some guy in lebanon

I reported today that President Bush had commanded Secretary of State Rice to abstain on her vote on the resolution that she put forth to the United Nations Security Council calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and an Israeli withdrawal, after Israeli Prime Minister Olmert demanded that he do so. The AFP reported that Olmert had said this during a speech in southern Israel.

A friend of mine replied with a lengthy note on Facebook. Though I disagreed with him, it would be ridiculous to just delete his comments. Instead, I feel like some discussion between Americans on Palestine and Israel, though it amounts to nothing and neither of us have a shred of legitimacy to discuss this topic, is in order. As I don’t want to make this solely about what he said, I’m just going to write freely. I know it will come across as disjointed, but this is what I have to say in reply.

First of all, Olmert is obviously an idiot. This is just a matter of fact. Any politician who actually gets caught in the Middle East for taking bribes is an idiot. However, Livni and Barak hardly count as positive changes for Israeli military or domestic policy, and furthermore quite frankly Gaza cannot be a successful operation by any rubric except by body count. As to the former, Livni and Barak seem to believe that Israeli Arabs, much less Palestinians who have legitimate legal claims to much of Israeli territory, and who represent at least 20% of the Israeli population, will just “go away” once there is a “solution” to the “Palestinian problem.” That’s lunacy – Livni and Barak’s insistence on the failed philosophy of Israel as a cohesive Jewish state demonstrates their ineligibility as forward thinking leaders and politicians, much less progressives. As to the latter – Any military operation which seeks to impose upon a largely civilian and entirely urban population its military-will is incapable of being successful – enormous casualties is really the only outcome of such an operation. As the movie says, ideas are bulletproof. If the Israeli rubric of success is just to kill lots of people, well it will likely be successful in this regard. But Hamas represents a political ideology that is likely larger than itself as a political institution – such a thing cannot be vanquished by military might. It can only be vanquished by economic prosperity, something that Israel has kept from Gaza from possessing since the beginning of the siege following their election into power in 2006.

That “this war will end” is a misnomer – this is not a war that can be finished. It is a war instead that will continue to exist as long as the current status quo of de facto occupation continues in Gaza and the West Bank. And as long as this status quo is left as it is, which seems to be the mantra of the ruling elites of both the Israelis and the Arabs, then there will continue to be a need for the Israeli and Palestinian military institutions. This isn’t about calling something terrorism – Using phosphorous on civilian populations is just as terrorist as shooting firecrackers at Israeli towns. These days, both Hamas and the IDF can point to uniforms, standard military capabilities backed by small arms and air support (although I’m giving Hamas quite a lot of credit in referring to their rockets as “air support”), and democratic legitimacy – This isn’t about terrorism, it’s about a nation and a sudo-nation maintaining a constant state of war that cannot be concluded without some semblance of justice. So no matter what the United States does, this war will not be finished until Palestinians enjoy equal rights and freedoms as Israelis.

It isn’t within the power of the United States anymore to get a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty signed. Who can blame Syria for calling of peace talks as soon as the fighting in Gaza began two and a half weeks ago? Syria calls off the talks because Israel goes to war so Syria ends up looking like the offended party. How exactly is America supposed to solve that?

If Palestine had a functioning government, a system of law and order, jobs, food, water, and electricity, and specifically if it had all these things because they were purchased and built and they were self-sustained institutions, it would represent a threat to Israel that Israel could not accept. Here’s why: If Palestine was a real country, with a real flag and a real seat at the table at the UN, then it could conscript a real army that wasn’t “terrorist,” could legally purchase it’s own “non-terrorist” arms, and could legally engage Israel  in international war tribunals. The United States gives enormous amounts of money, as does Israel, to the Palestinians and to those who maintain their lives, in an effort to keep the Palestinians from achieving self-sustainability. This a rubric that neither Israel nor the current (and likely future) American administration are likely to change.

It is not the up to me or to anybody to label Hezbollah as it is usually labeled (terrorist), nor is it up to or me or to anybody to decide whether it is the prerogative of the Lebanese military to “kick” them “out” of Lebanon. Doing so under the rubric of the West would require a terrorist label to be placed on every country in the world. For there isn’t a single nation that has not engaged in similar behavior as Hezbollah, as far as terrorist-related activities are concerned. Marine bases in Beirut in ’82? Sandanistas in Nicaragua. Agent orange. Who built Sadaam Hussein for Christ’s sake? And these are just American examples – go looking for them, you’ll find them everywhere. Everyone is complicit of terrorism under the Western rubric of terrorism.

The thing is, with Middle Eastern militant groups, it’s usually not so simple as some silly thing like “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” But it’s not really that complex either. As far Southern Lebanon was concerned, their attitude was, You cross this line, you come into my side of this line, I fight back. You do so with jets, cruise missiles, chemical weapons? Don’t be surprised when I fire 40,000 Russian and Chinese missiles at you. Hezbollah is a militant force like any other – it happens to be one that is political infatuated with the destruction of the West. Guess what – The West happens to be politically infatuated with the destruction of Hezbollah.

Only the problem is that the people who actually suffer when the rich wage war… are the poor – Thank you Sartre. And both Israel and Hezbollah have very very very rich friends.

But to suggest that they can just be “kicked out” is as absurd as to say that the Palestinians or the Arab Israelis can just be kicked out. That’s not because I do or do not support Hezbollah – That’s because you’re talking about so many people that without the wholesale liquidation of the people of Southern Lebanon, such a feat would be impossible. It doesn’t matter how strong the Lebanese military is – Nor is it necessarily the prerogative or the capacity of the Lebanese military to do such a thing.

It is a correct assessment however that the ’06 war only strengthened Hezbollah, just as the current military adventure into Gaza is likely to only strengthen Hamas.

But how is one to accomplish financial security under the circumstances of apartheid? Such financial security cannot exist under occupation. But while “Israel has been killing terrorists for years,” it has done so, at some times quietly, at some times loudly, by making the term “terrorist” a blanket label, first for Palestinian, then for Arab, then for Muslim in general. And it is under the auspiciousness of Israeli and American policy that the Palestinians became terrorists on the basis of their demand for their ancestral territory.

This is not the worst thing that has happened in history – No doubt about it. But it is still pretty damn horrible. And at least when my ancestors in Ireland, France, and England faced similar circumstances, they had freedom of movement. How can one defend a nation that refuses to allow those under its occupation the right to travel freely. And that goes the same, by the way for those Arab nations that have equally limited the freedom of movement of the Palestinians. But while those Arab nations gladly welcome the problem in order to further their own interests, they did not create the problem, and though they sustain it to a degree, they are not the linchpin of that sustainment.

Whatever the case is, neither Obama nor Clinton are in a position to do anything about it. The reality of the “Palestinian Problem” is ultimately an offshoot of the “American Problem.” In this part of the world, Americans have backed every conceivable power that ultimately exists, in a highly colusionist form, in a way that maintains the Palestinian status quo. If it’s not Israel, it is Egypt. If it isn’t Egypt, it’s Jordan or Syria or Lebanon. If it’s not in the Levant, it’s in the Gulf, where America’s real allies are, and where those allies require Palestine to continue to be a “Problem” as much as their Arab friends in the Levant need them to be. At least in the 70′s the Gulf had backbone to sacrifice their profits for something they supposedly believe in. Although my fair assumption is that America would start blowing people all to hell if there was another embargo.

Wherever you go it seems, you hear about Palestine. If it’s in America or Israel – They’re terrorists. If it’s somewhere else, they’re freedom fighters or they’re victims or brothers or however they would like to put it. I’ll say one thing I never hear about Palestine though – I never hear them talked about in the terms that a nation is discussed. Palestinians are never referred to as something to be considered on a technical-logistical level of nation-state unless it is as a bargaining chip. Israel’s way of dealing with the problem is to economically bankrupt the Palestinians while denying them their right to their ancestral home. But trust me it is just as politically expedient for the rest of the Arab world to maintain that situation – as long as there is a Palestinian problem, there can be no solutions at home.

And all the while, children are dying. They are dying because of American made weapons. They are dying because those who are in power believe that Israeli lives are apparently infinitely more valuable than Palestinian lives. They are dying because so many lack the will to do what is right, and because those who possess the will to do what is right lack the means to act. And as this war is fought longer into the 21st century, there will surely be more Hamas’s, more Hezbollahs, and more Israeli “operations.” The cycle will continue and the only thing that is assured is that more Palestinian children will die or will grow up around death, despair, and economic incapacitation.

And remember that that economic incapacitation is a creation, not of the Palestinian people, but by those that occupy them, manipulate them, and occasionally kill them either individually or en masse.

So long as the occupation continues, so long as Israel and its allies are under the impression that the solution the Palestinian problem is merely to reshape the status quo of one occupation into another, there can be no “financial security of [Israeli] neighbors.” So long as Israeli’s come up with happy little ways to describe this scenario such as Israelis might someday forgive the Palestinians for killing our children, but Israelis may never forgive Palestinians for causing Israelis to kill theirs, as if that some how justifies the whole bloody thing, there will be nothing but 100% complicity on the part of the West, the Israelis, and the Arab governments, and we shall all burn in hell together as the blood of children is spilled on the streets of Gaza.

Anyways, I don’t mean to take it out on my friend here, but really, to boil the whole thing down to: Olmert’s an idiot, Livni and the “moderates” will solve everything, Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists who need to be pushed out the door as one would shake dust from a rug, and at the end of the day, whatever else happens really isn’t Israeli’s problem… is, to say the least, an unfair characterization of the situation.

And that is especially the case when we consider that, right now, as we speak, as we sit in our homes and drink our God damn Starbucks, tanks and planes are killing people who have nothing to do with it, who’s children have nothing to do with it, who’s parents have nothing to do with it, who’s grand parents had nothing to do with it. That’s a fact.

Because, if you go to war with a whole city on the basis that there are some bad guys in there, you wind up with dead people who you had no right to kill. Don’t blame them if they’re still upset about it when the smoke clears.