Michal Levin's Blog2008-05-08T00:00:00Zhttp://www.michallevin.com/Michal Levinhttp://www.michallevin.com/ISRAEL: A perspective 60 years on.http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=802008-05-08T00:00:00Z
Below are three articles, compiled by Tom Gross, of Mideast Media Analysis. http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/.
CONTENTS
1. Remembering the Jewish refugees from Arab lands
2. "Israel's advent altered outlook for Middle East Jews" (Reuters, May 5, 2008)
3. "Mike Wallace interviews Abba Eban in 1957" (By Jonathan Mark, May 5, 2008)
4. "Book of Genesis" (By Abby Wisse Schachter, New York Post, May 4, 2008)
The first, from Reuters, is a rare example of a mainstream media organization mentioning the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refuges driven out of Arab countries. Despite outnumbering the Arab refugees who left what became Israel, the media almost never mention these Jewish refugees. Reuters, amazingly, decided to dedicate an entire article to them as part of a special series it is running this week to mark Israel's 60th anniversary. This is a generally fair account by Reuters which I suggest reading in full.
The second piece below is a remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban that puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective.
This interview, from 1957, happened long before there were "settlers" or "occupation". And yet even then, there were those hatemongers, such as Arnold Toynbee, who compared Israeli Jews with the Nazis.
In the third article below, Abby Wisse Schachter (a longtime subscriber to this email list) outlines some of battles Israel had to fight at the time of its creation, and takes us through some of the newspaper reports of the time.
(Those of you interested in reading some of the other headlines from May 1948, can do so here:
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+at+50/The+State+of+Israel+Is+Born.htm )
-- Tom Gross
TODAY ONLY A FEW DOZEN JEWS ARE THOUGHT TO REMAIN IN LEBANON
Israel's advent altered outlook for Middle East Jews
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent
Reuters
May 5, 2008
(This is the first story in a special series Reuters is running this week to mark Israel's 60th anniversary)
SIDON, Lebanon (Reuters): A ruined cemetery lies by the sea in Sidon, the worn Hebrew inscriptions on the headstones a reminder of Lebanon's once-thriving Jewish minority, which has all but vanished since the state of Israel emerged 60 years ago.
The graveyard sits in wasteland across the road from an unstable mountain of garbage piled over rubble collected from buildings destroyed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
"The Israeli troops came and looked after the cemetery," recalled Mohammed al-Sarji, a Sidon environmentalist and film-maker. "After they left in 1985, it was neglected."
The 1948 war at Israel's creation, which forced some 700,000 Palestinians to flee their homeland, hardened Arab attitudes to deep-rooted Jewish minorities across the Middle East.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were displaced. Some migrated voluntarily from mainly Muslim countries to the newly proclaimed Jewish homeland. Others were forced out by dispossession, discrimination or violence. Thousands stayed on.
Israeli statistics show more than 760,000 Middle Eastern Jews had moved to Israel by 2006, with more than 40 percent arriving in the first three years of the state's existence.
Over the last six decades of Middle East tension, Jewish communities have dwindled to insignificance in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen, but cling on in countries such as Tunisia, Morocco and non-Arab Iran and Turkey.
Iran, seen by Israel as its deadliest foe, hosts 22,000 to 25,000 Jews, down from at least 85,000 before the 1979 Islamic revolution, when many went to the United States. Today, it is the biggest Jewish population in the Middle East outside Israel.
Morris Mottamed, who formerly held the Jewish seat in Iran's parliament, noted that post-revolutionary turmoil and economic factors had prompted emigration among other minorities too.
Discrimination was not behind the Jewish outflow, he argued, adding that Iranian Jews enjoyed freedom of worship, education and travel. Their numbers had been stable for five years.
"I'm sure in future also there will be a very strong community of Jewish people in Iran," Mottamed told Reuters.
Asked about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map", he said he disagreed with it.
The United States says such hostility to Israel creates a threatening atmosphere for Iranian Jews. It also says they and other minorities suffer discrimination. Tehran denies this.
UNEQUAL COEXISTENCE
Morocco, which has warmer ties with Israel than most Arab countries, was home to around 400,000 Jews before 1948.
But after waves of migration, fewer than 4,000 remain, the residue of a 2,000-year history of peaceful, if unequal, cohabitation interspersed with episodes of bloody repression.
In the past, Moroccan Jews were considered subordinate to Muslims and discrimination was widespread. Every city has its Mellah, the poorest quarter to which Jews were once confined. Their residents were the first to leave when they could.
A Jewish cemetery, community centre and restaurant were among targets of Islamist suicide bombers who killed 45 people in Casablanca in 2003. But such violence against Jews is rare.
"There is no anti-Semitism in Morocco," Simon Levy, 75, who chairs the Moroccan Museum of Judaism in Casablanca, told Le Soir daily. "There is a growing Islamist sentiment, and the Muslim has this certainty he is better than everyone else."
But Morocco remains Levy's home: "I made my choice long ago to stay in this country as a Moroccan, like my ancestors."
Tunisia's 2,000 Jews live in harmony with their Muslim neighbours, reflecting the policy of its secular government.
"We are doing our best to teach our children the Jewish religion as Muslims learn their religion," said David Didoshim, headmaster of a Jewish school on the island of Djerba.
The community was jolted when an al Qaeda suicide bomber attacked a Djerba synagogue in 2002, killing 21 people.
Yet Hayim Haddad, a Jewish resident, said no Jews had left the island afterwards. "All the people know how much we are attached to our country Tunisia, whatever happens," he added.
Tunisian Jews numbered 100,000 until the North African country won independence in 1956. Most then moved to France.
TALE OF DISPERSAL
Conflict in Palestine in the 1930s made life harder for Egyptian Jews, as militant nationalist groups became active.
Israel's advent in 1948 and the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 added to their difficulties. In 1948, there were bomb attacks in Jewish areas and some Jews were killed in riots.
Jewish emigration accelerated after Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 and economic pressures mounted at home.
Many Jewish residents were entrepreneurs without Egyptian citizenship who opted to leave after the government nationalized their businesses and seized their wealth. Some were held in detention centres and coerced into leaving the country.
Egypt was home to 75,000 to 80,000 Jews in 1922. Today, only about 30 still live in Cairo, mostly ageing women with Muslim or Christian husbands. A few more than that survive in Alexandria.
Magda Haroun Silvera said she had often met bureaucratic obstacles when renewing her passport or identity card.
"My birth certificate says I was born in the Israeli hospital so they always ask me if I am really Egyptian. People have forgotten how big the Jewish community once was," she said.
She said she had retained her Jewish identity despite marrying a Muslim and later a Catholic.
"My daughters are Muslims by their father. I tried to raise them with an open mind. In our household we do Ramadan, Christmas and then the Jewish feasts with my mother," she said.
Silvera said the Jews of Egypt "do not relate to Israel" because they had mixed marriages and were attached to Egypt.
KEEPERS OF HEBREW
Only 200 to 300 Jews live in Yemen, remnants of a community that spoke a form of ancient Hebrew as a living tongue. About 50,000 moved to Israel thanks to an airlift begun in 1949.
Yemeni Jews say they have lived peacefully with their Muslim compatriots over the years, but in 2007 about 45 were evacuated from the north after attacks from rebel Zaidi Muslim tribesmen.
In Iraq, a Jewish community that traced its history back to Babylonian times has all but evaporated. Over 120,000 were flown to Israel after 1948 when government persecution intensified.
Some Iraqi and Syrian Jews made their way to Lebanon in the 1940s, boosting that country's Jewish community to 14,000, and about 6,000 of them subsequently moved on to Israel.
Lebanese Jewish migration began in earnest after the 1967 Middle East war brought Palestinian guerrillas and more refugees to Lebanon, hastening its slide towards the 1975-90 civil war.
Several leaders of Lebanon's rapidly shrinking Jewish community were kidnapped and killed by pro-Iranian Shi'ite militant groups that sprang up after Israel's 1982 invasion.
Today only a few dozen Jews are thought to remain.
(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Tehran, Tarek Amara in Tunis, Tom Pfeiffer in Rabat, Jonathan Wright in Cairo, Lin Noueihed in Dubai and Peter Graff in Baghdad)
"WE BELIEVE THAT ISRAEL'S EMERGENCE IS THE GREATEST COLLECTIVE EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE"
Remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective
By Jonathan Mark
May 5, 2008
Fifty years ago on the cusp of Israel's 10th birthday, not its 60th, Abba Eban, then Israel's ambassador to the United States, sat down for an interview with CBS.
"I'm Mike Wallace," says the newsman. "The cigarette [I'm smoking] is Parliament."
It was a time when journalists almost had to smoke, a haze drifted between the talking heads on an unadorned stage, draped in black.
The primitive black and white kinescopes of Wallace interviews from the late 1950s were recently made available by the University of Texas at Austin, where they've been archived.
The interview on that night takes us back to a simpler time, before settlers, before Israel's control of Jerusalem or the West Bank, a time when "little Israel" was David, not Goliath. It was the year "Exodus" was published. Israel was a teen idol, or so we remember. But the young Wallace (40 years old) was tough and Eban was, well, Eban.
Here, condensed, is some of their exchange, which happened long before "settlers", Israel's control of Jerusalem or the West Bank.
WALLACE "Mr. Ambassador, in its ... 10 years as a nation, Israel has been involved in repeated violence... "
EBAN "Well, Mr. Wallace, the last 10 years have not only been years of violence. They have been incomparable years of joyous creation, of sovereignty restored, of the people gathered in, of a land revived, of democracy established, but there has also been violence imposed by the hostility of our neighbors."
WALLACE "... You called Egypt's President Nasser, Israel's most perilous adversary. Now today Colonel Nasser would seem to be even stronger..."
EBAN "Well, at present, Nasser's policy is one of acquiescence towards us, and there has been a relative tranquility on our frontier with him. Perhaps the memories of the Sinai expedition [in 1956] have had a salutary effect in causing him to avoid his previous belligerent provocations, but basically we have not changed our views on Nasser and Nasserism." The word "Palestinian" is not heard on the broadcast. The West Bank was Jordan in those days; Gaza was Egypt.
WALLACE "... Arnold Toynbee has said, 'The evil deeds committed by the Zionist Jews against the [refugee] Arabs are comparable to crimes committed against the Jews by the Nazis.' How do you feel about that?"
EBAN "Well, about Professor Toynbee's statement I can only repeat what I've written, that it is a monstrous blasphemy. Here he takes the massacre of millions of our men, women and children, and he compares it to the plight of Arab refugees alive, on their kindred soil, suffering certain anguish, but of course possessed of the supreme gift of life. This equation between massacre and temporary suffering which can easily be alleviated is, I think, a distortion of any historic perspective."
WALLACE "Of course, the problem of the refugees is allied with the problem of territorial expansion on the part of Israel. A major Arab spokesman here in the United States ... says, 'The area of the territories held by Israel today exceeds by about 40 percent the area of the territories given Israel by the United Nations. Most of this added area,' he says, 'was taken by force and should therefore be relinquished by Israel.'"
EBAN "Well, I think this gentleman need not to lose any sleep at night worrying about whether the State of Israel is too big. Really there is nothing more grotesque or eccentric in the international life of our times, than the doctrine that little Israel, 8,000 square miles in area, should become even smaller in order that the vast Arab Empire should still further expand."
WALLACE "Well, as a member of the Judaic faith, which cherishes social justice and morality, do you believe that any country should profit territorially from violence?"
EBAN "Mr. Wallace ... I am not going to analyze how the frontiers of countries which I have seen or in which I have served were achieved [but it is the Arabs] who decreed the method by which the present frontiers were achieved. They rejected the 1947 recommendation."
WALLACE "Now then, Mr. Eban, regarding the American Jew and the State of Israel, the anti-Zionist rabbi, Dr. Elmer Berger [a Reform rabbi, not Satmar or Neturei Karta] has written, 'the Zionist-Israeli axis imposes upon Jews outside of Israel, Americans of Jewish faith included, a status of double-nationality,' a status which he deplores. What's your answer?"
EBAN "Well, Mr. Wallace, I have so many pressing duties that I don't follow the wisdom of this gentleman perhaps as closely as I should. I will only say this, that we ask no allegiance, we seek no loyalty from anyone who is not a citizen of Israel. There is a kinship of spirit, of emotion, of historic memory between us and those who share our faith throughout the world ... We believe that Israel's emergence is the greatest collective event in the history of the Jewish people, and that there is no pride and no dignity for a Jew such as those to be found in giving aid and sustenance to Israel in the great hour of her resurgence."
On May 20, 1948, six days after the Jewish State of Israel declared independence, Syrian troops attacked the nation's oldest communal settlement, or kibbutz, Degania. The Syrians had eight tanks and 10 armored cars. The settlers had homemade machine guns and some bombs.
As one of the tanks rolled in, two Molotov cocktails struck it from a nearby trench, reported Arthur Koestler, a foreign correspondent for The Guardian.
"One was thrown by Shalom Hochbaum," Koestler wrote, "who arrived two years ago after spending altogether five years in 13 different concentration camps, including Belsen. The second was thrown by Yehuda Sprung of Cracow, 12 years in Degania, before that a student of law at Cracow University. He is a thin, timid little man who looks like a tailor. Neither of them had seen a tank before in his life."
It took weeks, but this group of tailors, refugees and Holocaust survivors fought off the Syrians and a 2,000-year-old wish, "next year in Jerusalem", was fulfilled. Out of fire and desire, a country was born.
By reading through the newspaper reports of the time, from correspondents and the local Palestine Post, one sees how fragile those first months were. The Israeli fighters were a ragged bunch, many just off the boat from Europe, handed a rifle at the port of Haifa. But they learned early the importance of training; that everyone, no matter their profession, would have to learn the ways of war.
In the New Republic, writer Lawencer Lader wrote about the rise of the Palmach; young men and women of the kibbutz who were trained as an elite strike force. The commander of one of these brigades, Moshe Kellman, told Lader: "None of us is a soldier by profession. Most of us have come from the kibbutzim. Our purpose to go back and someday start new kibbutzim of our own. The Palmach grew out of the kibbutzim because from 1941 on, we realized that it was more important for a boy of 17 to devote his full time to defending his home and people than to plow the fields or tend the vineyards."
THE PRELUDE
Israel was a dream, since the time of Moses, yes, but given urgency by the work of Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl, who in 1897 called for "normalizing" the Jewish condition by a return to the homeland.
From the 1880s to the 1930s, the movement to establish the Jewish State proceeded in two ways: Practical settlement and political advocacy. The Jewish population of Palestine grew from about 25,000 in 1882 to between 85,000 and 100,000 just prior to World War I, while political advocacy on behalf of the establishment of a Jewish state met with mixed results. The Ottoman empire controlled the area until 1919 and allowed land to be purchased for Jewish settlement, while refusing to grant any specific Jewish claim to the land.
After WWI, dominion over Palestine passed from the Turks to the British, who established a Mandate over the territory. Jewish political fortunes looked brighter. After all, it was the British Lord Balfour who declared in 1917 that the British government "view with favor" the establishment in Palestine of "a national home for the Jewish people."
The Mandate period (1920-48) was marked by growing Jewish immigration into Palestine, while demands for further immigration grew with Hitler's rise to power in Europe. The British authorities, meanwhile, tried to manage Jewish political aspirations while also attempting to quell majority Arab unrest at the growing Jewish presence. Deadly Arab riots against Jews in 1920, 1929 and 1936-39 convinced Jews that self-defense, military service and self-reliance was their only option.
Jewish self-defense evolved as the settlements grew. Initially, immigrants were hired to guard Jewish settlements for an annual fee. After the 1920 Arab riots, a Jewish military, or Haganah, was formally organized and established. For those young men and women living on communal farms, military training became part of the residency requirements.
From 1939-1945, the Jews of Palestine fought on two fronts: alongside the British against Hitler, and at home defended themselves against Arab attacks. In an effort to save the Jews of Europe, the Haganah organized the transport of hundreds of thousands of them into Palestine on illegal ships, since the British had banned further immigration. After the war, the British began looking for a way out of Palestine, finally opting for the newly formed United Nations to vote on a plan to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, on November 29, 1947.
The Jews were elated, the Arabs defiant and the fight for Israel's independence had begun.
EARLY DEFEAT
Hostilities began as a series of attacks and counter attacks between Arabs, Jews and the British Mandate authorities that continued from December 1947 until May 1948. The day after Israel's declaration of independence, May 15, five Arab armies invaded: Syria, Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
But one of the worst Jewish defeats came before the state was even officially at war, in early May at the settlements of Gush Etzion, 20 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem, on the hills between Hebron and Bethlehem. The series of four settlements were strategically located on the road used by the Arabs to transport weapons and supplies to Jerusalem.
On May 4 and again on May 12, poorly-armed Jewish settlers, reinforced by better-trained Haganah and Palmach fighters, were attacked over several days by Arab Legionnaires commanding thousands of Arab irregulars.
After three days of fighting, 30 Jewish fighters had been killed and the remaining settlers surrendered. Polish-born, Palmach fighter Eliza Feuchtwanger radioed Jerusalem. "The Arabs are in the Kibbutz. Farewell."
The Arab Legion commander, Abdullah Tell, later admitted that the Jews "fought with incredible bravery."
Following the surrender, the Arabs entered the settlement, looted the buildings and massacred 127 men and women. Only five Jews survived. Slaughtered bodies, both men and women, remained in place for a year and a half before Transjordanian authorities allowed Israel to retrieve the corpses.
VICTORY IN THE GALILEE
Israel's fortunes started to turn in the settlements in the Galilee region.
Correspondent Koestler described the Syrian military's uneven advance on Degania as an example of how the settlers were getting the upper hand.
"The Syrians advanced in a hesitating and undecided sort of way. They sent out several waves of infantry which as soon as they came within range of automatic fire, turned tail and swarmed back instead of digging in." Then "eight tanks arrive at the outer fence of the settlement. The first one, on the flank nearest the lake was incapacitated by a Molotov-cocktail which hit its caterpillar chain. The third broke through the fence, reached the slit trench, then slowly veered south as if to progress parallel to the trench."
In the New Republic, Lader wrote of how until May 10, "the city of Safed which controls the Upper Galilee valley was considered one of the impregnable strongholds of the Arabs in Palestine."
Not for the Palmach fighter, however. They spent a week prior to May 10 quietly bringing supplies and ammunition each night through the valley below the city. "Then a force of 200 men, each armed with only 50 rounds of ammunition," Lader recounts, "attacked at night, taking the Arabs by surprise. Another Palmach unit fought for 11 hours in the police station, and after three hours rest, stormed the remainder of the city. By noon, the supposedly impregnable Safed was safe in Palmach hands."
BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM
Jerusalem was the center of major confrontations before and after the formal declaration of war. Indeed, the old city was under siege for five-and-a-half months ending finally on May 19, 1948.
As Mordechai Chertoff reported in The Palestine Post, "instead of breaking their spirit, the siege had turned the residents of the [Jewish] Quarter into soldiers."
In an effort to win control of Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest city, the Israeli forces fought a long battle along the single roadway to the city. One of the fiercest fighting took place 15 kilometers west of Jerusalem, at Latrun. As British troops departed the police fort on May 14, Arab Legionnaires tried to take it over and fighting broke out for the strategic outpost.
One report from Jon Kimche in the Palestine Post on June 1, 1948 captures the intensity of the fighting. "By 4 o'clock the attacking force has reached the perimeter of the police station from which heavy fire was directed at them. With a sudden rush in the face of a strong searchlight shining on the attackers, one group of Jews set fire to the building while another group attacked with small arms. A number of Arabs escaped from the inferno, but for the majority there was no getaway.
"By dawn, the operation was completed and the Jews withdrew to their previous positions. The Arabs remained in possession of Latrun, but it had again been destroyed."
But even with some relief in May, the Arab stranglehold over Jerusalem remained a serious problem for the Jews. With no other way of getting supplies, food and arms to the Jewish resident of the city, the newly established Israeli Defense Forces took on the task of digging a new road into Jerusalem. On June 14, writer I.F. Stone was the first reporter to be taken into the city by military convoy on the new "Burma" road.
"The hastily improvised new road," he reported in the Palestine Post, "rough-hewn by bulldozer and tractor across trackless fields, hills and valleys is one of the engineering feats of the Jewish war of independence. Even more impressive are the working men from the docks of Haifa and the workshops of Tel Aviv willing to serve as coolies and human mules over dark and hazardous mountain trails in order to turn the flank of the Jerusalem siege and bring up badly needed supplies."
THE NORTHERN FRONT
"From the GI's point of view this war seems about like any other war," reported The Chicago Sun-Times' Keith Wheeler who was with the Haganah on the Lebanese border, June 14, 1948, "99 percent griping and waiting and one percent action."
"One discovers," Wheeler observed, "that the Jewish soldier resembles any other soldier. He loves to brag. He holds his enemy in vast contempt. He collects souvenirs as ardently as a United States marine. On the slightest provocation he whips out snapshots of children, wives and sweethearts. He is hospitality personified."
On the other hand, as Wheeler observed there were some serious differences between Israeli GIs as compared, say, to their American counterparts. The Jewish soldier "doesn't want his name in the papers. By habit of many years he yearns almost pathologically for anonymity. He is completely without rank consciousness and if so moved, never hesitates to call a company commander 'fathead' in his presence. There is no 'brass' in the Haganah. Nobody salutes anybody and nobody wears any insignia of rank. 'The only difference is authority, and that is never questioned,' the commander of an outfit on the border told me."
THE SOUTHERN FRONT
Kenneth Bilby of the International Herald Tribune was another witness to Jewish ingenuity and resourcefulness. He was taken first by transport plane (flown by a "youthful American pilot") and then by jeep to relieve the Egyptian siege of isolated Jewish settlements in the Negev Desert. "The Israel air-transport service provides one of the Jewish answers to the Egyptian effort to besiege and throttle Jewish settlements in the Negev," he reported on Aug 8. "With Egyptians menacing the sole supply route to the Negev, the Jews rely on their air force as much as the Western powers in Berlin."
THE BATTLE FINALLY OVER
Throughout 1949, armistice agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria,, ending the Independence War. These agreements temporarily put an end to hostilities and established armistice lines between Israel and Jordan on the West Bank of the Jordan River, known until the Six Day War in June 1967 as the Green Line.
What Israel could not achieve diplomatically, it achieved through force of arms. Instead of three non-contiguous areas of Jewish sovereignty, as declared by the UN partition plan of 1947, the newly established state controlled one single territory bordering Syria and Lebanon in the North, Transjordan to the East and Egypt to the southwest. The country's capital, Jerusalem would remain divided between Israel and Jordan for proceeding 19 years, with Jews cut off from their religion's holiest site, the Western Wall, until 1967's Six Day War.
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Zimbabwe.http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=792008-05-07T00:00:00Z
Please guys - forward this to as many people as you can so it can really be spread wide and far.... we especially need help with clothes, blankets etc for those that lost all they had in the violence - please get in touch for where to get this all dropped. Much thanks always!!
"Courage is an integral part of any great success story.
To abandon the comfort and security of what you have now for the chance of greater future success requires tremendous courage."
Things are getting better and better every day!!
The Re-Count went amazingly well with NO changes in the results - the MDC is no longer the Opposition they will now control Parliament - for the first time in Zimbabwe's history!!
MT and Mutambara signed an agreement to work together against the regime
There is also another development along the Heads of Parties Lines, which we cannot divulge at this time, that will be the end of mugabe
Tendai Biti was invited to address the U.N. - a significant step
Former Commander of the army, Vitalis Zvinawashe, yesterday made a statement denouncing violence and saying that he lost his seat because the people no longer want mugabe
Despite all these Positive things happening we still need to prepare for the worst and any eventuality
Right now we should be doing the following with even more fervour than ever before
Preparing for a Run-off
Doing whatever we can for the victims of violence - Blankets, clothes, food, money, anything we can think of
Networking and building support teams
E-mail and sms campaigns
Name and shame, exposing perpetrators of violence, shady deals, etc
Confidence and Assertiveness campaign - only positive stuff
Media and fliers - get as much information out as possible -both to the local people and international press
What else???
Get busy people - we need to push harder than ever now
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This is a letter I received from Zimbabwehttp://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=782008-04-21T00:00:00Z
I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF. The darkest hour is always before dawn.
We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next........I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one white family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK47's and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house - 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings - because it was "too close to the airport", so we are feeling extremely insecure right now.
You know - I am aware that this does not help you sleep at night, but if you do not know - how can you help? Even if you put us in your own mental ring of light and send your guardian angels to be with us - that is a help - but I feel so cut off from you all knowing I cannot tell you what's going on here simply because you will feel uncomfortable. There is no ways we can leave here so that is not an option.
I ask that you all pray for us in the way that you know how, and let me know that you are thinking of us and sending out positive vibes... that's all. You can't just be in denial and pretend/believe it's not going on.
To be frank with you, it's genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are - IN level 7 - (level 8 is after it's happened and everyone is in
denial).
If you don't want me to tell you these things-how bad it is then it means you have not dealt with your own fear, but it does not help me to think you are turning your back on our situation. We need you, please, to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say - oh well, that's what happens in Africa. This Government has GONE MAD and you need to help us publicize our plight--- or how can we be rescued? It's a reality! The petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celsius with no food, water, shelter and bedding are a reality. Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener's wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep
outside. We already support 8 adult people and a child on this property, and electricity is going up next month by 250% as is water.
How can I take on another family of 4 -----and yet how can I turn them away to sleep out in the open?
I am not asking you for money or a ticket out of here - I am asking you to FACE the fact that we are in deep and terrible danger and want you please to pass on our news and pictures. So PLEASE don't just press the delete button! Help best in the way that you know how.
Do face the reality of what is going on here and help us SEND OUT THE WORD. The more people who know about it, the more chance we have of the United Nations coming to our aid. Please don't ignore or deny what's happening. Some would like to be protected from the truth BUT then, if we are eliminated, how would you feel? "If only we knew how bad it really was we could have helped in some way".
[I know we chose to stay here and that some feel we deserve what's coming to us]
For now,--- we ourselves have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal - but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now. I want to send out my Title Deeds to one of you because if they get a hold of those, I can't fight for my rights.
Censorship!----We no longer have SW radio [which told us everything that was happening] because the Government jammed it out of existence we don't have any reporters, and no one is allowed to photograph. If we had reporters here, they would have an absolute field day. Even the pro-Government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of many folks homes, which are supposed to be 'illegal' but for which a huge percentage actually do have licenses.
Please! - do have some compassion and HELP by sending out the articles and personal reports so that something can/may be done. "I am one. I cannot do everything, ---but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do."
One of many in Zimbabwe
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Zimbabwehttp://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=772008-04-14T00:00:00Z
Zanu PF is behaving just like a wounded buffalo. The African buffalo is one of the most dangerous adversaries in the world of wildlife. It has an enormous capacity to take punishment, is extremely difficult to kill outright and when wounded - even fatally, it has the ability to do great damage. It is also a highly intelligent adversary.
I have never hunted buffalo but have friends who have and had a senior in my department when I was a young man actually ambushed by a wounded buffalo in the Zambezi Valley. He was very lucky to survive and was never quite the same again. A frequent target of the trophy hunter are the lone bulls who move about in small groups or on their own and have a magnificent set of horns with that huge mass of bone across the head.
If the hunter gets a clean heart shot, the buffalo has the capacity to run for some considerable distance before collapsing. If the shot is not clean, then the buffalo is known to run and then circle back and lie in ambush for his hunter. That is what happened to my senior in the valley.
Although a large animal, the buffalo knows exactly how to stand in the shade and to blend in with his background. Often the only thing that might alert you to his presence is a flick of the ears or a tail. Fail to spot him and you could be on the receiving end of a short and furious rush and fall victim to the horns or just his mass.
Zanu PF lost this election massively - if you take the combined vote of Makoni and Tsvangirai, 73 per cent of the people who voted (2,4 million) voted against him - he only got 27 per cent of the vote. The poll was 41 per cent if you use the voter's roll but by my calculation (2,8 to 3 million actual voters) it was nearer 80 per cent. Even when the National
Command Centre had spent a day massaging the results they only got them down to 50 per cent for Tsvangirai and nearly 10 per cent for Makoni - still a huge defeat for a sitting President.
In addition they have lost control, even with the rigging, of the House of Assembly. In the Senate it looks as if we will have a stand off - but this does not make that much of a difference. But any measure, Zanu PF has taken a shot that has fatally wounded the old bull. However, like the buffalo I described above, he is still dangerous.
As things stand right now, the Zanu PF Politburo has decided that a full audit of the Presidential results can go ahead. We demanded this when we saw the results for Mashonaland Central four days ago. When this is completed (perhaps today) then we will hear if the final tally gives Morgan 49 or 50 per cent of the final count. If its 49, they want a rerun, if he gets 50 per cent plus one vote, he will be sworn in as President and we will get a new government.
I will not bore you with all the gory details of what has gone on this week, but just to say that Zanu PF and Robert Gabriel Mugabe have had a tough time accepting the reality of the loss of power and privilege. I understand that Grace Mugabe has left the country and has taken a very considerable sum of money (real money) with her. There is also a strong rumor that the man who led 5th Brigade during the genocide in the 80's has committed suicide. But that may or may not be true. Nevertheless it shows how much of a total shock this has been for the Zanu machine.
If there is a run off, I can only anticipate an electoral massacre. Ex President Mugabe will not even get the numbers he currently has in the poll.
It will be, in effect, a coup de grace.
So we are thinking through what a re-run might mean for us - how we might handle it. It is already clear that despite the fact that so far the people have committed no acts of violence in any way, that Zanu PF is going to use violence to try and get its way in the re-run. Already yesterday we have seen new violence in several areas, Masvingo especially. Morgan Tsvangirai said in his press conference yesterday that Mugabe is preparing to go to war against the people. It will not help him.
I just pray that there will not be a re-run. The country simply cannot take any more of this. Work is impossible - our factories are shut down as the staff cannot work, suppliers cannot fix prices and buyers are frozen in their tracks. The economy is virtually at a stand still and inflation is racing ahead. There is no food in the country and hunger is becoming a real problem, the Reserve Bank has been looted and I understand that enough foreign exchange has been taken out to supply the countries needs for all basic foods for 12 months. It is an absolute disgrace and to think they still want to hang onto power!
What has become clear over the past week is that Zanu PF can no longer command what happens in the administration, power is slipping away and they are already yesterdays men. It is also clear that the army and the police are both divided in their loyalties and now support change. This was the last pillar of support for the Zanu PF regime and with this gone it is just a matter of time.
The region is playing a key role and is trying to persuade Mr. Mugabe to step down and allow a peaceful transition. Mugabe is not co-operating and it is time regional leaders stepped up the pressure. As for the UN, this august body has yet to comment and do anything effective - must we slide into complete chaos and anarchy before they become engaged? Thabo Mbeki is in the UK for a summit of leaders - I am sure he is getting it with both barrels.
Last night Aziz Pahad was jousting with Kate Hoey - wish I could have seen that contest.
But for the rest, thank you to all who stood with us - through the criticism of our stand and strategy, through the long nights of despair and finally doing the hard work that will make democracy the tool we used to bring down a corrupt and cruel tyrant. We showed it could be done - not with guns and bullets, not with fire and machete's, just with the quiet strength of ordinary men and women going out and voting when they got the opportunity.
Your fellow in Zimbabwe. ]]>
Heart peacehttp://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=762008-04-02T00:00:00Z
One of the group asked if I knew of any situation resolved from the Heart? or truly influenced by the Heart? Just one contemporary situation came to mind where a few representatives (how mnay?) of the two sides are genuinely trying to understand one another- to stand in the shoes of the other- a heart quality. That is in Israel. A group of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost family members in the fight between them, have opened a free phone line 'Hello Shalom' to begin debate, one ordinary grieving person another, and begin to make human contact. I hope to investigate the scheme myself later in the year. Meantime- according to one BBC radio program (not know for pro Israeli views) 'Hello Shalom' has been very successful.
The BBC report astonished me with the moving accounts from people of all parts of the spectrum in the conflict wanting to reach out to one another. There was much pain and anger expressed. But ultimately, all were united in their gain thorough understanding and communicating with the other. It gave me hope in a most unhopeful situation. The piece below, published yesterday in the Herald Tribune does not.
Herald tribune, April 1, 2008
In Gaza, Hamas's Insults to Jews Complicate Peace
By STEVEN ERLANGER
GAZA - In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was
discussing the wiliness of the Jew.
'Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,' Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. 'They have been traitors to all agreements - go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.'
At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the 'Crusaders,' or
Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as 'the brothers of apes and pigs,' while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.
Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts
insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and
the United States; its children's programs praise 'martyrdom,' teach what
it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation
over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.
Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 'road map' peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.
Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and
media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.
Intended to indoctrinate the young to its brand of radical Islam, which
combines politics, social work and military resistance, including acts of
terrorism, the programs of Al Aksa television and radio, including crucial
Friday sermons, are an indication of how far from reconciliation Israelis
and many Palestinians are.
Hamas's grip on Gaza matters, but what may matter more in the long run is its control over propaganda and education there, breeding longer-term
problems for Israel, and for peace. No matter what Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators agree upon, there is concern here that the attitudes being
instilled will make a sustainable peace extremely difficult.
'If you take a sample on Friday, you're bound to hear incitement against
the Jews in the prayers and the imam's sermon,' said Mkhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University here. 'He uses verses from the
Koran to say how the Jews were the enemies of the prophet and didn't keep their promises to the prophet 1,400 years ago.'
Mr. Abusada is a Muslim and political independent. 'You have young people, and everyone has to listen to the imam whether you believe him or not,' he said. 'By saying the same thing over and over, you find a lot of people believing it, especially when he cites the Koran or hadith,' the sayings of the prophet.
Radwan Abu Ayyash, deputy minister of culture in Ramallah, ran the
Palestinian Broadcasting Company until 2005. Hamas 'uses religious language to motivate simple people for political as well as religious goals,' he said. 'People don't distinguish between the two.' He said he found a lot of what Al Aksa broadcast 'disgusting and unprofessional.'
Every Palestinian thinks the situation in Gaza is ugly, he said. 'But what
is not fine is to build up children with a culture of hatred, of closed
minds, a culture of sickness. I don't think they always know what they are
creating. People use one weapon, language, without realizing that they also use it against themselves.'
Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli group, said Hamas took its view of Jews from what it considered the roots of Islam, then tried to make the present match the past.
For example, in a column in the weekly Al Risalah, Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a
Hamas legislator and imam, discussed a Koranic verse suggesting that
'suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next.'
'The reason for the punishment of burning is that it is fitting retribution
for what they have done,' Mr. Astal wrote on March 13. 'But the urgent
question is, is it possible that they will have the punishment of burning
in this world, before the great punishment' of hell? Many religious leaders
believe so, he said, adding, 'Therefore we are sure that the holocaust is
still to come upon the Jews.'
At the end, Mr. Marcus points out, Mr. Astal switches from 'harik,' the
ordinary word for burning, to 'mahraka,' normally used to connote the
Holocaust.
Some Hamas videos, like one in March 2007, promote the participation of
children in 'resistance,' showing them training in uniform, holding rifles.
Recent shows displayed Mr. Abbas kissing Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, under the slogan 'Palestine
doesn't return with kisses, it returns with martyrs.'
Programs for Children
Another children's program, 'Tomorrow's Pioneers,' has become infamous for its puppet characters - a kind of Mickey Mouse, a bee and a rabbit - who speak, like Assud the rabbit, of conquering the Jews to the young hostess, Saraa Barhoum, 11. 'We will liberate Al Aksa mosque from the Zionists' filth,' Assud said recently. 'We will liberate Jaffa and Acre,' cities noin Israel proper. 'We will liberate the whole homeland.'
The mouse, Farfour, was murdered by an Israeli interrogator and replaced by Nahoul, the bee, who died 'a martyr's death' from lack of health care
because of Gaza's closed borders. He has been supplanted by Assud, the
rabbit, who vows 'to get rid of the Jews, God willing, and I will eat them
up, God willing.'
When Assud first made his appearance, he said to Saraa: 'We are all
martyrdom-seekers, are we not, Saraa?' She responded: 'Of course we are. We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland. We will sacrifice our souls and everything we own for the homeland.'
Along with Mr. Marcus's group, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, also monitors the Arabic media. But no one disputes their
translations, and there are numerous Palestinians in Gaza - in the hothousatmosphere of an overcrowded, isolated territory where martyr posters and anger at Israel are widespread among Fatah, too - who are deeply upset about the hold Hamas has on their mosques and on what their children watch.
While the Palestinian Authority of Fatah also causes some concern - its
textbooks, for example, rarely recognize the state of Israel - Yigal
Carmon, who runs Memri, said Hamas and its media used 'the kind of
anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish language you don't really hear any more from
the Palestinian Authority, which hasn't talked like that in a long time.'
Abu Saleh, who asked that his full name not be used because of his critical views, is worried about his children. His eldest son, 13, likes to watch Al Aksa, especially the nationalist songs and military videos. 'I talk to them about Hamas, but to be honest, it's scary and you have to watch it over time,' he said. 'When kids are 17 or 18, you don't know what happens. They get enraged and can attach themselves to radical groups.'
Excluding Reconciliation
The Prophet Muhammad made a temporary hudna, or truce, with the Jews about 1,400 years ago, so Hamas allows the idea. But no one in Hamas says he would make a peace treaty with Israel or permanently give up any part of British Mandate Palestine.
'They talk of hudna, not of peace or reconciliation with Israel,' said Mr.
Abusada, the political scientist. 'They believe over time they will be
strong enough to liberate all historic Palestine.'
Saraa, the host of 'Tomorrow's Pioneers,' is the niece of Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman. Some of the language used against other Arabs upsets him, Mr. Barhoum said, but he insisted that Israel was illegitimate. 'No one can deny that all this was Palestinian land and Jews occupied the land,' he said firmly. 'Therefore the Hamas charter is based on what Israel has committed against our people and our understanding of Israel and its
practices.'
The charter is a deeply anti-Semitic document and cites a famous forgery,
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as truth. But 'our battle is not with
Jews as Jews,' he said, 'but those who came and occupied us and killed us.' After all, Mr. Barhoum said, 'the Jews who recognized the evil of the
occupation stayed outside and refused to come to Palestine as occupiers.'
'The Jews who came, came to occupy and to kill,' he said.
Marwan M. Abu Ras, 50, an imam who taught at Hamas's Islamic University for 25 years, has an advice show on Al Aksa. He is proud that his show uses sign language for the deaf.
The chairman of the Palestinian Scholars League, and a Hamas legislator,
Mr. Abu Ras is popularly called 'Hamas's mufti,' because he is ready to
give religious sanction to Hamas political structures.
Last month, he criticized Egypt for closing the Gaza border at Israel's
request. He complained, 'We are besieged by the sons of Arabism and Islam, as well as by the brothers of apes and pigs.'
He tried to distinguish between religious and political language, and then
said: 'The Israelis can't accept criticism. They overreact, like any guilty
person.' Israel for him is an enemy. 'This is an open war with Israel, with
each side trying to press the other,' he said. A war? 'If it's not a war,
what is it?' he asked.
Then he spoke of his son, who tried to volunteer to fight the Israelis at
17. 'I convinced him to wait, he had no weapon, until 20,' Mr. Abu Ras
said. 'Now he's a member of Qassam,' the Hamas military wing, 'and an
example for young people.'
Promoting an Ethos
Mark Regev, spokesman for Mr. Olmert, called on 'Arab leaders who are
moderate and believe in peace to speak out more strongly against extremist elements.' He called the 'incitement to hatred and violence standard Hamas operating procedure,' adding, 'In Hamas education and broadcasting they turn the suicide bomber who murders the innocent into a positive role model, and they portray Jews in the most negative terms, that too often reminds us of language used in Europe in the first half of the 20th century.'
The 'serious question,' he said, 'is what ethos are they promoting?'
Hazim el-Sharawi, 30, the original host of the Farfour character on Hamas
television, and known as 'Uncle Hazim,' has no doubts. It was his idea to
have Farfour killed by an Israeli interrogator, he said. 'We wanted to send
a message through this character that would fit the reality of Palestinian
life.'
Israel is the source, he insisted. 'A child sees his neighbors killed, or
blown up on the beach, and how do I explain this to a child that already
knows? The occupation is the reason; it creates the reality. I just
organize the information for him.'
The point is simple, he said: 'We want to connect the child to Palestine,
to his country, so you know that your original city is Jaffa, your capital
is Jerusalem and that the Jews took your land and closed your borders and are killing your friends and family.'
]]>
For TIBET - ELU for 30th March 2008http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=752008-03-31T00:00:00Z
A pony charging from
The hills, caught on your front page.
A troupe of horsemen
Pounding through the streets
Fuelled by passion and
An ancient title that will be heard.
The flat landscape blighted
By squat building, is softened now
Under a dull cloak of snow
That masks the thud of the
Military vehicles, and the sharper
Crack of rifle fire.
In your removed world,
cont...
For the full text, and to listen to the audio version of 'Land of the Sky', which is an Energy Link Up message, and to receive instructions for participating in the Energy Link Up, please go to the Energy Link Up page.
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Energy Link Up for Sunday 23rd March, 2008http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=742008-03-23T00:00:00Z
The quiet noise of the breakers
Falling on the sand. The click
Of a few small pebbles dashed
Against one another.
Then the same again,
And again. Looking out
To where the grey skies meet
The grey water, there is
Only the play of light to distract
The eye; and the steady, rhythmic
Sound of the curled water
Unfolding onto the beach.
CONT...
For the full text and audio listen version of Tide Turned, an Energy Link Up message, and to receive instructions for participating in the Energy Link Up, please go to the Energy Linkup page. ]]>
A TED talk that is well worth listening tohttp://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=732008-03-19T00:00:00Z
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor woke one morning and realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened, as she felt her brain functions slipping away - speech, movement and understanding, she studied and remembered (amazingly) what was happening. Later a blood clot the size of a gold ball was removed and she made a full recovery. Her story has many implications for the way we live our lives, and use our brains. So, I am doing more meditation, and working more with energy.
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Energy Link Up for Sunday 16th March, 2008http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=722008-03-15T00:00:00Z
You are present in the moment,
Energy is flowing past you
On all sides,
Roaring, like a river rushing
Through a valley, tumbling
Round an outcrop, pulling down
Any stray, trailing vegetation
Into its bubbling flow: swallowed.
Life is thundering ahead and about you,
Sweeping you forward
In an unbridled torrent.
For a moment you think to resist
Cont...
To read and listen to the full version of In The Moment, On the Cusp, which is an Energy Linkup message and receive the instructions for participating in the Energy Linkup, please go to Energy Link Up. ]]>
Energy Link Up for Sunday 9th March, 2008http://www.michallevin.com/blog.php?item=712008-03-08T00:00:00Z
Sit still. Let stillness sink
Through your mind, inch by inch,
Ounce by ounce.
Now your inner world is settling,
And the space around you is
Slowly being revealed,
As your gaze pulls back,
And millions upon millions of
Tiny points, like painters' marks,
Fill your view.
A broad vista begins to appear
From the haze:
Rolling low hills and
Distant horizons emerge
In the half light
That is somewhere
Between night and day.
As you wait for the vision
To clear, a shadow descends.
A myriad silver reflections quickly
Turn to gunmetal grey,
Which turns to black,
Blotting out the view and
Cont...
To read and listen to the full version of The Night Witch, and receive the instructions for participating in the Energy Linkup, please go to http://www.michallevin.com/energy_link_up.php.
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