I went to interview some of these early Jewish colonial zealots—written off in those days as mere 'fringe' elements—and found that they called themselves Gush Emunim or—it sounded just as bad in English—'The Bloc of the Faithful.' Why not just say 'Party of God' and have done with it? At least they didn't have the nerve to say that they stole other people's land because their own home in Poland or Belarus had been taken from them. They said they took the land because god had given it to them from time immemorial. In the noisome town of Hebron, where all of life is focused on a supposedly sacred boneyard in a dank local cave, one of the world's less pretty sights is that of supposed yeshivah students toting submachine guns and humbling the Arab inhabitants. When I asked one of these charmers where he got his legal authority to be a squatter, he flung his hand, index finger outstretched, toward the sky.
Christopher HitchensTags: god guns jews arabs israel poland colonialism palestine students belarus religious-extremism palestinians israeli-palestinian-conflict gush-emunim hebron squatters yeshivas zionists
Actually—and this was where I began to feel seriously uncomfortable—some such divine claim underlay not just 'the occupation' but the whole idea of a separate state for Jews in Palestine. Take away the divine warrant for the Holy Land and where were you, and what were you? Just another land-thief like the Turks or the British, except that in this case you wanted the land without the people. And the original Zionist slogan—'a land without a people for a people without a land'—disclosed its own negation when I saw the densely populated Arab towns dwelling sullenly under Jewish tutelage. You want irony? How about Jews becoming colonizers at just the moment when other Europeans had given up on the idea?
Christopher HitchensTags: religion irony jews land europe arabs israel turkey britain zionism colonialism palestine israeli-palestinian-conflict holy-land
Arab nationalism in its traditional form was the way in which secular Arab Christians like Edward had found and kept a place for themselves, while simultaneously avoiding the charge of being too 'Western.' It was very noticeable among the Palestinians that the most demonstrably 'extreme' nationalists—and Marxists—were often from Christian backgrounds. George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh used to be celebrated examples of this phenomenon, long before anyone had heard of the cadres of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad. There was an element of overcompensation involved, or so I came to suspect.
Christopher HitchensTags: christianity nationalism christians arabs overcompensation edward-said palestinians arab-christians arab-nationalism george-habash hamas islamic-jihad marxists nationalists nayef-hawatmeh secularists
Then all at once our personal and political quarrels were made very abruptly to converge. In the special edition of the London Review of Books published to mark the events of September 11, 2001, Edward painted a picture of an almost fascist America where Arab and Muslim citizens were being daily terrorized by pogroms, these being instigated by men like Paul Wolfowitz who had talked of 'ending' the regimes that sheltered Al Quaeda. Again, I could hardly credit that these sentences were being produced by a cultured person, let alone printed by a civilized publication.
Christopher HitchensTags: politics friendship united-states fascism arabs muslims quarrel edward-said september-11-attacks 2001 al-quaeda lrb paul-wolfowitz pogroms
Inevitably came the time when he angrily repudiated his former paladin Yasser Arafat. In fact, he described him to me as 'the Palestinian blend of Marshal Petaín and Papa Doc.' But the main problem, alas, remained the same. In Edward's moral universe, Arafat could at last be named as a thug and a practitioner of corruption and extortion. But he could only be identified as such to the extent that he was now and at last aligned with an American design. Thus the only truly unpardonable thing about 'The Chairman' was his readiness to appear on the White House lawn with Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton in 1993. I have real knowledge and memory of this, because George Stephanopoulos—whose father's Orthodox church in Ohio and New York had kept him in touch with what was still a predominantly Christian Arab-American opinion—called me more than once from the White House to help beseech Edward to show up at the event. 'The feedback we get from Arab-American voters is this: If it's such a great idea, why isn't Said signing off on it?' When I called him, Edward was grudging and crabby. 'The old man [Arafat] has no right to sign away land.' Really? Then what had the Algiers deal been all about? How could two states come into being without mutual concessions on territory?
Christopher HitchensTags: united-states corruption new-york 1993 christians arabs ohio bill-clinton territory white-house edward-said vox-populi arafat israeli-palestinian-conflict extortion francois-duvalier george-stephanopoulos philippe-petain yitzhak-rabin
Drilling without thinking has of course been Republican party policy since May 2008. With gas prices soaring to unprecedented heights, that's when the conservative leader Newt Gingrich unveiled the slogan 'Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less'—with an emphasis on the now. The wildly popular campaign was a cry against caution, against study, against measured action. In Gingrich's telling, drilling at home wherever the oil and gas might be—locked in Rocky Mountain shale, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and deep offshore—was a surefire way to lower the price at the pump, create jobs, and kick Arab ass all at once. In the face of this triple win, caring about the environment was for sissies: as senator Mitch McConnell put it, 'in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty'. By the time the infamous 'Drill Baby Drill' Republican national convention rolled around, the party base was in such a frenzy for US-made fossil fuels, they would have bored under the convention floor if someone had brought a big enough drill.
Naomi KleinTags: alabama environment environmentalism employment slogans 2008 arabs louisiana texas may-2008 anti-intellectualism deepwater-horizon-oil-spill republican-party-us 2008-in-united-states 2008-rnc anti-arabism arctic-national-wildlife-refuge drill-baby-drill drilling-rigs fossil-fuels mississippi mitch-mcconnell natural-gas-prices newt-gingrich offshore-drilling offshore-oil-gas-in-us oil-platforms oil-rigs oil-wells petroleum-industry political-campaign republican-national-convention rocky-mountains shale-gas shales united-states-senate us-offshore-drilling-debate
The first thing you notice, coming to Israel from the Arab world, is that you have left the most courteous region of the globe and entered the rudest. The difference is so profound that you're left wondering when the mutation in Semitic blood occurred, as though God parted the Red Sea and said: "Okay, you rude ones, keep wandering toward the Promised Land. The rest of you can stay here and rot in the desert, saying 'welcome, most welcome' and drowning each other in tea until the end of time.
Tony HorwitzTags: jews arabs israel palestine middle-east friendliness promised-land
سماعاً بني العرب الاكرمين ... اُباة التواني حماة الذمم
أفيقوا فمن نام عن حقه... عراه الأذى ولواه العدم
رعى الله شعباً يريد العلى... ويطلبها تحت خفق العلم
إذا لم نقم قومة حرة... ونرجع عهدا طواه القدم
فأين الفخار الذي ندعي... وأين الإباء وأين الكرم
فتى الشعر هذا مجال قرير... فنادي الإباء ونادي الشيم
ونادي الشباب كبار النفوس... ونادي الشباب عماد الأمم
فلا أمل اليوم إلا بهم... لأن الشباب عماد الأمم
وقل لبني العُرب لا تيأسوا... فإن الهموم ستحُي الهمم
وإن المقام على الضيم عار... ولا يغسل العار إلا بدم
ولابد من نهضة للعلى...بها ترفع العرب ذاك العلم
Tags: freedom youth blood arabs martyrs
تذكروا أنكم أبناء من خضعت ... لسيفهم دول الرومان و العجم
و الشرق دان لهم و الغرب دان لهم ... و تحت أخمصهم كم طأطأت قمم
سل أرض ” أندلس ” إن كنت تجهلنا ... و أهل أندلس عنا بما علموا
آثارنا باقيات في مرابعهم ... و علمنا ناطق و الفضل و الشيم
أن يزعموا أننا لسنا نماثلهم ... في كل مكرمة – يا كذب ما زعموا
تنبهوا و انهضوا فالحق مهتضم ... من نام عن حقه أودى به العدمُ
يا طير هجت الطائرينا ... و فتنت لب العالمينا
لله درك ساحرا ... أبطلت كيد الساحرينا
أظهرت معجزة العلوم... لنا و كنا كافرينا
إنا لقوم يعشقون... النابغين الباسلينا
يتسابقون حفاوة ... بالأقربين الأكرمينا
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