Ibrahim is Right

And you'd do well to bookmark this post, because it's an exception to the rule. Most days of the year he's very wrong. He's even wrong when he calls himself Ibrahim, which not only isn't his name, it's a very misleading name. But when he says he can't delete this blog etc. (See previous post), he's telling it as it is. Nor should he be able to, given how he entered this exercise with as many of his facilities and marbles as he has.

On this blog's ownership

I have been privately contacted in connection with the contents of this blog.

The fact that this is a joint blog may mislead some of our readers into thinking that both co-bloggers share equal responsibility for it, which is not the case. I therefore think it necessary to make the following clarification.

I'm a contributor to this blog, but I'm not the blog's owner. That means I can do certain things (e.g. submitting posts), but I can't do some other things (e.g. changing the blog's format, or inviting other people as guest contributors), and, perhaps most importantly, I can't undo things (e.g. deleting a comment, a post or the blog altogether).

The owner of this blog is Yaacov Lozowick, who can be reached at the e-mail address stated elsewhere on this page. While I'll be glad to respond to queries about my posts and comments, all other observations and complaints should be addressed to him.

Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf

Still Shut Down

The fellow whose name isn't Ibrahim has just unilaterally reactivated this blog, so I thought I'd remind you all that it's an inactive blog, not an active one. As I wrote at the time:

Judeo-Arab Conspiracy has been active less than two weeks, but we're shutting down. The reason for this is that I (Yaacov) raised doubts about Ibrahim's identity, and Ibrahim did not allay them.

I explained my motivation for inviting Ibrahim to join me in this exercise here. Already then we had a built-in problem, in that my identity is clear and transparent, and Google will tell you all about me, while Ibrahim ibn Yusuf is not the person's real name. I was willing to accept this, since I know from experience how hard it is, perhaps even impossible, to find an Arab willing to engage an Israeli in dialogue between equals. Israelis who start by beating their breasts are alright, but not the ones who are comfortable with their country. Apparently, Arabs who talk to that sort put themselves in danger in their own communities.

In my eagerness to engage in this dialogue I was obviously not careful enough. I asked Ibrahim some questions, and decided to accept his word when he responded. Perhaps this was a leftover from my "peace camp" years: we like to assume that the folks facing us are like us, their motivations are similar to ours, the only difference being that they're on the other side of the argument. Anyway, I didn't see any real danger in setting off on this joint project, so set off we did.

The next thing that happened was what anyone who understands the Internet could have foreseen: I began to get responses from readers who thought they knew who Ibrahim really is, readers whom I otherwise would never have encountered. Some of them supplied me with telephone numbers, creating a deeper level of contact than mere e-mails.

When I confronted Ibrahim with the information I was getting, he refrained from disproving it. Faced with the likelihood that there is nothing particularly Arab about him, I don't see how we can continue blogging at a place that defines itself as "A joint blog of a Jewish Zionist and an Arab Anti-Zionist".

The Challenge:

I continue to believe that Israel's positions (though not every single action) are generally defensible, and am willing to stand up to anyone who feels otherwise. Should there be anyone out there who wishes to continue where Ibrahim was not, they know where to find me. They will, of course, need to be google-able, if there is such a word.

Until then, it is my intention to desist from responding to anyone who is not willing to stand forth and identify themselves with their positions.

Yaacov Lozowick

Celebrating one's own terrorists

Today the Arab terrorist Sami Kuntar is being released by Israel in exchange for the remains of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, two Israeli soldiers kidnapped and killed by Hizbullah. There is much rage in Israel about the hero's welcome that Kuntar (who killed a 4-year-old boy by smashing him against a wall) will receive in Lebanon.

And all would be OK if it were not for the implicit assertion that while the Arabs honor their terrorists, Israel doesn't. "Where are the official honors for Baruch Goldstein?," the reasoning goes.

In the first place we must observe that Israel is a country with an army. When you're a people without planes or tanks, it's quite hard to make a murder look like collateral damage. When you've got an army, it's much easier. To put it crudely, any Israeli pilot, or soldier on a tank, can intentionally kill civilians and then claim he was targetting something else. It's his word against the Palestinians', and it is quite possible --I'm not saying certain, but possible-- that some of the soldiers who get military honors in Israel (who knows, maybe even Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser) are actually cold-blooded murderers.

But of course the point can be made that, in any event, Israeli soldiers are not honored in the knowledge that they willingly killed someone innocent.

However, before the creation of the State, certain Jews were involved in serious terroristic activity, willingly killing civilians. The Palestine Post archives can help us in finding a few examples. There, you can access scanned versions of all issues of what now is the Jerusalem Post.

For instance, on 19 Feb 1948 we find on the first page:



The bomb at the marketplace on the weekly market day was later claimed by the Irgun, a Jewish terrorist group.

On 1 Apr 1948, also on the first page, we can read:

As can be seen, the Stern gang, another Jewish terrorist group, was responsible for the mining of this train.

On 14 Dec 1947, among many stories of attacks against Arab civilians reported on the first page, we read:



This attack on a crowded lane between a movie theater and a café was perpetrated by the Irgun (in the article called IZL, Irgun Zvai Leumi).

But of course, we know that both the Irgun and the Stern gang were repudiated by the Israeli society, weren't they?

Nope.

In 1980, the State of Israel honored the terrorists that killed 40 Arabs on a train and 6 Arabs in a marketplace and another 6 Arabs in the street (among countless other atrocities) by awarding them State ribbons. Here's the Lehi (Stern gang) ribbon:



And here is the Irgun ribbon:



So that Israel honors its own terrorists, just like the Palestinians do; it only hopes people won't notice. But in the Internet world, with all that scanned evidence scattered all over the web, relying on the people's bad memory may not be so good an idea.

On not heeding Popper

In a recent post on his blog, Yaacov told us that in certain fields of human knowledge, such as history, no laboratory experiments can be carried out to prove or disprove a theory. In such cases, second best is, according to Austrian philosopher Karl Popper,

to formulate your thesis, and then do your utmost to find facts that will disprove it; only when your repeated attempts to disprove your thesis fail, and you can find no facts that might weaken your position, only then can you begin to assume that perhaps you're right - and perhaps not, since there still may be facts out there that will disprove you, only you haven't found them yet.

For reasons that are themselves undisclosable, I can't reveal my identity. I told this to Yaacov very clearly when he invited me to set up a joint blog. He accepted such terms; with reservations, admittedly, but he did accept them. To my surprise, however, after we had published our first few posts he wrote me to ask if I might be a certain specific person. As could be expected, I answered that since we had agreed that my identity would be secret, I wouldn't discuss it.

From then on, events took a weird turn. Yaacov let me know that certain people had written him to 'expose' me as a non-Arab. He didn't need to know my full name, but asked me to prove my Arabness. Of course, it's very difficult to prove your ethnic origin without disclosing your name.

But, who were those mysterious informers who had denounced me? It's not too difficult to imagine. In the last few months I've been active debating Zionists on their own blogs, in some cases dealing them humiliating defeats. While English-language Zionist bloggers seem to be more tolerant of dissension, Spanish-language ones are not imbued with a comparable openness, coming, as they mainly come, from Argentina, a country still in transition to a full democracy. The result has been that I've been blocked from participating in quite a few Zionist blogs in Spanish. In the face of that, I decided to switch languages and participate more actively in blogs in English. One of the Argentinian bloggers, not content with having expelled me, decided to try and hinder my contribution to English-language blogs as well.

And here is where Popper comes in -- or, rather, does not. When that blogger contacted Yaacov to "expose" me, a student of Popper, as Yaacov likes to call himself, could have used a little skepticism. He could have looked for all evidence that might disprove what was being said about me, and even if he found none he should have given me the benefit of doubt, since "there might be facts out there" that had escaped his radar.

But not for nothing do they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. For all his professed admiration for Popper, Yaacov didn't even begin to do the homework prescribed by his idol. So I helped him a little and pointed to evidence on the web according to which it would be very illogical to think that I was the person I was claimed to be. Yaacov did not comment on this and was adamant that I should prove that I'm an Arab.

Finally, I decided to give in. I offered to provide him with the full disclosure of my name, as well as with documentation that was second-best to an ADN test to prove my ethnic origin, if only he would provide me with all the details of the exchanges with his informers.

Yaacov didn't acquiesce even to this, and I decided to call it quits, as would have any reasonable and self-respecting person in my position.

As a final thought I'll quote Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great people discuss ideas; average people discuss events; small people discuss other people." By the way, I understand that gossiping is looked down upon in Judaism.

Shutting Down

Judeo-Arab Conspiracy has been active less than two weeks, but we're shutting down. The reason for this is that I (Yaacov) raised doubts about Ibrahim's identity, and Ibrahim did not allay them.

I explained my motivation for inviting Ibrahim to join me in this exercise here. Already then we had a built-in problem, in that my identity is clear and transparent, and Google will tell you all about me, while Ibrahim ibn Yusuf is not the person's real name. I was willing to accept this, since I know from experience how hard it is, perhaps even impossible, to find an Arab willing to engage an Israeli in dialogue between equals. Israelis who start by beating their breasts are alright, but not the ones who are comfortable with their country. Apparently, Arabs who talk to that sort put themselves in danger in their own communities.

In my eagerness to engage in this dialogue I was obviously not careful enough. I asked Ibrahim some questions, and decided to accept his word when he responded. Perhaps this was a leftover from my "peace camp" years: we like to assume that the folks facing us are like us, their motivations are similar to ours, the only difference being that they're on the other side of the argument. Anyway, I didn't see any real danger in setting off on this joint project, so set off we did.

The next thing that happened was what anyone who understands the Internet could have foreseen: I began to get responses from readers who thought they knew who Ibrahim really is, readers whom I otherwise would never have encountered. Some of them supplied me with telephone numbers, creating a deeper level of contact than mere e-mails.

When I confronted Ibrahim with the information I was getting, he refrained from disproving it. Faced with the likelihood that there is nothing particularly Arab about him, I don't see how we can continue blogging at a place that defines itself as "A joint blog of a Jewish Zionist and an Arab Anti-Zionist".

The Challenge:

I continue to believe that Israel's positions (though not every single action) are generally defensible, and am willing to stand up to anyone who feels otherwise. Should there be anyone out there who wishes to continue where Ibrahim was not, they know where to find me. They will, of course, need to be google-able, if there is such a word.

Until then, it is my intention to desist from responding to anyone who is not willing to stand forth and identify themselves with their positions.

Yaacov Lozowick

No Peace with Hamas

Two weeks ago Mahmoud al-Zahar, by some accounts the most influential Hamas leader in Gaza, published an op-ed in the Washington Post. At the time I blogged about it here. It seems an appropriate topic with which to launch my first challenge to Ibrahim here on Judeo-Arab Conflict, precisely because Hamas is so important. The movement handily won the previous Palestinian elections, in January 2006, elections which were basically free and democratic; many of us feel that the Palestinian voters behaved like voters everywhere, and chose the party they most identified with. When leading Hamas figures describe their positions, these are the positions of the freely chosen representatives of the Palestinian people. They need to be listened to, and taken seriously.

It is safe to assume that al-Zahar wrote this piece in full deliberation and assisted by colleagues. It’s not every day that he has the opportunity to reach such an important readership as the Washington Post can offer him. There are no Freudian slips or sloppy formulations in this op-ed. The man chose every word with care.

The full text, free of my comments, can be read here.

No Peace Without Hamas

President Jimmy Carter's sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is "business as usual" for the Palestinians.

Carter represents no one, and has no diplomatic standing. Preferring him over the officials of the Administration is akin to thumbing your nose at the American government. Al-Zahar does so because he prefers Carter over the Administration, whom he sees as complicit in Israeli crimes. The depiction of the crimes assumes the readers cannot remember that the Palestinian campaign of murder preceded the Israeli response to it.

Last week's attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal -- from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that "legalizes" the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less.

The attack on the fuel depot was designed to hurt the Palestinian populace, not the Israelis, but al-Zahar is proud of it, because of the totality of the war between Palestine and Israel, which includes a war over history: Israel has invented a false version of it so as to harm the Palestinians.

The comparison with the Warsaw ghetto is obscene, and I won’t respond to its content. But notice that twice in one paragraph al-Zahar has denied the Jews of their right to their own history, once in regard to their land, once in regard to the persecutions they suffered.

The U.S.-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East. Yet efforts to subvert our democratic experience include the American coup d'etat that created the new sectarian paradigm with Fatah and the continuing warfare against and enforced isolation of Gazans.

On the contrary. Sanctions against countries which democratically elect unacceptable leaders are the price voters pay for their decisions. It is their right to choose horrendous leaders, and it is the right of others to respond appropriately. This is what was done to Apartheid South Africa, but also, on a smaller scale, to Austria under president Waldheim, and later to the same Austria when a quarter of its electorate supported Haider. It might also be worthwhile to add that the sanctions against Hamas are maintained by the EU, not only Israel and the US. How the Americans or Israelis can be blamed for the internal Palestinian war of 2007 is a puzzle al-Zahar does not resolve.

Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no "peace plan," "road map" or "legacy" can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.

Had Carter had been listening to himself on the need for peace, and to al-Zahar on the need for war until Israel disappears, he would have gone home a disillusioned man. But he had no intention of listening, only of preaching.

Israel's escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis "peace conference" in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment -- in violation of international conventions. Israeli military strikes on Gaza have killed hundreds of Palestinians since then with unwavering White House approval; in 2007 alone the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 40 to 1, up from 4 to 1 during the period from 2000 to 2005.

Ah, the good old days in 2002 when the Palestinians were united in violating international conventions by massacring Israeli civilians, how fine they were! Such a sad state of the matter that the Israelis have figured out how to suffer less from Palestinian murder campaigns.

Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled -- my first-born -- after an Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.

Hussam was only 21, but like most young men in Gaza he had grown up fast out of necessity. When I was his age, I wanted to be a surgeon; in the 1960s, we were already refugees, but there was no humiliating blockade then. But now, after decades of imprisonment, killing, statelessness and impoverishment, we ask: What peace can there be if there is no dignity first? And where does dignity come from if not from justice?

Was Hussam only a student, or perhaps also a Hamas fighter? Further down it will appear he was a fighter, meaning his death could have been part of a war. It is however tragic, because when Hussam was 19, Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip with the intention of never returning, and had Hussam and his fellows determined to dedicate all their efforts and ingenuity to building a better future for themselves and their people, Israel would have applauded them for their efforts, and would have moved out of most of the West Bank just as Olmert was explicitly elected to do in Spring 2006. As Hussam’s father will relate in the next paragraph, however, he raised Hussam not to wish for a better life, but to kill and be killed for a life without Israel.

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state -- the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees -- to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away. Judaism -- which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam -- has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

This is the crux of the matter, indeed. The war with Israel is about its existence and the “fundamental crime” of its ever having been founded. Al-Zahar, who elsewhere (in the Hamas Charter) professes to believe that the Jews are the source of most evil in human history, here pretends to admire them for their contributions, while insisting that they have no right to their own history, their own culture, their own dreams. Only Palestinians can have those.

A "peace process" with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

Israel must first undo its victory in its war of self defense in 1967, before any peace negotiations may even begin (“without preconditions”). Once it has done so, it will be possible to dismantle the Jewish State, for only so can the Palestinians “be whole again”, whatever that might mean, because that’s their unilateral decision: that they not have to live with a Jewish State.

I am eternally proud of my sons and miss them every day. I think of them as fathers everywhere, even in Israel, think of their sons -- as innocent boys, as curious students, as young men with limitless potential -- not as "gunmen" or "militants." But better that they were defenders of their people than parties to their ultimate dispossession; better that they were active in the Palestinian struggle for survival than passive witnesses to our subjugation.

Better that they did their utmost to kill Israeli civilians on the long road to destroying Israel, rather than trying to make a better future for themselves in the real world. (Which could be what Tikkun Olam is about, since he professes to admire it so).

History teaches us that everything is in flux. Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun, and adversity has taught us patience. As for the Israeli state and its Spartan culture of permanent war, it is all too vulnerable to time, fatigue and demographics: In the end, it is always a question of our children and those who come after us.

If we wage war long enough, someday we’ll win, and the result will prove everything was justified.

Everything clear, President Carter?