Blog For Palestine

Azmi Bishara speaks, need I say more…

I love the ISM as much as I hate the Arab masses that can do nothing but fail us. The ISM is launching a Lebanon Solidarity Campaign. They are planning to organize a convoy to deliver badly needed supplies to the Lebanese South. Their courage and committment humbles all of us.

Does anybody think that Huwaida Arraf would be willing to marry me. I know she’s already married to a much better man that I can ever dream to be, but maybe she can just take me as part of her Harem. Or maybe I can just make her coffee and bake her cookies. Anything…

-Tineen

So I just came across a post on the angry arab’s site which said the following:

To the Arab masses: are you breathing? Just making sure. I have some Danish cartoons if you want me to wake you up.

I gotta tell you guys, I read that and I just couldn’t help but feel sick to the stomach. It’s not that I didn’t realize that the Arab street was useless but when you contrast what’s happenning now with what happened during the Danish cartoons debacle you realize that they are not only useless but also retarded. I think I had blocked out the whole Danish cartoon thing because I was so disgusted with it. But now I am disgusted and angry.

I’m sick of religion. I’m sick of these assholes caring more about a book or a magical trinket than about other people. I’m sick of people who don’t think for themselves and who are directed like sheep. How could the whole Arab world be moved by a cartoon that most of them didn’t even see and not be moved by the pictures of children being massacred every day. Why don’t you go out and revolt in the street. Smash up a Starbucks or two, how about a McDonald’s, camp outside the Israeli embassy and don’t budge until the fucking embassador is gone. You people are garbage. Every person that found their way to the street to protest the cartoons but is staying home right now is total garbage.

If I burn your Bible or your Quran is that more important than a whole family being burned to death in their car as they flee southern lebanon. Will you hate me more if I eradicate a whole population of if I draw a picture of Muhammad giving Jesus a big kiss on the lips. The fact is I want you to hate me, because the reality is that I hate you more than you can imagine.

You know what’s really sick, Israel knows that you people are without a shred of humanity. Isreal will never touch a single religious symbol and at the same time they will go on massacring Palestinians and Lebanese. They know the slumbering Arab masses will stay asleep through the daily massacres. The only way Israel would risk some Arab response is if an Israeli flushes a Quran down a toilet. What a sad world we live in.
Fucking Losers.

-Tineen

Paul Larudee, in an article on Counterpunch, posits that Israel today is trying to realize the vision of Ben Gurion who believed that Israel’s natural northern border should be the Litani river. He points to attacks against civilian targets and the repeated massacres as a means of causing mass evacuation, the largest in the region since 1948, and thus clearing the way for Israeli settlements. He also points to cutting of roads and bridges to the south as a means of delineating an area of future Israeli control. All of this mirrors the actions taken by the Zionist forces leading up to the creation of Israel, sans the Palestinians.

I’m not sure if this theory provides a complete explanation behind Israel’s motivation for engaging in this barbaric assault, something that the author acknowledges. But I do concede is that there is a very good likelyhood that there are some in Israel who subscribe to this belief whether consciously or unconsciously. Expansionism is woven into the fabric of Israeli society and implanted into their psyches and it’s unlikely that they will divorce themselves from expansionist dreams since their very existance is based on usurping land from others.

I think a more reasonable explanation for Israel’s actions is to understand that their are several competing and intersecting interests, motivations and obsessions. Expansionism is definitely one of them, along with an out of control military-industrial complex both in Israel and the US, an ideology of racial supremacy and untouchability, as well as the Iran-oil theory proposed by Juan Cole and a few others.

Whatever the reality is, let’s just hope that we don’t have to launch a right of return campaign for the south lebanese refugee in the coming years.

-Tineen

I think we should let Hugo Chavez run Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  He seems to be the only one willing to take a concrete stand on the current Israeli agression.  He’s not ideal by any measure but he would definitely be an improvement over the pieces of garbage currently in power there.  By pulling the ambassador and now threatening to sever relations he is, along with the popular sentiment in Venezuela, saying that what Israel is doing is criminal and therefore cannot be ignored.

-Tineen

So we had an ADC meeting today.  We went through the list of proposed projects that I had previously put together.  We’ve settled on the following:

1. Round of meetings with Representatives and Senators
2. Candidate Questionnaires to be translated into a voter guide
3. A week of Political/Media action to be organized and launched.  This week will be preceded by a large community event to involve and motivate

Things are going to happen quickly over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to keep you updated.

-Tineen

In this article on Counterpunch Virginia Tilley tells why it’s now time to make the boycott of Israel a reality.  She lays out the primary reasons, the strategies and the real goals.  I cannot agree more with everything that she says.

Until recently I have completely ignored the varying Boycott calls; for example to my own shame and to that of my family, I was seldom seen without a Starbucks cup.  This has ended there is no more Starbucks for me, besides Seattle has much better coffee than Starbucks, Cafe Vita absolutely rocks.  But beyond my relationship with Starbucks, there needs to be a serious effort around mobilizing people to join the Boycott campaign against all Israeli goods, and US companies that support Israel.  There also need to be efforts around Academic and Tourism Boycotts.  Finally Divestment needs to be worked into this whole thing.

Is everyone on board?

-Tineen

So the basic website (www.seattlearabamericans.net) is ready to go.  I have filled out all the sections, the goals and strategies for each group, and created a subscription list for the site.  The next step are to identify a series of short term and long term projects to adopt into this effort.  I’m getting together with a bunch of people today to brainstorm a bunch of ideas.  I already have a few ideas that I’m planning to run by them.

-Tineen

From Beirut… to those who love us

So Tuesday we have this big meeting with a bunch of people from the Arab-American community.  I’d rather not share my opinion about most of the people that were there since that will turn this post into an angry venom filled rant.  So let me tell you what happened, I put together a very reasonable document outlining a common community objective and some strategies and immediate actions that we can take in different activism arenas.  The idea was to discuss this on a small scale on Tuesday and then on a large scale on Saturday in the context of a community wide townhall style meeting.

I send the document out to the guy organizing the meeting and the first thing I hear back from him is that the document is too ambitious, the community will reject because they don’t believe we can do this, blah, blah, blah.  These people, more than anything want to play community leaders but they fail even the most basic of tests.  Usually leaders help the community rise to the occasion, this group insists on claiming that the community are a bunch of weaklings and then they go and use that as an excuse to hide behind.  This was the reasoning given for the cancellation of the protest on Saturday and we see it rearing its ugly head again.

The meeting was a bit contentious if you haven’t gotten that idea yet.  It was comedy and tragedy both rolled into one.  Still it was an important meeting to have and I found it extremely informative.  The community thinks in one of two ways.  There are those looking for immediate gratification and the opportunity to do any feel good activities.  There are then those who want to think long term and they are willing to forgo the instant gratification in return for something more substantion in the future.

This is where we left off in the meeting.  A few people managed to come over to my side and we are moving forward.  The other will organize fundraisers and banquets for a little bit and then go home to wait for the next tragedy leveled by the Israeli against the Arabs and facilitated by our government, tax dollars and our silence.

The good news is that I am more motivated than ever.  The website is coming along very nicely.  The plan is to add a lot of meet by the end of this weekend and then send out an email to the community asking them to check it out and to participate.  Then we will hold a series of meetings next week to organize and begin acting.  All of this seems to be a very delayed reaction to the events that have been taking place over many weeks now.  Still it’s better late than never.

-Tineen