Alan Dershowitz : Plague upon society

Alan Dershowitz in a recent Jerusalem Post article argues that Israel has the right to defend itself under UN Law. He states:

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter guarantees its members “the inherent right to…individual self defense” against “an armed attack.” In January 2006, Hamas was elected to govern the Palestinian Authority. After Israel ended its occupation of Gaza and removed all of its settlers, Hamas threw the Palestinian Authority out of the Gaza and assumed de facto as well as de jure control over the entire Gaza Strip.

Notice that he fails to mention the role of the United States in this takeover of Gaza by Hamas, an action that would have never happened if the US had obeyed the UN Charter.

He goes on to say :

At first these rockets were Kassams with a relatively short range. Now they include Katyushas, which can reach Israel’s large cities, including Ashkelon, with its population of 120,000 civilians. Hamas has officially declared that its policy is to develop or smuggle even longer range missiles capable of reaching Israel’s largest city Tel Aviv and its lifeblood, Ben Gurion Airport. It has promised to keep aiming its missiles at civilian targets until the Jewish state is finally destroyed.

If this is not an “armed attack” under Article 51, then I don’t know what is. The only argument against it being an armed attack is that rocketing civilian population centers, as Hamas is doing, is a war-crime. International law prohibits, even during a declared war, the deliberate targeting of civilians or the bombing of areas of civilian population centers with absolutely no military significance.

In the last Israeli incursion 120 people were killed, over half were civilians. In some cases civilians were killed in areas where there was no militant action. Israel also shut off utilities to Gaza for a period of two weeks and has only recently lifted restrictions to allow medicine and electricity. Both the killings of civilians and the collective punishment of 1.5 millions residents are war crimes. Where is Mr. Dershowitz on these actions?

The military wing of Hamas is in fact a terrorist organization, as the Untied States and the European Community have recognized. But since Hamas is in political and military control of the liberated Gaza Strip, the military wing of Hamas is also the official army of that government, as Hamas itself has proclaimed.

What then are Israel’s rights under international law, under the law of war, under historical precedents and under various treaties and human rights concepts? What have, and what would, other nations whose cities and towns were attacked by enemy rockets do? Israel certainly has the right to counterattack its enemy, destroy its capacity to fire rockets and engage in “belligerent reprisal.”

The same could have been said of the Irgun, Stern and Haganah, three groups which were terrorist entities during the British Mandate but were seen by their constituents as valid political entities. After events like the King David Hotel Bombing and the Massacre at Deir Yassin these terrorist groups became the Israeli government and streets were named after them. Ben Gurion, a war criminal, has an airport (as Alan pointed out) named after him.

For a Harvard Graduate Mr. Dershowitz really doesn’t do much research into his articles (or books for that matter). How can he blame one side of a conflict for the same crimes which founded and continue to support the nation he defends so strongly (even more strongly than his country of citizenship). Moreover why is it acceptable for Israel to commit war crimes?

Mr. Dershowitz does do one thing to silence his critics, not even half way through the article he says :

But war-crimes may also constitute an armed attack: Hitler’s invasion of Poland was both, as the Nuremberg Tribunal determined. If anything, an armed attack that is also a war crime justifies the right of self-defense even more than a mere armed attack.

This is a prime example of Godwins Law . The law basically states that, when you have no argument and all hope is lost, bring up Hitler and the like and it will automatically silence your opposition. Similarly in America you say “9/11″ to avoid having to have an intelligent debate about something.

Over the years it has become obvious of Alan’s dementia, he once held a debate with a chair in which he called his fellow professors at Harvard and MIT “anti-semitic bigots” who “knew nothing of the Middle East.”  Thats one class act.

Israel’s Right to Terrorism

By Ghali Hassan (06 March, 2008 - Countercurrents.org)

In response to Palestinian Resistance to Israel’s terror, Matan Vilnai, Israel’s deputy defence minister, threatened Palestinian with a holocaust. Vilnai told Israeli Army Radio: “[the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves”. An occupying power (aggressor) has no right to self-defence. The deliberate killing of innocent and defenceless Palestinians is not self-defence; it is terrorism.

For nearly sixty years, Jews - Israeli in particular -, have exclusively used the word “holocaust” to describe crimes committed against Jews by the Nazis, ignoring the Nazi’s millions of none-Jewish victims. The holocaust is not only being used as a Zionist tool (a weapon) to shield Israel from any criticism, but also to manipulate the public and gain Israel sympathy as a “victim state”. In addition, Israeli leaders use the holocaust as a justification for ongoing Israel’s terror and war crimes against the Palestinian people. The creation of Israel brought unimaginable suffering on the Palestinian people and turned them into holocaust victims.

According to Gaza-based journalist Mohammed Omar of rafahtoday.org, at least 130 Palestinians, including 39 children and 10 women were murdered by the Israeli army in the last days of February 2008. Even babies as young as six-month-old are targeted by Israel’s terror. In addition, more than 370 children were injured. Only one Israeli settler and two Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian resisting Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza, the perfect pretext for mass murder of Palestinians. The home-made Palestinian rockets used by the Palestinian Resistance are nothing compared with the F-16s bombers, helicopter missiles, cluster bombs and artillery shells used by the Israeli war machine against defenceless Palestinian population under brutal occupation.

For more than a year, the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza have been under brutal blockade enforced by the Israeli army and backed by U.S. and European leaders. Mass starvations of Palestinian children, daily bombardment of residential areas, kidnapping, imprisonment and assassination of political leaders have become the norms. People have become used to the suffering of the Palestinian people. According to Israel, the terror is justified. The Israeli Supreme Court (the guardian of Jewish Justice) has approved this policy of collective punishment and mass starvation (Ha’aretz, 02/02/2008). However, it is worth noting that, Israel would not be able to perpetuate violence on such scale were it not for the apathy and equanimity of Westerners; they share responsibility.

The morally correct Western powers, led by the U.S. - who never shies away from putting Israel’s interests first - have unconditionally supported Israel’s violence. Major European powers and the U.S. continue to provide massive military, financial and political supports to Israel. And with disregards to the suffering of the Palestinian people, Westerners commemorate Israel’s genocidal policy of ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinian people by celebrating Israel’s so-called “60th Anniversary”. British children are now required to take lessons on the “Jewish holocaust”, while French children are encouraged to identify with the personal stories of French Jewish children who died in the “Jewish holocaust”.

In addition to the unconditional backing of the West, Israel has the unquestionable backing of Western media. Global propaganda outlets such as, the BBC, CNN, New York Times, etc. are tirelessly covering-up Israel’s war crimes and spreading Israeli propaganda. As portrayed by Western media, Israel is a “civilised” and “democratic” nation, never initiates terrorist attacks or involved in daily acts of terrorism. Israel simply responds and retaliates. Israel responds to Palestinian throwing stones and retaliates against Palestinian rockets. Israeli soldiers are ‘forced’ to kill Palestinian children and pregnant women, and demolish Palestinian houses. Israeli soldiers are not responsible because they are facing a stronger enemy. The fact that these crimes are acts of terrorism against defenceless people doesn’t seem to interest Western media. The fact that Israel is a racist apartheid state aimed at becoming a homogenous “Jewish state” at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people is deliberately ignored by Western media. By contrast, the Palestinians are portrayed as ‘militants’ - regardless of age -, ‘seeking revenge’ and trying to ‘destroy’ a ‘peace-loving Israel’.

Of course, when it comes to “peace” there is no such discourse among Israeli leaders. Peace has become Israel’s euphemism for violence and Palestinian dispossession. For Israeli leaders, peace means the ongoing killing of defenceless Palestinians, initiated by Israeli violent provocations. And in collaboration with Palestinian traitors (elites), Israel continues to build and expand its illegal Jewish colonies (settlements) and Jewish-only roads. The Apartheid Wall separates Palestinian from their children’s schools, farms and isolates them in designated ghettos deprived of land and water. For the Palestinians, “daily living is defined by the body count [of their love ones], the number of coffins being hurried to the cemeteries, the crammed hospital corridors and the overflowing of intensive care units”, said an editorial in the Gulf News. It is genocide in slow motion.

In another development, a new opinion conducted by the Israeli daily Ha’aretz and the polling company Dialog in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, shows 64 percent of Israelis favour a truce with the Palestinian Resistance, including HAMAS, the highest majority to date. HAMAS leaders said they would consider a ceasefire if Israel lifted its blockade and ceased violent attacks in besieged Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Successive Israeli leaders have rejected every Palestinian proposal for ceasefire or peace, blindly pursuing the Zionist policy of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their homeland.

Finally, a “holocaust” will not bring peace to Palestine. Peace will return to Palestine only if Israeli leaders end their genocidal policy and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Under the international Genocide Convention adopted in 1948 after the defeat Nazism, incitement to genocide is punishable war crime. Hence, Israeli leaders should abide by international laws and revoke terrorism and violence.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia

Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz

(A talk given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn’s weekend retreat) At the left, “Innocent” by Ben Heine

“They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves” (Matan Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February 2008)

It is clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far from being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the genocidal future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is precisely what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts that are right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in spite of an Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the Palestinians, in spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid to admit that Gaza is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a deadly one. For some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far as evil is concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and vengeance.

Liberty and Authority

In his invaluable text On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that struggle always takes place between the competing demands of liberty and authority. In other words, freedom and hegemony are set to battle each other. However, Western egalitarian liberal ideology is there to introduce a political alternative. It is there to nourish the myth that ‘authority’ and ‘freedom’ could be seen as two sides of the same coin.

Today, I will try to elaborate on the structural dynamic of liberal discourse and the different elements that are involved in maintaining the false image of ‘freedom’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’. I will try to argue that it is our alleged ‘freedom’ that actually stops us from thinking freely and ethically. As you may notice I said ‘false image of freedom’ because I am totally convinced that, as far as Liberal discourse is concerned, freedom is nothing more than a mere image. In practice, there is no such a thing. The image of ‘freedom’ is there to fuel and maintain our righteous self-loving discourse so we can keep sending our soldiers to kill millions in the name of ‘democracy’.

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought

I would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction between ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’.

Freedom of speech can be realised as one’s liberty to expresses one’s own thoughts.

Bearing in mind that humans are expressive creatures, there is no easy policing method to guarantee the silencing of the dissident voice. Since speaking is inherent to human nature, any exercise of litigation to do with the curtailing of such an elementary right is rather complicated: You ban one’s books? One would then spread leaflets in the streets. You confiscate one’s flyers? One would then agitate over the net. You cut one’s power, confiscate one’s computer? One may start to shout one’s head off. You chop off one’s tongue? One would then nod in approval when others are repeating one’s manifesto. You are then left with no other option but chopping one’s head off, but even then, all you do is make one into a martyr.

Two available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:

a. prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment);

b. social exclusion.

However, it is crucial to mention that within the so-called liberal discourse, any attempt to ban an idea or a dissident voice is counter-effective, if anything it reflects badly on the liberal authority and the system. This is why liberals try to facilitate some rather sophisticated methods of censorship and thought policing that would involve very little authoritarian intervention. As we will see soon, in liberal society, censorship and thought policing is mostly self-imposed.

As much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of thought is almost impossible.

Freedom of thought could be realised as the liberty to think, to feel, to dream, to remember, to forget, to forgive, to love and to hate.

As difficult as it may be to impose thought on others, it is almost unfeasible to stop people from seeing the truth for themselves. Yet, there are some methods to suppress and restrain intuitive thinking and ethical insight. I am obviously referring here to guilt.

Guilt, inflicted mostly via a set of axioms conveyed as ‘political correctness’, is the most effective method to keep society or any given discourse in a state of ‘self-policing’. It turns the so-called autonomous liberal subject into a subservient, self-moderated, obedient citizen. Yet, the authority is spared from making any intervention. It is the liberal subject who curtails oneself from accepting a set of fixed ideas that support the egalitarian image of freedom and ecumenical society.

However, at this point I see the necessity to suggest that in spite of the liberal claim for peace seeking, liberal societies in general and the Anglo-American ones in particular are currently involved in crimes against humanity on a genocidal scale. Consequently, the more horrid the West is becoming, the greater is the gap between ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘freedom of speech’.

This gap can easily evolve into a cognitive dissonance that in many cases mature into some severe form of apathy. It is said that ‘all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing’. This summarizes perfectly well the apathetic negligence of the Western masses. Not many care much about the genocide in Iraq that is committed in our name or the mass murder in Palestine that is committed with the support of our governments. Why are we apathetic? Because when we want to stand up and say what we feel, when we want to celebrate our alleged freedom and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, or Baghdad with Dresden, something inside us stops us from doing so. It is not the Government, legislation or any other form of authority, it is rather a small and highly effective self-inflicted ‘guilt microchip’ acting as policing regulator in the name of ‘political correctness’.

I will now try to follow the historical and philosophical evolution that leads us from the liberal-egalitarian-utopia to the current ethical and intellectual self-castration disaster.

The Harm Principle

John Stuart Mill, the founder of modern liberal thinking, tells us that any doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone else. This is obviously the ultimate expression of liberal thinking. It ascribes absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, ethical, political, religious or theological.

Though Mill endorsed the fullest form of liberty of expression, he suggested a limitation attached to freedom set by the prevention of ‘harm to others’. It is obviously very difficult to defend freedom of speech once it leads to the invasion of the rights of others. The question to ask is therefore, “what types of speech may cause harm?” Mill distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate harm. According to Mill, only when speech causes a direct and clear violation of rights, can it be limited. But then, what kind of speech may cause such violation?

Feminists, for instance, have been maintaining that pornography degrades, endangers, and harms the lives of women. Another difficult case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech. Yet, it is debatable whether a ban of pornography or hate speech can be supported by the harm principle as articulated by Mill. One would obviously have to prove that such speech or imagery violates rights, directly and in the first instance.

Consequently, Mill’s harm principle is criticised for being too narrow as well as too broad. It is too narrow for failing to defend the right of the marginal. It is too broad because when interpreted extensively, it may lead to a potential abolishment of almost every political, religious or socially orientated speech.

The Offence Principle and Free Speech

Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the ‘harm principle’, it didn’t take long before an ‘offence principle’ had been called into play. The offence principle can be articulated as follows:

‘One’s freedom of expression should not be interfered with unless it causes an offence to others.’

The basic reasoning behind the ‘offence principle’ is trivial. It is there to defend the rights of the marginal and the weak. It is there to amend the hole created by the far-too-broad harm principle.

The offence principle is obviously pretty effective in curtailing pornography and hate speech. As in the case of violent pornography, strictly speaking, the offence that is caused by a Nazi march through a Jewish neighbourhood cannot be avoided and must be addressed.

However, the offence principle can be criticized for setting the bar far too low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be ‘offended’ by anything.

The Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse

There is no doubt that the vast utilization of the offence principle ascribes a lot of political power to some marginal lobbies in general and Jewish lobbies in particular. Counting on the premise of the ‘offence principle’, Jewish nationalist ethnic activists claim to be offended by any form of criticism of the Jewish state and Zionism. But in fact it goes further, in practice it isn’t just criticism of Zionism and Israel which we are asked to avoid. Jewish leftists insist that we must avoid any discussion having to do with the Jewish national project, Jewish identity and even Jewish history. In short, with the vast support of the offence principle, Jewish ethnic leaders both on the left and right have succeeded in demolishing the possibility of any criticism of Jewish identity and politics. Employing the offence principle, Jewish lobbies right, left and centre, have managed to practically silence any possible criticism of Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. More worryingly, Jewish leftist political activists and intellectuals outrageously demand to avoid any criticism of the Jewish Lobby in the USA and in Britain.

As we can see, the ‘offence Principle’ regulates and even serves some notorious Zionist as well as Jewish leftist political lobbies at the heart of the so-called liberal democratic West. In practice we are terrorized into submission by a group of gatekeepers who limit our freedom via an elastic dynamic operator that is there to suppress our thoughts before they mature into an ethical insight. Manipulation set by political correctness is the nourishing ground of our shattering cognitive dissonance. This is exactly where freedom of expression doesn’t agree with freedom of the thought.

Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political Correctness

We tend to agree that marginal discourses should be protected by the offence principle, so the marginal subject maintains his unique voice. We obviously agree also that such an approach must be applicable to the manifold of Jewish marginal discourses (religious, nationalist, Trotskyite, etc.). Seemingly, Jewish political lobbies want far more than just that, they insist upon delegitmising any intellectual reference to current Jewish political lobbying and global Zionism. As if this is not enough, any reference to modern Jewish history is prohibited unless kosherly approved by a ‘Zionist’ authority. As bizarre as it may be, the Jewish Holocaust has now been intellectually set as a meta-historical event. It is an event in the past that won’t allow any historical, ideological, theological or sociological scrutiny.
Bearing in mind the offence principle, Jews are entitled to argue that any form of speculation regarding their past suffering is “offensive and hurtful”. Yet, one may demand some explanations. How is it that historical research that may lead to some different visions of past events that occurred six and a half decades ago offends those who live amongst us today? Clearly, it is not an easy task to suggest a rational answer to such a query.

Plainly, historical research shouldn’t cause harm or an offence to the contemporary Jew or any other human subject around. Unless of course, the Holocaust itself is utilized against the Palestinians or those who are accused as being the ‘enemies of Israel’. As we learn from Matan Vilnai recently, the Jewish State wouldn’t refrain from bringing a Shoah on the Palestinian people. The Israelis and their supporters do not stop themselves from putting the holocaust into rhetorical usage. Yet, the Jewish lobbies around the world would do their very best to stop the rest of us from grasping what Shoah may mean. They would use their ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the holocaust as a critical tool of Israeli barbarism.

As one may predict by now, in order to censor historical research into Jewish history and a further understanding of current Israeli evil, political correctness is called into play. Political correctness is there to stop us from seeing and expressing the obvious. Political correctness is there to stop us realising that truth and historical truth in particular is an elastic notion. Yet, you may wonder what exactly political correctness is.

Political correctness, for those who failed to understand it, is basically a political stand that doesn’t allow political criticism. Political correctness is a stand that cannot be fully justified in rational, philosophical or political terms. It is implanted as a set of axioms at the heart of the liberal discourse. It operates as a self -imposed silencing regulator powered by self-inflicted guilt.

Political correctness is in fact the crudest assault on freedom of speech, freedom of thought and human liberty, yet, manipulatively, it conveys itself as the ultimate embodiment of freedom.

Hence, I would argue as forcefully as I can that political correctness is the bitterest enemy of human liberty and those who regulate those social axioms and plant them in our discourse are the gravest enemies of humanity.

I would argue as forcefully as I can that since the Palestinians are facing Nazi-like State terrorism, the holocaust narrative and its meaning belongs to them at least as much as it belongs to the Jews or anyone else.

I would argue as forcefully as I can that if the Palestinians are indeed the last victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them more than anyone else.

Bearing all that in mind, equating Gaza with Auschwitz is the right and only way forwards. Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is what liberation of humanity means today and in the near future.

PeacePalestine

This about sums it up

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops turned heavy firepower on rocket squads bombarding southern Israel Saturday, killing 54 Palestinians in the deadliest day in Gaza since the current round of fighting erupted in 2000.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven were wounded in the clashes, the military said.

The violence took a heavy toll on Gaza civilians. Moderate Palestinian leaders called the killings a “genocide” and threatened to call off peace talks.

“The response to these rockets can’t be that harsh and heinous,” said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “It is nowadays described as a holocaust.”

Thanks to the wonderful bloggers at Kabobfest for the image.