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“For centuries, man has used organized religion to control the hearts and minds (not to mention the pocketbooks) of the ignorant masses. Well, Sir Richard Bishop has decided he would like a piece of the action.
This film is a diabolical experiment in hypnotic mind control — a phantasmagorical presentation of demonic and divine imagery, meticulously assembled and designed to put the viewer into an altered state of darkened awareness. Includes original music from Elektronika Demonika, as well as unreleased material.
If you ever wanted to go to hell and back, this film will get you halfway there. Some viewers may find the imagery used in this film to be disturbing, but that’s the idea. Contains some strong sexual content (as all true religion should). Not for the weak-minded, faint of heart, or those suffering from occasional seizures.” (Locust Music)
Based on Karen Armstrong’s book, this film examines the concept of God in the three major monotheistic religions from the days of Abraham to modern times. Through analysis of historic and holy texts and incorporation of ancient art and artifacts, the program explores the deity written about in the Bible and the Quran. The evolution and intertwining of various Christian, Jewish and Islamic interpretations of God are also addressed.
Divine Horsemen: the Voodoo Gods of Haiti
“Divine Horsemen: the Voodoo Gods of Haiti,” Lyrichord. Recorded in
1947 on a wire recorder with the microphone attachted to a post in
the middle of the ceremony by Maya Deren in the filming of her
documentary of the same name. No Hollywood silly business here, this
is the real deal: a trance/possession ceremony where participants are
actually possessed by the Rada Loa (the pantheon of voodoo gods, the
ancient gods of the East African Fon): Deren says, “There are moments
when the voices of the loa can be heard talking and singing on this
recording.” Astonishing and intricate drumming, powerful almost
beyond comprehension; you’ve never heard anything like it. Regards,
Face A
1. Legba
2. Damballah
3. Agwe
4. Erzulie
5. Ogoun
6. Litany
7. Ghede chant
Face B
1. Invocation to azacca
2. Azacca possession
3. Ghede
4. Azacca
5. Congo cult
6. Petro cult
7. Banda dance for ghede
8. Rara festival
9. Mardi gras carnival
all propers to nauma over at black star liners
-
download the video: Maya Deren Divine Horsemen
or watch @guba.com
i couldn’t get sutostart turned off to embed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Horsemen:_The_Living_Gods_of_Haiti_(film)
Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1985) is a black and white documentary film about dance and possession in Haitian vodou that was shot by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren between 1947 and 1952 and edited and completed by Deren’s third husband Teiji Ito and his wife Cherel Winett Ito (1947-1999) in 1981, twenty years after Deren’s death. Most of the film consists of images of dancing and bodies in motion during rituals in Rada and Petro services.
Deren had studied dance as well as photography and filmmaking. She originally went to Haiti with the funding from a Guggenheim fellowship and the stated intention of filming the dancing that forms a crucial part of the vodou ceremony.
The film that resulted, however, reflected Deren’s increasing personal engagement with vodou and its practitioners (Wilcken, 1986). While this ultimately resulted in Deren disregarding the guidelines of the fellowship, Deren was able to record scenes that probably would have been inaccessible to other filmmakers.
Deren’s original notes, film footage, and wire recordings are in the Maya Deren Collection at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archive Research Center
Disc 1 – Trance Speech and Direct Voice, Precognition
Disc 2 – Xenoglossy, Glossolalia
Disc 3 – Paranormal Music, Raps and Haunting Phenomena, Electric Voice Phenomena
3 disc box set of paranormal phenomena including “trance speech, direct voices, clairvoyance, xenoglossy, glossolalia including ethnological material, paranormal music, ‘rappings’ and other poltergeist manifestations as well as so-called ‘Electronic voice phenomena’” dating from 1905-2007
nice
i mean NICE doc on “this subject”
angles
ideas
perspectives
vid will mostlikely not play here
but will open to the tudou page proper
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/W6Rjkr3Olvk
Interest in the Mayan Long Count Calendar and 2012 end-of-the-world prophecies is increasing rapidly with about four years left to the target date of December 21, 2012 (or thereabouts).
A significant number of new books, as well as reprints of older ones, on the topic of 2012 are being published, some becoming legitimate bestsellers, including: Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization’s End by Lawrence E. Joseph; Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 by John Major Jenkins; and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck.
On the fiction front, Whitley Strieber’s latest novel, 2012: The War for Souls, is slated to be a Michael Bay-produced (and possibly directed) film at Warner Bros. Pictures.
An increasing number of mainstream publications are writing about 2012. The New York Times Magazine ran a feature on the topic, focusing on John Major Jenkins, in its July 1, 2007 edition; USA Today published an article entitled “Does Maya calendar predict 2012 apocalypse?” on March 28, 2007; and Publishers Weekly ran a story about the large number of new books on the topic on March 26, 2007. A second PW story ran in the September 3, 2007 edition with a quote from a well-known editor saying that 2012 “has practically become its own category” of books; and proving that the trend is only strengthening, a year later the September 22, 2008 issue of PW in its cover story stated “publishers agree that New Age readers can’t get enough prophetic 2012 literature,” and “sales on this topic have been through the roof.”
Perhaps most significantly from a mainstream awareness perspective, Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC) is directing a new tent-pole film for Sony Pictures entitled 2012. It is set for wide theatrical release in July, 2009.
The Disinformation Company specializes in publishing articles on topics surfacing in the culture on its popular website at www.disinfo.com and publishes books by authors writing in this and related fields. (For instance, Disinformation author Graham Hancock’s bestselling book Fingerprints of the Gods was one of the first to focus on the Mayan calendar and its end date in 2012, and will be one of the bases for the Roland Emmerich movie.) Of course, in addition to its publishing division, The Disinformation Company also produces and distributes documentary films.
Producer Gary Baddeley recognized that interest in 2012 was on a fast track into the zeitgeist in 2007 and initiated the process of planning and producing 2012: Science Or Superstition with director Nimrod Erez. The Disinformation team, including co-producer Ralph Bernardo, contacted and arranged interviews with multiple experts, often obtaining speedy access due to more than ten years of working with them or colleagues in their fields.
Interviews were conducted in New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Palenque and also shot on location in Mexico and Egypt. Co-producer Bernardo worked with NASA to obtain illuminating footage of our solar system and galaxy and was able to locate leading astronomy professor Anthony Aveni, a cornerstone of the film’s balanced approach. Director Nimrod Erez worked closely with animators to illustrate the sometimes complicated concepts discussed in the film, allowing the viewer to see visually, the hard to grasp phenomenon of precession.
In accord with the Disinformation style of documentary filmmaking and publishing, the producers attempted to highlight multiple views of the subject matter and to interview experts who address the issues from varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives. The goal was to present the viewer with a balanced look at the 2012 phenomenon, allowing him or her to form an independent opinion on the debate about what the December 21, 2012 date means to all of us.
i’d skip the first 30 secs of unreadable scroll
this vid is sort of a statement/response rebuttal of the kirk cameron video i posted on hijackin the origin of species
this video expresses similar ideas and perspectives as my rant
but has some nice scriptures and some serious illumination on how kirk is mixing words and definitions to work an audience that is ignorant in the ideas
and literally shows kirk lying to support his position
weird
not only fables and fairy tales
but lies
jeez
how do they not get what seeds they are planting and what fruit will be harvested
from: aurorainthedesert
Hehehehe Jesus wants to ravish you with His Love! I am not ON ecstasy I’m experiencing ecstasy (or rapturous delight as the dictionary describes it) not a drug induced ecstasy but a God induced one!
Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) Chief of Staff: ‘All Pornography Is Homosexual Pornography’
By David Weigel 9/20/09 1:54 PM
One of the final events of the Values Voter Summit was a Saturday breakout session on “the new masculinity,” a wide-ranging topic that one speaker used to explain how any and all pornography could lead young people into homosexual lifestyles. That speaker was Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) chief of staff Michael Schwartz, a longtime conservative activist who has worked for the senator since 2005.
“Pornography is a blight,” Schwartz told an audience in a crowded room of the Omni Shoreham hotel. “It is a disaster. It is one of those silent diseases in our society that we haven’t been able to overcome very well. Now, I may be getting politically incorrect here. And it’s been a few years, but not that many, since I was closely associated with pre-adolescent boys, boys around 10 years of age. But it is my observation that boys of that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it.”
Schwartz told the crowd about Jim Johnson, a friend of his who turned an old hotel into a hospice for gay men dying of AIDS. “One of the things he said to me,” said Schwartz, “that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark… he said ‘All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.”
There were murmurs and gasps from the crowd. “Now, think about that,” said Schwartz. “And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants! You know, that’s a good comment, it’s a good point, and it’s a good thing to teach young people.”
Here’s the final portion of Schwartz’s remarks.
so…
basically internalized or introverted sexuality equals homosexuality
same thing
?
oh
and that’s a bad thing
!Luh ah ah Jik!
the first vid in a 17 part series made by AronRa
check out his youtube page for the series and more of his work
http://www.youtube.com/AronRa
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/1stFFoC.html
The U.S. population seems pretty evenly divided over whether the human species is biologically related to other animals or whether we were “specially-created” as part of a flurry of miracles. Even our collective politicians -seemingly all of them- are wrapped up in this controversy. Yet its hard to find even one of them who knows what its about. Why is it that there is such concern in so many grade schools (K thru 12) about teaching evolution, yet there is still a complete consensus among scientists all over America and the rest of the world -that evolution is the backbone of modern biology, and a demonstrable reality historically as well?
Most people really don’t understand science; what it is, how it works, what hypotheses and theories are, or even the purpose behind it. Sadly even those on your school faculty or state Board of Education often need an education themselves before they can be trusted to govern how or what our kids will be taught, and that’s why I thought I should speak up and do what I can to help.
To adequately understand evolution, you not only have to understand how to be scientific, (which is the real trick for most people) but you also have to know something about cellular biology, genetics, and anatomy, geology, particularly paleontology, as well as environmental systems, tectonics, atomic chemistry, and especially taxonomy, which most people don’t know squat about at all. Most people who accept evolution also tend to know a whole lot about cosmology, geography, history, sociology, politics, and of course, religion.
But to believe in creationism, you don’t have to know anything about anything, and its better if you don’t! Because creationism relies on ignorance. It is not honest research! It is a scam, a con job exploiting the common folk, and preying on their deepest beliefs and fears. Creationist apologetics depends on misrepresented data and misquoted authorities, out-of-date and out-of-context, and uses distorted definitions if it uses definitions at all.
There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep”. I know lots of intellectual Christians, but I can’t get any of them to actually watch the tele-evangelists, because they either already know how phony they are, or they don’t want to find out. But that only allows a radical fringe to claim support from they masses they now also claim to represent. So there’s nothing to stop them. Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or bilking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned.
“You are a scientist, correct?”
“That’s right; I have a PhD in truthology from Christian Tech.”
Were it not for this con, they’d have to go back to selling used cars, wonder drugs, and multi-level marketing schemes. They will never change their minds no matter what it costs anyone else. So it is obviously the “sheep” whom I’m attempting to reach with this speech –so that they might not be sheep anymore, and will stop feeding fuel into that manipulative movement. Because its one thing to believe in something that might be true (like God in general or Christianity specifically) even though neither can be substantiated or tested in any objective way. But it is a whole other matter to willfully deceive others into believing things which are definitely not true -like creationism, especially when we can also prove that those doing this know their assorted arguments are bogus, and know they’re lying to our children, and that they hope to continue doing so under the guise of “education”.
Creationism extorts support through peer-pressure, prejudice, and paranoid propaganda, and sells itself with short, simplistic slogans which appeal to those who don’t want to think too much, or are afraid to question their own beliefs. Worst of all, it actually forbids critical inquiry, and promotes anti-intellectualism, and it is based on at least a dozen foundational falsehoods. First and foremost among them is the idea that accepting evolution requires the rejection of theism, if not all other religious or spiritual beliefs as well.
For decades those behind the creationism movement have tried very hard to portray the illusion that one cannot accept evolution and still believe in God. They know better, but they still want you to believe that evolution is atheist, and that it is either evolution without God, or God creating without evolution. That’s been their central claim since the creationism movement began. But this supposed controversy never was about whether or not there is a god. Most people believe there is a god, and they believe he is in control of all the seemingly-random events of our lives. This is true of most of the people who accept evolution also. Most of them believe in God as well, and they believe that God is in control of evolution; that evolution, like every other system in nature, is part of God’s design.
Of the couple hundred different, and often violently-conflicting denominations of Christianity, the largest of them by far is Catholicism followed by Orthodoxy. Both of these have stated support of evolution and denounced creationism. Pope Benedict recently described evolution as an “enriching reality” and described creationist contests against it as “absurd”. Both of the popes before him advised Christians ‘round the world to consider evolution to be “more than an hypothesis” and not to fear acceptance of that as being any challenge to their faith in Christ.
The early pioneers of evolutionary science were all initially Christian, (including Darwin) and many leading proponents of modern evolutionary science are still Christian today. For example, microbiologist Dr. Ken Miller, (who testified against intelligent design creationism in Kitzmiller v. Dover) -is a Catholic. Another outspoken proponent of evolution, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, (who has PhDs from both Harvard and Yale) is not only one of the leading, and most recognizable paleontologists in the world today, but he also happens to be a Bible-believing Pentecostal preacher; though he interprets Genesis differently than literalists would. In his book, Bones, Bibles and Creation, he says that to treat the Bible as though it were common history is to degrade its eternal meaning. One of the earliest geneticists, Theodosius Dobzhansky was an Orthodox Christian who many times professed his belief that life was created by God, but that nothing in biology made sense except in light of evolution. All these men agree that even if there really is a god, and even if that god is the Christian god, and even if that god created the universe and everything in it, =which they all believe- evolution would still be at least mostly true, and creationism would still be completely wrong.
Of all the developed nations throughout Christendom, only the United States has a significant number of creationists, and they’re the minority even here! Every other predominantly-Christian country tends to regard creationism as an incredulous, (if not insane) radical fringe movement which is an almost exclusively American phenomenon, and not taken seriously anywhere else. Poll after poll continues to reveal that, around the world, most “evolutionists” are Christian, and most Christians are evolutionists. So evolution is not synonymous with atheism, and creationism isn’t synonymous with Christianity either. Most creationists aren’t even Christians! There are millions more Muslim and Hindu creationists than Christian ones.
Regardless which religion they claim, creationism can be collectively defined as the fraction of religious believers who reject science, not just the conclusions of science, but its methods as well, and I mean all of them, from uniformitarianism and methodological naturalism to the peer review process and requirement that all positive claims be based on testable evidence. These people rely instead on blind faith in the assumed authority of their favored fables. In all cases, creationism is an obstinate and dogmatic superstitious belief which holds that members of most seemingly-related taxonomic groups did not evolve naturally, but were created magically, -that plants and animals were literally poofed out of nothing fully-formed, in their current state, unrelated to anything else –despite all indications to the contrary.
Creationists may side with western Abrahamic religions, (being the Judeo-Christian/Islamic mythos) in which there are conflicting versions of the same tales. Or creationists may belong to one of many eastern religions where the sacred stories of creation are much older, completely different, and dedicated to other gods and pantheons. But in every case, the proposed “creator” is supernatural, meaning that it is not a part of perceptible reality. Therefore it is undetectable by any testable means, and can only be assumed to exist for subjective emotional reasons, or as a result of cultural indoctrination, rather than because of any measurable evidence or logical rationale. In other words, there’s no way to say if its really there. Worst of all, there’s also no way to distinguish anyone’s gods or ghosts from the imaginary beings some primitive folks just made up either. This doesn’t mean no god exists. But it does mean that science can’t say anything about them. Because even if gods are real, they still don’t appear to be, and apparently don’t want to –since all the holy books demand they be believed on faith alone. As there is nothing anyone can verify and thus actually know to be correct about gods, then science is unable to make any comment about them at all. Because science can only ever investigate things with demonstrable evidence can be tested or measured.
From the creationist’s perspective, the method or mechanism of creation which these mystical beings use is nothing more than a golem spell where clay statues are animated with an enchantment. Or its an incantation in which complex modern plants and animals are “spoken” into being. That’s right, magic words which cause fully-developed adult animals to be conjured out of thin air. Or a god simply wishes them to exist; so they do. That’s it! There really is nothing more to it than that; pure freakin’ magic –by definition. Remember that the next time you hear anything from a creation “scientist”.
So for those who believe in God, the question really is how God created, and whether it was by one of many inextricably integrated natural systems he seemingly designed, or whether he simply blinked, wiggled his nose, wished upon a star and said “abra-cadabera”.
The 1st Falsehood of creationism:
“evolution = atheism”
so i thought i would type along while watchin this vid
as i tend to do in a stream of consciousness tag along style
i seriously got a lil scared about 2mins in and decided to leave it alone
but here’s the vid and my type along
edit: and here is the intro he speaks of
http://c0122981.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/090917BananaManIntro.pdf
so he start’s off with the vague, open and loaded question
“are you concerned about what’s happening to our country?”
divisive but loaded to where pretty much anyone would say yes based upon their own ideals and paradigms
but as soon as you internally answer “yes”
he goes off to tag his issues and grievances like we held the same when the question was asked
“god-given liberties”
how does repressed responsibility projected as a space daddy give you liberties
liberty is the right and power to express oneself in a manner of one’s choosing
it is to be free of restriction or control
isn’t that what the religions of abraham do
don’t they have like 10 set-in-stone restrictions
and are you not allowed to choose and control yourself
but must be modeled after a misunderstood and misused palestinian shaman
don’t they have that “sin” shit
and the whole eden guilt trip
tha fuck is mike seaver talkin bout!
and i’m pretty sure kids can pray in public fella
they do it all the time
i think what folk don’t like is when you try to proselytize us in public
yes
they can freely open a bible in school
they can open any book of religion and fantasy they wish
so long as its appropriate and non interfering with school work
which is what you are there to do
don’t you go to school on the weekends for the bible?
in some public places the ten commandments are not wished for or wanted displayed by the public
they are tribal commandments from 15 centuries ago!
they are societal law and civil codes for a specific population
why would the public want such displayed?
to what ends?
what about every other tribe, group, cult, club, justice league or cabal
are we to be privy and reminded of their rules and regulations?
do you think so kirk?
and yeah
the gideons
nor any other religious sub sect are allowed to proselytize at schools
im down for lettin the gideons as long as e let the hare krishnas, pastafarians and ubermensch do the same
you with me there kirk?
yes kirk
most of the enlightened or educated folk in the country do not believe in space daddies or flying monkeys
that would tend to make quite a bit of sense ya
since they have the investigative and educated experience
and kirk
atheism has doubled because paradigms like yours and people like you are the alternative!
it’s really that simple
really
not due to proselytizing professors
um
see
what you’re doing there is projection
you are assuming others do what you do
i would surely say 61% of the students at such a high level of education as you speak of are already atheistic or agnostic
again it comes with being able to think your own thoughts or process information at such a high standard
the brainwashing thing is projection too man
dont worry its very normal and nobody really gets it yet
but like you said
the %’s are rising
so that should soon change
thank god the culture is changing!
are you at all familiar with american history
seriously man
thankfully we are evolving
and everyone is pretty much aware of your “alternative”
or the logic you present as the alternative
it’s not like the evil agnostic uni profs are the only voice in the wilderness
you yourself are already overexposed and hold the unique ability to outshine and actually help keep folk agnostic more than anyone who tries to parody you
you’re better than hal lindsey(p.b.u.h.)
im completely lost on that heart changing shit with the gospel
logic?
see…
in your world
folk thinking for themselves is sin
and
you imagine that is a good thing?
ah i think we’re past 61% now
ok
so now you feel threatened by some fellas theory of evolution
and have decided to hijack his work and add false propaganda
please tell me you get the irony of including hitler into that
right
c’mon now
right
wow
think of the intro we could write for the bible!
everyone who accepts and attends the origin theory over the creation theory has already heard all that about darwin
what with the upper education n all
hitler was also a christian there kirk
i’ll let you think your own thought on that for…
well
however long
as i’m only 2 mins in to this so far…
uh-oh
wait
oh your god!
you did not just use science to discredit your “opposition”
did you really just do that?
!wow!
yep
im out!
smile, dance and think about thought
-j
ol boy has a helmet that can…
yeah
just watch
the helmet is in the intro to the lecture itself
i like to listen to this guy speak
his voice
his logic
searchin out more of his work now
kinda curious as to why im ignorant of him given the work n all
“christians” or christ likin folk should pay attention to the 36:45 min mark up until 39:00
and the info presented on rauvolfia
then his remarks on synergism
this is one h.a.i.r.y. fella
47:45 is another buena vista!
The Pharmacratic Inquisition DVD – Official Online Edition
1:51:19
How deep does the rabbit hole go? Gnostic Media is proud to present the official online edition of The Pharmacratic Inquisition 2007. If you enjoyed “Zeitgeist – The Movie”, you will love this video; the creators of this video are listed as one of the sources for the Zeitgeist Movie. The Pharmacratic Inquisition 2007 is a video version of the book, “Astrotheology & Shamanism” by Jan Irvin & Andrew Rutajit. The painstakingly detailed and heavily footnoted research in the book comes to life in this video and is now available to you for FREE! For further research of the claims made in this video, please read AstroTheology & Shamanism – this book is available to order as a combo with the DVD. Thousands of years ago, in the pre monarchic era, sacred plants and other entheogenic substances where politically correct and highly respected for their ability to bring forth the divine, Yahweh, God, The Great Spirit, etc., by the many cultures who used them. Often the entire tribe or community would partake in the entheogenic rites and rituals. These rites were often used in initiation into adulthood, for healing, to help guide the community in the decision process, and to bring the direct religious experience to anyone seeking it. In the pre literate world, the knowledge of psychedelic sacraments, as well as fertility rites and astronomical knowledge surrounding the sun, stars, and zodiac, known as astrotheology, were anthropomorphized into a character or a deity; consequently, their stories and practices could easily be passed down for generations. Weather changes over millenniums caused environmental changes that altered the available foods and plant sacraments available in the local vicinity. If a tribe lost its shamanic El-der (El – God), all of the tribe’s knowledge of their plant sacraments as well as astronomical knowledge would be lost. The Church’s inquisitions extracted this sacred knowledge from the local Shamans who were then exterminated…It is time to recognize the fact that this Pharmacratic Inquisition is still intact and destroy it.
i normally dont care for his logic play
and find it loaded and slippery at times
i did find this perspective very curious and foreign
http://www.maxunderground.com/articles/2003/tbaginski_interview.html
Tomek Bagiñski on “The Cathedral”
by Pablo Hadis for MaxUnderground
A significant number of CG artists have already seen “The Cathedral” or are aware of its existence. “The Cathedral” is a unique short film, not only due to its intrinsic qualities, but also because of the way it was conceived. This non-commercial film is the result of the collaboration between two highly talented individuals: Polish science fiction writer Jacek Dukaj, author of the original “Cathedral” story, and Tomek Bagiñski, an accomplished CG artist with a strong background in painting and architecture. Working together with Jacek Dukaj on adapting the story for short-film production, Tomek spent 14 months on this project, switching through all the different hats of the CG trade and using Max as his 3D program of choice. Thanks to its amazing visuals and a storyline of unusual content and depth, “The Cathedral” has earned (and continues to earn) awards around the world, including SIGGRAPH’s Best Animated Short award and an Oscar nomination. We had the pleasure of interviewing Tomek Bagiñski, who gives us a detailed account of the production of his short film.
Why? (Why did you make the short film?)
I had been working for two years doing commercials before I started working on “The Cathedral”. Commercials in Poland are a fresh topic. We’ve had a non-communist government and a market-based economy for I think 13 years now, so the history of commercials in Poland is only 13 years old. What does all this mean? It means that we are at the beginning of this road and most commercials created in this country are of poor quality. They are evolving very fast and there is already much more good-quality output now than, say, for example, 5 years ago but it is still a very fresh topic. So, I had been working on ( very bad ) commercials for two years and I felt that my brain needed some exercise or I would otherwise end up brainwashed, flat, non-creative, an ex-artist. I needed something creative to work on after the hours I spent at my day job, I needed “The Cathedral” to prove to myself that I was still able to create cool pictures.
Why did you choose The Cathedral in particular, among other possible sources?
After I decided to make a short film, I contacted my favorite SciFi writer here in Poland – Jacek Dukaj – and asked him if he would be interested in getting involved in such a project as a scriptwriter. I did not believe that he would agree at first, but he did. A miracle. During the next six months he sent me more than 400 pages of ideas and finished stories in different stages of evolution. There were dozens of ideas described in a few lines and also some full length short stories. One of them was “The Cathedral”. It was 80 pages long, very visual and an excellent short story. We did not think at the beginning that we would end up choosing “The Cathedral”. It is extremely good literature but it was way too long for a short film project and when we started we had no idea how to edit it down to its current size. But we also felt that it was the best – way too long, but definitely the best.
 |
||
| “Cathedral” hero, modeled after musician/actor Witalis Popow |
It took us almost six months to decide ourselves on the “The Cathedral” and to find the way to turn this long, multithread, multihero story into a 7 minutes short with only one hero ( this was one of the self-imposed restrictions with which I decided to work on for the project ). The final screenplay is only 2 pages long and the story line can be told in just one sentence, but it still retains the mood of the original “Cathedral”. In this case, the mood of the story is much more important than the story line. Both in Jacek’s original concept and in my movie.
Which were the biggest technical obstacles for making your short film?
Animation. When I started “The Cathedral” I was a quite good modeler but I didn’t know anything about animation. It was a really tough road to travel. My first scenes took ages to complete. A few months later my producers decided to make a motion capture session in order to help me. We had to make some Mocaps for “Quo Vadis” ( a Polish feature film production ) so we did some for “Cathedral” too. This was great for me since I was really tired of fighting with character animation. Unfortunately, this was not the best way to solve the problem. The Mocap we used wasn’t very accurate, and cleaning this Mocap data was taking more time than creating keyframe animation from scratch. In the meantime I had upgraded my animation skills a lot and I had started to work really fast so in the end clean Mocap data was only used in three or four long distance shots. The rest was animated by me from scratch or animated with Mocap as a reference for timing and poses. I have still lots to learn regarding animation, but I can gladly say that I am now much better than before I started the project.
There were also some “pure” technical obstacles like the cloth simulation for the hero’s cloak, which was real pain in the ass and never looked the way I wanted it to. Also, the need to manage big quantities of data ( I’ve rendered the project in 1,5 K and in many layers so it has more than 300 Gb of data. – all this in my head ). Work proceeded slowly when time was spent on the big scenes and big compositions.
Which elements of the film did you enjoy the most playing with (modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, editing)?
I really liked compositing and matte painting. I’ve learned a lot, I really liked it. Most of the scenes in “The Cathedral” are a mix of 3D rendering, 2D graphics, and some compositing tricks. I’ve invented many things on the way which were needed for solving certain situations and it was really fun to do it. I also enjoyed the concept and pre-production stages. While you are doing concept art you can take risks because you don’t have anything to lose yet. You haven’t started working on the really huge scenes, you can free your imagination and the mistakes don’t cost much. You can experiment freely and test a few scenes in one evening. All of this becomes impossible at a later stage.
The elements I mentioned are the ones I liked the most but I also enjoyed modeling, texturing and lighting. I liked to invent tricks to make things which are theoretically impossible to make. Many people asked me how I did the final part of the animation, what is the name of the plugin that I used to create it. They find it hard to believe that it is just the result of using a few modifiers wisely; pure 3ds max with no plugins. Just tricks.
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| A partial list of layers used for compositing one of the sequences: ambient, texture, light, rays and z layer (final image at bottom right) |
At what point did you consider the film a ‘finished’ piece?
The film was finished at the end of April 2002, at that time it was printed to 35mm film. But I only came to feel that this project was really closed several months later, a few minutes after the cinema premiere for “The Cathedral” took place here in Poland. That was on October 16, 2002, and after that the film was screened in many cinemas here in Poland as a bonus addition to “Minority Report” and “Signs”. I always wanted to show this film on the big screen, inside the cinema. It was one of my dreams and I did it with the help from many great guys. What more could I ask for?
Which ‘classic’ painters have influenced your work? Any other inspirations?
I find inspiration all around me. The light changing behind the windows changes my mood. Every little piece of reality influences us these days, but of course there were some more important and visible inspirations: painters like Rembrandt or Beksinski. Architects like Gaudi. Gothic architecture ( I’ve read dozens of books on the subject before I started working on the film ). Some other less visible but very important inspirations like Japan Anime, Music Videos, music itself, movies, books. Many things.
How did you find out that you had been given SIGGRAPH’s award for the Best Animated Short? What was your reaction?
I got an e-mail from the jury and my first reaction was feeling scared. I know it sounds strange, it was strange for me too, but that was my reaction: I was scared. You have to understand, I was really exhausted those days: the work I put on “The Cathedral” during the last weeks of the project was done under extreme pressure, I worked days and nights, and my brain was overheated… I started to celebrate sometime later when I was 100% sure that it wasn’t a joke.
I never expected that my film would win as the Best Animated Short of the event. I wanted to get into the Electronic Theather but I never thought that I could win the prize for the best short.
Which effect have the prizes you’ve won for The Cathedral been having on your life/work? What about Platige Image, have they considered embarking on an animated feature length film?
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| Test model, previous to MeshSmoothing |
We aren’t involved in an animated feature film yet but I have some plans :) Of course all this has influenced my life. It’s been a bit more peaceful these last days, but at certain moments it’s come to a point when I sometimes have no time for 3D, have no time for art because of interviews, workshops, and travelling. A year ago I had never travelled outside Poland. In the last 6 months I’ve been twice to the U.S., several times to western Europe and even visited Japan last month. And these people even pay my bills, only for an opportunity to watch “The Cathedral” and watch and hear some “making of” materials. It’s great – but it is also quite exhausting. We also made a big noise out of “The Cathedral” and its awards locally, here in Poland. As I said – the film has been screened in cinemas around the whole country. I’ve done many interviews for the media here, and of course we now have more work than before. It’s quite a good time, but sometimes I really yearn for calmness. I can’t forget now about the surrounding world and make art as I could before.
Any improvements in Max that you think could’ve made your work easier?
I like Max but in my opinion it needs some speed improvements. MeshSmooth is a very slow modifier for example ( even at a value of zero – which is strange ). Skinning is very slow in Max. In most cases you have to work on a VERY simplified model or with a skeleton. Messiah:animate is, for example, many times faster – not two times or three times: it’s a dozen times faster – so optimization in these regards is possible. Even Lightwave ( oops ) is much faster than Max in that part ( I’m working with Grzegorz Jonkajtys, he is very good in Max but he is also a LW master, and he is doing all the character animation in LW. When I saw how fast it is compared to Max i stopped wondering why he is doing it ;-) I really like Max, though, and I believe this can be easily fixed.
And of course the traditional problem – booleans.
Thank you for sharing with us, Tomek, and congrats on making such an amazing and visually stunning film! We’ll be looking forward to your next short!
Or maybe a full feature. Who knows ;-) I’ve made some connections these last months. Anything is possible. All you need is to try. I can always return to making commercials, and shorts, right? ;)
***
For more information on “The Cathedral” short film visit:
http://www.platige.com/katedra/eng_/strona_glowna.html
Jacek Dukaj’s website:
http://dukaj.fantastyka.art.pl/index_english.html (English)
http://dukaj.fantastyka.art.pl (Polish)
Platige Image, the studio that helped produce The Cathedral:
http://www.platige.com
Document last edited: September 16th, 2003.
Comments? Please use the following form to contact us.
Images courtesy of Tomek Bagiñski and Platige Image.
(c) 2003 MaxUnderground
http://thslone.tripod.com/rasta-bibliography.html
An Annotated Bibliography of Rastafarian Speech (Rasta Talk)
- The Origin of Jamaican Creole
- The Origin and Nature of Rasta Talk
- Bibliography
- Web-Based Dictionaries
- Primary Material: Rasta Talk
- Secondary Material
- Other Books on Rastafarianism
The Origin of Jamaican Creole
The speech of Jamaican Rastafarians is a variant of Jamaican Creole (JC). JC is an English-based creole that is a product of colonialism. The Spaniards were the first to colonize Jamaica, but had little direct influence upon development of JC. When British colonialists ousted them, the Spaniards’ African slaves escaped into the mountains where they retained much of their African culture and some of their African languages. The British brought more slaves from Africa, but were unable to recapture the escapees, known as Maroons, and so instead maintained a negotiated peace settlement with them. The Maroons reinforced the African influences in JC that the African slaves of the British brought. Maroons also influenced (though not always directly) various Afrocentric political and religious movements, including the Rastafarians. Maroon retention of African culture has generally been seen as positive by these movements despite the Maroons’ agreement with the British to return all newly escaped slaves. Other aspects of the Caribbean milieu (e.g., French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Hindi and Amerindian languages) have also influenced JC. The most recent language additions to JC are primarily from the Rastafarians (Roberts, 1988: 43), who besides adding a few Amharic words, have made many linguistic innovations.
The Origin and Nature of Rasta Talk
The language of the Rastafarians is known as Rasta Talk or Dread Talk by non-Rastafarians, and as Iyaric (“I” + “Amharic”) or Livalect (“live” + “dialect”) by Rastafarians. In Jamaica, it exists as one of a number of registers of JC that indicate social standing and/or situation. Rasta Talk was initiated by the sect known as the Youth Black Faith, founded in 1949 (Chevannes, 1978: 173, 189-190). Nearly all Jamaicans speak or at least understand several registers of JC (Roberts, 1988: 82). Rasta Talk is not spoken by non-Rastafarians, but many words from Rasta Talk have entered other registers in JC; this is mainly due to the international popularity of reggae music and its linkage with Rastafarianism. Rastafarians had little or no influence upon JC prior to the 1960s.
Rasta Talk was initially intended to be a secret language to counter societal oppression (Chevannes, 1978: 190). Pollard (1986: 157-158) explains, “It seems that the language was intended to be secret…. [ellipsis hers] This particular intention was, however, short-lived: the language of Rasta soon moved into the youth culture of Jamaica.” JC and other creoles have themselves functioned as languages of secrecy.
The linguistic modifications of Rasta Talk are both numerous and dynamic. Linguistic modification is seen as a necessity by Rastafarians because JC is a product of colonialism and because JC is viewed as an inadequate vehicle for their religion.
Rasta Talk has four types of linguistic innovations: 1) Redefinitions of existing words 2) merging of existing words into new words 3) Substitution of “I” for the initial syllable of words (these are inherently benedictive) 4) Substitution of meaning for existing JC words. (Pollard, 1983: 49; 1986: 161).
See also the Amazon Rastafarian Store.
Bibliography
Web-Based Dictionaries
Several Web-based dictionaries are available, however they do not distinguish between Jamaican Creole and phrases of Rastafarian origin.
- Dennison, Richard; Ogata, Michio; & Brown, Kevin (1996). Rasta/Patois Dictionary.
- Pawka, Mike (2001). Rasta/Patois Dictionary.
- A Rasta-Hebrew Dictionary. (You will need to be able to view Hebrew characters to view this.)
- Rasta Patois – Russian Dictionary. (You will need to be able to view Cyrillic characters to view this.)
- Rasta Is Cuss: A Dictionary of Rastafarian Cursing. By Thomas H. Slone (2003, in press). Oakland, CA: Masalai Press, 108 pp.
In print!
In print!Primary Material: Rasta Talk
General
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- Ama, Imani Tafari (1988a). “Shock treatment for Rastafarians in Antigua.” Reggae Report 6(1): 32.
- Barrett Sr., Leonard E. (1988). The Rastafarians: Sounds of Cultural Dissonance. Boston: Beacon Press, 2nd edition, 302 pp. This is a well-written history of Rastafarianism in the context of Jamaican history. The first edition appeared in 1968 as The Rastafarians: A Study of Messianic Cultism in Jamaica.
In print! - Bishton, Derek (1986). Black Heart Man: A Journey Into Rasta. London: Chatto & Windus, 135 pp. This is a well-illustrated book that focuses on Jamaican and Rastafarian history, Rastafarians in England, and Rastafarians who migrated to Shashamene in Ethiopia. Out of print.
- Bones, Jah (1986). “Language and Rastafari.” In: The Language of the Black Experience: Cultural Expression through Word and Sound in the Caribbean and Black Britain. David Sutcliffe & Ansel Wong, eds. New York: Basil Blackwell, pp. 37-51. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Campbell, Horace (1987). Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 236 pages. This is a Marxist historical analysis of Rastafarianism.
In print! - Cashmore, Ernest (1979). Rastaman: The Rastafarian Movement in England. Boston: George Allen & Unwin. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Chevannes, Barry (1978). Social Origins of the Rastafari Movement. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Chevannes, Barry (1994). Rastafari: Roots and Ideology. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 298 pp. This is well-written book presents a history of Rastafarianism.
In print! - de Albuquerque, Klaus (1979). “”The future of the Rastafarian movement.” Caribbean Review 8(4): 22-25, 44-46.
- de Albuquerque, Klaus (1980). “Rastafarianism and cultural identity in the Caribbean.” Revista/Review Interamericana 10(2): 230-247. This is a sociological analysis of Rastafarianism.
- Edward, Prince Emmanuel Charles (n.d.). Black Supremacy in Rightousness [sic] of Salvation Jesus Negus Christ Emmanuel “I” Selassie “I” Jah Rastafari in Royal Majesty Selassie “I” Jahovah Jah Rastafar “I.” Jamaica: Jerusalem School Room of the Ethiopia Africa International Congress. Out of print.
- Faristzaddi, Millard [Milhawhdh] (1982). Itations of Jamaica and I Rastafari… the First Itation. Miami, FL: Judah Anbesa. [no pagination] This part one of a beautifully photographed and extensively illustrated trilogy. Poetry and mystical verse are interleaved with photographs. The First Itation contains a 12 glossary of Rasta Talk. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for the First Itation (The Celebration). / Second Itation (The Revelation). / Third Itation (The Liberation)
- Jacobs, Virginia Lee (1985). Roots of Rastafari. San Diego, CA: Slawson Communications, 130 pp. This book includes a glossary of religious terms on pp. 117-130. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Johnson-Hill, Jack Anthony (1988). Elements of an Afro-Caribbean Social Ethic: A Disclosure of the World of Rastafari as Liminal Process. Ph.D. Thesis: Vanderbilt University.
- Kitzinger, Sheila (1969). “Protest and mysticism: The Rastafari Cult of Jamaica.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8: 240-262. Kitzinger reports on the belief system of the Rastafarians based on her field research in 1965.
- Kitzinger, Sheila (1971). “The Rastafarian brethren of Jamaica.” In: Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean: An Anthropological Reader. Michael M. Horowitz, ed. Garden City, New York: Natural History Press, pp. 580-588. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Littlewood, Roland (1993). Pathology and Identity: The Word of Mother Earth in Trinidad. New York: Cambridge University Press. This book is not about Rastafarians, but is about a similar religious group in Trinidad.
In print! - Mason, Clifford (1980). “Waiting on the man.” Geo: A New View of our World 2(9): 124-146.
- Mulvaney, Rebekah Michele (1990). Rastafari and Reggae: A Dictionary and Sourcebook. New York: Greenwood Press.
In print! - New York City Police Department (1985). “Rasta crime.” Caribbean Review 14(1): 12-15, 39-40. This article is an unauthorized reprint of an NYCPD report on the langauge of the subset of Rastafarians in New York who were involved in criminal activities. A brief glossary is included on pp. 13-14.
- Nicholas, Tracy (1979). Rastafari: A Way of Life. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 92 pp. & many photographs.
In print! - Owens, Joseph (1976). Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores, 282 pp. Introduction by Rex Nettleford (pp. vii-xix). This is a compassionate introduction to the Rastafarians. Pages 256-280 are a transcription of Rastafarians reasoning [discussing] the then recently reported death of Haile Selassie. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
Velma Pollard
Velma Pollard has written the most informative and most extensive work on Rasta Talk.
- Pollard, Velma (1982). “The social history of Dread Talk.” Caribbean Quarterly 28(4): 17-40. This article gives an extensive glossary of Rasta Talk on pp. 29-36, divided into Pollard’s 4 categories. There is also a discussion of the social context of Rasta Talk.
- Pollard, Velma (1983). “The social history of Dread Talk.” In: Studies in Caribbean Language. Lawrence D. Carrington, ed. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Society for Caribbean Linguistics, pp. 46-62. Out of print. Limited copies are available from the Society for Caribbean Linguistics.
- Pollard, Velma (1984). “Word sounds: The language of Rastafari in Barbados and St. Lucia.” Jamaica Journal 17(1): 57-62. This article discusses the changes in Rasta Talk on Barbados and St. Lucia to its origin on Jamaica.
- Pollard, Velma (1985). “Dread Talk — the speech of the Rastafarian in Jamaica.” Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Quarterly. University of the West Indies, pp. 32-41. This article gives a glossary of Rasta Talk with examples of usage, again divided into Pollard’s 4 categories.
- Pollard, Velma (1986). “Innovation in Jamaican Creole: The speech of Rastafari.” In: Varieties of English Around the World: Focus on the Caribbean. Manfred Görlach & John A. Holm, eds., Vol. 8. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, pp. 157-166. In print!
- Pollard, Velma (1994). Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari. 1st edition, Kingston, Jamaica: Canoe Press, 84 pp. Out of print.
- Pollard, Velma (2000). Dread Talk: The Language of Rastafari. 2nd edition, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 96 pp. This book presents Pollard’s hard-to-find earlier work (including 1983, 1984, 1985) in one publication. Also included in this second edition is a previously unpublished chapter, “Globalization and the language of Rastafari”, which analyzes the Web-based Dread Talk dictionaries.
In print!
- Sanders, Rory (1982). “From the root of King David.” In: Reggae International. Stephen Davis & Peter Simon, eds. New York: Rogner & Bernhard GMBH, pp. 59-68.
- Simpson, George Eaton (1955). “The Ras Tafari Movement in Jamaica: A Study of race and class conflict.” Social Forces 34: 167-171. This is the earliest study of Rastafarianism.
- Simpson, George Eaton (1980). Religious Cults of the Caribbean: Trinidad, Jamaica and Haiti. Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 3rd edition. This book includes a chapter entitled, “The Ras Tafari Movement” on pp. 208-223. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Smith, M.G.; Augier, Roy; & Nettleford, Rex (1978 [1960]). Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies. This is one of the earliest study of the Rastafarians. Out of print.
- Tafari, I. Jabulani (1985). “The Rastafari — successors of Marcus Garvey.” Rastafari. Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Quarterly, University of the West Indies, pp. 1-12. [This is a book reprint of a volume of the Caribbean Quarterly]
- Waters, Anita M. (1985). Race, Class, and Political Symbols: Rastafari and Reggae in Jamaican Politics. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Yawney, Carole D. (1976). “Remnants of all nations: Rastafarian attitudes to race and nationality.” In: Ethnicity in the Americas. Frances Henry, ed. Hague: Mouton, pp. 231-262. Out of print.
- Yawney, Carole D. (1979a). Lions in Babylon: The Rastafarians of Jamaica as a Visionary Movement. Ph.D. Thesis: McGill University, 365 pp.
- Yawney, Carole D. (1979b). “Dread wasteland: Rastafarian ritual in West Kingston, Jamaica.” Occasional Publications in Anthropology, Ethnology Series. University of North Colorado, no. 33, pp. 154-178.
- Yawney, Carole D. (1979c). “Rastafarians in Jamaican perspective.” Rikka 6: 42-56.
Peter Tosh
Besides being a renowned and seminal reggae musician, the late Peter Tosh was a sharp-tongued wit in a Rasta style. These references give an idea of his verbal style and linguistic creativity.
- Ama, Imani Tafari (1988b). “Peter Tosh speaks.” Reggae Report 6(2): 19, 25.
- Aylmer, Kevin J. (1992). “In touch with Tosh.” Reggae Report 10(8): 20-23.
- Campbell, Nicholas, director (1992). Stepping Razor – Red X (The Peter Tosh Story). Great Britain: SC Entertainment International [film].
In print! - Sheridan, Maureen (1987). “Peter Tosh: The last words and violent death of a reggae hero.” Musician 100: 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 40, 121. This is an article on Tosh’s final days.
- Tafari, I. Jabulani (1988). “Reggae radix… Peter Tosh.” Reggae Report 6(1): 18-19, 30, 33, 35-36.
- Wolynski, Mara; Schine, Cathleen; Mayo, Anna; Moroz, Josh; Trilling, Roger; Weston, Bradford; & Whitcraft, Teri. (1978). “Illegalize It.” The Village Voice 23(42): 28. This is a report of Tosh’s arrest in Kingston following the famous Peace Concert.
Secondary Material
Jamaican Speech and Culture
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- Cassidy, Frederic Gomes (1982). Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica. London: Macmillan Education. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Cassidy, Frederic Gomes & Le Page, Robert Black (2003). Dictionary of Jamaican English. Kingston: University Press of the West Indies, 2nd edition, 500 pp. This is the definitive dictionary of Jamaican English. It shows the basis upon which Rasta Talk is based. In print!
- Cooper, Carolyn (1995). Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and the “Vulgar” Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 214 pp. This book briefly discusses Rasta Talk in the context of Jamaican speech.). In print!
- Hogg, Donald (1960). “The Convince Cult in Jamaica.” Yale University Publications in Anthropology vol. 58, 24 pp. & photos. This monograph describes an indigenous Jamaican religion, the Convince Cult, and some comparison is made to Rastafarianism.
- Nettleford, Rex M. (1970). Mirror Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: William Collins and Sangster. One of the earliest studies of the Rastafarians. In print!
- Roberts, Peter A. (1988). West Indians and Their Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 215. This book discusses the varieties of English in the Caribbean, including a contextualization of Rasta Talk in Jamaican English. Out of print:
Search Amazon.com for this book. - Sobo, Elisa Janine (1993). One Blood: The Jamaican Body. Albany: State University of New York, 329 pp., illustrated. This book briefly mentions Rastafarianism, but is useful for putting Rastafarian beliefs about the body into context with respect to Jamaica (e.g., there is an extensive discussion on the social aspects of menstruation). In print!
Reggae
- Boyle, Chris (1987). “Words, sound and power.” The Reggae & African Beat 6(5): 24-26.
- Davis, Stephen & Simon, Peter, eds. (1982). Reggae International. New York: Rogner & Bernhard GMBH. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Davis, Stephen (1992). Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica. Garden City, New York: Da Capo Press, 2nd edition.
In print! - Grass, Randall (1982). “Do the reggay.” In: Reggae International., Davis & Simon, pp. 45-47.
- Jones, Simon (1988). Black Culture, White Youth: The Reggae Tradition from JA to UK. London: Macmillan Education. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Manley, Michael (1982). “Introduction: Reggae, a revolutionary impulse.” In: Reggae International. Stephen Davis & Peter Simon, eds. New York: Rogner & Bernhard GMBH, pp. 11-13.
- White, Timothy (1989). Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley. New York: Henry Holt, 464 pp., illustrated. This is an exhaustively researched and definitive biography of Bob Marley.
In print!
African-American Speech and Culture
- Clarke, Colin G. (1975). Kingston, Jamaica: Urban Development and Social Change, 1692-1962. Berkeley: University of California Press. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Dance, Daryl C. (1985). Folklore from Contemporary Jamaicans. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 229 pp. This is an excellent collection of Jamaican folklore. It contains a chapter of folklore that satirizes Rastafarians (pp. 86-94) and has a few other references to Rastafarians. In print!
- Dillard, Joey Lee (1976). “Black names.” In: Contributions to the Sociology of Language, Joshua A. Fishman, ed. No. 13. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton. Out of print.
- Lourde, Audre (1990). “Is your hair still political?” Essence 21(5): 40, 110. This article describes the persecution of dreadlocks in the British Virgin Islands.
- Luntta, Karl (1996). Jamaica Handbook. Chico, CA: Moon Publishers, 3rd edition. This is an excellent tour guide of Jamaica, perhaps the best tour guide of Jamaica.
In print! - Major, Clarence, ed. (1994). Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang. New York: Penguin Books. This is an excellent survey of African-American slang, some of which corresponds with Jamaican English. Out of print:
Search Amazon.com for this book. - Sims Holt, Grace (1972). “‘Inversion’ in Black communication.” In: Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out: Communication in Urban Black America. Thomas Kochman, ed. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 152-159. This chapter describes the technique of linguistic inversion, which is used both by African-Americans and by Rastafarians. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Thomas, Polly (2000). The Rough Guide to Jamaica. New York: Rough Guides, 384 pp., illustrated. An excellent tour guide to Jamaica.
In print!
Slang and Maledicta
Rasta Talk has many bad words (maledicta). These references will give you some context and comparison.
- Arango, Ariel C. (1989). Dirty Words: Psychoanalytic Insights. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Reprinted as Dirty Words: The Expressive Power of Taboo in 1996. In print!
- Dundes, Alan (1987). Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles and Stereotypes. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Eisiminger, Sterling (1979). “A glossary of ethnic slurs in American English.” Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression 3(2): 153-174. Check Amazon.com for used copies.
- Clifton, Merritt (1978). “How to hate thy neighbor: A guide to racist maledicta.” Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression 2: 149-174. Check Amazon.com for used copies.
- Hughes, Geoffrey (1991). Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
In print! - Johnson, Ken (1972). “The vocabulary of race.” In: Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out: Communication in Urban Black America. Thomas Kochman, ed. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 140-151. This chapter discusses the negative, neutral and positive racial terms used by African-Americans. This is a useful comparison to racial terms in Rasta Talk. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Legman, Gershon (1964). The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Legman, Gershon (1975). Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor. Second Series. New York: Breaking Point. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for the first volume. / Search Amazon.com for the second volume.
- Levine, Robert M. (1980). Race and Ethnic Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Dictionary and Bibliography. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. Levine has a dim view of Rastafarianism, but he defines 3 terms used by or about indigenous Jamaican religions: bombo, bongo, and Nya-binghi. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Mills, Jane (1989). Womanwords: A Dictionary of Words about Women. New York: Free Press. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Paros, Lawrence (1984). The Erotic Tongue: A Sexual Lexicon. New York: Henry Holt. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Partridge, Eric (1984). A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: Colloquialisms and Catch-phrases Solecisms and Catachreses Nicknames and Vulgarisms. Paul Beal, ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Partridge, Eric (1989 [1950]). A Dictionary of the Underworld. Hertfordshire, Great Britain: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
In print! - Patterson, H. Orlando (1964). The Children of Sisyphus. Harlow, England: Longman. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Wentworth, Harold & Flexner, Stuart Berg (1975). Dictionary of American Slang, 2nd edition. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. The current edition is by Chapman et al.
In print!
Millenarianism
- Fell, G. S. (1989). “Explorations into linguistic practice as a source of religious polarities, or the inevitability of ineffability.” In: Language in Religion. Humphrey Tonkin & Allison Armstrong Keef, eds. New York: University Press of America, pp. 7-15. In print!
- Fox, George, Stubs, John, & Furly, Benjamin (1968 [1660]). A Battle-Door for Teachers & Professors to Learn Singular and Plural. Menston, England: The Scolar Press. [pagination irregular] Out of print.
- La Barre, Weston (1970). The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Thrupp, Sylvia L., ed. (1970). Millennial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious Movements. New York: Shocken Books. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
Other
- Fiddes, Nick (1991). Meat: A Natural Symbol. New York: Routledge, 261 pp. The Rastafarian taboo against pork can be seen in perspective after reading this book. In print!
- Pauwels, Marcel (1951). “Le culte de Nyabingi (Ruanda).” Anthropos 46: 337-357. This article explains the origin of the Nyabingi Religion.
- Redfern, Walter (1984). Puns. New York: Basil Blackwell. This book provides a good background into the word play that is present in Rasta Talk. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Todd, Loreto (1974). Pidgins and Creoles. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. This is an excellent general introduction to pidgin and creole languages. Rasta Talk is based upon Jamaican Creole. In print!
Other Publications on Rastafarianism (unreviewed)
- Ahkell, Jah (1999). Rasta: Emperor Haile Sellassie and the Rastafarians. Research Associates School Times, 60 pp.
In print! - Atiba, Jahson I Alemu (1999). The Rastafari Ible. The Rastafarian Bible. Research Associates School Times, 71 pp.
In print! - Bowen, W. Errol (1971). “Ras Tafarism and the new society.” Savacou 5: 41-50.
- Brown, Samuel Elisha (1966). “Treatise on the Rastafarian Movement.” Carribbean Studies 6: 1-2.
- Bryan, Maurice (1997). Roots, Resistance and Redemption — The Rise of Rastafari. Africanstory Publisher, 127 pp.
In print! - Cariou, Patrick & Henzell, Perry (2000). Yes Rasta. powerHouse Books, 160 pp.
In print! - Cashmore, Ernest (date?). The Rastafarians. The Minority Rights Group, No. 64. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Chevannes, Barry (1998). Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. In print!
- Clarke, Peter B. (date?). Black Paradise: The Rastafarian Movement. Black Political Studies, No. 5. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Dizzy, Ras (1969). The Human Guide Line. Out of print.
- Dizzy, Ras (1971). Rastafarians Society Watchman. Out of print.
- Forsythe, Dennis (1996). Rastafari: For the Healing of the Nation. One Drop Books, 268 pp.
In print! - Garrick, Neville (1999). A Rasta’s Pilgrimage: Ethiopian Faces and Places Pomegranate, 128 pp.
In print! - Garrison, Len (date?). Black Youth, Rastafarianism, and the Identity Crisis in Britain. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Hannah, Barbara Blake (1997). Rastafari — The New Creation. Jamaican Media Productions, 102 pp. In print!
- Hausman, Gerald, ed. (1997). The Kebra Negast: The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith from Ethiopia and Jamaica. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 203 pp. Introduction by Ziggy Marley.
In print! - Hoenisch, Michael (1988). “Symbolic politics: Perceptions of the early Rastafari movement.” Massachusetts Review 29: 432-449.
- Isaacs, Karl & Jacobs, Everett (1995). Dred. Winter Park, FL: Four G, 78 pp.
In print! - Johnson-Hill, Jack A. (1995). I-Sight: The World of the Rastafari. Scarecrow Press, 421 pp. In print!
- Kelly, Ras Carlisle A. (n.d.). Revelation of Jah Throne. Out of print.
- Lewis, William F. & Gregg, Joan Young, eds. (1993). Soul Rebels: The Rastafari. Waveland Press.
In print! - Lanternari, Vittorio (1965). The Religions of the Oppressed. New York. Page 136 mentions the Rastafarians. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book. This book was reviewed by William Nigel Kerr.
- Loth, Heinz-Jèurgen (date?). Rastafari: Bibel und afrikanische Spiritualitèat. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Mack Douglas R. A. (1999). From Babylon to Rastafari: Origin and History of the Rastafarian Movement. Research Associates School Times Publications, 157 pp.
In print! - Maragh, G. G. (1933). The Promise Key. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- McPherson, E. S. P. (date?). Rastafari and Politics: Sixty Years of a Developing Cultural Ideology: A Sociology of development perspective. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- McPherson, E. S. P. (date?). My Generation Will Make the Change: Proceedings of the Launching of Rastafari and Politics, Sixty Years of a Development Perspective by E.S.P. McPherson Held at the Creative Arts Center, Mona Campus, U.W.I., Kingston, Jamaica on Monday, September 2, 1991. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Michels, Peter M. (date?). Rastafari. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Moodie, Horace (1999). Hath… The Lion Prevailed…? Frontline Distribution International, 40 pp.
In print! - Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel & McFarlane, Adrian Anthony, eds. (1998). Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 416 pp.
In print! - Myers, Trevor C. (date?). Essence of Rastafari Nationalism and Black Economic Development. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Norris, Katrin (1962). Jamaica, a Search for Identity. London. Chapter 5 contains a chapter titled, “The Call of Africa” on pp. 43-60 on Rastafarianism. Out of print.
- Nyah, Imani (1991). He Came and You Missed H.I.M.: Rastafarian Theology, the Afrocentric Religion of the Future. Chicago, IL: Association of Rastafarian Theologians, 79 pp. Out of print.
- Oosthuizen, G. C. (date?). Rastafarianism. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Osborne, Laura (1993). The Rasta Cookbook: Vegetarian Cuisine Eaten With the Salt of the Earth: Recipes. Africa World Press, 132 pp.
In print! - Owens, J. [Joseph] V. (1975). “Literature of the Rastafari: 1955-1974, a review.” Savacou 11(12): 86-105. This article reviews the work of non-Rastafarians: Simpson, The University Report (Smith et al.), Norris, Patterson, Lanternari, Barrett, Kitzinger, Nettleford, Post, Bowen, Yawney, as well as Rastafarians: Brown, Kelly, Ras Dizzy and 3 periodicals.
- Post, Ken (1970). “The Bible as Ideology: Ethopianism in Jamaica, 1930-38.” In: African Perspectives, Allen, Christopher & Johnson, R. W., eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 185-207. In print!
- Rogers, Robert Athtyi; Tafari, Ras Sekou; & Lorne, Miguel (2000). The Holy Piby. Frontline Books/Research Associates, pp 103 pp. Originally published in 1924 by Robert Aththyi Rogers, this book was highly influential upon the development of Rastafarianism.
In print! - Sandford, Christine (1999). The Lion of Judah Hath Prevailed. Resarch Associates School Times Pubications, 192 pp.
In print! - Scott, Ricardo A. (1996). With Jah Rastafari As My Witness: Traitors in Babylon — I’ll Never Betray My People. Cornerston Productions. In print!
- Sellassie I, Haile (2000). The Third Testament the Ilect Verses of Jah Rastafari. Frontline Distribution & Headstart Publishing, 693 pp. In print!
- Shangu, Baku, ed. (1997). Haile Sellassie and the Opening of the Seven Seals. Frontline Distribution International, 110 pp.
In print! - Stuart, Jane (1999). I Am a Rastafarian. Religions of the World Series. Rosen Publishing Group/Powerkids Press. For children. In print!
- Thomas, Michael (date?). Jah Revenge. Out of print: Search Amazon.com for this book.
- Turner, Terisa E. & Ferguson, Bryan J. (1994). Arise Ye Mighty People! Gender, Class and Race in Popular Struggles. Africa World Press. Hardcover in print! / Softcover in print!
- White, Edgar (1983). Lament for the Rastafari and Other Plays. New York: Rizzoli. In print!
http://aiwazzsaying.blogspot.com
aiwazzsaying is an esoteric library blog
by DowneastDem
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 02:41:39 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/30/748515/-Scientists-Visit-the-Creation-Museum
The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky opened in 2007 to present an account of the origins of the universe, life and mankind according to a literal interpretation of the Bible. The museum is used by many evangelical Christians as a backdrop to attack the moral relativism that they believe is ruining America. Visitors to the museum learn that the universe was created 6000 years ago (in six days) and dinosaurs and humans cohabited the earth.
Yesterday a group of scientists visited the Creation Museum.
- DowneastDem’s diary :: ::
The University of Cincinnati was hosting a conference for paleontologists from all over the world. During a break in the activities, a group of 70 scientists made the short trip to the Creation Museum. While the Americans are accustomed to the general hostility to science among many of their fellow citizens, many of the foreign scientists were shocked at what they found.
Tamaki Sato was confused by the dinosaur exhibit. The placards described the various dinosaurs as originating from different geological periods — the stegosaurus from the Upper Jurassic, the heterodontosaurus from the Lower Jurassic, the velociraptor from the Upper Cretaceous — yet in each case, the date of demise was the same: around 2348 B.C.
“I was just curious why,” said Dr. Sato, a professor of geology from Tokyo Gakugei University in Japan.
Poor Dr. Sato. Has he never read the Bible? Doesn’t he know that 2348 BC was the year of the Great Flood?
Of course, the godless Europeans were also taken aback by the exhibits:
“I’m very curious and fascinated,” Stefan Bengtson, a professor of paleozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said before the visit, “because we have little of that kind of thing in Sweden.”
It’s fun to laugh at the museum and the people that actually believe in the junk science presented there. But not all the scientists were amused:
“It’s sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn’t it?” said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.
Lisa Park of the University of Akron cried at one point as she walked a hallway full of flashing images of war, famine and natural disasters which the museum blames on belief in evolution.
“I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology — and the theology is far more offensive to me,” said Park, a professor of paleontology who is an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
“I think there’s a lot of focus on fear, and I don’t think that’s a very Christian message… I find it a malicious manipulation of the public.”
More than 750,000 people have visited the museum since it opened. Each day, busloads of children from Christian schools throughout America arrive at the Creation Museum for special guided tours.
Rec list? There is a God!
Welcome to Global One TV, an online social network broadcasting Spiritual Television 24 Hours a Day awakening the Divinity within.
(we are having some trouble getting this to load w/o auto-playing, hopefully it won’t auto-play and all you need to do is click on the video box and perhaps the “on-air: box to activate it, let us know how it’s working for you)
At any moment your heart could stop beating and it could all be over. The brain-body organism that thinks it is you would cease to exist.
If you can truly be with this thought for a moment, the body will produce sensations of fear that the intellect will have a hard time trying to combat. And this is how religion is born.
The era that has spanned for thousands of years – one that is rooted in fear, causes division, promotes superstition – that era is ending now. This is the dawning of a new age.
We no longer need to invent imaginary friends or a jealous father who lives in the sky. We can know who we are without all of this.
In order to be moral, we don’t need a list of 10 things or the threat of burning in a pit of fire for all eternity.
In order to be good, we don’t need the promise of eternal paradise dangled in front of us.
We, as a race of intelligent beings are in a stage of maturity. We no longer require the parental supervision of Popes, Rabbis and Mullahs.
We are free to seek the Divinity within.
We are free to seek the Divinity in all things.
The spiritual realm is no longer a place that is roped off, only to be visited by special people with special powers. It is everywhere, at all times in all places and yet it transcends place and time – just as we transcend place and time.
You are not your story.
You are not only the brain-body organism which you currently inhabit. You are so much less and so much more.
We as a society can now take off the training wheels of organized religion and awaken to “religiousness”.
Let us give up our jihads, our crusades and take a quantum leap in our consciousness toward radical spiritual evolution. Using the power of Collective Intention we can make this possible and it begins right now.
Peace,
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.
A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited twenty-one books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews. Among his most recent books are a Greek-English edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press), an assessment of the newly discovered Gospel of Judas (Oxford University Press), and two New York Times Bestsellers: “God’s Problem” (an assessment of the biblical views of suffering) and “Misquoting Jesus” (an overview of the changes found in the surviving copies of the New Testament and of the scribes who produced them).
Among his fields of scholarly expertise are the historical Jesus, the early Christian apocrypha, the apostolic fathers, and the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.
Professor Ehrman has served as President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical literature, chair of the New Testament textual criticism section of the Society, book review editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature, and editor of the monograph series The New Testament in the Greek Fathers (Scholars Press). He currently serves as co-editor of the series New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (E. J. Brill), co-editor-in-chief for the journal Vigiliae Christianae, and on several other editorial boards for journals and monographs in the field.
Winner of numerous university awards and grants, Professor Ehrman is the recipient of the 1993 UNC Undergraduate Student Teaching Award, the 1994 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching.
Professor Ehrman has two children, a daughter, Kelly, and a son, Derek. He is married to Sarah Beckwith (Ph.D., King’s College London), Marcello Lotti Professor of English at Duke University. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
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Fresh Air from WHYY with Terri Gross. Terri discusses with Bart about the book his books,
“Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)” -> audio
“God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer.” -> audio
“Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend.” -> audio
“Misquoting Jesus’ exploring how scribes — through both omission and intentio — changed the Bible.” -> audio
“Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.” -> audio
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Heyns Lecture Series: Misquoting Jesus
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Conversations With History – Bart D. Ehrman
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How the Bible was changed
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The Colbert Report
a plast from the past via a friend’s re-found nostalgia
Here’s a real gem I recorded on Public Access TV back in the 90’s. I recently found the tape and want to share it with you all. If you like your religion peppered with profanity, “The Spirit of Truth” is the man for you. He does it all; reads from a giant phone-book size Bible, takes phone call and curses out callers with opposite opinions than his. This has to be seen to be believed. WARNING!!!: This man loves to drop the F-bomb! Enjoy! This was taken from a los angeles public access program in 1997. This is the only recording I have of him. I saw his show one week later, but he was very subdued, and didn’t curse. Then I never saw him again. I should have recorded the subdued version of him, but unfortunately, I didn’t. I really don’t know anything about this guy. I’ve researched this on the internet, but have never found any information. I even called the number on the screen back in ‘97, but never got through. What can I say, the guy remains a mystery. This video was originally 13 minutes, but the rest is filler and doesn’t add any impact to the piece. This is 8 minutes of the best stuff. Sorry that I don’t have more
The ESSWE is a learned society, established in 2005 to advance the academic study of the various manifestations of Western esotericism from late antiquity to the present, and to secure the future development of the field.
Among the activities of the Society are:
- Organising conferences and other academic meetings;
- Generally promoting contacts and programmes of exchange among scholars;
- Promoting publications and rendering services in that connection;
- Stimulating research and education;
- Promoting academic debate, interdisciplinary and critical approaches, and the application of a variety of scholarly methods;
- Co-operating with other scholarly associations in and beyond Europe;
- Encouraging the appreciation of the historical, cultural and intellectual significance of Western esotericism by research institutions, scholarly policy makers, and the general public.
ESSWE serves its members with the following benefits:
- Members can make use of an online e-mail system that allows them to easily communicate with other scholars in the field of Western esotericism generally and/or their specific field of expertise;
- Members can use the ESSWE website to make free publicity for their books;
- Members receive a 15% discount on the journal Aries and a 25% discount on volumes published in the Aries Book Series;
- Members receive a discount on ESSWE conference fees.
For information about how to become a member of ESSWE, see “Become a member“.
The board of ESSWE is currently constituted as follows:
- President: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Vice President: Jean-Pierre Brach (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris, France)
- Treasurer: Rosalie Basten (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Secretary: Henny Homan (Huizen, The Netherlands)
- Antoine Faivre (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris, France)
- Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (University of Exeter, UK)
- Andreas Kilcher (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland)
- Christine Maillard (University of Strasbourg, France)
- Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Mark Sedgwick (University of Aarhus, Denmark)
- Michael Stausberg (University of Bergen, Norway)
- Kocku von Stuckrad (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Halexandria is a Synthesis of new physics, sacred geometry, ancient and modern history, multiple universes & realities, consciousness, the Ha Qabala and ORME, extraterrestrials, corporate rule and politics, law, order and entropy, trial by jury, astronomy, monetary policy, scientific anomalies, religion and spirituality, and a whole host of other subjects ranging from astrology and astrophysics to superstrings and sonoluminesence to biblical and geologic histories to numerology, the Tarot, and creating your own reality.
(BTW, for those with Internet Explorer, ialexandriah is written in the form that shows an attempt at bridging of the Age of Pisces (i, capital H) and the Age of Aquarius (h, small i ). Otherwise the fonts don’t quite translate. Sigh.)
ialexandriah is, in essence, putting all of the pieces together. It is based primarily on fact and documented evidence, with a liberal dose of rational, logical speculation, as well as several diversions into reality-based fictional treatments. In all cases, ialexandriah makes the assumption — an assumption which will be mathematically proven within these pages — that all aspects of the universe are connected and that there are no limits to what we can possess or what we can become.
This then is the Pharos, the lighthouse to attract the wandering net-surfer, to encourage the browser to view one after the other the scrolls (pardon the pun) of this modern, compacted, esoteric library akin in design or aim to that of Egypt’s ancient Alexandria and its famed Library, Mouseion and center of wisdom. From hence, one can choose a variety of options in which to rush in where angels (and used car salesmen) dare not tread.
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites–oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others–work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.
List of Questions
1. Doesn’t Israel have the right to defend itself and its population from rocket attacks?
Gaza
2. While conquests in wars of aggression are clearly illegal, didn’t Israel obtain the West Bank and Gaza as the result of a defensive war against an attack waged by neighboring Arab states?
3. Hasn’t Israel withdrawn from Gaza, thereby ending its occupation?
4. Regardless of whether the occupation legally continues, didn’t Israel give up its settlements and its military bases in Gaza?
5. Why should Israel have an obligation to open its borders with or transmit electricty or fuel to Gaza? Doesn’t it have the sovereign right to close its borders as it wishes?
6. Gaza shares a land border with Egypt. Why is Israel blamed for cutting off Gaza’s borders?
Hamas
7. Didn’t Hamas just use the Israeli disengagement from Gaza as an opportunity to launch rockets at Israel without provocation?
8. How did Israel and the West react to Hamas’s election victory?
9. How could Hamas be a partner for peace? Didn’t they refuse the three U.S.-Israeli conditions: that they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and agree to accept all agreements previously accepted by the Palestinian Authority?
10. Hasn’t Hamas refused to ever accept the existence of Israel?
11. Doesn’t Hamas support Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Semitism?
12. Is Hamas a terrorist organization?
13. How can Israel be accused of terrorism since it doesn’t intentionally kill civilians, and views all civilian deaths that it causes as regrettable accidents?
14. Isn’t Hamas’s firing of inaccurate rockets a violation of international humanitarian law?
15. Does the fact that Israel has killed civilians justify Palestinian attacks on civilians?
16. Didn’t Hamas kidnap an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit?
17. Didn’t Hamas launch a military coup against Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza?
18. Isn’t Hamas just a pawn of Iran?
The Lull
19. What were the terms of the June 2008 ceasefire with Israel?
20. What did the lull terms say about the smuggling in of weapons?
21. What happened during the lull?
22. Wasn’t it legitimate for Israeli troops to go into Gaza to destroy a tunnel being used for a planned kidnapping?
23. Why was the lull not extended?
24. Can Hamas be trusted not to break truces and ceasefires?
25. Given the barrage of rockets that was launched from Gaza after the lull ended on December 19, did Israel have any alternative to a military attack?
26. If the cease-fire had been extended, couldn’t Hamas have smuggled in rockets of longer and longer range until even Tel Aviv was vulnerable? Doesn’t that mean that any new ceasefire would have had to include a provision to prevent weapons smuggling, and hence would have been unacceptable to Hamas?
The Conduct of Operation Cast Lead
27. What does it mean to say that Israel should have responded proportionately?
28. Since Hamas places its military assets in civilian areas, thus using the population as human shields, isn’t Hamas responsible for all the harm to civilians?
29. Israel calls the homes it is planning to attack and drops leaflets warning civilians to get away from military targets. Doesn’t that meet its obligation to protect the civilian population?
30. Has Israel been intentionally targeting civilians in Gaza?
31. Haven’t the vast majority of those killed by Israel been, not civilians, but terrorists?
32. Aren’t there many things we don’t know yet? Shouldn’t we reserve judgment until all the facts are in?
33. Are Israelis unanimous in backing their government policy?
The United States
34. What’s been the role of the United States?
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20269
1. Doesn’t Israel have the right to defend itself and its population from rocket attacks?
Rockets from Gaza aimed at Israeli civilians violate international law.
But any assessment of whether Israeli military actions constitute lawful self-defense has to take account of the context and the question of proportionality.
The broad context is that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and unjust and Israel can’t claim self-defense when Palestinians struggle by legitimate means to end the occupation. (In the same way, Japanese troops couldn’t claim self-defense when they were attacked by guerrillas in occupied China or the occupied Philippines during World War II.)
The proper Israeli response to such Palestinian actions is not “self-defense,” but full withdrawal from the occupied territories.
2. While conquests in wars of aggression are clearly illegal, didn’t Israel obtain the West Bank and Gaza as the result of a defensive war against an attack waged by neighboring Arab states?
The West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, as well as the Sinai and the Golan Heights were conquered by Israel during the June 1967 war, a war in which Israel attacked first. Israel’s supporters argue that although Israel fired the first shots, this was a justified preventive war, given that Arab armies were mobilizing on Israel’s borders, with murderous rhetoric. The rhetoric was indeed blood-curdling, and many people around the world worried for Israel’s safety. But those who understood the military situation — in Tel Aviv and the Pentagon — knew quite well that even if the Arabs struck first, Israel would prevail in any war. Egypt’s leader was looking for a way out and agreed to send his vice-president to Washington for negotiations. Before that could happen, Israel attacked, in part because it rejected negotiations and the prospect of any face-saving compromise for Egypt. Menachem Begin, who was an enthusiastic supporter of that (and other) Israeli wars was quite clear about the necessity for launching an attack: In June 1967, he said, Israel “had a choice.” Egyptian Army concentrations did not prove that Nasser was about to attack. “We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”[1]
However, even if it were the case that the 1967 war was wholly defensive on Israel’s part, this could not justify continued rule over Palestinians. A people do not lose their right to self-determination because the government of a neighboring state goes to war. Sure, punish Jordan and don’t give it back the West Bank (to which it had no right in the first place, having joined with Israel in carving up the stillborn Palestinian state envisioned in the UN’s 1947 partition plan). And don’t return Gaza to Egyptian administrative control. But there is no basis for punishing the Palestinian population by forcing them to submit to foreign military occupation.
Israel immediately incorporated occupied East Jerusalem into Israel proper, announcing that Jerusalem was its united and eternal capital. It then began to establish settlements in the Occupied Territories in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit a conquering power from settling its population on occupied territory. The Israeli government legal adviser at the time, the distinguished jurist Theodor Meron, warned that any settlements would be illegal,[2] but he was ignored.
And the International Court of Justice has ruled — in a portion of an opinion that had the unanimous support of all its judges, including the one from the United States — that all the settlements in the occupied territories are illegal.[3]
The Israeli withdrawal did not end the occupation. As John Dugard, the UN’s then special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, noted in 2006:
Statements by the Government of Israel that the withdrawal ended the occupation of Gaza are grossly inaccurate. Even before the commencement of ‘Operation Summer Rains,’ following the capture of Corporal Shalit, Gaza remained under the effective control of Israel. This control was manifested in a number of ways. Israel retained control of Gaza’s air space, sea space and external borders. Although a special arrangement was made for the opening of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, to be monitored by European Union personnel, all other crossings remained largely closed…. The actions of IDF [Israeli Defense Force] in respect of Gaza have clearly demonstrated that modern technology allows an occupying Power to effectively control a territory even without a military presence.[4]
On November 20, 2008, Human Rights Watch wrote to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, stating, among other things,
“Even though Israel withdrew its permanent military forces and settlers in 2005, it remains an occupying power in Gaza under international law because it continues to exercise effective day-to-day control over key aspects of life in Gaza.”[5]
If Israel had truly withdrawn from Gaza, then Israel could not prohibit Gaza from trading by sea or air with other nations, bar people from sailing or flying in to or out of Gaza, overfly Gazan airspace or patrol its coastal waters, or declare “no go zones” within Gaza. Israel also controls Gaza’s Population Registry and collects import duties on any goods it allows into Gaza.[6]
4. Regardless of whether the occupation legally continues, didn’t Israel give up its settlements and its military bases in Gaza?
Israel’s Gaza “disengagement” was a unilateral move, not worked out with any Palestinian leaders at all. Israeli settlers were removed from Gaza, but more new settlers moved to the West Bank in 2005 than left Gaza and more Palestinian land was taken over on the West Bank than was given up in Gaza.[7] To many it seemed clear that the disengagement, rather than a step towards eventual Palestinian statehood, was in fact a move to secure Israel’s hold on the West Bank and deny any independent existence for the Palestinian people. As Ariel Sharon’s chief aide, Dov Weisglass, told an interviewer for an Israeli newspaper: The significance of the disengagement plan
“is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.”[8]
5. Why should Israel have an obligation to open its borders with or transmit electricty or fuel to Gaza? Doesn’t it have the sovereign right to close its borders as it wishes?
When a country has controlled a territory for 40 years, and prohibits all construction or development that might allow that territory to function independent of the country, it bears obligations. When, in addition, the country prohibits the territory from engaging in trade via air or sea, it cannot claim the right to cut off land crossings.
When Israel “disengaged” from Gaza, it did not turn the Rafah crossing — the connection to Egypt — over to the Palestinians. Instead, the Rafah crossing was the subject of an Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) signed in November 2005 by the Palestinian Authority and Israel, with U.S. backing, that provided that the crossing would be staffed by personnel from the European Union (EU). According to the Agreement, Israel would have a veto on who could come and go through the border (though Israelis wouldn’t be present at the crossing, but they would have real time video feed and advance notice of anyone seeking to cross).
As the Israeli human rights organization Gisha has noted, “With the exception of personal effects brought by travelers, imports through Rafah, the only crossing into Gaza not directly controlled by Israel, are not permitted. “[9]
Egypt could, of course, ignore the AMA and open the border anyway. And it should do so. And the EU and the U.S. governments could and should end their financial strangulation of Gaza and send supplies by sea to Gaza’s coast, ignoring any Israeli blockade, since presumably Israel wouldn’t sink EU or U.S. vessels. The behavior of all of these governments is reprehensible.
7. Didn’t Hamas just use the Israeli disengagement from Gaza as an opportunity to launch rockets at Israel without provocation?
Rocket attacks declined after the Israeli “disengagement.” There were 281 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza in 2004, and 179 in 2005. The disengagement was completed in September 2005. In the four month period October 2005 through January 2006, there were only 40 rockets fired.[10]
In late September, there was a flurry of rockets launched from Gaza, following a deadly explosion at a Hamas armed victory parade in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Most observers, including the Palestinian Authority (then involved in internecine conflict with Hamas) blamed the explosion on a Hamas accident; Hamas claimed Israel was responsible. Whatever the truth, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli think tank closely tied to the Israeli intelligence and military establishment[11]:
“Afterwards, Fatah factions and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] launched the greatest number of rockets. Hamas stopped its direct involvement in rocket launching following the internal and external criticism it received for having harmed the civilian Palestinian populace, and later because of its governmental commitments.”[12]
Other Palestinian groups did launch rockets. In October 2005 there was another bout of rocket fire. But this did not occur in isolation. And in the pattern of violence and retaliatory violence it is hard to determine who “started” it. On October 23, 2005, Israeli forces killed two Islamic Jihad members on the West Bank; rockets were then fired from Gaza, without causing any injuries; Israel then closed border crossings; its planes flew low over Gaza creating sonic booms and it fired air to ground missiles, injuring five; a suicide bomber from the West Bank attacked an Israeli town, killing five; Israel unleashed further airstrikes and artillery on Gaza, killing eight including three children.[13] Things cooled down a few days later and remained reasonably calm until after the election of Hamas at the end of January 2006.
In January 2006, Hamas participated in Palestinian legislative elections (reversing its previous policy of abstentionism), and received a plurality of the votes. International observers certified the elections as fair,[14] and indeed, these were among the rare democratically elected leaders in the Arab world. Washington had pressed Israel to allow the 2006 election and Hamas’s victory was a surprise to everyone (including Hamas).
Ironically, earlier, the United States and Israel had given support to Hamas in an attempt to undermine the secular leadership of the PLO.[15]
Most analysts concluded that voters were expressing not so much support for Hamas’s religious positions, as rejection of Fatah’s corrupt and pusillanimous leadership, which after many years had brought Palestinians no closer to a viable state of their own.
Hamas’s entry into the government might have been taken as an opportunity to try to encourage it to moderate its positions, but Israel, the United States, and the European Union determined to crush it. Israel refused to turn over Palestinian tax revenues and closed borders, causing severe economic hardship. International donors, especially the United States and the EU, withheld funds, and Washington went a step further and imposed draconian regulations. As the mainstream International Crisis Group explained,
“NGOs engaged in humanitarian relief work face significant obstacles stemming from extraordinarily restrictive U.S. Treasury Department regulations; U.S. organisations, for example, require pre-approval for their donations, which must be in-kind rather than cash.
“Such restrictions affect developmental assistance – $450 million in 2005 – even more severely, for it often involves direct contacts with the PA. Some U.S. NGOs have had entire projects suspended. CARE, the international aid agency, which had hitherto provided 30 per cent of the health ministry’s medicines under a USAID-funded emergency medical assistance program, halted regular supplies after USAID withheld approval.”[16]
9. How could Hamas be a partner for peace? Didn’t they refuse the three U.S.-Israeli conditions: that they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and agree to accept all agreements previously accepted by the Palestinian Authority?
Hamas has indeed refused these three conditions, but no more so than Israel and the United States have done.
Hamas has not recognized Israel, but Israel and the United States have not recognized an independent Palestinian state.
Consider General Assembly resolution 63/165 that was adopted on December 18, 2008. The resolution reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to an independent State of Palestine, and further urged all States and United Nations entities to continue to support and assist the Palestinian people in the early realization of their right to self-determination. The resolution passed by the overwhelming vote of 173 in favor and 5 opposed, with 7 abstentions. The five nay votes were the United States, Israel, and three tiny U.S.-dependent Pacific island nations.[17]
Of course, Israel may say that it is willing to accept a Palestine state, just not on the 1967 borders, and indeed so long as it is confined to a tiny swath of unviable territory. But if Hamas returned the favor, saying it was willing to recognize Israel, but only if it were confined to Tel Aviv and its suburbs, one doubts Israel and the United States would consider that adequately forthcoming.
Regarding the use of violence, it would be nice if Hamas renounced the use of violence. Certainly, however, any sermons in this regard from the United States or Israel are preposterous. (Think Sinai, 1956, or Lebanon, 1982, or Iraq, 2003.) It might also be noted that those Israelis who actually renounce violence — by refusing military service in an occupying army — are imprisoned.[18]
As for agreeing with previous agreements, put aside Washington’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, its “unsigning” of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and its failure to comply with the World Court’s ruling on Nicaragua. Consider simply that the World Court found Israel to be in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (to which it is a party) in its construction of the Wall on the occupied West Bank.[19] By a vote of 150 to 6 with 10 abstentions, the General Assembly affirmed that World Court opinion and called on Israel to comply.[20] Israel refused to do so and the United States supported its refusal. Thus, for Israel and the United States, treaties solemnly accepted are just scraps of paper.
For Palestinians, who signed on to the 1993 Oslo Accords which promised them a state by 1999, only to see no state and a huge expansion in the number of Israeli settlers,[21] Israel’s insistence that Hamas adhere to agreements must seem a cruel joke.
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 2006, he declared his continuing belief “in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land.”[22] Yet, he said, he understood the necessity of compromise. Hamas has taken a similar position: it considers Palestine in its entirety to be sacred Muslim land, it considers the state of Israel to be illegitimate, but yet it has made clear on numerous occasions that it was willing to compromise, and that it would accept a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state, along with a truce that could last 20, 30, or 50 years, or even indefinitely.[23]
Israel and the United States, however, refused to pursue these Hamas offers and refused to talk with Hamas at all — despite the fact that a majority of Israelis[24] and conservative analysts such as Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad,[25] supported such talks.
Unfortunately, throughout the Middle East over the past few decades secular nationalist and progressive movements have been replaced by fundamentalists, a result of both the tremendous repression the nationalist and leftist movements have faced and their own internal weaknesses. And anti-Semitism has grown across the Middle East, which is not surprising given that Palestinians have been subjected to horrendous barbarity by a self-described “Jewish state.” (And Middle Easterners are not encouraged to make fine distinctions when Israeli apologists declare that all criticisms of Israel are ipso facto anti-Semitic.) Obviously, we must reject anti-Semitism and the retrograde social views of fundamentalists.
Hamas, which had its origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, comes out of an Islamic fundamentalist background. But origins alone do not determine present behavior. A March 2008 assessment of Hamas’s current practice by the mainstream International Crisis Group paints a mixed picture. Hamas
“denies any intent of coercively imposing an Islamist entity. It appointed some non-Hamas figures to run its security services and administer its judiciary. There are no flagrant signs of Islamisation of the courts and schools. The authorities did not alter the PA school curriculum, the PA’s law code or its constitution. In January 2008, in accordance with PA practice but controversial within Islamic tradition, they appointed a woman judge and promoted another to head the Appeals Court. Notably, since August 2007, Hamas has recruited policewomen to fill the gap, attracting them through television and radio stations, as well as through mosques. Over 100 women have applied. A Hamas official maintained: ‘The people in Ramallah are trying to stigmatise Hamas as extremist. But an Islamic emirate will not come about in Gaza.’
“That said, past performance is no guarantee of future conduct, and civil rights groups as well as non-Hamas preachers remain deeply worried, pointing in particular to indirect forms of social pressure. Within Hamas, a more hardline clerical faction insists on a greater role for Sharia (Islamic law)….
“A senior Hamas jurist’s reply was equivocal: ‘We want the courts to apply Sharia law, but we won’t compel the people.’ Yet in some cases, they have done just that….
“Moreover, amid Gaza’s intensifying isolation and accompanying withdrawal of a Western presence, social mores have grown increasingly conservative and patriarchal – a process that some of Hamas’s more zealous militants, particularly within the security forces, have encouraged. The time devoted to religious instruction in schools has increased, and some teachers are known to punish girls who do not wear the veil. Although women continue to walk the streets unveiled, and officials say there has been no ruling on dress-code, Hamas militants are known to have enjoined some women to don scarves. Similarly while Hamas has curbed the killing of women on grounds of immorality, unmarried couples in cars reported some cases of being beaten and detained. The rate of attacks on internet cafes – apparently by non-Hamas groups – has begun to climb after a brief lull following the [June 2007] takeover, and Gaza’s Christians accuse Hamas forces of doing too little too late to reverse a significant increase in attacks on their community of 3,000, evidence, say some, of the growing influence radical Islamism commands within Hamas ranks.”[26]
Unfortunately, continuing Israeli brutality and Palestinian helplessness will likely increase the worst tendencies of Hamas.
At the same time, in Israel, Jewish fundamentalists are politically strong and part of the governing coalition. The U.S. State Department has noted the Israeli “Government’s unequal treatment of non-Orthodox Jews, including the Government’s recognition of only Orthodox Jewish religious authorities in personal and some civil status matters concerning Jews. Government allocations of state resources favor Orthodox (including Modern and National Religious streams of Orthodoxy) and ultra-Orthodox (sometimes referred to as “Haredi”) Jewish religious groups and institutions.”[27]
Hamas’s 1988 Charter cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,[28] though in many respects the document is outdated.[29] The organization does, however, still resort to anti-Semitic rhetoric.[30]
But that Hamas holds such views does not disqualify it as a party to peace talks, any more than the fact that Hindus and Muslims in South Asia have racist views of one another precludes them from sitting down together. And certainly many Israelis have racist views of Palestinians[31] (recall the comment of the father of Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, saying that Arabs were fit only to clean floors[32]).
One can find vile anti-Jewish rhetoric from some Palestinian religious leaders. But one can find equally repulsive language from some Israeli rabbis. For example, the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel proclaimed a religious ruling in 2007 “that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings” because “an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals.” The rabbi’s son, who is chief rabbi of Safed, explained: “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand…. And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”[33]
Racism must be opposed, but it makes no sense to rule a party out as a potential partner for peace until its racism has been eliminated.
Hamas was never a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda. Unlike the latter, it has a mass base, social welfare programs, and, now, an electoral constituency.
Hamas has engaged in terrorist acts, most notably by purposely targeting civilians with suicide bombs.
Sherdia Zuhur, Research Professor of Islamic and Regional Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College, wrote:
“HAMAS operatives first utilized suicide attacks in 1994, after an American-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, fired on and threw hand grenades at unarmed worshippers in the al-Haram al-Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron on February 25, killing 29. It was thought that Goldstein had attained entry with assistance of Israeli troops. Until that date, HAMAS’ only targets were Israeli military. It ceased such attacks, which were very controversial with other Palestinians in 1995, and reintroduced them after the “targeted killing” of HAMAS leader Yahya Ayyash.”[34]
Zuhur went on to note that
“HAMAS observed a 3-year moratorium on suicide attacks, which was then reestablished for a year, and possibly broken in a January 2008 attack in Dimona which may have been carried out by HAMAS or by other actors.”[35]
And at various intervals, Hamas has fired rockets at civilian areas, which is also a form of terrorism.
What this record suggests is that Hamas has engaged in terrorism, has not ruled it out, but is also amenable to refraining from terrorism in what it sees as appropriate circumstances. Such a record should be condemned — for terrorism is always wrong — but Israel’s record of terrorism must be condemned as well.
13. How can Israel be accused of terrorism since it doesn’t intentionally kill civilians, and views all civilian deaths that it causes as regrettable accidents?
Keep in mind the official U.S. definition of terrorism: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets.”[36]Three points need to be noted here.
First, inflicting pain on civilians for political purposes has long been official Israeli policy. When Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier in June 2006, Israel responded by destroying Gaza’s only power plant, causing massive suffering.[37] Israeli leaders have openly acknowledged that they intended to cripple Gaza’s economy as a way to undermine support for Hamas. (That this is a foolish policy makes it no less immoral. That the governments of the United States, the European Union, and Egypt are complicit in the policy likewise makes it no less immoral.) Gazans have seen poverty and unemployment soar and their health and welfare decline as Israel has closed their borders, cut fuel and power supplies, and denied them their own tax revenues. Human rights groups[38] and United Nations officials[39] have condemned this policy of economic strangulation, deeming it “collective punishment.”
When New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman writes that he hopes Israel is pursuing a strategy in Gaza of trying to inflict “heavy pain on Gaza civilians,” he is endorsing a policy that is indistinguishable from the above-cited official U.S. government definition of terrorism.[40]
Second, over the years Israel has intentionally killed civilians. Among other instances, it has used lethal fire against demonstrators who posed no serious threat.[41] It has targeted and killed medical personnel and journalists.[42] And now it has targeted and killed civilian police and non-military government personnel in Gaza (as will be discussed below).
Third, even when civilians have not been specifically targeted, Israel has shown reckless disregard for the welfare of civilians, killing many. These are not “unfortunate accidents,” but the result of willful, criminal negligence. It is true that in domestic law we distinguish between intentional and unintentional killing, with the former being a much more serious offense than the latter. But domestic law also recognizes that sometimes criminal negligence can be as condemnable as premeditation. As the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq correctly puts it, “the choice of targeted areas, methods of attack and the number of civilians killed and injured clearly indicate a reckless disregard for civilian life synonymous with intent.”[43]
Consider the record before the current Israeli attack on Gaza. According to statistics from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, from the beginning of the second Intifada on September 29, 2000, until November 30, 2008, 2,990 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli security forces. Of these, 1,382 were known not to be taking part in hostilities.[44] (During this same seven year period, Palestinian rockets or mortars from Gaza killed a grand total of 22 Israeli civilians.[45]) If these Palestinian rockets constituted terrorism and war crimes — and they do — how much greater were the crimes of the Israeli government?
And this is so whether Israeli officials express pro forma regret or instead declare, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did in March 2002, “The Palestinians must be hit and it must be painful. We must cause them losses, victims, so they feel the heavy price.”[46]
Yes. But note that while Israeli weapons are far more accurate than those of Hamas, they are not accurate enough to hit military targets without substantial harm to nearby civilians. And certainly naval and aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, and tank fire cannot be accurate enough to avoid hitting civilians in as densely populated an area as Gaza.
International law is quite clear that the crimes of one’s enemy do not justify crimes in retaliation. This applies to Palestinians, but it applies as well (and — given the disproportion in power — especially) to Israelis.
Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians –whether by rocket or by suicide bomb — are immoral and counter-productive, strengthening the most reactionary elements in Israeli society. But they are not surprising. In 1999, Ehud Barak — today Israel’s defense minister — confessed to an interviewer that if he had been born a Palestinian he probably would have joined a terrorist organization.[47] And former Israeli politician Yossi Sarid wrote on January 2, 2009:
“This week I spoke with my students about the Gaza war, in the context of a class on national security. One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions — that is opinions tending slightly to the right — succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: ‘If I were a young Palestinian,’ he said, ‘I’d fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies.’”[48]
The Palestinians of Gaza lived for two decades under Egyptian administration; they have then suffered more than four decades under a brutal and debilitating Israeli occupation. As Israeli historian Avi Shlaim explained,
“With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources, Gaza’s prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.”[49]
The conditions of life for the people of Gaza are abysmal; human rights and aid agencies declared in March 2008 that “The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967.”[50] And the vast majority of Gaza Palestinians are not descendants of people who originally came from Gaza. Rather they are descendants of those who lived in what is today Israel, who were driven out in 1948 to live as refugees. And as the people of Gaza look out from their misery they see near them Israeli communities built on lands that were once Palestinian villages.[51] Some Gazans fire rockets at these Israeli towns. These rockets do not further the Palestinian cause. But they are no surprise.
Shalit was a soldier captured while on duty. It’s not clear why this should be considered a kidnapping. International law is a little murky here: It is improper to hold captured soldiers as hostages and all prisoners are entitled to humane treatment, but it is not improper to capture enemy soldiers, nor to engage in prisoner exchanges. In any event, however, Palestinians point to the fact that some 11,000 Palestinians from the occupied territories are held in Israeli prisons.[52] Some of these people may be guilty of war crimes and some may simply be members of an opposing armed force. But many hundreds of them (750 at the time of Shalit’s capture and about 570 in November 2008) are being held without charge.[53] Thus, at a minimum there are hundreds of Palestinians who are presumptively guilty of no crime, yet, like Shalit, are being held against their will. Just the day before Shalit’s capture, Israeli commandos seized two Gazan civilians, Osama and Mustafa Muamar — and here “kidnapped” might be a more accurate term — despite the fact that Israel had supposedly “disengaged” from Gaza nine months earlier.[54]
Israel responded to Shalit’s capture by launching military incursions into Gaza and engaging in unrelenting shelling and bombing. Between June 26 and November 15, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the IDF killed 387 Palestinians, more than half of whom, 206, “among them eighty-one minors and forty-five women, were not taking part in the hostilities when they were killed.”[55] Gaza’s power plant was destroyed and its borders closed; eight Hamas Cabinet ministers and 26 members of the elected Palestinian Legislative Council were arrested, along with other officials. As the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, summarized:
“In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions — the first time an occupied people have been so treated. …[The] Palestinian people, rather than the Palestinian Authority, have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times.”[56]
The evidence is quite clear that, whatever its wisdom, the Hamas take-over of Gaza was a preemptive move in the face of a plot hatched jointly by Mohammed Dahlan, Fatah’s Gaza security chief, and top U.S. officials to militarily oust the elected Hamas government from power. As investigative journalist David Rose concluded, on the basis of documents and interviews, “the secret plan backfired…. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.”[57]
Hamas and Iran are allies, and they have common interests, but this is not the same as saying that Tehran dictates Hamas’s policies. The claim — bandied about by the Israeli government and its supporters — that Hamas simply acts on Iran’s instructions fails on several counts.
First, if Iran were using Hamas as a way to deflect any possible Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, its timing makes no sense. There was a period when an Israeli — or a joint U.S.-Israeli — attack on Iran seemed possible. But that period coincided with the lull between Israel and Hamas. By December 2008, no serious analyst was discussing an Israeli attack on Iran as imminent.
Second, if Iran is able to get Hamas to go to war against Israel, why has it not also gotten Hezbollah to do the same (which would obviously relieve some of the pressure on Hamas)? After all, whatever Hamas’s connections to Iran, those of Hezbollah are stronger (Hezbollah is Shiite, like Iran; its ideological origins connected it to Iran;[58] and, through Syria, it could be easily supplied with Iranian weaponry; Hamas, on the other hand, is Sunni and is able to smuggle in very few Iranian weapons). Clearly, Hezbollah does not consider it in its own interests to go to war to help Hamas. But if Iran can’t get Hezbollah to act contrary to its interests, there is no reason to think it can get Hamas to do so.
Iran has provided funds to Hamas, which became increasingly important since the cut off of international aid. And apparently some Hamas fighters have been trained in Iran — but in an organization having 10-20,000 armed men, the few hundred trained in Iran are hardly decisive. Iran has influence with Hamas, but there is no reason to think that Hamas has been blindly following Tehran’s orders.[59] Israel is probably more dependent on U.S. military and diplomatic support than Hamas is on Iran.
In June 2008, after almost a year of military engagements and Israel’s crippling blockade of Gaza, Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire, also called a truce or lull or calm. The two sides would not speak to one another directly and so there was an Egyptian mediated understanding, whose terms were never formally written down. The Associated Press reported the terms as follows:
“The truce takes effect at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. EDT Wednesday) [June 19].
“All Gaza-Israel violence stops. After three days, Israel eases its blockade on Gaza, allowing more vital supplies in.
“A week later, Israel further eases restrictions at cargo crossings.
“In the final stage, talks are conducted about opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and a prisoner exchange to free Cpl. Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas-affiliated groups for two years.”[60]
And although Israel tried to claim in December 2008 that the lull was of unlimited duration,[61] everyone (including the Israeli government in June 2008) referred to the lull as scheduled to last for six months, with hopes that it might be extended.[62] Hamas had wanted the lull to apply to both Gaza and the West Bank, but Israel refused.[63]
Various Palestinian armed groups — though not Hamas — had reservations about the lull, but they agreed to respect it. Islamic Jihad said, however, that while it would abide by the truce, it considered the West Bank and Gaza indivisible, so it reserved the right to retaliate from Gaza for an attack on its members in the West Bank.
As noted above, the terms of the lull were never written down and are contested.
According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the think tank close to the Israeli government,
“It is Israel ’s view that the lull commits Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip to end their weapons smuggling and stop their military buildup.”[64]
Hamas and other Palestinian groups, however, made no such commitment.[65] And Israeli leaders seemed to see no contradiction between their insistence that Hamas stop its military buildup and their own activities: An official in the Israeli prime minister’s office stated that during the lull “the IDF would continue preparing for a military action in the Gaza Strip, in the event the lull collapsed…” And “Chief of Staff General Gabi Ashkenazi said that the IDF would give the lull credit but at the same time would prepare for an action.”[66]
Hamas certainly used the lull to smuggle in weapons, just as Israel was using the lull to openly import a vastly greater number of much deadlier weapons.
The lull got off to a rocky start. Islamic Jihad fired a few rockets from Gaza in response to the Israeli killing of one of their senior militants on the West Bank.[67] But Hamas was generally able to convince the other Palestinian groups to respect the lull. In the five and half months before the lull there were 1,072 rockets fired from Gaza and 1,199 mortar shells. For the four and a half months from the start of the lull until November 4 there were 20 rockets and 18 mortar shells.[68] No Israeli was killed — by rocket, mortar, sniper, or improvised explosive device from Gaza from mid-June to November 4.[69]
Regarding these sporadic firings during this period, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center wrote:
“… Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire and its operatives were not involved in rocket attacks. At the same time, the movement tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement on the other terrorist organizations and to prevent them from violating it. Hamas took a number of steps against networks which violated the arrangement, but in a limited fashion and contenting itself with short-term detentions and confiscating weapons…. However, it was clear that … Hamas sought to avoid direct confrontations with the rogue organizations (especially the PIJ) insofar as was possible, lest it be accused of collaborating with Israel and harming the ‘resistance.’ Hamas therefore focused on using politics to convince the organizations to maintain the lull arrangement and on seeking support for it within Gazan public opinion (including issuing statements by its activists regarding the lull’s achievements).”[70]
In terms of the border crossings, Israel did relieve the closures, but did not allow imports to return to anything approaching the levels of either December 2005 (before Hamas won the legislative council elections) or May 2007 (before Hamas took power in Gaza). During July 2008, the first full month of the lull, according to the UN, “the population of Gaza saw little tangible dividend from the truce implemented on 19 June, as the amount of commodities allowed into the Gaza Strip remained far below the actual needs.”[71] Imports were less than half what they were in December 2005. This was nevertheless higher than in August, when imports dropped 30 percent, to a level about that of March 2008 — when aid agencies and human rights groups had spoken of a “humanitarian implosion.” In September there was a 15 percent increase, but in October there was another 30 percent decline. (See table.) Moreover, throughout the lull Israel continued to ban all exports from Gaza,[72] essentially rendering Gaza’s economy non-functional. In October 2008, the World Bank reported that only about 2% of Gaza’s industrial establishments were still functioning, industrial employment had dropped from 35,000 in 2005 to 840, and 40,000 jobs in agriculture were lost.[73]
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The second phase of the lull began on November 4, 2008. On that day, Israel violated the ceasefire by sending troops into Gaza. As the Guardian reported,
“The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away…. One Hamas gunman was killed and Palestinians launched a volley of mortars at the Israeli military. An Israeli air strike then killed five more Hamas fighters.”[75]
Hamas responded with rocket fire, and the lull was then severely undermined. Both sides engaged in military actions from that point on, though not at the pre-lull level. Israel closed Gaza’s borders allowing just 579 trucks into the territory for the entire month of November (see table above) — this to support 1.5 million people. Furthermore, noted the UN,
“Staff and assistance from international NGOs were prevented from entering Gaza throughout the month. Additionally, the intensified closure forced UNRWA to suspend food distribution for five days during the month, along with its cash assistance programme, as a result of restrictions on cash shipments to Gaza.”[76]
According to UNICEF, lack of fuel, electricity, and spare parts interrupted Gaza’s water supply. In Gaza City 50% of the population had access to water only several hours a week; 30% had access every four days and 20% every three days. Other areas of Gaza received water on average every other day.[77]
No Israelis were killed by fire from Gaza during this period (November 5 – December 19, 2008).[78] 13 Israel soldiers were injured (8 by mortar fire and 5 within Gaza), and 1 or 2 civilians. On the Palestinian side, 10-14 militants were killed and 3-4 civilians, and about a dozen and a half injured.[79]
22. Wasn’t it legitimate for Israeli troops to go into Gaza to destroy a tunnel being used for a planned kidnapping?
We have no independent evidence confirming the Israeli claim regarding the purpose of the tunnel. (Jimmy Carter refers to it as a “defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.”[80]) But even if the purpose were as claimed by Israel, it was hardly — as one anonymous senior Israeli military official called it — “a ticking tunnel,”[81] that is, an imminent threat that required military action. There are many non-military ways Israel could have defended itself against such a threat.
The claim that Hamas refused to renew the truce is false. What Hamas refused to renew was a truce under which Israel would continue to violate its obligation to lift the blockade. As Khalid Mish’al put it, “When this broken truce neared its end, we expressed our readiness for a new comprehensive truce in return for lifting the blockade and opening all Gaza border crossings, including Rafah. Our calls fell on deaf ears.” Numerous statements before the expiration of the cease-fire made clear that this was Hamas’s position.[82] Jimmy Carter described his efforts at mediation:
“It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.”[83]
Fifteen percent of normal supplies was less than the inadequate July level.[84] It is thus not at all surprising that Hamas was not interested in such an agreement.
Here’s what various experts say: Sherifa Zuhur, a leading U.S. authority on Hamas, wrote in a study just published by the Army War College,
“Declarations of a tahdiya (calming) arranged by Alastair Crooke to end such attacks were made in 2002 and 2003. Crooke was the former Security Advisor to Javier Solana, the European Union High Representative. Crooke now heads Conflict Forum which advocates negotiating with HAMAS. Another tahdiya was held from March 2005, but the first two were broken when Israelis assassinated HAMAS leaders.”[85]
And a former senior European security official interviewed by the International Crisis Group pointed to:
“continued Israeli assassinations and killings that completely undermined genuine attempts at de-escalation. Israel’s response created a self-fulfilling prophecy. They had the expectation of failure and in effect guaranteed it. . . .[T]here were continued provocations, a dismissive attitude, no confidence-building measures, and unhelpful statements. Israel’s Minister of Defence would publicly claim that Hamas is re-grouping and that [the] IDF must prepare for a massive attack. Hamas begins to prepare for this eventuality. To Israel this is proof of its original thesis, a casus belli. It attacks, Hamas responds, the IDF feels vindicated and the hudna [truce] is history.”[86]
25. Given the barrage of rockets that was launched from Gaza after the lull ended on December 19, did Israel have any alternative to a military attack?
Yes, of course it did. It could have extended the ceasefire by agreeing to lift the blockade (which it should have done on moral grounds in any case).
And beyond that, it could have taken steps toward ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict more generally by accepting the the Arab Peace Initiative. This calls for Israel withdrawing to its 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. This plan has been endorsed by all the Arab states — who offered Israel recognition afterwards.[87] And, as noted above, even Hamas has indicated its support for the plan.[88] About two-thirds of Palestinians back the plan.[89]
This is the fundamental problem in Palestine: Israel occupies Palestinian land and seems determined to hold on to the most valuable pieces of it, leaving the Palestinians with scraps upon which they will be unable to establish a viable and independent state. As long as Israel maintains its illegal settlements, the Palestinians will be confined to Bantustans.
Until this basic reality is changed, until the Occupation ends, there will be no peace in Palestine.
26. If the cease-fire had been extended, couldn’t Hamas have smuggled in rockets of longer and longer range until even Tel Aviv was vulnerable? Doesn’t that mean that any new ceasefire would have had to include a provision to prevent weapons smuggling, and hence would have been unacceptable to Hamas?
One can understand why Tel Aviv would not want to live under threat of Hamas rockets. But one must understand as well why Gazans might not want to live under threat of Israeli F-16s. The difference between these two cases is that the threat the Gazans face is not hypothetical nor is it just a threat, as the events of the past few weeks have underlined.
As a practical matter, there are limits to what can be smuggled in via the Egyptian border. It is hard to prevent smuggling when authorities on both sides of the border want to do it. In the Gaza case, however, the Egyptian government bitterly opposes Hamas and does not knowingly allow weapons to be delivered to it.
When Carter sought to get Israel and Hamas to extend the truce and open the borders, Israel did not say that it would open the borders if only a better system for preventing weapons smuggling could be set up. It simply refused to fully open the borders. Therefore, whether Hamas would have accepted such an arrangement is unknown. To go to war without even asking surely violates the “last resort” criterion for just wars.
One might note that opening the border crossings would in fact reduce the incidence of weapons smuggling. Obviously, weapons are not going to come in through the Israeli crossings or through an EU-staffed Rafah crossing. But the incentive to dig tunnels would likely decline since as long as the crossings were closed digging tunnels, no matter how dangerous, has been essential for obtaining food and other necessities.
The Conduct of Operation Cast Lead
A country that has just cause to go to war must still act proportionately. Israel did not have just cause to go to war — given the fact that it is an occupying power, trying to maintain its occupation, and given the fact that the rocket fire could have been ended by agreeing to extend the truce with a lifting of the blockade. Therefore, regardless of how Israel conducted itself, its war would have been unjust.
But for those who believe (wrongly) that Israel did have just cause, the war would still not be just if it were not carried out in conformity with the principle of proportionality.
Under international law, the principle of proportionality prohibits attacking a military objective if doing so will result in a loss of civilian life or damage to civilian property or the natural environment that outweighs the value of the objective. The weighing here obviously includes a subjective component — exactly how many civilians might one kill in order to destroy a military objective which in turn may cause harm to one’s own population. But the subjectivity is not unlimited. Surely to destroy the capability to launch weapons that had caused 22 deaths over 7 years (and none since June 5, 2008), it cannot be proportionate to kill hundreds of civilians as Israel has done.[90]
Does Israel really think what it is doing in Gaza is proportionate? It is doubtful that it does. In fact, its officials and think-tank analysts have explicitly advocated acting disproportionately.[91] When one’s approach to dealing with Palestinians — and Arabs more generally — is to intimidate and bully rather than to seek some sort of diplomatic solution, it is no surprise that the chief concern will be the strength of one’s deterrent, which means that ferocity, not proportionality, will be what is valued.
28. Since Hamas places its military assets in civilian areas, thus using the population as human shields, isn’t Hamas responsible for all the harm to civilians?
International humanitarian law prohibits placing military assets in civilian areas. Nevertheless, this doesn’t give an attacker unlimited right to then strike these assets. The attacker must still weigh the harm to civilians against the military benefit. As Human Rights Watch explains:
“…the attacking party is not relieved from its obligation to take into account the risk to civilians simply because it considers the defending party responsible for having located legitimate military targets within or near populated areas. That is, the presence of a Hamas commander or military facility in a populated area would not justify attacking the area without regard to the threatened civilian population.”[92]
In addition, since Israel’s target list includes the homes of Hamas leaders, there is no way that Hamas could have avoided intermingling civilians with military targets.
The comments of a former U.S. Marine are relevant here. One can question his account of what actual U.S. policy was in Iraq, but his remarks are telling nonetheless:
“I recently retired from the US Marine Corps, but I saw service in Iraq. I do know something of military matters that are relevant to the situation now in Gaza.
“I am dismayed by the rhetoric from US politicians and pundits to the effect that ‘if the US were under rocket attack from Mexico or Canada, we would respond like the Israelis’. This a gross insult to US servicemen; I can assure you that we would NOT respond like the Israelis. In fact, US armed forces and adjunct civilians are under attack constantly in Iraq and Afghanistan by people who are much better armed, much better trained and far deadlier than Hamas…. Israel has indeed taken a small number of casualties from Hamas rocket fire (about 20 killed since 2001), but we have taken thousands of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, including many civilian personnel. Hundreds of American casualties have occurred due to indirect fire, often from mortars. This is particularly true in or near the Green Zone in Baghdad. This fire often originates from densely populated urban areas.
“Americans do not, I repeat DO NOT, respond to that fire indiscriminately. When I say ‘indiscriminately’, I mean that even if we can precisely identify the source of the fire (which can be very difficult), we do not respond if we know we will cause civilian casualties. We always evaluate the threat to civilians before responding, and in an urban area the threat to civilians is extremely high. If US servicemen violate those rules of engagement and harm civilians, I assure you we do our best to investigate — and mete out punishment if warranted.”[93]
Two further points should be noted.
First, the IDF also uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. According to Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, “Our sources in Gaza report that Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position.” This, said Smart, “clearly increases the risk to the Palestinian families concerned and means they are effectively being used as human shields.”[94]
Second, the IDF also intermingles it forces with Israeli civilians. Consider this report from the Israeli-government linked think tank:
“January 8: A rocket barrage was fired at an Israel village in the northwestern Negev. Seven IDF soldiers were wounded, one critically, one seriously, and five sustained minor injuries.”[95]
29. Israel calls the homes it is planning to attack and drops leaflets warning civilians to get away from military targets. Doesn’t that meet its obligation to protect the civilian population?
Israel issued no warning at all when it first launched Operation Cast Lead. It struck at 11:30 a.m., a time when urban centers in Gaza were most populated and when children were changing shifts at school.[96]
Israel’s subsequent phone calls and leaflets do not meet its obligation to protect civilians for several reasons.
First, Israel calls more homes than it actually attacks. As Amnesty International notes:
“Compounding the atmosphere of fear resulting from the Israeli bombardments, Israeli forces have been sending seemingly random telephone messages to many inhabitants of Gaza telling them to leave their homes because of imminent air strikes against their houses. Such messages have been received by residents of multi-storey apartment building, causing panic not only for those who received the calls but for all their neighbours…. The threatening calls seem to aim to spread fear among the civilian population, as in most cases no air strikes were carried out against the buildings. If this is the purpose, rather than to give effective warning, this practice violates international law and must end immediately.[97]
Second, in densely packed urban areas, moving from one location to another is no guarantee of safety.[98]
And third, when Israel is targeting individuals, warnings either give the target time to escape or come too late to help those who are not targeted.[99]
Imagine if Hamas broadcast an announcement that warned all Israelis in the south of the country to flee their homes if they are near military installations. Would that absolve Hamas for moral responsibility for all civilian deaths?
At a minimum, Israel has certainly targeted some categories of people and some categories of buildings that international law prohibits them from targeting.
They have targeted police. International law distinguishes between police who are involved in armed combat and those who have essentially civilian functions (whether they are armed or not).[100] In its opening salvo, Israel bombed (in the words of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem) “the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, forty-two Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.”[101]
It is true, of course, that these police trainees might have become Hamas fighters at a later point in time. But it is also true that attacks on many Israeli civilian targets kill those who — given widespread membership in the reserves — might later be called to military duty. It would be grotesque to justify the suicide bombing of a bus by pointing to the reserve status of the victims. It is no less grotesque to justify the slaughter of these police cadets.
Israel has also targeted government buildings and anyone connected to Hamas, regardless of their war role, and Israeli officials have acknowledged that these attacks were intentional and have felt no need to show that the building or person in question had a military connection. A senior Israeli military official told the Washington Post, “There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel.” Major Avital Leibovitch, an IDF spokeswoman, said, “Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target.”[102] Brigadier General Dan Harel declared:
“We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings…. We are hitting government buildings…. After this operation there will not be one Hamas building left standing in Gaza….”[103]
And so, Israel bombed the Parliament, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing, and numerous other government buildings. It bombed money exchange shops as a way to cut off Hamas’s funds.[104] “‘Hamas’s civilian infrastructure is a very, very sensitive target. If you want to put pressure on them, this is how,’ said Matti Steinberg, a former top adviser to Israel’s domestic security service and an expert on Islamist organizations.”[105] On January 13, the New York Times reported that Israeli intelligence officials said that although the military wing of Hamas remained substantially intact, (in the Times’s words) “greater damage has been done to Hamas’s capacity to run the Gaza strip, with a large number of government buildings destroyed over the course of the operation.”[106]
The Israeli-government linked think tank, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, offered this explanation for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza:
“Recently, the humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip worsened as a result of the fighting and Hamas administration’s dysfunction. Blackouts have been reported throughout the Gaza Strip resulting from the collapse of power lines. Kanaan Abaid, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority, claimed it was impossible to send teams to fix power failure because of the attendant danger…. The local authorities reportedly do not function, garbage is not collected and the basic infrastructure is not repaired. In addition, there is a lack of goods usually smuggled in from Egypt because the tunnels have been bombed by the IDF.”[107]
But of course the Hamas administration’s dysfunction is precisely a result of Israeli attacks on it. And the fact that the people of Gaza in order to survive depend on goods smuggled in from Egypt through tunnels that Israel is now bombing is a result of the Israeli blockade.
The next day this same think tank attributed the humanitarian crisis in part to “the dysfunction of the Hamas administration, which has gone underground and proved itself incapable of providing solutions for the difficulties facing the Gazans.”[108] How irresponsible of the Hamas administration to have gone underground just when they were needed to solve the difficulties faced by Gazans!
Not by a long shot. Obviously it is difficult to confirm the identity and activity of each person who was killed while the Israeli offensive is going on. This has led some human rights groups and aid agencies to report the number of women and children killed as an absolute minimum of the number of civilians killed. But as they have made clear,[109] this was not meant to suggest that this was the complete count of civilian casualties nor that any adult male killed was automatically a combatant.
As of January 14, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported 1,013 deaths, of which 40 percent were women and children.[110] The killing of numerous male civilians has been well-documented: in addition to police and government personnel, an anti-Hamas judge (and father of a Human Rights Watch consultant), medical staff, drivers, and many more.[111]
As of January 14, more than 4,500 were reported wounded, half of them women and children.[112] Moreover, many of the wounded will die because of a lack of timely and adequate medical care. Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed and lack reliable power and sufficient supplies, ambulances are afraid to travel and Israel has blocked access by emergency medical vehicles.[113] According to Human Rights Watch, “Only four critically injured patients have been transferred to Israel since the start of the conflict,” in part because Israel demanded financial guarantees for the medical costs of wounded Palestinians. Since the start of the ground campaign on January 3, transfers to Israel ended.[114]
32. Aren’t there many things we don’t know yet? Shouldn’t we reserve judgment until all the facts are in?
There are many things we don’t know yet, but they are not likely to make the Israeli war effort seem any more just. The civilian death toll among Gazans will surely go up once bodies are dug out of the rubble; none of the bodies in the morgues will later be found to be alive. Whatever is a benefit to Israeli propaganda one can assume Israel has already made public, but much that may undermine Israeli government claims is not yet known because Israel has restricted the entry of journalists and human rights observers.[115]
The Foreign Press Association sued for acess to Gaza and the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the IDF had to allow limited entry to pool reporters. But the military has thus far refused to comply.[116] The director of the Israeli Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, told the New York Times that “any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that.”[117]
The New York Times reported:
“At the same time that reporters have been given less access to Gaza, the government has created a new structure for shaping its public message, ensuring that spokesmen of the major government branches meet daily to make sure all are singing from the same sheet.
“‘We are trying to coordinate everything that has to do with the image and content of what we are doing and to make sure that whoever goes on the air, whether a minister or professor or ex-ambassador, knows what he is saying,’ said Aviv Shir-On, deputy director general for media in the Foreign Ministry. ‘We have talking points and we try to disseminate our ideas and message.’”[118]
The Israeli propaganda machine includes U.S. organizations, like “The Israel Project,” which repeats every Israeli claim, no matter how outlandish. So, for example, the Israel Project asserted on January 2 that
“Warehouses in Gaza are filled to capacity, according to international aid groups.…The World Food Program informed Israel that it would cease shipment of food to Gaza because the warehouses there are at full capacity, with enough food to last two weeks.”
(Its source was a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.)[119]
Here were the actual facts:
December 18: “Due to the ongoing crisis with irregular border access and the lack of wheat flour in Gaza, UNRWA has exhausted all stocks of flour in its warehouses. Wheat supplies scheduled to arrive in Gaza the 9-10 December were unable to enter due to rocket fire, hence the mills have run out of flour and UNRWA has been forced to suspend food distribution.”[120]
December 23: “The ongoing closures have significantly reduced the capacity of UN humanitarian agencies to provide assistance in the event of an escalation in violence. UN humanitarian assistance programs have run out of stock for several essential supplies and are facing severe difficulties in implementing their regular programmes. UNRWA has no flour or cash-notes to distribute, affecting thousands of dependant beneficiaries. WFP has been unable to preposition stocks; in case of an emergency, it has no food available within the Gaza Strip.”[121]
December 28: “Due to the depletion of wheat in the Gaza, all major Gaza mills were forced to shut down. Long queues of people at functional bakeries were reported. UNRWA stock of wheat grain is still at zero.”[122]
January 3: “Since 27 December, WFP (through implementing partners) has distributed only a fraction of the 1350 metric tonnes available and the food that is currently being distributed should have been distributed in the October-December cycle. UNRWA resumed its prior food distribution in seven distribution centres on 1 January which it had suspended on 18 December; distributions are continuing today.”[123]
January 12: “Many basic food items, including food for infants and malnourished children, are no longer available.”[124]
As in the United States, Israelis are often swayed by their government and a compliant media. On January 1, 2009, fewer than a fifth of the population supported advancing to an extensive ground war,[125] but once their leaders launched it, they endorsed it.
A poll published on January 15, showed 82 percent of Israelis don’t think Israel has “gone too far” which means that almost the entire Jewish population is backing the war.[126] Almost. There have been many antiwar protests, most often in Arab areas, but sometimes including both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. A demonstration numbering in the thousands took place in Tel Aviv on January 3.[127] A petition calling for an end to the IDF operation in Gaza and for a renewal of the truce with Hamas was signed by 500 residents of Sderot, the Israeli town bordering Gaza that has been on the receiving end of so many rockets.[128]
But there is no doubt that war-fever is running rampant in Israel. The Central Elections Committee has banned two Israeli Arab parties from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Even if the Supreme Court reverses this ruling, it is frightening that in addition to the rightwing parties, the two major government parties, Kadima and Labor, both voted for the ban.[129]
The United States has served as Israel’s enabler for at least forty years. According to the Congressional Research Service:
“Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. From 1976-2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, having recently been supplanted by Iraq. Since 1985, the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel.”[130]
Because Israel is among the top fifty richest countries in the world, its need for economic aid has declined, but as economic aid has gone down, military aid has been increasing. And this doesn’t exhaust the financial benefits Israel receives from the United States government:
“Israel can use U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers. In addition, all U.S. foreign assistance earmarked for Israel is delivered in the first 30 days of the fiscal year. Most other recipients normally receive their aid in installments. Congress also appropriates funds for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs.”[131]
Moreover,
“U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel’s armed forces into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. U.S. military aid for Israel has been designed to maintain Israel’s qualitative edge over neighboring militaries…. U.S. military aid, a portion of which may be spent on procurement from Israeli defense companies, also has helped Israel to build a domestic defense industry, which ranks as one of the top ten suppliers of arms worldwide.”[132]
Among the weapons that the United States has provided to Israel are the F-16s and the Apache helicopters that are being used against Gaza. According to analyst Phyllis Bennis, “Between 2001 and 2006, Washington transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts for its fleet of F-16s. Just last year, the U.S. signed a $1.3 billion contract with the Raytheon corporation to provide Israel with thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and ‘bunker buster’ missiles.” Bennis concludes: “In short, Israel’s lethal attack today on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military support of the United States.”[133]
The United States has also provided Israel with crucial diplomatic support. By means of its veto power in the United Nations Security Council, Washington has been able to prevent the passage of any resolution that it deems too critical of Israel. From 1967 to 2008, the United States has cast its veto 42 times to protect Israel (this was more than half of all the vetoes ever cast by the United States on any issue at all, and about three eighths of all the vetoes cast during these years by any country on any issue).[134] But this record far understates the benefit to Israel of the U.S. veto: countless criticisms of Israel never even make it to the resolution stage because of the expectation that Washington will reject them.
There was international sentiment for a ceasefire almost as soon as Israel launched Operation Cast Lead. But the United States prevented any Security Council resolution to this effect.[135] Finally, on January 8, more than 12 days into the Israeli assault, as the slaughter got simply too obscene to spin, the United States abstained on a ceasefire resolution (which passed 14-0, with one abstention). But Israel promptly announced that it was going to ignore the resolution.[136] And though the Security Council has the power to impose sanctions — economic or military — against nations that refuse to comply with its mandates, one can be sure (and its abstention signaled) that Washington will make certain that no such enforcement action gets taken against Israel.
That depends, of course, on what the American people do. Public opinion polls show only modest backing for Israel,[137] which is quite remarkable given the strong media tilt toward Israel. The Israel lobby has vast resources and tremendous political clout, but it increasinglydoes not speak for all American Jews. J Street, calling itself the political arm of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” movement has gotten some traction on Capitol Hill.[138]
But those concerned with peace and justice will have to do much better in building a movement to end Washington’s blank check for Israel and in reining in Israeli aggression. As long as Israel has U.S. backing, it will continue its long-standing oppression of the Palestinian people. But if we exert enough pressure, perhaps we can change U.S. policy. Only by doing so can we end this latest explosion of Israeli brutality, and, more than that, end the occupation that has for so long denied the Palestinian people their basic rights.
Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey. He is on the board of New Politics and writes for ZNet. Thanks for helpful comments to Bashir Abu-Manneh, Gilbert Achcar, Joanne Landy, and Justin Podur, none of whom is responsible for my opinions or errors.