"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.
Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."
Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."
Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.
Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Notes
Care to Read What I Read?
I've embarked on a great reduction in privacy by bookmarking my web-based reading on the "delicious.com" utility. It may tip my hand as to what I have in mind for blogging, but the same may help friends and frenemies alike track my thinking: here is the URL:
Shabbat Shalom. May our arguments be resolved through perceptive words and good deeds only; may we live another week helpful to one another in relative peace.
Photography: Prints & Services
A gentle reminder: I'm in business as a producer of fine art prints and as a provider of shoot-for-fee services, including portraiture and weddings plus assigned photojournalism. My general location: intersection of I-70 and I-81; core camera system: Nikon; transportation: Mustang.
Effort in print-on-demand will not offset the production nor value of signed, limited edition prints made under my own hand. However, for very good convenience, price, and quality, print-on-demand may work out well for many fans and patrons.
Research Services
If you're engaged in funded research in conflict analysis or other areas that may be addressed here and wish to engage my mind in your project, feel welcome to drop me a note at [email protected].
Lyndon Baines Johnson refused to run for a final term in office.
Richard Nixon resigned amid scandal.
Hosni Mubarak, who has kept himself Egypt's "president for life" for 30 years, and he might just make it all the way, has gone the other direction, refusing responsibility for the massive demonstrations and violence expressed toward his tenure and dismissing the Egyptian government rather than himself.
Good luck with that.
Of course, one might admire his staying seated and not caving to a popular will run amuck; one might nonetheless have expected acknowledgment of what he has done to Egypt by maintaining himself for so long as an imperial head of state.
As have autocrats in similar straits, Mubarak long ago learned how to blackmail the west wth the dark phantom of the failure of his government, a too familiar drill: unless an open society supports the dictator, what comes next will only be worse: i.e., a brutal and unbridled Islamism that turns day into night, women into cattle, and lofty notions about "universal human rights" into whining against God Almighty himself, or so the Brothers and like-minded mullahs might have it.
Today, perhaps, has marked the beginning of the end to all that.
Obama's Administration watched from the sidelines and kept its mouth shut, neither voicing support for Mubarak's continued tenure nor getting behind "the people" -- a handy phrase in rhetoric, but in realpolik the question always comes next: "which people?" Instead, it chanted the mantra of human rights and open communications.
Possibly, Mubarak's deflection of responsibility for the passions of the mob reflect also what is worst in the character of some leaders and constituencies in the middle east: if it is bad news, someone else must be responsible for it, one reason for keeping handy such as the "dirty khafir Zionazi American Dutch cartoonists" along with the Mossad and CIA (whom, we shall soon see, will turn out in some screwed-up publication the entities most responsible for the day's fires).
Islam in Egypt no less than elsewhere will not progress to any place good while continuing to deflect responsibility for the adverse conditions in which it finds itself.
Economic, ecological, and social carrying capacity should be part of a dialogue in Egypt as much as in Haiti or any other crowded and dismal neighborhood on the planet, and decent universal education, development planning, and economic foresight and strategizing a part of the vocabulary of those who were aligned today against Mubarak's regime.
While there may be a fashionable intelligentsia armed with man-the-barricades attitude and rhetoric, what may be wanted most is a comprehending intelligence groomed on foresight, informed by compassion, and of a practical a turn for discerning what is possible, good, and feasible here and now.
With Al Chearleadah covering the love between Egypt's army tank crews and after-curfew crowds on the streets of Cairo, Thespec.com may have pegged the perfect journalist's "why":
Flames rose up across a number of cities from burning tires and police cars. Even the ruling party headquarters in Cairo was ablaze in the outpouring of rage, bitterness and utter frustration with a regime seen as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of grinding poverty that afflicts nearly half of the 80 million Egyptians. Hundreds were looting television sets and electric fans from the burning complex of buildings used by the ruling party.
There's the basis for the general story.
Regarding the live coverage: sorry, Al Jazeera, but I wish CNN and others were also (or had been to this point) providing live competing footage and coverage of this day across Egypt.
The New York Times has reported police attacking international press [2]. Journalist Brian Stelter reports Assad Sawey for BBC Arabic bloodied by plainclothes police wielding steel bars and Ben Wedeman of CNN having his cameras smashed by officers.
Here's a clip (caught about 2:20 p.m. EST, using the broadcaster's own helpful utility) / / / UPDATE: MSNBC has swapped out the clip . . . . ah, the perils of desktop blogging . . . . and, of course, the whole matter is history and those who follow know that Al Jazeera was abused and booted from covering the revolution shortly after I made this post . . . let the post stand? delete it? I think I'll just move on to the next thing today -- 2/9/2011/1142H/jso.
One day soon, I'd like to see multiple competing channels playing (live footage) down the left side of my monitor--and simultaneous staggered recording capability would be nice too.
It's coming on 6 p.m. in Cairo, about 45 minutes before Eshaa, the Friday evening prayer, a particularly sensistive hour for what it may portend in the streets afterward depending on the mosques and clerical stances taken and the timbre in the atmosphere and admonishments promoted.
While on the web, reporting on Egypt remains lively, word direct from Egypt may be scarce as the government has moved to close virtually every global communications channel accessed by its citizens. (CBS reports exception may have been made for the Noor Group ISP that provides services to an extensive list of western corporations. The same goes on to note the government's targeted miscreants, among others, may be using Noor's dial-up service for access).
Yesterday, an associate noted to me, "I am about a day ahead on the news due to the accuracy of things coming through on the jihad site."
Where there is willfulness, there may be way.
As demonstrated in Burma not long ago, Pakistan also, Iran during the June 2009 demonstrations, and now in this latest from the Middle East, the empowerment afforded by global online communications remains yet predominantly in the hands of government and military officials who may with an order shut down their country's Internet hubs while leaning on other communication technology providers to halt common carrier services through a civil emergency.
However the Tweeters may be doing it, they're reporting gunfire in Egypt (Twitter: #Egypt):
? sbelg? Al Jazeera- Heavy gunfire sound coming from the direction of TV building #Jan25 #Egypt #iranelection Twitter - 2 minutes ago ? BritMuscovite? Ayman Mohyeldin for Al Jazeera reporting from balcony says hears gunfire. Very close to Min of Info, Egyptian TV. #Jan25 Twitter - 3 minutes ago ? ejesse? al jazeera: gunfire coming from radio, tv buildings, ndp hq #egypt #jan25 Twitter - 3 minutes ago
Among the smallest of countries--population: approximately 7.7 million Jewish and 1.6 million Christian, Druze, and Muslim citizens--Israel nonetheless mounts extensive emergency response and committed humanitarian missions worldwide.
* * *
In a gesture of care and support, one of the world's smallest nations is sending aid to the world's most populous nation in the form millions of dollars worth of equipment for earthquake relief. An Israeli plane carrying over 30 tons of medical equipment, water purification kits, electricity generators, tents and blankets took off on Monday for the Chinese city of Chengdu, which was devastated by a May 12 earthquake. The earthquake has left at least 62,664 people dead and an estimated five million homeless. 06/05/08 [3]
Commenting on the above, a YouTube watcher, "jimmyjameswang" wrote in response to the familiar bilge talk, "lol, Israel has been (secretly) a great friend of ours long before we start to develop our post war economy, and we sure were no 'world power' back than, we were poor and back ward and isolated. Quit trying to help the US to alienated us."
* * *
ADAPAZARI, Turkey, Aug. 26 — Amid the scenes of horror and death that have afflicted this city since the earthquake last week, the brightest sign of life is a field hospital operated by doctors and nurses from the Israeli Army.
Eight babies have been born here since the quake. One boy was named Israel, and one girl is called Ziona. Their names are symbols of how firmly the earthquake has sealed the alliance between Israel and Turkey. [4]
Turkey's political stance has changed since Stephen Kinzer published the above lead in The New York Times in 1999; however, Turkey's cooperation in the defeat of this year's Haifa fire may signal that some battles, perhaps especially those with nature, call for continuing humanitarian initiative and reciprocity.
* * *
Three years ago, fueled by a desire to arm myself with management skills for this career, I enrolled in an Israel-based Masters program in Community Leadership & Philanthropy Studies. Today, I am the Director of Volunteer Services at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda . . . From the moment I landed in Israel, not a day passed when I did not want to be there. Once again, I found Jewish peers who believed in the importance of social responsibility that extends beyond one’s own community [5].
Rachel Orstein, writer of the above quote, coordinated American and Israeli youth efforts to produce good through the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village of rural Rwanda. The Israel-based institutional element supporting her effort, Masa Israel, sponsors more than 160 programs for young adults engaged in the development of Jewish identity and the investment in human capital in the process of community. [6]
* * *
In 2009, a total of 2,375 professionals from 110 countries participated in 99 courses in Israel, while 4,357 took part in 82 on-the-spot courses (in host countries) in a total of 35 countries. MASHAV experts were dispatched throughout the world on 89 short-term consultancies and humanitarian medical missions to 31 countries and eight long-term experts were serving on MASHAV demonstration projects around the world, in a total of seven countries. [7]
By continent, here are the complements in countries engaged with Israel's MASHAV development and humanitarian missions:
Asia and Oceania: Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Phillippines, Republic of Korea, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Vanuatu, Vietnam.
Central Europe and Eurasia: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, Uraguay, Venezuela.
Mediterranean Basic and the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom.
Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Jordan, Palestinian Authority (neutral aegis: Danish International Development Agency)
Some MASHAV programs may feature just one participant exchange; others as well involve dozens. Whatever the numbers involved, israeli and Jewish engagement with others everywhere in the world in the shadows of difficult circumstances and daunting problems seems rule, not exception.
Here is a little more about the Middle East program:
In 1999 an intergovernmental agreement for a Regional Agricultural Program was signed by Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority with Denmark as initiator and main supporter. It started with great optimism. Following the success of a trilateral program involving Denmark, Egypt, and Israel, it was suggested to expand the program to include Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. All agreed, and representatives of the prospective partners met in Alexandria to select subjects and objectives of common interest to all partners. MASHAV and CINADCO represented Israel. [8]
I may not wish always to indulge in puff and paraphrasis, but here in response to the broad demonization of Israel and the impact of that rhetoric on Jews of the Diaspora, it seemed to me worthwhile to look over Israel's encouragement, sponsorship, and support of much needed development, emergency, and humanitarian mission programs worldwide.
8. Abileah, Benjamin. "The Middle East Regional Agricultural Program: Working for Peace Through Cooperation." MASHAV, n.d., circa 2004: http://mashav.mfa.gov.il/mfm/Data/84644.pdf
The young Pasternak showed considerable talent for drawing and might have become an artist himself, but in the summer of 1903, while the family was staying in the country, he chanced to meet the composer Alexander Scriabin, whom he overheard composing his Third Symphony at the piano in a neighboring house, and decided that his real calling was music. For the next six years, he devoted himself to a serious study of composition. But at a key moment in 1909, after playing some of his compositions for Scriabin, who encouraged him and gave him his blessing, he abandoned music. Meanwhile, he had discovered the poetry of Rilke and had joined a group of young admirers of the Symbolists that called itself Serdarda--"a name," as he wrote later, "whose meaning no one knew." And he had begun to write verse himself. [1, introduction p. vii).
The neighbors make the neighborhood and the neighborhood the culture.
Boris Pasternak was Jewish, the son of an artist employed as a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture and a mother embarked on a career as a concert pianist [2]. Alexander Scriabin's formation seems rooted in the experience of aristocracy, a home abandoned by his father who would go on to make him many half-brothers and sisters, and interests in Nietzsche and theosophy. However else informed, and whoever else may have been in the neighborhood, both had time for living with and within their chosen arts and that within the competitive but genteel strata of an intelligentsia sustained beneath the Romanov umbrella.
Keeping that bit of biography in mind, here in part is Pasternak's introduction of Yuri Zhivago as a boy:
Separately, all the movements of the world were calculatedly sober, but as a sum total they were unconsciously drunk with the general current of life that united them. People toiled and bustled, set in motion by the mechanism of their own cares. But the mechanisms would not have worked if their chief regulator had not been a sense of supreme and fundamental carefreeness. This carefreeness came from a sense of the cohesion of human existences, a confidence in their passing from one into another, a sense of happiness owing to the fact that everything that happens takes place not only on earth, in which the dead are buried, but somewhere else, in what some call the Kingdom of God, others history, and still others something else again.
To this rule the boy was a bitter and painful exception. His mainspring remained a sense of care, and no feeling of unconcern lightened or ennobled it. He knew he had this inherited trait and with self-conscious alertness caught signs of it in himself. It upset him. Its presence humiliated him.
For as long as he could remember, he had never ceased to marvel at how, with the same arms and legs and a common language and habits, one could be not like everyone else, and besides that, be someone who was liked by few, someone who was not loved. He could not understand a situation in which, if you were worse than others, you could not make an effort to correct yourself and become better. What did it mean to be a Jew? Why was there such a thing? What could reward or justify this unarmed challenge that brought nothing but grief? [1, pp. 11-12]
Of course much has been written about Boris Pasternak who in Russia has been regarded as among the language's greatest poets. Geoff Saddler's write-up [3] on the web contains sufficient bibliography for curiosity (he notes too that Pasternak as a boy met also Rachmaninov, Rilke, and Tolstoi) and ends with what I've taken as a surprise:
A Jewish artist who rejected separation in favour of a Christ-based gospel of integrity and sacrifice, Pasternak became an icon for many Russians. Lines from “When the Weather Clears” sum up his attitude to life and art. “In everything I want to reach/The very essence:/In work, in seeking a way,/In passion’s turbulence…// “Always catching the thread/Of actions, histories,/To live, to think, to feel, to love,/To make discoveries”. [3]
There's plenty above that coda to delight and inform the reader interested in Boris Pasternak.
Along the lines of the Jewish theme introduced here, one of Scriabin's daughters, Ariane, born in Italy, converted to Judaism, and became a key figure in the French Resistance of WWII [4]. I am uncertain of the lineage (such may the shortcomings of the Internet's perpetual second row seat to history, which I should like to correct for myself this year), but Scriabin's great great grandson is reputed to be the Israeli concert pianist Elisha Abas [5].
Cited Reference
1. Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Translators; introduction by Richard Pevear. New York: Pantheon Books, 2010 (first published in Italian by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, Milan, 1957).
The Palestinian Authority maintains Jawaher Abu Rahma, 36, died of asphyxiation following the discharge of tear gas by troops of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) quelling a riot hard by the fence, part of the barrier under construction, separating Israel proper from the Palestinian territories by the village of Bil'in.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) promptly refused Israel permission to co-investigate the incident, a process in which the PA has engaged in the past. [1]
The atmosphere of mistrust exacerbated by the PA's refusal to disclose relevant evidence in the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma makes possible the suspicion that she may well have inhaled gas and been hospitalized but as easily released and afterwards murdered.
A spokesman, Jonathan Pollak for "Popular Struggle Coordination Committee", remarked about the use of tear gas that the demonstration had been completely peaceful. [1]
IDF has estimate crowds in the Bil'in riots at 250 with, as the pictures show, boys slinging rocks over the barrier construction border.
In 1931, according to Wikipedia, the sleepy enclave of Bil'in boasted a density of 31 houses and 166 Muslims [3]. Today, with its numbers estimated at 1,800, it has been for the past five years the site of a weekly demonstration against the development of the separation barrier, which, Wikipedia says, cuts off 60 percent of Bil'in's claimed farmland. Wikipedia goes on to suggest how the show of "solidarity" works:
The protesters arrive with gas masks and shout chants including “Israel is a fascist state!” Arab boys fling stones at the soldiers from a position not among but to the right of the protesters. The weekly protests, which last a few minutes, regularly draw busloads of western tourists who come to support the Palestinian movement. Bil'in residents employed by the palestinian Authority and other PA employees form Ramallah reportedly attend as part of the expectations of the their party affiliation and employment. Reportedly, residents of Bil'in not employed by the PA do not attend.
The political left has been quick to amplify and distribute the story without impartial investigation (give it a shot: search string "2011 January 2 Bil'in protest murder"). Pollak, cited above, has gone on record with the allegation, "She did not die because of a lack of medical treatment, but because Israeli forces used a lethal teargas banned in several European countries." [4]
As military and paramilitary forces routinely use teargas as a nonlethal weapon with which to disperse riots, the adoption of a "lethal teargas" would seem to represent the use of a lethal chemical weapon, and one clearly beyond the concept implicit in the development of teargas. Here's a relevant quote of a quote by a poster using Newshogger, either yesterday or today:
The IDF said that soldiers used tear gas to disperse Friday's protest in a routine manner. The army added that an initial examination raises doubts regarding Abu Rahma's cause of death as she initially sustained light wounds, was released from hospital and later died of her wounds in her home.
The official Palestinian news agency also reported that Abu Rahma had died. Three other individuals were injured during the protest, which was attended by some 1,000 demonstrators. According to the Palestinians, dozens more were lightly injured after inhaling tear gas. [5]
Repeat after me: " . . . dozens more were lightly injured after inhaling tear gas."
What kind of lethality is that?
It would seem the left has been swift to scream "bloody murder" but with confidence hospital records would not be exhumed--and for certain not now in a timely manner--and that the matter would not be investigated in the light of day.
Videos involving the Preoccupation inevitably post after events, coverage for the popular World Court of Opinion being much the point, without which there might not be much point at all. The apparent intent of this video would seem to be that of rallying support for taking down the Bil'in wall, as see-through as it may be (and breached in three places by bolt cutters), but as with the IDF photography, look and look again:
Taunting, rock throwing, fence stealing--heck, looks as nonviolent to me as it might to you!
To the west of Bil'in, described as adjacent by Wikipedia, lies the town of Modi'in Illit (left [7]), descriped as an "Haredi Israeli settlement" having its first neighborhood established in 1994 ("Kiryat Sefer"), receiving city status by the Israeli government in 2008, and having a population of 46,200 in 2009. Here's how the entry's writer summarizes the legal issues involved:
Modi'in Illit is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories are regarded as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Israel argues that the international conventions relating to occupied land do not apply to the Palestinian territories because they were not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state in the first place. The Israeli government believes that Modi'in Illit would remain within Israeli jurisdiction in a final-status agreement with the Palestinians. [6]
From there, whether by advocacy organizations or settlers, emerges the grasping for legal straws attending range and fence wars throughout time (although the Ottoman presence appears to come in handy for a start).
The Israelis lay biblical claim to the land; the Palestinians have yet to produce a government independent of outside influence and meddling and capable itself of waging peace; the people and their advocates tell the world they're peaceful when throwing rocks (and recording it on video); and while the assertions may amplify to poison gas, the degree and spread of exposure to tear gas suggests an unusual response to it, if that (may Jawaher Abu Ramah rest in greater peace than that in which her neighborhood chose to live), or something altogether more insidious.
A few will know what happened.
Most will man the barricades, virtual and real, believing what they most would wish and revel in repeating, unable to produce an empirical, responsible, transparent, and trustworthy investigative system of their own.
-----
Update
Since posting this two days ago, Honest Reporting has come out with its assertions on the matter, which include this:
According to IDF officials, Abu-Rahma may have not even participated in the protest in question.
Sources familiar with the material said that unlike similar incidents in the past, the report about Abu-Rahma's injuries arrived late and contained puzzling details.
According to the medical report, there was no clear cause of death, the burial was undertaken via an accelerated procedure, and no post-mortem was performed.
The information also reveals that Abu-Rahma was administered an unusual quantity of drugs, used to offer treatment against poisoning, drug overdose, or leukemia. Moreover, her family's report that she was "hurt by Israeli gas" was not corroborated by any other source.
The IDF also discovered that the deceased was recently treated at a Palestinian hospital, a fact that was not mentioned in the medical reports. [8]
What may not be kosher--or whatever is--it wants for daylight, judicial discovery, and true due process.
Where mud has been thrown, it will wash off whatever it has hit but stay long on the hands and under the nails of those who cannot keep from sinking their hands, hearts, and heads deep into the dirt.
5. Ballard, John. "Jawaher Abu-Rahma (1974-2010)." Newshogger, January 1 or 2 (not specifically dated at byline; the top address bar URL seems as close as I may get to specificity): http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/
Honest Reporting and others have continued commenting on on the ambiguous, incomplete, and inaccurate accounts of the death of Jawaher Abu Rahman, a particularly nasty lible in that this one true victim of political circumstance had actually died of cancer after having been bedridden 10 days. While sources in the alternative (universe) press have quoted "eyewitness" seeing Rahman and her mother on a hillside adjacent to the protest-related violence, all becomes obscure with so-called "advocacy journalism" and the absence of timely cooperation under the umbrella of a sound legal process.
What both sides seem to acknowledge, so far, is the refusal on the Palestinian side to share cogent data, including Rahman's hospital records, in the immediate wake of the event.
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