Stop Feeding Your Lion!
I like this assessment. The problem is the lion...
(BBC News)
The following comments reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far:
"There is not a finite list of terrorists with which you check off names as they are captured or killed. Every aggressive action by the US will have its corresponding reaction, which will be to create more people with ability to act in a terrorist manner. The leaders on both sides of this conflict have proven to be ineffectual in finding a solution. The insurgents with their barbaric beheadings of innocent people and the US lead force with its reckless bombings are examples of the negligence of both sides. We all need better leaders right now."
Dennis Dalesandro, Philadelphia, USA
***
In this letter Michael Moore is calling for a GENERAL STRIKE by the Palestinians against their Israeli lion. It seems to me like the most formidable weapon against lions. And the only weapon that really doesn't depend on an army or even belligerent leaders--that may become the new lion--but on the little people themselves. STOP FEEDING YOUR LION!
Somehow Arafat ignored this idea, which proves my point that we need better leaders...
Dear President Arafat:
We've never met. That's not an attempt to cop an invite over for dinner or a game of horseshoes. You're a busy man, I'm a busy man (though I can't get anyone in the office here to call me President, or respond to my directives with, "Ya, Sir!").
Sorry. That's the kind of humor that has kept me relegated to appearing only on basic cable in America (Channel 64, right after the Italian language station in New York City).
I have the key to your success. I know how you can unilaterally end the killing on both sides --and, as a bonus, wind up with a Palestinian state!
I know, you're thinking, "Hey, who is this guy?" And you're right.
But hear me out. I want to propose something so revolutionary that it will flip out every Israeli right-winger and send every Israeli peacenik running to your side.
My proposal is not a new idea. I involves no armies, no money, and no UN resolutions. It's dirt cheap. It has been tried many times, in many countries --AND IT HAS NEVER FAILED. It demands no hatred and requires no weapons. In fact, it is all about no weapons.
It's called mass nonviolent civil disobedience. It worked for Martin Luther King Jr. --his nonviolent movement brought an abrupt end to legal segregation in America. It worked for Gandhi --he and his fellow Indians brought the British Empire to its knees without firing a shot. It worked for Nelson Mandela --he and the African National Congress brought about an end to apartheid with no violent revolution.
If it worked for them, trust me, it can work for you.
Sure, you can still win through violence. The Vietnamese proved that they could whip the mightiest country on earth. And look at us --we spent eight years picking off Redcoats, and got ourselves a big country out of all the shooting!
So killing does work, I guess. The only problem is, after the killing stops you're a little messed in the head, and it takes a while before your learn to put down your guns (225 years later and we still haven't learned).
But if you'd like to try the nonviolent approach, you not only get to see fewer people die --you get your own country in the end!
Here's how it works:
1. Just sit your *** down. That's it. It's simple. You just lay your bodies down --often just a few thousand in the middle of the road will do-- and don't move and don't fight back when they try to drag you away. Instead of Israel always shutting down the borders to Gaza and the West Bank, you shut them down. Just march peacefully up to the checkpoint and then sit down. No Israelis will be able to get to their settlements. No Israelis will be able to transport goods and natural resources from your land into Israel. There is no Israeli vehicle I know of that can drive over mounds of thousands of people (not even a pair of snow tires will do the job!). Of course, they may try, and a number of your people may be injured or killed. Still, don't move. Just sit. The world will be watching --especially if you embrace the wonderful world of public relations, and alert the media to your plans. (Trust me, CNN will take your call.) And you'll end up with far fewer dead Palestinians that you yield under your current plan.
2. Call a general strike. Refuse to work for the Israelis. Their economy is based on the near-slave labor you provide them. Don't do it anymore. Who will do all their shitwork for them if Palestinians won't? Other Israelis? I don't think so! They need you and your willingness to break your backs for them for substandard wages. Watch how quickly a deal is struck once every single Arab refuses to go to work. Of course, they'll try to break you. They will cut off your water, your roads, your food, --but you must stand firm. Stockpile, then strike nonviolently, and never give in. They will.
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A few years back, over a million Israelis attended a Peace Now rally in Tel Aviv. That was an amazing sight. It also means that you, the Palestinians, have a million Jewish allies --a third of the country-- in the nation you know as your enemy. A million of your "enemies" will come to your aid if you protest in a nonviolent way. Try it! Between your people and theirs, you will outnumber those in Israel who want to drive you into the sea.
Unfortunately, I know your inclination is to keep drawing blood. You think this will bring you liberation. It will not. It will turn you into those who are now killing you. And if you haven't figured out one thing about the Israelis by now, you'd better get a clue --they ain't goin' anywhere. For God's sake, man --they had six million of their people massacred by the most advanced civilization on earth. Do you think they're going to let a few stones and car bombs get in the way of their own survival? They live in a world where they're isolated and all alone. They won't quit until you or the rest of the earth annihilates every last one of them. Is that what you want? Every last Jew wiped from the planet? If it is, then you need serious help --and you're gonna have to get past me before you touch another one of their children.
But if, as I suspect, you would prefer peace and quiet to constant war and displacement, then you must lay down all arms, lay down your bodies in the middle of the road and then... just wait. Yes, the Israelis will beat many of your people. They will drag your women by the hair, they will sic dogs on you, they may even get out the fire hoses (and other tricks they've learned from us Americans). YOU MUST NOT FIGHT BACK! Trust me, when the pictures of your suffering at the hands of these brutes go out across the world, there will be such an outcry that the Israeli government will be unable to continue its oppression.
Well, there you go. If you want, I will come and join you in your nonviolent protest. It's the least I can do after helping finance the bullets and bombs that have killed your people.*
Yours,
Michael Moore
*He refers to the $US3,000 millions United States sends to Israel a year to help their economy and war effort with tax dollars of the American people. In that sense, we are all feeding the lion.
***
And this is the voice of the people...
"We need attacks against Israel to cease, so the people can have a break from collective punishment"
-Salah Abu Warda, University student
Sure enough the lion is not found only on one side...
"Fatah politics have always been a robust business"
Gaza 'hotheads' take on old guard
By Martin Asser
BBC News website, Gaza
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade now calls itself the Arafat Brigade
Two very public events have given Palestinians pause for thought in the last few days as they begin the post-Arafat era.
The first was the burial of the veteran leader in Ramallah which was hijacked by the "Palestinian street", young Arafat loyalists who basically steamrollered the sombre ceremony planned by his old guard supporters.
The second came on Sunday, when the main pretender to Arafat's throne, Mahmoud Abbas - known as Abu Mazen - arrived in Gaza and walked straight into an armed confrontation at the mourning tent set up for the dead leader.
The first incident can perhaps be dismissed as the out-of-control emotions of a people whose love transcended the disappointments and failures Arafat caused them to endure.
But to put the second one down to the same tendency, as senior Palestinian officials tried to on Sunday night, was to test the public's credulity.
Muscle-flexing
At first sight, the Gaza incident could hardly have looked worse.
Abu Mazen, the man supposedly poised to succeed Arafat, scrambled through the white plastic chairs set out for the wake at the presidential compound after masked gunmen appeared and started firing in the air.
Other VIPs - the men who hope to run Palestine with Abu Mazen - were thrown to the ground by bodyguards.
The so-called Gaza strongman, Muhammad Dahlan, reportedly had his car torched in the street outside. Two bodyguards were left lying dead.
Hamas aims for power
And the gunmen were heard shouting "No to Abbas and no to Dahlan" - accusing them of being American spies.
In fact, things may not have been as bad as they looked.
On Monday, there were a few extra road blocks and more security forces on the streets - especially around Abu Mazen's villa - but there was no sign that civil war was just round the corner.
Speculation in Gaza is that the shooting had just been a bit of muscle-flexing that got out of hand - an Arafat apparatchik who wanted a better place in the shuffling of positions in Fatah that comes after Arafat's death.
Fatah politics have always been a robust business. No one was shocked by the masked gunmen or the firing in the air per se. Only the context - and the tragic consequences - were unusual.
There is, however, an inescapable feeling that this would not have happened under Arafat - a man who, even as his health and freedom were eroded, elicited fierce and widespread loyalty.
Holiday period
Gaza residents have been digesting the implications of the shooting incident.
There is a holiday crowd at the gardens around the Unknown Soldier monument - the Muslim festival of Eid coupled with a period of mourning for Arafat mean that Palestinians have been told not to go back to their jobs or classes until Wednesday.
"It's just a problem between security agencies," says university student Salah Abu Warda.
Security around Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday was heavy but chaotic
"Arafat used to control everything, but now... However, the Palestinian people are sensible, they won't let things deteriorate into chaos," he says.
Behind Salah is a scene that perhaps belied his belief in the Palestinians' self-discipline and innate sense of restraint.
A 20-year-old gunman with an olive headband is showing an excited group of under-10s how to load his assault rifle and allowing them pose with it.
"We need attacks against Israel to cease, so the people can have a break from collective punishment," adds Salah, saying that the best way to achieve that is for the militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to join Fatah in a unified leadership.
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