“Us” and “Them”

by Uri Avnery — Gush Shalom

No. It’s not “us” and “them.”

Not “us” — the good ones, the moral ones, the righteous ones. Or, to put it bluntly, the magnificent ones. The Jews.

And not “them” — the bad ones, the evil ones. To put it bluntly again: the despicable ones. Yes, the Arabs.

We, who were chosen by God, because we are so special.

They, pagans all, who pray to all kinds of idols, like Allah or Jesus.

We, the heroic few, who are faced in every generation by those who want to destroy us, but we save ourselves from their hands.

They, the many cowards, who want to kill us and our state, and our courage defeats them.

They, all the goyim, but especially the Muslims, the Arabs, the Palestinians.

No, its not like this. Not at all.

Some days ago, Yitzhak Herzog said something especially obnoxious.

Herzog, the leader of the Labor Party, the chairman of the “Zionist Camp” union, the Chief of the Opposition (a title conferred automatically on the leader of the largest opposition party), declared that his party is failing at elections because people believe that its members are “Arab lovers.”

If translated into German, it may be better understood. For example, that Angela Merkel’s party consists of “Jew lovers.”

Nobody says so. Indeed, nobody can say so. Not in today’s Germany.

One may assume that Herzog did not mean it the way it sounds. Certainly not in public. It just escaped his mouth. He did not mean it.

Maybe. But a politician who lets such words escape his mouth cannot be the leader of a large political camp. A party with such a leader, which does not throw him out on the same day, is not worthy of leading the country.

Not because he is wrong. There are certainly many people who believe that the Labor Party members are “Arab-lovers” (though there is no sign that they are. It must be a secret passion.) And many people believe that the Labor Party is sinking to the bottom because so many believe this awful thing. There are plenty. Problem is, this kind of person would not vote for Labor, and even less for Herzog, even if they jumped into the air and shouted: “Death to the Arabs!”

And even this is not the most important fact. The most important fact is that beyond all the moral and political considerations, these words disclose an abysmal lack of understanding of the Israeli reality.

Today’s Israeli reality means that there is not the slightest chance to remove the Right from power if it is not faced with a united and resolute Left which is based on Jewish-Arab partnership.

There is the demographic reality. Arab citizens constitute about 20% of Israelis. In order to achieve a majority without the Arabs, the Jewish Left would need 60% of the Jewish public. A pipe dream.

Some dream about the Center, which could do the job of the Left. That is a pipe dream, too. The Center is not a force, it has no spine, no ideological base. It attracts the weak and the meek, those who do not want to commit themselves to anything. The Yair Lapids and the Moshe Kahalons, like their predecessors, like their likely successors, are the tails of foxes, not the heads of lions. Since the days of the Dash party in 1977, they will always trail the Right. That’s where they came from, that’s where they will return.

Past are the days of the old Labor Party, Mapai, with its tails — the former national-religious party and the Jewish-Oriental Shas party.

A new, large and strong Left must arise.

Such a Left, new, large and strong, cannot arise but on the solid basis of Jewish-Arab unity. This is not a dream or a forlorn hope. It is a simple political fact. Nothing good will come about in the country but on the basis of Jewish-Arab partnership. This partnership made the Oslo agreement possible. Without the Arab votes in the Knesset it would not have passed. Such a partnership is necessary for any step towards peace.

The argument that a leader “does not love Arabs” is irrelevant in itself. It just says that the person is unfit to lead Israel. He will not succeed in anything, certainly not in making peace.

Not to mention the fact that the phrase “loving Arabs” is childish. How can one love — or not love — an entire people? In every people — including ours — there are good and bad individuals, good-hearted and evil ones, friendly and antagonistic ones. “Arab lover” is like “Jew lover” – two words that have a strong anti-Semitic smell, as every Jew well knows.

I was an eye-witness — and an action-witness — to many efforts to establish a Jewish-Arab partnership in Israel, literally from the first days of the state.

As I have already recounted many times (perhaps too many), immediately after the 1948 War I was part of a tiny group which compiled the first plan for a “two-state solution.” In the 1950s I took part in setting up the “Committee against the Military Government,” a Jewish-Arab group that fought for the abolition of the repressive regime to which Arab citizens were then subjected. (It was abolished in 1966). In 1984 I took part in creating the “Progressive List for Peace,” an Arab-Jewish party that won two seats in the Knesset, one for an Arab, one for a Jew. And there were many efforts in between.

I mention them in order to illustrate a frightening fact: during the last 30 years, the cooperation between the Jewish and Arab peace forces has not grown, but on the contrary, has shrunk. It is in a steady process of decline. And so, by the way, is cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian peace forces.

This is a fact. A sad, depressing, even despair-creating fact. But a fact, nevertheless.

Who is to blame?

Such questions are quite pointless when it comes to historical processes. Every historic tragedy has many fathers. In spite of this, I shall try to answer.

I shall testify against myself: right from the beginning of the occupation in 1967, I cut down on my activities for Jewish-Arab cooperation inside Israel, in order to devote all my efforts to the struggle for Israeli-Palestinian peace, for the end of the occupation, for the Two-state Solution, and for the relations with Yasser Arafat and his successors. All these seemed to me then much more important than the quarrel inside Israel. Perhaps this was a mistake.

The Israeli Left asserts that the Arab citizens have become “radicalized.” The Arab citizens argue that the Jewish Left has betrayed and neglected them. Perhaps both are right. The Arabs believe that the Jewish Left has abandoned them, both in the matter of peace between the two peoples and in the matter of equality within the state. The Jewish Left believes that the utterances of people like Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, MK Hanin Zuabi and others destroy any chance of the Left returning to power.

Both are right. The blame may be apportioned equally, 50-50. But the guilt of people from the dominant group weighs much more than the guilt of the oppressed one.

Every day provides new evidence of the abyss between the two peoples within Israel. It is difficult to understand the silence of the Jewish Left in the affair of the wounded Palestinian murdered in Hebron by a Jewish soldier. It is also difficult to pardon the Holocaust denial rampant among the Arabs.

I feel that this abyss is getting wider and deeper. For years now I have not heard of a serious attempt by the two sides to set up a joint political force, a common narrative, joint personal and public relations — both at a high and a low level.

Here and there good people initiate small efforts. But there is no serious nationwide political initiative.

If I had received a phone call: “Uri, the time has come. A serious initiative is under way. Come and help!” I would have jumped into the air and shouted: “Here I am!” But no such call has come.

It must come from below. Not another initiative from old men, but an effort of young people, fresh and determined.

(The old ones, like me, can contribute their experience. But it is not for them to take the initiative.)

Such an effort must start from zero. Entirely from zero.

First of all, It must be a joint effort by Jews and Arabs, Muslims, Christians and Druze, in close cooperation, from the very first moment. Not Jews inviting Arabs. Not Arabs inviting Jews. Together, an inseparable bond, from the moment of inception.

One of the first tasks is to agree on a joint historical narrative. Not an artificial one, not a sham one, but real and true, one that takes into account the motives of the Zionists and the Arab nationalists, the limitations of the leaders on both sides, the humiliation of the Arabs by Western imperialism, the Jewish trauma after the Holocaust, and yes, the Palestinian Nakba.

There is no use for the question: “Who was right?” Such questions should not even be uttered. Both people acted according to their circumstances, their miseries, their beliefs, their capabilities. There were sins. Many of them. There were crimes. On both sides. But they, too, were the outcomes of the circumstances, of the times. They must be remembered. Certainly. But they must not be obstacles to a better future.

Twenty years ago, Gush Shalom (the organization to which I belong) published such a joint narrative, which was true to the historical facts and tried to encourage understanding for the motives of the two sides. Some more such efforts have been made. Such an effort is essential to establish an intellectual and emotional basis for a real partnership.

It may not be necessary to create a joint party. Perhaps that is not realistic for now. Perhaps it would be better to set up a permanent coalition of political forces of both sides.

Perhaps a joint shadow parliament should come into being, for thrashing out the difference in a regular and public way.

True partnership must be personal, social and political. The aim must be, right from the beginning, to change the face of Israel and to remove the forces that are leading it toward a historic tragedy. In other words: to assume power.

At the same time, personal and social bridges should be built – between localities, between towns, between institutions, between universities, between mosques and synagogues.

Neither Yitzhak Herzog nor the Labor Party can lead this effort on the Jewish side. Neither Herzog nor his rivals in his party, who desire to take his place. (It seems that in the Labor Party no politician can aspire to leadership unless he or she has already utterly failed in the past.)

What is needed is a young, energetic, ground-breaking new leadership. Not another of those young people who appear on the scene, create a new little group, do good things for a year or two, and then disappear as if they had never existed. What is needed is people who are ready to work together, to set up a force, to lead the state in a new direction.

“Arab lovers?” Yes. “Jew lovers?” Sure. But above all life-lovers, peace-lovers, lovers of this country.

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“Une transparence sans ambigüité”

by Kevin Harrington-Shelton

To an open government activist, it is a perverse godsend that the “Varela Papers” have focused (unprecedented) global coverage on a country whose truly-significant problems have historically been resolved from abroad. As media groups profit from a relationship with government in any closely-knit society, value is added by the flow of information enhanced by foreign journalists on the ground. Thomas Jefferson’s dictum about preferring newspapers to governments simply does not make sense here, because in Panama newspapers ARE governments.

Two years into president Juan Carlos Varela’s five-year term his inability to deliver even the most basic services — those dealing with public health which made the Canal possible in our tropical environment — can be actually seen in the garbage piling up on empty lots and in natural rainwater drainage courses, not to mention the many communities blocking roads all over the country, to draw attention to deficits in drinking water.

What it most evident otherwise is the breakdown of the rule of law. Corruption is rife, and only lip service is paid to the existing sunshine legislation designed to minimize it. That was evident this week. By law, interim progress reports on the Panama Canal expansion should have been submitted on the floor of the National Assembly. It was, nonetheless, delivered to a select committee hearing. The difference is simple but significant: full sessions are broadcast nationwide on live radio and television — the committee hearings are not. The public is thus woefully underinformed as to the workings of its country hallmark asset. Despite existing legislation.

But at least such things are visible. As the French have now found with many other things, the real harm is mostly invisible.

Case in point is US Ambassador John Feeley’s interview in La Prensa on April 24, 2016. Tantamount to a political endorsement, this came hard on the heels of a Dichter & Neira (April 19) poll, documenting a slide in Mr. Varela’s approval rating persistent since February – long before his mismanagement of the offshore fracas. Surprisingly, 78 percent carried a negative opinion about his transparency. The president virtually-assumed ownership of the papers on April 4 (by declaring his close personal relationship to the mentioned law firm). Despite a professional offshore damage control consultancy, Varela’s lack of judgement was highlighted in dissembling about that relationship in The New York Times on April 11. He wrote: “this particular trove of documents came from a single law firm based in Panama.” In the event he overlooked disclosing that Mossack & Fonseca was no run of the mill firm. From the onset of his administration, Mr. Ramón Fonseca had sat in cabinet as a duly appointed minister-without-portfolio — and thus privy to policy debated behind closed doors — to the exclusion of 20,000 other Panamian lawyers, with less colorful client portfolios. And this, without implying any malfeasance whatever, affords at least the appearance of a conflict of interest (which should not have been overlooked on his appointment).

In denial facing mounting international media coverage, the President traveled to receive an orchid named after him (“Dendrobium Juan Carlos and Lorena Varela”) presented by the world-class Singapore Botanical Garden.

During his absence, ambassador Feeley went public. Only recently arrived, Mr. Feeley is attempting to fit the “campechano” persona of an earlier ambassador, Joseph S. Farland, who rolled up his sleeves and left Panama City´s diplomatic circles to make his personality felt in every corner of the country, in implementing John F. Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress.” It is held that the 1964 riots might not have materialized, had Republican Farland not been hounded out by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Foggy Bottom. But those were other times, and Feeley’s La Prensa timing was not a good idea. Sensitivities to meddling when Panamanians sort out their problems are reflected in an idiom acknowledging “los verdaderos dueños del circo”. Although Mr. Ambassador is indeed to be congratulated for going out on a limb, calling for the level playing fields amongst corporate services industries in Panama, Nevada, Wyoming, and Delaware (just ahead of the new dump of documents scheduled for May 9). He had hinted at this notion generally in his maiden speech in Panama, so specifying these specific states is welcome. Albeit achieving them is well beyond his remit.

Not so, another tranche on his mission statement: “expandir la prosperidad de Panamá y EU, al explotar nuestros acuerdos del Tratado de Promoción Comercial”. This hard to swallow. Embassy statistics show how in FY 2015 Panama imported 19 times more physical goods by value, than it exported to the United States, and Panama will forego some $300 million in customs revenue annually. That could pick up a lot of garbage.

The ambassador should be wary, not take at face value everything he hears about transparency. And not just from his staff here. Secretary John Kerry´s 2015 Human Rights Report states in error that Panamanian Cabinet papers are secret; in reality the current Transparency Law’s Article 14, section 8 does allow for a material exception regarding government contracts, like FINMECCANICA anti-drug materiele. It´s just that no one pays it no mind; the Torrijos, Martinelli, and Varela administrations simply looked the other way, forgetting Thomas Paine’s common sense: “it is error only — not truth — that shrinks from inquiry.”

The ambassador does no one any favors by repeatedly referring to his “commitment to transparency,” as President Varela has not even approved structuring it, even on his watch. “It’s a fact in the Library of Congress,” that to date our Transparency Law has no implementing bylaws — none whatsoever.

Despite a law has been on the books since 2001, it gave rise recently to two diametrically opposed Supreme Court rulings. Truly mindboggling – even by Panama standards. The one same set of nine magistrates unanimously granted a writ of mandamus on a FOIA request. But they unanimously denied another. Both requests were identical and submitted on the very same dates. The only difference was that one petitioned the Minister of the Presidency, the other the Minister of Public Security. Both ministries had failed to comply within the 30-day timeframe mandated by the Constitution itself. The presidency was left inured. To his credit, Minister of Public Security Rodolfo Aguilera Franceschi complied with the mandamus against him in a proper and timely fashion.

Varela and his offshore crisis will pass. But it is institutions which must endure in order for a country to survive.

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What if they gave a jihad and no Americans came?

What sort of fool believes that US forces can implant American values in the Middle East? Yes, the United States might participate in international efforts to punish war criminals and suppress inhuman forces that offend the values of all humanity. No, that region is not going to accept US notions of freedom and democracy — all of which are challenged, disputed and degraded in the USA itself — under the compulsion of drone strikes, clever alliances in the region or the seductions of “soft power.” Americans would be well advised to vote against any candidate for a US federal office who suggests otherwise.

But throughout all of US history there have been people from that region who dreamed the American Dream, and many of them came to the USA to be Americans. Most of these were good citizens who added their muscle and intellect to the building of a great nation.

Is there something to be done about the horrors of the Middle East? Providing refuge from those sorts of nightmares is the traditional American role. With relatively few exceptions it has worked well and still does.

Drone warfare? Special operations units? Mercenaries? Alliances in which America lavishes money and weapons on vicious bigots, pompous dictators and pretentious kleptocrats? Been there, done that and there is little worthwhile to show for it.

Should the likes of the Islamic State leaders be brought to justice? Of course they should be, and one of the things that the United States should do to advance that cause is to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and insist that all of humanity must do likewise.

Are there human beings who are suffering, to whom Americans owe a moral duty of protection? It’s the world’s duty and the Americans should shoulder a fair part of the burden.

But these are not America’s wars. Whether governments of the Muslim world should be secular, Sunni or Shia is not a US concern. Whether and how Iraq or Syria ought to be partitioned are not decisions that should be made in Washington. This is not a matter of isolationism, but of moral and practical guidelines for a positive US role in the world.

Bear in mind…

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Crime can pay if it’s big enough

by Jim Hightower — OtherWords.com

Wow, $5 billion.

That’s the stunning amount Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay to settle federal criminal charges over its shameful financial scams, which helped wreck America’s economy in 2008. That’s a lot of gold, even for Goldman.

Yet the Wall Street powerhouse says it’s “pleased” to swallow this sour slug of medicine. Is that because its executives are contrite? Oh, come on — banksters don’t do contrite.

Rather, they’re pleased with the settlement. Thanks to backroom dealing with friendly prosecutors, it’s riddled with loopholes that may eliminate nearly $2 billion from the publicized punishment.

For example, the deal calls for the felonious bank to put a quarter-billion dollars into an affordable housing program. But generous federal negotiators put incentives and credits in the fine print that will let Goldman escape with paying out less than a third of that.

Also, about $2.5 billion of the settlement is to be paid to consumers hurt by the financial crisis. Yet the deal lets the bank deduct almost $1 billion of this payout from its corporate tax. That means you and I will subsidize Goldman’s payment.

As a bank reform advocate told The New York Times, the problem with these settlements “is that they are carefully crafted more to conceal than to reveal to the American public what really happened here.”

One more reason Wall Street bankers privately wink and grin at these seemingly huge punishments is that even paying the full $5 billion would be perfectly manageable. To you and me, it sounds like a crushing sum — but Goldman Sachs raked in over $33 billion in revenue last year alone. For them, it’s a reasonable cost of doing business.

After all, Goldman sold tens of billions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent investment packages leading to the settlement. The bottom line is that crime can pay, if it’s big enough.

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