And on and on it goes, at every nook and cranny, Israel persists with one of its most horrible, sinister and stealthy crimes – the recruitment of collaborators. All black-listed, all guilty, unless you go say ‘yes’ to the ‘captain’. Black-listed regardless of what they’ve done or not done, prevented a-priori, so that any natural right should have to be purchased. Offer something in return. And that something is betrayal.

Want to accompany your ill baby to Hadassah Hospital, to be at his side? No problem, says the ‘captain’ who is actually the Shabak (secret/security services) officer. Just say “I am willing to tell you who throws stones in my village, who rebuilt their home after it was demolished, give you as many names as you ask for, guilty or not, five or ten, as many as you wish” and then you can accompany your baby. And cure him. And have money to buy him baby food. And the triple vaccination.
Did you say no? Goodbye then. It’s your own choice.
And the baby? What about him?
It’s all in your hands. You must decide whether to save him. Help us, we’ll help you.

The right to life, to work, to health, to education – are not to be taken for granted under Israeli Occupation. They are conditional. Goods to be traded. Everything is negotiable. You can choose not to be shot, not to have your house demolished, to study, work, get medical care even inside Israel. You just need to say that one tiny, terrible word. “Yes”. Yes, I’ll work for you.

Thus behind the checkpoints that are removed and re-erected, removed and re-erected, behind the Jews-only roads that are constantly improved, behind the institutionalized land-grab, the indiscriminate killing, the starvation, the humiliation, the ethnic cleansing carried out in broad daylight, lies the most sophisticated bomb activated against the Palestinian people. It’s a transparent bomb. Hits and remains invisible. It impacts, unreported. Mostly. For whoever said “yes” to the Occupation forces, will not admit it. Will not tell. Will not be counted.
And this bomb – recruitment of collaborators – is activated exactly in the place that is supposed to be protected even under Occupation: civil space. That space that Israel, according to the conventions it is signatory to, is supposed to facilitate. Those civil needs that are to be provided for population under occupation, not denied. That which official Israel keeps claiming that it does.
There, in the Civil Administration, lies this terrible bomb. At any junction of needs. That is where the real occupation is carried out. There lie the real checkpoints that only grow with time. And the real wall stretches out and deepens. And the cold, cynical darkness that has no borders, whose emissaries are Shabak agents. “Captain Zakai” or “Moussa” or “Tomer”, whose names these are not, of course. And they, unknown or documented by name, they are those who stand at every junction of civil application in order to refuse it, to condition it. Soft spoken, while offering a cup of coffee, a cigarette. There the monstrous words are uttered, in outstanding politeness: no problem, just work for us.

After these words, pending on the answer given, the dying Palestinian who said “no” will go back to die, or will not see his dying sister, or will not go to study or work or see his children.
Or he’ll say “yes”, I’ll work for you, and will receive a work permit, and the right to have chemotherapy unavailable in the Occupied West Bank because medical infrastructure is just not adequate, because Israel will not enable it, and then die anyway. Because beyond the “yes” lies a huge, bottomless pit of no return. It is but the beginning of the end. Danger of death, ostracism, malediction, and remorse. A chronicle known from the onset which people suppress in moments of desperation and weakness. All those good people who answer “yes” to a question so difficult to withstand.

And for this crime, this silent, this damned, this transparent crime with which Israel has caused good, normal people to cross the lines of no return and betray their own people – Israel will be infamous for all eternity.

We have several stories of people who told Shabak captains “no” and paid a heavy price.
Muawiya said “no” and lost his livelihood, Eyad said “no” and had to part from his own children, Faisal who – in order to say “no” – nearly did the ultimate.
And this is their story.
And this is the story of the Occupation, from its onset to the present day.

Aya Kaniuk and Tamar Goldschmidt. Translated by Tal Haran.

Make Israel-Palestine the 51st state of America? “Outrageous!” “Preposterous!” “It’ll never happen!”
Whilst these would represent typical initial reactions to such a suggestion, and to some degree resemble my own thoughts upon first hearing this proposal, my respect for the political and life experience of the author led me to at least consider what was really being suggested, and why.
Alfred de Grazia, a political scientist with a wealth of experience gained over a lifetime of “hands-on” political analysis, commentary and action, offers a radical yet comprehensive solution to the problems which have plagued “The Holy Land” for over 60 years. No matter what your political, religious or cultural background, if you have ever just wished that a workable peace could be rendered amid the rubble, blood and sorrow that is the modern-day Israel-Palestine, this book is for you.
Pleasantly lacking in bias, de Grazia tackles the most difficult of issues without prejudice or favor. Not afraid to say what needs to be said, he has carefully considered the roles played by the three main participants in the conflict. Whether Israeli, Palestinian or American, no punches are pulled when discussing how it is that we arrived at such a seemingly unworkable situation as exists today.
Not one to offer criticism without also suggesting a solution, de Grazia goes on to frame a plan to admit Canaan as the 51st state of America, offering all citizens of the new state the protection of the Constitution and laws of the US. In this book is a complete, step by step set of instructions to bring about a lasting and workable peaceful end to the suffering of millions, whilst at the same time serving as a catalyst to mending America’s damaged international reputation.
Agenda-driven detractors could quote pieces of this ground-breaking work of political brilliance out of context in an effort to discredit the author or his plan, but when the work is considered in its entirety there is no denying that it offers both the boldest and the best solution to the problem it seeks to address.
If you are someone who abhors suffering and heartache, if you believe the well-being of humankind trumps religious and political agendas, if you would rather take action than take sides, do yourself a favor and read this book, then pass it on to friends, and send copies to people in power and help spread the word.

Dave Smith

Found Islamic Ibn Khaldun University near World Trade Center in New York City

Ibn Khaldun

Statue of Ibn Khaldun in Tunis

To Friends of Islamic Progress and Peace:

Attached is a Proposal I wrote in 1977 while a Professor of Social Theory in Government at New York University. It was dispatched to Tunis with a student friend of mine, Moncef Boussetta, to excite interest. He did not succeed. Nor did I. But, just now, there is a controversy raging in New York City as to whether an Islamic Center should be established in the neighborhood of the great tragedy of the World Trade Center. I believe that the concept of an Islamic University of Ibn Khaldun, one of the greatest scholars, veritably a founder, of Western as well as Islamic civilization of today, fits the Idea and the Locale perfectly, and beg all persons of means and energy to give themselves to the project.

Alfred de Grazia The Ibn Khaldun University Project
]]> http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/found-islamic-ibn-khaldun-university-near-world-trade-center-in-new-york-city/feed/ 0 canaan51usa Ibn Khaldun http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/where-the-israeli-masses-stand/ http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/where-the-israeli-masses-stand/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:49:26 +0000 canaan51usa http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/?p=295 ]]>

Where the Israeli Masses Stand

Our maestro, Uri Avnery, seems to be conking out in his latest public message, of November 13. He tells of a verbal battle, mostly between him and his wife Rachel on one side, and their taxi driver on the other, on a return from a large-scale memorial meeting. The driver, an unreconstructed brute, brought forth this catechism, according to Uri:

There will never be peace between us and the Arabs, because the Arabs don't want it.

The Arabs want to slaughter us, always did and always will.

Every Arab learns from early childhood that the Jews must be killed.

According to the Talmudic injunction: He who comes to kill you, kill him first.

Avnery tells us: "This driver expressed in simple and unvarnished language the standard convictions of the great majority of Jews in the country. It is not something that can be identified with any one part of society. It is common to all sectors. The owner of a stall in the market will express it crudely, a professor will set it down in a learned treatise with numbered footnotes. A senior army officer regards it as self-evident, a politician bases his election campaign on it…."

Then Uri tells us, after reciting a sad history: "We must infuse the public with another belief – the belief that peace is possible."

"We shall never succeed in inspiring such a belief through routine discussions. Anwar Sadat taught us that it can be done, but only through dramatic actions that rock the foundations of our spiritual world…"

Thus, after showing how and why the Israeli people is so hopeless, Uri concludes with a call for a radical solution. Although he cannot get himself to say it out loud, he is calling for CANAAN STATE, 51ST STATE OF AMERICA!

Apropos the venerable Uri Avnery's worry that Israelis are in great majority fascist and racist and undemocratic and hopelessly uninformed, I would offer an objection: we, and even he, do not know what the Israelis really believe or are capable of believing. I have had professional qualifications in the science of public opinion measurement for 71 years and I must say that the quality and quantity of information publicly available on Israeli (and Palestinian) popular mentation is dismally inadequate. The problems presented, despite censorship, are not difficult to solve, and if some honest donor would let me have a mere $60,000.00, I could find the pollsters who would give us scientific corroboration or falsification of many of the beliefs now floating in the air. There are scientific methods, for instance, of telling us what we might expect if this or that condition or policy were to change. A vast public may switch from a horde of devils to a flock of angels in short order. And back again. I think that we could demonstrate that we can count on practically all of the best Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Euro-American gentiles and enlightened scientists to share our opinions, if cognizant of the CANAAN PLAN, to force it through the hordes of idiots and gang of fascists, Jew and Gentile, who rule Israel and the Jewish people everywhere, while holding the sickened world at bay. I believe that a simple opinion survey would present a shocking display of the potential acceptance of the CANAAN PLAN, such as could open up the whole arena to a new grand show.
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Young,

Jewish & Proud

(With Good Reason!)

Support them!

.

.

The Young Jewish Declaration

A vision of collective identity, purpose and values written by and for young Jews committed to justice in Israel and Palestine. It is an invitation and call to action for both our peers and our elders, launched as a counter-protest at the 2010 Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans.

I. we exist.

We exist. We are everywhere. We speak and love and dream in every language. We pray three times a day or only during the high holidays or when we feel like we really need to or not at all. We are punks and students and parents and janitors and Rabbis and freedom fighters. We are your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren. We embrace diaspora, even when it causes us a great deal of pain. We are the rubble of tangled fear, the deliverance of values. We are human. We are born perfect. We assimilate, or we do not. We are not apathetic. We know and name persecution when we see it. Occupation has constricted our throats and fattened our tongues. We are feeding each other new words. We have family, we build family, we are family. We re-negotiate. We atone. We re-draw the map every single day. We travel between worlds. This is not our birthright, it is our necessity.

II. we remember.

We remember slavery in Egypt, and we remember hiding our celebrations and ritual. We remember brave, desperate resistance. We honor a legacy of radical intellectuals and refugees. We remember the labor movement. We remember the camps. We remember when we aged too quickly. We remember that we are still young, and powerful. We remember being branded as counterrevolutionaries in one state and hunted during the red scare of another. We remember our ancestors’ suffering and our own. Our stories are older than any brutal war. We remember those who cannot afford to take time to heal. We remember how to build our homes, and our holiness, out of time and thin air, and so do not need other people’s land to do so. We remember solidarity as a means of survival and an act of affirmation, and we are proud.

III. we refuse.

We refuse to have our histories distorted or erased, or appropriated by a corporate war machine. We will not call this liberation. We refuse to knowingly oppress others, and we refuse to oppress each other. We refuse to be whitewashed. We will not carry the legacy of terror. We refuse to allow our identities to be cut, cleaned, packaged nicely, and sold back to us. We won’t be won over by free vacations and scholarship money. We won’t buy the logic that slaughter means safety. We will not quietly witness the violation of human rights in Palestine. We refuse to become the mother who did not scream when wise King Solomon resolved to split her baby in two. We are better than this. We have ancestors to honor. We have allies to honor. We have ourselves to honor.

IV. we commit.

We commit ourselves to peace. We will stand up with honest bodies, to offer honest bread. We will stand up with our words, our pens, our songs, our paintbrushes, our open hands. We commit to re-envisioning “homeland,” to make room for justice. We will stand in the way of colonization and displacement. We will take this to the courts and to the streets. We will learn. We will teach this in the schools and in our homes. We will stand with you, if you choose to stand with our allies. We will grieve the lies we’ve swallowed. We commit to equality, solidarity, and integrity. We will soothe the deepest tangles of our roots and stretch our strong arms to the sky. We demand daylight for our stories, for all stories. We seek breathing room and dignity for all people. We are committed to the struggle. We are the struggle. We will become mentors, elders, and radical listeners for the next generation. It is our sacred obligation. We will not stop. We exist. We are young Jews, and we get to decide what that means.
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“Get Indignant!”
Another member of the Youth Club:
Stéphane Hessel (93)

Stéphane Hessel

Pierre Puchot, journalist at Mediapart, asks Stéphane Hessel:
Where does your involvement in favor of the Palestinian population come from?

“Originally, it was some Israelis, among the most dissident, who addressed the Diaspora (my father was Jewish) considering that we were Jews who must, as they said, realize what is becoming out of the state which we have supported when it was created: “You should come and have a look at what the successive Israeli governments have brought us to.” I answered their call. I have been there for the first time in the 1990s. I have returned several times and I have indeed come to realize that the Palestinian cause was badly defended, and the Israeli side free to act in total impunity. As I am rather an International Law man, I sustained that we, members of the United Nations, have obligations towards the Palestinian people and I started to defend the idea that to leave Israeli politics unpunished was contrary to International Law. This was a rather recent path for me to tread, for twenty years ago, I occupied myself little with the Palestinian problem. But since the end of the nineties, I have gone there at least six times and I realized that it was only possible to to understand some things when one was on the spot. It’s only when being on the spot that one can understand how the Israeli policies have been nefarious to the Palestinian people, contrary to International Law,  and contrary to the well understood interest of the Israeli people themselves…”

In your “brochure,” Get Indignant, you notably call for “a pacific insurrection.” What do you mean?

“I refer to what the Palestinians are doing in a village close to that famous wall built by Israel on Palestinian land, of which they are therefore the victims and who, in protest, organize every Friday a march which they want to be pacific, as they forbid kids to throw stones. Generally, they are greeted by Israeli soldiers who don’t hesitate to use teargas, and even rubber bullets. This is what I call pacific insurrection. This is what the Israelis have had the nerve to call “non-violent terrorism” as if one could be in the same time non-violent and a terrorist. As all violence calls for violence in return, this is never a good way to resolve a problem.”

As to M. Taguieff’s call to crush his snake’s head, Stéphane Hessel commented: “That I should be attacked, why not? But let it be done with a minimum of courtoisie, please!”
]]> http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/get-indignant/feed/ 0 canaan51usa Stéphane Hessel http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/chauvinists-of-israel/ http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/chauvinists-of-israel/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:21:24 +0000 canaan51usa http://canaan51usa.wordpress.com/?p=280 ]]>

Chauvinists of Israel

Here below is a poem that Al de Grazia composed and published in 1967, for his book of poetry called Passage of the Year, that fateful year when a great victory set the stage for interminable failure. Its inspiration came from intense study of world politics and from personal experiences in wartime. It must have been composed just before the War of 1967, because he does not recall thinking of the Near East in connection with it, and indeed he espoused at that time the side of Israel. As one reads, one sees that the terrible chauvinist lust of Nazi Germany – the negation of Canaan – was in the back of his mind!

DER STAAT

Die Logik ist schwer
Eins:            What is not
Cannot know what it is.
Zwei:          It knows not itself,
Hence cannot know others -
Drei:            for nothing can know nothing.
Vier:            Magnificent nothing,
as only can Non-being be.

Gut! Jetzt alle
zusammen:

SEE IT!
HIGH ABOVE ALL!
HEIL DER STAAT!

Singe träumerisch:
Pseudopodic protoplasm
practically ooze
millionfold projection
of its creator, man.

Mehr laut:
HEIL DER STAAT !

Hier vortrag wie ein Pedagog
The slime that fascinates
the genius of ages,
whose enemies are its lovers.
Virgilius, Registrar
of the vires of Rome;
R. Kipling, Architect
of imperial English facades;
Walt Whitman,
Grand Prurient Exalter
of the American mass:
dizzied protagonists
who create what they hate,
licensed contemptuously
to exercise feebly
the liberties needed
to extend it memory.

Aber macht nichts;
sprech mit Kraft:
SALUTE DER STAAT

Und hier muss man
die Logik unterscheiden:
Others are different,
being other,
though the same.
The good outside
is as bad as others.
The others die
unheralded, unhallowed;
their past is telescopic;
their future nowhere.

Schrei lustig!
THREE CHEERS FOR OUR ETERNITY!

Mehr Soziologie:
Its past is bloody,
its prate pacific,
hate flourishes
beneath flaunted community.
Impersonating
universal consent
where few are acting;
by its definition,’
justice there is,
for it must be.
HEILIGE FAMILIE!

Und mit enthusiasmus:
Elevated for the sightless
on the shoulders of genius,
high above all.
(See it,
for if you don’t,
you are against it.)
Whip, flags, the wind.
Blare, bands.
Scorch the imbibulous
awe-numbed gullets
with pledging toasts!

Mit gründlich ernst, sagen:
Fire, cannon!
SALUTE DER STAAT

 
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What Israel was meant to be… Canaan will be!

“We will not be citizens of a fascist state purporting to be Israel” say hundreds of Israeli academics and public figures.
A protest rally against the government’s “Loyalty Oath Bill” was held outside the Tel Aviv house. There Ben-Gurion read the 1948 the Declaration of Independence. There, today, the “Declaration of Independence from Fascism” was signed.
“We are citizens of the Israel which was depicted in the Declaration of Independence, a peace-seeking country based on the principles of equality and civil liberties. We do not intend to be the citizens of a state purporting to be Israel which stops being democratic and enbarks on becoming a fascist state,” proclaimed intellectuals, public figures, and Israel Prize laureates who gathered this afternoon for a protest rally against the “Loyalty Oath Bill” approved by the government. A protest rally was held on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, in front of the museum building where David Ben Gurion had read the Declaration of Independence in 1948.

Beneath the statue of Meir Dizengoff, first mayor of Tel Aviv, actress Hanna Meron read out from that Declaration of Independence: “The State of Israel will be based on based on Liberty, Justice and Peace, as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. She noted that, sixty-two years later, the reality of Israel is very different than what the country’s Declaration of Independence envisaged. At the end of the rally, a “Declaration of Independence from Fascism” was signed.

Among participants in the initiative were Shulamit Aloni, Uri Avnery, Alex Ansky, Shery Ansky, Menachem Brinker, Ran Cohen, Ruth Cohen, Yaron Ezrachi, Galia Golan, Haim Guri, Sna’it Gisis, Yoram Kaniuk, Dani Karavan, Yehoshua Knaz, Elia Leibowitz, Alex Libak, Hanna Meron, Sammy Michael, Merav Michaeli, Sefi Rachlevsky, Gabi Solomon, David Tartakower, Micha Ullman, and many others.
Following is the full text of the Declaration of Independence from Fascism:

A state which forcibly invades the hallowed realm of the individual citizen’s conscience, and which imposes punishment on those whose opinions and beliefs do not fit the authorities’ opinions and the prescribed “character” of the state, stops being a democracy and embarks on becoming a fascist state.

Behind these stairs where we stand, the state of Israel was proclaimed. The state which increasingly takes Israel’s place – a state which fills the country with a variety of racist legislation, promoted by the Knesset and the cabinet – is excluding itself from the family of democratic nations. Therefore we, citizens of the Israel envisaged in the Declaration of Independence, hereby declare that will not be citizens of a country purporting to be Israel and which violates its basic commitment to the principles of equality, civil liberty and sincere aspiration for peace – principles upon which the State of Israel was founded.
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