By Kam Zarrabi, Intellectual Discourse  

The Graveyards Are Also Very Peaceful!

Peace is actually a very ambiguous concept. One can imagine men and women, young and old, dressed in pastel colored robes, smiling, dancing, singing, and lovingly hugging each other in some surreal earthly paradise. One could also bring to mind a cemetery where the eternally silent dead and buried are not expected to rise in protest or take up arms against those who put them there.

What about justice? Justice only serves the living; for the dead, it is too late. Furthermore, what is justice, anyway? That is a very peculiar concept in its own turn. Could justice be defined other than what serves the interests of those who self-righteously define it? Think about that for a moment.

It was necessary to start with the foregoing introduction to put the turmoil in the Middle East in proper perspective.

Israel , we are told and are fully expected to accept, had no alternative but to respond to the continuous rocket launches by the "terrorist" Hamas against its civilian populations. The "fact" that Israel is responding to Hamas rocket attacks upon the Israeli soil cannot be disputed. However, is this "truth" the whole truth or is it only a vignette, a partial sentence chosen from a lengthy paragraph and removed from a broader context that would paint a completely different picture of the whole issue?

Even President Elect, Barack Obama, is quoted as having said that, were his own house, where his two small children sleep, attacked by rockets, he would do everything in his power to stop it.

A gun-toting burglar who is confronted by the angered homeowner wielding a baseball bat might also shoot the fellow and claim quite correctly that he did so in self-defense!

Historically not that long ago, bands of "savages" were attacking peace loving settlers who had risked life and limb to realize their dreams in the open plains of the New World . In the eyes of these newcomers, their entitlements to the land were more than legitimate and legal; they had the blessings of the Almighty, as well. It was much later that those "savages" turned out to be human beings with their own entitlements and mandates from their own gods or higher spirits.

But, what was taken away from the unwanted inhabitants of the land was never returned to them. Instead, what remained of the original tribes were granted token "reservation" rights and left to their own, effectively clearing the Federal Government from any direct responsibility for the welfare of those disenfranchised humans.

Is this the future of the Palestinians?  Everything seems to be pointing in that direction.

Some wonder why the Arab World is so remarkably silent about this most recent massacre of the Palestinians and in some cases even supportive of Israeli actions. The answer is: It is not the Arab World that is complacent, it is the leaderships of the Arab nations, Saudi Arabia , Egypt , Jordan and the wealthier small Emirates that find their own personal or tribal interests in falling in line with the mandates of the global superpower and the guardian of the Jewish state.

Not only do these "friendly, moderate" Islamic leaders blame Hamas for the current escalation of Israeli violence, they also blame Iran for its support for that democratically elected party that represents the great majority of the Palestinian people, both In Gaza and in the West Bank . These "leaders" of the Arab nations prefer to regard Hamas' rival, the so-called Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmood Abbas, as the true voice of the Palestinian nation.

Well, Mahmood Abbas, representing the Palestinian Authority, believes in "negotiating" for some perennially nondescript peace settlement, ultimately leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel ; of course we are talking about the kind of a Palestinian state that Israel would prefer. Hamas and, in fact, most Palestinians, on the other hand, see that kind of a two-state solution as neither feasible nor desirable.

In a masterfully disguised stroke of diplomatic genius, the Israeli regime has continued to appear as magnanimously in favor of peace negotiations toward an ultimate two-state solution.  This subterfuge accomplishes three tasks at the same time: First; it makes Israel appear as the good guy in the eyes of the international community, at least in the West where it counts. Second; Israel knows fully well that endless negotiations, as demonstrated in the past, would lead nowhere. And, third; the blame would, as always, be put on the Palestinians for their unreasonableness and stubborn defiance. 

The sad fact, however, remains that neither a compromised or capitulated two-state solution, the kind that Israel would accept, nor the pipedream of an ultimate one-state alternative, is destined to guarantee the Palestinian nation a meaningful statehood. As long as Israel is not willing to give up anything it has thus far gained, or make any concessions worthy of the name, the dream of a contiguous, independent Palestinian state remains just that, a dream.

And as long as Israel continues to enjoy unlimited and unequivocal support of the United States, whether openly expressed as official American policy or extended even in violation of America's own laws, it would be foolish to expect Israel to behave other than it has been doing all along.

The following link to the full text of an interview conducted on Democracy Now is quite revealing.

Now the Likudniks in Israel , best represented by Netanyahu who is likely the next Prime Minister, and their American counterparts and staunch supporters, people such as John Bolton, are trying their best to implicate Iran in the current crisis in Gaza . Even the highly respected very senior! political analyst, Daniel Schorr, could not help himself but to comment in an interview on Public Radio that the Hamas/Israeli conflict is actually a proxy war between Israel and Iran .

But wait just one minute, Mr. Schorr; if this is a proxy war between Iran and Israel because Iran has provided the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, with some money, arms and other aid; then this is actually a proxy war between the United States and Iran, because the United States has been providing Israel with practically everything it wants, and some!

Implicating Iran is also intended to negate or nullify the Palestinian nation's own legitimate cause for its decades-long struggle against occupation and Israeli tyranny. Were it not for Iran and its interest in giving Israel a hard time, we are supposed to believe, the Hamas movement or the Palestinian cause would cease to exist!

Another even more pathetic effort in implicating Iran in the current crisis is the allegation that Iran has supplied the Palestinian resistance movement with the missiles that have been raining down over Israeli towns. Well then, if these makeshift paper tubes and stovepipes filled with explosives that cause as much damage as some of the more potent July 4^th fireworks are examples of Iran's missile technology, why are we so worried about the Iranian missile threat that is supposedly aimed at Israel, Europe and even the United States, for which the United States is erecting anti-missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic?

Is this perhaps also reflective of Iran 's alleged technological advances toward building its nuclear bombs?

Many commentators and analysts see the increasing tempo of hostile rhetoric and actions by Israel as a prelude to some preemptive strike against Iranian targets, possibly before the new administration takes office in Washington . Last year's bold and clearly illegal Israeli aerial attack on suspected Syrian nuclear facilities was interpreted by most observers as a signal to Iran as Israel's real target!

I would like to invite the readers to review my previous articles dealing with this charade in my web site, particularly the last three articles: Sept. 30, November 10, and November 23, 2008, appearing in the Home Page.

Even though all fingers seem to be pointing toward Iran as the next target in the Israeli and American crosshairs, the likelihood of any military engagement with Iran remains quite remote, at least in my mind.

The new revelations that the Bush administration warned Israel to refrain from attacking Iran's Bushehr nuclear facilities is yet another attempt clearly aimed at portraying Israel as honestly and justifiably concerned about an Iranian nuclear attack to wipe it off the face of the map. Creating, exaggerating and perpetuating such portrayals help Israel 's real agenda of convincing the American taxpayers that it deserves all the economic, military and diplomatic support America could muster, making especially sure that the Obama administration would not dare initiate policies that might jeopardize Israel's uniquely advantageous position.

As an Earth Scientist living in Southern California, I cannot help but draw parallels between the potentials for a major magnitude earthquake along the San Andreas Fault and the possibility of a disastrous war with Iran . As long as intermittent smaller tremors help release the tension in the earth's crust along that fault zone, the occurrence of a catastrophic earthquake becomes less likely.

Similarly, when smaller scale disturbances provide the regional glutton with enough to satiate its enormous appetite, the urge for triggering a cataclysmic Biblical Armageddon would be diminished.

... Payvand News - 01/13/09 ...

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