No Negotiation

The ceasefire today, while desperately needed to get medical and other aid to Palestinians, should not be taken as any kind of compassion on Israel's part.

The unilateral ceasefire reinforces what was already made clear by the pullout of Gaza: there is no negotiation. It is how Israel says, when it says. In 2005, despite the show the Kadima party made for peace, going ahead with the Gaza pullout against much opposition, it was not a sign for peace. It was a sign, among the latest and among the clearest, that this is on their terms. This ceasefire being the latest.

Hamas (and much of the international community) has been trying to get a ceasefire called since the beginning of the aggression, and actually was in favor of continuing the previous ceasefire, which, need it be reminded, was broken by Israel on November 4th.

Why has Israel called the ceasefire? Why now? Not because it has achieved its stated objectives, of destroying Hamas or stopping the rockets, though they are claiming that as of last week, international agreements have been made to stop arming Hamas. Of course, not breaking the previous ceasefire would have been an option to preemptively stopping the rockets (yet with no deaths - strange what diplomacy can do). And actually honoring the terms of that agreement and lifting the blockade on Gaza would have been nice too. But I guess the Palestinians are just supposed to accept whatever crumbs the leaders of Israel are willing to throw their way.

It certainly was that way throughout the Oslo peace process. It lurched from undefined time table to another with the backdrop of increased settlements, as Palestinians accepted limited sovreignty in a limited number of towns, separated from one another by Israeli-controlled roads and checkpoints.

It was that way also during the Israel-Egypt peace, when Sadat acquiesed to all of Begin's demands, giving up any mention of the Palestinians. It should also be noted that this peace was made to avoid the voices that had been calling for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

Just as today the Arab peace offer has been constantly ignored by the Israelis. It is not on their terms. It may offer full recognition and normalization of relations with Arab countries, but apparently Israel would prefer to declare peace on their time, rather than negotiate it. And among the consequences of the Gaza "campaign" is taking the peace talks with Syria right off the table. Whew - that was a close one. Who can blame them really, when as we all know negotiating is an ugly process - one might be forced to give up something in exchange for something else. No, better to rest on the assurance that as long as America has its back, Israel can do whatever the fuck it wants, ignoring the international opprobrium.

I'm glad the Israeli forces are pulling back, and the bombing campaigns are stopping, and maybe the people of Gaza will have some time to breath and start rebuilding. But there will be no peace and there will be no negotiation.

Over 1,000 Palestinian Dead

Since the aggression against Gaza began, we have been watching the numbers of dead and injured climb while hearing the increasingly riduculous and disgusting justifications. I don't even the NY Times articles about Gaza anymore. The best news source by far is al-Jazeera. From the first day they have been in Gaza, reporting live.

But everyday we watch less. The first few days it was constant. Now, we switch to news for updates occaisonally. I can't take more dead and wounded children. Arabic television is much more graphic than American tv; there is no sanitizing war. The cameras show tiny bodies wrapped in shawls, parents wailing, people with horrible injuries.

I haven't written much about Gaza because I really don't feel I can add anything that hasn't been stated more eloquently elsewhere. The information is out there: Israel broke the ceasefire on Nov 4. The climbing dead and wounded. Hamas wants a ceasefire. Israel doesn't, as Kadima wants to look tough before elections. How many dead will be enough? And it's not as if anything I write will convince some one set against it. On the Palestinian issue, it's rare that logic or compassion actually changes anyone's mind. The response to the enormous loss of life is "What if New York / Seattle / Dublin / Toronto / Houston / etc was fired upon daily? Wouldn't you respond if everything you've got?" Of course the counteranalogy, what if your family was forced off of its land 60 years ago into a tiny strip of land, then punished for its democratic choice by months and months of midevil seige while food and medicine ran out and then bombarded by one of the world's most technologically advanced armies? That, apparently, does not occur to American politicians because they can see themselves as Israelis, but not as Palestinians.

I have also seen some criticism of the world response to Gaza, compared to the relative silence on Congo, Darfur, and Somalia. Ideally, media and world should respond to all of these crises, though the intranational nature of these conflicts is much more complicated then: Israel - Stop bombing the fuck out of Gaza! While some of this coverage inequality may be due to racism, as well as the news cycle (Gaza is fresher), as an American I see why American media SHOULD respond to Gaza more - those are our bombs killing Palestinians. It makes me sick to watch the news, then read about American politicians' steadfastness to Israel. We will continue to support the killing of a defenseless population. We will continue giving lip service to "peace" that asks of the Palestinians consessions on top of all they have endured and rewards Israel for its blatant violation of past agreements by excising illegal settlements out of the Palestinian state.

That is all. Tomorrow more amusing anecdotes.

Defending Itself

Why is the blockade of Gaza and military incursions always compared to the damn rockets? As if they are morally equivalent? As if they are anywhere on the same scale? The New York Times describes the bombing as "retaliation for rocket fire from the area".

"The Palestinian groups again launched barrages of rockets and mortars into Israel on Sunday, extending their reach further than ever before, and the Israeli government approved the emergency call up of thousands of army reservists in preparation for a possible ground operation."

and later: "Israeli military officials said that the airstrikes, which began on Saturday morning, were the start of what could be days or even months of an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel."

That makes it sound somewhat similar! In fact, it's as if the Israelis are only responding or even retaliating for this horrible barrage of rockets.

Currently around 280 Palestinians dead, with at least 600 wounded. "Several Israelis were lightly wounded by shrapnel."

Yup, sounds about equivalent.

More on Attack

Um Tariq and I went to the site in the afternoon. Jaramana is not far from where car bomb went off, which is on my daily work commute. We walked there.

The bomb went off at the Saida Zeinab offramp of the highway, near the big signs for Tariq bin Ziad greeting cards. Even the earliest reports I saw fixated on how Sayda Zeinab is a Shi'i shrine and packed with Iranian tourists. It was early so news items were three short paragraphs, with one describing Sayda Zeinab and its significance and the type of pilgrims that usually come. The NYTimes for example, describes the bombing as "close to a major Shiite shrine". Then again they are reporting from Beirut, not Damascus.

Based on where the bomb actually went off, this doesn't seem that relevant to me. The offramp from the highway is still a couple miles away from Saida Zeinab. Riding a servees to Sitt Zeinab, you still have a good 15 minutes after taking this exit before actually reaching the town, with the shrine a bit further. But perhaps the American news is so used to reporting everything from this part of the world in terms of Shi'i, Sunni they thought it must be significant. The car bomb went off, geographically, much closer to Mughayyam Jeramana (Palestinian) and Jeramana (Druze and Iraqi) but none of that was mentioned in the reports.

At the site, all of the nearby apartments had busted out windows. There were a lot of parked cars around, most of which had busted out windows as well. There was glass everywhere and even little parts of car that had missed being swept up. The bomb warped nearby shops and destroyed part of a wall that apparently is a mukhabarat building, which workers were already rebuilding. The nearby school didn't look that damaged. There was a crowd of people standing around, one guy showing pictures of the smoke and fire afterwards on his cell phone to others. Um Tariq started talking to a woman who lives there. She said they first thought it was an earthquake this morning, then they saw the smoke.

Several people there said they saw the police arresting people on the site soon after the explosion. They said no one was in the car when it exploded.

Despite reading foreign reports that said the explosion happened at 8:45, the woman at the scene and all my neighbors and friends who heard it go off said it happened at about 20 to 8.

Syria news that night had an official statement from the president calling the terrorists cowards, which was repeated often throughout the broadcast. There were also interviews with the wounded in the hospital. One had been on his way to work and described seeing a car drive up onto the sidewalk, which he thought strange, and then it exploded. There were other wounded, one of whom called whoever did it "not human". It is stupid for some (ahem Daniel Pipes) in the West to criticize "moderate" Muslims for not denouncing terrorism. They are freaking denouncing! If your head wasn't up your own ass maybe you would hear! Some of the injured had been praying in the nearby mosque and got hit when leaving. It was Leilat al-Qadr, the celebration of the Quran's first relevation. Many people spend all night in a mosque, praying and reading the Quran (like Um Tariq. She invited me but I was sleepy. And not Muslim).

The report thanked God that it was Saturday, a sentiment repeated often as well. Saturday is weekend, not a schoolday, so the nearby technical and electrical engineering college and the very nearby school was closed. The school would have had something like 1000 students (I forget what the news said). While the damage was not apparent from the outside, TV cameras showed the inside, with doors knocked down, glass all over the floor, walls warped. Almost everyone interviewed, including the injured in the hospital thanked God it was not a schoolday.

Car Bomb

Car bomb exploded this morning in Damascus around 8am, where the highway meets Airport Road. Killed 17 and wounded 14, civilians. While I was sleeping, some of my friends heard it and Sale7 said he saw the smoke from his apartment. The Syrian Interior Minister on Al-Arabiyya blamed it on terrorists.

Muslims to Potentially Call for the Blood of Obama

Obama just can't win.

First he was criticized for being too "in" with the Muslims. He was accused of being one, of being indoctrinated at an Islamic madrassa in Indonesia, of expressing sympathy for the Palestinians, and for the endorsements of Hamas. While Obama has replied by shoring up his "I love Jesus" cred and declaring himself no less a friend of Israel than Clinton, the insinuations continue.

Now, an op-ed in the New York Times goes the other way: Obama would piss the shit out of Muslims. The author, Edward N. Luttwak of the conservative thinktank Center for Strategic and International Studies, begins by benignly praising Obama's charisma and well-organized campaign - this so we know that what follows isn't an attack on Obama, just fact.

Theoretically speaking, Luttwak posits, Muslims the world over would demand Obama's blood, should he become president.

What? Oh, I'm sorry, Luttwak's position is a bit more nuanced:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslin under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant...

Wow! who knew that you could be born Muslim? However do the babies say the shahada? As far as I know, Obama has never had said the shahada (profession of faith), and therefore has never even been Muslim. Islam is not a religion; not a race.

Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the the Arabic as "apostasy," but with the connotations of rebellion and treason.

Oh my god you're using Arabic! And well enough to scoff at simple translations of "ridda", since you know the connotations as well! Bravo! But, since Obama has never actually been Muslim - can he really be an apostate?

Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit... the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric... It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries to no mandate execution for apostasy.

But that last part doesn't matter because we all know that Muslims are thirsting for blood no matter what the criminal codes of their countries say! He goes on to mention two famous cases of apostates: an Iranian man in 1994 and an Afghani man in 2006. Luttwak does allow that even Iran or Saudi Arabia would probably not prosecute President Obama, but

...another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing. At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

Right. The incredibly lengthy and seemingly unending election has not provided opportunity enough to get to know this new guy - despite the fact that al-Jazeera has been inundated with coverage of the race, which is only displaced by news from Gaza or Lebanon. And naturally, Obama's being an "apostate" would hurt America's war on terror and rapport with the Muslim world more than the man who started a war, calling it a "crusade," and is overflowing with love for Israel. As for exporting democracy and human rights abroad - I don't think the US could be doing much worse than currently, so why not try the apostate?

The worst part about this article is that is sees the "Muslim world" as a vast monolith, mentioning only Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan to represent this massive and diverse region. The Muslims themselves are not individual people, with the ability to say, measure a man's supposed apostate-ness versus his policy in deciding whether or not to stone him, but a herd of sheep expected to bleat hatred once the secret is out. It is obvious that Luttwak has not spoken to a single Muslim, but who needs to when scripture tells you everything you need to know about the adherents of a religion?

While Syria is not representative of every Muslim country, every person I've talked to here about the American election is now solidly behind Obama. They note his international background, how he wants to pull troops out of Iraq, and his being black, which I'm told "is a good step for America". A few people have told me that they hope his having Muslim family in Kenya means he will be less biased against Muslims than the current administration. In Tunisia, another, very different Muslim country, I only spoke on the subject with two people, when they brought it up, asking me if I was going to vote Obama since they want him to win.

But what do I know? I'm no thinktank. So take your pick: either Obama is too sympathetic to The Muslims (and thus, terror) or he's going to cause them to all go batshit insane and hurt the wonderful democracy-spreading America's been up to lately. Either one is obviously a valid reason to Vote McCain.

A Realistic Fear

There's a profile on Chris Matthews, very loud pundit on CNBC, in the New York Times Magazine, which includes this interesting travel wish:

As we approached the airport gate, Matthews mentioned that he and his wife, Kathleen, have been contemplating a trip to Damascus. It’s something they have wanted to do for a long time. But he worries that he might make an inviting target for a kidnapper. “I can imagine getting some big-name media figure would be a big propaganda catch for them,” Matthews said. “You can imagine what the neocons would say if I were kidnapped. They’d be like, ‘See, Matthews, terrorism isn’t so funny now, is it?’ ”

What? When was the last time anyone got kidnapped in Damacus? Who does that? I sent out an email to his show inviting him to come to Damascus where many Americans and other foreigners go days without being kidnapped. But I guess we aren't big-name media figures like Mr. Matthews.

Please Jesus Don't Let Giuliani Win

I've been following the election, though from afar, since it turns out a vote in the Michigan democratic primary will be useless (to punish the state for moving up its primary date, all the democrats pulled out). But I absolutely cannot believe the Republicans that have been dredged up this year. Especially Giuliani.

His New Ad:

OH MY GOD! The middle east is full of people who look middle-easternish and they are angry and Muslim!! Poor Pakistan, at whom many of these references appear to be directed. Haven't we had enough of Bush and lumping everyone in the "Middle East" - an ever-expanding region which has almost reached Cambodia, I think - into a scary group of terrorists?

I hope so. Rudy 2008: Fear is More Effective than Policy or Rudy 2008: Let's Just Bomb Fucking Everybody!

(Click if that thing up there isn't working)

Douchebaggery! Thomas L. Friedman

In honor of Independence Day, a reminder that free speech extends to douchebags:
The incomparable Thomas Friedman in his Wednesday column found it necessary to comment on the recent attempted terror attacks in England.

Describing the chaos, two bombs, and "Allah," he queries the reader "Where was I? Baghdad? Kabul? Tel Aviv?" You know, scary places. "No, I was in England." Holy shit! Terrorism? In England? Impossible gov'ner! "But it could have been anywhere. The Middle East: now playing at a theatre new you."

The overwrought drama aside (and his inclusion of Kabul in the "Middle East") this doesn't even make sense. Terrorism is apparently a new, exported Middle Eastern thing, like the hookah bars popping up everywhere. We can easily find incidences of terrorism in England's history that don't have to do with Muslims, or even the Middle East- several involving a little organization called the IRA. When there's a Tamil Tiger attack in Sri Lanka, is that the Middle East? What about Marxist rebels in Nepal? If shit blows up anywhere in the world is that the Middle East playing?

God no, of course not. Friedman clears that up for us: only if Muslims are involved. Looking at several events in the past couple years and the disparate identities of the terrorists, their disparate aims and methods, yet their common espoused religion, he concludes that these Muslims are fucking crazy and no one in the Muslim world is condemning it. Why are these Muslims angry? They think their religion is right and are all pissed off about the prosperity of non-Muslims. "This creates a real dissonance and humiliation. How could this be? Who did this to us?" Variation on a theme, similar to Bernard Lewis, that "They hate us because of who were are, not what we do."

First of all, Juan Cole has already dealt with this: there are denunciations of terror from Muslims - important ones too. Second, every religion thinks it's right to the exclusion of all others. Third, why can't Muslims or Middle Easterners (cause it's all the same, right?) be pissed off about real political events or policy? For example, cutting off aid to the Palestinian people when they elect a government we don't like. Or maybe, the Iraq war.

Silly me, Thomas Friedman is right. Muslims are crazy motherfuckers who hate us for our freedom- I mean our prosperity/their poverty/our porn/the Crusades, and if not lovers of terrorism, then at least chill with it. Otherwise, Muslims would condemn it, and Thomas L. Friedman says they don't. And he wears the moustache of truth.