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We live amidst multiple crises — economic and political, cultural and ecological — that pose a significant threat to human life as we understand it.

There is no way to be awake to the depth of these crises without an emotional reaction. There is no way to be aware of the pain caused by these systemic failures without some experience of dread, depression, distress.

To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one’s own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse.

Though I have felt this for some time I hesitated to talk about it in public, out of fear of being accused of being too negative or dismissed as apocalyptic. But more of us are breaking through that fear, and more than ever it’s essential that we face this aspect of our political lives. To talk openly about this anguish should strengthen, not undermine, our commitment to political engagement — any sensible political program to which we can commit for the long haul has to start with an honest assessment of reality.

Here is how I would summarize our reality: Because of the destructive consequences of human intervention, it is not clear how much longer the planetary ecosystem can sustain human life on this scale. There is no way to make specific predictions, but it’s clear that our current path leads to disaster. Examine the data on any crucial issue — energy, water, soil erosion, climate disruption, chemical contamination, biodiversity — and the news is bad. Platitudes about “necessity is the mother of invention” express a hollow technological fundamentalism; simply asserting that we want to solve the problems that we have created does not guarantee we can. The fact that we have not taken the first and most obvious step — moving to a collective life that requires far less energy — doesn’t bode well for the future.

Though anguish over this reality is not limited to the affluence of the industrial world — where many of us have the time to ponder all this because our material needs are met — it may be true that those of us living in relative comfort today speak more of this emotional struggle. That doesn’t mean that our emotions are illegitimate or that the struggle is self-indulgent; this discussion is not the abandonment of politics but an essential part of fashioning a political project.

I would like help in this process. I’ve started talking to people close to me about how this feels, but I want to expand my understanding. By using the internet and email, I am limiting the scope of the inquiry to those online, but it’s a place to start.

My request is simple: If you think it would help you clarify your understanding of your struggle, send me an account of your reaction to these crises and collapse, in whatever level of detail you like. I am most interested in our emotional states, but any exercise of this type includes an intellectual component; there is no clear line between the analytical and the emotional, between thinking and feeling. An understanding of our emotions is connected to our analysis of the health of the ecosystem, the systems responsible for that condition, and the openings for change.

Because I may draw on this material in public discussions and for writing projects, please let me know how you are willing to have your words used. Your writing could be: (1) “on background,” not to be quoted in any forum; (2) “not for attribution,” permission to be quoted but not identified; or (3) “on the record,” permission to be quoted and identified. If you don’t specify, I will assume (2).

My plan is to report back to anyone interested. If you would like to be included on that distribution list, let me know. Please send responses in the body of an email message, not as an attachment, to robertwilliamjensen@gmail.com.

Whether or not you write to me, I hope everyone will begin speaking more openly about this aspect of our struggle. If there is to be a decent future, we have to retain our capacity for empathy. Most of us can empathize with those closest to us, and we try to empathize with all people. The next step is to open up to the living world, which requires an ability to feel both the joy and the grief that surrounds us.

By Robert Jensen

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist. Information about the film, distributed by the Media Education Foundation, and an extended interview Jensen conducted with Osheroff are online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/osheroff.html

 

The consensus that held Thailand together is crumbling. Recent events will cement the bitter divides and lead to more bloodshed. My first experience of Bangkok was in 1995. I felt as if I had stepped on to the set of Blade Runner; a scattered and disjointed fusion of skyscrapers and tangled neon-soaked streets bustling with life. It left me electrified and entranced. Six years later, I made this city my home. Friends were envious. I was excited. No one was warning me against it. “Bangkok is much safer than London” has been my recurrent refrain whenever asked about living in this sprawling capital. However, while I may have been mugged in my hometown of London, I have never seen anyone shot there by a sniper. At least 70 people have been killed and well over a thousand injured in recent political violence in Bangkok. Areas of the city were turned into a war zone as troops battled with protesters for more than five days before finally – and brutally – crushing the redshirt “resistance”. To suggest that this chaos and destruction came as a surprise would be disingenuous. I have had serious misgivings about the state of affairs in Thailand for several years, but have, like many others, pushed them to one side lest they interfere with my enjoyment of the weather, lifestyle and, of course, the food that has kept me so content in this country for nearly a decade. I was in a bar with three friends earlier this month. A little drunk and excitable, two of the friends, a journalist and a photographer, sought to convince the third, who works for a large US-based multinational, that Bangkok was a city on the brink of chaos. “Why are you laughing? This country is going to hell. Mark my words, there will be deaths on these streets that you cannot imagine,” the journalist said to the skeptical office worker. Perhaps her laughter was born from nervousness. I’m not sure, but despite living here for eight years, she did not seem to recognise the storm clouds. Four days later at least four people had been shot dead on a street one minute’s walk from that bar, and the office worker had evacuated her apartment to go and live in another part of the city. But it wasn’t just the latest tensions – two months of protests, 25 deaths and 800 injuries on 10 April and the increased military presence on the streets – that portended darker days. Ignited by a military coup and against the backdrop of rising anxiety over the deteriorating health of the king and the continued meddling of a divisive, ousted prime minister from self-imposed exile overseas, protest movements have been growing, with opposing groups increasingly pushing their agendas on the streets rather than in parliament. Years of tensions have uncovered stark social and political fissures. As I watched television last Tuesday morning, a military commander, in a pooled presentation on all free-to-air stations, showed images from YouTube and other public websites of “terrorists” among the redshirts. While there are armed elements among the protesters, almost all those shot so far have been unarmed. As the urban battles continued, the government and military pushed their propaganda on television each day – these are “terrorists”, we must defend ourselves and the king and country. A significant number of Thais agree. This makes me uneasy. The rhetoric is nothing new. The delivery is nothing new. I can’t help but identify these generals with a bygone era. But many in Thailand, it seems, do not want a new future; they are emotionally devoted to their past and fearful of what may come if the redshirts win. In May 1992, when dozens of protesters were shot dead by soldiers, the military also claimed it was acting in self-defense. Today there is no grilling from the local media. Many continued to support the crackdown, despite the rising death toll. International media, such as CNN, have been accused of pro-redshirt bias. Vile and hateful messages calling for the deaths of the protesters were unashamedly plastered on Facebook and other social sites. At a television awards ceremony on the evening of 16 May, as the fighting continued on the streets outside, an actor received his statuette and, as stars have done in the past, took the opportunity to make his political feelings known. “If you hate father, if you don’t love father any more, then you should get out of here!” he said defiantly, in reference to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who Thais often refer to as “father”, and the alleged anti-monarchy sentiments of some redshirts. “Because this is father’s home! Because this is father’s land!” The well-dressed audience of the glitterati and light-skinned actors and actresses gave a standing ovation, punched the air in defiance; some wept. Such scenes of obsequious devotion and intense emotion are common when it comes to the monarchy. Due to societal and legal pressures, there is no room for discussion of the monarchy – a culture of self-imposed censorship increasingly ingrained over the 63 years of King Bhumibol’ s reign, permeating all areas of social and political interaction and defining, in many cases, what it means to be “Thai”. Everyone has an opinion on what the real issue behind this enduring crisis is: class struggle against uncaring elite; a scorned megalomaniac former prime minister fighting to recover his ill-gotten gains and power; a battle to fend off a republican revolution. But what no one seems to have is a clear answer to how this all will end. I don’t have any answers either. As I sit here in my apartment, awaiting another night of curfew, watching the sun set on a city still smoldering from a week of tragedies, I can’t help but think that recent events will only further cement the country’s already bitter divides and lead to more bloodshed. The consensus that held Thailand together and saw decades of economic advance is crumbling. Thailand must build a new future under a new image, but I fear this divided nation is not yet ready to face that painful truth. By Ismail Wolff 23 May 2010 The Guardian

 

When Thailand’s army ousted Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006, generals hailed the coup as bloodless. Four years on, clashes between troops and his followers left 85 people dead, a capital in flames and a nation broken in two. To Thaksin’ s opponents, who wear yellow as a symbol of their allegiance to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the former prime minister is a corrupt billionaire who orchestrated protests in Bangkok in a bid to regain power and topple the monarchy. To supporters clad in red, he’s a champion of the rural poor who sought to close one of Asia’s widest income gaps, and a victim of urban elite that uses the courts and army to perpetuate its rule. “There are no neutral people,” said Sanit Nakajitti, a director at PSA Asia, a Bangkok-based security and risk consulting company. “When I meet someone, in three sentences I can tell if they are red or yellow.” Amnesty for Thaksin, 60, living in exile to escape a prison sentence he calls politically motivated, is the one concession Oxford-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has been unwilling to make. Their division mirrors the nation’s, which risks further violence that may undermine an economy reliant on foreign investors and tourists. “Thaksin’s conviction is a point of contention that will never be reconciled,” said Somjai Phagaphasvivat, a political science lecturer at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. “The government has won the battle, but to win the war it must try and isolate him from the people who see him as a superhero who can cure all economic ills.” Early Election Abhisit vowed on May 21 to “rebuild the house” through a reconciliation plan announced earlier this month that includes addressing economic disparities and rewriting political rules. In the national address, in which he didn’t mention Thaksin’s name, he pledged an independent investigation into the violence over the past two months. Red Shirt supporters rioted on May 19, venting their anger on symbols of wealth and privilege. The stock exchange and 10 Bangkok Bank Pcl branches were set ablaze; the Central World mall and Siam Theater were gutted by flames. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan’s two largest automakers, last week suspended production in Thailand. Financial regulators closed the stock exchange and ordered banks in the capital of 9 million people to shut. The benchmark SET Index dropped 3.9 percent since May 4 and the baht is trading close to a two-month low. “I never imagined it would come to this,” said Karl-Heinz Heckhausen, former president of Daimler Chrysler Thailand who has lived in the country for 12 years. “At the moment for investors, nobody is coming.” Poor Northeast The Red Shirts, whose six-week occupation of a central Bangkok business district led to the military crackdown, hail mostly from the country’s northeast, the poorest region, where a third of the population live. Income levels in the provinces supporting Abhisit’ s party at the last election were more than double those that backed the pro-Thaksin alternative, a United Nations report released this month showed. Thaksin, the only elected prime minister in Thailand to serve a full four-year term, appealed to the lower class with a platform of $1-a-visit health care and low-interest loans for villagers. Abhisit’s government has attempted to build on those policies by offering free school supplies and low-income housing. “The big lie of the leaders and of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin was that this fight was about democracy and income inequality,” Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said May 21. “Not once did the Red Shirts offer any solutions or suggestions as to how they would address these issues.” ‘Before the Coup’ “The problem is that Thaksin wants something we cannot give, Korbsak said. “He wants to go back to before the coup; he wants his passport back; he wants to come home without any time in jail.” Thaksin isn’t behind the protests and it’s unfair to say he’s using the movement for personal gain, spokesman Noppadon Pattama said May 18. After the coup, a military-appointed panel drafted a constitution that declared ousting Thaksin legal. It also added a clause used to dissolve the pro-Thaksin party that won the first election after the coup, paving the way for Abhisit to take power in a December 2008 parliamentary vote. The Red Shirt rallies in Bangkok started two weeks after a court seized $1.4 billion of Thaksin’ s fortune. During the protests he addressed the group, also known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, via videoconference and using his Twitter account. ‘Untrue Accusations’ “There are questions about my relationship with the Red Shirt movement, and many untrue accusations,” Thaksin said in a May 20 statement. “I will continue to morally support the heroic effort of the UDD and their leaders to seek democracy and justice for Thailand.” Pro-Thaksin parties won the past four elections while Abhisit’ s Democrat Party last won the most seats in a nationwide vote in 1992. Earlier that year, the admonishments of King Bhumibol prompted a military commander and middle-class protest leader to prostrate themselves before him on live television after clashes left dozens dead. King Bhumibol, 82, has been hospitalized since September and hasn’t commented publically on the protests. “Traditionally, the king would have stepped in and stopped all this,” said Ernest Bower, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There’s now a sense that because he hasn’t, there is a vacuum being created. And if you’ve got the guns and money, you may be able to hold on and have a major role in the leadership of this country in the future.” –With assistance from Anuchit Nguyen, Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok, and Yuki Hagiwara in Tokyo. Editors: Bill Austin, Patrick Harrington. To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tony Jordan at tjordan3@bloomberg.net ; Bill Austin at billaustin@bloomberg.net By Daniel Ten Kate and Peter S. Green 23rd May 2010

 

Cambridge Massachusetts, June 2, 2010 – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna will meet in Washington this week (June 2 and 3) to lay the groundwork for a visit to India that President Obama plans to make in November. This meeting comes on the heels of recent announcements by India’s military that it plans to test and deploy an anti-satellite system.

Indian military officials have set a target date to deploy an ambitious anti-satellite system, according to a report released in May by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The report, titled Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap (TPCR), states that the “development of ASAT for electronic or physical destruction of satellites in both LEO and Geo – synchronous orbits” can be expected by 2015.

This is not exactly news, in that the developmental timeline coincides with DRDO comments from years past. What is striking about it—much like most information released from the DRDO regarding its development of anti-satellite systems—is that it blatantly contradicts statements by Indian political leaders that deny any intent by their nation to pursue space weapons.  Moreover, target dates for the development of anti-satellite systems by any nation should be considered shocking, particularly given the scrutiny that was paid to nations such as China and the U.S. when they each demonstrated a direct-ascent ability to strike satellites in space.

Historically, U.S. concern over China’s potential to deploy a formal ASAT system has been well documented. In 1999 The Cox Report on US National Security with China stated: “The PRC is believed to be developing space-based and ground-based anti-satellite laser weapons.” In a 2008 Congressional hearing before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, it was stated that a Chinese ASAT threat definitely exists, putting many U.S. and allied spacecraft at risk.  In January of 2007, many nations, including India, voiced opposition to China’s successful shoot-down of its own aging Fengyun (FY-1C) polar orbit satellite with a kinetic kill vehicle (KKV). In response to China’s action, then-Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “The security and safety of assets in outer space is of crucial importance for global economic and social development. We call upon all States to redouble efforts to strengthen the international legal regime for the peaceful use of outer space. ” Then-U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe echoed Mukherjee’s comments, stating, “The U.S. believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area.”

The U.S. experienced similar international suspicion and condemnation a year later when it destroyed a reportedly malfunctioning National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO) satellite via a Standard Missile 3

(SM3) launch from aboard the USS Lake Erie. Russia’s Defense Ministry responded in a statement: “There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system’s capability to destroy other countries’ satellites.”

With all of the attention paid to China’s and the United States’ anti-satellite capabilities, how has the international community missed continuous, overt claims by Indian military officials that the development and eventual deployment of an ASAT system is on the horizon?

If the U.S. and China are subject to international outrage over what the two countries claim were responses to their own malfunctioning satellites, why is India overlooked when it touts that it is developing the same technology for defensive and offensive military applications?

Is its technical prowess being underestimated? Does the Indian nation’s defiant actions pale in comparison to those of China, Iran and North Korea?

In the spring of 2000, an alarming report entitled “Military Dimensions in the Future of the Indian Presence in Space” caused waves within official circles but drew little international attention (probably due to its lack of availability outside of India). Perhaps most controversial was its suggestion that India could deploy a directed-energy weapon, such as a particle beam weapon, in space by 2010 and also a system referred to as the KALI (kinetic attack loitering interceptor). The paper’s author, Dr. V. Siddhartha, was at the time of the document’s publication an officer on special duty in the secretariat of the scientific adviser to the Defense Minister. The paper is testament to, at the very least, a clear interest within the Indian military of deploying not only a space-based laser, but also an ASAT system.

Over the past decade, there has been no shortage of inflammatory comments made by Indian military officials claiming India’s intent to weaponize space. There has also been no shortage of contradictions to these statements from India’s most senior government officials—oftentimes happening within days of one another. For example, on January 26, 2007, after China’s satellite shoot-down, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a joint press conference where Singh declared; “Our position is similar in that we are not in favor of the weaponization of outer space.” This was just one day after then-Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Shashi Tyagi stated, “As the reach of our air force is expanding, it has become extremely important that we exploit space, and for it you need space assets.” Actions speak louder than words, and unfortunately the Indian military is acting.  How long is the international community going to wait for India’s bold claims to materialize?

On January 3rd of 2010 at the 97th Indian Science Congress, Dr. V K Saraswat, director general of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, stated in a televised press conference that India was in the process of developing an ASAT system and that it is “working to ensure space security and protect our satellites.” He went on: “At the same time, we are also working on how to deny the enemy access to its space assets…India is putting together building blocks of technology that could be used to neutralize enemy satellites.” These building blocks, he stated, will be ready between 2012 and 2014. He added, “With the kill vehicle available and with the propulsion system of Agni-III, that can carry the missile up to 1,000 km altitude, we can reach the orbit in which the satellite is and it is well within our capability.” Testing on an interceptor missile with a range of 120-140 km will begin, he says, in September. All of this evidence points to the fact that, despite claims to the contrary, India is and has been unwavering in its desire to develop a space weapons system that could significantly destabilize the international security environment.

It has been 36 years since India broke trust with the international community with its first nuclear test. In 1998 U.S. sanctions were placed upon the country in response to more nuclear tests. When the Bush Administration lifted the aforementioned sanctions against India in the wake of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, and then progressively loosened export and commerce laws against India, it ignored many events that have taken place historically. To date, India has not signed on to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) or the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). It is also highly unlikely that India will subscribe to the treaty to Prevent an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS.)

At a time when the international spotlight seems trained on North Korea and Iran, a growing tolerance for India’s belligerence in building its nuclear and missile capabilities appears to shield it from similar scrutiny. Geographically, it is also comparable in its potential for volatility; South Asia is a highly volatile region—home to two nuclear weapons states, including India, that fought in multiple wars, the last taking place in 1999. In fact, since the Kargil War, India-Pakistan relations have not moved towards peace and remain highly unstable.

India has stated that it intends to deploy a space weapon by 2015, and a 5,000 km ICBM by 2011.  The Indian nation is currently acquiring missile defense technologies while simultaneously increasing its role as a leading importer and exporter of military technologies that will irreversibly alter the security balance not only in South Asia, but in the Middle East as well.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Indian counterpart S.M.

Krishna will meet in Washington this week to lay the groundwork for a visit to India that President Obama plans to make in November. Isn’t it time, at the very least, for the Obama Administration to reassess the US-India policies set by its predecessor?

Military Space Transparency Project

Director Matthew Hoey

Email: hoey@spacetransparency.org

Phone: 617.650.0255

3rd June 2010

 

SRINAGAR, June 12: The killing of Tufail Ahmad, a teenaged boy in police action at Gani Memorial Stadium is yet another indicator of the unabated killings of teenaged boys, continuing despite assurance of zero tolerance to human rights violations, in Kashmir.

These serial innocent killings have generated anguish and fear psychosis among the parents regarding the safety of their children under prevailing circumstances.

The situation at present is reminiscent to some extent of early 90s when people were reluctant to send their teenaged sons outside due to the fear that they may be arrested and killed by the security forces.

When the infamous “Operation Tiger,” by the security personnel, marking the beginning of organised fake encounters was started in early 90s, large number of boys were picked up and killed in custody during crackdowns

They included teenaged students from all over the valley particularly the old city of Srinagar. The incidents of fake encounters in Kashmir by security forces got exposed with Maroof Sultan’s case in 90s. He was one such intended target of fake encounter. Maroof was arrested by BSF while he was traveling in a bus which was stopped at Solina. Maroof was taken to the infamous Papa II interrogation centre where he was brutally tortured and then the security men brought him to Solina bund in the darkness during night and showered bullets on him. Believing him dead, the BSF men left him there and reported to Shergari Police Station that they had killed a militant in an encounter at Solina Bund and recovered a gun from his possession.

The BSF men then asked the cops to recover the body from the spot. As the police party immediately reached the spot they found Maroof alive and in a very critical condition. The injured boy was taken to hospital where he recovered after a long time to reveal the truth to the world.

Later, scores of Kashmiri boys fell prey to bullets in the fake encounters.

And now, the situation is almost taking the same turn. While the teenaged boys in the past were getting killed in crackdowns, now they fall victim to bullets during demonstrations.

“With demonstrations and subsequent police action being order of the day, I remain concerned about the safety of my son when he goes to school or some other work,” said Tehmeena, a housewife.

“On any tense day, my son returning home safe is a huge sigh of relief for me. Parents in the valley are apprehensive of the security of their children even when they go to school,” she added.

Sharing similar views, Abdul Ahad, a businessman, said, “The government must do something practical to address the sense of insecurity getting developed among the parents. Stopping of killing of the boys during demonstrations would be an important step in this direction.”

He viewed that mere promise of zero tolerance for human rights violations may impress those outside Kashmir but not the ones living in Kashmir. “The ground situation is that the zero tolerance does not exist at all. If it existed, then Tufail, Zahid, Wamiq and others would not have got killed,” Ahad said

Zahid was killed on Boulevard Road near Nishat when a BSF party opened fire on him.

Wamiq was killed near Gani Memorial Stadium while he was playing. He was killed by a smoke shell which hit his head. Even after his death, police booked him under attempt to murder case blaming him for pelting stones on cops. The charge was vehemently denied by the family of the deceased boy and eyewitness. Later the state government ordered a magisterial probe into Wamiq’s killing.

“Killing after killing of innocent children and the justification of such killings by the authorities, has all led to frustration among common people here. They do not believe the promises made by authorities for human rights,” said Muntazir Ahmad, a human rights activist.

By Bismah Malik

 

“We do not need to apologize for defending ourselves. The armada of hate and violence is merely one manifestation of the constant provocation Israel faces.”

(Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel)

Only a member of the Netanyahu Court could stand before the TV cameras of the world and see “hate and violence” in a shipment of wheelchairs, medical supplies and building materials destined for a people ravaged by the savagery of the 20008/2009 Christmas invasion of Gaza. This “Armada” of six boats, bloated into an invading force capable of destroying the British Navy, represents yet again the eternal threat that plagues the Zionist state, “the constant provocation” from the rest of the nations of the world to destroy the tiny democracy created for those who belong to their faith, victims once again.

And why? Doesn’t Israel simply want to defend itself as is the right of every nation? This too, this everlasting question hurled at the world as a justified reason for unwarranted violence, used yet again to impose its will in defiance of International Law that none can question lest they deny their right to self defense. How convenient, especially when no one in the world of nations knows where Israel is, what borders it possesses, what land is rightfully Israel’s, and by what authority that land was given to Israel. But apparently it can claim to defend itself in International waters against 700 civilians, legislators from many lands, peace activists that range in age from one year to 85, from Jews to Christians to Muslims to Atheists, from doctors to lawyers, to merchants to retired men and women, a flotilla of “hate and violence” set on destroying the peaceful state of Israel. A flotilla of mercy, a flotilla of absolute need since the people of Gaza have not only been ravaged by missiles and warships but by illegal weapons of vast devastation, including white phosphorus and depleted uranium, that cause excruciating, agonizing death and left, in the aftermath, to suffer behind locked gates bereft of medical supplies, equipment or the electricity to run the machines of life.

Lawrence Durrell describes a mournful, solitary scene in his guide to the landscape and people of the island of Corfu: “We carried him in his open box to the cemetery on the hill, and all the time this poetry was flowing out of Mother Hubbard in a continuous stream, keeping pace with her tears, for she really loved Taki.’

‘Was the coffin open?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that a religious custom of the island?’

‘No. But under the Turks it was a law to prevent the smuggling of arms in coffins under the pretence of carrying corpses to the grave. In some places it has lingered on among the superstitious.’”

The Turks have obviously moved on from those days centuries ago as they loaded the boat with its items of mercy and verified that process for the Israeli government, a government that has understood its relationship to be a good one, but not good enough to be trusted apparently. The Zionist state trusts no one, obeys no laws but its own, suffers no outsiders like the UN to witness its actions, and perhaps superstitiously or perhaps pathologically must maintain the sickness of victim hood in its citizens or lose their support. Above all, the Zionist government does nothing in the open except by mistake as it did in 2006 when it invaded Lebanon and in its Christmas gifts to the people of Gaza a year ago and hence dropped its hooded and heavily armed mercenaries onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara at 4am while the innocent slept and the darkness hid their insidious attack.

Following the attack on one of its own vessels, Turkey sought justice from the United Nations in the form of a statement “that would condemn Israel for violating international law, demand a UN investigation and demand that Israel prosecute those responsible for the raid and pay compensation to the victims” (The Salt Lake Tribune). But the Obama administration found reason to protect Israel against such a statement just as the Lyndon B. Johnson administration found reason to protect Israel when it attacked the American Naval vessel the USS Liberty 43 years ago, an attack of greater magnitude and consequence than the raid on the Freedom Flotilla, yet just as illegal, just as merciless, and just as revealing of true friendship among nations. To this day, the remaining sailors of that ship seek justice, not from the UN, but from their own representatives in our Congress who deny the attack or obsequiously grovel before the power of the Jewish lobbies that condemn those who condemn Israel for putting American sailors at risk, nay for killing American sailors with impunity, a blatant criminal act against their beloved friend, the United States of America.

What has Obama to fear that he too would capitulate to the demands of the Zionist sympathizers in Congress or his own administration? Have citizens of many countries no rights to sail in international waters to bring medical supplies to a besieged people, imprisoned now in collective punishment for three years, deprived of life’s basic needs by a nation that is among the wealthiest in the world, who live in luxury behind the walls they have erected to incarcerate a people that have no recognized government, no military, no control of their roads, their own housing needs, their own economy. And the world, it seems, supports the nation that creates this horrendous injustice because the President of the United States demands that those who lifted deck chairs to protect themselves from the armed and armored commandos dropped from the sky should be investigated for legal acts of self protection? What nonsense is this? Why does our President, like Johnson 43 years ago, cow-tow before the demands of men like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu? Consider that a broad array of countries demanded an independent investigation, not just Turkey. Consider the words of the Foreign Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu, who called the attack “tantamount to banditry and piracy’ it is murder conducted by a state.” Indeed, why do Americans tolerate a nation that attacks its own sailors, that watches as this administration pulls the FBI off of its investigation and prosecution of Israeli spying through AIPAC operatives, and refuses to demand justice for the murder of Rachel Corrie as she acted in true American spirit to protect those who could not protect themselves and suffered a cruel death by Israeli hands for her efforts?

What power does this rogue nation hold over our government? Let’s begin with the two favorite mantras that bind Israel to America: our only friend in the mid-east and the only democracy in the mid-east. Both are lies. Friends do not attack the ship of a friend, a ship that was virtually at the mercy of the US provided aircraft to the Israeli Air Force that pulverized the Liberty while the Israeli Navy attempted to sink the ship with a torpedo. Friends do not use the military weapons of the friend on the friend. Friends do not premeditatedly plan the sinking of a ship to force that friend to believe a lie so that it will enter a war on behalf of Israel against a nation, Egypt, which had done nothing to the United States. These are the actions of a criminal mind, a nation with a criminal mind. Friends do not plan out military attacks against innocent civilians who have devoted their time and money to bring life giving aid to others and demonstrated their true intent before the world’s nations by having their boats inspected only to have Israel not trust any nation but itself. Such actions do not protect the soldiers and sailors of the United States operating in the mid-east, they endanger them.

How democratic is this purported democracy? I’ve written about this subject before (see “Israeli Democracy: Fact or Fiction?”) and will not repeat myself. Let me note here a sample of a nation that does not act democratically as presented by Jonathan Cook, April 9, 2010, about a matter called the “Anat Kamm espionage affair.” Kamm provided hundreds of army documents to Uri Blau, a reporter for Haaretz, that revealed “systematic law-breaking by the Israeli high command operating in occupied Palestinian territories, including orders to ignore court rulings.” These were published. She now faces life imprisonment as does Blau, who was hiding in England in April. As Cook remarks, “In a properly democratic country, Kamm would have an honorable defense against the charges, of being a whistle-blower rather than a spy, and Blau would be winning journalism prizes, not hiding away in exile.” So much for freedom of speech, right to self-defense, and the public’s right to know the subterfuge of their government. One additional comment should suffice. Tzvia Greenfield makes this observation in her article “Israel’s Choice: Make Peace or Disappear.” “Israel … continues to control the Palestinians and the territories by force. And in order to maintain its Jewish identity, it also has no intention whatsoever of granting them equal civil rights. One does not have to be a critical intellectual to understand that this internal contradiction, in a state that considers itself advanced, Western and democratic, is untenable.” This nation is what our government claims is our only friend and our only democratic bastion in the mid-east. How pathetic.

Yet our President and our Secretary of State declare over and over again that they will defend Israel’s right to “self-defense.” Does that right include defense of the military systematically disobeying laws and the government’s intent to deny equal rights of citizens? Does it also include defense of lands confiscated by Israel or annexed illegally to Israel or declared military security land and wrested from the true owners? How does this nation justify theft by its truest friend and still declare that Palestinians have rights? Let’s have our government officials speak the truth so that we know the true state of our government.

Hypocritically, this is the regime the United States Department of State provides with billions of dollars worth of military weapons yearly that it uses in such illegal ways as the invasion of Gaza, declaring it was defending itself, when in fact it killed in one minute by one missile on the UN school more Gazan civilians than all the rockets fired legally from their occupied land by insurgents since 2000. And this is Israel’s only defense, its right to defend itself.

Who are the terrorists? Why does the United States defend this terrorist state? What laws does the US abide by? The laws as dictated by Israel or the laws as negotiated and agreed upon by the community of nations through the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. Why, if Israel has done no wrong in this latest of incidents, why does it not present its case before the ICJ and demonstrate to the world that it was right and the international community wrong? What has Israel to fear except the loss of fear by its citizens? And what we may ask does America have to gain by joining the united nations in their call, their demand for justice, an independent investigation (not one conducted by the Israeli military since they, argues our Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, P.J. Crowley, are the best to undertake such an investigation, because they are the most knowledgeable about the matter; how true and how absurd!) that can attest to the reliability of the Israeli accounts and assert whose rights were denied?

Why does Israel have such a difficult time existing without fear and victim hood in the mid-east? Perhaps the Zionist mindset that finds itself alienated from its brothers and sisters around the world because it has created a nation baptized in blood, stealth, theft, and deception must fear the unveiling of its lies and the eruption of the world’s communities to the injustice it has inflicted on the hapless Palestinians and continues to inflict by cementing them behind massive walls of fear and depriving them of a modicum of compassion and brotherly love. Perhaps it is time for Israel to consider that to fester as a boil inside the mid-east, distrusted and isolated, bodes ill for their future and the future of their best friend, the United States, that has supported them blindly these past 63 years. Perhaps for the sake of that friendship they might consider justice for the Palestinians and peace for the world.

By William A. Cook

While the Indian Government considers deploying the army and air force to quell the rebellion in the countryside, strange things are happening in the cities.

On the 2nd of June the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) held a public meeting in Mumbai. The main speakers were Gautam Navlakha, editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly and myself. The press was there in strength. The meeting lasted for more than three hours. It was widely covered by the print media and TV. On June 3rd, several newspapers, TV channels and online news portals like Rediff.com, covered the event quite accurately. The Times of India (Mumbai edition), had an article headlined “We need an idea that is neither Left nor Right”, and the Hindu’s article was headlined “Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?” The recording of the meeting is up on YouTube.

The day after the meeting, the Press Trust of India (PTI) put out a brazenly concocted account of what I had said.

The PTI report was first posted by the Indian Express online on June 3rd 2010 at 13.35 pm. The headline said: “Arundhati backs Maoists, dares authorities to arrest her.” Here are some excerpts:

“Author Arundhati Roy has justified the armed resistance by Maoists and dared the authorities to arrest her for supporting their cause.”

“The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence. But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis.” (?)

“It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle,” Roy, who had saluted the “people of Dantewada” after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Maoists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces. “‘I am on this side of line. I do not care…pick me up put me in jail,’ she asserted.”

Let me begin with the end of the report. The suggestion that I saluted “the people of Dantewada” after the Maoists killed 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a piece of criminal defamation. I have made it quite clear in an interview on CNN-IBN that I viewed the death of the CRPF men as tragic, and that I thought they were pawns in a war of the rich against the poor. What I said at the meeting in Mumbai was that I was contemptuous of the hollow condemnation industry the media has created and that as the war went on and the violence spiraled, it was becoming impossible to extract any kind of morality from the atrocities committed by both sides, so an atrocity-based analysis was a meaningless exercise. I said that I was not there to defend the killing of ordinary people by anybody, neither the Maoists nor the government, and that it was important to ask what the CRPF was doing with 27 AK-47s, 38 INSAS, 7 SLRs, 6 light machine guns, one stengun and a two-inch mortar in tribal villages. If they were there to wage war, then being railroaded into condemning the killing of the CRPF men by the Maoists meant being railroaded into coming down on the side of the Government in a war that many of us disagreed with.

The rest of the PTI report was a malicious, moronic mish-mash of what transpired at the meeting. My views on the Maoists are clear. I have written at length about them. At the meeting I said that the people’s resistance against the corporate land grab consisted of a bandwidth of movements with different ideologies, of which the Maoists were the most militant end. I said the government was labeling every resistance movement, every activist, ‘Maoist’ in order to justify dealing with them in repressive, military fashion. I said the government had expanded the meaning of the word ‘Maoist’ to include everybody who disagreed with it, anybody who dared to talk about justice. I drew attention to the people of Kalinganagar and Jagatsinghpur who were waging peaceful protests but were living under siege, surrounded by hundreds of armed police, were being lathi-charged and fired at. I said that local people thought long and hard before deciding what strategy of resistance to adopt. I spoke of how people who lived deep inside forest villages could not resort to Gandhian forms of protest because peaceful satyagraha was a form of political theatre that in order to be effective, needed a sympathetic audience, which they did not have. I asked how people who were already starving could go on hunger strikes. I certainly never said anything like “it ought to be an armed movement.” (I’m not sure what on earth that means.)

I went on to say that all the various resistance movements today, regardless of their differences, understood that they were fighting a common enemy, so they were all on one side of the line, and that I stood with them. But from this side of the line, instead of only asking the government questions, we should ask ourselves some questions. Here are my exact words:

“I think it is much more interesting to interrogate the resistance to which we belong, I am on this side of the line. I am very clear about that. I don’t care, pick me up, and put me in jail. I am on this side of the line. But on this side of the line, we must turn around and ask our comrades questions.”

I then said that while Gandhian methods of resistance were not proving to be effective, Gandhian movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan had a radical and revolutionary vision of “development” and while the Maoists methods of resistance were effective, I wondered whether they had thought through the kind of “development” they wanted. Apart from the fact that they were against the Government selling out to private corporations, was their mining policy very different from state policy? Would they leave the bauxite in the mountain – which is what the people who make up their cadre want, or would they mine it when they came to power?

I read out Pablo Neruda’s “Standard Oil Company” that tells us what an old battle this one is.

The PTI reporter who had made it a point to take permission from the organizers to record cannot claim his or her version to be a matter of ‘interpretation’. It is blatant falsification. Surprisingly the one-day-old report was published by several newspapers in several languages and broadcast by TV channels on June 4th, many of whose own reporters had covered the event accurately the previous day and obviously knew the report to be false. The Economic Times said: “Publicity seeking Arundhati Roy wants to be Aung San Su Kyi”. I’m curious – why would newspapers and TV channels want to publish the same news twice, once truthfully and then falsely?

That same evening (June 4th), at about seven O’clock, two men on a motorcycle drove up to my home in Delhi and began hurling stones at the window. One stone nearly hit a small child playing on the street. Angry people gathered and the men fled. Within minutes, a Tata Indica arrived with a man who claimed to be a reporter from Zee TV, asking if this was “Arundhati Roy’s house” and whether there had been trouble. Clearly this was a set up, a staged display of ‘popular anger’ to be fed to our barracuda-like TV channels. Fortunately for me, that evening their script went wrong. But there was more to come. On June 5th the Dainik Bhaskar in Raipur carried a news item “Himmat ho to AC kamra chhod kar jungle aaye Arundhati” (If she has the guts Arundhati should leave her airconditioned room and come to the jungle) in which Vishwaranjan, the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh challenged me to face the police by joining the Maoists in the forest. Imagine that- the police DGP and me, Man to Man. Not to be outdone, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Chhattisgarh, Ms Poonam Chaturvedi announced to the press that I should be shot down at a public crossroad, and that other traitors like me should be given the death sentence. (Perhaps someone should tell her that this sort of direct incitement to violence is an offense under the Indian Penal Code.) Mahendra Karma, Chief of the murderous ‘peoples’ militia the Salwa Judum which is guilty of innumerable acts of rape and murder, asked for legal action to be taken against me. On Tuesday June 8th the Hindi daily Nayi Duniya reported that complaints have been filed against me in two separate police stations in Chhattisgarh, Bhata Pada and Teli Bandha, by private individuals objecting to my “open support for the Maoists.

Is this what Military Intelligence calls psyops (psychological operations)? Or is it the urban avatar of Operation Green Hunt? In which a government news agency helps the home-ministry to build up a file on those it wants to put away, inventing evidence when it can’t find any? Or is PTI trying to deliver the more well-known among us to the lynch mob so that the government does not have to risk its international reputation by arresting or eliminating us? Or is it just a way of forcing a crude polarization, a ridiculous dumbing down of the debate-if you’re not with “us” you are a Maoist? Not just a Maoist, but a stupid, arrogant, loudmouthed Maoist. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous, and shameless, but it isn’t new. Ask any Kashmiri, or any young Muslim being held as a “terrorist” without any evidence except baseless media reports. Ask Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death to “satisfy the collective conscience of society.”

Now that Operation Green Hunt has begun to knock on the doors of people like myself, imagine what’s happening to activists and political workers who are not well known. To the hundreds that are being jailed, tortured and eliminated. June 26th is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Emergency. Perhaps the Indian people should declare (because the government certainly won’t) that this country is in a state of Emergency. (On second thoughts, did it ever go away?) This time censorship is not the only problem. The manufacture of news is an even more serious one.

By Arundhati Roy

 

General Stanley McChrystal wasn’t fired for the name calling and sarcasm in the recent Rolling Stone article, or for a lack of military decorum and good discipline. He was fired for telling the truth about the mission in Afghanistan in a statement he made in March.

“We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.” This statement is the most embarrassing and potentially crippling to Obama’s AFPAK effort, for it brings attention to how badly the war is going with a focus on the killing of innocent people.

McChrystal’s statement is candid admission of the futility and failure of the so called counter-insurgency campaign. Troops are supposed to be protecting more civilians by defending them and their villages, but with the price of that security coming in part from paying off warlords, and an Afghan military with shifting allegiances, the resulting chaos ensures lots of innocents who happen to look like the ”insurgents” are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And with simultaneous JSOC missions and drone attacks and bombardments, the human debris of collateral damage is piling up.

It’s a big enough pile to bury McChrystal and move in Petreaus, ostensibly to make the “surge” work. But it could also bring more public attention to, and scrutiny of, the US/NATO mission in South Asia.

Are recent Pentagon press releases about vast, untapped mineral reserves in Afghanistan, the timing of which is probably no coincidence, an attempt to put a positive, albeit mercenary spin on our involvement in the region?

Interestingly, earlier this month, before the McChrystal incident, we witnessed General David Petraeus’s fainting episode at a Senate Armed Services hearing on progress in Afghanistan. Dehydration was blamed but was his syncope also his body’s reaction to some very bad back channel news he had just received regarding the PR disaster in Afghanistan and the imminent firing of McChrystal?

Was McChrystal’s published candor regarding the truth of the situation just irresponsible verbal meanderings or were they words he mouthed from a script DoD prepared to reverse the spin kick-started by his boots on the ground?

Let his own words from the statement in March further illuminate, and give perspective to, what likely got the Commander of NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces, Afghanistan sacked:

“I do want to say something that everyone understands. We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there’s danger, they’re asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn’t mean I’m criticizing the people who are executing. I’m just giving you perspective.”

Sources:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/gen_mcchrystal_weve_shot_an_amazing_number_of_peop.php

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127839824

 

 

In response to the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla on Monday, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khomeini issued a statement on Tuesday in which he strongly condemned Israel’s blatant disregard of human rights and flagrant breach of international law.

Following is an excerpt of Ayatollah Khomeini’s statement:

The outrageous attack the Zionist regime conducted on the humanitarian aid flotilla represents another link in the chain of numerous crimes this wicked regime has committed and which the seventh decade of its ignoble existence is filled with.

This is an example of the brutal acts of violence that Muslims in this region and the Palestinian people in particular have endured for decades.

The aid flotilla was not an Islamic or Arab convoy. Rather it represented international public opinion and humanity’s conscience in general. This outrageous attack provides irrefutable proof that Zionism is the new face of fascism and that it is being helped by the so-called upholders of human rights and freedom.

The United States, Britain, France, and some other European governments are rendering political, economic, military, and media assistance to this born criminal and constantly lend their support to its atrocities.

What does the three-year blockade of food and medicine imposed on 1.5 million Palestinian men, women, and children actually mean? How are the massacre, imprisonment, and daily torture of young Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank justified?

Palestine is no longer an Arab issue. It is not even an Islamic issue any more. Rather, it is the most important human rights issue of the modern world.

The symbolic act of dispatching humanitarian assistance convoys to Gaza should be repeated in dozens of other forms and shapes. The bloodthirsty Zionist regime and its supporters should sense the indomitable power of awakened human consciousness across the globe.

The Arab nations are facing a difficult test. The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League should not be satisfied with anything less than a complete lifting of the blockade of Gaza, a total freeze in construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and prosecution of war criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak.

The Palestinian people should also know that their evil enemy is weaker and more vulnerable than ever before. Divine providence is premised upon the fact that wicked criminals determine their own destiny and bring themselves to their demise with their own hands.

Brothers and sisters of Palestine, put your trust and faith in God, believe in your power, and know that the ultimate victory is yours

02 June 2010

Statement by Ayatollah Khomeini

On the high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor; the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers…

The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.

But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. “This is a provocation!” he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade.

What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price.

Many believe that the “Exodus” incident was the turning point in the struggle for the creation of the State of Israel. Britain collapsed under the weight of international condemnation and decided to give up its mandate over Palestine. There were, of course, many more weighty reasons for this decision, but the “Exodus” proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I am not the only one who was reminded of this episode this week. Actually, it was almost impossible not to be reminded of it, especially for those of us who lived in Palestine at the time and witnessed it.

There are, of course, important differences. Then the passengers were Holocaust survivors, this time they were peace activists from all over the world. But then and now the world saw heavily armed soldiers brutally attack unarmed passengers, who resist with everything that comes to hand, sticks and bare hands. Then and now it happened on the high seas – 40 km from the shore then, 65 km now.

In retrospect, the British behavior throughout the affair seems incredibly stupid. But Bevin was no fool, and the British officers who commanded the action were not nincompoops. After all, they had just finished a World War on the winning side.

If they behaved with complete folly from beginning to end, it was the result of arrogance, insensitivity and boundless contempt for world public opinion.

Ehud Barak is the Israeli Bevin. He is not a fool, either, nor is our top brass. But they are responsible for a chain of acts of folly, the disastrous implications of which are hard to assess. Former minister and present commentator Yossi Sarid called the ministerial “committee of seven”, which decides on security matters, “seven idiots” – and I must protest. It is an insult to idiots.

THE PREPARATIONS for the flotilla went on for more than a year. Hundreds of e-mail messages went back and forth. I myself received many dozens. There was no secret. Everything was out in the open.

There was a lot of time for all our political and military institutions to prepare for the approach of the ships. The politician consulted. The soldiers trained. The diplomats reported. The intelligence people did their job.

Nothing helped. All the decisions were wrong from the first moment to this moment. And it’s not yet the end.

The idea of a flotilla as a means to break the blockade borders on genius. It placed the Israeli government on the horns of a dilemma – the choice between several alternatives, all of them bad. Every general hopes to get his opponent into such a situation.

The alternatives were:

To let the flotilla reach Gaza without hindrance. The cabinet secretary supported this option. That would have led to the end of the blockade, because after this flotilla more and larger ones would have come.

As our governments have always done, when faced with the choice between several bad alternatives, the Netanyahu government chose the worst.

Anyone who followed the preparations as reported in the media could have foreseen that they would lead to people being killed and injured. One does not storm a Turkish ship and expect cute little girls to present one with flowers. The Turks are not known as people who give in easily.

The orders given to the forces and made public included the three fateful words: “at any cost”. Every soldier knows what these three terrible words mean. Moreover, on the list of objectives, the consideration for the passengers appeared only in third place, after safeguarding the safety of the soldiers and fulfilling the task.

If Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff and the commander of the navy did not understand that this would lead to killing and wounding people, then it must be concluded – even by those who were reluctant to consider this until now – that they are grossly incompetent. They must be told, in the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

THIS EVENT points again to one of the most serious aspects of the situation: we live in a bubble, in a kind of mental ghetto, which cuts us off and prevents us from seeing another reality, the one perceived by the rest of the world. A psychiatrist might judge this to be the symptom of a severe mental problem.

The propaganda of the government and the army tells a simple story: our heroic soldiers, determined and sensitive, the elite of the elite, descended on the ship in order “to talk” and were attacked by a wild and violent crowd. Official spokesmen repeated again and again the word “lynching”.

On the first day, almost all the Israeli media accepted this. After all, it is clear that we, the Jews, are the victims. Always. That applies to Jewish soldiers, too. True, we storm a foreign ship at sea, but turn at once into victims who have no choice but to defend ourselves against violent and incited anti-Semites.

It is impossible not to be reminded of the classic Jewish joke about the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”

“But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?”

“You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?”

To any normal person, this may sound crazy. Heavily armed soldiers of an elite commando unit board a ship on the high seas in the middle of the night, from the sea and from the air – and they are the victims?

Somewhere, a new Leon Uris is planning to write his next book, “Exodus 2010”. A new Otto Preminger is planning a film that will become a blockbuster. A new Paul Newman will star in it – after all, there is no shortage of talented Turkish actors.

MORE THAN 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson declared that every nation must act with a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Israeli leaders have never accepted the wisdom of this maxim. They adhere to the dictum of David Ben-Gurion: “It is not important what the Gentiles say; it is important what the Jews do.” Perhaps he assumed that the Jews would not act foolishly.

Making enemies of the Turks is more than foolish. For decades, Turkey has been our closest ally in the region, much more closer than is generally known. Turkey could play, in the future, an important role as a mediator between Israel and the Arab-Muslim world, between Israel and Syria, and, yes, even between Israel and Iran. Perhaps we have succeeded now in uniting the Turkish people against us – and some say that this is the only matter on which the Turks are now united.

This is Chapter 2 of “Cast Lead”. Then we aroused most countries in the world against us, shocked our few friends and gladdened our enemies. Now we have done it again and perhaps with even greater success. World public opinion is turning against us.

This is a slow process. It resembles the accumulation of water behind a dam. The water rises slowly, quietly, and the change is hardly noticeable. But when it reaches a critical level, the dam bursts and the disaster is upon us. We are steadily approaching this point.

“Kill a Turk and rest,” the mother says in the joke. Our government does not even rest. It seems that they will not stop until they have made enemies of the last of our friends.

(Parts of this article were published in Ma’ariv, Israel’s second largest newspaper.)

By Uri Avnery