economic policies that have boosted the profits of big business and the wealth of a tiny layer at the expense of the working class and rural poor.

By focussing on a broader range of factors, the Oxford University study has highlighted the continuing lack of basic facilities for the majority of the Indian population. Governments at the national and state levels have failed to provide even the most rudimentary assistance for hundreds of millions of people. Moreover, existing public services have been further undermined by the policies of privatisation and restructuring.

Only 31 percent of India’s population had access to improved sanitation in 2008. As a result of the lack of health care and food, 61 million children in India are stunted, the largest figure for any country, according to a UNICEF report. It also stated that the health of children suffers not just due to poor hygienic conditions and lack of nutritional food but also because mothers often suffer from anaemia and malnutrition during pregnancy.

Sharply rising food prices, including an average 83 percent increase since 2008, have been devastating for the country’s poor. Their situation has been further aggravated by recent fuel price hikes announced by the Indian government. The United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) recently painted an alarming picture, reporting that nearly 350 million people—roughly 35 percent of India’s population —was food insecure and consumed less than 80 percent of their total energy requirements.

More than 1.5 million children in India are estimated to suffer from malnourishment and 43 percent of children under five years of age are underweight, according to the latest UNWFP report. The proportion of anaemic children has increased by six percent in the last six years, with 11 states reporting 80 percent child anaemia rates.

Another study that used a household income of $US2 a day as the poverty benchmark found that India not only has more poor people than sub-Saharan Africa, but also has a higher level of poverty. In India, 75.6 percent of the population, or 828 million people, live below the poverty line as compared to 72.2 percent, or 551 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

On the other end of the scale, the wealthy few in India have amassed great riches. While impacted by the global financial crisis, the number of US dollar billionaires in India on the Forbes list rebounded to 49 in 2010, after falling to 24 last year. The figure falls just short of the record high of 53 in 2008.

The Financial Express commented that year: “The wealth amassed by Indian billionaires—estimated at 340.9 billion dollars by the US business magazine Forbes—is nearly 31 percent of the country’s total GDP. This gives them nearly three times more weight in the economy than their American counterparts and over ten times of those in China. The GDP share of Indian billionaires’ wealth is more than four times of the global average.”

The situation is similar this year. While 49 individuals preside over what for most Indians is unimaginable wealth, the majority of people are struggling to survive from day to day. In India’s financial capital of Mumbai, more than six million desperately poor people, half of the city’s population, eke out an existence in the slums. Mumbai’s gleaming skyscrapers that symbolise India’s economic growth sit alongside makeshift hovels.

Like their counterparts around the world, India’s business elite likes to justify their position in society on the basis of their own personal initiative, acumen and drive. In reality, their wealth is the product of the exploitation of the country’s huge reserves of cheap labour and depends on the continued impoverishment of the rest of the population. This worsening social divide will inevitably produce a rebellion against the appalling conditions created by profit system and the ruling elites that defend and benefit from it.

By Arun Kumar

What is BDS?

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. On July 9, 2005, one year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal, an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society called upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.

What are the goals of BDS?

According to the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions are nonviolent punitive measures to be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Who is calling for BDS?

A 2005 call for BDS was endorsed by over 170 Palestinian parties, organizations, trade unions and movements representing the three major constituents of the Palestinian people, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and Palestinians living in the Diaspora. On July 13, 2005 the UN International Civil Society Conference adopted the Palestinian Call for BDS. Today, hundreds of organizations and people of conscience around the world are actively supporting the Palestinian BDS call by engaging in a variety of BDS actions and initiatives.

What are some examples of how BDS was used during Apartheid in South Africa?

US-based Motorola was providing radio equipment to the apartheid government in Pretoria, where the police and army were using it. A US campaign calling for boycott of and divestment from Motorola products and subsidiaries resulted in Motorola’s sale of its South Africa subsidiary to Allied Technologies Ltd in 1985.

Similar to the boycott against apartheid South Africa, the Palestinian call for boycott includes an institutional boycott of Israeli cultural and academic institutions. The website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) provides a thorough explanation of the nuanced cultural & academic boycotts, clarifying some key misunderstandings of the boycott, and providing guidelines of how to apply it.

Who are some of the people endorsing the Palestinian-led BDS campaign?

Consumer and Corporate Boycott Success

July 2010: U.S.-based Olympia Food Co-op (two grocery stores) voted to stop selling all Israeli goods with the exception of a single brand called “Peace Oil.”

June 2010: Responding to appeals from Palestinian civil society after Israel’s attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza, dockworkers in Oakland – California, Sweden, and Norway all refused to dock and unload Israeli ships, imposing a blockade so-to-speak on Israeli goods. Similar historic action was taken by South African dockworkers in February of 2009.

July 2009 – 2010: As part of a CODEPINK campaign against Israeli settlement-based and settlement-owned Ahava Dead Sea Cosmetics, Kristen Davis was suspended from her post as Oxfam spokesperson after it was revealed that she also represented AHAVA Beauty Products. Davis later ended her contract with Ahava. CODEPINK also confirmed with Costco that it would no longer carry Ahava products after a letter-writing and calling campaign by activists across the U.S. Finally, the Dutch government is currently investigating Ahava and its practices.

2006 – 2010: The “Derail Veolia” campaign against French corporation Veolia, for its involvement in the construction of a light rail train from Jerusalem into Israeli settlements or colonies on Palestinian land, led to a loss of over €7 billion for the company across several countries. Israeli news daily Ha’aretz reported that after the losses Veolia had decided to withdraw from the project.

November 2007 – 2010: A global campaign against Israeli billionaire, diamond mogul, and settlement-builder Lev Leviev initiated by US-based Adalah-NY has led to his renunciation by UNICEF, denunciation by Oxfam, the removal of a promotional section of his website featuring actors like Salma Hayek, Drew Barrymore, and Halle Berry at some of their requests, a UK government decision not to rent embassy space from his company,

Cultural and Academic Boycott Success

July 2010: According to festival organizers, Hollywood actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman cancelled plans to attend the Jerusalem film festival following Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine dead.

June 2010: California-based folk artist Devendra Banhart canceled two shows he had been set to play in Tel Aviv just hours before his scheduled arrival in Israel.

June 2010: Rock band The Pixies cancelled their first ever concert date in Israel just after the Gaza flotilla incident, blaming “events beyond our control.”

May 2010: Elvis Costello pulled out of two concerts in Israel, saying that his appearance there could have been “interpreted as a political act.”

May 2010: The University and College Union in Britain, with well over 100,000 members, voted to sever all relations with the Histadrut union in Israel and commence looking into the boycott of Ariel College.

April 2010: Gil Scott-Heron announces that he will not play an upcoming show in Israel.

March 2010 – Award-winning novelist, historian, and playwright, Sarah Schulman, chose not to accept the invitation to participate in a conference at Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Universities.

February 2010: According to Israeli producers, guitarist Santana canceled his concert in Israel due to pressure not to play there. This was after letters directed at him, including one from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.

2008 – 2009 included: The Government of Spain’s exclusion of an Israeli university in the illegal settlement of Ariel from a prestigious international university competition for sustainable architecture in the world, organized by both the Spanish Government and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; rapper Snoop Dogg’s cancellation of a concert in Israel; The Yes Men withdrawing their film from the Jerusalem Film Festival; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd refusing to play in Israel again until it removes the wall it built largely on Palestinian land; and film director, screen writer, and critic Jean-Luc Godard canceling plans to attend a Tel Aviv film festival.

Divestment Success

July 2010, Jewish Voice for Peace activists presented over 15,000 petitions and postcard signatures to one of the world’s largest retirement funds, TIAA-CREF, asking them to divest from companies documented as profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

June 2010: Students at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, voted to divest the college foundation’s funds from companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation.

September 2009: The Norwegian Pension Fund announced its divestment from one of the most important Israeli defense contractors, and constructor of Israel’s wall, Elbit Systems.

August 2009: British bank Blackrock divested from the West Bank settlement projects of Lev Leviev and his company, Africa Israel Investments Limited. This was especially significant since Blackrock was the second largest shareholder of Africa Israel.

February 2009: Hampshire College, a pioneer in the 1970s by becoming the first U.S. university to divest from apartheid South Africa, decided to divest from some 200 companies that “violated the college’s standards for social responsibility,” including six companies with close connections to Israel’s occupation.

Sanctions Success

February 2010 – The European Union court in Brussels ruled that products from Israeli settlements on the Occupied Palestinian Territories are not Israeli and are therefore not eligible for the trade benefits between Israel and the European Union.

July 2009 – Britain blocked the sale of spare parts for Israel’s fleet of missile gunships because they were used in the 2009 bombing of Gaza, revoking five of Israel’s arms licenses with the UK.

January 2009 – The European Parliament managed to halt negotiations on strengthening the trade relationship between the EU and Israel in the framework of the Association Agreement and there are new, emboldened efforts to try and get the Association Agreement suspended altogether.

By IMEU

12 August, 2010

Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted from the earth has exceeded new oil discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil, but discovered fewer than 9 billion new barrels. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, decreasing every year.

It can’t be denied: Agriculture uses a vast amount of oil. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel, natural gas or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production also is energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture and international transport of phosphate and potash fertilizers all depend on oil. Our answer to the question of how we can end world hunger has thus far been to focus on increases in agricultural technology. These advances, unfortunately, require even more fuel.

Fertilizer production accounts for 20 percent of energy use on U.S. farms, and the demand for this fertilizer continues to climb. In addition, the international food trade separates producer from consumer by thousands of miles, further disrupting soil nutrient cycles. For example, the United States exports some 80 million tons of grain per year — grain that contains large quantities of basic plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The ongoing export of these nutrients will slowly drain the inherent fertility from U.S. cropland if the nutrients are not replaced.

This international food trade is responsible for more than just soil nutrient depletion. Sustainable farming alone cannot solve this problem.The amount of energy used to transfer goods from farmer to consumer equals two-thirds of the total amount of energy used to grow it on the farm (see “U.S. Food System Energy Use” chart in the Image Gallery). An estimated 16 percent of food system energy is used to can, freeze and dry food — everything from canned peas to frozen orange juice from concentrate.

Food miles — the distance food travels from producer to consumer — have risen in the United States thanks to cheap oil. Fresh produce routinely travels long distances, such as from California to the East Coast. Most of this produce moves on refrigerated trucks.

In the international food trade, staples such as wheat have historically moved long distances by ship — traveling from the United States to Europe, for example. But more recently, fresh fruits and vegetables have begun to travel vast distances by air; few activities are more energy-intensive. Packaging is surprisingly energy-intensive as well, accounting for 7 percent of food system energy use. Along with marketing, it also can account for much of the cost of processed foods. On average, a U.S. farmer gets only about 20 percent of the total consumer food dollar, and for some products, that figure is much lower.

What’s the most energy-intensive segment of the food chain? The kitchen. We actually use more energy to refrigerate and prepare food at home than our farmers use to produce it in the first place.

With higher energy prices and a limited supply of fossil fuels, the modern food system that evolved while oil has been cheap clearly cannot survive as it is currently structured.

Excerpted from Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, available for download or purchase online.

By Lester R. Brown

18 August, 2010

Motherearthnews.com

It is unfortunate that the US was unable to use the window of opportunity that it had in the immediate aftermath of the removal of the Taleban Government in late 2001. It could have brought in a truly broad-based Afghan government and invested in the development of the country. Instead, it continued its military actions and brought corrupt and criminal elements into power in Kabul.

Before the West invaded Afghanistan my country had no suicide bombers, no jihad and no Talebanisation.

There is now a general recognition that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily. All the Taleban have to do to win is not to lose. The Americans won’t stay and everybody knows that.

The focus has come to rest on the inevitable need to talk with all the militant groups in Afghanistan. While most important players are ready to talk peace, the US remains confused and has still to straighten out its policy. This confusion is once again taking its toll, especially on Pakistan.

As the US and Nato realise the failure of their military policy in Afghanistan, they are seeking to shift the centre of gravity of the war into the north west of Pakistan, the region known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). One of the fears raised in the West at the prospect of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan is that it will lead to a Taleban- controlled nuclear Pakistan. That fear betrays a total ignorance about the evolution of the Taleban movement as well as the impact of the War on Terror on Pakistan.

Remember, there was no Pakistani involvement in 9/11. Nor throughout the period of the Taleban regime in Kabul was there Talebanisation in Pakistan .

When the Americans were drawing up their military response to the 9/11 attacks, they drew up a list of seven conditions for Pakistan to meet to attract US support. The assumption was that General Pervez Musharraf, the former President of Pakistan, might agree to three or four. Instead he unilaterally signed up for the lot. These conditions were a total violation of the human rights of the people of Pakistan and the sovereignty of the country.

This was a leader with whom President Clinton had refused to shake hands when he came to Pakistan before 9/11, for fear of being seen to support a dictator. It was quite shameless how the Pakistani leadership capitulated and how the US gave Musharraf the embrace of legitimacy. This was reminiscent of the Cold War era when tinpot dictators were routinely supported by the US.

In 2004 Pakistan’s Government sent troops into Waziristan, where al-Qaeda was allegedly present. I was one of the only politicians from outside the tribal areas who had been to Waziristan and I opposed the move in Pakistan’s Parliament. Anyone who knows the region and its history could see it would be a disaster.

Until that point we had no militant Taleban in Pakistan. We had militant groups, but our own military establishment was able to control them. We had madrassas, but none of them produced militants intent on jihad until we became a frontline state in the War on Terror.

The country is fighting someone else’s war. We never had suicide bombings in our history until 2004. Now we have 30 to 40 deaths a day from shells or bombings and the suicide attacks continue to increase. While we have received about $15 billion in aid from the US, our own economy has lost about $50 billion.

We have borrowed a record amount of money from the International Monetary Fund, which was only given to us because of our role in the war, not because we could afford to pay it back. Our social and economic fabric is being destroyed because of the conditions that the IMF has imposed.

Millions of our people have been displaced and a massive radicalization of our youth has taken place as they see the Pakistani state becoming a puppet doing US bidding. The military operations by Pakistan in FATA have led to 40,000 casualties in indiscriminate aerial bombardment and ground fire.

The attacks by US drones, in which the Government of Pakistan is complicit, have also killed thousands of civilians, leading to a growing hatred becoming embedded among the local population. There is deep resentment of the war in the frontier regions, where high unemployment feeds the discontent.

The war in Afghanistan is justified as a stabilizing force for Pakistan, whereas in truth the country is collapsing under the pressure. We are like Cambodia in the Vietnam War. After the Wikileaks revelations yesterday reports are being floated that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, is aiding the Afghan militancy. The fact is that the ISI is not that powerful, but certainly in an environment of chaos and uncertainty Pakistan will need to protect its interests through all means necessary.

It is unfortunate that the US was unable to use the window of opportunity that it had in the immediate aftermath of the removal of the Taleban Government in late 2001. It could have brought in a truly broad-based Afghan government and invested in the development of the country. Instead, it continued its military actions and brought corrupt and criminal elements into power in Kabul.

Pakistan, supposedly an ally of the US, is bearing the brunt of American failure in Afghanistan. A recent poll showed that 80 per cent of Pakistanis consider the US a bigger threat to their country than India. Nor is this view about the US solely because of the “War on Terror”. Pakistanis also blame the US for brokering the “National Reconciliation Order”, which was intended to sustain Musharraf in power while also bringing rogue Pakistani politicians back into the political landscape.

The result is a total collapse of governance in Pakistan today. There is no danger of Talebanisation in Pakistan but there is a very real threat of chaos and radicalization, especially of the youth.

There is only one solution to this chaos. This is to implement an immediate ceasefire and commence talks with all militant groups in Afghanistan. Either America leaves or Pakistan withdraws from this war.

The US should not worry about Pakistan. Once the bombing stops, it will no longer be jihad and the suicide attacks will immediately subside. About 18 months ago the former head of the CIA’s Kabul station, Graham Fuller, wrote in the International Herald Tribune that once the US leaves the region Pakistan will be stable.

Political leaders in the US and UK should realize that people in the streets of New York and London are not threatened by the people in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan but by the growing radicalization of their own marginalised Muslim youth.

By Imran Khan

Imran Khan is the founder and chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (the Movement for Justice Party) and a world cup winning national cricket team captain

Kashmiris may have become the unintended victims of David Cameron’s verbal attack on Pakistan, which has encouraged the hardline Indian establishment to continue to brutalise Kashmiris in the Kashmir Valley.

As a salesman determined to shift as much deadly weaponry as he could, including Hawk fighter bombers, it was not surprising that Cameron chose to ignore the suffering in Kashmir. By blaming Pakistan, Cameron not only fed India’s national paranoia about Pakistan, but also shifted the focus away from Kashmir and the increasing death rate of its civilian population, which otherwise might have received some media attention.

Since May this year, when the fresh wave of protests started, nearly 50 Kashmiris have been killed, many of them teenagers. Hundreds of civilians have also been injured, which has created perpetual chaos in Kashmiri hospitals as medical supplies dwindle under prolonged curfew and an embargo on goods. Since Friday, more than two dozen people have been killed, including an eight-year-old boy Sameer Ahmed Rah, who was allegedly beaten by police. In another incident, a teenage girl, Afroza, was killed when police fired on protesters at Khrew, on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of the disputed region. At least 25 people were wounded, two of them critically, when troops resorted to indiscriminate firing and tear gas shelling in Naaman village in South Kashmir. Nearly 100 miles away, in Baramulla, Indian troops fired at another group of protesters, injuring two more youths.

During the fresh wave of protests, India has adopted an uncompromisingly militant posture towards Kashmiri civilians protesting against human rights abuses. In June, Indian home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram linked stone-throwing Kashmiri youths to members of the dreaded terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a charge that was termed as an insult by pro-Indian Kashmiri leader Mufti Sayeed, former Indian home minister and former chief minister of Kashmir. This charge of linking Kashmiri protesters to terror groups in Pakistan was seen by many Kashmiris as an Indian excuse for the continuing murder of Kashmiris.

The new Indian approach denies the civilian status of its Kashmiri victims. Earlier in June, India’s home secretary, Gopal Krishna Pillai, questioned press reports that described murdered Kashmiris as innocent civilians. Responding to a particular incident in which Indian paramilitary forces were said to have killed three civilians, he said: “There is a misnomer that civilians are getting killed. They are attacking police pickets. They are unruly mobs attacking CRPF pickets. They [forces] have shown considerable restraint and killed just one person”.

The latest response from the Indian chief minister to the growing unrest has been demand for more troops. This is ironic given the fact that Kashmir is one of the most militarised places on Earth. Although the real number of Indian troops in Kashmir is unknown, some reports suggest that the number of Indian forces in the region is 250,000.

The absence of any criticism of the growing repression has emboldened the Indian government to target the Kashmiri population with greater ferocity. When the doctors of the Government Medical College, Srinagar recently protested against growing human rights abuses, the government registered cases against them for rioting and disobedience. Earlier, many leading lawyers and human rights advocates including Mian Abdul Qayoom, president of Kashmir Bar Association, which is the main lawyers’ forum, was arrested under the draconian Public Safety Act, which allows incarceration for two years without charge.

This law, along with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, that gives licence to Indian forces to kill with impunity, have been used to murder or silence thousands of Kashmiris for more than two decades. In an increasingly brutal response, the police even seized trucks of relief goods such as food and vegetables for the inhabitants of Srinagar, a city that has been under curfew for weeks at a time.

The continued focus on al-Qaida in Pakistan and the war in Afghanistan have cast a shadow over the suffering of Kashmiris, which is hardly reported in the international media. In order to contain and control unrest, the government has adopted a heavy handed approach against local journalists, stopping them from reporting the true extent of the suffering inflicted. Kashmiri journalists have been threatened, beaten up and gagged, as the paramilitary forces have refused to honour their curfew passes. In some instances, the government has refused to issue them passes at all.

As a result, many Kashmiri newspapers have had to suspend publication several times, confining them to online versions only. This has compelled a new generation of Kashmiris to articulate their frustration through social networking sites and YouTube in order to make known the torment of Kashmir. Determined to stifle any criticism, the government has now launched a new cyber war. According to the Indian news magazine Outlook India, “there are reports of Kashmiris being detained for ‘anti-national’ posts on Facebook”.

David Cameron’s statement blaming Pakistan has been seen as a vindication of a long-held Indian accusation that any unrest in Kashmir is a consequence of cross-border terrorism. As a new generation of Kashmiris take on Indian might with a few stones and their defenceless bodies, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, head of the moderate pro-Independence Kashmiri alliance, said despairingly: “First they [the Indians] said the guns came from Pakistan. Will they now say that stones come from Pakistan, too?”

By Murtaza Shibli

03 August, 2010 
Guardian.co.uk

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Haig is an Armenian Christian from Jerusalem, a city that is six miles and twenty minutes north of Bethlehem. Haig also happens to be my younger brother, and our family have lived in Jerusalem ever since 1915 when my grandparents fled Ottoman Turkey to Palestine during the Armenian genocide. Indeed, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the fulcra of the Nativity and Resurrection of our Christian faith, were once bustling with local Christians.

In Jerusalem, two of the four quarters of the Old City (the Christian and Armenian ones) are a living testimony to their centuries-old presence. Yet, today, although my brother and his family have steadfastly chosen to remain in Jerusalem, scores of Christians have left in search of more dignified, politically stable and economically viable alternatives.

So what do Christians witness in this land of frequent pilgrimages but also of infrequent visions?

Some 60 short years ago, Christians constituted roughly 25 per cent of the overall Palestinian population in the Holy Land, and around 80 per cent of Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Today, those numbers have dwindled drastically – in Bethlehem, for instance, they are just over 15 per cent of the overall population – largely because of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. No matter how people choose to interpret facts or massage realities, the political situation has been – and remains to be – the primary cause for the alarming reduction in the number of indigenous Christians in this biblical land.

Christians have almost lost hope in a land that witnessed the incarnation of our hope. Dr Bernard Sabella, a sociologist who is also Executive Secretary of the Department on Service to Palestinian Refugees and Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has published numerous statistical studies on the haemorrhaging outflow of local Christians. In one study as far back as 2004, he estimated that local Christians now stood at far less than two per cent of the overall population, suggesting that this decline reflected a dearth in socio-economic and political visions for Palestine.

Over the past 43 years, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in June 1967, rapacious Israeli settlers have colonised Palestinian land – often aided, and frequently abetted, by successive Israeli governments. The physical, demographic and economic integrity of the land – and thereby of the people living on it – has been eroded by deliberate Israeli policies that are not only contrary to international law and UN Resolutions, but that also strive to get rid of Palestinian demography (the people) whilst retaining Palestinian geography (the land).

In Bethlehem, as in many other parts of the West Bank, an ugly separation wall encircles relentlessly the Palestinian areas, dividing one Palestinian from another, one institution from another. With secondary and smaller cement walls buttressing this wall, and with Israeli Jews-only settlements on Palestinian land, along with 400 checkpoints severing towns and villages from each other, Palestinian resources are being snuffed out and have resulted in the creation of small gaols within those territories. The concomitant consequences have been unemployment, poverty, socio-economic meltdown, despair and violence.

Is it still any wonder that Palestinian Christians are leaving in droves?

In a speech on 29th April, Professor John J Mearsheimer, R Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, described some Israelis as the New Afrikaners. Indeed, such corrosive apartheid (separateness in Afrikaans) policies are being exercised by Israel in many Palestinian territories (where Christians live in small numbers amongst Palestinian Muslims). Is it also any wonder that some prominent Christian church and lay leaders issued the Kairos Palestine Document: A Moment of Truth in December 2009 in which they spoke out in liberation theology native terms about faith, hope and love in the heart of Palestinian suffering and against those practices that have condemned their communities to this downward spiral? Can such weakened communities resist any longer?

However, in focusing upon the sinister effects of Israeli occupation, it is equally scrupulous to look at other concerns befalling Palestinian Christians in this once-golden land (as the prophet Zechariah described it). Two contributory strains, I would suggest, are Christian-Muslim relations and Western Christianity.

When I was Ecumenical Consultant for the Churches of Jerusalem during the unlucky Oslo years, I recall how church leaders or their representatives would help nip in the bud any potential strife between Christians and Muslims by calling the late Chairman Yasser Arafat’s representatives to seek their prompt mediation. Today, those conduits of conflict resolution are far more complex and much less discernible, and the tensions between Palestinian Christians and Muslims are perceptibly more frequent even if most Palestinians would deny them vehemently due to an overall anxious sense of nationalism. I believe this is due in part to a growing political Islamisation within specific cross-sections of Palestinian society in the West Bank (and certainly in Gaza, with its tiny pocket of Christians and their public institutions) today. Some Muslims have become less inclusive, spurn diversity and openly or secretly consider non-Muslims as infidels who do not belong to the land.

Such attitudes are due to an ill-considered, even blinkered, belief that the links those Christians have with the larger Universal Church in the West (Greece, Rome or London) could turn them into potential political fifth columns! I have heard Palestinians speaking out – often discreetly – about some practices of physical and structural violence whereby Christian shops are the last ones to be frequented for business and where Palestinian Christians are the last to receive financial aid from local authorities. Engage a Christian deacon, ironmonger, butcher, secretary, verger, or physician, and one detects those worries simmering under the chipped veneer of pan-Palestinian solidarity.

This is an unfortunate development that is neither Islamic nor provides proper ijtihad or jurisprudence. But it does occasionally detract from the collective effort necessary to focus on the central objective of Israeli occupation and is alas, a reality that increasingly blights the lives of everyday Christians.

But is the radicalisation of some pockets of Islam the sole reason why a small but important number of Palestinian Muslims are looking charily at Palestinian Christians? Has Palestine become an almost Lebanese clone where confessional politics are taking hold of what has for long decades been a fiercely secular and inclusive society? I for one, remember growing up in a neighbourhood of northern Jerusalem that had many Muslims who were not only ‘neighbours’ but also friends. I am sure that Haig could tell stories about his own experiences of friendships and respectful coexistence. After all, Palestinians had almost always been united by their political aims, not divided by their religious affiliations. One cannot also forget that some of the incipient Palestinian liberation leaders were Christian, as are politicians, parliamentarians and ambassadors today. It is not always helpful to turn into an ostrich in the midst of a sand dune either.

I suggest that the tensions fomented by Islamist radicalism, over and above the Israeli rampant occupation of land, are also exacerbated by fundamentalist evangelical Christian constituencies in the West (largely in the USA) who purport that the Christian faith equates itself with an unquestioning support for Israel. They claim this is because God chose the Israelites as His people and entered into a Covenant with them. It is therefore the duty of Christians, those groups claim, to defend Israel (a political entity) and Israelis (a demographic entity) over the whole biblical land of Israel (a geographic entity).

In my view, such Christians are not only limited by their faith-based periscope but are also ostracising ‘other’ Christians by adhering rigidly to the tenets of the Old Testament, ignoring the transformative message of the New Testament, being selective in their scriptural and prophetic quotations, and releasing Israelis from their obligations in relation to their covenant with God, let alone toward Palestinians. Surely, to be hemmed in by a faith perception that is literalist or exclusivist is not how our Lord and Saviour would have acted today. But such Christians also believe the only way for the Messiah to return to earth (and therefore fulfil prophesies in the Book of Revelation) is through the in-gathering of Jews (in modern-day Israel) so they could be converted to Christianity and pave the way for the Second Coming of Christ.

I cannot frankly see many Jews getting terribly excited by this Christian plan! But there exists today a finite tactical alliance whereby Jews overlook the underlying eschatological motivations of some Western Christians in return for their unstinting financial and political support of Israel. The Old Testament has become the organic nexus between [some] Christians and [some] Jews, at the expense of the New Testament and the indigenous followers of Christ region-wide.

So where do we Christians of the Holy Land stand today as pilgrims of faith on our journeys of faith?

I believe that the three existential challenges I highlighted are together leading some Palestinian Christians to re-calculate constantly their options. His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, emeritus patriarch of Jerusalem, delivered a lecture entitled The Theological, Spiritual and Pastoral Christian Presence in the Middle East at CEDRAC (the Research and Documentation Centre for Arabic Christianity) in Beirut on 5 May 2010 in which he affirmed that Palestinian Christians are cross-bearing witnesses, whose commandment is one of love, of showing how to build a healthy and inclusive society, and of being true bridges with the outside world. I suppose one could add that Jews, Christians and Muslims are united through Abraham and Sarah, hewn from the same rock (Isaiah 51:1), and so it becomes essential to find ways for co-existence in this land between the three monotheistic faiths.

But how does one affirm the Christian presence in the Holy Land? In Bethlehem, for instance, in order to dissuade young Palestinian families from leaving the Holy Land, the Franciscan Order is building new flats and offering them to young Palestinian couples in return for low-rent tenancies. This is a practical – and critical – tool to help counter emigration. But if we mean to tackle the root causes of the problems facing Christians in the Holy Land today rather than paper over the symptoms alone, the first station should be an end to Israeli occupation and its illegal practices. Palestinians must be set free from captivity, imprisonment, separation walls, settlements, ID confiscations and allowed instead to pursue their own destinies and hopes – and to make their own mistakes. Only then could they be expected to put their own house in order – presently in shambles – and become accountable as they edify at long last their independent state.

To those friends world-wide worried about the Christian life, presence and witness across the whole Middle East, I remind them of St Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) – a contemporary of Epiphanius, Jerome and Rufinus – who stated, Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace only but also in time of persecution. Perhaps we should all learn – I before you – to be less à la carte Christians with anaemic faiths and to show instead resoluteness, fortitude and solidarity in our outreach to our neighbours during times of adversity.

This is why I am also cautiously hopeful that the forthcoming Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East called for by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI that will take place in Rome from 10-24 October 2010 will manage to discuss carefully, but also openly and judiciously, those three existential issues. The theme of the Synod is The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness and is underscored by the scriptural verse ‘Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul’ (Acts 4:32). In this respect, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in London, supported by its counterparts in Germany and the USA, will provide support and exposure to this event that will unite all the Catholic Church leadership of the Middle East under one roof in the Vatican.

So today, I invite you to spare no effort in reaching out with love, prayer but also action to those quarantined Living Stones (1 Peter 2:5) who face the daily vagaries of life in the midst of human pain and unholy conflicts. Our Christocentric faith does not call for apathy, nor should it pander to hyper-inflated political correctness or jaundiced cynicism. What it exacts from us can perhaps be summed up for me by St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians to seek the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). Can we all ‘do our small bit’ and pursue our mission and help ensure that those Living Stones do not inevitably become the deadened sites of the Holy Land let alone of the wider Middle East?

By Harry Hagopian

Harry Hagopian is an International lawyer & EU political consultant. He also acts as Middle East advisor to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales and as Middle East consultant to ACEP in Paris and is a regular Ekklesia contributor. Formerly, he was Executive Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee & Executive Director of the Middle East Council of Churches. This article was published in Mission Outlook Volume 43 # 2 in July 2010, and is reproduced with grateful acknowledgements. Dr Hagopian’s own website is www.epektasis.net