I had hoped to write an article, upon my return for Israel, detailing the reasons why the US should not become involved in Libya. It’s a bit late to write that article, but not too late to lay out my thoughts, and why I can change my views. When I left for Israel there was a conflagration in the the Middle East and Maghreb, inspired by self-immolation. There were revolts or protests in Egypt (which had just overthrown Mubarak), Yemen, Tunisia (‘successful’), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria (which has turned into a major mess), and a few other places in proximity to Israel. I’d also written before leaving about why there would be no protests in Israel. Things had just started to heat up in Libya.
While in Israel I heard an excellent summary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, including current events – which, of course, led to the topic of Libya and other countries with large protests. I don’t know if you remember, but the United States is engaged in a war in Afghanistan, a ‘nation-building exercise’ in Iraq, and a drone war we no longer hear about in Pakistan. Therefore, Neil Lazarus, the amusing British speaker summarizing the conflict for us, was laying out the reasons the United States does not wish to be involved in Libya (he said this before we became ‘involved’): Obama has enough to deal with already.
But wait, the title of this article is “Why Libya is Different”. Different than who, or what? Different than Afghanistan or Iraq, or Pakistan, or wherever else we’re waging war that we’re not aware of. There was no effort to consult congress, and that’s nothing different. There was a UN Resolution, though, which gives me brief hope that this was not a ‘war,’ ‘intervention,’ or ‘humanitarian mission’ of only US interests. Opinion – and in international affairs, international opinion – is the only way to walk away a victor. Otherwise you have a Pyrrhic Victory.
I wanted, as I said, to return to America and share my view that we should not be in, or involved in, Libya. And now I have changed my view. When the rebellion in Libya started (and it existed only because some military defected, giving rebels weapons) they asked – I’m not quite sure how you reach the outside world when communications are cut off – to be let alone to fight their own battle. Fight they did, and they probably lost as much as they won, except that they were fighting for a cause, while Qaddafi’s men were fighting so they could receive another paycheck (a very different kind of cause). The world let the rebels fight their battle. And the world watched (actually, for the first time in several years, since I was in Israel on a guided trip without a computer, I wasn’t watching). It was when the rebels said “we need help!” that the international community worked together (about as much as it ever does) – and the United States worked with the international community. I should repeat that, it’s important. The United States worked with the international community. When Bush was president, that was not the way to operate. This time, the United States actually waited for international interest and a UN Resolution.
I’m disappointed that the United States forgot to consult its own congress about ‘implementing a no-fly zone’ (that is, bombing targets) over Libya. It would have been nice to get the whole procedure right. But this time, we’re not democracy-building by invasion. Not yet. We waited until the rebels said they needed our help. When they ask us to leave – and they will ask – I hope we leave, planes and all.
Why is Libya different? Because we’re not forcing democracy, we’re assisting what might become democracy. Could it become a disaster (more than it is), or backfire? It’s happened in the past. Yes, it could. We run that risk, but this time our values and our morals and our actions all agree. I did not want us there – we’re over-committed and can’t fund domestic programs – but Libya is different. I hope we are right.
About a month ago I wrote about a bill going through Israel’s Knesset that would investigate any organization Israel deemed unpatriotic. According to a recent summary of the bill “the original version called for sentencing anyone who marks Independence Day as a day of mourning or who holds memorial events for the Palestinian “Nakba” (destruction ) to three years in prison.” That’s been revised only to “deny public funding to institutions that sponsor activities which deny Israel’s status as a democratic state and as the state of the Jewish people.”
The choice is a bad bill or a less bad bill – how about the choice of no such piece of legislation? I feel like it’s hardly necessary to write a lengthy defense of not passing the bill. It should be clear either that the bill should be passed or the bill should not be passed. There can’t be any middle ground here, and if you support passing this piece of legislation I feel sorry for you, but you get to keep that opinion. I can’t persuade you that my opinion – that the bill should not be passed and to come to the point where such a piece of legislation is even considered in a democracy (or anywhere) shows just how far a government can fall – and I won’t ask you, if you believe in the legislation, to meet me halfway and only sort of investigate organizations. Do it or do not do it. It’s a stark choice a form of government that calls itself a democracy should not have to consider. This is not ‘regulation,’ where regulators ensure that laws in place work, this is ‘you’re for us, or if you’re not for us, we’ll destroy you because we can.’ This is where a democracy is no longer a democracy. It has happened. Do those of you with the power to vote think it should happen again?
March 4, 2011 – Israel
A few weeks ago I announced I would be gone on a trip to Israel. I return without any exciting stories of rebellion or tsunami, so the story I tell doesn’t really involve chaos or disaster. My apologies.
The trip was with forty Jews I didn’t know (okay, 39 I didn’t know, I knew myself) out of an airport with which I had no familiarity, with vague instructions about where to rendez-vouz and at what time. Naturally, that plan worked brilliantly. I walked through security alone and found my group at the gate a couple hours later – a great way to get acquainted. As they say in a timeless Jewish comedy skit from the ’60s, “the plane left on time, two hours late.”
Actually, the plane left on time, but if you want sustenance while traveling do NOT fly Delta. The Kosher meal was hardly warm and not much more edible, and that was it for a twelve hour flight. My first thought, though, upon landing wasn’t about food; we were in Tel Aviv and my first though was “David Ben Gurion was named after an airport.” That is how I introduced myself to the Land of Milk and Honey; with humor.
The trip left on March 2nd out of New York. We got to Israel on March 3rd, late, and got to the kibbutz even later. A kibbutz is where you plotz after a long day. By March 4th we had no idea what day it was, and it was only out first full day of a blitz through the country. Our first venture was to walk in the valley between the Golan and Gali Mountains, partly to see the country and partly to move our legs after a long time on a plane and bus. It’s interesting that I’ve always walked sure-footed and quickly, both hiking (mountain-hiking and otherwise) and on city streets. Is that because I grew up in the mountains, or am I naturally a fast walker, sure of how and where to cross a stream? Some of us walk fast, and some of us walk slow, and a group of forty somehow naturally seems slower than a group of 20, 10, 0r 5.
March 5, 2011
March 5th was the first time in a long time that I had observed Shabbat. In Israel, of course, and in Judaism the sabbath, Shabbat, doesn’t begin on Saturday, but on Friday night. The day doesn’t begin on Friday, but a day ends when the sun goes down. Just as I once had to ask why the French calendar ends with Saturday and Sunday (I mean, ours begins on Sunday, why doesn’t everyone follow us?), I have had to ask why a day begins at night (this time, I asked myself). The day doesn’t begin at night, the day ends with the sun, which means the next day must start. Shabbat is interesting and meaningful in Israel (the Israelis I have made friends with will laugh when they read that obvious sentence), while here even serious and faithful Christians, Jews, and Muslims might attend Church – but guess how they get there. In Israel (you Israelis will laugh again at the obviousness) things stop on Shabbat. Cars don’t drive Friday night and Saturday. Phone calls stop, at least in the public domain. No pictures. A Sabbath Elevator is required. Shabbat actually matters.
On Shabbat, at a time when we were not familiar with one another, we stopped to ask what it meant to be a Jew. Naturally, the kibbutz we were on was not old – about sixty years, which is the age of Israel. The kibbutzim are failing, but that’s not a topic of Shabbat…. Kibbutzim are a product of the idea of the New Jew (an idea of the late 19th and especially early 20th centuries, promoted by early Zionism), that a Jew can be more than a banker, that a Jew can work the land (an act forbidden to Jews for many centuries in Europe). And so, Jews worked the land of Israel. That’s what it means to be a New Jew.
For everyone, being a Jew means something different. I place no emphasis on the Torah, but believe it was written (by man) with a purpose. I am not a New Jew. Nor am I the Jew of Middle Europe. I am mixed; observant and unobservant; interested in scholarly works but not the works of only my religion. I am a Jew, like many of (the forty of) us, that attained a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, went through confirmation with my class two years later because it seemed like the thing to do, and paid no attention to my religion, though I did not forsake it. I simply gave it no meaning, because I was never taught that it had any except a historical one. The (literal) meaning of Israel is to wrestle with God, that is, to question Him/Her/It, and that is what we do naturally; we question.
March 6, 2011
I’m either perpetuating a new myth or an old one when I say that, like the rabbi of Europe, who moved to the town of Tsvat in his old age, I can see why he heard the songs of angels in Tsvat. It is a beautiful town, in the beauty of Mediterranean coastal mountain villages of Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, where beauty comes naturally and where the buildings belong to and enhance the land.
Tsvat is not only beautiful, it inspires greatness. It has become a center of (if not the originating location of) the study of Kabbalah, which studies the interconnectedness of matter and spirit (the physical and the metaphysical). Kabbalah begins with language and numbers, and is patterns and meanings unified with questions and answers that lead to more questions and answers.
There is a refrain running through Israeli answers to problems that is both a joke and not a joke. Issues everywhere may be bad, but Israeli problems are worse. Water supply may be short everywhere, but it is more endangered in Israel. Environmental problems may exist everywhere, but in Israel they are worse. National Security is an issue for everyone, but it is for Israel more than others. This is what the Israelis tell you, both with humor and with seriousness. I don’t know what kind of realistic world we’re living in, but out of about fifty Jews, every one believed that global warming is real. Maybe a problem is only bad when you recognize that it exists.
Between Tsvat and learning about environmental issues that Israel faces, and its efforts to solve these problems followed by our drive to Tel Aviv, seven Israeli soldiers joined our trip. They joined, not as soldiers (though they had their uniforms) but as Israelis. They joined so that we could learn about Israel from Israelis, and so they could learn about America from Americans. They came from all ranks and duties, and they came with a joie-de-vie that many Americans do not have, the kind inspired by college or comradeship in a duty and service that means something and inspires friendship with those who work for the same reason. (I say this afterward because I saw it in their faces, though I did not doubt it at the time.) They stayed with us for about five days, which is very short, but in the action-packed schedule of a ten-day tour, it was good amount of time
March 7, 2011
We spent very little time in Tel Aviv – the night of March 6 – which is a bit disappointing to me as I tried to study the culture and politics of the country. Tel Aviv, after all, is the diplomatic and modern cultural center of Israel, and the place of independence. We saw Independence Hall – where Ben Gurion was named after an airport – and heard the speech proclaiming independence. Except that we are so far removed from the event, both in time and space, it was important and good to see. I suppose it’s a bit like listening to someone read the Gettysburg Address once an hour at Gettysburg, or listening to a guide recite The Declaration of Independence. Interesting, but not quite moving.
Tel Aviv is pretty in a modern kind of way; it looks exactly like any other large city in the world, with signs in a different language (actually, most signs are in Hebrew AND English, and most Israelis I encountered spoke passable or good English). The Mediterranean is, perhaps, the prettiest part of Tel Aviv and we walked from there to Jaffa. It’s a mess trying to figure out which city is where (not just Jaffa and Tel Aviv, but anywhere in the world) but Tel Aviv is a suburb of sorts of Jaffa, and Tel Aviv has several suburbs. Brilliant, right? With all the walking I did in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and every other part of Israel, I can’t tell you a whole lot about culture; we saw what we (tourists) were meant to see. However, as I’ve said, things don’t change much between one country and another. (For instance, parts of the agricultural countryside of Israel look just like shanty-towns of Mexico, California, or the Midwest).
I’ve been told that the term gentrification has a negative terminology, because it involves fixing an area up only for profit. It gentrification is negative that’s not what we helped do in Israel; if it can be a positive action as well, which has no profit in mind, then we – the almost fifty of us with the soldiers – helped gentrify a neighborhood by cleaning and weeding a garden in Lod. Of all the forced fun activities we did – the ones that did not involve seeing the country – I think this might have been the most useful, both to Israel and to ourselves.
March 8, 2011
We hiked in the Negev Desert. It’s beautiful and I’m glad I don’t live there.As Jews, our ancient recorded history began, and culminates in, wandering in the desert. We came out of the land of Egypt, which is desert, the land called Mitzraim, “narrow passage,” which could have the double meaning of a birth canal. That is, we as Jews were born in Egypt. There is a horribly written book that I encourage you not to read, called The Gift of The Jews, but nonetheless has its facts and story correct. Before Judaism man conquered space – farmed his fields – and repeated the next year. But he had not, as far as historical record makes clear, conquered time. The Jews (and, if you’re Christian you have no reason to object, because the Jewish history Before the Common Era is the the Judeo-Muslim-Christian tradition) conquered space and time. They conquered space – how else? – by occupying land, and working the land. They conquered time by 1)making a historical record, and 2)by setting aside time as the sabbath. We came out of Egypt, and received commandments, and conquered space and time.
Our trip experienced very little culture, or ‘real’ feeling of life in Israel – though it’s not unlike life in America. We came close, perhaps, when we stayed this Tuesday night in a Bedouin camp. We rode camels – I don’t intend on doing that any time soon – listened to music, and stared at stars. But not me. I’ve seen stars, and I was tired. So I slept as much as I could, in our open tent, with all of us. The food was awesome, as it was everywhere on this free trip, but next time I’m in a Bedouin camp I’d like to not eat on paper plates with electric lighting. It kind of ruins the feeling, you know.
March 9, 2011
After the Second Temple fell in 70 C.E. and there was open Judaic revolt against the Romans some Jews – about a thousand – fled to Masada, an inhospitable but naturally fortified mountain in the Negev. The Romans set up eight camps in an area where I could see no possibility of growing food and besieged the mountain for five months. To get up Masada we hiked up the Roman Ramp, which was more of a natural path given steps (I’m not sure there were steps for the Romans), and it’s a half-mile hike where people can throw rocks at you from above.
You can see the Dead Sea (which is also the border between Israel and Jordan) from Masada. They should rename it the Magic Shrinking Dead Sea, because it’s disappearing at about two meters at year, mostly from water being consumed before it reaches the sea. So, for the night at the Bedouin tent we packed an overnight bag, for our day at Masada and the Dead Sea. I FORGOT to pack my sandals. A word to the wise: don’t do that! I went into the Dead Sea far enough to say I’d been in, but ouch, walking on dried salt deposits hurts.
March 10, 2011
My experience with Holocaust memorials is that the hurt of the Holocaust becomes stronger near the source. The deportation site in France hurts more than a museum in Los Angeles. How did Yad Vashem, the memorial and museum in Israel, feel? The Holocaust always hurts, but there was not strong feeling evoked (for me) at Yad Vashem. Only the usual sadness, which I hope we all feel. The pictures, the places, hurt far more than the story.
I wonder if I should feel bad, conceited, or knowledgeable that when discussing (actually, listening to a funny lecture on) the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict I knew all the names, dates, figures, and players involved. I know of the leaked secrets, which I could dedicate whole writings to, and the disappointment and just how close we are and have some idea of how far we have to go. I don’t mean to say I learned nothing hearing a talk on the event, especially so close to the source (I was in Jerusalem); I walked away knowing that it is not easy to solve and not easy to absolve. (And though we were so close to the Conflict, we saw no dividing wall, no settlements, no checkpoints. We saw what they wanted us to see.)
March 11, 2011
In a world where we think in thousands of miles and look up to see things we know to be millions of light years away, walking through Jerusalem takes a very short time. It must be less than a square mile if it takes fifteen minutes to walk from one side to the other. Jerusalem, though, is a place full of history. Markets from Roman times can be seen not far from building two thousand years older, which are not far from those two thousand years newer. It is not hard to imagine a place with such history; it is hard to imagine a place with such history in America.
We visited the Western Wall not once but twice on this Friday. The first time we were almost the only people there (men to the left – North – side of the wall, women to the right side, with a partition), and we Walled. I mean, we prayed as desired – it felt right to say the Mourner’s Kaddish at the Wall – and left a note if we wished to leave a note. In some way the Western Wall is more impressive – it is a different kind of impressive – than the Great Wall. The Western Wall is high, and trying to conceptualize the technology, including manpower, to move the blocks of rock is a hard thought to wrap my brain around.
The second time we visited the Wall was after Shabbat had begun and several hundred Jews were at the wall, praying, dancing, and singing (or wailing). The experience sharpened my conviction that religion at its best is meant to bring people together, and can be done through song and dance. What is religion at its worst? It must be to pull people apart, probably not through song and dance. It was quite an incredible feeling – much more so than doing the same thing at a local dance – to grab a stranger and dance, producing the feeling of brotherhood.
March 12, 2011
The following is a direct excerpt from my journal, while some of the above has been from my journal, and most has been to enhance it. I find that the best way to conclude my trip is what I’ve already written:
Today is our last day; most of the forty of us will never see each other again.
Our bus does not run on Shabbat, so our only transportation on Saturday is on foot. We walked to the National Cemetery and saw the graves of Golde Meir, Ytzhak rabin, and many others. The most touching grave was that of an American who died fighting in the Israeli Army: “whose love of G-d and Israel is eternal.”
Our plane leaves at night, and it began to occur to me – and to all of us – that we were leaving, as we said goodbye to those not joining the flight.
Ten day is a short time to get to know a country or a group of people.
March 4, 2011 – Israel
A few weeks ago I announced I would be gone on a trip to Israel. I return without any exciting stories of rebellion or tsunami, so the story I tell doesn’t really involve chaos or disaster. My apologies.
The trip was with forty Jews I didn’t know (okay, 39 I didn’t know, I knew myself) out of an airport with which I had no familiarity, with vague instructions about where to rendez-vouz and at what time. Naturally, that plan worked brilliantly. I walked through security alone and found my group at the gate a couple hours later – a great way to get acquainted. As they say in timeless Jewish comedy skit from the ’60s, “the plane left on time, two hours late.”
Actually, the plane left on time, but if you want sustenance while traveling do NOT fly Delta. The Kosher meal was hardly warm and not much more edible, and that was it for a twelve hour flight. My first thought, though, upon landing wasn’t about food; we were in Tel Aviv and my first though was “David Ben Gurion was named after an airport.” That is how I introduced myself to the Land of Milk and Honey; with humor.
The trip left on March 2nd out of New York. We got to Israel on March 3rd, late, and got to the kibbutz even later. A kibbutz is where you plotz after a long day. By March 4th we had no idea what day it was, and it was only out first full day of a blitz through the country. Our first venture was to walk in the valley between the Golan and Gali Mountains, partly to see the country and partly to move our legs after a long time on a plane and bus. It’s interesting that I’ve always walked sure-footed and quickly, both hiking (mountain-hiking and otherwise) and on city streets. Is that because I grew up in the mountains, or am I naturally a fast walker, sure of how and where to cross a stream? Some of us walk fast, and some of us walk slow, and a group of forty somehow naturally seems slower than a group of 20, 10, 0r 5.
March 5, 2011
March 5th was the first time in a long time that I had observed Shabbat. In Israel, of course, and in Judaism the sabbath, Shabbat, doesn’t begin on Saturday, but on Friday night. The day doesn’t begin on Friday, but a day ends when the sun goes down. Just as I once had to ask why the French calendar ends with Saturday and Sunday (I mean, ours begins on Sunday, why doesn’t everyone follow us?), I have had to ask why a day begins at night (this time, I asked myself). The day doesn’t begin at night, the day ends with the sun, which means the next day must start. Shabbat is interesting and meaningful in Israel (the Israelis I have made friends with will laugh when they read that obvious sentence), while here even serious and faithful Christians, Jews, and Muslims might attend Church – but guess how they get there. In Israel (you Israelis will laugh again at the obviousness) things stop on Shabbat. Cars don’t drive Friday night and Saturday. Phone calls stop, at least in the public domain. No pictures. A Sabbath Elevator is required. Shabbat actually matters.
On Shabbat, at a time when we were not familiar with one another, we stopped to ask what it meant to be a Jew. Naturally, the kibbutz we were on was not old – about sixty years, which is the age of Israel. The kibbutzim are failing, but that’s not a topic of Shabbat…. Kibbutzim are a product of the idea of the New Jew (an idea of the late 19th and especially early 20th centuries, promoted by early Zionism), that a Jew can be more than a banker, that a Jew can work the land (an act forbidden to Jews for many centuries in Europe). And so, Jews worked the land of Israel. That’s what it means to be a New Jew.
For everyone, being a Jew means something different. I place no emphasis on the Torah, but believe it was written (by man) with a purpose. I am not a New Jew. Nor am I the Jew of Middle Europe. I am mixed; observant and unobservant; interested in scholarly works but not the works of only my religion. I am a Jew, like many of (the forty of) us, that attained a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, went through confirmation with my class two years later because it seemed like the thing to do, and paid no attention to my religion, though I did not forsake it. I simply gave it no meaning, because I was never taught that it had any except a historical one. The (literal) meaning of Israel is to wrestle with God, that is, to question Him/Her/It, and that is what we do naturally; we question.
March 6, 2011
I’m either perpetuating a new myth or an old one when I say that, like the rabbi of Europe, who moved to the town of Tsvat in his old age, I can see why he heard the songs of angels in Tsvat. It is a beautiful town, in the beauty of Mediterranean coastal mountain villages of Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, where beauty comes naturally and where the buildings belong to and enhance the land.
Tsvat is not only beautiful, it inspires greatness. It has become a center of (if not the originating location of) the study of Kabbalah, which studies the interconnectedness of matter and spirit (the physical and the metaphysical). Kabbalah begins with language and numbers, and is patterns and meanings unified with questions and answers that lead to more questions and answers.
There is a refrain running through Israeli answers to problems that is both a joke and not a joke. Issues everywhere may be bad, but Israeli problems are worse. Water supply may be short everywhere, but it is more endangered in Israel. Environmental problems may exist everywhere, but in Israel they are worse. National Security is an issue for everyone, but it is for Israel more than others. This is what the Israelis tell you, both with humor and with seriousness. I don’t know what kind of realistic world we’re living in, but out of about fifty Jews, every one believed that global warming is real. Maybe a problem is only bad when you recognize that it exists.
Between Tsvat and learning about environmental issues that Israel faces, and its efforts to solve these problems followed by our drive to Tel Aviv, seven Israeli soldiers joined our trip. They joined, not as soldiers (though they had their uniforms) but as Israelis. They joined so that we could learn about Israel from Israelis, and so they could learn about America from Americans. They came from all ranks and duties, and they came with a joie-de-vie that many Americans do not have, the kind inspired by college or comradeship in a duty and service that means something and inspires friendship with those who work for the same reason. (I say this afterward because I saw it in their faces, though I did not doubt it at the time.) They stayed with us for about five days, which is very short, but in the action-packed schedule of a ten-day tour, it was good amount of time
March 7, 2011
We spent very little time in Tel Aviv – the night of March 6 – which is a bit disappointing to me as I tried to study the culture and politics of the country. Tel Aviv, after all, is the diplomatic and modern cultural center of Israel, and the place of independence. We saw Independence Hall – where Ben Gurion was named after an airport – and heard the speech proclaiming independence. Except that we are so far removed from the event, both in time and space, it was important and good to see. I suppose it’s a bit like listening to someone read the Gettysburg Address once an hour at Gettysburg, or listening to a guide recite The Declaration of Independence. Interesting, but not quite moving.
Tel Aviv is pretty in a modern kind of way; it looks exactly like any other large city in the world, with signs in a different language (actually, most signs are in Hebrew AND English, and most Israelis I encountered spoke passable or good English). The Mediterranean is, perhaps, the prettiest part of Tel Aviv and we walked from there to Jaffa. It’s a mess trying to figure out which city is where (not just Jaffa and Tel Aviv, but anywhere in the world) but Tel Aviv is a suburb of sorts of Jaffa, and Tel Aviv has several suburbs. Brilliant, right? With all the walking I did in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and every other part of Israel, I can’t tell you a whole lot about culture; we saw what we (tourists) were meant to see. However, as I’ve said, things don’t change much between one country and another. (For instance, parts of the agricultural countryside of Israel look just like shanty-towns of Mexico, California, or the Midwest).
I’ve been told that the term gentrification has a negative terminology, because it involves fixing an area up only for profit. It gentrification is negative that’s not what we helped do in Israel; if it can be a positive action as well, which has no profit in mind, then we – the almost fifty of us with the soldiers – helped gentrify a neighborhood by cleaning and weeding a garden in Lod. Of all the forced fun activities we did – the ones that did not involve seeing the country – I think this might have been the most useful, both to Israel and to ourselves.
March 8, 2011
We hiked in the Negev Desert. It’s beautiful and I’m glad I don’t live there.As Jews, our ancient recorded history began, and culminates in, wandering in the desert. We came out of the land of Egypt, which is desert, the land called Mitzraim, “narrow passage,” which could have the double meaning of a birth canal. That is, we as Jews were born in Egypt. There is a horribly written book that I encourage you not to read, called The Gift of The Jews, but nonetheless has its facts and story correct. Before Judaism man conquered space – farmed his fields – and repeated the next year. But he had not, as far as historical record makes clear, conquered time. The Jews (and, if you’re Christian you have no reason to object, because the Jewish history Before the Common Era is the the Judeo-Muslim-Christian tradition) conquered space and time. They conquered space – how else? – by occupying land, and working the land. They conquered time by 1)making a historical record, and 2)by setting aside time as the sabbath. We came out of Egypt, and received commandments, and conquered space and time.
Our trip experienced very little culture, or ‘real’ feeling of life in Israel – though it’s not unlike life in America. We came close, perhaps, when we stayed this Tuesday night in a Bedouin camp. We rode camels – I don’t intend on doing that any time soon – listened to music, and stared at stars. But not me. I’ve seen stars, and I was tired. So I slept as much as I could, in our open tent, with all of us. The food was awesome, as it was everywhere on this free trip, but next time I’m in a Bedouin camp I’d like to not eat on paper plates with electric lighting. It kind of ruins the feeling, you know.
March 9, 2011
After the Second Temple fell in 70 C.E. and there was open Judaic revolt against the Romans some Jews – about a thousand – fled to Masada, an inhospitable but naturally fortified mountain in the Negev. The Romans set up eight camps in an area where I could see no possibility of growing food and besieged the mountain for five months. To get up Masada we hiked up the Roman Ramp, which was more of a natural path given steps (I’m not sure there were steps for the Romans), and it’s a half-mile hike where people can throw rocks at you from above.
At the very least, the intervention in Libya by the international community has made simple sloganeering near impossible. The left, who had naturally embraced the Libyan Revolution, now find themselves fighting to both support the revolution while opposing the foreign intervention that same revolution invited.
As a leftist who protested against wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, I do not find myself mobilized against military operations in Libya. This is not out of some new found love for military operations, but out of a desire to see the Libyan Revolution succeed and acknowledging the right of the revolutionaries to request military support they determine to be necessary. They simply can’t free Libya if Benghazi itself faces a similar fate as Grozny.
It would have been preferable if the Libyan Revolutionaries invited some military superpower free of geo-political interests in the region. I fear such a force doesn’t exist. That may explain why the revolutionaries were quick to say they would honor oil contracts made by Gaddafi with multinational oil companies. Such an assurance would ease Western concerns about the ultimate objectives of the revolution. This will hardly satisfy supporters who may want a more profound and meaningful revolution, but the options of the Libyan Revolutionaries are limited with a regime that used live ammunition on unarmed street protesters and funeral processions.
The immediate historical comparison that came to mind was the American Revolutionaries and their alliance with the French absolute monarchy. Those objecting to foreign intervention in Libya might have blasted such a deal between anti-monarchist American Revolutionaries and the French King. They would have correctly pointed to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre committed by the French Monarchy, asking how the Americans could have sided with a brutal, colonial power. But facing such a global superpower as the British Empire, such a tactical alliance was pursued by the American Revolutionaries, forcing the British into a wider war rather than focusing all its might on the rebellious Thirteen Colonies.
It is easy for fellow leftists to make grand denouncements of foreign intervention from the safety of London or New York. Such locations are far from the reach of Gaddafi and his promised revenge that would show “no mercy”. The revolutionaries in Benghazi and across Libya don’t have that luxury. In the early days of the revolution, they proudly insisted their rejection of any foreign intervention. I took pride in that myself, hoping to enjoy from a distance as another regime fell at the hands of its own people. Their desired outcome was to topple Gaddafi on their own, but the reality of Gaddafi’s counter-attack humbled them, and they requested foreign military assistance, something they wouldn’t have asked for if it wasn’t tactically necessary.
If you support the Libyan Revolutionaries, you should defer to their judgement on requesting foreign military aid to help topple Gaddafi. That doesn’t mean embracing the interventionists who themselves back terrible regimes in Yemen and Bahrain carrying out brutal crackdowns on non-violent protest movements. I’ll remain active in advocating for those protests movements and denouncing the legacy of Western support for brutal regimes across the region. But the Libyan Revolutionaries have made it this far, if we support their movement, we should acknowledge that they’re in the best position to make strategic decisions.
The minute the revolutionaries call off foreign warplanes, my voice will join theirs, demanding the United States and coalition forces comply with that demand. Till then, I’ll hope this risky intervention benefits the Libyan Revolution, allowing it to advance once again as early reports already suggest. I’ll protest any coalition attacks that result in civilian casualties, and I’ll express my continued concern about alleged human rights abuses by rebels. Whether I’ve compromised my leftist values with this stance is for others to determine.
Tens of thousands of young people marching through tree lined streets, filling historic, centuries old squares from one end to the other. This isn’t a Cairo square or a majestic boulevard of Tunis, these are the streets of Lisbon and the people filling them are Portugal’s Geração à Rasca, the Precarious Generation.
The scale of the protests are hard to overstate. Over 300,000 people took to the streets in a country of 10,000,000 people. The spark for the protests was just a plea originating from Facebook for unity and protests against economic deprivation. The plea was answered enthusiastically across Portugal. In Lisbon, Porto, Faro, and Braga, thousands of young people rallied peacefully. These protests weren’t limited to the mainland, either. Both island regions of Madeira and the Azores saw strong mobilization by youths, youths quickly joined by families and pensioners.
The protests helped highlight the indispensable role of artists in social struggle. Arguably the chief catalyst of the movement was a musical performance by Deolinda back in January. Their song, “Parva Que Sou” (Dumb am I) absolutely stirred the audience, reaching and bringing forth their common discontent toward national economic conditions. The crowd interrupted with applause after the line: “what a dumb world where to be a slave you have to study.” After the song finished, and the crowd rose for an emphatic standing ovation, the sense was undeniable that everyone in the theater shared an indignant sentiment: Basta! Enough of the economic deprivation.
Sensing this Geração à Rasca existed, four people on Facebook put out a call for protests on March 12th, and in a few weeks, 65,000 people would pledge their participation. To have the actual attendance far exceed the pledged attendance is a remarkable accomplishment for a movement without any organizational infrastructure that a political party or labor organization has at its disposal. This demonstrates the widespread discontent within Portugal and may signal the messaging needed as the economic crisis batters nations the world over.
The tens of thousands of protesters were brought onto the streets against the economic crisis, rather than in support of any sort of existing institution, leftist or otherwise, within Portugal. In absence of an alternative, the protesters have broadly called for “politicians, employers, and ourselves,” to respond to the “unsustainable” reality. Judged by the turnout on the streets, this broad appeal by the protesters won the sympathy of the country. The question is whether this strength of the movement starts becoming a weakness as the government continues to accuse them of nihilism.
Some have rightly feared we live in “An Age of Revolt – In an Age Without a Left,” and the Portuguese protests may go on to reinforce those fears if they remain vaguely apolitical. I do not fear the absence of an alternative to unite around so much as I fear an unwillingness to unite exclusively against neo-liberalism.
To build an alternative and to win it popular support takes far more time than the crisis affords us. From Wisconsin union busting, to French pension reform, to student fees in the U.K., the intransigence of policymakers frustrates any opposition, formal or informal. Walker, Sarkozy, Cameron all seemingly read off the same script: “there is a crisis, there is no money, we have no choice.” And in a few weeks, these policymakers get their austerity despite large scale mass protests.
Already in Portugal, on the eve of Friday’s mass protests, Prime Minister Sócrates announced a fourth round of austerity as the international markets target that country as their next victim as they did Greece and Ireland before. The Portuguese government, like those of Ireland and Greece, may proceed with austerity despite the unprecedented, spontaneous protests on March 12th.
With governments subject to international bond markets rather than popular social movements, the protests themselves have to become coordinated internationally as well. The Precarious Generation that exists well beyond the borders of Portugal must rise against neo-liberalism, to strike against the failsafe to democratic reforms that is neo-liberalism built into the Washington Consensus. Only when governments are again more concerned with crowds filling public squares than the latest swings in the bond markets can we consider the policies we want in place of austerity.
There is a contentious debate underway on the merits, tactics, and necessity of foreign intervention in the crisis in Libya, a crisis increasingly taking the form of a civil war. If permitted to simplify the debate into two simple narratives, there are those mightily proclaiming responsibility for the well being of Libyans through implementation of a no-fly-zone, and those who insist the fight be deferred to the Libyans revolting against Gaddafi.
This would be a neat debate to have if there was a decisively clear message from the Libyan revolutionaries. This is not the case. Saturday, the National Libyan Council repeated a request for “foreign air strikes to help dislodge” Gaddafi and his regime. This followed a statement days earlier by a rebel spokesman saying there was no need for “any foreign intervention or military operation.”
It would be easy to defer to the latest statement by The National Libyan Council but even that has its perils. The Council is operating out of Benghazi and its authority over the revolution is in question. The recent offensive by rebels against Gaddafi forces in the East illustrates this key problem. Rebels would launch attacks on impulse while military defectors desperately tried to assert a coherent strategy to the attacks. Fortunately, this breakdown in command, or lack of command, hasn’t yet resulted in decisive military defeats of the rebels.
Even if the National Libyan Council has decisively called for foreign intervention, their mandate to make such a request is in doubt. This is a thirty member council chaired by Gaddafi’s former justice minister who defected days into the revolution. What a questionable leadership in Benghazi says about foreign airstrikes may not carry well with the rebels fighting on the streets who fear any American intervention would steal their revolution.
It is my personal desire to see Libya shake free of Gaddafi’s rule through protests and popular armed struggle when necessary. I question calls by U.S. senators for intervention, fearing it is an attempt to reassert American influence in a region where U.S. allies have fallen in Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon so far this year. However, if the moment comes when there is a decisive call by Libya’s revolutionaries for explicit foreign military operations against designated regime targets, I’ll stand by their judgement as every outside observer should.
Yesterday I informed you that I will not be active here until the middle of March. I am pleased to announce that there will be contribution to fill the gap, not only while I am gone, but after. I’m pleased to welcome David Ferreira, who will add his own views to this site.
I encourage you, as always, on behalf of both of us, to give us feedback, challenge us, and, if you’d like to share our writings.
I also hope you to use this site to share your own views and comments on affairs and, well, just about everything else you’d like to comment on.
I’ll leave all further introduction of David to him.
The Spanish high court ruled that a case against executives from the Bush administration could proceed, denying a request from a prosecutor to dismiss the claim. There are two ongoing investigations in Spain, and I will let quotes describe the cases. From one;
on April 27, 2009, Judge Baltasar Garzón issued a decision opening a preliminary investigation into what he termed “an authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill-treatment on persons deprived of their freedom without any charge and without the basic rights of any detainee, set out and required by applicable international conventions,” in US detention facilities. This decision related to the alleged torture and abuse of four former Guantánamo detainees: Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Ikassrien Lahcen, Jamiel Abdul Latif Al Banna and Omar Deghayes. All four men had previously been the subject of a criminal case in Spain, but were subsequently acquitted because of the use of torture and other forms of serious abuse to which they had been subjected during their detention and interrogations at Guantánamo; Judge Garzón had previously issued the extradition requests for Messrs Al Banna and Deghayes. Mr Ahmed is a Spanish citizen and Mr Ikassrien had been a Spanish resident for more than 13 years. The decision presents six pages of facts related to the torture and abuse the four men suffered including being held in cells made of chicken-wire in intense heat; being subjected to constant loud music, extreme temperatures and bright lights; constant interrogations without counsel; sexual assault; forced nakedness; threats of death; and severe beatings. The preliminary investigation did not name potential defendants, but included “possible material and instigating perpetrators, necessary collaborators and accomplices.” Judge Garzón found that the facts relate to violations under the Spanish Penal Code, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Organic Law of the Judicial Power (Article 23.4).
and from the other;
On March 17, 2009, a criminal complaint was filed against David Addington (former Counsel to, and Chief of Staff for, former Vice President Cheney); Jay S. Bybee (former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)); Douglas Feith (former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department of Defense (DOD)); Alberto R. Gonzales (former Counsel to former President George W. Bush, and former Attorney General of the United States); William J. Haynes (former General Counsel, DOD); and John Yoo, (former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, OLC, DOJ), collectively known as the “Bush Six,” in which each was alleged to have participated or aided and abetted the torture and other serious abuse of persons detained at U.S. run-facilities at Guantánamo and other overseas locations. They are alleged to have committed numerous violations of international law, including violations of the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture.
Description of both cases comes from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed a motion in each case to join the investigation as a party. You can read more about the case, including US involvement, at alternet.
It is rare that I write here without addressing social issues. I have a personal announcement to make.
I will not be active on this blog until the middle of March (oh dear, the Ides of March). I will be flying to New York to spend quality time with my brother, and will be there until Feb 26th until March 2nd. On March 2nd I’m flying to Israel (thank you, Birthright) and will be there until March 13th. I’ll spend a couple days in New York and return on March 15th.
Thank you all for reading and commenting and challenging what I write.
The most frequently used example of research in political science is ‘Trust in Government.” Do people trust the local government? Do people trust the federal government? “Trust in Government” is to political research what “Hello World!” is to building a website, an essential starting block to make sure all further coding comes out correctly. Do you trust your government?
My guess is, we in the United States both do and do not trust our government. We trust our government (I think), not to kill us or torture us, despite a recent suggestion by a no-longer-employed Indiana deputy attorney general that live ammunition be used on Wisconsin protesters (although I encourage you to consider Guantanamo for a moment). We do not trust our government not to pursue legal action against us for expressing an opinion. Glenn Greenwald, of Salon magazine, suggested to readers in March 2010 that WikiLeaks was a website worth supporting, financially or otherwise. In response, several people said they were interested but “expressed a serious fear of doing so: they were worried that donating money to a group so disliked by the government would cause them to be placed on various lists or, worse, incur criminal liability.”
Speaking about fear of government, the State Department’s immediate reaction to the multiple leaks by WikiLeaks was to declare that anyone (generally young) who wrote about or commented on the issues of WikiLeaks would be automatically not considered for a State Department job. I, of course, fear that if I ever did want any federal job, simply commenting on WikiLeaks here, much less expressing an opinion, is enough to discredit me in the government’s eyes.
If you thought about the absurdity of people’s reaction to Greenwald, he had the same reaction. WikiLeaks, at least at the time, had never been charged with a crime, and any cry of terrorist organization was just a cry. Any donations to an organization not considered criminal, Greenwald points out, cannot be held against people. The point, though, is not about law or legality. The point is that “most of those expressing these concerns were perfectly rational, smart, well-informed American citizens. And yet they were petrified that merely donating money to a non-violent political and journalistic group whose goals they supported would subject them to invasive government scrutiny or, worse, turn them into criminals.” More importantly, “a government can guarantee all the political liberties in the world on paper (free speech, free assembly, freedom of association), but if it succeeds in frightening the citizenry out of exercising those rights, they become meaningless.”
Let me repeat that, because it gets lost in long paragraphs. “A government can guarantee all the political liberties in the world on paper (free speech, free assembly, freedom of association), but if it succeeds in frightening the citizenry out of exercising those rights, they become meaningless.” Glen Greenwald said that; I don’t disagree, do you? Do you trust your government?
To return to an earlier point, I believe we do not fear our government. We can protest, talk, and change our elected officials. A brave man just came back from Libya, Afghanistan and Iran – he planned his trip before large protests occurred – and reminded us that
we can all use the tools of modern technology to communicate with people without censorship. If you want to publicly protest something in America, you can do that too, and the government will even send out police to protect both you and any demonstrators who oppose your views.
True, but do we do that, will we do that, if we fear government? On a federal level involving our national security state Greenwald wrote (a month after the already-mentioned article),
At some point, the dogmatic emphasis on limited state power, not trusting the Federal Government, and individual liberties — all staples of right-wing political propaganda, especially Tea Party sloganeering — has to conflict with things like oversight-free federal domestic surveillance, limitless government detention powers, and impenetrable secrecy (to say nothing of exploiting state power to advance culture war aims).
However, it is not only Greenwald that writes about trust of government secrecy in government. I cited and summarized an article by Bill Moyers recently, but I did not include this comment about the government.
“It’s always a fight to find out what the government doesn’t want us to know. The official obsession with secrecy is all the more disturbing today because the war on terrorism is a war without limits, without a visible enemy or decisive encounters. We don’t know where the clandestine war is going on or how much it’s costing and whether it’s in the least effective. Even in Afghanistan, most of what we know comes from official, usually military, sources.”
I do not usually fear my government, and I do not usually trust my government. I belong to the dangerous and endangered class of people that says what I think about government when I disagree and do so in a public place. When I read things like this, “anyone connected to WikiLeaks — even American citizens — are now routinely detained at the airport and have their property seized, their laptops and cellphones taken and searched and retained without a shred of judicial oversight or due process,” I tend to fear my government. That, of course, is the point. As a final thought from Greenwald, and this is exactly the point, “political liberties are meaningless if they’re conditioned on obeisance to political power or if citizens are frightened out of exercising them in any way that matters.”
The Dole Blog 