Schwartz - The 21st Century Palestinian

The pen of destiny has finally inscribed the final chapter in the story of Yasser Arafat, one of history’s most controversial revolutionaries. Yes, the curtain has closed on the drama of “Abu Amar,” and the grand playwright seems to be taking a short rest before charging headlong into its next project: having completed the tale of the man, it must now tell the tale of the man’s nation—and the only way this tale can be told is if the subjects themselves rise up to the call of the playwright, if the characters seize the almighty pen now being offered to them.

See also:
Statement of Position Regarding Israel
An Idea for Jumpstarting a Nonviolent Intifada
Return to Ramallah, Au Revoir Arafat
The Curtain is Beginning to Close
An American Storm in the Holy Land

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly, affects all indirectly... In any Nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action...”
—Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

“Each and every one of us punctually pays his share of sacrifice, aware of being rewarded by the satisfaction of fulfilling our duty, aware of advancing with everyone toward the new human being who is to be glimpsed on the horizon... The road is long and in part unknown; we are aware of our limitations. We will make the twenty-first century human being, we ourselves!”
—Ernesto “Che” Guevera, “Socialism and Man in Cuba”

The 20th Century Palestinian[1]

The pen of destiny has finally inscribed the final chapter in the story of Yasser Arafat, one of history’s most controversial revolutionaries. Yes, the curtain has closed on the drama of “Abu Amar,” and the grand playwright seems to be taking a short rest before charging headlong into its next project: having completed the tale of the man, it must now tell the tale of the man’s nation—and the only way this tale can be told is if the subjects themselves rise up to the call of the playwright, if the characters seize the almighty pen now being offered to them.

Yasser Arafat was the Palestinians’ David Ben-Gurion. A reckless comparison? I think not. Both were devoted to their nations, so unlike other national leaders for they were willing to suffer any cost to themselves for the advancement of their cause. They both readily, even happily, suffered occupation, persecution, braved exile and risked death, so that one day, no matter how far away that day may be, their nations would be free to determine their own destinies: developing culturally and ecomonically as they saw fit for themselves, able to defend themselves by themselves, no longer letting their safety depend upon the largesse of those who had historically neglected, exploited and even slaughtered them. Both men were guerilla generals who too often resorted to terrorism, even genocide, to accomplish their aims. As political leaders, both men found themselves under siege by enemies: Ben-Gurion by Jewish opponents within Israel, and by hostile Arab regimes all around; Yasser Arafat by King Hussein of Jordan then Sharon of Israel, who pusued him into Lebanon and beyond, then infamously imprisoned him in the Muqata. And most of all, both men were visionary revolutionaries who evolved, rightly so, beyond the mere status of first Israeli prime minister and first Palestinian president, to become symbols of their respective nations.

It is Arafat’s symbolism which is of the utmost importance when one considers his meaning and his legacy. As Ben-Gurion was in life and even moreso in death, Arafat has been idealized by his people. Talking to them on the streets of the major cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, in sleepy poor towns like Beit Sira, in their homes and in their businesses, while they work the farms of Latrun, mow the grass in Modi`in, or demonstrate against the Separation Wall in Abu Dis, Palestinians readily admit the failings of their beloved Abu Amar: he was an autocrat, and with the self-entitlement of a shaykh he granted positions of power to undeserving friends and allies; he was corrupt—after all, his wife and daughter live luxoriously in Paris; both he and Rabin were fools to agree to the filibustering Oslo peace process; he was too gullible with the duplicitous Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton; and his Palestinian Authority was ineffective in bettering the quality of life for West Bankers and Gazans—though it didn’t help, they accurately point out, when Netanyahu and Barak upped the pace of construction for illegal settlements, which was followed by Sharon’s demolition of the Palestinians’ fledgling national infrastructure during 2001-2003. Yet, whatever his failings as a political leader, it was Arafat’s determination and fidelity to his cause that he shall be remembered for: “I am a Palestinian soldier,” he proclaimed in 2003, “I will use my gun to defend not only myself but also defend every Palestinian child, woman and man and to defend the Palestinian existence.”

As I sat across from a friend, sipping coffee and listening to the ebbing tones of hope in his desperate voice; as I rode across the mountains of the northern West Bank, my jeep weaving in between caravans of taxis, cars and trucks draped with mournful black banners and posters of the defiant PLO Chairman, all speeding diligently toward Ramallah; as I stood among the throng in the heart of the Muqata and, watching the helicopters lower, felt the pitiful cry, “Abu Amar!” shudder through my bones as a people welcomed their leader home one last time—I realized that yes, whatever doubts and dislikes we Westerners may have had about the man, and indeed whatever disappointments the Palestinians themselves may have secretly or openly harbored against him all throughout these grueling and dark days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Arafat was indeed a symbol, the embodiment of all the Palestinian people’s aspects, both good and bad: he was their clear-sighted, yet sometimes fundamentalist morality; he was their unwavering and heroic determination as well as their pigheaded guerillaism and unyielding kamikaze-mania; he was their remarkable willingness to let bygones be bygones, but he was also their unforgiving memory, recounting every wrong, every crime committed against them for centuries; he was their hope for a peaceful resolution as well as their all-too-strong tendency for cynicism and violence, revenge and terrorism; he was their longing to build a modern nation-state, but he was also their archaic patriarchal, nepotistic and petty tribalism; and he was their statelessness, their homelessness.

Yet, now that Arafat has been laid to rest, the Palestinians have a golden opportunity to cultivate their own better angels and conquer the demons within. The course of the Intifada can and must be changed, for no longer can the Palestinian people pin their hopes, as well as lay all their responsibility, upon one man. No, they must now truly internalize the principles of democracy: to debate and discuss the content of their dreams, and to decide who shall be their next leader. Ironically in this matter, with Marwan Barghouti in Israeli prison and Mustafa Barghouti, at least for now, Ralph-Nader’d into the margins of political discourse, they are faced with a very American and Israeli dilemma: to choose the candidate who’ll accomplish the least for his citizenry and the most for elite interests. Let us be candid: the Palestinians are under intense but tacit pressure from all the world to choose Abu Mazen, an opportunist and handmaiden to the imperialist powerbrokers of Washington, D.C. and Tel Aviv. This choice is essentially like the “choice” between Bush or Kerry, Sharon or Mitzna—same man, just different temperament—Republican or Democrat, Likud or Avoda, two sides of the same tarnished and worthless coin, a denari, shekel, dollar minted from the shoddy copper ore of populist politics, bourgeoisie apathy and rich special interests which has infected the bedrock of modern democracy. Simply, the Palestinians find themselves trapped in a non-choice. Nevertheless, there is hope even if Abu Mazen becomes president, for then the Palestinian people must cooperate with each other and stay active in deciding the kind of policies he shall have. A man such as Abu Mazen, a Palestinian Bill Clinton of non-policy, is malleable: whoever threatens him the most, either with international isolation or the infamy of cultural memory, shall sway him to their side.

But more important than the coming public election of figures is the coming hidden election of ideas: for not only must the Palestinians choose a leader and then pester and protest him onto the straight and moral path to a victorious and lasting peace, but they must also choose the tactical/ethical and political direction of the Intifada. Shall this rebellion remain a barracks revolt of dystopian militias or an unarmed mass movement like the First Intifada?—and shall the aim be for an independent Palestinian state, and if so, what of the refugees and the settlements?—or shall the aim be for a binational Palestinian-Israeli state (an unlikely scenario at the moment I must admit, given the sentiment in both the Israeli and Arab streets)?—and, ultimately, shall this be for the political and half-assed economic emancipation of but one oppressed nation, or the total, utter existential liberation of both nations, oppressor and oppressed alike?

Yes, Yassir Arafat was the ultimate 20th Century Palestinian, but he was not the potential 21st Century Palestinian. His death may now lead to a rebirth—indeed, a birth—and a resurrection of an ideal whose murder went unnoticed, obscured by the din of war and glory: the true shaheed, the martyr of Nonviolence.

The road is long and in part unknown...

It is clear to anyone who is properly acquainted with the Occupation that there must be an Intifada. Just as Zionism, whatever its faults, was the necessary response to the European governments’ policy of assimilating and exterminating the Jews, so now is Intifada, “Shaking Off,” the necessary response to the Israeli government’s colonialist oppression of the Palestinians. However, it must be a moral rebellion, by which is meant two things: a fundamental redirection of the Intifada’s strategy away from war, and a fundamental redirection of the Intifada’s ideology away from the ideology of the nihilistic shaheed—the suicide-bomber—to another type of shaheed, one who understands himself as but one piece of twine in an elaborate cosmic tapestry of humanity, divinity, and most of all, life.

It is true, as the famous guerilla Che Guevera believed, that an oppressed people’s only resort is struggle, and he was correct that it must be armed, but he was wrong, dead wrong as it turned out for him, that those arms must be guns and grenades. Furthermore, the terroristic militias of Hamas and the Shuhada al-Aqsa are half-right and all wrong when they assert that the Palestinian’s only weapon is his own body. Rather, the body is but a vessel for the most powerful weapons on the earth, more powerful than any gun or grenade: the God-given human mind and soul.

Gandhi called the use of these weapons, as well as those who wielded them, Satyagraha, “Truth Force.”

Yes, the Muslim Palestinians must abandon their philosophy of violence and commit to the tactics and principles of civil disobedience and Nonviolent Noncooperative Resistance.

I remember very clearly what a young Palestinian man said to me recently: “You want us to be ‘nonviolent’? What should we do, put flowers in the tank turrets?” But he was mistaken as to the nature of Nonviolence: putting flowers in tank turrets is not Nonviolence; a million unarmed men, women and children marching all the way to Tel Aviv, hand in hand, rank after rank, pushing through every checkpoint, not halting no matter how many bullets and bombs the IDF rains upon them, that’s Nonviolence. Such a display of ethical determination to attain justice would shatter the misguided resolve of the Israeli public and rouse the citizenry of the earth, which would rise up and compel the world’s governments to finally bring an end to the war.

It has been said, again and again, that Nonviolence is a sham, and that it is even immoral because it is “complacent,” “passive,” “the weapon of the weak,” or as one West Bank acquaintance of mine said, “It’ll only give the Israelis what they’ve wanted most: to kill us without a bother.” The dominant belief throughout the world is that only violence can truly bring justice; indeed, that violent armed struggle is no mere violence, but moral violence. To these charges, I submit a proper definition of Nonviolence and two facts:
+Sezai Ozcelik, a Muslim Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, says eloquently in his paper Nonviolent Action and Third Party Role in the Islamic World, “Nonviolence should never be confused with inaction or passivity. It is not inaction. It is action that is nonviolent. Nonviolence is action in the full sense of the word. It is a forceful action that does not use violence. It is a fact that nonviolent activism is more powerful and more effective than violent activism”; [2]
+in 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations: dismantling the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War;
+if we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (India, China, the United States, the USSR, South Africa, continental Europe, Indonesia, Burma, Palestine in the 1980s)—excluding major nonviolent actions in the 19th and 18th centuries and further back in history—the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of all humanity! And if we include recent nonviolent actions in Serbian Yugoslavia, the Phillipines, Mozambique, Argentina, and the Ukraine, the figure approaches 4 billion people effected positively by Nonviolence! [3]
Meanwhile, what have the great armed struggles of our era accomplished? Take a moment to glance at Africa, and we see that it has been exploding with armed rebellions and revolutions for over fifty years. An entire continent is held hostage by the capriciousness of war and international intrigue, all in the name of violent “liberation” for one ethnic group or another. Now let us examine the Second World War, cited by, well, just about everybody, even supposed pacifists, as the best example of a “just war for liberation.” If one calculates all the Jews, Gypsies and “undesirables” lost in the furnaces of the Nazi death camps: at least 10 million lost. Meanwhile, approximately 60 million lives were lost in actual combat, soldiers, partisans and civilians. Then consider the long-term results: the Korean War and the Cold War—which continue to haunt the continents of Africa and Asia, riven as they were by the half-century “great game” between the USA and USSR—and of course the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland, giving us a grand total of all the human species effected negatively by violence. And the greatest irony of the Second World War was that Japan claimed it had a divine right to free Asia from Western colonialism, whether Asia wanted Japanese “humanitarian intervention” or not; Adolf Hitler dubbed his genocide and conquests a crusade to liberate the German people from their destitution at the hands of the British and French; Josef Stalin proclaimed he was “freeing the working-class” as he sent 20 million working-class Russians and Central Asians to die by Nazi bullets; and Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt readily admitted that they were striving to maintain the pre-war status quo of bloodthirsty capitalist empires. So much for the notion of moral violence.

Why does Nonviolence have such a startling high rate of effectiveness? Because the Nonviolent approach to struggle represents a radical departure from conventional thinking about conflict, and yet appeals to a number of common-sense notions.

Among these is the idea that the power of rulers depends on the consent of the masses. Without a bureacracy, an army, a police force and, most importantly, a tax-paying, law-abiding—submissive—public to carry out his or her wishes, the ruler is powerless. Therefore, power depends on the cooperation of others, and Nonviolent action, especially when performed by large numbers of people, undermines the power of rulers through deliberate withdrawal of this cooperation. Hunger strikes, pickets, vigils, marches, petitions, sit-ins, public prayer sessions, “go-slows,” tax refusal, boycotts, labor strikes, blockades, conscription refusal, the use of independent political institutions, establishing “parallel” organs of government to rival the current order (i.e., the Committees of Correspondence and Continental Congresses which prefigured the United States of America; the Indian Congress Party which prefigured the Republic of India; and perhaps the current Palestinian National Authrotiy)—all these tactics and more are examples of that deliberate withdrawal of consent, and these tactics comprise the arsenal of Nonviolent Noncooperative Resistance. [See: Appendix I, “The Methods of Nonviolent Action.”]

Also of primary significance is the belief that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. Gandhi: “The means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree.” Simply, the actions we take in the present inevitably reshape the social order in form, and determine our future. Palestinians now know all too well the social order and future offered by the gun and suicide-bomb: today, for every suicide-bombing, Sharon wraps himself tighter in the Israeli flag and the tallith of righteousness and imprisons a hundred Palestinian men (the breadwinners in Palestine’s traditionalist society), erects a new checkpoint (disrupting commerce and social relationships), bulldozes an entire neighborhood and erects another tenement for settlers, syphons another gallon of water from Palestinian aquifiers, divides and perverts the earth with another 8-meter concrete block of his apartheid “Security Fence”—and he can get away with it easily, like a serial rapist striking in the night, because delusional America and the international community, a pig pen of half-assed empires, failed states and make-believe civil societies, is nevertheless populated by well-meaning but badly educated citizenries who, no matter how actually or potentially sympathetic they may be for the Palestinians’ plight, are rightly repulsed by every Palestinian youth detonated for the sake of sensational vengeance.

It is widely believed among practitioners of Nonviolent resistance that when Jesus instructed his disciples to resist the vengeful impulse and “turn the other cheek” when injustice was inflicted upon them, he was describing a basic method for achieving just ends by just means, and more, for he may have been describing a basic psychological attitude for his disciples to adopt: “love thy enemy.”

The Nonviolent resister has respect, even love, for his opponents. He believes that Truth and God are multifaceted and unable to be grasped in their entirety by any one individual. We all carry inside ourselves pieces of Truth, sparks of God, and we need the pieces of others’ veracity and divinity in order to come closer to full knowledge, full wisdom. The only way to fulfill this need is through dialogue, that is to say, a sincere wish to understand our opponents, their motivativations. In order to do this, the Nonviolent resister must separate the deeds from the doers. As a result he recognizes that there is a system, social and economic and ideological in its rapacious mechanics, which compels the oppressors deeper and deeper into tyranny: the Israeli soldier himself is a victim, distorted from his true self, transformed into a murderer he should never have been, and the Nonviolent Palestinian uses all his might to subdue his own rage and hatred while striving to destroy that system which has crushed him and the soldier against each other in an attempt to mutate them into inhuman cogs of a murderous satanic machine. Respect or love for opponents and separating doer from deed is also profoundly pragmatic, for it allows the possibility of the doers, be they oppressor or oppressed, to change their ways and dismantle the ruinous matrix of control.

Islamic Nonviolence

It is has also been said that Nonviolence is a Western/Hindu/Buddhist concept, not Islamic, nor can it ever be Islamic (“Find me an Islamic Gandhi,” an acquaintance once growled at me), and Nonviolence only ever worked against “civilized” opponents. The example of Abdul Ghaffir Khan[4] completely obliterates both arguments. Khan (1890-1988), later known as Badshah Khan, was a leader of Pashtun tribes in British India, a devout Muslim and friend of Gandhi. He pioneered modernity’s first nonviolent jihad, which historians have identified as “the world’s first nonviolent army.” He founded and led for a decade the Khudai Khidmatgars, the Servants of God, which challenged the entire array of imperial and traditional socioeconomic institutions which were sucking the lifeblood out from India: they emancipated Indian serfs, introduced women into political action, and fueled anti-colonial fervor and activity all across the subcontinent. He once remarked, “[Nonviolence] was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca... But we had so far forgotten it that when Gandhi placed it before us, we thought he was sponsoring a novel creed.” (Gandhi, for his part, declared that he was able to perceive the origin of the doctrines of Nonviolence not only in sacred Hindu and Buddhist writings, nor even just in the Bible, but also in the Quran.)

Both Gandhi and Badshah Khan faced a brutal empire which had conquered half the world by duplicity and malicious warfare, and by the 20th Century had already put down inside India itself, by a policy of massacre, several rebellions and demonstrations which had errupted from the oppressed population, the most infamous incidents being the Sepoy Mutiny of the mid-19th Century and the 1920 Amritsar Massacre. The truth is that the myth of the “civilized” British, and let us not forget to include the myhts of the “civilized” White Americans, Afrikaaners and other branches of the Western European family tree, has been largely promulgated by elites as a way to hide the bloodthirsty imperialism underlying much of their cultures. Using the world’s educational systems and mass-media to spread this myth, they are successfully preventing the possibility of future Nonviolent revolutions overthrowing their present reconfigured matrixes of control. Why would elites prefer armed struggle over Nonviolent action? Because in the end those who resort to armed violence are succumbing to baser instincts, relinquishing their higher spiritual, mental and emotional functions, which makes them as vulnerable as a newborn puppy to the special interests’ Pavlovian training. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Congo. Or for that matter, gaze into Palestine itself: for every terrorist attack, Sharon rains destruction upon Palestinian neighborhoods, which in turn inspires more terrorism, and Sharon gets to excuse his “Security Fence” and even more destruction of Palestinian life and property in the name of defense—all according to the plan of Washington, D.C., Paris, Moscow and Riyadh, for whom the conflict is not only great business but also terrific for propagandizing and controlling their own citizenries.[5]

If one needs more evidence of homegrown Islamic/Middle Eastern Nonviolence, Ozcelik has made this list: Egypt (1919-1922), Peshawar Pashtun resistance (1930), the Palestine General Strike (1936), the Iraq Uprising (1948), Pattani resistance in Thailand (1975), the Islamist revolution in Iran (1978-1979), defense of al-Aqsa (1978-1979), Golan Druze resistance (1981-1982), the first Intifada (1987-1989), and the Albanian national movement in Kosovo (1989-1994). Ozcelik forgets to mention the nationalist revolution in Iran during 1955 or the ongoing student and reformist movements in that country today, as well as the Republican Brothers movement in the Sudan during the 1960s and 70s, the Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association (RAWA) which struggled against the Taleban regime in Afghanistan during the 1990s, and recent pro-democracy demonstrations in Saudi Arabia which are beginning to coalesce into a semi-underground reform movement. Finally, the prophet Muhammad himself used Nonviolence, both in the early days of Islam as well as in the Hudaibiya Agreement.[6]

Ozcelik explains the Quranic attitude toward Nonviolence thus:

In sum, while the Quran does not prescribe an explicit ethic of Nonviolence and peace, neither does it give higher value to actions of violence. In the Quran, there are no consistent or unequivocal general concepts for determining war, peace and Nonviolence. Each Quranic verse is related to some specific historical events. Thus, there are Quranic verses that call for Nonviolence, while others call for war. This is not a contradiction, but a reflection of specific historical situations. ...If we take into consideration the time-space dimension and gradual changes in Islamic tradition, it becomes clear that Islam tends to give moral precedence to Nonviolence. One can even conclude that the pursuit of religiously oriented or informal struggle [jihad] in the modern world by the methods of Nonviolent action is fully consistent with Islamic scripture and tradition.

Regarding Ozcelik’s notion of “the time-space dimension,” famous Sudanese Muslim reformist Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909/1911-1986), who was executed by the Islamist government of the Sudan because of his vision of Islam, wrote in his groundbreaking work The Second Message of Islam,[7]

Civilization is different from material progress, but it is a difference in degree and not in kind. Civilization is the peak of human development, while material progress is its base. Civilization may be defined as the ability to distinguish values and to observe these values in daily conduct. A civilized man does not confuse ends with means, and he does not sacrifice ends for the sake of means. He is a man of principles and of moral values, one who has achieved a complete intellectual and emotional life. [Chapter 1]

Islam... is the religion of humanity which accomodates human illusion, inspired by the will to be free, until man is gradually enlightened through realistic wisdom to eventually achieve intelligent Islam. Islam, as the religion of humanity, developed with the evolution of the mind, and accompanied the maturing mind in its long evolution from a primitive beginning to its wise and refined end. [Chapter 3]

Islam, as revealed in the Quran, is not one message but two: one at the beginning closer to Judaism, and the other at the end closer to Christianity. The Prophet delivered both messages, by delivering the Quran and living his exemplary life. While dealing and elaborating the first message in the Shari’a, he left the second message unelaborated... [Chapter 4]

The First Message of Islam has been elaborated through specific legislation. It is the message of al-mu’minin [mere believers] from al-muslimin [submitters]... It was not ultimate Islam that [has thusfar] succeeded... but rather Islam at the level of al-iman [belief]. The Quran itself is divided into two parts: one of al-iman and the other of al-islam. [Chapter 5]

God says: “Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My grace upon you, and sactioned Islam as your religion.” Many people consider [this] phrase as implying that Islam itself has been fully achieved by mankind on earth on that day. The verse: “And We have revealed to you the Reminder [the Quran] so that you may explain to mankind that which has been sent down to them,” was also taken to mean the Quran has been finally and conclusively explained... “Explanation” of the Quran has been only in terms of expedient legislation... The Quran can never be finally and conclusively explained. Islam, too, can never be concluded. Progress in it is eternal: “Surely the true religion with God is Islam.” “With God” is eternal, beyond time and space. [Chapter 6]

With these words in mind, I am now about to make my most radical argument: if Muslim Palestinians fail to transform their struggle into a Nonviolent Intifada they shall fail their destiny, for theirs has never been an ordinary struggle for national independence. Why? Because they are situated in the Holy Land, in the very navel of the world. They must come to understand their part to play in the progress of human history.

To understand what I mean, we must dive deeper into the heart of Islam: the Quran.

Nonviolence and the Progress of History

The Quran draws our attention to the fact that Jesus’s famous maxims Turn the Other Cheek and Love Thy Enemey were in no way original to him. Rather, his maxims are among the most ancient, primitive, primordial of truths etched in the mysterious tapestry of the human psyche. In the fifth chapter of the Quran, The Table, the 27th through 31st verses, God reminds us of a prehistoric incident which occurred in the second generation of the species, between Qabeel and Habeel [Cain and Abel]:

Recite to them the story of the two sons of Adam. Behold! They each presented a sacrifice to God. It was accepted from one, but not from the other. Said the latter, “Be sure I will slay thee.” “Surely,” said the former, “God doth accept of the sacrifice of those who are righteous. If thou dost stretch thy hand against me, to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee, for I do fear God [or: I am in awe of God], the cherisher of the worlds. For me, I intend to let thee draw on thyself my sin as well as thine, for thou wilt be among the companions of the Fire, and that is the reward of those who do wrong.” The selfish soul of the other led him to the murder of his brother: he murdered him, and became himself one of the lost ones. Then God sent a raven, who scratched the ground, to show him how to hide the shame of his brother. “Woe is me!” said he, “Was I not even able to be as this raven, and to hide the shame of my brother?” Then he became full of regrets.

The Quranic record of this event explains Abel’s reasoning, and as Ozcelik notes, “[Abel’s] stance announces that human beings are capable of resisting violence by Nonviolence, and of transforming a violent person into a remorseful one.” The Biblical record, in Genesis 4.1-16—upon which the Quranic record is elaborating—explores other facets of the consequences of Cain’s violence:

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the fisrtlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But onto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, “Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” And he said, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” And he said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yeild unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” And Cain said unto the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, though hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.” And the Lord said unto him, “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Cain’s fallacy was that he believed he had no responsibility to Abel, but in truth, we are our brother’s keeper. Thenceforth, the very earth has been corrupted, and violence geometrically multiplied: Cain killed one man, which invited upon himself violation by others, and from him there was a sevenfold expansion of violence. This epidemic of violence persists to today, in many forms: neo-imperialism, apartheid, First World neglect. Even God seems susceptible according to the Biblical record, so intent upon curing this malignant cancer that several times the Almighty nearly exterminates the life of Its beloved patient: first, the Great Flood, then the Israelite wars of conquest, then the rise of the great empires, the back-and-forth of sin and repercussion, crime and punishment, a hydra of death and suffering, slithering in all directions across the world. Metaphorically, all of the intelligent universe has wandered into the nightmarish wasteland of Nod with Cain, away from our true selves, Abel.

With all the violent destruction in our species’ history, we often find ourselves wondering, ‘Why does anything exist? What’s the point?’ In the 40th chapter of the Quran, The Forgiver, the 67th and 68th verses, it is said:

It is He Who has created you from dust then from a sperm-drop, then from a leech-like clot; then does He get you out into the light as a child: then lets you grow and reach your age of full strength; then lets you become old—though of you there are some who die before—and lets you reach a term appointed; in order that ye may learn wisdom. It is He Who gives Life and Death; and when He decides upon an affair, He says to it, “Be,” and it is.

Existence was born out of love, need, desire—erotic, inventive and desperate desire... Perhaps you ask, ‘Can God need anything, desire anything?’ Two verses from Exodus in the Bible: the First Commandment, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them [idols], nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God”—then in the 33rd chapter, the 11th verse, “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend”—and many more passages, many many more. Surely these sentiments could not be possible if God had no emotions! Emotions! Is this mad talk? In Genesis: “And God said, Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness.” The question is, who’s mirroring who? Yes, who mirrors who, Mankind or God? In their hopes, their dreams, their bravery... in their despondency, their nightmares, their cowardice and crimes and genocides... The Bible and Quran tell us about a lonely God and His even lonelier creations, humanity, who slaughtered and slaughter the Abels, all the metaphoric Abels of history, in the name of prosperity and security and glory, but who strove and are striving, even now, for redemption, to unite in solidarity, to repair the rift which split our family when Cain cleaved the flesh of his brother.

The 21st Century Palestinian

Simply, what God and humanity are striving for is peace, equality and justice, in the full knowledge that if these cannot be achieved, there shall be nothing at all. There must either be Liberty... or Oblivion. The task of our times is to establish existential democracy, a new temporal and metaphysical order of egalitarianism and solidarity, a Great Society which truly tries its best to house and feed all of its citizens, to establish a just prosperity of fair and free trade in goods, services and ideas, and to cultivate each individual’s independence and capacities.

This Great Society can only be achieved by a kind of revolution, God’s Revolution, which has been and is occuring in every nook and cranny of the world at least since the ministries of Jesus and Muhammad, waged via many warriors, millions, billions of people struggling to better their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Some of these warriors are famous and forever whispered in the annals of history—the prophets, the Buddha, Gandhi, King; most are forgotten by humanity, though not by God. And while all the earth is Her target—and were we to expand to the stars, wherever we go there also shall She be, ar-Rabb al’Alimin, Sovereign of the Worlds—there are certain geographic locations that, due to their location upon the intersections of the frontiers of commerce and ideology, have left deep imprints in the x-, y- and z-axes of history, symbolism and metaphysics. Among these leyline junctions are India and the Holy Land.

India is the heartland of the Eastern religions, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. What Gandhi achieved there, a democratic republic born by Nonviolence, caused a metacosmic shift, budging human history toward the evolution into a Great Society. Israel-Palestine is no different than India for it is the heartland of the Western religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The avowed project of the Israelis and Palestinians has been to bring democracy to the Holy Land, but they have not truly realized the immense metaphoric importance of their endeavor. The Holy Land has been the dominion, both socioeconomically and dimensionally, of tyranny after tyranny after tyranny: Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Rome, the Crusaders, Turkey, Britain, feudalism, imperialism, fascism, militarism, colonialism, terrorism. The establishment of true democracy here—not Israel’s sham of electoral ethnic tribalism or Palestine’s terroristic and nepotistic bantustan—will shake the very foundations of the globalized evil plaguing our species. But true democracy, existential democracy, can only be achieved by Nonviolence, for only proper means can lead to the best ends.

A New Intifadism

Compare Zionism and the kind of Intifadism advocated for in this essay. The difference between these ideologies is nationalism: the former saw the Jewish people as of supreme importance, and other nations, in particular the Palestinians, as expendable; the other intends to “shake off” all the restraints of the past and to evolve toward a new kind of human being—and the shaheed, that man or woman who puts aside their self-centerredness for the greater good, is the link between the shaking-off and the evolution. The Palestinians must put aside their narrow self-concern and commit, through Nonviolent Noncooperative Resistance, to God’s Revolution, as Abel and Jesus and Muhammad did, accepting whatever monumental costs may be required of them by destiny rather than trying to force destiny to bend to their whim, as the suicide-bomber strives to do.

Just as Jesus, a Jew, and Muhammad, an Arab,and Gandhi, an Indian, understood that they were no longer reforming the societies of their respective peoples but revolutionizing history, the Palestinians must realize that theirs is no ordinary struggle for national self-determination. No, it is a struggle, a jihad ackbar for redemption, indeed for many redemptions: to free their own nation of the shackles which bind it, to uplift themselves; but also to free the Israelis of the ever-present phantoms of annhilation and Hitler, and the psychically decaying effects of colonial absolute power; and by setting an example to all the Arab and Muslim peoples, providing a cutting-edge model for undoing the complex matrix of First World-Third World ideological parasitism and socioeconomic sado-masichism, and by doing so, finally exorcise civilization of the spectres of empire, poverty and terror. Yes, the Palestinians are faced with the most daunting of choices: save the world or assist in the murder of our species’ future.

The 20th Century Palestinian fled from death only to secretly yearn for it, even embrace it, arms open wide, finger pressed upon the red detonator button. The 21st Century Palestinian, however, stares death in the face and says, ‘No more. No more shall I be a pawn and a freak. I shall have my humanity, and I shall not rest until all tyranny is converted into liberty. I offer myself to Truth and to God and to my neighbor and to my loved ones. There shall be hope. There shall be resurrection!’

“My method is conversion, not coercion, it is self-suffering, not the suffering of the tyrant. I know that method to be infallible.” “My nationalism is not so narrow that I should not feel for [Englishmen’s] distress or gloat over it. I do not want my country’s happiness at the sacrifice of another country’s happiness.” “India’s greatest glory will consist not in regarding Englishmen as her implacable enemies fit only to be turned out of India at the first available opportunity, but in turning them into friends and partners in a new commonwealth of nations in the place of an Empire based upon exploitation of the weaker or undeveloped nations and races of the earth and, therefore, finally [based] upon force.”
—Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi

Appendix I: The Methods of Nonviolent Action
(from Gene Sharp, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Boston 1973)
I. THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION
FORMAL STATEMENTS
1. Public speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public declarations
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions
COMMUNICATIONS WITH A WIDER AUDIENCE
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting
GROUP REPRESENTATIONS
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections
SYMBOLIC PUBLIC ACTS
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colours
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures
PRESSURES ON INDIVIDUALS
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils
DRAMA AND MUSIC
35. Humourous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing
PROCESSIONS
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades
HONOURING THE DEAD
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places
PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins
WITHDRAWAL AND RENUNCIATION
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honours
54. Turning one's back
II. THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION
OSTRACISM OF PERSONS
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict
NONCOOPERATION WITH SOCIAL EVENTS, CUSTOMS, AND INSTITUTIONS
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE SOCIAL SYSTEM
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)
III. THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS
ACTION BY CONSUMERS
71. Consumers' boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers' boycott
77. International consumers' boycott
ACTION BY WORKERS AND PRODUCERS
78. Workers' boycott
79. Producers' boycott
ACTION BY MIDDLEMEN
80. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott
ACTION BY OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT
81. Traders' boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants' "general strike"
ACTION BY HOLDERS OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government's money
ACTION BY GOVERNMENTS
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers' embargo
95. International buyers' embargo
96. International trade embargo
IV. THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOOPERATION: THE STRIKE
SYMBOLIC STRIKES
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
AGRICULTURAL STRIKES
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm workers' strike
STRIKES BY SPECIAL GROUPS
101. Refusal of impressed labour
102. Prisoners' strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike
ORDINARY INDUSTRIAL STRIKES
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathy strike
RESTRICTED STRIKES
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike
MULTI-INDUSTRY STRIKES
116. Generalised strike
117. General strike
COMBINATION OF STRIKES AND ECONOMIC CLOSURES
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown
V. THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION
REJECTION OF AUTHORITY
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
CITIZENS' NONCOOPERATION WITH GOVERNMENT
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from governmental educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported institutions
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
CITIZENS' ALTERNATIVES TO OBEDIENCE
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
ACTION BY GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny
DOMESTIC GOVERNMENTAL ACTION
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ACTION
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representation
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organisations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organisations
VI. THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION
PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTION
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment
PHYSICAL INTERVENTION
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation
SOCIAL INTERVENTION
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theatre
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system
ECONOMIC INTERVENTION
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions
POLITICAL INTERVENTION
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

Appendix II: Endnotes
[1] This essay was written during the first few weeks after the burial of Yasser Arafat.
[2] http://www.geocities.com/tatarkirim/paper3.html
[3] From Walter Wink, Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, as quoted by Susan Ives in a 2001 talk. See: http://www.walterwink.com
[4] See: Eknath Easwaran's Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains (Nilgiri Press, 1999)
[5] Nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp, in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, suggests that the conspicuous abscence of nonviolence from mainstream historical study may be due to the fact that elite interests are not served by the dissemination of techniques for social struggle that rely on the collective power of a mobilized citizenry rather than access to wealth or weaponry.
[6] Since I first read Karen Armstrong almost three years ago, I have been profoundly moved by her work. My, shall we say, flexible interpretation of Muhammad—that he was flawed and passionate, that he had to rely upon poetic interpretation to translate the Quranic revelation into human language, and that he preferred Nonviolence—arises from her book, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993). Many of my other ideas also have some links to or inspiration from her work, especially Islam: A Short History (Modern Library, 2000) and A History of God: the 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Ballantine Books, 1994).
[7] Taha, Mahmoud Mohamed. The Second Message of Islam. 4th ed., trans. Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na’im (Syracuse University Press, 1987).

Schwartz - Mesmerized in the Mitbar Yehudia

"idh andhara qauma-hu bil Ahqaf-i"
--The Quran 46.21

"H'kol min jah הכל מן ג'ה"
--Shotei Hanevua שוטי הנבואה

This past Wednesday, the hotel crew took a day off to drive to the southeast of Israel-Palestine, the Mitbar Yehudia, Sahar Yehudi, the Judean Desert, and the Dead Sea, the lowest geographic area in all the earth's surface: the region is 1300 meters below the Mediterranean and the global water level, and the lowest depth inside the sea itself is 2300 meters!

It's called the Dead Sea because, being almost six times as salty as an ocean, nothing lives in it--shundava, not a thing. The Dead Sea is completely landlocked and it gets saltier with the deeper you descend. The surface, fed by the River Jordan, is the least saline. Down to about 130 feet (40 meters), the seawater comprises about 300 grams of salt per kilogram of seawater. That's about ten times the salinity of the oceans. Below 300 feet, though, the sea has 332 grams of salt per kilogram of seawater and is saturated. Salt precipitates out and piles up on the bottom of the sea.

There's no seaweed or plants of any kind in or around the water. There are no fish or any kind of swimming, squirming creatures living in or near the water. As a matter of fact, what you'll see on the shores of the Sea is white, crystals of salt covering everything. Nor is it ordinary table salt, but mineral salts, the extremely concentrated run-off from the spine of mountains which begin up near the Caucasus and snake down to the 'Asr region of Saudi Arabia. Fish accidentally swimming into the waters from one of the several freshwater streams that feed the sea are killed instantly, their bodies quickly coated with a preserving layer of salt crystals and then tossed onto shore by the wind and waves.

Fantastically, mindbonglingly, the sea, or rather its water, is actually sinking lower, but not due to tectonic whim; rather, it is the victim, like the Aral Sea, of human stupidity: see this Ananova article and this BBC Online article, this BBC Online article about a Israeli-Jordanina pipeline plan to "save" the sea, and this BBC Online article about the world's dying inland seas.

Also:
-Map of Water Conflicts
-Index of related BBC Online articles
-Ben's background entries on Caspian sea political boundaries and water levels (includes an insightful map showing the difference between the 1960 and present sea levels.)
-And keep your eyes on Thinking-East.net for an article by Aidar Amnuzhulov about the status of the Central Asian water conflict.

Click on "continue reading" for photographs

An Israeli soldier on camelback patrol.

The Judean mountains, through which we drove our Citroen jalopy, our only company for many miles being military checkpoints, Israeli tractor trailers and Bedouin villages hidden along dried-up or nearly-dried-up wadis.

The Ein Gedi nature reserve, refuge for all the Judean Desert's bizaare flora, fauna and animal life.

See these websites:
-http://www.jafi.org.il/education/noar/sites/eingedi.htm <-lots of information
-http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/eingedi.html <-archeological information
-http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/eingedi/ <-archeological website with photographs

The Ein Gedi waterfall.

Strange rock formations and (blue!) fauna. The last photograph is particularly gruesome. Either the man-like subject is the world's ugliest fungus, or nature's best artistic interpretation, in the form of a rock sculpture, of the whale devouring Jonah.

The view of the Dead Sea and beyond from the Ein Gedi hiking trail.

The Dead Sea

Looking out across the Dead Sea to the Biblical mountains of Moab (in Hebrew, Harim Moav, in Arabic, Shumsia) located today in the country of Jordan. The sea itself is normally a shade fluctuating between sapphire and jade, but sadly in this photograph it just comes out bland gray.

The unmerciful salt, encasing all it touches. Believe it or not, the last photograph is not a closeup of microscopic bacteria: it's actually a shot of two stones the size of my skull, the salt flaking off.

Mountains of Yehudia
by Christopher Schwartz

To my right the craggy heaps of crumbling dust rise majestically. The wind howls, or is it the static of the car radio, no signal daring to venture here? I tune my dreadfilled soul to the secret frequency, and the lyric which slips out from no-when fills me with fear: "Fuck with us and we shall devour you. Do you see how all the others drive by? Gods in their petrol chariots, too blind to see that the sun singed the earth here of all its hue eons before that ape Adam learned how to lie. Mine us, fence us, irrigate us, lay tar over us and drive, lounge in your spas, tanning like burnt offerings on the dolmen of Modernity. Yes, bath in the mud of the world's oldest cemetery, and lick the salt of eons. Can you hear us laugh? Soon, very soon, you shall all feel the sulphrous breath scratching your cheeks."

I look to my left: the Dead Sea expands before me, a fissure in the world, an astral cleft. The waves hesitate eternally with the stillness of death. Beyond stands Moab, waiting--waiting beyond the grave. The whisper is still in my ears, still on my lips, still slithering in the nerves in my fingers caressing my mesbahah. Even though I despise the sound of the demiurge dirge, I cannot help but feel its voiceless rhythm: "God created us to remind you. God created us to remind you..."

---

Other photographs

Toafic, a hard-working, talkative and stubborn Christian Palestinian from Ramle, the hotel's Voltaire. I like to call him "Super Mario." He and I spent a month together repairing the hotel roofs and painting apartments, so I was his "Super Luigi," the sidekick.

The hotel girls: Haddass is driving, and Ya'el is looking.

Schwartz - Impressions of Latrūn in November

Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam is situated on a tel in the heart of the Latrun Region of Israel-Palestine. The Latrun sector is situated in the Ayalon Valley at a very strategic point throughout history. Here, the road from the Mediterranean coast split in two directions, both to Jerusalem: one through Sha'ar H'gay (today the main road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem), the other more northwards, via Beit Horon. It was in this area that Joshua defeated the Amorites (Joshua 10:1-11); King David smote the Philistines; the Egyptians the Maccabees and the Crusaders battled their way to Jerusalem. During the 1948 War, the bloodiest combat between Israeli and the Arab armies took place for control of the route to the beleaguered Israeli forces in Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon was a young platoon commander at the time, and he nearly lost his life upon the slopes I wake up to behold every morning.

Here are some of my meager attempts to capture by photograph the immense ancient beauty of Latrun and its sister hill upon which Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam rests, during this past month of November, when the grueling dusts of summer finally yielded to the cool rains of winter.

History and indices:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrun <--an excellent resource
http://www.rc.net/wcc/israel/latrun.htm
http://www.jafi.org.il/education/noar/sites/latrun.htm
http://www.olinfilms.com/latrun/

Maps:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/westbank_central92.jpg
http://www.poica.org/photos/latrun/reloc_checkp.jpg

Click on "continue reading"

Historical note
There are a few theories about the origin of the name of Latrun:
1) a derivation of "Altrun," an ancient Semitic word, possibly pre-classical Arabic. Palestinians in the nearby cities of Ramle and Lud still occassionally refer to the hill and highway junction which are the heart of the region as "Altrun."
2) a corruption of the crusaders' name for a stronghold at the top of hill, "Le toron des chevaliers" (the Castle of the Knights).
3) the name of the stronghold given by the Christian pilgrims, "Castellum bonu Latronis" (the fortress of the good thief), for the thief who was crucified alongside Jesus (Lucas 23:40-43).

The tel (prehistoric hill) of Latrun. The tiny white building with apricot rooftops standing amidst the lines of trees is the French trappist monastery which owns most of the lands in this photograph, and until recently was the landlord of the village's land. At the top of Latrun are the ruins of the crusader fortress. The Jordanian army dug trenches into the hillcrest and successfully defended their position for almost two decades against the Israelis. A miscommunication with the Jordanian high command during the 1967 War caused the Arab units to finally retreat, abandoning their post to their nemeses. Beyond the monastery is the white "mothership" apartment bloc of Modi'in, Israel's "city of the future"; and beyond that lies the West Bank--a mere 20 minute drive from Latrun!

The view after a rainstorm: the forest surrounding Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam; the farmlands of Kibbutz Nakhshon; the concrete factory of Ramle; and waaaayy off in the distance, the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv.

Twilight in Canada Park. This natural reserve, which is just a few meters away from my door, was originally the site of several Arab villages that were cleared out in 1948, 1952, 1957 and 1967. The evergreens were planted by the Jewish National Fund, a "reclamation" project financed by the government of Canda; hence the park's name. This land is not haunted by any assortment of ghosts; rather, it is itself a ghost.

Canada Park again. In the foreground is Voltaire's house.

The Latrun sky at twilight.

The streets of Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam during a rainy night.

Latrūn Moon
by Christopher Schwartz

At night a great lens hewn from glass of the deepest Atlantean blue encloses the earth.
Here and there one can discern the dents and cracks: the constellations;
and the Moon is an elegant hole punctured through the sleek surface.
Through that hole shines the first silvery flame of the Creation,
sometimes flickering and slithering edge to edge, as though the lens were shifting its focus away then back again.
Astronomers and preachers say I'm wrong: that light should be violet, ultra in its wrath--but I know better,
for I have heard its color in the night wind, and it feels lacey with eros, lonely in its passion.
Perhaps when old father Abraham gazed thoughtfully up at the Moon many millennia ago,
he realized that he was seeing into the iris of the cosmos,
that all the earth is but a cataract in Space and a dream in the pineal gland of Time.
Yes, perhaps as the old prophet gazed yearningly up at the Moon,
he realized that the Life of the universe was staring back at him.

---

Other photographs

Yours truly prepared for the chilly Latrun night.

Nimair, one of my "Little Ones," a litter of kittens living at the volunteers'. She is the most curious and persistent (she's constantly trying to sneak into my bedroom or the volunteers' kitchen to discover our secrets.)

The hotel crew cleaning up a flooded bathroom: (from left to right) Haddas, Ya'el and Makhfusa.

Schwartz - An Idea for Jumpstarting a Nonviolent Intifada

I think the reasons why Nonviolence is so unpopular among the Palestinians is because a) Nonviolence is wrongly conceived as passive, which is due to the fact that b) its theories and success rates remain in languages they can't understand, specifically English and fus'ha Arabic, so that c) only an elite few can understand the ideas, which actually worsens the possibilities for Nonviolence even more because d) it lacks the true legitimacy that can only arise from the hearts and minds of the masses. Nonviolence's documents have never been translated into the amiyyah and disseminated, so that the people can read the ideas for themselves, debate and discuss the possibilities.

What I want to do is 1) make a sheet with eloquent excerpts from Gandhi, King, Mahmoud Taha, Badshah Khan and others that explain both the beliefs and tactics of Nonviolent action; 2) translate this sheet into the Palestinian amiyyah; 3) at the bottom of this sheet, place the Quranic verses regarding Cain and Abel (5.27-31); 4) and then go to Ramallah and pass them out: to put the ideas into their hands, help them to feel they they have another choice besides eternal suffering or eternal warring; and when they are thus empowered they might even organize among themselves, separate from the militias, and make this revolution theirs, and more, seek to liberate both themselves and Israel from this cycle of oppression and terror. And if they decide to just crumple up the pamphlets and toss the ideas away, then that's their choice, too.

Do you know anyone who can help me either a) translate these excerpts into the amiyyah and b) distribute them here in Palestine? If so, please leave a comment here or e-mail me at nyspaceman@writing.com.

Schwartz - Return to Ramallah, Au Revoir Arafat

November 23rd, 2004 Almost two weeks ago I returned to the West Bank to attend the funeral of Yassir "Abu Amar" Arafat in the Muqata, the former British, then Jordanian, then Israeli prison which became the capitol building of the Palestinian Authority. I delayed publishing this entry because my friend Wisam ibn Khaled el-Hajji had borrowed my digital camera, and I wanted to wait for his photographs--which, thankfully, were well worth the wait. He returned the camera to me yesterday, and I've uploaded the best onto this blog entry. All photographs not marked "AP" in the lower right-hand corner were taken by Wisam.

Click on continue reading...

November 16th, 2004 How I got into the West Bank was somewhat humorous. A Palestinian from Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam tried to drive me to the checkpoint near Modi`in, but the soldiers had already blockaded it. Then he drove me up Highway 6, the main thoroughfare of Israel which runs along the Green Line. We pulled up to another checkpoint. Nervous inside but the epitome of journalistic calm on the outside, I approached one of the soldiers. A monstrous Caterpillar bulldozer was moving around the concrete blocks that served as the checkpoint.

"Hey," I said, "I'm a journalist. Can I go through?" "Where you wanna go?" he asked. "To Beit Sira, near Maccabim, with the huge mosque." He shrugged. "Okay." And that was that.

My contact in Beit Sira came and picked me up. We spent time in his house before driving through the mountains of the West Bank, weaving in between caravans taxis and automobiles decorated with flowing black banners and posters of Yassir Arafat. After about an hour we slipped between two huge concrete boulders and passed into Ramallah by a southward side road. Then we unloaded from the jeep and walked to the Muqata. This was around 10:30 in the morning.

Almost four hours later I stood in the heart of the Muqata. The day had been gruelling and boring. The parade of mourners contained few spectacles. At one point a band of communists passed through, tossing leaflets from the Popular Liberation Front of Palestine into the air. Sometime later, two men strode through the crowd atop horses, the rider in the lead bearing the French flag. The horses began to panic; thankfully the two men left before anyone could get hurt. And here and there passed the Shuhada al-Aqsa, known in English as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

This militia--called guerillas or freedom-fighters by some, terrorists by others--is controversial, and not just among Israelis and Westerners. While many Palestinians cheered them on, many simply ignored them, and some even sneered at them or sighed with exasperation. The Shuhada al-Aqsa specialize in suicide bombings against military and settler targets. Rarely do they attack civilians within Israel proper. According to the laws of guerilla fighting as laid out by such theorists and legendary practitioners as Franz Fanon and Ernesto "Che" Guevera, the Shuhada al-Aqsa can be labeled with some accuracy as guerillas and not terrorists. Yet, this partially depends on whether or not you consider Israeli settlers civilians or not. Also, they do not restrict all their operations to just the West Bank: the recent suicide-bombing in the French Hill district of West Jerusalem, while targeting a bus station frequented by settlers and soldiers, was outside the boundaries demarcated by their symbolic (and some say actual) leader, Yassir Arafat, as the borders of the future sovereign Palestinian state. Among the Palestinians, the Shuhada al-Aqsa are controversial more because of their role in the Intifada: the Palestinian masses have suffered greatly from attacks from the IDF inflicted upon West Bank towns and cities ostensibly in retaliation for Shuhada al-Aqsa attacks.

I myself consider them to be terrorists, because whether or not they are restricting their assaults on settlers and soldiers, they are trying to utilize fear for political ends, even if those ends are essentially just (emancipation of the Palestinian people). They are not simply guerilla fighters: if they were, they would not attempt such spectacular propagandist attacks as suicide-bombings. True guerilla fighters, in my opinion, let their actions speak for them; they do not need spectacle and terror to achieve their aims. Take for example Che Guevera and Fidel Castro in the Cuba Revolution: for two years they sat in the hills of Cuba fighting soldiers and police, sabotaging only those services (such as freight rail-lines) which benefited the Batista dictatorship. In their day-to-day dealings with normal Cubans, they were benevolent, friendly, conversant, willing to debate or just chit chat. The result? Eventually hundreds and then thousands of peasants, then city-dwellers, flocked to their cause, not so much because they exactly agreed with Castro's political philosophy, but because Castro and Che were heroes in that most general sense: they cared about the well-being of the nation and were tyring, somehow in someway, to truly better the situation.

Compare this to the Shuhada al-Aqsa, who stalked the streets of Ramallah and the courtyard of the Muqata, masked and armed with kitanas, silvery handguns and kalashnikov rifles. The intimidation and dread was thick and oppressive; I even sensed it in those who praised them as they passed. Looking back, I snicker, because they aren't just inflicting fear into the Israeli public for some mad agenda of eye-for-an-eye nationalism, but in their own homeland they strive to instill that pagan awe of the almighty: when they flash their guns and stare at you from behind their masks, they are really saying to you, 'I was once completely weak but now I am all-powerful. I hold your life in my hands. Worship me.'

But alot of Palestinians are sick of them.

The news agencies reported that it was chaos in the Muqata: throngs of the desperate and yearning flooded the helipads and assaulted Arafat's coffin. I don't quite remember it that way. The event was chaotic because of the security services, who kept breaking us into lines, having us sit (the last thing you want to do in a giant crowd) and then having us stand, moving us around. When the helicopters arrived, there was a rush toward the helipad. My friend Wisam and I came within a few meters of one of the giant desert-colored mechanical beasts--and then the Shuhada al-Aqsa fellows began to fire their guns, and then the security services. At that point, most of the crowd, who had come to pay their respects, indeed to cry, seeking some final communion with their leader and some carthasis, simply turned around and walked away from the helipad. My sense was that as a whole, we were all disgusted by this display of medieval barbarity with modern guns. This was not the militias' moment--indeed, nor was it even my moment, for I was there somewhat voyeuristically, to witness history, to grab a scoop; and I was also there to support the Palestinians, to feel their sorrow as much as I could; and I was there to try and figure out this controversial man, this murderer, liberator and statesman, Yassir Arafat--no, this was the Palestinians' moment, in a way a collectivized yet deeply private moment.

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November 23rd, 2004 I spent the rest of the weekend in Beit Sira. It was good to be back. It was my first Eid al-Fitr in a Muslim land--I've celebrated three previous ones, two in America and one in Britain--and my first since I stopped practicing the Islamic rituals for good. There was no party, but the mourning was quiet, subdued, beneath the skin. I had lots of interesting conversations.

After I left, Wisam went to pay his own respects to Arafat. Along the way, and over the week-long holiday, he snagged these photographs. Enjoy! [Warning: these photographs are actually linked from one of my Geocities account, which is sometimes fickle. If the photographs are not appearing, try waiting a few minutes then reloading.]

Lion's Square, Ramallah, demonstration in honor of Arafat

Ramallah, demonstration in honor of Arafat

Beit Sira, Eid al-Fitr, me playing billiards--that's Wisam in the red, wondering what the hell I'm doing

Just as Israeli society suffers from intense militarization (try to count how much bulletin board and magazine space and television air-time goes to advertisements with military themes and you'll run out of fingers and toes before the hour's up; and everyone, even the damned newscasters, do their best to act tough and cynical), Palestinian society suffers from intense guerillization. At the funeral a man proudly displayed his toddler boy dressed up as a Shuhada al-Aqsa fighter, done up in mask and army jacket, armed with a plastic kalashinikov. This little Beit Siran boy is yet another example of this ongoing quiet tragedy of mass-mindedness and societally-approved violence.

Beit Siran children. A very heartwarming photograph.

Arafat's grave, Muqata, Ramallah.

Arafat's grave. There is something profoundly painful about that security guard's face.

No, your eyes are not lying to you: those are indeed Hasidic jews holding Arafat's poster at a Palestinian rally. I couldn't get clear information about them from Wisam. Apparently, though they are part of a peace group, they are nevertheless controversial because they live in Beit Nuba, a town about which Beit Sirans and other Palestinians have talked to me with much agitation and disappointment in their voices. I intend to do more research into it. That said, though, these are powerful photographs, testimony to the universal yearning and search for justice and peace by all peoples. Whether or not certain ideologies or leaders can deliver the goods for that yearning is another issue; what's important, these photographs remind me, is that there are thinking and active people who, no matter what the conflict, no matter what the hypocrisy within themselves and others, remain steadfast in their determination to find resolution, perhaps even reconciliation, in our troubled modern age.

Once again, special thanks to Wisam for his artist's eye.

Schwartz - Statement of Position Regarding Israel

Some of my readers fear I am tilting lopsidedly in a “pro-Palestinian” manner and would like me to make a statement clarifying my view of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

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Well, first off, read my blog entries closer and you’ll see that almost always where I mention the plight of the Palestinians, I also mention the socioeconomic plights of the Sepharadim and Falashim, the racism toward Asian-African Jewry who have been petitioning for several years to be granted the same Right of Return as any other Jew, as well as exploitation of the Bedouin, Thai, Cambodian and African nannies, laborers and janitors. All these groups are discriminated against or manipulated in various ways by the Ashkenazi-centered nationalism of Avoda and Likud Zionism.

Second off, I’ve meditated on this next issue and have come to certain conclusions: if anyone is expecting from me an outright condemnation of Intifadist violence against civilians, they will be sorely disappointed for several reasons: 1) Read my blog entries closer and you’ll see that I am against all violence, especially when it is employed for political reasons, no matter how just the basic cause. I draw a sharp distinction between the use of force, i.e., international peacekeeping troops, national or personal defense, and radical nonviolent demonstrations, and the use of violence, that is to say, war, terrorism, genocide, occupation, assassination, rape and enforced impoverishment. 2) I will not waste any breath prefacing every criticism I make of the State of Israel (or for that matter, any state, government, political party, leader) with a ritualistic condemnation of terrorism. Doing so is as pointless, and worse, as morally, emotionally and intellectually weak as always prefacing every statement about the 1948 War with a condemnation of the Holocaust or a condemnation of European imperialism in the Middle East, or prefacing every statement about the Gulf Wars with a condemnation of Saddam Hussein, just because by not doing so I might hurt the feelings of some oversensitive and manipulative Jews, Arabs and Americans. Anyone with half a brain and an ounce of good ethics should understand that genocide, empire and dictatorship are evil, as is terrorism and all forms of political/politicized violence. Words have power; what you say is so often connected to the energy of your soul. So whenever there is the pressure to pay lip service to what-should-already-be-understood, that pressure can only be arising from a cynical and controlling source, that is to say, the warmongers and tyrants who try to compel history toward dubious ends and by their manipulation of mass media and political discourse try to marginalize all opposition to their schemes. Thus, any concession to them only weakens one’s own soul by burning the incense of your dignity upon the invisible altar of their megalomania. 3) Since most of my readers either believe in democracy or are living in democracies where peace and prosperity should be the highest collective ideals, the condemnation of Intifadist violence and all political/politicized violence should be understood implicitly, as something fundamental to everything I say and write. Anyone who asks or even demands of me or anyone else who is and has always been an advocate of democracy and human rights demonstrates a weakness in themselves, not I—a weakness in their own convictions and their own sense of self. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about, because I have cracked and whithered so many times in the past as well, demanding of everyone and everything a condemnation of this and that.

Third off, I am only critical of the State of Israel because I care. My mother has always said that there are many kinds of love, one of which she called “tough love,” a part of which is to constructively criticize the object of our affection, no matter how uncomfortable the subject—and since I am half Jewish, criticizing Israel is always difficult. And it irritates me that people believe it is possible for one to be “over critical” of a state or a government, as if these political entities have feelings, like a person, and might collapse if we happen to bring its attention to the big fat hairy wart it’s let grow on its nose... or the cancer it’s let fester in its heart. As some of the Founding Fathers of America believed, states and governments exist to meet the needs of their citizenry. When JFK proclaimed, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country,” he got it only half right and all wrong. A country can only keep our allegiance if it does not, on purpose or by neglect, hinder our potential. When a country fails to do this, the citizenry must rise up and bring about a change. But more importantly, each of us belongs to a larger community: the human species. Our fellowship in Mankind supersedes all psychological boundaries. In light of this, the political and cultural organizations of the world—the nation-states, kingdoms and republics, religions and societies—are simply an expression of the multifarious Human Spirit, as it tries in various ways to distribute its precious few resources in such a way that it can be existentially fruitful and multiply. Thus, nothing manmade is so sacred as to somehow be teflonesquely supreme, untaintable, because in the end there is always more room, more need, for perfection.

Because I am half-Jewish, many Jewish Israelis and Americans have asked if I am a Zionist. Well, while I recognize that, a) Zionism as an incredibly rich, multifaceted and unique philosophy and movement encompassing politics, religion and art, is not only a very old phenomenon but also grossly misunderstood in the modern era; b) that the particular type of political Zionism that went into the creation of the State of Israel was not the type dreamed by Theodor Herzl; and c) that it is perfectly possible to be a Zionist and believe in a two-state, even a single-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—I myself do not believe in Zionism. I believe in a Jewish Homeland, situated in the old British Mandate of Palestine, wherein Jews may live, work, vote and defend themselves freely, alongside other peoples, in particular the indigenous Arab populations. I do not believe in a Jewish State, that is to say, a polity based exclusively on Jewish ethnicity and culture. Why not? Because I believe that nationalism, be it American, Jewish, Arab, Southern Sudanese, Afghan, etc., is ultimately deficient because it is not universal but tribal. The great prophets and sages—Elijah, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Joseph Smith—always had in mind the ultimate fate and destiny of the human species. While they may have directed their energies to specific peoples and places, their eyes were always on the greater prize: truth, justice and redemption for all. This is why Israel inevitably must confront itself or be destroyed: as a strictly defined ethno-religious democracy, the contradictions of its ideology must be unwound, lest they wrap around the nation-state’s throat and choke it into stagnation and decay. For the last fifty years the State of Israel has been imbued with explosive experimental energy. But this electricity is becoming increasingly diffuse as militarism and bourgeoisie yuppism steadily grow more and more entrenched in the national psyche. The buoyancy of the nation-state is only surviving with the influx of millions upon millions of Russian immigrants; but eventually the geography will simply not be able to sustain a bigger demography than what presently exists, and the Israelis will have to reconfigure their historical narrative and their vision of their future, or perish under the terrible weight of their own slothfulness. Salvation will not be simple for the Israelis. They have usually tried to reconcile their ethno-religious nationalism with their universal democracy by either describing the State of Israel, like the kingdom of old, as a “light unto other nations,” as “chosen,” or simply “just another nation.” But they all know, deep down inside, that none of these solutions are sufficient. The answer, I believe, does not lie in rejecting these notions, but somehow reconfiguring them and combining them with new notions—as well as new political and demographic (i.e., a binational Arab-Jewish state) formulations—to unlock new possibilities.

* * *

I know these statements may be tough for some to read, especially for Americans. They won’t understand how I could possibly be saying these things, believing these things. Well, the Israelis and Palestinians have been teaching me a few things.

The Jewish Israelis have been teaching me a powerful lesson, one lost to most Americans: it is good to disagree. Division is okay.

Why is it that Americans demand “even-handedness”? Why is it that our leaders in the USA, especially those on the liberal/Left side of the ideological aisle, must always make huge concessions in the name of lovey-dovey “unity” and “bipartisanship,” as Kerry did after he lost the 2004 presidential election? Why is it that everyone in America seems to believe that if anyone disagrees with each other, the entire nation-state shall crumble?

The Israelis may do stupid, stupid things, but goddammit they are tough. For fifty years they have handled division amongst themselves while under military, economic and diplomatic siege on almost all sides—in fact, they have flourished! I think the division played a central role in their prosperity, helped them to be so strong.

Are Americans so soft and pampered, cuddled between hippie Canada and impoverished Mexico—not exactly fearsome warrior-states—that we can’t even tolerate a congressional or presidential candidate who’ll say, no proclaim “I think Bush, his administration and his kind of Republicans are liars, crooks, thieves, murderers and should be kicked out of office in every election, and failing that, impeached for their crimes against the American people and all the world”? In the battle for the salvation or damnation of a nation’s collective soul, there can be no surrender, and no time wasted for illusory shows of “bipartisanship.” Let there be division! Let us once more believe in the power of conversation, debate and argument! Unity shall arise of its own volition, not because we will it to!

And the Palestinians have been teaching me a powerful lesson in courage: to be the one who does stand up, to not tolerate the injustice and hypocrisy anymore, to say what he thinks, and to demand a change and never, never relent. And even if the tyrants rain fire and brimstone upon me for my insolence, I shan’t bow down. I shall raise my fist up to the fiery heavens, pen clutched tight, the moon of truth at my back, and split the atom of the Human Spirit with my words.

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I'm just curious to see how many people are actually reading this...


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Schwartz - The Curtain is Beginning to Close

[Palestinian protester in Jerusalem. Photograph courtesy of AP]

These are dark days for the Palestinians. Rumors are in the air that Yassir Arafat has been poisoned, most likely by Mossad, the Israeli foreign security service. If Arafat dies and it can be medically proven that Arafat's condition was due to synthetic toxins, the Intifada might just explode into a full-on insurrection. There is no telling where matters might go from there, with an American presence fighting insurgency in Iraq and surrounding Arab regimes--and their populations--jittery with the US presence in the Middle East.

If Arafat passes away, Palestinians have told me that there must be elections immediately. Abu Mazen and Abu Ala must not make any unilateral deals with the Sharon government, for doing so will spark a fitna, a civil war among the Palestinians. [For more information on contenders for the Palestinian presidency, see this article.]

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Also, unfortunately Arafat's death does not necessarily mean that the US and Israel shall no longer have an excuse to prevent reinitiating the peace-process. Bush and Sharon marginalized Arafat by deeming him genocidal and murderous; but they have also deemed all Palestinian political organizations as terroristic. So, if the Palestinians erupt into fitna, this will only help Sharon's colonial agenda for the West Bank: he can simply declare all Palestinians terrorists and begin to militarily be rid of them. But if there are elections and a Fatah candidate wins the Palestinian presidency, there is a slim chance that the US and Israel may decide (or be compelled by their electorates) to reinitiate the peace process. What is certain, however, is that if a Hamas candidate wins the presidency, then Palestinians' days are numbered. Electing Hamas into power would be the Palestinian equivalent of America's recent election of the belicose and murderous George W. Bush: both peoples know better, they know that the Republicans and Hamas incite more hatred towar