Salil Tripathi in The Guardian
Some thought the BJP’s reduced majority after recent elections would humble it. Tell that to the Booker prize-winning author
This month, the highest ranking bureaucrat of the state of Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena, gave his permission for the Delhi police to prosecute Arundhati Roy and Sheikh Showkat Hussain for remarks they made at a public event 14 years ago. The opposition Aam Aadmi party governs Delhi, but the capital’s police reports to the central government’s home ministry. While the prime minister, Narendra Modi, lost his parliamentary majority in the recently concluded elections, the prosecution of Roy shows that those who expected a chastened government willing to operate differently are likely to be disappointed.
Hussain and Roy are to be tried for making speeches at a conference called Azadi [Urdu for “freedom”]: The Only Way, which questioned Indian rule in the then state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hussain is a Kashmiri academic, author and human rights activist. Roy is among India’s most celebrated authors, with a wide following around the world.
After Roy won the Booker prize in 1997, for The God of Small Things, she became the nation’s darling. It was the year of India, in a sense: the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, and the year Salman Rushdie, the first Indian-born winner of the Booker, published a volume anthologising new Indian literature. Roy was a fresh voice from the still young, post-independence India, reminding us of the multitude of stories from the subcontinent not yet told. She became an idol to be followed and imitated. Indeed, in Mira Nair’s 2001 film Monsoon Wedding, a character who wants to pursue creative writing at an American university is told by an uncle: “Lots of money in writing these days. That girl who won the Booker prize became an overnight millionaire.”
But many of those uncles – powerful and privileged – are no longer happy with Roy. When Saxena announced that Roy could be prosecuted under India’s draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), because she had said at this event that Kashmir had never been an “integral” part of India, there was outrage abroad from intellectuals and writers’ organisations, but responses in India were less spirited. While politicians such as Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress were prompt in criticising the move, others on social media commended the government and gleefully admonished those who defended Roy. Their reasoning: Roy was “anti-national”, unpatriotic, sympathising with terrorists, and needed to face the full force of the law.
The UAPA is a draconian law – being granted bail is extremely difficult, and the accused can be taken into custody before the trial even begins. And the proceedings may not begin for years, as has happened to several leading dissidents during the Modi years. But its use against Roy in this case is puzzling. Lawyers have pointed out procedural gaps: it is not known if the Delhi police has filed a formal report, known as “charge sheet”, after conducting investigations, which is necessary before prosecution can begin. India’s highest court requires the authorities to explain why they wish to use the UAPA, and Saxena’s order offers no explanation. Nor does a 14 June note published on social media that carries his signature. Under UAPA, central government approval is necessary before prosecution can begin, and the authority can grant such permission only after there has been an independent review of evidence gathered. It is not known publicly if any of those steps have been taken, raising profound questions about the legality of the approval itself. Some lawyers believe that the government may have invoked the UAPA to sidestep the legal bar of the statute of limitations.
Despite this travesty, if Roy is not getting an outpouring of public sympathy, it has to do with how India has changed in the past quarter of a century. Its elite are keen to shed the past image of a poor, struggling country. India deserves a seat at the main table, they say; and dissidents and writers who question Indian policies are inconvenient do-gooders whose pessimism interferes with India’s ascent. On significant issues on which much of India’s majoritarian, powerful elite believes there is consensus, Roy is the naysayer.
Consider Roy’s views on Kashmir, the disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have gone to at least three wars, and where Pakistan-supported insurgents have sought independence. The Indian army has stationed tens of thousands of troops there, and human rights groups have accused the Indian state and extremist groups of abuses. Roy has listened to Kashmiri voices and challenged India’s human rights record for more than a decade. She has persistently opposed India’s governing consensus and conduct in Kashmir – her last novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness – describes the Kashmir crisis graphically. Triumphalist Indians don’t like to hear such criticism.
Nor do many Indians like her questioning the wisdom of building large dams to produce electricity or irrigate farms. Building dams was the dream of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; he called dams “temples of modern India”. The dams helped farms and generated power, and well-meaning development experts questioned Roy’s stance. But Roy showed how they also displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The dispossessed saw the mandatory land acquisitions as a land grab by the powerful.
Roy has also written critically of Gandhi’s views on the “untouchable” caste Dalits, calling them discriminatory and patronising, and has been a vocal critic of India’s nuclear tests and arsenal. These views offend India’s conservative and liberal opinion. India’s peaceniks admire Gandhi; India’s Hindu nationalists hate Gandhi but love the bomb. The fact that she wins accolades abroad, and prominent western publications give her space to write, rattles and rankles them even more. The powerful in India want to hear only praise; Roy keeps reminding the world of the rot within.
Whether or not Roy gets prosecuted remains to be seen; prosecuting authorities may feel the evidence isn’t enough, or much time has passed, and her lawyers may succeed with their procedural objections. The government too may prefer the ambiguity, hoping that the threat of prosecution might keep her, and other dissidents, silent.
But one thing is certain: it was wrong to assume that Modi has changed. Pursuing someone as high-profile as Roy is the government’s way of warning critics that they must not expect anything different. The sword hangs over the critics; Roy reminds us why the pen must remain mightier than the sword.
Showing posts with label bomb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bomb. Show all posts
Saturday, 22 June 2024
Friday, 25 September 2015
Bomb both sides in Syria and we’ll fix the country in a jiffy
We could also bomb Hell, and within a month the residents would say ‘We were better off under Satan’
Mark Steel in The Independent
Some people get confused by events in Syria, but they’re not that complicated. Quite simply, we need to bomb somewhere or other out there, like we should have done two years ago. Back then we should have dropped bombs to support the Isis rebels fighting against the evil Assad. But as we didn’t bother, we now need to put that right by bombing the Isis rebels, and protecting Assad.
Because if only we had bombed Assad back then, it would be much easier to bomb Isis and their allies now, as we would be one of their allies so we could bomb ourselves. And we could do that without the fuss of going all the way to Syria, which would cut down on carbon emissions as well.
Also, we could ask Isis if they had any bombs left over that we had given them, “as we need them back to bomb you please”.
The change has happened because back then, you may recall, Assad was so unspeakably evil he had gassed his own people. But now we have decided we support Assad so I suppose we have found out the gas wasn’t so much a chemical weapon as a Syrian version of Febreze, that has left Aleppo with an alluring scent of lemon.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned against bombing, saying “Syria is not Libya, it won’t implode but explode beyond its borders.” So that might not be too cheery, if he is saying things will not necessarily go as smoothly as they have turned out in Libya.
If you were really fussy, you could look for another example of a western invasion in the Syria/Iraq region in the recent past, and find out how well that went. But where we went wrong in Libya and Iraq, is we only bombed one side.
This is the sort of pacifist behaviour that causes the trouble. We should have bombed all the different sides, to make sure we annihilate the right people.
Sometimes we have tried this to a certain extent, so at different times we have armed Assad and Gaddafi and Saddam and Bin Laden and then bombed them for using the bombs we had sold them. But it is not organised properly and leaves the poor sods confused.
Instead of supporting Arab dictators for 20 years, then opposing them for three, and then supporting them again, we should arrange it on a rota system. We could bomb them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, bomb their opponents on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and leave Sundays for US construction companies to make some money rebuilding the stuff we have bombed, so there is something new to bomb.
Otherwise we are left with the predicament Tony Blair finds himself in. He complains that we didn’t bomb Assad two years ago. But, in 2002, Blair invited Assad to stay at Buckingham Palace and praised his modernising outlook. If he had used my suggested system, he could have grovelled to him on Thursday, then bombed him in his bedroom on Friday. I’m sure the Queen wouldn’t have minded sleeping on a mate’s settee for a couple of weeks while builders repaired the damage.
The silly thing is, it’s now claimed there are secret units of the IRA – who have kept their weapons against the rules of the peace process. It would have kept them out of mischief if they had been asked to bomb Blair’s pals such as Assad and Gaddafi, as long as they did it on one of the agreed days, and it would have strengthened the Northern Ireland peace process as well.
There could also be a surprise element to which side we bomb, with vast commercial potential. Instead of the same predictable places popping up, there should be an international body that chooses the venue, with Sepp Blatter opening an envelope to reveal “next year the place we have to bomb as we can’t just do nothing is… Finland”.
Then, whenever someone suggests bombing Finland will make things worse, columnists and politicians and blokes in pubs can shout “well, we can’t do NOTHING”.
This argument, that we can’t do NOTHING, is powerful and well thought through, because it’s clear from Western military interventions in the Middle East that no matter how bad the situation is before we go there, we manage to make it worse. This must have taken immense planning in Libya, but was worth it because everyone seems to agree that most of the country looks back on their days under the foul, despotic, murderous tyranny of Gaddafi with a dreamy nostalgic affection.
We could bomb Hell, and within a month the residents would say “We were better off under Satan. At least he kept the demons under some sort of control.”
Maybe the problem is we are not entirely trusted. This goes to show what a touchy people they are out there. We do all we can to support the spread of democracy by arming the royal family of Saudi Arabia and the Amir of Kuwait and the honourable folk who rule Qatar, and go out of our way to support people with titles such as “Mighty Wizard of Eternal Vengeance and Holy uber-King who can make up laws as he goes along, Divinely Grand Swisher of the Majestic Whip and his Million Wives of Bahrain”, and the little sods still doubt our honourable intentions.
But now there is an even more urgent reason to back the bombing of somewhere or other, which is we must do it for the refugees. The Sun newspaper, in particular, has been running a campaign that we “Do it for Aylan”, the three-year-old lad who was drowned as his family fled from the horrors of Isis.
I suppose they must have spoken to Aylan’s family, who would have told The Sun that bombing somewhere or other is exactly what he would have wanted.
Mark Steel in The Independent
Some people get confused by events in Syria, but they’re not that complicated. Quite simply, we need to bomb somewhere or other out there, like we should have done two years ago. Back then we should have dropped bombs to support the Isis rebels fighting against the evil Assad. But as we didn’t bother, we now need to put that right by bombing the Isis rebels, and protecting Assad.
Because if only we had bombed Assad back then, it would be much easier to bomb Isis and their allies now, as we would be one of their allies so we could bomb ourselves. And we could do that without the fuss of going all the way to Syria, which would cut down on carbon emissions as well.
Also, we could ask Isis if they had any bombs left over that we had given them, “as we need them back to bomb you please”.
The change has happened because back then, you may recall, Assad was so unspeakably evil he had gassed his own people. But now we have decided we support Assad so I suppose we have found out the gas wasn’t so much a chemical weapon as a Syrian version of Febreze, that has left Aleppo with an alluring scent of lemon.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned against bombing, saying “Syria is not Libya, it won’t implode but explode beyond its borders.” So that might not be too cheery, if he is saying things will not necessarily go as smoothly as they have turned out in Libya.
If you were really fussy, you could look for another example of a western invasion in the Syria/Iraq region in the recent past, and find out how well that went. But where we went wrong in Libya and Iraq, is we only bombed one side.
This is the sort of pacifist behaviour that causes the trouble. We should have bombed all the different sides, to make sure we annihilate the right people.
Sometimes we have tried this to a certain extent, so at different times we have armed Assad and Gaddafi and Saddam and Bin Laden and then bombed them for using the bombs we had sold them. But it is not organised properly and leaves the poor sods confused.
Instead of supporting Arab dictators for 20 years, then opposing them for three, and then supporting them again, we should arrange it on a rota system. We could bomb them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, bomb their opponents on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and leave Sundays for US construction companies to make some money rebuilding the stuff we have bombed, so there is something new to bomb.
Otherwise we are left with the predicament Tony Blair finds himself in. He complains that we didn’t bomb Assad two years ago. But, in 2002, Blair invited Assad to stay at Buckingham Palace and praised his modernising outlook. If he had used my suggested system, he could have grovelled to him on Thursday, then bombed him in his bedroom on Friday. I’m sure the Queen wouldn’t have minded sleeping on a mate’s settee for a couple of weeks while builders repaired the damage.
The silly thing is, it’s now claimed there are secret units of the IRA – who have kept their weapons against the rules of the peace process. It would have kept them out of mischief if they had been asked to bomb Blair’s pals such as Assad and Gaddafi, as long as they did it on one of the agreed days, and it would have strengthened the Northern Ireland peace process as well.
There could also be a surprise element to which side we bomb, with vast commercial potential. Instead of the same predictable places popping up, there should be an international body that chooses the venue, with Sepp Blatter opening an envelope to reveal “next year the place we have to bomb as we can’t just do nothing is… Finland”.
Then, whenever someone suggests bombing Finland will make things worse, columnists and politicians and blokes in pubs can shout “well, we can’t do NOTHING”.
This argument, that we can’t do NOTHING, is powerful and well thought through, because it’s clear from Western military interventions in the Middle East that no matter how bad the situation is before we go there, we manage to make it worse. This must have taken immense planning in Libya, but was worth it because everyone seems to agree that most of the country looks back on their days under the foul, despotic, murderous tyranny of Gaddafi with a dreamy nostalgic affection.
We could bomb Hell, and within a month the residents would say “We were better off under Satan. At least he kept the demons under some sort of control.”
Maybe the problem is we are not entirely trusted. This goes to show what a touchy people they are out there. We do all we can to support the spread of democracy by arming the royal family of Saudi Arabia and the Amir of Kuwait and the honourable folk who rule Qatar, and go out of our way to support people with titles such as “Mighty Wizard of Eternal Vengeance and Holy uber-King who can make up laws as he goes along, Divinely Grand Swisher of the Majestic Whip and his Million Wives of Bahrain”, and the little sods still doubt our honourable intentions.
But now there is an even more urgent reason to back the bombing of somewhere or other, which is we must do it for the refugees. The Sun newspaper, in particular, has been running a campaign that we “Do it for Aylan”, the three-year-old lad who was drowned as his family fled from the horrors of Isis.
I suppose they must have spoken to Aylan’s family, who would have told The Sun that bombing somewhere or other is exactly what he would have wanted.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Bomb?
Uri Avnery in Outlook India
I MUST start with a shocking confession: I am not afraid of the Iranian nuclear bomb.
I know that this makes me an abnormal person, almost a freak.
But what can I do? I am unable to work up fear, like a real Israeli. Try as I may, the Iranian bomb does not make me hysterical.
MY FATHER once taught me how to withstand blackmail: imagine that the awful threat of the blackmailer has already come about. Then you can tell him: Go to hell.
I have tried many times to follow this advice and found it sound. So now I apply it to the Iranian bomb: I imagine that the worst has already happened: the awful ayatollahs have got the bombs that can eradicate little Israel in a minute.
So what?
According to foreign experts, Israel has several hundred nuclear bombs (assessments vary between 80-400). If Iran sends its bombs and obliterates most of Israel (myself included), Israeli submarines will obliterate Iran. Whatever I might think about Binyamin Netanyahu, I rely on him and our security chiefs to keep our "second strike" capability intact. Just last week we were informed that Germany had delivered another state-of-the-art submarine to our navy for this purpose.
Israeli idiots — and there are some around — respond: "Yes, but the Iranian leaders are not normal people. They are madmen. Religious fanatics. They will risk the total destruction of Iran just to destroy the Zionist state. Like exchanging queens in chess."
Such convictions are the outcome of decades of demonizing. Iranians — or at least their leaders — are seen as subhuman miscreants.
Reality shows us that the leaders of Iran are very sober, very calculating politicians. Cautious merchants in the Iranian bazaar style. They don't take unnecessary risks. The revolutionary fervor of the early Khomeini days is long past, and even Khomeini would not have dreamt of doing anything so close to national suicide.
ACCORDING TO the Bible, the great Persian king Cyrus allowed the captive Jews of Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. At that time, Persia was already an ancient civilization — both cultural and political.
After the "return from Babylon", the Jewish commonwealth around Jerusalem lived for 200 years under Persian suzerainty. I was taught in school that these were happy years for the Jews.
Since then, Persian culture and history has lived through another two and a half millennia. Persian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. It has created a great religion and influenced many others, including Judaism. Iranians are fiercely proud of that civilization.
To imagine that the present leaders of Iran would even contemplate risking the very existence of Persia out of hatred of Israel is both ridiculous and megalomaniac.
Moreover, throughout history, relations between Jews and Persians have almost always been excellent. When Israel was founded, Iran was considered a natural ally, part of David Ben-Gurion's "strategy of the periphery" — an alliance with all the countries surrounding the Arab world.
The Shah, who was re-installed by the American and British secret services, was a very close ally. Teheran was full of Israeli businessmen and military advisers. It served as a base for the Israeli agents working with the rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq who were fighting against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
After the Islamic revolution, Israel still supported Iran against Iraq in their cruel 8-year war. The notorious Irangate affair, in which my friend Amiram Nir and Oliver North played such an important role, would not have been possible without the old Iranian-Israeli ties.
Even now, Iran and Israel are conducting amiable arbitration proceedings about an old venture: the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline built jointly by the two countries.
If the worst comes to the worst, nuclear Israel and nuclear Iran will live in a Balance of Terror.
Highly unpleasant, indeed. But not an existential menace.
HOWEVER, FOR those who live in terror of the Iranian nuclear capabilities, I have a piece of advice: use the time we still have.
Under the American-Iranian deal, we have at least 10 years before Iran could start the final phase of producing the bomb.
Please use this time for making peace.
The Iranian hatred of the "Zionist Regime" — the State of Israel — derives from the fate of the Palestinian people. The feeling of solidarity for the helpless Palestinians is deeply ingrained in all Islamic peoples. It is part of the popular culture in all of them. It is quite real, even if the political regimes misuse, manipulate or ignore it.
Since there is no ground for a specific Iranian hatred of Israel, it is solely based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No conflict, no enmity.
Logic tells us: if we have several years before we have to live in the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb, let's use this time to eliminate the conflict. Once the Palestinians themselves declare that they consider the historic conflict with Israel settled, no Iranian leadership will be able to rouse its people against us.
FOR SEVERAL weeks now, Netanyahu has been priding himself publicly on a huge, indeed historic, achievement.
For the first time ever, Israel is practically part of an Arab alliance.
Throughout the region, the conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is raging. The Shiite camp, headed by Iran, includes the Shiites in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. (Netanyahu falsely — or out of ignorance — includes the Sunni Hamas in this camp.)
The opposite Sunni camp includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states. Netanyahu hints that Israel is now secretly accepted by them as a member.
It is a very untidy picture. Iran is fighting against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which is a mortal enemy of Israel. Iran is supporting the Assad regime in Damascus, which is also supported by Hezbollah, which fights against the lslamic State, while the Saudis support other extreme Sunni Syrians who fight against Assad and the Islamic State. Turkey supports Iran and the Saudis while fighting against Assad. And so on.
I am not enamored with Arab military dictatorships and corrupt monarchies. Frankly, I detest them. But if Israel succeeds in becoming an official member of any Arab coalition, it would be a historic breakthrough, the first in 130 years of Zionist-Arab conflict.
However, all Israeli relations with Arab countries are secret, except those with Egypt and Jordan, and even with these two the contacts are cold and distant, relations between the regimes rather than between the peoples.
Let's face facts: no Arab state will engage in open and close cooperation with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ended. Even kings and dictators cannot afford to do so. The solidarity of their peoples with the oppressed Palestinians is far too profound.
Real peace with the Arab countries is impossible without peace with the Palestinian people, as peace with the Palestinian people is impossible without peace with the Arab countries.
So if there is now a chance to establish official peace with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and to turn the cold peace with Egypt into a real one, Netanyahu should jump at it. The terms of an agreement are already lying on the table: the Saudi peace plan, also called the Arab Initiative, which was adopted many years ago by the entire Arab League. It is based on the two-state solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Netanyahu could amaze the whole world by "doing a de Gaulle" — making peace with the Sunni Arab world (as de Gaulle did with Algeria) which would compel the Shiites to follow suit.
Do I believe in this? I do not. But if God wills it, even a broomstick can shoot.
And on the day of the Jewish Pesach feast, commemorating the (imaginary) exodus from Egypt, we are reminding ourselves that miracles do happen.
I MUST start with a shocking confession: I am not afraid of the Iranian nuclear bomb.
I know that this makes me an abnormal person, almost a freak.
But what can I do? I am unable to work up fear, like a real Israeli. Try as I may, the Iranian bomb does not make me hysterical.
MY FATHER once taught me how to withstand blackmail: imagine that the awful threat of the blackmailer has already come about. Then you can tell him: Go to hell.
I have tried many times to follow this advice and found it sound. So now I apply it to the Iranian bomb: I imagine that the worst has already happened: the awful ayatollahs have got the bombs that can eradicate little Israel in a minute.
So what?
According to foreign experts, Israel has several hundred nuclear bombs (assessments vary between 80-400). If Iran sends its bombs and obliterates most of Israel (myself included), Israeli submarines will obliterate Iran. Whatever I might think about Binyamin Netanyahu, I rely on him and our security chiefs to keep our "second strike" capability intact. Just last week we were informed that Germany had delivered another state-of-the-art submarine to our navy for this purpose.
Israeli idiots — and there are some around — respond: "Yes, but the Iranian leaders are not normal people. They are madmen. Religious fanatics. They will risk the total destruction of Iran just to destroy the Zionist state. Like exchanging queens in chess."
Such convictions are the outcome of decades of demonizing. Iranians — or at least their leaders — are seen as subhuman miscreants.
Reality shows us that the leaders of Iran are very sober, very calculating politicians. Cautious merchants in the Iranian bazaar style. They don't take unnecessary risks. The revolutionary fervor of the early Khomeini days is long past, and even Khomeini would not have dreamt of doing anything so close to national suicide.
ACCORDING TO the Bible, the great Persian king Cyrus allowed the captive Jews of Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. At that time, Persia was already an ancient civilization — both cultural and political.
After the "return from Babylon", the Jewish commonwealth around Jerusalem lived for 200 years under Persian suzerainty. I was taught in school that these were happy years for the Jews.
Since then, Persian culture and history has lived through another two and a half millennia. Persian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. It has created a great religion and influenced many others, including Judaism. Iranians are fiercely proud of that civilization.
To imagine that the present leaders of Iran would even contemplate risking the very existence of Persia out of hatred of Israel is both ridiculous and megalomaniac.
Moreover, throughout history, relations between Jews and Persians have almost always been excellent. When Israel was founded, Iran was considered a natural ally, part of David Ben-Gurion's "strategy of the periphery" — an alliance with all the countries surrounding the Arab world.
The Shah, who was re-installed by the American and British secret services, was a very close ally. Teheran was full of Israeli businessmen and military advisers. It served as a base for the Israeli agents working with the rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq who were fighting against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
After the Islamic revolution, Israel still supported Iran against Iraq in their cruel 8-year war. The notorious Irangate affair, in which my friend Amiram Nir and Oliver North played such an important role, would not have been possible without the old Iranian-Israeli ties.
Even now, Iran and Israel are conducting amiable arbitration proceedings about an old venture: the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline built jointly by the two countries.
If the worst comes to the worst, nuclear Israel and nuclear Iran will live in a Balance of Terror.
Highly unpleasant, indeed. But not an existential menace.
HOWEVER, FOR those who live in terror of the Iranian nuclear capabilities, I have a piece of advice: use the time we still have.
Under the American-Iranian deal, we have at least 10 years before Iran could start the final phase of producing the bomb.
Please use this time for making peace.
The Iranian hatred of the "Zionist Regime" — the State of Israel — derives from the fate of the Palestinian people. The feeling of solidarity for the helpless Palestinians is deeply ingrained in all Islamic peoples. It is part of the popular culture in all of them. It is quite real, even if the political regimes misuse, manipulate or ignore it.
Since there is no ground for a specific Iranian hatred of Israel, it is solely based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No conflict, no enmity.
Logic tells us: if we have several years before we have to live in the shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb, let's use this time to eliminate the conflict. Once the Palestinians themselves declare that they consider the historic conflict with Israel settled, no Iranian leadership will be able to rouse its people against us.
FOR SEVERAL weeks now, Netanyahu has been priding himself publicly on a huge, indeed historic, achievement.
For the first time ever, Israel is practically part of an Arab alliance.
Throughout the region, the conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is raging. The Shiite camp, headed by Iran, includes the Shiites in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. (Netanyahu falsely — or out of ignorance — includes the Sunni Hamas in this camp.)
The opposite Sunni camp includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states. Netanyahu hints that Israel is now secretly accepted by them as a member.
It is a very untidy picture. Iran is fighting against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which is a mortal enemy of Israel. Iran is supporting the Assad regime in Damascus, which is also supported by Hezbollah, which fights against the lslamic State, while the Saudis support other extreme Sunni Syrians who fight against Assad and the Islamic State. Turkey supports Iran and the Saudis while fighting against Assad. And so on.
I am not enamored with Arab military dictatorships and corrupt monarchies. Frankly, I detest them. But if Israel succeeds in becoming an official member of any Arab coalition, it would be a historic breakthrough, the first in 130 years of Zionist-Arab conflict.
However, all Israeli relations with Arab countries are secret, except those with Egypt and Jordan, and even with these two the contacts are cold and distant, relations between the regimes rather than between the peoples.
Let's face facts: no Arab state will engage in open and close cooperation with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ended. Even kings and dictators cannot afford to do so. The solidarity of their peoples with the oppressed Palestinians is far too profound.
Real peace with the Arab countries is impossible without peace with the Palestinian people, as peace with the Palestinian people is impossible without peace with the Arab countries.
So if there is now a chance to establish official peace with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and to turn the cold peace with Egypt into a real one, Netanyahu should jump at it. The terms of an agreement are already lying on the table: the Saudi peace plan, also called the Arab Initiative, which was adopted many years ago by the entire Arab League. It is based on the two-state solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Netanyahu could amaze the whole world by "doing a de Gaulle" — making peace with the Sunni Arab world (as de Gaulle did with Algeria) which would compel the Shiites to follow suit.
Do I believe in this? I do not. But if God wills it, even a broomstick can shoot.
And on the day of the Jewish Pesach feast, commemorating the (imaginary) exodus from Egypt, we are reminding ourselves that miracles do happen.
Sunday, 16 March 2014
10 of the best Tony Benn quotes
Tony Benn was known as an eloquent and inspirational speaker. Here are ten of his most memorable quotes, as picked by Guardian readers
1) “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”
Tony Benn was interviewed in Sicko, Michael Moore’s documentary film about the health industry in the US. Explaining the post-war creation of the welfare state, he said the popular mood of the 1945 election was: “If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can’t we have full employment by building hospitals, building schools?”
2) His “Five questions” for the powerful.
Tony Benn’s final speech to the House of Commons as MP was an appropriately eloquent farewell, in which he talked widely on his view of the role of parliament and the wider question of democracy. As Hansard records, he said:
In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.
3) “Making mistakes is how you learn.”
I made every mistake in the book, but making mistakes is how you learn. I would be ashamed if I ever said anything I didn’t believe in, to get on personally.
4) “I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so”
With a typically memorable turn of phrase, Tony Benn signalled the end of his parliamentary career in 1999, when he announced he would not be standing for re-election at the next general election. Asked whether he would be taking his place in the House of Lords, the former Viscount Stansgate - Benn renounced his peerage back in 1963 - replied: “Don’t be silly.”5) “The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.”
Given the above, this quote is not especially surprising, but worth repeating. Tony Benn was a lifelong campaigner for constitutional reform, and introduced a bill that would have allowed him to renounce his peerage as early as 1955.
6) “I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”
Another quote from Tony Benn’s interview with Michael Moore in Sicko, in which he highlighted poverty and healthcare inequality as a democratic issue. “The people in debt become hopeless, and the hopeless people don’t vote... an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern,” he said.
7) “Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself”
Tony Benn thought any meaningful change could only come from below, and felt apathy was openly encouraged by those in positions of power. “The Prime Minister said in 1911, 14 years before I was born, that if women get the vote it will undermine parliamentary democracy. How did apartheid end? How did anything happen?”
8) “We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.”
Blamed by many for contributing to Labour’s lack of electoral success during the 1980s, Tony Benn was a totem for those who rejected the shift to the right widely seen as necessary if the party was to regain power. This shift was eventually completed under Tony Blair, who pushed through the abandonment of clause IV and redefined Labour as a party comfortable with privatisation and free market economics. The quote above indicates why Benn resisted such a move.
9) “There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.”
10) “A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.”
Tony Benn’s calcified view of the US as an imperialist force left him on the margins of mainstream opinion during the cold war, but a voice of reason to many after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
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