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Tag: palestine

The Mask Is Off — Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism

December 6, 2022

As many know this is a subject I have researched and written extensively about for over 20+ years. Ten years ago I spent two weeks on a fact finding and Diplomatic Mission to Israel and Palestine, visiting with various government officials, legal experts, scholars, non-profits and regular folks on both sides of the walls (yes there are actual walls surrounding the Palestinian people whose sole purpose is to keep Palestinians out of “Israel”, but not to keep Israelis out of Palestinian territory.

This is what leads to the term “settlements” we hear about so often in the news related to Israel and Palestine. If you follow such things. Israelis are freely allowed to go beyond the walls of Israel into formalized Palestinian territory, knock down homes schools buildings farms, you name it, and build new “Israeli settlements” — think neighborhoods — on Palestinian land. Palestinians of course wouldn’t even consider doing that. They would be shot.

I encourage anyone who considers themselves an activist or freedom fighter interested in and dedicated to defending human rights to visit Israel and Palestine to see it with their own eyes. It is one of the most harrowing and heartbreaking trips you will ever make. In fact, going to Israel and Palestine and seeing just how dire the circumstances are for the Palestinian people was and has been one of the most traumatic and inhumane events I’ve ever experienced; still to this day.

It very much reminds one of what South Africa during the apartheid years looked like, or more ironically, what 19th and 20th century Europe during the rounding up of European Jews into ghettos looked like when we view the photos and video footage from that era.

For the record, most of my friends who are Jewish, whether here in America or in Israel or Europe, are very much pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist. I credit that to the fact that most of my friends come out of the arts, entertainment or activist communities.

So this issue of securing basic human rights liberty freedom equality and human dignity for the Palestinian people is not a Jewish issue. It really isn’t even an Israeli issue, because there are plenty of Israelis who also support the pro-Palestinian cause. More than anything it has nothing to do with being anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic.

Conflating those issues, making them seem as if they are equal — being pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist and being anti-Semitic or prejudice against the Jewish people — is a political ploy used by unscrupulous self-serving deceit mongers. These types of politicians, rather than noble public servants, come in all shapes and sizes and exist in every country on earth, both free nations and not so free nations. They are not to be believed. They are not to be trusted. They are not deserving of respect.

Speaking of not being deserving of trust or respect, one must add that the recent spat of anti-semitism that has cropped up in recent months by morons like Kyrie Irving and Kanye West is doubly deplorable. Not only is it flat out stupid and ignorant racism and hate speech against our Jewish brethren, but it also acts as a great disservice to our being able to help our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

I read an interesting article today about the subject and how heated the whole confluence of issues is becoming once again in our shared human history by Dr. James Zogby, who I know from the Arab American Institute and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. I will let him go into more of the scholarly details. It is definitely worth the read. He always is.

Sincerely, Ed Hale

The Mask Is Off

By Dr. James J. Zogby ©

President 

Arab American Institute

Since its founding, Political Zionism has had two distinct and contradictory personas. One portrayed it as a national liberation movement that was liberal, democratic, tolerant, and inclusive. This was the face its adherents saw when they looked in the mirror, and it was the way they presented themselves to and wanted to be seen by the rest of the world. 

In reaction to antisemitism and the resultant ghettoization and pogroms that victimized European Jewry, Political Zionism promised an alternative for Jews in which they would be free to realize their full potential as a people while practicing the values and fruits of liberalism in a home of their own.   

The problem was that the European liberalism on which Political Zionism was modeled was, itself, based on a contradiction in that the benefits and progress it provided for Europeans were based on the colonial subjugation of Asians and Africans and exploitation of their conquered lands. As the early Zionists were immersed in that same European culture and worldview, it was without any hesitation or embarrassment that they saw themselves as an extension of the European colonial enterprise. That was why Theodore Herzl sought guidance on how to secure support for his proposed colony from Cecil Rhodes; or why he would write in the Jewish State that the enterprise he wished to establish would serve as “a rampart of Europe against Asia…and outpost of civilization against barbarism”; or why he proposed using the natives that his followers might find in their new colony to clear the land and engage in menial labor and then evacuate these natives to other lands.  

Political Zionism was the dream of Jewish liberation, but its implementation was to be the nightmare of Palestinian dispossession. These two sides of the same ideology coexisted, with the upside acknowledged and celebrated, and its reverse ignored and/or denied. This was true not only for the founders of Zionism but also for its most recognized “liberal” champions: Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, and Golda Meir. Even Benjamin Netanyahu made his name in political circles as a proponent of the cause of “liberal Western democracy” versus the authoritarian, savage, terrorist Arab World.  

Because such a worldview was so ingrained into Europe’s dominant sense of itself, the two faces of Zionism (the liberal and the racist) never raised an eyebrow. It was, if anything, understood and embraced by the British and French (and later by the US) who saw the need for, as Herzl had envisioned it, a civilized outpost to protect Western values and interests from the barbarians. 

Maybe this is what is meant when Israeli and US leaders speak of our “shared values”—the fact that we both have been able to mask the “dark side” of our behaviors with the outward facing veneer of our “claimed values,” values that apply to “us” not to “others.” And we’ve both gotten away with this game, until recently.      

For the US, it was the Iraq War and its attendant horrors, the epidemic of mass killings, systemic racism, and the emergence of the anti-democratic, racist, and xenophobic Trump movement that began to unravel the mask of our claim to be the bastion of “liberal ideals.” Despite Israel’s record of abominable behaviors toward Palestinians, it has taken much longer to peel away the veneer of liberalism from Israel’s image. One reason is that their propaganda machinery has been quite effective, and another has been the fear that pointing out the obvious (i.e., that Israel is engaged in oppressive and racist subjugation and dispossession of Palestinians) will result in the accusation of antisemitism.  

In this context, it may be considered ironic that it was Israel’s own democracy that has finally exposed for all to see its underbelly of intolerance and racist violence. By electing a far-right coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline Likud party and including fanatic nationalists and intolerant ultra-religious parties, the most recent Israeli election served as a clarifying moment for the Political Zionist movement.  

The newly elected Netanyahu government will include bigoted, intolerant, and violence-advocating ministers and deputy ministers who will oversee police, settlements, administration of the occupied territories, finance, and “Jewish Identity.” They include ideologues who: advocate expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories; support rapid settlement expansion and annexation of the West Bank; back settler violence against Palestinians to demonstrate who’s boss; adhere to a theology that maintains that while Jews are full human beings with souls, Arabs are not; claims that human rights organizations pose an “existential threat” to Israel and therefore want them banned; maintain that only their rigid interpretation of Orthodox Judaism is true religion, and deny other Jews their rights; and insist on altering the status quo at the Haram Al Sharif,  turning Jerusalem into another Hebron.  

With ministers and policies such as these, the mask is off.  

This is Political Zionism, without the frills. It is intolerance, bigotry, repression, and aggression without the accompanying rhetoric of “liberalism” to smooth things over or put on a pretty face for the world.  

It’s been fascinating to watch how the major pro-Israel US groups have responded (or failed to respond) to this challenging situation. There were immediate protests over the ultra-Orthodox push to change conversion law, to outlaw LGBTQ rights, to restrict which “legitimate” Jews could immigrate to Israel, and to require the segregation of Jewish women at prayer. But these same leaders have been silent in reaction to the bigoted anti-Arab beliefs being espoused by key members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition and the policies they seek to implement that will further dispossess Palestinians.   

It’s true that many of these ugly attitudes and policies have shaped the Palestinian reality for decades, but they were always covered by the pretty words and the outward face of Zionist liberalism. But now the mask is off and those who, for decades, have been covering for Israel have the responsibility to acknowledge the ugly reality their silence has allowed to fester. 

***

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Arab American Institute. The Arab American Institute is a non-profit, nonpartisan national leadership organization that does not endorse candidates.

Note: To discuss this column with me, please register here for my next ‘Coffee And A Column’ event Wednesday via Zoom.

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Activism, Current Events, Human Rights, Israel/Palestine, Politics and Government Apartheid, anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, Israel, Jewish settlements, Kanye West, kyrie irving, Likud Party, Netenyahu, palestine, pro-Palestinian movement, racism

The Need for Peaceful Reconciliation

August 10, 2014

It’s getting bad now. All over the world. Protests and marches in the streets of New York, London, Paris, South Africa, Berlin, Sydney and many more cities across the globe — all protesting against the incredibly shocking loss of innocent lives at the hands of Hamas and Israel. As I posted yesterday, it’s not just our Palestinian friends we should be concerned with but our Israeli brothers and sisters too. For this has gone too far now and for too long. The radical rightwing government of Israel is endangering the lives and safety and welfare of its citizens through this military offensive in Gaza (they’re fooling no one by attempting to call it defense.) They’re also endangering their economic welfare. The people of the world are now firmly against Israel for what it’s been witnessing; the people of Israel will be the ones to suffer because of it even though it’s the government who is doing it.
 
 It’s also getting bad in the States and online as well. Social media is not just abuzz, it’s aflame. Inflamed with hate speech and vicious arguments and attacks from both sides of the wall. Friends are turning on friends. Celebrities are speaking out, some compassionate, some hateful. (Joan Rivers exemplified true racist inhumanity in comments she made publicly yesterday). There seems to be no truth to this issue other than a lot of innocent people are dying. And unfortunately no one can do anything to stop it from continuing so far. But everybody wants to chime in. This makes sense. It really does. We are being moved so much emotionally that it is affecting us physically. It is affecting our actions. We HAVE TO act. We have to DO something. It feels irresponsible to sit here idly doing nothing while witnessing such inhumanity taking place. And yet there isn’t a lot people are doing except blaming each other or spreading hateful viewpoints and anger. Not helpful.
 
 This morning I awoke to an onslaught of notifications that my Facebook feed was going nuts still, leftover from yesterday. Zeke asked me to step in and delete all the threads, which would be nearly impossible for it’s almost all we’ve done for four weeks, discuss this issue… But his point was well taken: no one is doing anything except making other people angry. It’s sad and completely unhelpful. It was the last thing I wanted to wake up to today. But he was right. A few bad apples spoiling the whole cart.
 
 Hey man. Just woke up. I soooooo did not want to do this today… (Imagine how THEY feel — that’s a luxury they can’t afford over there…on either side…) Still groggy. Having espresso. Saw your name in a post on my phone and immediately logged on here. My apologies dog.
 
 Lord knows I have TRIED to encourage people to NOT be rude or insult others or resort to name calling or hate speech or state obviously erroneous factoids, or even refrain from patronizing remarks like “sorry chief” or “you need to go back to school”. NONE of that is part of diplomacy. It gets us nowhere. I’ve begged for it over and over. Last week I repeatedly deleted someone from posting over and over again all day (he was a persistent fucker) because his words were so vile. And over the last week i have had to unfriend several normally very cool people for going apeshit crazy on my threads over this issue. I really just don’t get why people cannot be rational and civil.
 
 I want so badly for us to be able to discuss things, debate things even, just as we are able to do on Forum or Quora, and just as — even as a small microcosmic representation of, our counterparts are having to do right this very minute in Cairo and Tel Aviv and DC and The West Bank. How are they supposed to broker peace and reconcilliation if we — just regular people with no real bones to pick with each other on social media — can’t even act civilly towards each other? Why does “blame” always enter the picture? Or “hate”? Or racist remarks? Or rudeness?
 
 Arlan was right in that NO one can solve this issue except the two parties involved, ultimately those two people are the ones who are going to have to make peace and forgive and reconcile. But I also believe that it’s going to take many different groups and factions to help; offering support and guidance, and different viewpoints. Just as it took in all our previous battles wars and skirmishes. This is a world problem, as I’ve posted before. This is for better or worse our generation’s South Africa — (Remember: Mandela was imprisoned for “terrorist acts” — he DID resort to terrorism in his 20s due to the ignorance of his youth and desperation. He actually tried to blow a place up. So even the best of us get messed up…) — so I see this as the world’s cause for BOTH sides. Because BOTH sides have genuine concerns and valid points.
 
 We ALL need to step up and step in to end this sad state of affairs. But only if we’re being constructive and blatantly helpful. I am referring both to US here now in the smaller microcosm AND to us THERE in the bigger picture.
 
 For example, I’m going to say it again as I did yesterday: HAMAS IS NOT HELPING. They are hurting. Their cause may have been noble but they chose the wrong method. Period. Violence BEGETS violence. Sure we’ve won in the past before using violence (the American revolution, the Russian and Iranian ones etc…) But Hamas isn’t going to win. And if they did then all our Israeli brothers and sisters would be toast. So THEY need to go. In other words, THEY should NOT even be allowed at the bargaining table. It’s a sham that we are forced to be bargaining with overt terrorists. It’s a joke.
 
 Here’s another one: Iran needs to stop with the anti-Israel platform and speech. Yes we get it. The viewpoint that Judaism is accepted and respected as it is in Iran (VERY respected) BUT that Israel was illegal and not done properly. But that’s the PAST. We’re never going to reverse it. So as long as they take that stance THEY too are NOT being helpful. And so they just don’t belong in the conversation. Anyone who takes a “we refuse to reconcile” or “we refuse to accept reality” stance is not helping. Along with anyone who overtly seems to disrespect life. Or insults. Or is rude. Or misquotes facts. Not helping.
 
 But facts…they help. Opinions and ideas and viewpoints that are new AND compassionate CAN help. IF we’re all willing to give a little, and grow a little, and accept that we can be wrong sometimes, and compromise, then we can fix this. I have learned through the years as a diplomat that one has to be fluid, like a liquid, able and willing to encompass both and all sides to a disagreement; AND willing to honor truth and human life above all things. Everything else gets in the way.
 
 What this means friends on both sides is: those who come on here and ONLY defend Israel and never even bother to acknowledge the incredibly sad and shameful loss of innocent life, ala Joan Rivers yesterday, is NOT helping. You’re scary. And the same goes for those who just keep hammering Israel without acknowledging that Gazans VOTED for a terrorist group to run their little swath of land — they KNEW this might happen. Hell, it was almost a given. And martyrdom — DYING while fighting — is encouraged by some in the Muslim community, i.e. THEY are bringing it on themselves some of them AND it doesn’t help to have a platform that says you want to do away with the other side. Duh!?! How is Israel supposed to feel safe under those conditions? I wouldn’t. BOTH sides have valid points. Both sides are being stubborn aholes and dragging us all through a lot of unnecessary pain. Our job is shine a light on what peaceful reconciliation looks like. Which basically means stop trying to prove the other guy wrong.
 
 My sincerest apologies to those of you who have been decent as we’ve discussed this issue. Blessed ARE the peacemakers. Let’s end this now and move on.

 

 – Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom



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Uncategorized debate, diplomacy, gaza, hate speech, Iran, Israel, Joan Rivers, palestine, peace, reconciliation, respect

The Right of Self Defense in New Israel

August 6, 2014

Last week our house was broken into. It appeared to be two or three men. Not 100% sure. It was dark and It happened fast. But as they fired their weapons off in my house I was lucky enough to be able to fire off a few rounds as well, which quickly got them scared and running. They fired a few a more, hitting nothing but the walls thank God. The alarm system we have installed is top notch and between this and my shooting, this was enough to scare them away. Luckily no one was hurt. My wife and kids are okay. I’m somewhere between traumatized and pissed. Someone could have gotten hurt. Killed even. While it was happening I noticed the suspects looked indian. Not like samosas and curry indian, but like what they call “Native American”. I’m so sick of these politically correct liberals and their know it all “native americans”-speak. I call them indians as do most of my friends. So fuck it. Indians it is.

Less than a half hour’s drive away from our neighborhood, which for as long as I can remember has been called New Israel, there’s this little dumpy area called Snohomish. It’s almost all Indians there. They’ve been there for years. They used to be everywhere. Or so goes the argument. But our neighborhood has been here for as long as I can remember. Since I was a kid at least. And so has my family. We can trace our lineage here in America back three or four generations maybe. Needless to say, it’s a controversy. This area the indians live in has slowly grown into a self-sustaining community almost totally separate from our upscale suburban town. But it’s a dump. Crime and disease infest the place. Where we live on the other hand is clean, well lit and safe. We pay a ton of taxes, which by all accounts go mostly to these so called native americans to help them with their schools and other government social welfare programs.

This latest break in that happened, it isn’t the first. Other people have told me similar stories at the gym. That they too have had their homes robbed or attacked by these Indians. They’ve never been caught. But it’s definitely them. They hate us for our wealth and our freedom. It’s obvious. They think we owe them something because they once used to populate and dominate this land. But that was years ago. Progress is progress. We’ve earned this land free and clear. The government gave our family a small piece of this land almost sixty years ago and the rest we’ve bought on our own and built up through the years. The same goes for our neighbors. The only problem is that every now and then we encounter a problem with the indians who still think they have some right to it. So they pull stunts like these tonight. And we of course have every right to defend ourselves.

A few hours pass and I can’t sleep. I just can’t take it. I’m pissed. It’s getting near dawn now. My wife and kids have finally fallen asleep, everyone piled on our bed. Huddled together and frightened. But now safe and sound. But me I’m fuming. The nerve of these fuckers. I head out into the garage to pace and drink a glass of whiskey. I grab my shot gun, a few boxes of extra shells, a pistol and a few grenades. Before I know it, I get into my car and drive into Snohomish. Slowly. Quietly. As soon as I cross that invisible border, from street lights to no street lights, from churches and strip malls to bars bodegas and liquor stores, I open my car windows and start shooting. Their streets are quiet still. But not for long.

Wherever those guys are who broke into my house it’s not readily apparent. But I figure they have to be somewhere. This is where they come from. This is where they live. So I start firing my shotgun into houses. Just slowly driving down Snohomish Blvd… Bam! Bam! Bam! Pretty soon I start hearing screaming. I must have gotten a few. Because I could hear in the shrieks of terror coming from the houses not just fear but anguish. My blood starts to boil with excitement and I begin to feel this rush. Perhaps I got one of the guys who broke into my house earlier this evening. I hope so. No mercy I think. You fuck with me I fuck with you. I keep firing into random homes. More screams. Welcome to the terrordome mother fuckers!

A whole family comes ruining out of this one condo unit that I had fired into. They’re waving their hands and screaming bloody murder. I see blood. A lot of blood. Three women, a few little kids and a man. He’s holding something. Could be a gun. Or maybe a shovel. I can’t tell. But I don’t wait to see what he’s holding. I slow down, take aim and fire. Bam! Bam! Bam bam bam! All five of them fall to the ground like marionettes. Dead for sure. Or at least severely wounded. Dirty varmint. That’ll teach them! They don’t even belong here and everyone knows it. They should go back to where they came from! But the funny thing is… no one will have them! Not even their own kind wants them. So they end up here. Clogging up our towns and neighborhoods. On the outskirts of our town. Stinking up the place with their filth and shabby clothes and primitive customs. Disgusting.

To my right I see a group of dark skinned men about a hundred yards or so coming towards my car waving their hands in the air frantically. They’re in a panic. These are men. Some young. Some old. These could very well be the exact same men who broke into my house. Or if not they’ve probably broken into other people’s houses. So I accelerate a little towards them and roll down my passenger window. I take out my pistol, a semi automatic, and start shooting. Bam! Bam! Bam! One by one I bring the filthy beasts down. Blood splatters against their dark skin as they fall to the pavement. I keep driving. Through my rear view mirror I can see one or two of them moving a little on the ground. No worries. I can always get them on the way back when I swing around this way again i think.

Ahead to my left I see a large white builidng. It looks like some kind of a YMCA type place. Who knows with these fuckers, because I can’t read the strange hieroglyphic type of writing on the front of the building. But word on the street is that the same criminals who come into our neighborhoods at night to break into our homes hide out in these places. They live among the people. Cowards. I jerk my car over hard left and get real close to the building. There has to be at least a hundred or so people in there. It’s several stories high. A few lights come on. I see shadows flickering past the windows of the place, so bam I fire! Windows break. Screams. No more shadows. I reach over to the passenger seat and grab one of the grenades with my right hand, I pull the pin out with my teeth and chuck it right into the front of the building! BLAMMO! Bulls eye! A huge fucking explosion! Debris and glass flies everywhere. Smoke fills up the whole front exterior of the place. I can’t see anything. Just smoke. But I can hear them. Screaming and more screaming. Total pandemonium. But I don’t want to hear screaming. I want them dead.

So I stop my car for a moment and wait. In a few seconds out pour these bodies, one by one at first — BAM! BAM! — I fire at them and they drop, and then in droves, men women and children, all coughing and choking, fleeing the smoke and rubble like little ants escaping a large boot on an ant hill. They’re running every which way. Everywhere and nowhere. For there’s no place for them to go really. They know it and so do I. The whole world knows it frankly. We’ve pushed them to the very edge of land since when we first started developing this area decades ago. So I just stay parked there and fire at them. One by one they fall to the ground.

One or two of the women look pregnant. This makes me think of my own wife when she was pregnant with our sons. I pause for a moment. But my wife isn’t an indian I think. She’s not one of them. So fuck it. And what am I supposed to do? I’m not supposed to defend myself and my family? I fire more and more and still more. I keep firing until my clip runs out. But they keep coming. I grab the second grenade and pull out the pin. Wait…. Wait… I throw it into the center of them and BAM!!!! Blood and guts debris and body parts and hair fly up all over the place. It’s mass destruction. Smoke fills the whole area. It’s quiet for a minute. Just nothing except moans. And sobs. Crying. Weeping. It’s a slaughter. They stop running out of the building. I stare at the bloody mess and rubble for a few seconds and realize I’m out of ammo. A slow grin creeps upon my face as an intoxicating satisfaction leaks from my heart through my entire body.

The carnage before my eyes is ample. This is self defense at its finest. The definition of self defense. Before I have time to fully take it in and relish it I press the pedal of my car down and spin around and start driving home. Fast. God only knows what these fuckers are thinking now. I need to get out of here. For the time being they’re defeated. Discouraged and decimated. But I’m fully aware that in time there will be consequences for my actions. They’ll come back from the dead and try to seek their revenge. As they always do. But we’ll be ready for them as we were this time. Besides, the little guns they have when they do manage to get past our security gate and break into our homes are almost useless. They’re toys. No match against our iron dome-like mansions and palatial guarded estates in New Israel.

As I slowly drive through the security gate of our neighborhood it looks and feels like a different world. Street lamps are still on — their light now competing with that of the rising sun. Manicured lawns, three car garages, fancy cars fill every driveway, some morning sprinkler systems are already running. Just the thought of these Indians and the slums they live in disgusts me. Makes me happy to be home. And happier still that I was able to kill so many of them. Maybe they’ll think twice before they try to sneak into our neighborhood and break into our homes.

As I pull into my own garage I realize that there might be some flack or blowback for my actions, especially from people outside of our little town. From what we call the “well meaning ignorant left”. But anti-american is what I call them. People who don’t understand what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night scared to death that someone has broken into your house. Sure they’ll raise a big fuss at first. But that will die down quickly. As soon as the next hurricane hits the coast or the next fire rages out of control in California. It’s a matter of time and really nothing else. For whatever reason most people don’t care about other people half as much as they care about money or celebrity. The police will come by and question me. But what are they going to do? We pay their fucking salaries. They know it and so do we. What? They’re going to write me a ticket? I find myself chuckling at the thought. It’s the first time I’ve laughed since the break in occurred. It feels good.

Nah, there’s nothing that anyone can do. This was self defense after all. I didn’t start it. All i did was finish it. Is it my fault that I have bigger guns than they do? How’s that my fault? And who can blame me for trying to protect my family? What else do people expect me to do? Plus I probably only killed a hundred of those dirty fuckers at best. No one ever gets in trouble for killing a hundred of them. A thousand, okay maybe. But not a hundred. They’re just not considered the same as us. No one is going to give a shit in a week or two. And for good reason. They’re not even from here. They’re not white. They’re not American. It’ll be okay. I’ll be fine. This thought calms my nerves as I turn on the water in our master shower to wash up. I start imagining what it will be like recounting the story to friends at the gym and coworkers. I’ll be considered a hero. The wife and kids are still asleep. There is peace in our home once more. I cannot wait to crawl into bed with my wife and fall asleep in her arms. I’m exhausted. Self defense is hard work. But well worth it indeed.



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Uncategorized gaza, indians, Israel, killing people, land ownership, liberals, Native Americans, palestine, Palestinians, pistol, politically correct, self defense, shotgun, Snohomish, social welfare, the right of

(Not So) Happy Birthday To Me

October 20, 2013

It’s 6 am Sunday morning here. I’ve been home for a little more than 24 hours and still extremely jet-lagged; fell asleep at 7 or 8 o’clock last night and finding myself completely awake by 2 or 3 in the morning. I’ve been lying here since 3 am, in and out of light lucid dreams or reading with a flashlight while the rest of the house is dark, quiet and still fast asleep.

Re-integration back into what we call the normal world hasn’t been easy so far. I expected this but didn’t realize it would be so difficult. I can’t get the horrifying state of the Israeli-Palestinian situation out of my mind. In every way it’s a horror, from the heart aching and desperate occupation the Palestinian people live under to the big lie that Israelis are forced to constantly keep at bay from the rest of the world (not to mention what must be a terrifying fear of eventual retaliation…) It’s all I think about, all I’ve been able to think about since being there. It’s always simmering in my heart and mind. Front and center. All I’ve been able to think about is how soon I can return and in what capacity I can be of service when I do.

For some reason this trip was different. Different than all the others over the years. I spent an hour tonight between and 2 and 3 am reading one of the many socio-political books I’m in the middle of that analyze the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fell back asleep. Woke up an hour later, read a little more, and now here I sit writing in the cold and dark of night a few hours before the anniversary of the date and time of my birth.

Normally birthdays are a relatively celebratory event for me. Always have been. I’ve never been one to make a big deal of them one way or the other, as some people turn them into an easy opportunity to bitch about how much they detest getting older, I usually find them to be a pretty solid opportunity to take things easy and enjoy a day, recognizing that they really aren’t much but one more revolution around the sun. Another day has passed and that’s just about the most one can say about them. But this year is different. Truth be told I had completely forgotten that the anniversary of my birth was even near due to how intense and challenging this trip to Israel-Palestine was the last two weeks. There was barely time for food sleep rest or bathing, let alone the itinerant reading writing Hebrew studies and note taking. Birthdays were the furthest thing from my mind.

This morning at about 1:30 am I picked up my phone to take some notes in an attempt to relieve some of the maddening thoughts circling my conscious thoughts, hoping that perhaps that might make it easier to fall back asleep, when I noticed an inordinately large number of notifications from Facebook on my phone, most of them having something to do with birthday wishes. Europe and Asia must be awake now. It was a surreal feeling. I was half asleep. And had completely forgotten that my birthday was coming up. I had awoken in a heart pounding sad and tearful sweat, still shaken, angry and disturbed. The notice of birthday wishes appearing out of nowhere just made everything seem that much more surreal.

For the last two weeks I and the others on this latest trip to the Middle East had been living in a steaming cauldron of fast paced movement and action, of intense heat from the Mediterranean sun and the trauma of human suffering; of intense debate and a proximity to crisis and tragedy that even the most experienced among us were not used to. Refugee camps with hundreds of thousands of people living with little food and no water, an entire race of people living under an occupation that is at best unsympathetic to their suffering to say the least. Light hearted birthday wishes casually posted to social media in light of all this made for a disturbing return to what I had previously labeled as normalcy. I am not unappreciative. On the contrary. I am always and forever grateful to be the Ambassador, to have so many friends, to have so many good ones, and for the chance to forget if even for a moment why my heart feels so heavy and my head so achy.

If only I could shake the images from my memory. If only I could find within me a desire to. More than anything it is that: I find it challenging to believe that anyone cursed with seeing the plight of the modern Palestinian up close and in person in their own homeland could find within themselves a desire to feel anything but severe empathetic pain, an aching emptiness and an extreme anger. Birthdays be damned. What we witnessed is a crisis of staggering and historic proportions. Happening right now. In modern times. Right around the corner from our heavily glorious and material, cloistered, cynical and ironically perfect world. How could we all live and love so easily and not know about this suffering? How is it possible?

These were the thoughts that I fell asleep to every night for the last two weeks. And woke up with. The difference being that up until last night I was THERE, in the thick of it, still able to trick my mind into believing that being there I was somehow capable of doing something to help. Now that I am back in the States, being able to help feels like a far away notion. The relatively simple aspects of modern life in the US, even the problems, as severe as they may seem to some — joblessness, government shutdown, political gridlock — appear small and petty compared to what we saw on a daily basis in the ancient land of Canaan.

The idea that very soon I must force myself to awaken to a house full of smiles cheers and celebration, of sparkly balloons and glistening presents that I don’t really need, has my stomach in knots. I cannot blame anyone here for what I experienced nor for being unaware of how intense it was, nor for wanting to celebrate my birth. If anything I should be feeling thankful. And somewhere within me I am. Or at least I want to be.. They don’t know the extent of the Palestinian crisis any more than I did two weeks ago. Sure we hear about it now and then. But we hear about a lot of things. And that’s different than seeing any of it in person.

And that’s the problem really. That’s the BIG problem. When it comes to Israel/Palestine, we don’t hear about what’s really going on, not even a little bit. We hear a LOT about Israelis and their fear of Iran’s nuclear program, along with our mandatory obligation to assuage their fears with our unbridled support and sympathy. But we hear absolutely nothing about the real story on the ground in Israel: the millions of native people living under near apartheid circumstances in abject poverty under police state conditions constantly afraid for their lives and lacking in almost every basic human need like food water housing and electricity, let alone freedom and liberty. THIS is the story of Israel. And this is something we never hear about. At least not in America and certainly not in the mainstream press.

The real horror in Israel is that there is a massive coverup regarding how bad things are for the native population there, what the world calls the Palestinians; and the fact that decades are going by and nothing ever gets done on their behalf. In fact most people don’t even realize that there’s a problem. If anything, the majority of Americans assume the problem “over there” is “terrorism”, when that’s the least of the real problem. (In fact that’s a symptom of the problem, a logical effect of it, backlash from it…) What’s happening in Israel is nothing short of a slow systematic genocide of an entire people. A native people who have been there for thousands of years. Ironically being perpetrated by another people who know genocide better than most. That part only adds to the disturbing nature of the whole mess.

Unlike other places I’ve traveled to research or try to help, there is no UN or Red Cross or Red Crescent there working on things to make them better. In Colombia and Africa things were bad, yes, but one walks away with hope because the world community is fully awake regarding the tragedies of these places and doing their best to try to help. Hell, we helped while there, building houses or hospitals and community centers. Israel is different. Millions of people flock to the land as if it’s Asia’s Disney World due to the so-called scared sites there associated with the three major religions of the world and that’s what you see: mobs of tourists rushing in and out of tourist sites, bringing in a ton of money for the official government there, and in the meantime the West Bank and Gaza where the majority of the Palestinians live look like abandoned deserts filled with garbage and disease, poverty and despair; surrounded by giant concrete walls with a gun tower at every ten to twenty feet housing an armed Israeli guard inside of it casually aiming a machine gun down at the village people below.

There is no UN or Red Cross presence. No feeling of hope or encouragement that we are slowly improving their plight as in other areas if the world. It’s a terror zone filled with a forgotten and desperate people being controlled by another group of people who are living the good life thanks to billions of dollars in annual aid and military support by the United States and other major nations around the world. I can’t shake the sick twisted-in-knots feeling from my stomach. And I can’t seem to feel any desire at all to focus on anything small or meaningless here at home. Problem is, everything seems small and meaningless here compared to there. I’ve spoken to a few of the others who were also on the trip and they’re experiencing similar feelings. It’s not as if we haven’t seen poverty disease and despair before. We have. It’s our chosen lot in life so to speak. It’s a charge that we’ve deliberately answered with a resounding “YES we will help! It’s our duty to stand up and do our best to help and we will.”

But Israel-Palestine is completely different. I would never have said this before we went there. But there is a deliberate conspiracy on the part of the Israeli and American government to NOT recognize or inform the general public about what is happening there to the native Palestinian people. That’s the difference. In that respect it is similar to Arabia, where the United States claims to only support freedom and democracy around the world but is deliberately supporting a fascist monarchy — the Saudi family, who viciously controls the entire country calling itself “a royal family” — to the point where the entire world calls the damn place “Saudi Arabia” not knowing that the “Saudi” part refers to the fascist monarch family who is in control of the whole people and does whatever it wants to with them, all with the support of the United States government in return for access to cheap oil. This is one of those conspiracies that 99% of Americans know absolutely nothing about. The same is true of Israel-Palestine. I just didn’t know it.

Ever since I’ve been on American soil I haven’t been able to feel “good”. I just keep thinking of the refugee camps, filthy and rotten smelling, crammed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families displaced from their homes for decades now and no access to water for days or weeks at a time. All the while the Israeli government has 100% control of and access to the water and knowingly dishes it out first to the Israelis, then to the illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian land, and then last to the Palestinian people in the two designated plots of land left for them, less than 25% of the land they once roamed freely in for 3,000 years. A lack of access to basic needs like water is just one of the things you hear time and time again from every person you meet there… It’s hard to believe. You keep thinking that someone must have something wrong…. How can one group of people be so cruel to another…? And knowingly? But the more you study and learn and talk with people the more you realize that it’s just how things are there… It’s a savage set up. But it’s been that way for decades now. People have grown up with it. They’re grown accustomed to it.

It’s actually similar to Native American “indian reservations” in early America — except the Palestinians DO pay taxes and they are constantly bothered harassed and policed by the Israeli military. Besides the fact that their land is always slowly being encroached on and their homes slowly being taken away. I guess it’s more similar to the OLD way that indian reservations used to operate. Before the new US settlers nearly wiped them all out. But more than anything the real problem is that the “problem” is being deliberately hidden from the world. Americans hear about the safety and security of the state of Israel constantly. It’s one of the major talking points of American politicians. And for good reason: the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby in America is THE LARGEST lobby in America. Bigger than big oil. Bigger than pharmaceutical companies. Bigger than defense and weapons manufacturers. This means they donate more money to American politicians than any other industry in America. And money in America is how things get accomplished. No money = no attention or action for your cause. Big money = you’ll hear about the cause everywhere, from the side of cereal boxes to TV morning news shows. And that’s how America treats “the safety of the state of Israel”.

The only problem is that their safety is being promoted and protected at the expense of and on the backs of a native population there that is being highly discriminated against, abused and taken advantage of. To the point where I have serious concerns that if something is not done soon to help these people there might not be a Palestinian people around in another twenty years. I was always hesitant to jump on this particular bandwagon throughout my life as a human rights activist. I wanted to see and hear it first hand. Not just read about it. Sure I’ve read the same things everyone else has. The conspiracy about the Israeli lobby in America. The 3 billion dollars a year in aid and weapons we give them. The “inhuman genocide of the Palestinians at the hands of the wicked Israelis”… But when people talk all angry and conspiratorial and passionate like that it turns me off. Maybe they’re just being Chicken Llittles…? Looking for a cause instead of fighting for a real cause…. This is what I usually assumed.

Well now I’ve been there. Seen it with my own eyes. Smelled it. Touched it. Soiled myself in their fancy hotels while others just down the block go without basic needs for weeks at a time. It’s a sick set up. And it’s made all the sicker because of how secret and hidden it is. The activists who speak for the Palestinian people aren’t exaggerating. I can honestly vouch for that now. They’re not making it up. It has nothing to do with anti-semitism or terrorism. It’s just a very scared greedy and selfish people totally taking advantage of a weaker less supported and resourced people to the point where they may extinguish the very life out of them in our lifetime. As long as the rest of the world doesn’t become aware of how poorly Israel is treating the Palestinians, I honesty don’t think they are going to do anything to change it.

So perhaps that’s step one: get the word out. Birthday or no birthday, regardless of what happens to be going on in the moment, we need to be constantly reminding people that there is a problem. One that hopefully we can help resolve. Every time we met with a Palestinian family or a leader of some displaced group or activist group trying to make a difference — whether Jewish or Palestinian (yes there is a small but remarkable faction of Jews in the activist community in Israel working on behalf of the Palestinians and that IS hopeful…) we asked them “what can WE do? What would you like us to do when we get home?” The answer was always the same: tell people. Don’t let our story go untold. Time and time again we promised we would. Hugs would ensue as we said goodbye, off to another meeting, and we promised we would tell their story and not let it die out in our memory as so many experiences tend to do.

Today is hard. In every way. Hard because of the sudden reintegration into such a clean and healthy society primarily ignorant of most of the horrors of the world around us. It always takes a few days to get used to that. But I dare say that’s one of the greatest aspects of being American. As selfish as that may sound — we’ve worked hard to achieve the lifestyle we have and the freedoms we enjoy here. I am NOT one who believes that just because one part of the world is suffering that everyone should be. There’s no need for that. But it is important that we acknowledge what an incredible life we have here. And in addition that we do our best to help pull others up to their highest ideals. With the Palestinian people step one is just letting people know that there’s a problem. Just like South Africa pre-1990s or Darfur or Rwanda, mission control we’ve got a problem. A serious one.

Luckily in the age that we live in, learning about it and helping is just a few clicks away. The primary benefit of the Personal Expression Age is not just the increased ability to express ones self and the increased interest in the personal expression of others; surely these are big. But more than anything I still assert that the biggest advantage the world will take away from this age is it’s ability to produce rapid revolutionary change. On national and international levels the likes of which the world has only begun to see. We need one of those big revolutionary changes right now in the land we presently call Israel-Palestine.

Today it’s difficult to feel celebratory. Birthday or not. But I knew that months ago when I planned this trip. I knew I was sacrificing a birthday for something bigger. The greatest gift I can give to myself is to know that I followed through on my promises to all those people I met and interacted with, Jewish, Christian and Palestinian, that I wasn’t just talking or acting. I took a ton of notes each day to post, along with photos and videos. I don’t believe that there is any one thing that I can do myself to relieve anyone’s suffering there. The problem is just too big and out of hand. But I can certainly throw in with the others around the world who are also trying to help. And maybe together we can help slowly push this cause forward to a more peaceful and equitable place, to a more prominent position in the world’s consciousness. Today is a start.

As always, more later.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone



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Uncategorized Israel, Israeli occupation, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, palestine, Palestinian crisis, visiting Israel

Israel: Day One Maybe…

October 8, 2013

We may be here. Not sure. The last five days have been a maddening whirlwind. Having spent them living in various airports around the world, we haven’t showered, slept or changed clothes since Friday. Today is most likely Tuesday. The primary reason being that Delta Airlines had booked us on a straight non-stop flight from New York to Tel Aviv, the flight got cancelled and from that point on they just simply could not find a way to get us to our destination. I was in constant communication with Delta Customer Service via Twitter no matter where I was in the world and though they continued to inform me that they “were working on it”, they weren’t any more successful at accomplishing the task as the customer service reps standing right in front of us at the different airports we were in around the world over these last few days. After days spent in the airport in New York (they advised us that “if we left, we would be risking losing our place in line on the standby flights they kept booking us on””. Unfortunately that never seemed to work out anyway.

Eventually they got some of us off to Amsterdam. Others off to London. Others to Berlin. And some of us off to Prague in the Czech Republic. It was a bloody mess. Don’t get me wrong. A free day in Prague to see the city was a fine surprise. We just weren’t planning on visiting Prague. Of all places. Talk about a surreal mind-fuck moment. Besides the fact that we were exhausted and hadn’t washed in days. From there we managed to make it to Germany. Either Berlin or Dusseldorf, or perhaps Munich. I don’t remember. We were only there for half a day. In Germany we had a few hours to kill. I spent that time continuing to study Israeli-Palestinian relation history and Hebrew. We had plenty of time to grab an old fashioned German breakfast. Which I must say are quite scrumptious and plentiful. I had some sort of wiener-schnitzel and some pretty awesome pastry. Beer is also freely served there 24/7 as can be evidenced by the below photo of The Javelin sipping his beer –mind you it’s about 7am…

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Beer for breakfast, German style

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German strudel = um um good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually the time of our departure arrived. Mind you, each time we flew into yet another country we had to go through customs and immigration for that country, the whole time claiming — as was true — that we weren’t there to visit that country per se, but just “passing through”. So the experience was filled with a lot of waiting in lines to explain to folks that our primary purpose there in that moment was to just leave and get to Israel.

Having already gone through the main Israeli security in New York, we then passed through another one at the airport in Germany in order to get to our gate; and then we were asked to go through yet another one right at the gate before boarding the plane. The Javelin nearly missed the flight entirely because he hadn’t assumed that we would be asked to go through yet another security checkpoint after having already gone through the main one at the gate. There we are, on the plane, two of the last three of us, after four days of flying around the world…so close, and one of the main people on the trip is in the Men’s Room totally unaware that there’s this whole other security checkpoint where everything must come off yet again and all of your belongings searched yet again.

But eventually we all made it onto the plane. By this point there were only four of us left together out of the 18 that were in our group. Having traveled all over the world extensively over the last 20 years I can say with certainty that I have never seen such intense security to enter into any other country in the world. Not even as Americans entering Iran was the security as intense and thorough as it was for we as Americans in trying to get into Israel. (Which is ironic considering that not only is “tourism” the main source of income for the country of Israel, the amount of free money in the form of “donation and aid” they receive from us, the United States (from our taxes) is staggering. But this well-known fact seemed not to phase the Israelis at all as they haggled and harassed to no end in their “security checks”. (Not that it isn’t understandable, considering their circumstances in a post-9/11 world. It is. But there’s a lot they can do about that if they wanted to. Instead they live in near prison-like conditions, surrounding the Palestinians who live in total prison-like conditions. So yes, terrorist threats abound. We’ll get to that.

Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv

Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv

Looking down on Israel-Palestine from the airplane window...

Looking down on Israel-Palestine from the airplane window…

 

Eventually we arrive. In Tel Aviv. Which means “old new land” in Hebrew. This old new land is hot. That may be the first thing you notice. Either that or the men in uniform all over the place packing giant machine guns or rifles. There is a stronger military presence in Israel per square foot than anywhere else in the world. More than Washington DC. It’s awe-inspiring. And frightening. And strange. If you’ve traveled the world, you know what it looks like –there are the natives and there are the tourists. Everyone does their best to mind their business and do their thing. In Israel, one has to add this giant coalition of military personnel everywhere mixed amongst both the natives and the tourists. They guard every doorway. They roam around aimlessly in the streets. They’re stationed on bridges, at stoplights, in towers that are all over the city. They’re standing on every street corner. They man every entrance to every “site”. And seemingly every building. They’re literally everywhere.

Getting our bags and getting through customs wasn’t that bad. It’s mid-day now. Most of our ragtag group is ahead of us already, long ahead. They’re already up to Galilee, the area of Nazareth, where Jesus supposedly grew up. We on the other hand are a three hour drive from there. We flag a minibus-like taxi and begin our journey. The driver is exactly as you’d expect if you’ve already come into contact with Israeli Jews in the States or anywhere else in the world. He is friendly, jovial, likes to talk a lot. Promising us the moon and more. Offering to be our guide for the whole trip, never mind that we’ve been booked on this event-packed trip for months already; offering for us to come meet his wife and children, and telling us his whole life story and then some.

Israel –especially near Tel Aviv — is every bit as industrialized as anywhere else on earth. This is not your bible’s Israel. This is a thoroughly concreted thriving pulsing industrial city. The buildings all seemingly deliberately colored similarly to the surroundings, a desert sand sort of off-white or tan. Subtle. Utilitarian is the word that comes to mind. We drive through Palestinian territories on and off. Check points. But because we are with an Israeli driver, it is easy for us. No problem. One cannot help but notice the very long lines right next to us filled with cars carrying Palestinians. For them, nothing is easy. Not even passing through a checkpoint on a non-descript area of a highway.

We arrive at our hotel in “The Galilee. Near Nazareth. It is third world up here. A much lazier, slower, casual attitude is in the air. I make my way to my room. Hopefully to meet my roomate. The others are taking a boat ride on the The Sea of Gallilee, which turns out not to be a “sea” at all, but rather just a big lake. Again, not your bible’s Israel. Our room is about six feet by six feet if that. Small but adequate. I find out that my roommate is an elderly gentleman — I believe he is in his 80s! — who worked as the Music Director for a prestigious church in Manhattan for his entire career. He also served in the military, fighting the good fight for the allies in World War II. He is more than polite. Quiet. Well mannered, soft spoken. Delicate due to his age. But strong. He walks with one of those walking sticks. We will be rooming together for more than two weeks. I have never roomed with anyone so much older than I. I must confess I am a little concerned that I would simply be too much for him, as eccentric as I am, the strange hours that I keep, etc. Hell, I’m too much for my own wife, let alone someone in their 80s who’s never even met me before.

We can smell this sea that isn’t really a sea all over the little town. It’s a pleasant old world scent. The town is decorated with tourist shops and signs EVERYWHERE. It’s like the Disney World of Jesus. You can buy “Jesus” anything. Towels, plaques, welcome mats, cups, plates, trays, even Jesus beach balls if you want. Jesus has clearly created an industry in this small otherwise unimportant part of the country. Dinner. At a seafood restaurant on the shore. Hanging lanterns light up the night. Reminds me of The Florida Keys. So far, everyone we come into contact with speaks english. As each plate is served, each person is surprised to see an entire fish on their plate, head, eyes bulging out, and tail. One is supposedly meant to cut into the fish and eat around the bones. I ordered a hamburger and fries.

Much of the contents of the diary entries that follow are random thoughts that occur to me during our hectic days. Many more thoughts were videotaped. Eventually those will get turned into a documentary series for Transcendent Television. In the meantime, try to follow as best you can. It may be a little bumpy here and there. But I’ll do my best to fill in the holes when and where I can.

The Jews — meaning the Jewish population that lives in this country as opposed to the Palestinian people — seem completely unaware of, and unconcerned with, the plight of the Palestinians all around them. In a casual manner befitting having a pet perhaps, they dismiss the question of how this land was taken 60 years ago and how the Palestinian people are treated as if it is a non-issue. It is only discussed when and if they are directly questioned about it. Other than that it is not discussed.

So far, I am still keeping to myself, doing nothing but studying Hebrew and the history of Israel/Palestine. One cannot help but be bombarded by a ton of religious data in this study. Religion is so tightly tied to this land, and to these people that there is no separating them from one another. Names dates towns stories legends and myriad factoids. Looking at all the paintings — allegedly of Jesus of Nazareth, and his mother Mary, and his disciples, one is struck by how unrealistically clean ornate and fancy humankind has created them to be through the centuries… in the hundreds of thousands of images painted or sculpted, one is immediately struck by how completely different the real Jesus and Mary and disciples must have looked in real life — just from being here now in this land and with these people. The Romans and Greeks added their own ideas of how THEY wanted these historic figures to appear. They transformed them from Middle Eastern nomadic peoples into pale-skinned Gentiles. They projected their pagan ideals and their highest ideals into the visual representation of these poor simple working people. I wonder if modern day Christians would still be “worshiping” them if they saw more realistic images of what they really looked and dressed like, if they hadn’t been gentrified through the centuries. Do modern Christians have any clue as to what a real Israeli or Judean looks like? Certainly nothing like the images that are most famous of these people. All of the Jewishness has been bleached out. It is a stark contrast, between the people we see all around us here in The Galilee and the famous images we’ve grown up seeing in America or Rome or France or Germany or anywhere else on earth. Surely Jesus and his disciples looked nothing like Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

 

 

 



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Uncategorized Germany, Israeli military, Jews, Nazareth, palestine, Palestinians, The Galilee sea is a lake, visiting Israel

Headed to Israel

October 4, 2013

Friday October 4th 2013

On the plane now. Have to fly from Seattle, WA to Newark, NJ, then take a car into the City. Will be staying with Boo Boo Kitty, at her apartment in Midtown, for the night and then meeting the group tomorrow at the JFK. From what I understand we are flying directly to Tel Aviv. A non-stop flight, which is always nice, though it’s something like ten to fourteen hours, which isn’t so nice. But certainly worth it. I’ve never been to Israel before.  I know for many people, specifically Christians and Jews, a trip to “the Holy Land” is a dream come true. I’ve heard the way people talk about it over the years. You would think they died and went to heaven, met God himself, and returned to earth to talk about it. For the devout, this is the ultimate pilgrimage. Similar to the Hajj for people of the Muslim faith — the mandatory trip to Mecca that all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their life. But of course this isn’t really a holy pilgrimage we are taking. More of a fact finding mission to one of the most volatile hotbeds of political unrest in the world today. One cannot escape the religious aspects of the trip, and I personally wouldn’t want to, being Christian.

But as a Civilian Diplomat, what interests me most is the attempt to gather as much data firsthand as I can about the land and the people, and to connect with as many people as I can in an attempt to create more peace in the world. I am invited to many countries every year, in various capacities, as a singer and recording artist or in a more diplomatic capacity. Because of my schedule I am forced to turn most of them down unfortunately. Israel is different. As more and more people are starting to understand, Israel is the center, the focus, of much of the political turmoil that we as Americans are forced to endure whether we like it or not. It is a deep, and heavily nuanced subject. Very few people are objective about it. Instead they feel immediately captured emotionally and feel a dire need to “choose sides”. Civilian Diplomats don’t have that privilege. In fact we make a commitment to not do that as part of the requirements to hold that title. Creating peace means choosing the side of peace and no other. Sometimes it is more difficult than others, easier to say than do. One of the first things that struck me about Israel/Palestine as a child is how vehement American politicians are in asserting their allegiance to Israel. To not do so usually means instant death to an American politician’s career. But why?

This got me to studying. From a very young age I was fascinated by the subject. What was the hold on American politicians? And why? Studied the subject for years. Read hundreds of books about it. First and foremost what you learn is that the Israeli lobby in Washington DC is the single largest lobby in the United States. It’s bigger than Big Oil, bigger than Big Pharma, bigger than weapons manufacturers and defense contractors. Meaning, they have more money at their disposal and more pull and influence with politicians than any other single industry in America. This was a shocking realization. It explained a lot. To publicly speak up about Israel in a negative fashion in any way, no matter how true or justified you might be, could literally destroy your career. We’ve watched it happen live and in real time to more than one well-meaning public servant in our own lifetimes. So it’s a given that if you’re going to enter American politics you have to at least pretend that “Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East and I will do anything to preserve their right to exist in peace”. But at what cost? That’s the question that occurs to many when they first start learning about the strong grip that Israeli lobby money has on American politicians and some of the questionable actions they’ve taken through the years to the native peoples of that land.

In the nineteen-eighties, an American congressman released a book that is still in print today called They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby. I’ve provided a link to it on Amazon.com. It is one of the most popular and controversial books on the subject that’s ever been written and is continually updated by the author and publishers. It includes interviews with heads of state from countries all over the world and with many of America’s finest senators and congress persons. I first read it when I was in my early teens. I just read the latest version this year as a refresher. I was interested in what some of the newer politicians had to say. Since this book and many like it already exist, I do not feel the need to go into the details contained in the book here; I’ll just say that if global politics or peace interest you, this book will answer a lot of questions. There are very simple steps we can take as a nation that would do wonders in creating a more peaceful world, many of them having to do with the preferential treatment paid to Israel, especially in how that affects other countries such as the other Middle Eastern nations and Islamic ones. It’s an unfortunate fact that the United States got itself entangled in such a tricky messy web with Israel as it has. It’s part money, and it’s part religion.

Since I have received so many emails and letters from people asking me to explain just what the hell is going on in regards to Israel and the United States, let me try to address it here, before we head over there, in as briefly a manner as I can. We’ve already addressed the financial aspect of it. There is HUGE money to be gained by backing Israel, which means there is also huge influence and power in it. On the opposite side of the coin, NOT appearing to back Israel can literally mean the difference between having a job in Washington politics or not. This is the money aspect. But it goes deeper than that. Yes this big money aspect is big. And important. Similar in scope to banking or fracking or pharmaceutical companies or oil companies or defense contractors. There are some things in the world, industries, so mammoth and so influential, that you simply cannot go against them. To do so would be ruinous for your career. You realize very soon in your political career that regardless of how you feel personally, you are going to have to play ball with them and take their money. If you don’t, your opponents will. And they will win.

This helps explain why president Obama promised an administration of hope and change but backed Monsanto’s blocking any laws that allowed for the labeling of genetically modified foods (GMOs). His actions don’t speak about what he personally feels about the subject (I am sure he and the First Lady do everything in their power to assure that they and their children do not eat GMO foods) as much as just how big and powerful these forces are in the American political system.  (Does this mean that we let him off the hook and label him a helpless victim? Certainly not. He took the easy way out and betrayed every single health conscious American citizen in that single cowardice act. He could have at least attempted to step up and speak truth to the American people about the issue. But instead he quietly signed away Americans’ rights to even knowing if their food has been genetically modified. It’s a frightening fact of just how far off the political system is in regards to being “of the people, by the people, for the people”. That seems a dead dream.) The same can be said for all the fracking that’s going on all over American and destroying small towns one by one faster than we can keep up with. But again, this doesn’t inform his personal or professional views on these subjects half as much as it simply illustrates to us all how powerful and unstoppable these particular industries are. Now take into account that AIPAC, the American political lobby for Israel is LARGER — as in has more money and power — than any other industry in America, including big oil and pharmaceutical companies, and you begin to see how powerful the money aspect of this issue is. HUGE.

But it isn’t just money. It’s also religion. And that’s even more disturbing than the money and power aspect, because it speaks to how insanely irrational some people are when it comes to religious beliefs, which doesn’t bode well for our ability to accomplish anything close to rational peace work in the world in the near term. In a nutshell, many Christians believe in “end of the world” prophecy. Much of it depends on which denomination a person is, but almost all Christians believe that Jesus is going to one day return to earth and save all the Christians. This is called “The Second Coming” or “The Rapture”. What he’s going to be saving them from is a giant mess of war, disasters, famine, disease, pestilence, and general destruction that is supposed to wipe out at least one-third of all of humanity and render the earth a dastardly messed up, destroyed and unlivable war zone. This is called “Armageddon”. After the rest of the “non-Christians” on earth endure all these hardships for a few years, then Jesus will return to earth again and create an everlasting peace on earth that will last for one-thousand years. True story. Not making this up.

None of the different Christian denominations can agree on all the details exactly, because they’re basically making it all up, taking little bits and pieces of different phrases and verses here and there from various different translations of the Old and New Testaments. So it’s hard to piece it all together even if you’re a avid lifetime scholar of the subject, which I have been for years. But suffice it to say that the main aspect of it that appeals to Christians is this idea of “Jesus returning” and “saving them”, which will show everyone else that they were right all along and serve as a kind of vindication for all the craziness, horrors and terrible mistakes of the last two-thousand years of Christendom.

In order for these things to transpire, certain other things need to happen. They’re “prophesied”. In the Bible. These are called prophecies. There are many of them, depending on whom you listen to. One of the things prophesied was that the Jewish people would be allowed to return to the promised land (Israel) after years of exile after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. This happened in 1948 when a very few wealthy and powerful people created the new country of Israel. This is called “a fulfilled prophecy”. Every time one of these prophecies is fulfilled it further serves to encourage people who believe in these things to believe they are right. The Jews returning to Israel was a big one. For thousands of years it seemed like a ridiculous impossible pipe dream. So the fact that it happened really amped a lot of people up. Sort of reinvigorated many believers into rethinking their doubts that these bible prophecies might not be true.

Now it just so happened that this new country of Israel was smack dab where the country of Palestine was. But that’s disputed because some people claim that “Palestine was never really a country, but just an area of “Arabia in general in the Middle East in general”. (Interestingly I happen to have a stamp collection book that was given to me by my father which was given to him by his father and if you open the page to the Ps, there are three pages dedicated to the country of “Palestine” where one can stick all the Palestinian stamps they’ve collected. I also have an atlas of my grandparents that has two pages dedicated to the country of Palestine, and sure enough it’s located right where it’s always been on the map, where Israel is now. Of course any reading of any history book written in the last two-thousand years will also mention Palestine and Palestinians as well.) But again, this fact is still disputed — that the country of Palestine ever existed. Hardcore Israel defenders will swear that Palestine never existed and that for two-thousand years that was just a sort of “no-man’s land”. In regards to the millions of Palestinian people who lived there, they will claim that they never did. That there is “no such thing as a Palestinian and that they all just roamed there recently from either Jordon or Lebanon after the Israeli people rebuilt the land up.” Unfortunately I’m not making this up. People really do think and speak this way.

I am sure we will learn plenty more about this once we land in Israel/Palestine. But back to the end of the world. So the Jews have now been allowed to return to the promised land (also known as Zion; hence the term Zionism, which roughly translates to the movement started in the late 1800s to lobby for a permanent home for the Jewish people where they could be free to live in peace and not be constantly afraid for their lives or abused or enslaved. Post World War II, the Zionist movement became a reality, and though the Zionists had three countries in mind — Palestine, Chile, or Argentina — the powers that be at the time, Great Britain and the United States, eventually gave them the area known as Palestine as their permanent home. (Furthermore, this helps explain why certain world leaders, like the president of Iran for example, speak angrily about “Zionist” but not Jews or Jewish people. They aren’t anti-Jew. They like Jews and embrace Jews. What they’re against is the Zionist movement because it displaced an entire country full of other people. Hopefully this helps shed light on this rather confusing subject.)) So the Jews have returned to Israel and created a country there. That was one big prophecy, fulfilled.

Some of the other prophecies that need to be fulfilled before Armageddon can begin and the big man can return to earth are as follows: The great city of Damascus will be destroyed pillar by pillar till it is unrecognizable (that one is happening right now in front of our eyes through the ongoing Syrian civil war); Israel and Palestine will sign a peace treaty promising to share the city of Jerusalem; this will allow Israel to rebuild the Temple; an anti-Christ will appear on earth as a very revered and holy figure (many so-called prophecy scholars claim it will be a pope from the Catholic church — remember that protestant Christians are not big fans of Catholicism. They’ve been fighting for centuries.)

Before we head to the big finish, for context, and to be fair, let us remember that most of the world religions have this same end of the world/rapture theory tied up in their religion. Even the Native Americans have a prophecy that The Great Bear Spirit will return to create peace on earth forever. The Jews are still looking forward to their prophecy that The Messiah will come to earth to vindicate God’s Chosen People and create peace on earth. This will be his “first coming” because they do not recognize Jesus the Jew as the Messiah, but rather consider him a criminal who was justly punished for his crimes(?); the Muslims/Islam has the same prophecy except that it will be The Twelfth Imam who will return along with Mohammad on his right side and Jesus on his left side. All three godly men will be wearing flowing white robes and appear out of the blue flying in the air and descending out of the clouds to descend to earth. Not making this up. Everyone is pretty much waiting on the same thing, just with slightly different versions of the same story.

So… over the last fifty years Christian churches all over the Americas, both North and South, have collected tens of billions of American dollars to give to Israel. Israelis and Jews don’t believe in Armageddon or Jesus of course; nor do they believe in the prophecy that he is going to return to earth in The Rapture or Second Coming and save people from anything. But as my Jewish psychiatrist said to me the other day “that doesn’t stop them from taking all that money”. No, it doesn’t. Not only has the government of Israel received more tax-payer funded “aid money” from the government of the United States than any other country in the world over the last fifty years, Israel has also received tens billions of dollars in additional money from all these American Christian churches who collect it “to defend the State of Israel so that they may rebuild the Temple so that Jesus can return once more and save us all”. No matter how you feel about the subject, just as an experiment, turn on one of the Christian TV networks for a few hours and just watch it. You will see countless advertisements and solicitations begging you to send in money to be sent to Israel to defend it so that Jesus can return.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This is madness. It’s crazy talk. Sounds like I’m making it up in one of my sarcastic satires. But I’m not. Any dedicated born again Christian worth their weight in Dead Sea salt believes this stuff and thus, regardless of how silly the Israelis think all this is, it has afforded them a ton of free money to build up a massive weapons system and a just as massive propaganda machine to defend themselves against any naysayers regarding their sometimes brutal human rights abuses against the native peoples of this disputed land. As you can see, it’s not just money and influence that controls the reigns of American politicians in regards to Israel; it’s also a deeply seated religious belief that Israel must be defended in order for the prophecies of Jesus’ second coming to be fulfilled. Religious beliefs can be powerful motivators, sometimes much stronger than money and political influence even.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it isn’t JUST money and power and religion that are running the show here. There is, to be fair, also the fact that Israel IS a democracy and an American ally in that region. The fact that the Jewish people of Israel are relatively secular and non-religious helps make them a pretty tame and non-radical people to deal with compared to some of the other more radical religious countries of the Middle East. Thus the United States being able to have that country there, smack dab in the middle of a hotbed of historical madness and chaos, with the concurrent ability to have U.S. military bases and airstrips there, helps the U.S. a lot strategically. Between their bases in Israel and in Saudi Arabia, they can guarantee a military strike on any country in the region within minutes. And that’s clearly the most important thing to the United States in its ongoing quest to master and control the 21st century in the same way it did the 20th century.

Besides this rather jaded and cynical view of the scene (anyone with a scant knowledge of recent history would agree that this, though perhaps a scathing view of U.S. foreign policy, is a fair assessment of the way things just happen to be presently), we must also acknowledge that the kind of freedom and liberty that we enjoy in the United States is definitely preferable to the more inhumane and fascist systems that are practiced in many of the Muslim nations in that region of the world. We do have it better than great in the United States. And part of the reason for it is because no other nation on earth dare attack us or our way of life. Which is what gives us the freedom to live such free and easy lives. No matter how cynical or jaded or angry we get with the dishonest, unjust, arrogant and brutal foreign policy that the United States government and military practices all over the world in our names, we must still recognize that it does afford us a ridiculously enjoyable lifestyle as citizens of this very free society. We are eternally lucky to have been born here, in the United States of America, at this time in human history.

Okay, so that’s the set up. That’s what’s going on. I hope this helps answer many of your questions. Yes it’s completely corrupt (in regards to the money and influence aspect of the Israeli lobby and its control over American politics), and it’s completely crazy and irrational (in regards to these whacky religious prophetic beliefs that keep us forever defending a country no matter what they do). But it’s reality. It’s a reality that has bred tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of enemies for the United States around the world. When we see flag burning on TV, there are valid reasons for it. I am sure we will learn a lot more of it while we are over there.

For my part, as you already know,  I spent this entire year doing homework to prepare for the journey. I spent a year relearning Hebrew. And I spent an additional two to three hours a day reading as many books as I could on the history of Israel, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Note: that last phrase is a misnomer. Palestinians are NOT Arabs. Just as Iranians are not Arabs. Iranians originally came to the Middle East from the North, the Caucuses Mountain region just south of Russia (hence the term Aryan: the word Iran comes from Aryan. Persian comes from the word Parse, the name the Greeks gave the people and land when Alexander the Great invaded their country. They renamed themselves Iranians to reclaim their heritage.) Palestinians are not Arabs either. They’re Palestinians. They were born in and grew up over the last five thousand years in the same area, the area we have been calling Palestine for the last two-thousand years; the area we now call Israel/Palestine. Yes, they are for the most part either Christian or Muslim. But that’s as close as it gets to Arab. The reason why the conflict is sometimes referred to as “the Jewish-Arab conflict” is simply because the entire region — what used to just be called Arabia and is now majority Muslim — is largely against the formation of the State of Israel because it displaced all the people who already lived there, the Palestinian people, who are mostly Muslims (or Christian) and so they are looked at as their brothers and sisters. To call people of that region of the world Middle Eastern makes sense. To call them Muslim makes sense. But to call them Arabs doesn’t make sense.

Other interesting notes to consider before we get there: if we are to believe that the Old Testament (what the Jews call The Torah, the Books of Kings, the Books of The Prophets, etc — yes they read and consider sacred many of the same books as Christians do as odd as that seems) is a historical document (to a certain degree… I mean most of it actually reads more like myth and legend obviously) then we must remember that the Jews and the Palestinians are actually the same people, descended from the same people, just cousins of each other. We all know that these two people lived in this region of the world for thousands of years together, sometimes at peace, oftentimes at war with one another. The bible is full of stories of their fighting and wars. But originally they were all part of the same family. The family of Abraham. The Jews revere Abraham. He is their Godfather so to speak. So too do the Islamic people. (Muslims revere him as a prophet. Many people don’t realize this. But Adam, Abraham, King David, Noah, Moses, Joseph and even Jesus are all highly respected and holy prophets of the Muslim faith). For good reason do they revere Abraham. For he literally is the grandfather of both people.

If you look up the family tree of the Jewish people OR the Islamic people, you will see that Abraham had children with two different women: his wife Sarah, and his wife’s handmaiden, Hagar (that was due to trick on his wife’s part by the way supposedly. He didn’t know he was sleeping with her. He thought it was his wife. She supposedly tricked him, or so the story goes.) But his wife bore him a son named Isaac, which is from where all the Jewish people on earth come from. And from Hagar he had a son named Ishmael, which is from where all the Palestinian people/eventually Muslim people come from.

Another interesting fact is this: Many people are familiar with the Biblical story of this strange “god” who wanted to “test Abraham’s dedication to him” so he ordered him to go out to the desert and sacrifice his only son to prove his love for god and then in the last minute just as Abraham was about to plunge a knife down into his son’s chest, this god ordered him to stop and said “relax old man; it was only a test. Here look, there’s a goat/ram/lamb for you to sacrifice instead”. But get this. It doesn’t actually mention in the Bible which son it was. So the Jews consider this a very very important and sacred story and have chosen Abraham as their great and noble godfather figure and believe that the son in question was Isaac. The Muslims also believe this to be a very very sacred and important story, proving how noble and dedicated Abraham was as their holiest of holy godfather figure, but they believe that the son in question was Ishmael. Both religions tell and retell this story all the time but do so with the son character being different. One is the father of the Jewish people and one if the father of the Muslim people.

It’s a fascinating and revealing fact that human beings are still at the point where they can be so devoutly committed to something as a religion and yet be well aware that they aren’t even 100% sure of the details of one of their most important historical facts. This will prove very telling in our upcoming mission I am sure.

So this is all background. I know it’s been a lot. And I don’t blame you if you’ve not made it through all of it. God knows it’s taken me decades to gather all of this information. I wouldn’t expect anyone to absorb it all in an hour. But I’m stuck on a place for seven hours. More importantly, all of it, every single idea herein, will most likely be very telling and important on this journey that we are headed towards. Israel and Palestine may be mere countries full of people. But I find it hard to consider or visit them outside of their respective religious and historical backdrops.

Every time I visit a country to study its culture and learn a foreign language, I start a new leather journal to make notes about the language in. It’s become quite the tradition and I take a lot of pride in the collection of leather books I’ve amassed, one for each language. I have seven now, because I have formally studied seven foreign languages. Nine really. But I’m not counting Twi and German because even though I visited Ghana, I didn’t formally study the language, and I haven’t yet done any immersion courses in German. So I don’t count those two. (even though I put in a ridiculous amount of time into learning German for a year. Talk about a difficult language!) The picture attached is the book I purchased for Hebrew. I have filled it about halfway with notes from my studies thus far — things like “hello, how are you? I’m fine, my name is, where is the bathroom, thank you” etc. The other half I will fill while there just from being bold enough to be willing to constantly ask people “how do you say _____?”

In terms of my ideas and feelings about the different languages, which is something I am constantly asked about, yes language is certainly a passion. Since we’re on a place with nothing to do but read more history, let me offer this: my favorite would be Italian and Portuguese tied for first place — in terms of how beautiful they sound. I know some people who don’t prefer the sound of Portuguese oddly, but I think it’s absolutely beautiful. Besides that, it does something to my heart, an emotional tug, in a way that only Italian does. This pull from Italian makes sense. I am half Italian and raised in a home where Italian was the primary language spoken. So it’s both close in heart to my childhood nurturing and genetically. But Portuguese there’s no explanation for. Perhaps a past life… When I hear it, I just get a very special inexplicable feeling, as if I spoke it all my life and it holds a special familial meaning for me.

A close second place is French. It too is extremely sonorous to listen to. Something very sensual about it. To the ear that is. But not to the mouth. It’s rather strange on the tongue, French. As if the people who created it had some slight deformity in the lip region of their faces and were constantly puckered up in the lips. It’s quite unfathomable really to think about how and why they created a language where the mouth needs to be puckered up the whole time. Similarly to how in Farsi they created their language where one is constantly having to use the back of one’s throat and tonsils to make this very uncomfortable guttural sound, a “gla” sound, as if they were choking on something and trying to pull it up… or how in Hebrew they created their language to have all these very heavy sandpaper-scraping growl-like sounds as if they were always clearing their throats when first developing language. Hebrew is a very rough and bumpy language. Not smooth or suave. In fact the opposite of smooth and suave. Downright nails against the chalkboard. Heavy. Rough. Spanish can be that way too, depending on what dialect you’re speaking. But in a very different way. I cannot hear English objectively because I’ve been speaking it my whole life. I do know that when in a foreign country and you hear a group of people speaking English when you haven’t heard it in a while, it has a tendency to be very intrusive. Noisy. Loud. Not elegant. American English specifically. It’s certainly no French or Italian. But again, I can’t really hear it objectively. I’m always curious how non-native speakers hear English.

In terms of learnability, Spanish is by far the easiest second language to learn. It’s completely phonetic. Nothing tricky. Follows rules and doesn’t veer too far off from them. Though the whole masculine/feminine thing will definitely throw you at first. The idea that every day to day word is either masculine or feminine and that’s what dictates it’s suffixes and articles. That’s rather annoying. French, Italian, Portuguese, Farsi and even Hebrew do the same, but Hebrew takes it to a whole other level. EVERYTHING is gender based. Even adjectives and adverbs. Like nothing I’ve ever encountered. And there’s no rhyme or reason to it. You just have to memorize every single word. It’s crazy hard to learn. Besides being difficult to understand and speak. Takes a lot of practice. And patience.

If being The Ambassador is anything more than just attempting to be a nice open-minded person who sees all people the same way, then it’s the fact that he sacrifices and dedicates a ridiculous amount of his free time to learning the language of the people he wishes to plug into and get to know. If there were any money to be made in being The Ambassador I’d be a very wealthy man. But alas this is all just to titillate the brain, nurture the heart and try to make the world a slightly better place.

Having done this in several other countries already, I know what to expect to a certain degree. More than many. On the other hand I do not pretend that one experience will be like any other nor that one trip will help inform any future ones. For each country on earth, each people and culture, is entirely different. We are united in our shared humanity. But most of the time that seems to be where the similarities begin and end. If you’ve ever smashed a live monkey’s head in with a small hammer in order to eat its brains (considered a delicacy in China and Indonesia) then you already know this. I’ve seen much in my travels. I have no idea if I’ve done anything remotely close to help increase the amount of peace in the world. But I pray I have. Or why bother? I always look back on the first time I went to Brasil and especially in the lesser known areas when the people would discover you were from America and were attempting to speak their language, they would act so thrilled and honored. Super happy just from your being there and speaking their language. The same experience in Iran. They treated us as if we were aliens from another planet. They were absolutely in awe to see Americans up close and in the flesh. And when they discovered the reason for our visit, “to help foster more peace”, they were even more trilled and happy. These experiences give me hope. For what we are about to do. I know it will take much more than any of us have the energy or time for in this life. But I do hold out hope that we can one day see peace in the Middle East. Not for any religious ideal, but simply out of a sincere love for humanity. Shouldn’t that be enough?

 



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Uncategorized Abraham sacrificing Isaac Ishmael, AIPAC, Arab-Jewish conflict, history of Israel, Israel, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, Israeli influence in United States politics, Israeli lobby, learning foreign languages, palestine, studying Hebrew, The Ambassador

The Origin of BED PEACE 2008

January 17, 2009
The problem was how to celebrate New Years Eve respectfully with all of the recent violence, turmoil, and humanitarian crises happening around the world, especially the brutal battle going on in Gaza and Palestine. To do the usual party to party scene all night just didn’t seem appropriate at the time… considering… the idea just grew from there… from that original thought… Then it just came down to if we had the energy and the commitment to really do something. That’s what it always comes down to isn’t it? The idea was how much can we do if we focus 110% on peace in the world for four solid days and nights? That was the question.

Luckily I was with someone who, though she thought I was slightly mad, was willing to go along for the ride. That night of the day when we first talked about it I didn’t sleep a wink. I tossed and turned all night long. I kept getting up and leaning over onto this night table and scribbling notes onto scraps of paper all night because I was dreaming of this thing the whole time I was lying there trying to sleep, sort of half awake half asleep. It was rolling through my mind like a movie. All I could think about was ‘what if we do nothing? I mean, what if we just sit here and talk and do nothing and all these people are getting killed every minute of every hour?’

The next morning I was exhausted from not sleeping but also energized. Princess Little Tree made a comment over coffee “Boy when you do stuff you really do stuff, huh?”

“Well, uh, yeah, I mean, that’s how stuff gets done.”

“But this was just an idea you had and now it’s turned into this giant thing… and you’re really going to go for it?”

“Yeah I know. Sorry about that. But look, it’s either this, or we’re jumping on a plane and heading to Israel today to see what we can do. Cause I don’t think we can just sit here. I think I’ll go freaking mad if we do.”

Miraculously she agreed. She was actually the one who had made the comment “I just don’t think it’s appropriate to go to parties and celebrate on a night just because that’s what we’re supposed to do and try to pretend that this isn’t happening in Gaza. It feels wrong.” That comment shook me to my core. It was like someone was calling me to walk my talk.

Next thing we’re guzzling coffee and heading out into the city to go shopping and I’m carrying this giant shopping list I made that night in my sleep of all these things we would need. Posters, markers, balloons, flowers, candles, pajamas, flags of all the countries where there was conflict, food to keep us alive for four days… wine, tea, chocolate, extra batteries, film, it went on forever.

As with all things that seem providential or fated, it is hard to even remember the original impetus for the project, that singular moment of discovery… Looking at it now, seeing the footage, and remembering that we spent four solid days and nights doing nothing but working on this project to create peace in the world in whatever little way we could, that seems like an odd thing to say. But it’s true. It was certainly not planned.

There was the moment when we both had this realization that a night spent party hopping just didn’t seem right. And then another moment when we both discovered that recently we had seen something about the 40th anniversary of John and Yoko’s infamous first Bed-In for Peace. We were in a car or something. “WE could do a Bed-In you know,” I casually mumbled without looking over. Just staring straight ahead watching the hills and giant fir trees pass us by. “I mean, not invite the press or anything, it’s your home and all, but just make a shit load of calls, voice our concern, film it, learn as much as we can, share it with the world…” My mind began ticking from there… “We could pray a lot. We could meditate on peace a lot. We could take every action that we take for peace for a few days. Even celebrate peace… It’s better than not doing anything…”

What we did know was that the world was already starting to go a bit mad from these sudden attacks on the people of Gaza and we could see both sides. Smack dab in the middle. Plenty of Jewish friends who lived in Israel and plenty of Muslim friends who live in what will one day be called Palestine. There was no SIDES except the human side… and there was a lot of bloodletting happening on the human side. And people were going to get pissed. That was a given.

This was going to manifest as hundreds of angry tirades on YouTube and GoogleVideo and Facebook and MySpace and the news. Angry tirades never got anyone anywhere. It usually just leads to more death and violence. As angry as I was there was going to be no angry monologue into that YouTube camera. Not this year. We needed to rise above the whole thing. Attempt to transcend it without losing sight of the fact that it was really happening. That was the key. Oftentimes when we feel helpless around something, we do nothing. That’s too bad.

But the times they are ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changing…. more and more of us are doing things now. Taking action. Whatever it is. Young and old. The world has changed. People have changed. Humanity has changed. Busy or free, rich or poor, people are taking action. Barack and Michelle worked their asses off. But the people got them into the White House. I think that was a pivotal moment for much of the planet. I’ve got a whole roll of film I took of the freaking TV screen the night he won the election. I was in the recording studio. I didn’t know what else to do but just snap pictures of the TV as if aliens had just come down to earth from Mars or something. So I just took a ton of pictures of the television. Yes. That was a moment.

Things had been bubbling up for years from the underground. Activism had become hip again. Volunteering had become cool. Giving had become cool. It’s funny. This was the nature of a blog post I had written back in 2002. In fact it was the very first blog post I ever wrote here. It was about precisely that. http://www.tuneinturnonhelpout.org/about-us/

The theme of it, the reason I wrote it in the first place, was to say that we must find a way to make giving and volunteering and activism cool and to make people in the public eye feel foolish or ashamed if they didn’t partake. It isn’t enough just to live here anymore. We need to attempt at least to make it hip to do good things and to encourage — especially people of note and celebrity — everyone to do it. Regardless of what they have going on in their personal lives. I was tired of people coming on TV pitching their newest product. The magazines and tabloids all about what so and so was wearing to some gala or event. For what?

Well I obviously wasn’t the only one. Bono turned pitching products into an actual way of giving back with his RED campaign. One elegant bastard with that move. Bill Gates tells the story of witnessing Bono receive this epiphany over ten too many pints in a bar one night. And he then turns around and donates 20 billion dollars to various charities with his Gates Foundation. A few years later, in fact quite recently, Warren Buffet promised the Gates Foundation an additional thirty billion dollars of his own personal stock pile. Being rich and successful is no longer enough. In fact its downright dishonorable if practiced solely for fame and fortune. Giving has now become the in thing. The impetus for that original blog post back in early 2002 was my reading about Ted Turner giving away ONE BILLION dollars to the UN for humanitarian aid. One billion dollars. That seemed like a lot back then. Ted is a crazy old coot. But he’s a good hearted one. That was seven years ago. I’m still blogging in the same place. Same URL. And Ted Turner has now given away literally billions more dollars to charitable causes.

And yes things have changed. Immensely. As I was about to close, for whatever reason, the Bush-Cheney administration came to mind. “So where exactly do these buggers come into the picture if things have changed so much?” was the thought. I mean they don’t exactly fit with the picture we’re talking about do they? They seem almost shadows of an old world that most hope to forget about for a long, long time. But it reminded me of this theory that floats around in consciousness… it is something about the need for the opposite extreme to play itself out before we can boomerang back to a more balanced enlightened middle. Sort of that old adage “You’ve got to make a slight mess if you’re really going to clean things up.” This is just about the only thought that kept me sane the last eight years.

The idea that there were still a few people who actually needed to see some people really foul things up before they got on the bandwagon and we set about to really making the world a better place. So that takes care of that. It can’t get much worse than it is now. They certainly did their job. We’re left with one foul mess. But we have hope. Real hope. And we have a world, however tattered and torn and frayed and battered, that for once appears to be ready to unite to create real positive change for everyone from every nation. BED PEACE 2008 was nothing in a larger scope. We know that. But it was an action. Perhaps at this point that is all we can ask of ourselves… just to do something…. anything. Little by little we’ll get there.

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Uncategorized BED PEACE 2008 video, bed-in, ed hale, gaza, Israel, Labels: activism, palestine, peace, performance, protest, video

A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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