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]

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 - J. Edgar Hoover back from the dead?

Worrisome developments in the US. No one is talking about the moral implications of a "national intelligence director," a supreme chief ruling over the CIA, FBI and perhaps even the NSA. My God. And what's this business about being able to wire-tap "lone wolf," i.e., individual, terrorists: will there be an ethical procedure, one which complies with civil rights, about determining who is a suspected terrorist, or shall Ashcroft's failed McCarthyian T.I.P.S. project, or even Poindexter's thwarted Orwellian Total Information Awareness program, finally come to pass? And how about Peter Gross, new head of the CIA, who wants to insert more undercover agents across the world? What are the possible consequences? But no one's asking. Nope, they're more worried about beaucratization than totaliarianism. J. Edgar Hoover threatens to come back from the dead, and this time he won't have the Dulles brothers to compete with; nope, he gets the whole shebang: a hundred billion dollar budget, lots of new toys, and an army of misguided patriots at his command. 'But if a good person is given the position,' you might argue, 'then we'll be safe.' Perhaps, but how long before someone really vile takes power? This is exactly like the Iraq War: it doesn't matter whether or not Saddam Hussein was an awful tyrant; we Americans were lied to--next time it may not be a genocidal dictator, it may be a benign leader and whose government that our special interests don't like. Don't think that could happen? Ask the Chileans about their September 11th.

"I believe creating a national intelligence director is a huge mistake," said Representative Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican today. "It's another bureaucracy, it's another layer of government. It would not have prevented 9/11 and it will not prevent another 9/11." He's dead right. The most terrifying possibility is this: when another September 11th happens despite the existence of a national intelligence director, I wager that the American government shall grant this figure even more power!

What was it that Norman Mailer said? Politicians lack ethical imagination. Well, this legislation just proves it.

See this entry and the following newslinks:
-about the new legislation: Yahoo! News and BBC Online
-about the new CIA chief: BBC Online

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.

Click on continue reading.

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...


Counter

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.]

Click on continue reading...

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 toward their respective nations because they have committed grievous crimes against humanity, but out of fear and anger, they vote for them anyway.

[T-shirt rack in Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Jerusalem]

Israelis, for their part, strike me as being very quiet. Indeed, all of Israel proper is still, as if the very soil itself were awaiting the first thunderbolts of Armageddon's storm.

They try to bluster and posture self-confidence: 'What does Arafat matter anyhow?' they say with a disdainful wave of the hand, 'he was a son of a bitch.' And they leave it at that.

But everyone here knows that heretofore lethargic history is starting to budge, and in the next few months it may break out into a cataclysmic sprint into the unknown. With one leader dead and the other, Sharon, ancient and near death himself, soon the curtains shall close on this fifty-year drama's first act... but shall the genocidal rivalry that defined these two men go with them to the grave?

Both Israel and Palestine are enterring new existential territory. Yet, it seems that, for now, only the Palestinians are willing to admit this fact.

[Independence Hall, Tel Aviv. What shall be the future of the Jewish State?]

Schwartz - The Long Awaited Update

"Clever got me this far, then tricky got me in..."
from The Package by A Perfect Circle

"Close the door, put out the light. No, they won't be home tonight. The snow falls hard and don't you know? The winds of Thor are blowing cold. They're wearing steel that's bright and true They carry news that must get through, oooh. They choose the path where no-one goes. They hold no quarter. They hold no quarter."
from No Quarter by Led Zeppelin

I've been away from the blog for some weeks. The last time you heard from me, the crisis with the volunteer apartments was still underway. Well, that was happily resolved. In fact, after chewing out my ear, my boss was evidently content enough with my work that she asked me to re-plaster and re-paint another apartment!

This entry is divided into three sections: What I've Been Doing, Events and News.

Click on "continue reading."

[Please forgive any typos and mangled grammar; I wanted to get this entry out quickly because it's been too long since I last wrote anything for the blog.]

What I've been doing
The village received an influx of new volunteers from Europe, freeing me up to do more constructive labor. I was reassigned to Voltaire to help him with his maintenance tasks at the village's elementary school. This was a great task for two reasons: first, even though the hours were longer and the labor sometimes menial, my work had a direct impact on an important project for the village; and second, I got to work with the West Bankers, which helped me improve my Arabic and grow closer to them as a friend.

Sadly, Voltaire only needed me for about two weeks. When he was done with me, I was reassigned to the hotel (also known as the "guesthouse" or "White Dove.") I've heard horror stories from former volunteers and villagers about hotel labor: endless, exhausting cleaning. Well, thankfully, the hotel staff is a very cool bunch, and so far I've done mostly minor maintanence and physical tasks, and for now the cleaning isn't too much of a nuisance. Yet, the ease of this assignment is mostly due to the fact that officially I am still working two assignments: a morning shift, during which I worked for the volunteer coordinator, then Voltaire and now the hotel, and an afternoon shift, during which I have only worked at the pool. However, as the swimming season winds down, I am needed less and less at the pool. I often get away with just showing up at the beginning and end of my shift, and sometimes not showing up at all. This has freed me up alot to do other work: edit "Pyretta Blaze," continue researching the village, figure out my student loans and airplane tickets, and so on.

But there is a problem looming on the horizon: in a little over two weeks the pool shall close and I will be working full time at the hotel, 7-3. I dread this because I know the tedium of cleaning rooms over and over again will murder all my intellectual ability. Furthermore, I am increasingly faced with one of several ethical dilemmas: what good am I doing for the Conflict? There was a time in the village, many years ago, when international volunteers played a critical role in the peace project here, maintaining this hill as an outpost of progressivism. (There was even a year when an older volunteer was elected mayor!) Yet, as material security gradually came to the village, the role of the international volunteers was reduced, until finally we became nothing more than cheap butlers. (The story is the same for volunteers in kibbutzim. And now there is a tiny movement within the kibbutzim and even here in the village to eliminate volunteering altogether!) So, if I am to spend the next three-to-four months cleaning the hotel -- whose profits do not go to the village but stay in the hotel corporation! (besides, the hotel barely breaks even these days) -- and exhausting myself doing so to such a point that I don't even have the energy to travel the countryside or write in the blog (which was what happened when I worked for Voltaire), then why am I even in Israel-Palestine?

However, there is good news. In Damascus Gate, East Jerusaelm, resides the Faisal Hostel, the main hub for international peace volunteers and alternative media journalists on the Green Line. I spent a weekend in the Old City of Jerusalem with this hostel as my base camp instantly fell in love with the place. In turn, its small staff were intrigued by me. A sudden spark of inspiration came to me and I asked them if they could use a new employee or volunteer. They happilly said yes and we talked over some logistics. They are now very interested in having me there for the remainder of my stay in Israel-Palestine. There are just some hurtles that need to be crossed before I can leave the village: renewing my visa, finishing my article for WireTap e-zine, and getting my absentee ballot (which will be addressed for the village).

So, the plan forming in my head is to stay here in the village at least until October 11th, then to move camp to East Jerusalem.

Events
Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam vs. the State of Israel Ministry of Education While I was working with Voltaire, a crisis involving the village's school, long brewing since before I began working and living here, finally boiled over. According to the information I've managed to cull from an assortment of sources, the current Israeli Minister of Education has divided all schools in the country into two categories, Jewish (under the direct control of the Ministry of Education) and Arab (organized into a confederation of administrators who work indirectly for the Minister). There is no Jewish-Arab category. The village's elementary school is thus listed simultaneously as a Jewish School and an Arab School, which has resulted in several oddities.

For instance, a few years ago when the Second Intifada started and Israeli police shot dead twelve Arab Israeli protestors, the Arab School administration announced a country-wide strike. This included the Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam elementary school, which became the only "Arab School" with Jewish students in the strike.

Another oddity is that the Ministry of Education has become determined to install its own handpicked principal in the elementary school. This is a very complicated issue, involving a rather bitter history on the part of the villagers.

You see, the school (I'll refer to it as the beit sefer from now on), for the first ten years of its existence, was an unofficial entity, meaning the teachers and the administration received little in the way of instutional support from the State of Israel. Then in the 1990s it became an official school, which helped the pensions of the teachers and provided a small but steady amount of finances. The beit sefer underwent something of a renaissance, with Jewish and Arab parents from all across the Latrun region enrolling their children. Then the crisis with the principals began.

From the Ministry of Education's perspective, the beit sefer is a rogue institution. All Jewish Schools have principals appointed from on high annually. At the end of every school year, the teachers and administrators approve or disapprove the principal -- this is supposed to be done based on the merit of their performance -- to serve for another year. However, for many years this was not the case for the village beit sefer. Then the Ministry of Education became concerned: if the beit sefer maintained its independence, then perhaps other Jewish Schools would "rebel." So for the last three years the Ministry has forced the village to accept a principal. The village sued, and the case went all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court. I attended the hearing and I'll write about it in a moment.

Meanwhile, the villagers began a revolt against the Ministry in the beit sefer itself. The information I have received about this has been unclear, but apparently one year the villagers even sacked the entire Jewish-Arab teacher corps, (falsely) claiming "dissatisfaction" with their performance. Increasingly the villagers have stepped in to disrupt the curriculum, dismiss teachers, even block administrators from enterring the school, and during the annual review of the Ministry principals, though all the principals have apparently been very good and even receive commendations from the villagers, they are still officially disapproved. Needless to say, it's been a messy affair, but it gets messier: at least according to the Jewish residents, the perpetrators have been largely Palestinian residents who view this as a battle against Israeli apartheid. The revolt has been going on so long that the school's enrollment is imploding (including enrollment of residents' children), its curriculum and textbooks are rapidly becoming outdated, dreams for establishing a high school have been dashed, and the village income has decreased as a result. The crisis, one of many the village faces, has opened up old wounds between the residents and has created new ones, and has severely damaged the image of the village to the surrounding region. I have met several parents who have withdrawn their children from the beit sefer and are throwing up their hands in defeat regarding hopes for the village's future. The conflict has become so intolerable to some that there is now a movement within the village to de-officialize the beit sefer, an incredibly counterintuitive move that would have the most severe repercussions for the instutition's economic and professional wellbeing.

All these issues simmered in the back of everyone's minds in the court. During the trial, the village's lawyers argued that the beit sefer, as a Jewish-Arab instution wherein both languages are spoken, has special needs, and only the village-appointed principal has the skills necessary to head such an operation; the Ministry's lawyers countered that the principal appointed this year is a Moroccan Jew with some foreknowledge of Arabic and an interest to learn more, volunteered for the assignment knowing the tumultous history of her predecessors, and had the necessary skills to run a bilingual and politically sensitive operation (indeed, she has been commended by many of the beit sefer's teachers, and on her first day she even vowed to the children to learn Arabic). Furthermore, they argued that if the Ministry lost control of this Jewish School, then it risked losing control over all Jewish Schools (an argument which made me wonder about the circumstances that could inspire such a rebellion, and also made me wonder why the Ministry so feared institutional autonomy).

The Judges ultimately ruled against neither party but also not for the village. They suggested that the Ministry's principal remain in office until the annual review, and that the village's candidate be given a managerial position, i.e., a "consultant." They told the lawyers to decide, and gave them a short recess to do so. Outside the courtroom, the lawyers and villagers clashed. The villagers found the compromise wholly unsatisfactory: either the Ministry give them autonomy or create a special Jewish-Arab School category. After the recess, the lawyers proclaimed this to the Judges, but to no avail. Since the lawyers apparently couldn't agree to the compromise themselves, the Judges enforced it themselves and then closed the case.

To observers of the Israeli judicial scene, the ambivalence of the Judges may come as a bit of a surprise. The Israeli Supreme Court has actually been a very progressive entity. Just recently it proclaimed that the Fourth Geneva Convention must apply to the Occupied Territories, and it concurred with the International Court's ruling against the Separation Wall. Why did the Judges take such a wish-washy position? You see, the State of Israel does not have a constitution. In 1948 a constitutional assembly was planned, but it has never come about. The Declaration of Independence, which established the current governmental structure, and political precedence have served as a de facto constitution, and also, just as in the United States, Supreme Court decisions. Yet, the American Supreme Court has the advantage of possessing a document it can read and interpret; the Israeli Supreme Court, on the other hand, with every ruling essentially creates the Israeli constitution. Thus the Judges were very reluctant to make a decision that could effect the educational structure of the nation-state for years to come. Also, the truth is that the Ministry's principal is a qualified individual.

The battle continues. Villagers intend to stage demonstrations and further protests... but with each passing year, the quality of education in the beit sefer continues to suffer, and with it, the mission of the village.

Travels In my blog entry On a Voyage to an Untamed Land, I wrote about a very important ideal of mine, which I call the "Theonaut," a new kind of explorer for a new type of Age of Exploration. In that entry I reflected on a dilemma: when to embark on internal journeys across uncharted emotional-intellectual-spiritual dimensions of the private psyche, and when to embark on external journeys across the uncharted sociopolitical dimensions of the 21st Century. In that entry I opted for the first choice. A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion that I had done enough intratrekking and that it was high time I did some extratrekking, or to put another way, I said to myself, 'I'm spending too much goddamn time in this dinky village!' So I've spent several days on the move.

First I went to the Old City of Jerusalem on the weekend of September 11th. I visited many of the famous religious and historical sites, in particular the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the various churches on the Mt. of Olives and the Separation Wall in Abu Dis and Bethany. Unfortunately Israeli security would not let me into the Haram as-Sharif/Har Ha'Beit (Temple Mount). But I managed to snag this snazzy photograph of the As-Sakhra/Ha'Kippa (Dome of the Rock) from the Dome of the Rock. Unfortunately my digital camera hit maximum capacity, so I was not able to take photographs of my tour of the Separation Wall -- but if you happened to be watching German news, you would have seen televised footage of an anti-Wall protest that took place on the very place my taxi driver took me. I will return to the Wall in the future for Thinking-East.net and Politicus, the LaSalle University political awareness magazine.

A Semitic Viet Nam... Regarding the Wall, both in terms of efficacy and morality, I'd like to say this much: it is a sham, a demonic falsehood that will enslave Israeli freedom and democracy to the forces of Fear, Oppression and Evil. But the Wall is just one of the most gruesome symptoms of a national sickness, born by the festering and gangrene wounds of the Occupation and the twisted priorities of thirty years of pseudo-Zionistisc imperialism. Another symptom has been the recent Histradut strike. The Histradut is the national labor union which controls almost all the working-class municipal and municipal-related occupations in Israel, from airport clerks to postmen. It resorted to this desperate action, which shut down the country for several days, because many Israeli workers have not been paid by the state in over a year! Why? I've been told that Sharon and the Likud have directed so much of the state's finances into the Occupation that the Knesset has slashed the budge of almost every governmental and government subsidized program in the country, including welfare, pensions, salaries and even university humanities programs.

Just as the Separation Wall threatens the future of Israeli liberty, it will demolish any hopes for Palestinian stability, freedom and democracy as well -- quite literally demolish, for everywhere I went along the immense barrier (it is taller than a mansion in most places) I saw the dust left behind by bulldozed houses -- and symbollically demolished, for the barrier in being built not only right through the middle of many Palestinian communities, totally disrupting the economic and cultural sphere of entire towns and cities, but the Wall is also lined with observation towers bearing security cameras which shall keep an attentive Orwellian eye upon the local populace. Israel should take a page from Chinese history: no state can wall itself; the barbarians shall invade if peace is not made. The Separation Wall is checkered with gaping holes. All I had to do was hop onto an Arab bus and take a ten minute ride to Abu Dis, where there is a steady flow of people hopping through a gap in the concrete. Moreover, Israel, being the Jewish State, should take a page from Jewish history: peoples who have tried to wall themselves in only succeed in transforming themselves into a ghetto, with all the socioeconomic, psychological and spiritual suffering such a situation entails.

Shana Tova! A few days after my trip to Jerusalem I went to Eilon, a formerly Marxist kibbutz in the north of Israel for Rosha Shannah, the Jewish New Year. I came down with a stomach bug, so I was bedridden for most of my first day there, but I improved well enough to take part in the big dinner. The next few days I toured the kibbutz and the local region. Eilon is only about a kilometer south of the Lebanese border, and only a few kilometers from the Mediterranean coast, in particular an area of cliffs dotted by grotos that was the site of a trans-Mediterranean destroyed by Jewish guerillas during the 1948 War. The photograph at the top of this entry is of the Mediterranean at sunset; the black blob in the distance is an Israeli warship patrolling the Lebanese border. The photograph to the right of this paragraph is of the Lebanese mountains, which overlook the kibbutz (please forgive the grainy quality and black smudge; my digital camera has been having problems lately). On the crest of the mountains is another Israeli kibbutz and an Israeli Bedouin village.

This past weekend I returned to Jerusalem for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. (If you're not acquainted with Jews yet, you might be noticing the bundled frequency of their holidays. "We like to get them all out of the way at once," one Israeli remarked. Two more holidays are coming up this week and next week!) I figured that there was no other appropriate place for me to be. This was a particularly special Yom Kippur because it fell on the Shabbat, which occurs only once every seven years, making it, so to speak, doubly holy. (Unlike the Christian calender, which is completely solar and seasonal, and the Muslim calendar, which is completely lunar, the Jewish calendar is partially solar, lunar and seasonal, which means the months and holidays fluctuate year to year, but only a little. For instance, Rosha Shannah is always in September, but sometimes closer to the beginning and other times closer to the end.) I spent my Yom Kippur walking the Via Dolorossa, the Path of Suffering, which is the traditional route of Jesus' last day as a mortal, from the Antonian Palace to Golgotha, which is supposed to be housed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Of course there is debate concerning the route, especially its starting and ending-point. I visited the alternative sites as well. It was a very moving experience for me... but in an unexpectedly dark way. In the Bible, Jesus condemns Jerusalem yet, to fulfill his mission as Messiah, sacrifices himself for the city:

The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. [Luke 13:31-35, King James translation. See also Luke 19:41-44.].

To this day it remains a cesspool of thieves and fanatics ("No wonder it's a holy city!" exclaimed a British journalist I met in the Faisel Hostel). Palestinian peddlers, desperate for a quick buck and totally misunderstanding my desire to be left alone, vulturously pursued me at every turn; touristic, paganistic pilgrims slavishly threw themselves upon the altars of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and the priests of the various Christianities which comprise the Church bickered with each other (their ridiculous bickering has often turned violent, and sometimes has dragged states into armed conflict). While I successfully resisted the temptation to snag photographs of my trip, I am guilty of my own small crimes and petty prides. All in all, a very black and murky experience for me, and I think I'd like to leave it at that.

So now I'm back in Neve Shalom, and it's time for the Theonaut to turn inward again. I have student loans, overseas ballot forms, a visa renewal and an article for an e-zine to worry about now. Wish me luck!

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Some other photographs from my travels:

From the Eilon sculpture garden: statue of a child butchered in battle (the figure on the right is screaming as a tank shell buries itself into the figure's shoulder -- sorry about the poor quality). One of the kibbutz's great heroes was a general who fought in the 1948 War and who, apparently tortured by many of the horrors he witnessed in battle, turned to art to exorcise his demons. He was particularly interested in modernist interpretations of Phillistine sculptry. The garden is filled with disturbing but insightful representations of ancient and modern barbarism -- minotaurs, slithering satanic snakes, mindless masses of people, and other assorted semi-human beasts.

Murals from a wall in the Faisal Hostel. The rightmost section of the mural depicts International Solidarity Movement volunteers placing themselves in the line of fire between Palestinian insurgents and Israeli soldiers. Apparently painted in the radical heyday of the ISM, someome stuck a poster of slain ISM activist Rachel Corrie as a reminder of the dangers of radicalism. Corrie was bulldozed to death by an Israeli soldier when she placed herself in between the bulldozer and a Palestinian house. The ISM, famous for its ingenius idea of using international volunteers as "human shields" to protect Palestinian civilians and leaders from Israeli bullets (rarely does the IDF dare harm an international, for fear of the repercussions), also has a darker side: in the name of nonviolent protest ISM activists, many of whom have enlisted really for the a cheap Indiana Jones thrill in a Third World country, have verbally abused Israeli soldiers, sometimes even attacked them, and have also developed a bad reputation among Palestinians as overbearing, that is, trying to control the lives of those they were supposed to protect. A new generation of ISM activists -- many of whom are Israeli Palestinians -- are seeking to reform the operation from the inside, to make it less radical and bring it closer to true Ghandian strategies. As one of the reformers, who recently appeared on the Muslim Broadcasting Chanel about ISM training, put it to me, "How does swinging from the turret of an Israeli tank help Palestine? Many have no respect for Israelis, don't understand the soldiers, don't care for Hebrew. This needs to be changed. I avoided getting involved with the ISM for years because of this, but now I hope that maybe from the inside I can cause real change."

Mishmash, the feline princess of the Faisal Hostel. One of the Faisal Hostel's managers called Mishmash the "sexiest cat in East Jerusalem." Conservative speculations of the managers, workers and frequent hostel guests say that she has born over fifty kittens. Apparently she has never not been pregnant for more than a few months. The managers particularly liked an American analogy which I thought was fitting: "So she's kinda like the town bike: everyone's had a ride." Sadly (or maybe not so sadly), Mishmash will finally be undergoing an operation soon.

The famouse Damascus Gate, viewed from the Faisel Hostel lounge. The entrance into wisdom?
"Think for yourself. Question authority. Throughout human history as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are or where we are going in this ocean of chance, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself."
- Timothy Leary

Schwartz - Return from Ramallah

15.8.04

I spent the weekend at Beit Seerya (which boasts the second largest mosque dome in Israel/Palestine, after the as-Sakhra, the Dome of the Rock) and Ramallah, a youthful city bursting with life. It was an enlightening whirlwind journey, confirming many things I've already thought, confirming things I've heard but didn't believe, and also showing me some other things.

I don't have any time to write a good entry on my trip right now. One of my bosses here in the village is drowning me in work. I'll say this much: on the morning of Saturday, the lorry I was riding passed through a "checkpoint." Two young Israelis leapt out from the bush (no barriers, no signs -- some "checkpoint"). Their heads were wrapped in a ludricous bee-catcher's outfit. They trained their guns on the driver. I'll never forget how the passengers in the lorry stiffened with fright, and I'll never forget the absolute terror in the eyes of the soldiers, who spoke to us in monosyllables.

Last year I got into an argument with a Palestinian when I was at SOAS. He kept going on about the "reality of the Occupation," the injustice toward the Palestinians. Recently before I left the US I got into an argument with a Jew. He kept going on about the "reality of the Situation," the injustice toward the Israelis. I'll tell you what the "reality" is: it's a nightmare of two nations terrified of each other.

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17.8.04
Update
1. I will be expanding this entry shortly.
2. My laptop is now capable of connecting to the Internet on its own, which streamlines things a bit.
3. I have gotten permission from the publicity office to go ahead with an article about the village for AlterNet.org.
4. Correction and reflection added to 11.8.04 entry, "Israel/Palestine: What America Was, Good and Bad. (By the way, that entry has received very positive feedback. Thanks everybody! As soon as I'm able, I'll make a "second edition" out of the copy of the entry currently posted on Thinking-East.net.)
5. Ben and I will, inshallah, begin an advertising blitz for Thinking-East.net within the next week.

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20.8.04
Huge amounts of labor being spent on two apartments here in the village. I'm trying to repair/paint the walls but the damned things keep crumbling and the paint keeps peeling and one of my bosses is not exactly kindhearted and wants my blood. Fun times! I'll try to get a photograph or two of the disaster onto the blog for a laugh's sake. Eventually I'll get to writing an entry about Ramallah and hopefully soon Ben and I can get going on our advertising blitz. Ya'allah!!

Check out this article of a BBC crew being held at gunpoint by the IDF this past weekend while I was in Ramallah.

Right before I left, militants associated with Moqtada as-Sadr in Najaf, Iraq, kidnapped a British reporter from the Daily Telegraph.

Shall Modernity kill itself by annhilating the flow of information?

Schwartz - Israel/Palestine: What America Was, Good and Bad
[Reflection & Update]

For the last few days I have been working with Voltaire, a Palestinian villager here at Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam, former shepherd and now teacher at the village's elemenary school. We have been digging holes and posting signs along the side of the road that winds its way up to the village from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. It's good, hard work. I have to wake up by 6 AM every morning -- quite a feat for a spoiled modern American! -- and work for several hours on this project. Voltaire is excellent company, and true to his name, he is very philosophical (the philosopher was his grandfather's favorite, which was why Voltaire's father chose the name for him), reflective, calm, meditative, with a Socratic gaze as sharp as pickaxe.

By 10 AM, the unmerciful Middle Eastern sun finally begins to reach the peak of its Apollo-like journey to the throne of Allah in the center of the firmament. But before that happens, the earth is blanketed by the shadows of long white clouds, and a refreshing, electric breeze rolls down the valleys. At the top of one of the hills that leads to the village, I took a moment to look out across the land. To my left, the farms of a nearby kibbutz; to my right, more farm, and beyond that the wineries of the Latrun monastery; and behind me, the world's only cooperative Jewish/Arab village. All around me was the spirit of experimentation, of newness, of youth. I glanced at Voltaire, who stabbed at the earth with his tools, and I remembered that the farmland around me was once Palestinian villages, and the youthfulness of the State of Israel was once the ancientness of Syria-Palestine. I thought of last night: I was with the village's Palestinian workers, smoking the nargila, when word reached us that soldiers were in the village. Instantly the lights were shut off and I and one of the older workers snuck out to survey the scene as the others nervously peered through the doorway. The soldiers were only waiting for the bus to come get them, but their presence was enough to terrify my acquaintances. I found myself also thinking that were I in a Tel Aviv cafe, the presence of a Palestinian in a heavy jacket would be enough to sew terror in the hearts of those around me, as well. Back in the present, atop the hill, after the memories passed was when an idea hit me: today's Israel/Palestine is what America was, in the 19th Century.

[Click on "Continue Reading"]

The American Frontier was where the persecuted masses of Europe -- Scottish, Puritan and then Catholic English, Irish -- collided with the natives of an ancient continent, a land the newcomers claimed was "empty" and "undeveloped." This is Israel/Palestine, where another persecuted people of Europe -- the Ashkenazim -- have collided with a native population whose land was also declared "empty" and "undeveloped." As in the case of America, the newcomers seek to "modernize" the land -- huge rational agricultural projects, cities sprouting left and right -- while their opponents seek to "preserve" it or what hasn't yet been "cultivated/corrupted." As in the case of America, particular segments of the formerly persecuted Europeans rise to the top of the new regional socioeconomic ladder (New England Puritans and Southern Anglicans; Northern and Western European Ashkenazim) and send their former kinsmen (America's poor whites; the Eastern European Ashkenazim and the Sephardim) and new members of the underclass (Irish, Africans; Falashim and Lost Jews) to die suppressing the natives' insurrection. As in the case of America, the natives resort to a dubious mix of armed freedom-fighting and terrorism (i.e., Geronimo and Yassir Arafat), even millenialism (i.e., the Ghost Dance and HAMAS' desires to "drive Israel into the sea" to fulfill Qur'anic prophecy). Moreover, as in America, the natives are being relegated to a bantustan existence (the "sovereign nations" of the Amerindian Reservations; Clinton and Sharon's proposed "Palestinian State," a hodgepodge of territories lacking control of its own resources and airspace).* But also, as in America, there is a brave urge to experiment with new socioeconomic arrangements (i.e., the Oneidan Community, Nauvoo, Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salaam, the kibbutzim), and a desire from all the peoples, newcomer and native, to be one with the land, to be rooted.

There are major exceptions to my comparisons. Very importantly, Isreal does not have slaves, and while it is true that the Palestinians, Sephardim and Falashim serve as cheap source of labor, Israel's economy is thoroughly dependent on American foreign aid and global Jewish donations. In other words, Isreal isn't getting a free ride to prosperity like America did (and for that matter, America didn't either; remember that little snaffu, the Civil War?) In point of fact, unlike the Amerindians, who were left to rot under the foot of American soldiers by the world and often their own kindred, the Palestinians receive monetary aid from the European Union and global Palestinian, Christian and Muslim donations. Also, the Jews are not "newcomers" in the strictest sense of the word, being that this territory was theirs 2000 years ago, though conquered from and often shared with non-Jews. Also, in Israel, all Jews serve in the military, unlike in America where only the poor served, though I've heard rumors that in the IDF, some Jews are more equal than other Jews.** The West Bank and Gaza are occupied, not annexed, as was the case with the Wild West, though there are those in Israel who are trying to make this otherwise. And while the Occupation is a martial endeavor to support a political and civilian expansion, as was the case of Manifest Destiny in America, in the West Bank, the Occupation is in a much physically tinier geographic space and is conducted with extremely powerful modern, deadlier and less accident prone weaponry (that is to say, many of the IDF's claims that so-and-so's death or the demolition of so-and-so's house were "accidental" are suspect on technological, not to mention professional, grounds). While America's weaponry in the Wild West was cutting-edge, that did not mean America could have won the Wild West easily if it just decided to; take for example Custard's Last Stand and the Red Cloud War. In the case of Israel (which, ironically, receives most of its cutting-edge weaponry from America), if the Jewish State decided to do so tomorrow, it could end the Intifada with a Viet Nam War-style carpet bombing of the West Bank. But this leads me to an important difference: in the 19th Century, the world, most non-native Americans, and many Amerindians themselves, turned a blind eye to the what was happening in the Wild West. However in Israel/Palestine, the world is paying attention. But how the world has done so is a much more complicated matter. As often as the world has tried to do right by the Jewish and the Arab peoples, it has done wrong by both peoples, it has exploited the conflict to its own ends -- just look at the obscurantism of the Republican Party of America and the Arab States! -- and it has increasingly allowed itself to be perverted by the distorted ideologies that are sprouting from the violence -- take a gander at all the polls indicating the increasing popularity of Christian Zionism, al-Qaeda globalized fascism and anti-American neo-Marxism.

But the most obvious and I believe most pertinent correlation between the American Frontier and today's Israel/Palestine is this: it is a tragic war for stolen but sacred land, loved by both peoples -- indeed, often lusted for and horded by each nation -- and it is an even more tragic civil war of a shared dream to find a place to call home, a dream that has been cleaved into two resentful, competing and almost irreconciable halves. This was the American Frontier... no wonder I can smell an electricity in the breeze...

*There is a bitter joke in the Gaza Strip: A rich man had a dog who was unhappy where they lived in America, so the rich man moved to India, but the dog was still unhappy. Then he moved to Korea, but the dog was still unhappy. So he moved again, to Egypt, and the dog was not as unhappy, but still discontent. Then he moved to Gaza City, and the dog was frollicking and joyful. The man asked, "Why are you so happy?" The dog replied, "Because here is the life for dogs!"

**But even this is a complicated matter. As in America then and now, Sephardim-Ashekanizm mix-marriages are increasingly common, though I do not know if it is primarily the East European Ashkenazim who are doing this or all the Ashkenazim. I've met at least one Yemeni-Romanian, and I've seen a few Eastern European-Sephardim running about.

Painting: Artist unknown; Engraver, Hunter and Co.; 1870
Photograph, Yassir Arafat: Photographer unknown
Photograph, Geronimo: A famous photograph, so I don't think I need to cite it. Besides, I haven't a clue who the photographer was anyway.

This entry will be reprinted in Thinking-East.Net... that is, as soon as my username and password become functional. Ollie!!

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Update I'm going to the village of Beit Syhra (not sure of the spelling), which is near Ramallah, this Friday and Saturday for an Arab wedding. I can't wait!

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18.8.04
Correction According to a source in the examinations division of the IDF (the office which determines who is given what assignments), my second endnote is highly innaccurate. In the Israeli military it is not true that "some Jews are more equal than other Jews." The fact that a high percentage of Israeli soldiers in combat right now are Sephardim is not due to intentional racism as it is due to institutional racism, a socioeconomic pattern knitted into the fabric of contemporary Israeli society. As with Blacks and Hispanics in the US, Sephardim often live in poor economic conditions. In the US, minorites enter the military -- a volunteer force -- in hopes of improving their socioeconomic position. In Israel, upon entrance into the military all conscripts are tested for various skills and aptitudes. Ashkenazim Jews, who have greater resources and thus better education, often score in ways that would make them more suitable for noncombative assignments, such as intelligence, etc. Sephardim Jews, however, tend not to receive good education, and so are less cultivated and thus more "suitable" for combat duty. So, while American minorities and Israeli minorites might start from very different points of origin, ironically they end up in the same place: in the line of fire.

My source made an interesting comment: "The problem isn't that the military is segregated. In fact, like in America, the military is a model of integration. All the money we spend on trying to better integrate the military could be better spent elsewhere. The problem is that we even have a military at all: what has happened historically to require such a huge army? Why are we at war with our neighbors?"

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Reflection Journalists don't usually need to footnotes because their profession is imbued with a natural authority. Thus, a journalist or would-be journalist must always be careful about what they report and how they report. Exactitude must be as important to the journalist as it is to the philosopher or scientist.

Schwartz - IDF

9.8.2004

"In Israel, all land belongs to the military"- Ruti, manager of the Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam Guesthouse

I did some snooping around yesterday about the police and soldiers. The police who came to the pool were in fact on a routine patrol of poolsites throughout the Latrun region. That doesn't mean that if they came upon a Palestinian they wouldn't react; hence the reason our Palestinian crew disappeared for the afternoon. As Black Americans had to be wary of cops in the days of Jm Crow, the Palestinian workers from the West Bank of the village, the local kibbutzim and moshavim, and even the monastery, whether they be illegal or legal (licensed to work in Israel), must always be wary of law enforcement agents. Racism and legitimate fear of terrorism have led to much in the way of abuses by the police: detainments that stretch for days, even weeks, in sweaty prisons, and on-the-spot confiscations of possessions, including licenses, are, according to claims by Palestinians, unfortunate common occurences.

As to the presence of soldiers in the area, apparently the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) use Latrun regularly for "field excercises." I find this to be strange. For one thing, they are landing troops on private farmland (admittedly, the notion of "private" in Israel is a funny notion because so much of the land is directly owned by the state or indirectly through the JNF/KKL, the Jewish National Fund). Furthermore, why choose an area with such proximity to the Green Line (and such apparently high amounts of illicit border-crossing) to train army troops... unless it's not truly training? Nevertheless, there may not be ulterior motives. After all, Israel is a ridiculously tiny country, and especially thin at the waist, so one would be justified to ask, 'Where else would they train?' Incidentally, most of the Negev is military property, used to tests and excercises. However, most of the Middle East is not desert, and so a military force, especially one for an isolated country such as Israel, would naturally want to have some experience with more lively terrain.

I took photographs of the helicopters, but unfortunately my digital camera is lousy. The helicopters were no more than 200 feet away from me at one point, flying directly over the village's main office, but in the photographs they appear as though they were on the other side of the planet.

Update: I did some research this weekend on the Battle of Latrun and the Burma Road. Also, the village has information pertaining to the possible clearing of Arab villages from this region as late as 1958 and 1967.

In the extended entry is my original entry from yesterday.

In the future I will try to restrain myself from outbursts unbecoming of a (would-be) journalist. I am reminded of the idiot American journalist who has inadvertently sabotaged Ben's research into the Kashgar cattle markets. Journalism is a craft, an art, like football (soccer), not an American pigskin game where you can sloppily throw your weight around and still make a touchdown.

Original entry:
"8.8.2004 Soldiers have landed near village"
Police came to the village earlier today and black hawk helicopters are at this moment depositing soldiers on an olive farm down the hill from Neve Shalom. The village's Palestinian workers have gone into hiding. I don't know if the police and the soldiers are connected, but the Green Line is only a few kilometers away from the village and illegal Arab workers litter the region. The helicopters, from a nearby base, are also circling the village. The locals go about their business undisturbed, but this is a chilling reminder that I am now living in a warzone... I'll update this entry with more information as it comes to me.

Schwartz - On a Voyage to an Untamed Land
[Update & Reflection]

"Put me on a ship that is sinking
on a voyage to an untamed land..."
-- from Don't Take Your Love Away by V.A.S.T.

1. My hoped for trip to Jerusalem may be postponed again due to my duties as a volunteer worker. Will see, will see...
2. Good news!!! I am getting quite chummy with some nice Palestinian workers here in the village -- enjoying many nights in the haze of a nargila. One of them has offered to take me into the West Bank. He used to take the village's volunteers there all the time, though he advises that there are areas I might not want to visit right now, for obvious reasons. Thus, I may be able to go to Ramallah, the current Palestinian capitol as soon as next weekend! (Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capitol. Specifically, "United Jerusalem," which includes all parts of the city, Israeli settlements and the Arab counties annexed to the municipality after the '67 war, is claimed by Israel, while East Jerusalem is claimed by Palestine. I'm not sure if Palestina also lays claim to the Old City, which was part of East Jerusalem when Jordan controlled that half of the city.)
3. Many congrats to Ben for his successful sojourn to and back from China!
4. Working on a new short story, to be entitled "Promised Lands." It's about a young man, named Joey Traveler, who leaps out of a window from one the Twin Towers (gruesome, I know) only to awaken in an alternate reality where the towers collapsed in 1993, and September 11th marked a bio-chemo-nuclear war between the US and its opponents. In this world he is called "Chameleon" (or as one character phrases it, "world-traveler, skin-jumper"), a chief of a tribe called the "Townmen," people who fled New York State's urban areas to the Adirondacks seeking a legendary "Promised Land." The Townmen are at war with those who live in the wilderness, called the "Greenmen," who are led by a mysterious figure called "Allat" or "the Goddess."

Since I'm on the topic of my stories, lately I've been asking myself, 'Shouldn't I be exploring the physical world rather than the imaginative world?' When I asked this question, I forgot the original ideal for which I even embarked on this journey: I call that ideal "the Theonaut," literally, "god-traveler," a new kind of explorer. You see, until we go to outer space or the deep oceans, all the great physical frontiers -- that is, those that would be open to me, a non-geneticist -- have been mapped and settled. There are no geographic Timbuktus for which to seek anymore. ...But there remain frontiers of the psyche: the imaginative, emotional and spiritual shades of the private self, which comprise the internal psyche, and the cultural, political and moral shades of the public self and the historical self of humanity, which comprise the external and universal psyches. I am here seeking to explorer and push outward all these frontiers: the internal through my craft as a writer of stories and reflections, and the external through my physical wanderings, studies, activism and, inshallah, as a journalist.

Sometimes the desires to explore internally and explore externally conflict, as they are conflicting right now. When inspiration strikes me for a story, essay or article, I find that I must write it immediately or greatly risk never writing -- but the same is true when I am inspired to go to a place. For instance, when I was in Philadelphia, bland city though it was, there was still much to do, see, experience, but I spent most of it locked in my college because I never acted on my impulses.

Ah well, at least these are the worries with which I am faced. I could be threatened with starvation, which I am not; I could be threatened with martial excess or suicide bombs... well, I am, actually. But fickle fortune has smiled on me so far to provide me with a life with enough time and resources to reflect.

Schwartz - Birthright Israel Highlights & Photographs [Repost]

Some photographic highlights (and commentary) from my whirlwhind tour across Israel.

Originally published on July 28th, 2004, continued reporting of errors accessing my photographs have compelled me to relocate this entry to...

http://www.geocities.com/sword_of_nothing/Paarmann7_28_04.htm

If you cannot access the webpage by the provided link, highlight the URL and re-enter it into a new Internet Explorer window. If there are still errors downloading the photographs, please e-mail me, nyspaceman@writing.com or schwartz@thinking-east.net.

Schwartz - Update 8/1/04

1. Jerusalem trip got postponed because of a going-away party for a volunteer in the village and because of sudden artistict inspiration. I've written a new story, entitled "Pyretta Blaze." I'm very pleased with the results...
2. Still doing research for Latrun and village articles.
3. Planning a new trip to Jerusalem for this weekend.

Schwartz - Updates, Alert and Re-posting

July 8th, 2004: From the Big Apple to DC to the Big Apple to Tel Aviv Before I leave for Israel, I'm privileged to get a private tour of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters! So today I'm hopping on the Chinatown express to Washington, DC (a lovely five hour drive), crashing at my cousin's place, going to Langley, Virginia tomorrow, then taking the bus back to the Big Apple to continue packing. This Sunday at 10 AM I head out for Tel Aviv. Am I crazy to travel so much in the space of four days? You betcha!

[In the extended entry: updates and international security alert]

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
[This extended entry will be republished in Thinking-East.net.]

7/25/2004 Updates:
1. Doing preliminary research on potential article regarding Latrun history;
2. Working on chronology and article regarding Birthright Israel, including photographs;
3. Planning my first solitary trip to Jerusalem for this weekend.

ALERT! I read about this in the Jerusalem Post last week. The Birthright Israel website has printed this article from Israel Insider.com.

Report: Israel ready for pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facility
By Ellis Shuman July 22, 2004

The Israeli Air Force has completed military preparations for a pre-emptive strike at Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and will attack if Russia supplies Iran with rods for enriching uranium, Israeli officials said, according to a report in the London Sunday Times. Military sources said the raid would be carried out by long-range F-15I jets, overflying Turkey, with simultaneous operations by commandos on the ground.

Israel may also choose to launch submarine-based cruise missiles from the Persian Gulf at key Iranian targets, NewsMax.com reported.

The rods, currently stored at a Russian port, are expected to be delivered late next year after a dispute over financial terms is resolved, the paper reported.

An Israeli defense source in Tel Aviv, who confirmed that the military rehearsals had taken place, told the paper: "Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical."

"If the worst comes to the worst and international efforts fail," the source was quoted as saying, "we are very confident we'll be able to demolish the ayatollahs' nuclear aspirations in one go."

The Iranian nuclear threat has been on Israel's agenda for some time, and the issue was raised in talks between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington last year. The Washington Post reported in August 2003 that administration officials were increasingly concerned that Israel would launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

In its report, the Sunday Times quoted a senior U.S. official warning of a pre-emptive Israeli strike if Russia continues cooperating with the Iranians. He said Washington was unlikely to block Israeli attacks against Iran.

The paper also quoted from a classified document on the Iranian threat, entitled "The Strategic Future of Israel," which was presented to Sharon earlier this year. The document allegedly advocates military action against "countries which develop nuclear weapons" and describes Iran as a "suicide nation" and recommends "targeted killings" of members of the country's elite, including its leading nuclear scientists.

Israeli sources acknowledged, according to the Sunday Times, that a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities could provoke "a ferocious response," which could involve Lebanese-based rocket attacks on northern Israel or terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad.

Meanwhile, Jane's Intelligence Digest reported this week that if Israel launches a pre-emptive attack against Iraq, it would have to go it alone. "Any joint U.S.-Israeli precision-guided missile strike against Iran's nuclear facilities - Bushehr, Natanz or Arak - is unlikely to prove an attractive option for the U.S. administration while it remains mired in Iraq - which shares a 1,458 kilometer-long border with Iran," Jane's reported.

In 1981, Israeli Air Force jets successfully attacked and destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak. An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be much more complicated, Israeli media sources reported, because the country's nuclear program is dispersed at several sites and the distance from Israel is much greater. Iran also has the possibility to retaliate with its Shihab ballistic missiles, the reports said.

Military sources believe the IDF has the capabilities to defend Israel against a possible Iranian missile attack. Officially, due to Israel's reliance on the newly developed Arrow anti-missile defense system, the country is giving priority to diplomatic pressure to combat the Iranian nuclear threat.

(Ellis Shuman is the senior editor of israelinsider.com.)

Schwartz - Neve Shalom

I have arrived!

My tour group dissolved but some of us stayed behind. The bus took us to a tourist trap called "Mini Israel," a macabre walk-through miniature of the country boasting such oddities as a band of Ashkenazi yetis (I kid you not) and mechanical Orthodox Jews no bigger than my pinky finger davening toward the Wailing Wall.

Three kilometers away from Mini Israel rose two hills upon which sat a monastery and Neve Shalom/Wahat Assalaam, my destination. After wasting several hours in the tourist trap (our guide wanted us to see every last little engraved plastic detail) we finally departed. The bus driver intended to take me to the village but made a wrong turn. I was dropped off, with my luggage, ten kilometers away from the Latrun Junction.

Latrun was the site of a bloody battle that occured during Israel's War of Independence. The Israeli army suffered most of its casaulties in an extended operation to gain control of the highway to Jerusalem. Backed into a corner, the State of Israel consripted male refugees from Europe -- survivors of the Holocaust -- for a mighty push against the Arab armies at Latrun, a battle Israel won but with great cost to both sides. Ironically, Latrun is now a stop for an eged bus that comes three times a day to take travelers to the village.

Underneath the searing sun, the soles of my feet burning on the black tar of the highway, I hitch-hiked my way past Latrun to the mouth of the road that leads to Neve Shalom. I still had a two kilometer walk ahead of me, uphill! Dragging my luggage behind me I set off. Taxi cabs sped by me, ignoring my plight. Not until I collapsed under the shade of a dying tree jutting out from the side of the curving hill did Fate finally assist me: an Arab fellow in a jeep took stopped and transported me to the gate of the village.

When the first families arrived here twenty-seven years ago, they lived in an old bus beside a bedouin family. The hill was rocky, barren and infested with gnats and flies. Today, it is resplendent with green trees and bushes, and the slope of the hill is lined with the avant garde boxes of the fifty Arab and Jewish families that live here.

I am very excited to be here, though I am nervous. First, my spoken Hebrew is awful and my spoken Arabic worse, and while the villagers speak English well enough, I would much rather achieve some linguistic fluency. Second, the only other volunteers here will be leaving in two weeks and then I will be on my own for at least two weeks, possibly for many months. The number of volunteers the village has received has dwindled since the Al-Aqsa intifada began. I find the lack of international activism disappointing: this village exists precisely because there is an Occupation (or "Situation" as the Israelis call it), preciesely because there is an Intifiada. Third, there is almost no one my age here -- especially of the female variety, I won't lie -- and I fear that I may meet no one. Fourth, my money situation is still difficult. Fifth and finally, while there is a great dream behind this village, as Rosa, one of the volunteers, put it, "The people here are still people, just trying to do the right thing." I must keep that in mind. In just the night and morning I've been here I've already heard some of the difficult internal political difficulties of the village.

Well, we shall see what becomes of our intrepid hero. We shall see...

----------------

Now it's time to read-up on Ben's adventures. I love the photo of the horse!!

Schwartz - Tel Aviv

I'm writing from a computer in a Tel Aviv hotel on my eleventh and final day of touring Israel with the right-wing Birthright Israel/Taglit "Israel Outdoors" operation. This is the first operational computer in all this time that I have found along our route! I may be stranded without any money. A Bank Leumi cash machine in the holy city Tzafet ate one of my debit cards, and my other debit card seems to only work with cash machines in Mom & Pop stores and not the big bank chains. Oh boy!

I don't know when my next chance will be to write an entry, so please bear with me dear readers. Hopefully when you hear from me again, it shall be from a computer in the Oasis of Peace!

------------

Everyone, check out Thinking East. It looks amazing! Many congratulations to Ollie Dams for his hard work!!

Schwartz - From Philly to the Big Apple

My immediate post-university situation in Philadelphia simply was no longer tenable. From May 10th through June 13th I lived in South Philly with one of my best friends from school, a brilliant fellow by the name of Todd Whelan. Todd made his living by working in the Philadelphian tourism industry as a horse carriage driver and he got me into the profession. During March I trained, in April I worked part-time, and then for the month following my graduation I worked full-time.

Since I was one of the newest drivers, my valiant steed was a rotund drafthorse by the name of Bubba, the slowest but one of the sweetest and intelligent horses in my company's fleet. Bubba was so slow that little old ladies using strollers moved faster than him -- I kid you not! The other drivers and I had a theory: we figured that unlike most of his compatriots in the stables, Bubba long ago realized that no matter how fast he walked, he still kept going around the same four or five blocks, day in and day out.

Unfortunately, even though I managed to make good cash with Bubba, our efforts were always thwarted. First off, my boss -- Bubba's owner and the company's dictator, er, director -- was a crook. His favorite hobby was to find ways to steal money from his workers. Since we were paid in off-the-books cash and most of the carriage drivers were junkies desperate for any money, there was always some way he could find to swindel a person out of his or her hard-earned percentage. Second off, the fact is carriage-driving is a dead-end job, and seedy to boot. Third off, the city of Philadelphia has regulated the tourism industry to the point of near extinction. Fourth and finally, this summer is experiencing a tourism "drought," so even the high rollers in the carriage job were making a pittance.

Then there was the living situation. Todd had four boarders: me, his girlfriend, one of his best friends, and a cokehead -- all in a house barely large enough for two people. I'll leave it at "'nuff said."

Finally, there was Philadelphia itself. Philly is one of those places that sounds more amazing on paper than it truly is, and looks stunning from a distance. Take for example the skyline. The truth is, once one finds their way into downtown "Center City" Philly (a task comparable to wandering lost in a Tolkien dwarves' mine), one discovers that all those lovely skyscrapers are in fact very short and spaced out from each other. No less, the entire downtown is lopsided: all the impressive modern architecture is on the side of the Schuylkill, a secondary American river. The Old City -- Philly's casbah, if you will -- is quite tiny and removed from Center City. I don't know about you, dear reader, but I sort of fancy urban sprawl, so long as it is not sprawl within the city. All that space between avenues and buildings is not only aesthetically displeasing, but very irritating.

Yet, what has always bugged me about Philly was its impermanence. Believe it or not, I only fully realized this after I saw the film The Day After Tomorrow. I am an avid fan of desolation and eschatology. I am fascinated by scenes of ruin and age; where eternity is king, there shall I be, Polaroid in hand. It's been a fascination of mine since childhood, with a concomittant passion for immortality: the more durable the ruin, the more fascinated and prouder I am of its human makers. Roland Emmerich's film, incredibly flawed though it may be, struck that secret nerve within me. I found myself suddenly impressed with New York City, a metropolis I had known since my youth (my hometown Yonkers is shoved up against the Bronx, one of the Big Apple's burroughs) but had never truly appreciated. It donned on me that were human civilization to end suddenly, Manhattan would remain. New York City would be our testament to the universe: that we once lived and we onced reached high, so high, maybe too high, but high nevertheless, crawling and clawing and straining and yearning and building up up up.

But Philadelphia?

After all these years in that city, all I could think was, 'Where are the trees?' It was the very first thought I had when I arrived for university four years ago; four years later, it was my last thought. I always felt naked in Philly, as though the tepid Pennsylvanian sun roasting in the bland Pennsylvanian sky might burst like a hog on a stick and its sizzling juices would drown me and the city.

So about three weeks ago I quit -- quit the job, quit the house (but not my friendship with Todd) and quit Philly.

When I arrived in the New York City area, I understood something else: both cities were planned on grids, but for very different reasons.

In Philly the grid was crafted in the names of fire insurance and God. You see, William Penn, the man who started Philadelphia, had survived the Great Fire of London. He was determined to make sure that no such inferno could ever consume his city; hence the grid: Philly is divided into four quarters, the idea being even if three out of the four corners burned to the ground, so long as that last corner remained, there would be no need for a Christopher Wren for the city could be said to have "survived." (I do find it ironic that despite this ingenius attempt to insure the city's immortality, most Philadelphian architecture from the colonial period to today, crafted as it is from Delaware brick, is tiny and fragile.)

He and his followers the Quakers had another agenda, namely, to build a trial Heaven upon Earth ("a holy experiment," to quote Penn), a demographic atempt to embody what the Quakers believed to be God's Plan of global socioeconomic and religious liberty. Ever hear of Edward Hicks' The Peaceable Kingdom? Yep, that was supposed to be Pennsylvania and Philadelphia! Hard to believe when one looks at the Philly of today: a racially segregated and impovershed bunch of shacks that for the last twenty years has whored itself to transnational corporate pimps. The Quakers' ideal was indeed a worthy one: unlike the other English colonies on the North American coast at the time, Philadelphia was the only settlement where religious tolerance was an overarching legal and societal principle, for in Heaven, at least to the Quakers, all God's children are equal and free to worship as they will. Yet, somehow the execution went wrong, horribly wrong, and rightly or wrongly, I hold Philadelphia responsible for this.

Manhattan's grid, however, was built for a very different reason: to carve Man's Order out of Nature's Order. New York City was to be a testament to Mankind. If civilization ended tomorrow and Philadelphia were to survive, I feel that this would not be an impressive feat because the city was built to parasitically latch onto that which is already immortal: God. Manhattan, on the other hand, has brazenly chosen to pick a fight with Time itself. Manhattan's survival would be a true triumph, for humanity is not immortal, and yes, eventually all our witty artifice decays into dust, but even if those skycrapers were to last a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years beyond you and I, our species would have accomplished something.

* * *

So, the last three weeks I've been working in Midtown Manhattan (that's the Empire State Building behind me in the photograph), within eyeshot of the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, New York Public Library and Grand Central Station. I should note that New York City is far from perfect itself; indeed, it is a quite brutal and greedy place. Those amazing skyscrapers were built as much in the celebration of money and materialism as they were in the spirit of humanity -- and doubtless their architects would say that there is no difference! Yet, I feel more at home here, forty stories into the sky, in a land trying to beat Time at its own game.

However, I am not totally at home here. I left the New York City area four years ago precisely because I am an alien to this place. I am still an alien.

And so, this Sunday, July 11th, I leave for Israel. Ben has already begun his journey into the wild. I will soon follow my friend to the ends of the Earth.

I burn with anticipation.

Schwartz - From Philly to the Big Apple

My immediate post-university situation in Philadelphia simply was no longer tenable. From May 10th through June 13th I lived in South Philly with one of my best friends from school, a brilliant fellow by the name of Todd Whelan. Todd made his living by working in the Philadelphian tourism industry as a horse carriage driver and he got me into the profession. During March I trained, in April I worked part-time, and then for the month following my graduation I worked full-time.

Since I was one of the newest drivers, my valiant steed was a rotund drafthorse by the name of Bubba, the slowest but one of the sweetest and intelligent horses in my company's fleet. Bubba was so slow that little old ladies using strollers moved faster than him -- I kid you not! The other drivers and I had a theory: we figured that unlike most of his compatriots in the stables, Bubba long ago realized that no matter how fast he walked, he still kept going around the same four or five blocks, day in and day out.

Unfortunately, even though I managed to make good cash with Bubba, our efforts were always thwarted. First off, my boss -- Bubba's owner and the company's dictator, er, director -- was a crook. His favorite hobby was to find ways to steal money from his workers. Since we were paid in off-the-books cash and most of the carriage drivers were junkies desperate for any money, there was always some way he could find to swindel a person out of his or her hard-earned percentage. Second off, the fact is carriage-driving is a dead-end job, and seedy to boot. Third off, the city of Philadelphia has regulated the tourism industry to the point of near extinction. Fourth and finally, this summer is experiencing a tourism "drought," so even the high rollers in the carriage job were making a pittance.

Then there was the living situation. Todd had four boarders: me, his girlfriend, one of his best friends, and a cokehead -- all in a house barely large enough for two people. I'll leave it at "'nuff said."

Finally, there was Philadelphia itself. Philly is one of those places that sounds more amazing on paper than it truly is, and looks stunning from a distance. Take for example the skyline. The truth is, once one finds their way into downtown "Center City" Philly (a task comparable to wandering lost in a Tolkien dwarves' mine), one discovers that all those lovely skyscrapers are in fact very short and spaced out from each other. No less, the entire downtown is lopsided: all the impressive modern architecture is on the side of the Schuylkill, a secondary American river. The Old City -- Philly's casbah, if you will -- is quite tiny and removed from Center City. I don't know about you, dear reader, but I sort of fancy urban sprawl, so long as it is not sprawl within the city. All that space between avenues and buildings is not only aesthetically displeasing, but very irritating.

Yet, what has always bugged me about Philly was its impermanence. Believe it or not, I only fully realized this after I saw the film The Day After Tomorrow. I am an avid fan of desolation and eschatology. I am fascinated by scenes of ruin and age; where eternity is king, there shall I be, Polaroid in hand. It's been a fascination of mine since childhood, with a concomittant passion for immortality: the more durable the ruin, the more fascinated and prouder I am of its human makers. Roland Emmerich's film, incredibly flawed though it may be, struck that secret nerve within me. I found myself suddenly impressed with New York City, a metropolis I had known since my youth (my hometown Yonkers is shoved up against the Bronx, one of the Big Apple's burroughs) but had never truly appreciated. It donned on me that were human civilization to end suddenly, Manhattan would remain. New York City would be our testament to the universe: that we once lived and we onced reached high, so high, maybe too high, but high nevertheless, crawling and clawing and straining and yearning and building up up up.

But Philadelphia?

After all these years in that city, all I could think was, 'Where are the trees?' It was the very first thought I had when I arrived for university four years ago; four years later, it was my last thought. I always felt naked in Philly, as though the tepid Pennsylvanian sun roasting in the bland Pennsylvanian sky might burst like a hog on a stick and its sizzling juices would drown me and the city.

So about three weeks ago I quit -- quit the job, quit the house (but not my friendship with Todd) and quit Philly.

When I arrived in the New York City area, I understood something else: both cities were planned on grids, but for very different reasons.

In Philly the grid was crafted in the names of fire insurance and God. You see, William Penn, the man who started Philadelphia, had survived the Great Fire of London. He was determined to make sure that no such inferno could ever consume his city; hence the grid: Philly is divided into four quarters, the idea being even if three out of the four corners burned to the ground, so long as that last corner remained, there would be no need for a Christopher Wren for the city could be said to have "survived." (I do find it ironic that despite this ingenius attempt to insure the city's immortality, most Philadelphian architecture from the colonial period to today, crafted as it is from Delaware brick, is tiny and fragile.)

He and his followers the Quakers had another agenda, namely, to build a trial Heaven upon Earth ("a holy experiment," to quote Penn), a demographic atempt to embody what the Quakers believed to be God's Plan of global socioeconomic and religious liberty. Ever hear of Edward Hicks' The Peaceable Kingdom? Yep, that was supposed to be Pennsylvania and Philadelphia! Hard to believe when one looks at the Philly of today: a racially segregated and impovershed bunch of shacks that for the last twenty years has whored itself to transnational corporate pimps. The Quakers' ideal was indeed a worthy one: unlike the other English colonies on the North American coast at the time, Philadelphia was the only settlement where religious tolerance was an overarching legal and societal principle, for in Heaven, at least to the Quakers, all God's children are equal and free to worship as they will. Yet, somehow the execution went wrong, horribly wrong, and rightly or wrongly, I hold Philadelphia responsible for this.

Manhattan's grid, however, was built for a very different reason: to carve Man's Order out of Nature's Order. New York City was to be a testament to Mankind. If civilization ended tomorrow and Philadelphia were to survive, I feel that this would not be an impressive feat because the city was built to parasitically latch onto that which is already immortal: God. Manhattan, on the other hand, has brazenly chosen to pick a fight with Time itself. Manhattan's survival would be a true triumph, for humanity is not immortal, and yes, eventually all our witty artifice decays into dust, but even if those skycrapers were to last a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years beyond you and I, our species would have accomplished something.

* * *

So, the last three weeks I've been working in Midtown Manhattan (that's the Empire State Building behind me in the photograph), within eyeshot of the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, New York Public Library and Grand Central Station. I should note that New York City is far from perfect itself; indeed, it is a quite brutal and greedy place. Those amazing skyscrapers were built as much in the celebration of money and materialism as they were in the spirit of humanity -- and doubtless their architects would say that there is no difference! Yet, I feel more at home here, forty stories into the sky, in a land trying to beat Time at its own game.

However, I am not totally at home here. I left the New York City area four years ago precisely because I am an alien to this place. I am still an alien.

And so, this Sunday, July 11th, I leave for Israel. Ben has already begun his journey into the wild. I will soon follow my friend to the ends of the Earth.

I burn with anticipation.

Schwartz - Why am I alive?

Reflection

Each of us is born as if awoken from a blissful sleep into what first appears as a nightmare: a bewildering and terrifying existence of warring governments, exploitative economic systems, and fleeting personal relationships. Moreover, each generation is the inheritor of this mad spectacle. We all realize that it was not from the ore of our dreams that this maelstrom was crafted, and this revelation compels each of us to ask ourselves, Why am I alive? This is the eternal puzzle, the supreme Question, the quest for whose enigmatic solution, the ultimate Answer, propels all human activity.

Most people dare not seek the true Answer; instead they settle for the false doctrine of Eat, Sleep, Work, Play, Breed. Their minds are frozen by a blizzard of half-truths and lies that storms forth from the fog of manipulative mass-media and socioeconomic injustice. They trade their passions and hopes for delusions of stability. For people of means, “stability” is defined as a nine-to-five office-cubicle job, a prefabricated house in the sprawling spiderweb of suburbia, and a gargantuan sports-utility-vehicle that guzzles gasoline and self-aggrandizement. Unfortunately, most people are not people of means. For the impovershed underclass, “stability” means simply a job, any job, and they grind themselves beneath the gear of society for survival’s sake.

Both groups - called in traditional Marxist terminology as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, respectively - are trapped in immediacy’s idolatrous cult. The bourgeoisie strive for immediate sensual gatification to pleasure away the insecurity of their middling socioeconomic position. Meanwhile the proletariat strive for immediate financial gratification to safeguard for their progeny some semblance of a bourgeoisie-like “better future.” Both seek to avoid extinction, but as the great religions teach, the more anyone is ruled by fear and materialism, the deader the soul becomes.

There do exist individuals who are essentially classless. Rather than surrendering themselves to obscurity, they commit themselves to the dazzingly black ideal of glory - financial wealth, political power, spiritual righteousness - the quest for which purges them of the torturous uncertainty that haunts the rest of civilization. Their Answer is, To thrive at all costs. They see the nightmare of history and forget that it is only a passing dream, an illusion. They deem the dog-eat-dog chaos "reality," priding themselves for their so-called "realism."

Opposite the “realists” are those who see through the hallucination. They discern a pattern lurking beneath events, an epic progressing toward a final state of peace and opportunity. So to speak, they can see the peak of Zion just beyond the hill of the here-and-now. Their Answer is, To live Life fully, defined either universally or exclusively private. Typically through art, sports, or activism, they work toward that utopia.

Yet, I belong in none of these groups. I have no Answer, but in the vacuum of my heart lingers vague recollections of Eden. There are others like me, and I sense that our greatest wish is to battle the shadows of existence to give Innocence a fighting chance in the world’s brutal wilderness.

Say Salaam to the Phantom of Ben's Blog

Salaam/Shalom/Pax!

The name's Christopher Schwartz. I met Ben back in September 2003 during a brief stint at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Ever meet someone with whom instinctively felt at ease -- someone you automatically knew would be one of your closest friends? Well, I've only met three people like that in my entire life, and Ben is one of them. To this day I regret that we could only be acquainted for three months. When the school's Fall term was done, I had to return to the States to complete my Bachelor's in Philosophy and Religion.

But now I'm done with undergaduate life, and thank Heavens! Now I can finally read the books I want to read and go to places I want to go -- that is, until my immense debt kicks in. You see, here in the US, students have to pay through the nose to attend school, and most of us can only pay with the help of the federal government, and it's a bit of a Faustian deal because the assistance comes to us in the form of loans. Thankfully the interest rates are tiny, and we are given a 6-month grace period to either find a job to repay the loans, return to school to delay repaying the loans, or stick ourselves in a situation which makes it too difficult for us to repay the loans -- which is sorta what I'm inadvertently doing: I'm going to the Middle East.

I've been studying Hebrew and Arabic for two years now, sometimes informally and sometimes academically (hence the time at SOAS). This past May I realized that it is high time I finally got my tuccus in gear and go over there, and that's just what I'm doing. From July through December I shall be a volunteer at an experimental Jewish/Arab village near Jerusalem that is called Neve Shalom/Wahat As-Salaam (NSWAS), the Oasis of Peace.

The village is something of a kibbutzim lite. It was started in 1972 by a Dominican Catholic priest as an attempt to prove that the two Semitic communities can live together in peace -- which was the original plan of Zionism as dreamt by Theodor Herzl in his book Der Judenstaat and was the on-the-ground reality for a millennium in the Abbassid Caliphate and Ottoman Sultanate before the Modern Age decided to bungle everything! However, unlike Medieval times, when Jews where dhimmi (an Islamic legal term meaning "protected" and "second-class citizen") and "Arab" was a slur Turks flung at each other when pissed and lookin' for a fight, in the Oasis of Peace the two Semitic groups are absolutely equal. The village's government is democratically elected, its communal religious building is simultaneously a synagogue temple, church chapel and mosque masjid, and the community operates a bilingual/binational elementary school. Despite attempts by the Israeli government to make life impossible for the villagers, the Oasis of Peace has thrived: from two families and the priest in 1972, the little village on a hill has expanded to fifty families, with three hundred more on a waiting-list for entry!

Which is where I come in. NSWAS needs a team of practically-free laborers to help maintain the operation. Thus the village has a small volunteer corps enlisted via the Internet and word-of-mouth. The job itself is anything but glamorous: I'll be digging ditches in the sweltering heat, babysitting the community's children, and tending the gardens. However, this is a golden opportunity to be part of a truly wonderful project, to enhance my cultural and linguistic knowledge, and understand the insane carnage which has gripped the Holy Land.

This opportunity is a dream come true. In little over a month I will be walking the streets the ancient prophets walked. I will breathe the air Jesus breathed, feel the winds Muhammad felt upon his face as he ascended to the seven heavens. I shall touch the wall that Solomon built, and pray in the dome that Umar built. But I am not an existential voyeur, a tourism-hound. I intend to give something back to the Holy Land, hence my service to the Oasis of Peace. Years from now when my children ask me, "What were you doing when the ravages of war were being unleashed upon the city of peace?" I can reply with pride, "Fighting for the cause of peace."

Ben and I thought it would be cool for two friends who met at SOAS and were now traveling to the ends of the Earth to share a blog. I just want to say thank you to my friend for taking me aboard.