[mobglob-discuss] A World Wide Intifada? (fwd)

[Tom_Childs at Douglas.BC.CA]

  ----- Forwarded message: -----From: "Chuck0" <chuck at mutualaid.org>
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Date: 07 Dec 2002
Subject: A World Wide Intifada?

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook1207.html

A World Wide Intifada? Why?
by WILLIAM A. COOK

A satellite view of attacks against western interests spotlights the
reality that a world-wide intifada against the "developed" nations of
the west and their allies is already underway. Russian apartment
houses and, recently, a theater, the Twin Towers in New York, two Bali
discos, a French super tanker blown up off the coast of Yemen, an
Israeli hotel destroyed in Kenya, a failed missle shot at an Israeli
passenger plane off the coast of Africa, and others too numerous to
mention demonstrate the magnitude of the effort underway to wake up
the west to the consequences of its dominance over the lives and
interests of peoples throughout the world. Recent events, coupled
with the investigations of Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the French Judge who
has been tracking terrorist acts for two decades, forces us to grapple
with why this is happening. Bruguiere recently warned that France is
one of the two or three countries "most at risk of attack due to its
historic links to Algeria." "Islamic extremism," he noted, "is
breeding like a virus in Europe."(World-Rueters, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2002)

What conditions prefigure the coming "Intifada" against the United
States and the west? The first is misunderstanding of the deprived and
displaced people of the world, a subject far too broad for this
article. Let us concentrate on what Bin Laden told us was the most
egregious cause: "You attacked us in Palestine. Palestine, which has
sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British
handed over Palestine, with your (US) help and your support, to the
Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing
with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and
devastation" (Bin Laden, "Letter to America," 11/24/02). Harley
Sorensen pointed out, tellingly, that Osama's letter had virtually no
publicity in the American Press; America's corporate press does not
want Americans to know why they are hated. (San Francisco Gate, Dec.
2, 2002)

Most citizens in the west, and certainly American citizens, do not
understand the Palestinian people, their history, and their perception
of the existence that has been thrust upon them, what I will label as
"The Stolen Homeland"; the second is consciousness of the disparity
that exists between the Palestinians and the Israelis and the
reluctance of the state of Israel and its major supporter in the west,
the United States, to engage that disparity, which results from the
economic controls, the indignity and disrespect engendered by the
Ultra-Orthodox Right-Wing Likud and the military, and this I label
"The Chasm of Indifference and Desperation"; and, finally, the third
is the corrosive destruction of a culture by brute force in the
bulldozing of their memory and the destructive power implicitly
present in globalization that impacts the uniqueness of a people's
culture, its economic structures, and its values, what can only be
labeled "Ethnic Erasure by Globalized Capitalism".

In many ways, these three form a complex interwoven fabric that makes
it difficult if not impossible to see each clearly, yet, unless we
make the attempt, we are doomed to find ourselves constrained to our
homes through fear of the unknown individual(s) who must resort to
self-sacrifice as the last resort to rectify the unacceptable
disparity that allows no alternative.

The Stolen Homeland:

Most Americans know nothing about the way in which Israel was created.
They do not know that Britain turned Palestine over to the UN for
resolution because it could not continue its governance in light of the
rising tensions that existed between Zionists and Palestinians. In 1947
the UN General Assembly resolved by a two-thirds vote to endorse the
partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (Resolution No.
181). The Palestinians did not accept that resolution, yet the
partition went forward even though the General Assembly had no legal
authority to divide a country especially through the process of
endorsing a Resolution. The proposed partition called for 55% of the
Palestinian area to be given to the Israelis, yet they comprised
slightly more than 30% of the population and owned only 6% of the
land. The Jewish population was composed mostly of foreign-born
immigrants, only one-third of whom had acquired Palestinian
citizenship. In addition, the territory allocated to the Jews
comprised the coastal plain from Akka to Ashdod and other fertile
lands. The Palestinians were left with mainly mountainous areas and
arid regions.

Americans receive most of their information regarding the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict from corporate controlled, politically
manipulated mainstream media. Few have the opportunity to scrutinize
the reality of the history that has resulted in the tensions that
exist in the mid-east. Few know that Palestinians are, in all
legitimate ways, the indigenous population of the area; that the land
now occupied by the Israelis was owned by the Palestinians; that in
1870, 98% of the population was Arab and only 2% Jewish; that in 1940,
Palestinians accounted for 69% of the population even as Jews thronged
to the area from Europe in an attempt to escape the Nazis; that in
1946, the year that the UN created Israel without the approval of the
indigenous population, the Palestinians represented 65% and the
Israelis less than 35% of the 1,845,000 who lived there; that Israel
now occupies all but 22% of the Palestinian land having taken it in
the 1967 war and consistently refused to return it to its proper 
owners in direct refutation of UN resolutions demanding its return;
that Israel has created illegal settlements in Palestinian areas,
with a population in excess of 400,000, taking land and aquifers from
the Palestinians, 34 of those settlements created during the two year
Prime Ministry of Ariel Sharon, and in direct violation of UN
mandates.

Is it surprising that the Palestinians have rejected the existence of
a state imposed upon its population by foreign powers? Is it
surprising that it has rejected the Oslo Agreement when its full
implementation was not part of the "final" settlement and provided no
resolution of the refugee problem?  Is it surprising that a people
occupied by a state supported by the world's greatest military power
which supplies the Israeli people with more than 3 billion dollars for
military hardware a year, more than any other nation receives from the
US, finds itself oppressed and humiliated?

The Chasm Of Indifference And Desperation:

On May 4, 2002, the New York Times reported that "It is safe to say
that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian
state - roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines 
- has been devastated." The most recent estimate of the infrastructure
damage alone by the UN and the World Bank comes to over 361 million
dollars. The totality of Sharon's destruction can never be known
because Sharon refused to admit the United Nations to inspect the
carnage, but it is safe to say that if we limit our focus to the Human
Rights Watch reports alone, the savagery is more than terrorism, it is
barbaric. Palestinians, especially the families who suffered immediate
devastation of homes and family members, cannot but perceive the
dehumanization of their lot by the Israelis. HRW reports that 22
civilians in the Jenin refugee camp "were killed willfully or
unlawfully" (5/3/02), civilians were used as human shields, medical
personnel were killed, and civilian homes became military targets. Yet
no one cared.

Perhaps nothing is so incomprehensible to the deprived as the
indifference of those who are responsible for the deprivation. Nothing
is more devastating to human dignity than to be ignored. Nothing is
more destructive to communication among people than the hypocrisy of
"developed", "democratic", and "Judaic-Christian" nations exploiting
"under-developed", non-democratic, and non-Christian nations.

The United States, led by a "reborn" Christian, supported by a
fundamentalist Attorney General and by fundamentalist denominations
like Pat Robertson's, rally behind support of Israel because they
believe that their God has determined that the Jews must be resident
in "Judea" if they are to be converted to the one true faith,
Christianity. They willingly accept the necessity of Sharon's
slaughter of the Palestinians to accomplish that goal. It matters not
that Christ said you should not take up the sword; the myths of the
Old Testament shall carry the day, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth." These are the Christians who support the right-wing elements
among the Jews who call Palestinians "two-legged vermin" (former Prime
minister Golda Meir) and "drugged roaches in a bottle" (former Prime
Minister Begin).  These are bloodthirsty Christians unwilling to give
their cloak to the beggar, unwilling to give shelter to the homeless,
unwilling to give food to the hungry, unwilling to succor the weak and
the dying. These are the Americans willing to provide on average
$500.00 per Israeli citizen per year beyond that provided for the
military, but unwilling to provide comparably for the Palestinians.
This is the born again President who extols Sharon, a man condemned by
an Israeli court for allowing the wanton slaughter of thousands at
Shabra, as a "man of peace."

Considering the slave-like conditions imposed on the Palestinians by
the Israelis, it might be instructive to hear the thoughts of the
former slave Frederick Douglas as he contemplated his condition: "I
loathed them (my oppressors) as being the meanest as well as the most
wicked of men." And that inner anger tormented him day and night, "I
saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and
felt nothing without feeling it I found myself wishing myself dead."
Here is an explanation for the "suicide bombers," intolerable
indignities and humiliations inflicted by those who are the chosen of
God. They are acts of absolute desperation wrought by futility as
Daoud abu Sway's family suggested as they attempted to explain why a
father of eight would detonate himself: "That he did so illustrates
the depths to which people caught up in this conflict are sinking."
(L.A. Times 12/9/01)

Consider the slave-like conditions we as Americans have imposed on the
deprived of the world to fuel our economy at home and we can understand
how desperation will seek its solace in destruction through sacrifice.
Such people need only a bin Laden, a man driven by hatred of the
perceived oppressors, to bring the requisite money to achieve his ends,
and the future state of fear for America becomes immediately apparent.

Israel's oppression of the Palestinians mirrors how the deprived of the
world perceive America, a land that could receive the same condemnation
from Hosea in 800BC: "Sins of greed are compounded by Israel's
arrogance."

Ethnic Erasure By Globalized Capitalism:

Beyond America's image as overseer of Israel and protector of her right
to exist, is the image created by America as the protector of
transnational corporations. This image coupled with the presence of
America's military creates a negative image of the US as the
perpetrator of Third World exploitation, the destroyer of forests,
minerals, metal resources, land, and people. And the people of these
poor nations must live with the environmental disasters, soil erosion,
pollution, poisonings from toxic waste, and industrial accidents. With
only 5% of the world's population America emits 1.5 billion tons per
year of carbon dioxide, a quarter of the world's total.

Hatred of America grows with each passing day. The most recent Pew
Foundation Report detailing that dislike came out this week and shows
that European states as well as Arab have the same loathing. People feel
deprived, taken advantage of, and ignored. They see the disparate
conditions because the west has made available, through satellite
communications, the viewing of the standard of living available in the
west, particularly in the US, since its programming dominates the
airwaves. They understand that Americans and Europeans spend 17 billion
a year on pet food, 4 billion more than the estimated annual additional
total needed to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the
world. (UN Human Development Report, 1997). The excessive use of natural
resources in the US, resources taken from Third World countries,
explodes visually on the TV screen even in the worst of hovels in
Africa, South and Central America, Asia, and the Mid-East. These are the
deprived who have nothing to lose and much to hate.  These are the
people that the CIA and the FBI talk about when they warn Americans of
future "terrorist" acts. As this anger erupts, America will live in the
same atmosphere of fear that envelops Israel.

Consider the reality of this "Ethnic Erasure by Globalized Capitalism"
and the perceptions and reactions it causes in the minds and hearts of
the deprived as it prefigures attitudes and behaviors in lands beyond
Palestine impacted by the west and particularly the United States. As
transnational corporations spread their tentacles around the world,
they create strangleholds on local governments forcing them to concede
relaxation of tax income, release of land areas for industrial
development, sale of natural resources, and exploitation of citizens.
Martin Khor has noted how transnational corporations have moved their
operations to Third World countries " where safety and environmental
regulations are either lax or nonexistent." The result is exposure for
Third World citizens to hazardous products, toxic or dangerous
technologies, crippling drugs, pesticides and the like. (Global
Economy and the Third World)  The introduction of global agreements
that benefit transnationals has negated the standards forced upon
these corporations in the United States, standards that require
regulations to protect against child labor, that regulate safety
conditions, and protect workers' health. Neither NAFTA nor GATT
imposes regulations that ensure worker protection in these areas.
Sunday's Los Angeles Times (December 1, 2002) carried a magazine story
detailing the end of Levi Strauss Company's production in America. Levi
had to resort to production abroad because it is caught in the web of
competition and must "chase low-cost labor." These wages reflect the
full exploitation of people in "underdeveloped" countries: Guatemala,
37 cents per hour; China, 28 cents; Nicaragua, 23 cents; Bangladesh, 13
to 20 cents.

The transnationals have deforested more than half of the forest area in
developing nations, created large infrastructures to support industrial
projects, built huge steel plants, cement plants, vast highways,
bridges, all requiring enormous land holdings taken out of the control
of the weak nation states, all needing energy resulting in
hydroelectric dams and nuclear power stations. These conditions result
in displacement of thousands of people, the crowding of populations
into cramped quarters in urban are as, sanitation problems,
homelessness and poverty.

The chasm of disparity glares through the statistics: the richest fifth
of the world's population receives 86% of global income while 1.2
billion live on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day. Edward
Goldsmith explains the situation in these terms: "Even strong national
governments are no longer able to exert any sort of control over TNCs
(Transnationals) Indeed, TNCs are now free to scour the globe and
establish themselves wherever labor is the cheapest, environmental
laws are the laxest, fiscal regimes are the least onerous, and
subsidies are the most generous." (Development as Colonialism)
Documentation of human exploitation in Indonesia, Vietnam, China,
Malaysia, and Mexico is readily available. What is not available, then,
is an understanding of the feelings that gnaw at the souls of the
deprived: the sense of hopelessness, of indignity, of lack of respect,
of dehumanization.

In addition, the United States military presence in a hundred and fifty
nations, ostensibly for the protection of US interests, results in huge
areas owned and/or controlled by a foreign power. As the US pours
millions of dollars into the economy of these countries, the benefits
are seen by the local population as going to the local power elite, as
is evident most recently in the case of Saudi Arabia. But the same
conditions have resulted in flare-ups in Japan, Korea, and Greece
(until the US was expelled under the Papandreou regime in the early
'90s). In short, the people of these countries are at odds with their
rulers. This has been painfully evident in recent months as even Kuwait
citizens have demonstrated against their government and the US.

As a result of America's monetary support since its founding in 1947,
Israel has prospered militarily and economically at a rate far greater
and faster than any other nation anywhere. The US has poured more than
3 billion a year into the Israeli military since 1947, an amount that
since 1995 equals more than 8 trillion dollars. Considering that this
investment ensures the continuation of the military-industrial complex
in the US, since Israel is required, by the agreement that provides
this support, to buy three quarters of its equipment and technology
from US firms, it is crystal clear why the corporate elite desire to
maintain Israel's dominance in the mid-east. Israeli allegiance to the
US interests ensures that the oil needed by the US will continue to
flow. But Israel can demand a heavy price for their collusion with the
US, and hence their defiance of Bush's demands that they withdraw from
the West Bank.

The US's support for Sharon's government is touted throughout the
world without regard for its consequences by Senate and Congressional
resolutions; the standard of living in Israel which is a mirror image
of its host, the United States, stands in mocking contrast to the
squalor of the refugee camps and the sewage infested alleys of the
Palestinians who are crammed into miniscule segments of land
surrounded by their oppressors; the oppressors army controls
Palestinian movement through heavily guarded positions with towers,
barbed wire fences, and crossing guards whose attitude toward the
Palestinian is one of hatred and distain. These conditions give rise
to jealousy, hatred, vengeance, despair, retaliation, and sacrifice
against the enemy; conditions every Israeli should understand from
their own unfortunate history. How many Jews offered themselves for
sacrifice against the Nazi forces during the war and against the
British when the Israelis were attempting to establish a Jewish state
in Palestine?

In their drive to own and control all of Palestine, the right-wing
Likud party and the Ultra Orthodox look only to the Old Testament, a
text 2500 years old that does not reflect the reality of the past two
thousand years.  Yet their absolute commitment to these ancient myths
legitimizes their actions to suppress the Palestinians.  They
encouraged, nay they forced Sharon to bulldoze whole sections of
ancient cities sacred to the Palestinians, demolish mosques so even
the memory of their existence would be forgotten, destroy documents
that established ownership of properties and the personal identities of
Palestinian citizens as though through that destruction they could
erase the memory of a people. How ironic that this was the purpose of
the Nazi regime's eradication of the Jews.

They are indifferent to the plight of those who have been driven from
their homeland penniless, uncompensated for the homes they have lost,
who await the day when they can return after fifty years in refugee
camps in foreign lands. They are indifferent to the rampant poverty
that sits next to them in Jenin, Ramallah, or Rafah; they do not see
or want to see the wastelands that the tanks and bulldozers have
created in Rafah as they smashed 100s of homes, dozens of shops,
leaving hundreds homeless, a scene repeated over and over again
throughout Palestine. Yet these are the religious of Israel, those
who claim to believe in the one true God, a God who willingly allows
the destruction and slaughter of thousands of defenseless women and
children. But, blinded by their ambition to claim once again God's
Promised Land, they overlook the reality of what they have created, a
people more defiant then ever, a people who have endured and will
continue to endure even if that be their only lasting claim to their
humanity, a people filled with patience, lacking hope, but determined
to be a people, to retain a culture, to love a God, to share what
little they have with those worse off than themselves.

The above scenario plays throughout the world in those nations labeled
underdeveloped. The deprivation and poverty have been created by
Capitalism's global thrust and by the indifference of its corporate
elite who have only their investments to protect and the ultimate
fulfillment of their faith's ultimate promise, globalized markets
where products can be produced at the lowest possible cost and return
the greatest profit for the investor regardless of the consequences to
the workers, the natural resources, or the cultures that are destroyed
in the process. Islamic fundamentalism has become the "repository of a
passion for pure belonging, a passion exacerbated by the unsettlements
of globalization," according to Todd Gitlin in a review of In the Name
of Identity. (L.A. Times Book Review, 9/23/01). Gitlin's point refers to
the helpless state of those deprived throughout the world, and Islamic
fundamentalists capture only a small percentage of those deprived.  He
cautions that we must understand the hatred that drives the terrorist
for he/she is neither a god or an animal but a wounded person touched
by a community of wounded people among whom arises an agitator "who
promises victory or vengeance" against those who deserve it and they
slip imperceptibly from denouncing injustice to perpetrating it.

Unless the US and the west recognize the inherent and explosive
consequences generated by their indifference to the plight of those
exploited, unless sincere attempts are made to realign the disparity
between the haves and the have-nots, unless the arrogance of the
elite changes to empathy for the deprived, the vicious and insidious
behaviors of the fanatics, the desperate, and the powerful will
explode throughout America.

William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in
southern California. He can be reached at: cookb at ULV.EDU

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    "There's no way to delay, that trouble comin' everyday."
			--Frank Zappa