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An eye for an eye makes us all blind

There were two brothers, but the older brother considered himself more loved by his father. So he tormented his younger brother at every opportunity, especially when his father was not watching.

The younger brother decided to talk to his father about the bullying.
‘He comes into my room, takes my things and …’
‘Just ignore him’, his father interjected. ‘He’ll grow out of it’.

But the behaviour persisted.

Weeks later, the younger brother again sought help from his father.

‘I don’t want to take sides …’
‘What sides?’
‘Well maybe you provoke him’, shrugged his father.

Months later, the younger brother started yelling at his older brother, hoping that by raising his voice and slamming doors, his father will finally fix the problem. But the problem persisted.

So the exasperated younger brother again complained to his father.
‘Try and make peace. If I get involved, things may get worse.’
‘How much worse?’ the younger brother exclaimed. ‘Can’t you see he broke my tooth! What if I did the same to him …’
‘No, no. As I said, just sit down together and don’t get up until you both shake hands.’
But the older brother laughed at the idea of having a talk. ‘You can’t make me do anything!’
‘I’m not making you, I’m asking you,’ the younger brother pleaded between his broken teeth.
‘I’ve only got one thing to say to you,’ grinned the older brother. ‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Of what?’
‘The older brother put up his middle finger. ‘My father is wrapped around my finger, and you know it’.

A year later, the problem persisted. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the younger brother sustained a black eye.

‘Dad! Look at this!’ he pointed to his bruised eye.
‘Did he really do that?’ asked the father.
‘No, I did it myself!’ the younger brother snapped sarcastically.
‘Look, it’s his birthday today. Don’t upset him. Today is a special day.’
The younger brother sighed. ‘Today is like every other day. Another day, another bruise. Why do you keep defending him? Why don’t you teach him a lesson?’
‘Look,’ suggested his father, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘After today, sleep in the spare bedroom, and just keep your distance.’
‘But I love my room …’
‘Do you want to fix this problem?’ his father waved his finger at him. ‘Show some gratitude. At least I’m trying!’
‘If I go to the smaller room, I’m going to avoid him like he doesn’t exist,’ the younger brother declared. ‘And you better stop him if he comes anywhere near me’.

Despite all these promises, nothing changed.

The younger brother noticed that his old bedroom was now occupied by his older brother’s belongings.
‘Hey! What are you doing in my room?’
‘It’s not your room. You left it. It’s my room now.’
‘But you already have your own room.’
‘And I have this one for my things.’

The younger brother stood in the doorway. ‘I didn’t choose to leave. Dad made me do it.’
‘For me. Because he loves me, not you’.

Something snapped. The younger brother snapped his brother’s arm and the screaming echoed throughout the house. Their father came charging in and sheltered his injured son.

‘You will pay for this!’ the father yelled at the younger son. ‘You could have killed him!’
‘He’s been trying to kill me!’ retorted the younger son.
‘Where the hell did you learn to be so … violent? Who taught you this disgusting language?’
The younger brother teared up and pointed to his father.
‘Me?’ his father exclaimed. ‘I never ever taught you to be violent…’
‘Yes you did!’ he insisted. ‘You taught me that this is only language that gets your attention. He screams and you come running. This is not my language. It’s yours.’
‘What?’ his father was perplexed. ‘I taught you to talk, to walk away, to …’
‘To ignore him’, the son continued, rolling his eyes, ‘to make agreements, to shake hands, to offer my room. I did all those things you suggested … but nothing changed. You just kept your distance so I had to fend for myself.’
‘You didn’t try hard enough!’ the father retorted.
‘You didn’t try at all!’ the son interjected.

‘How dare you … God help you, I’m going to break you!’ threatened the father.

‘You can’t’, shrugged the younger brother. ‘I’m already broken.’

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The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

http://bit.ly/1oqLJe2

The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

Canberra Times
August 7, 2014

A Palestinian man at a funeral carries the body of a girl whom medics said was killed by an Israeli air strike. Photo: Reuters

If we were witnessing a kangaroo cull through aerial bombardment, there would be moral outrage. If we were witnessing a whale cull through ships, there would be moral outrage.

But we are witnessing a Palestinian cull by air, land and sea, and we are told to blame the victims for hiding among terrorists.

One euphemism used for this mass murder of civilians in Gaza is ”mow the lawn”, reducing Palestinians not to animals but to blades of grass. It is sold to us as a two-sided war between the Israeli Defence Forces and Hamas terrorists – not Palestinian people. The Palestinians all belong somewhere on the terrorism continuum as potential terrorists, breeding terrorists, born terrorists, supporting terrorists, hiding terrorists or armed terrorists. The loaded label is intended to throw a blanket over our eyes to blind us from any questions of legitimacy or humanity.

This is the well-worn, war-time propaganda of dehumanisation, aimed to absolve us from any guilt that the humans are like us – with a name, a face, a family, a home, a dream.
But it is time that this dehumanisation was worn out and discarded. It is the ”de” that needs to be mowed away to so we can see humanisation.

Propaganda relies on controlling the cameras. But social media has become a powerful weapon. As pilots ”send” air missiles down to Gaza, Palestinians ”send” videos up for the world to see – graphic and uncensored. Unlike the pilots who see inhuman dots on a screen, the videos enable us to see terrified humans with nowhere to hide. In real time, we become witnesses to the destruction of indigenous Palestinians and the reduction of their homeland to an abattoir.

When the terror-tinted glasses are discarded, this is not hyperbole. This is the making of history. This is the map of Palestine being shrunk and flattened, year after year, war after war, talk after talk, settlement after settlement.

If we could see Palestine from high above the unmanned drones, the picture makes more sense. Gaza is only 360 square kilometres, home to 1.8 million Palestinians, less the current cull. It is wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, so unless they can swim, fly or dig, the people are besieged. Even the birds and fish avoid the area as a no-go zone.

This is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with more than 5000 people a square kilometre. This equates to Drummoyne in Sydney, St Kilda in Melbourne or Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

Imagine a leaflet telling you to leave these crowded areas. How is it possible for Israel’s pinpoint technologies to avoid the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians? Where exactly are the humans supposed to swim, fly or dig? How can combatants hide behind human shields in a totally civilian area? How can there be any shields when no school, hospital or UN shelter is spared?

While the charter of Hamas may claim to eradicate Israel ”in words”, it is Palestine that is being eradicated ‘’in deeds’’ through regular culls named Cast Lead, Pillar of Defence and Protective Edge. The proof of the real eradication is in the grotesquely disproportionate fatalities.

The dehumanisation is central to Israel’s arsenal, but is also central to Palestinian reality. Since electing the wrong government in 2006, when Hamas took control of Gaza, these Palestinians endured a siege that has rationed their water, food, medicines, electricity and sanitation.

For the Palestinians in Gaza, the difference between a ceasefire and a war was the difference between continuing to die slowly, or die quickly.

This noose must be loosened if the Palestinian voices are to be heard. The deprivation of these basic human rights of a besieged people is a protracted war crime. The dehumanisation blindfolds us to two facts: all human life is absolutely equal, and these two ”sides” are absolutely unequal.

Any state claiming that their land ”belongs” to their religion, whether Israeli Jews or Hamas Sunnis, leans towards theocracy, not democracy. With or without Israel’s Iron Dome defence missiles, the rockets from Gaza have murderous intentions and must be condemned.

I dread the day that our children’s future children go on a school excursion to the Holocaust Museum and then to a Palestine Museum. They will see the shrinking map of Palestine, before it completely disappeared off the face of the earth. They will see photos, artefacts, testimonials, videos and timelines. They will see how the indigenous people were labelled as Arabs, Muslims, Gazans, Hamas, terrorists and refugees, but rarely as Palestinians. They will see how one proud people (the Palestinians) paid the price for the crimes committed against another proud people (the Jews). They will see how both people were dehumanised.

And our grandchildren will say: but they should have been best friends. And they will ask us how we let this happen to humans.

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After his Gaza comments, Vic Alhadeff should step down

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After his Gaza comments, Vic Alhadeff should step down

Comments by the chair of the NSW community relations commission have inflamed tensions between Arab and Jewish Australians at a sensitive time

The Guardian, 14 July 2014

When former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell appointed the incumbent CEO of the NSW Jewish board of deputies, Vic Alhadeff, to the chair of the community relations commission (CRC) in December last year, did he think Alhadeff could straddle both roles?

Having been a commissioner myself, under both Labor and Liberal governments, I am acutely aware that this statutory body demands ambassadors of harmony. Yet a recent release, disseminated among his Jewish constituents, has achieved the opposite effect.
Wearing his CEO hat, Alhadeff issued a community update on 9 July, titled “Israel under Fire: Important points about Operation Protective Edge”. His statement reached the Arab Australian community and went viral.

In the post he condemned the “Hamas terror organisation” for its “attacks on Israeli civilians”, for “violating international law and engaging in war crimes as its militants launch rockets indiscriminately at civilians from civilian areas”.

His statement failed to condemn the collective punishment and indiscriminate attacks against Gaza. As chairman, his role is to prevent this kind of stone throwing, not engage in it.

Community relations commissioners are not appointed to advocate for foreign governments. We are tasked with bringing local leaders together, as neutral arbiters.

A Jewish colleague of mine, from my time in Melbourne, is a lifelong friend; we were part-time commissioners but full-time ambassadors. Whatever our other roles, we worked together, cautiously, to extinguish sparks before they became fires.

When he accepted the chairman’s position, he declared that he was “passionate about the need to advance social harmony and combat racism”. The Jewish board of deputies espouses the same view; its goals include combating all forms of racism. Alhadeff has spoken out in favour of retaining section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and opposes all forms of racial vilification. Yet he makes an exception, when Israel vilifies Arabs.

His statement copy-pastes the Frequently Asked Questions from Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs. The references to Israel as “we” and “our operation” under his name raises serious questions about whether he can truly be an ambassador for community harmony.

He refers to “self defence in response”, “operating with care” and “pinpoint technologies to hit targeted infrastructure”. Yet he fails to explain, or even mention, how Israeli strikes had already killed Gazan children and civilians by the time his release was published. The Gazan fatalities now exceed 160.

The release refers to the “recent kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers”, but not the recent burning alive of a 15 year old Palestinian student, even though Alhadeff personally tweeted his dismay. Neither did it mention the countless Palestinian children who are snatched from their beds, never to be seen again, and never to attract global condemnation.

What message does his statement send to half a million Australian citizens of Arab ancestry, many with relatives cowering under beds in Gaza? Would such statements build bridges and community relations, or build a wall between us and them?

Alhadeff has neither retracted nor apologised for his statement. Instead, Yair Miller, the president of the Jewish board of deputies, added insult to injury when he criticised Sunday’s pro-Palestinian rally as activists bringing “foreign conflicts to the streets of Sydney”. So it’s permissible to justify a foreign war on the Jewish board of deputies letterhead, but not to protest against war in the streets of your own city?

A spokesperson for Mike Baird, the NSW premier, gently rebuked Alhadeff in a statement, saying that while he “was not writing in his capacity as CRC chair … “He has acknowledged the need to focus on issues in NSW and avoid using inappropriate language regarding overseas conflicts”.

Baird is not responsible for appointments made by his predecessor. Asking Alhadeff politely to resign for his comments, made at such a tense time, would be the moral thing to do. It would be pro-harmony. To avoid escalating tensions, it would be wise to announce a date for Alhadeff to step down – for him to essentially “give notice”.

Honest dialogue may result from what has been a painful experience. It should go beyond exercising restraint about public statements, but on educating both parties about their impact on fellow human beings. Ironically, this what the chair of the community relations commission should have done in the first place.

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Israel’s Level Playing Field

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There is a four letter word that blinds us every time we try to make sense of the Israeli-Palestinian reality on the ground. The word is as loaded as a suicide bomber or a cluster bomb: “side”.

We hear it when our media interviewers endeavour to avoid bias and show balance: “So to be fair, now let’s hear from the other side…”

We hear it in the public discourse and talkback that follows: “They are always blaming each other for the blockade and the rockets. I think each side is equally in the wrong.”

We hear it from politicians, such as our Foreign Minister Bob Carr, calling for “both sides to exercise a high degree of restraint”.

The word side subtly suggests equality of two nations, two armies, two peoples.

What Israelis and Palestinians share is their love of the land and their religiosity.

But beyond this, their comparative military muscle and political power is beyond “sides” because of the sheer scale of Palestinian military inferiority: one to one thousand fold.

Australian born spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister, Mark Regev, perpetuates this propaganda of parity when he asks, “How would you respond to rocket fire attacks from terrorists?”

The latest in a series of “surgical” assaults on Palestinian targets has been translated as “Operation Pillar of Defence” for Western audiences, but in Hebrew means “Pillar of Cloud”, after a story from the book of Exodus, where God adopts the form of a pillar of cloud to protect the Israelites and confuse the Egyptian army. Indeed, using the word “side” blows a pillar of cloud to obfuscate some obvious facts about the inequality.

Only one side has the backing of “the most powerful nation on Earth”, by US President Barack Obama’s own admission; a nation ready to (ab)use its power of veto to block any motions against Israeli aggression, and block any motions for Palestinian statehood, even the upcoming bid for UN non-member observer status on 29 November.

Only one side has the most sophisticated technology and weaponry, made in the US, to actually obliterate Gaza into non existence, or indeed a pillar of cloud.

Only one side deploys unmanned drones for military surveillance so that the eye in the sky is constantly invading its neighbour’s sovereign airspace.

Only one side has imposed a unilateral blockade since 2007 as collective punishment for electing a Hamas government, depriving 1.6 million people of essentials and of any semblance of a normal life.

Only one side has the infrastructure to sound the sirens so that its citizens have some advance warning to seek shelter and survive an attack.

Only one side can assassinate a leader, such as Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on 14 November, and escape international condemnation.

Only one side still milks the “war on terror” rhetoric to justify their “self defence” against a population under siege.

Only one side predictably unleashes an assault against its neighbours with impunity in the lead up to elections, and is more interested in the numbers of political points scored than the Palestinian people killed.

This was the case with Operation Lightning Strike one month before the March 2006 election. This was the case with Operation Cast Lead three months before the February 2009 election. And this is now the case in the lead up to the 22 January election. The incumbent Israeli prime minister plays the politics of fear while assuring his voters that only he could protect them. The incidental quota of killings is about 100 Palestinians for every Israeli.

The pillar of cloud blinds us to the growing chorus of enlightened people who refuse to be locked into sides, but are rising above the pillar, cloud, missiles and drones to see an ever shrinking Palestine.

Such people have liberated themselves from the shackles of sides. People like Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who visited Australia in September and declared, “the less Zionist I became, the more Jewish I became”. People like veteran Israeli soldiers who have confessed and denounced their inhuman abuses against occupied Palestinians in their courageous and collective testimonial “Breaking the Silence”.
Carr must privately know the truth about Gaza, but cannot admit it publicly, as he warns Israel of the “danger of the world seeing it as a disproportionate reaction”.

Enough smoke and mirrors. The word “side” flattens a turbulent terrain into a level playing field. It blinds us to the mountains, valleys, deserts and walls that differentiate the occupier from the occupied. The only level playing fields in the past have been those homes that have been bull-dozed to a series of ground zeros to make way for settlement expansions. The level playing fields of the future will be those created by the devastating effects of Operation Pillar of Cloud.