Nir Rosen writes:
On Sunday, February 28th the New York Times published an outrageous oped by Efraim Karsh full of lies, distortions and mistakes.
Karsh describes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an urgent foreign policy matter for the United States.
It doesn’t appear to be urgent. One more American administration has prostrated itself before Israeli arrogance and expansionism. Karsh mentions some sort of “100-year war between Arabs and Jews.” There is no 100 year war between Arabs and Jews. There is a 100 year colonial struggle between Zionist Jews and the Palestinian people (and briefly the Lebanese as well).
He hopes that the “Islamic nation can make peace with the idea of Jewish statehood in the House of Islam.” Its not about Jewish statehood in the house of Islam.
Its about Zionist Jewish settlers dispossessing the Palestinians and occupying Palestinian land. And killing Palestinians. Its not a religious conflict. Its a territorial one, an anti-colonial one, a national liberation struggle, even if the discourse used these days to describe it is often religious.
Karsh is a murderer…. .killing trees by the thousands to print the many mendacious books he writes and edits. So hasbara not only kills Palestinians but trees too; environmentalists should say something. Nir Rosen is one of the most courageous journalists I ever met. He puts his life on the line more than he ever would have as an Israeli Special Forces (his original goal) to make us understand that itis homo sapiens like us whom we fight so there’s always the prospect of mutual understanding. He is a model of Sabra intellect and courage as opposed to the tree-killer comfy in London. Karsh is a Soviet-style propagandist, like neocons, wedded to that Leninist dictum: polarize to mobilize. He thus engages in reductum ad absurdum in the hope that he frightens Jews into jumping to the opposite extreme. So long as Likud has a number of extreme Zionist billionaires to fund Karsh’s BS mill and university chair, trees will fall victims to lies. But Rosen will fight on for truth, his generation eventually replacing the shysters, thank God!
Islam has great difficulty dealing with other modern national governments. The sovereign state of Islam is at war against ‘occupiers’. The modern world cannot accept ANY organization that has the authority of a nation-state to wage war yet cannot be held accountable as a national government. Wars are fought for these type of issues, as they should be. This war has been going on for a very long time. It is far from being over. Too many of these types of sovereignty issues are present within Islam for war NOT to occur. The scary part is that the war has yet to really begin. It is only a matter of time before WMD enter the picture.
With the NYT printing such explicit, violent, undisguised poison , it becomes clear that it is time for several things:
— Intifada[1]: American Jews aware of these lies must loudly reject Israel’s behavior, especially the wars and the occupation, and reject the Israeli propaganda channels out media have so largely become. We need a PAC to support international law, human rights for all people, and national rights for all peoples, especially Palestinians in each case, and we must call on all Jews and all others to join us without fear of the false accusation of that anti-Israelism constitutes anti-Semitism. And we must call for accurate reporting of events and an end to Israeli apologetics in US media and we must pillory any media which persist in presenting Israeli propaganda.
— Intifada[2]: All people, very much including all Americans and Europeans, must join an all-out BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) program on behalf of Palestinians’ human and national rights aimed at all Israeli business. culture, sport, and transportation based on Israel’s violations of humanitarian law and the laws of war, and which must last until the Israeli armed forces, police, and settlers are removed from all territories occupied in 1967 and all blockades of Palestinian territory is lifted.
— Intifada[3]: 100,000 people must send a letter to “letters@nytimes.com” asking the NYT to publish Nir Rosen’s answer to Karsh (“It’s Not about Islam & Judaism, It’s About Anti-Colonialism, Territory, Liberation, and Lives” at
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/03/its_not_about_i/
and Americans (USers) should copy this letter to their Congressman and Senators and President Obama using (taking care to customize it appropriately):
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/compose/?type=CO&state=%5Byour state-2]&azip=[your zip-5]&bzip=[your extra 4 digits of zip]&mailid=custom