Harper spoke of overwhelming evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. No evidence was provided.

That Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes caused Harper to respond, “I think there is absolutely no doubt they are lying. Absolutely no doubt.” The words “I think” and “absolutely no doubt” are linguistically at loggerheads. “I think” means “to have a belief or opinion”; beliefs and opinions imply uncertainty. They imply possibility of being wrong. They do not imply “absolutely no doubt.”

As for lying, there is a well-known saying that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.”² Then again, one might argue who knows a liar better than another liar? To which one might retort, “How do you know the liar is not lying about someone being a liar?”

The state media CBC did not aid matters with its own piece of disinformation: “An IAEA report last fall said some of Iran’s clandestine activities could be for no other reason than a nuclear weapons program.” The IAEA report has been debunked by many. For example, the IAEA inspector never worked on nuclear weapons.³ Also,

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist – identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko – had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself…⁴

The well-disinformed Harper reply to the CBC disinformation (why can a state media funded to the tune of $1.7 billion annually not get the story and facts right when a small independent internet newsletter with no budget can? What does it indicate?): “And that, I think, is just beyond dispute at this point.” [italics added] So thinks Harper. Harper added more opinion: “I think the only dispute is how far advanced it is.” [italics added]

Harper opined, “I’ve watched and listened to what the leadership in the Iranian regime says, and it frightens me.” First, the language is demonizing. How would Harper respond if his government were referred to as a “regime”? Second, as for frightening, how about a leaked October 2003 European Commission poll of 500 people from each of the EU’s member nations (n=7,500) who were presented a list of 15 nations and asked: “tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world.” The choice of 59 percent was Israel as the top threat to world peace.⁵

On this there is no dispute: Israel is in possession of nuclear weapons. Israel has launched plenty of wars with its neighbors. Why is the Israeli regime not frightening? Yet Israel is the country that Harper said would always have a “steadfast friend” in a Canadian Conservative government.

Harper opines again, “In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, a fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation about using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes. And … I think that’s what makes this regime in Iran particularly dangerous.” [italics added]

How is that glass house doing? To talk about “a fanatically religious worldview” when you are allied with hard-Right Christian fundamentalism comes across as chutzpah.⁶

Harper contends, “While there’s, I think, a growing belief of a number of governments that my assessment is essentially correct, I think there’s still big uncertainty about what exactly to do.” [italics added]

Since Harper is so certain about the danger posed by Iran and its having nuclear weapons, what was Harper’s position on Iraq possessing weapons-of-mass-destruction?

It is inherently dangerous to allow a country such as Iraq to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behaviour. If the world community fails to disarm Iraq, we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them.⁷

Another time Harper said, “I don’t know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.”⁸

Today Iraq is a destroyed country, millions are refugees, upwards of 600,000 people were killed by a US-led invasion supported by Harper — despite his not knowing all the facts. Is this the credibility people would put their faith in?

Where was the background checks done by CBC News and their ace reporter Peter Mansbridge? What of the duty to report honestly and without prejudice? After all there is a good case that disinformation is a crime against humanity and a crime against peace.⁹

1. CBC News, “Iran ‘frightens me,’ Harper says: ‘Beyond dispute’ that Iran is building nuclear weapon, PM tells CBC,” CBC, 17 January 2012.
2. Even the Canadian Senate launched an inquiry into the lies of Harper. See althia.raj, “Senate launches an inquiry on Harper’s broken promises,” Eye on the Hill, 16 February 2011. See also “Five Years of Harper: A Legacy of Broken Promises“; “Broken promises piling up for Harper“; “Stephen Harpers Broken Promises: 100+ Reasons Not to Vote for Harper.”
3. See Gareth Porter, “IAEA’s ‘Soviet Nuclear Scientist’ Never Worked on Weapons,” Dissident Voice, 10 November 2011.
4. Gareth Porter, “Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim,” Dissident Voice, 19 November 19 2011.
5. See Peter Beaumont, “Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace,” Observer, 2 November 2003.
6. See Marci McDonald, “Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right,” The Walrus, October 2006; Letters, “Harper and the religious right,” The Star, 13 May 2010.
7. Stephen Harper supporting the American invasion of Iraq, House of Commons, March 20, 2003. Accessed at In Their Own Words.
8. Stephen Harper, Report Newsmagazine, March 25th 2002. As it turned out, Harper wasn’t the only one who didn’t know all the facts. Accessed at In Their Own Words.
9. Kim Petersen, “Disinformation: A Crime Against Humanity and a Crime Against Peace,” Press Action, 17 February 2005.

The UNSC resolution regarding Libya was based on the alleged need to protect the civilian population from the government forces. UNSC resolution 1973 invoked the responsibility to protect and voted to establish a no-fly zone over Libya with “to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya…”

Next in the Imperialist Crosshairs

After the collective might of NATO, its Arab League (a league of dictators) allies, and Libyan insurgents attacked and defeated the government of Libya, that the focus next turn to Syria was unsurprising. The intended United States remapping of the Middle East is hardly a secret.¹

Yet corporate newspapers around the world naively report. In the Philippine press ran an article titled, “Foreign monitors fuel Syrian protests.”² The Syrian government was described as using violence to quell the protests.

And how did the various governments in the United States disperse the 99% occupations if not by police force? Ask Scott Olsen, a peacefully protesting veteran of the US attack on Iraq, who suffered a fractured skull and brain swelling after being hit by a projectile allegedly courtesy of the Oakland police. Or try asking ex-marine Kayvan Sabehgi who suffered a ruptured spleen in an apparently unprovoked beating by an Oakland police. It seems violent put-downs of dissent occurs in Syria as well as the US.

On the next page of the Philippine newspaper was another article, “US finalizes deal to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia,” thereby “boosting the military strength of a key US ally in the Middle East…”³ Is it not hypocritical for the US to back the removal of one dictatorship while militarily supporting another dictatorship?

The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, rules without electoral consent. Assad is undeniably, therefore, a dictator. Assad is now promising a new constitution which will go to a referendum before Syrians. If so, it is a step — slow in coming — toward more legitimate rule.

So is Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, so is Al Khalifa in Bahrain, and these regimes are committing human rights violations that arguably dwarf those allegedly committed by the Assad regime. The mere facts that there are other non-elected regimes in the world and that their human rights abuses might exceed those of Syria, does not mitigate the alleged human rights abuses of the Syrian regime. It does, however, glaringly reveal the flagrant hypocrisy of western regimes that criticize Syria’s regime while remaining mute on their own abuses and the self-same abuses of their allied states. It should seriously call into question western motives toward Syria, and it should also call into question the human rights fidelity of western states.

Does a dictatorship imply that a government is totalitarian or otherwise despotic? Can a dictatorship not be benign or even beneficial? Does being a so-called democracy through having won an election denote a government devoted to the common good? While empowering people with a right to choose their government is preferable, what is important is not any supposed legitimacy that electoral success (it is nugatory to talk about “democratic credentials” without clearly defining what democracy is) confers upon a party forming a government but rather how that government serves the masses.

There is a presumption that because the US, Canada, and other western nations have an election that these states are, consequently, democratic. However, is the mere holding of an election, no matter what the terms and conditions of the election, sufficient to define a state as a democracy? Does it matter that the capitalist parties are laden with money and smothered with media coverage while atypical capitalist or non-capitalist parties and candidates are short-changed on campaign funds and ignored or derided by the corporate media? Can this, therefore, be declared a democracy and have validity?

Requisite Conditions for Humanitarian Intervention

People are dying in Syria. Who is behind the killing is subject to disagreement. Do I trust the Syrian media? No. Do I trust the western states and their media?⁴ Would you after the spool of lies that led to the destruction of Iraq — a matter since shunted to the margins by the corporate media? Tellingly, almost all informed people know by now that there were no weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq when the US attacked on that pretext.

All moral-thinking humans would desire that other humans be protected from human rights abuses, killings, oppression, etc. Consequently, were it possible to intervene — morally — on behalf of other humans, then the inclination would be in favour of doing so. But how does one intervene morally?

1. There must be a clear-cut, demonstrable need for outside intervention to protect a citizenry.To be clear-cut, it must be demonstrated that insurgents are not backed or supported by outside agencies. In other words, an insurgency must be completely domestic. When belligerent outside agents are involved, this would rule out an outside intervention. Were this principle in effect, there would have been no outside attack on Libya, as the insurgents were clearly backed by NATO and probably CIA and other agencies.

2. Who determines this clear-cut, demonstrable need? Obviously, it must not be determined by a partial organization; therefore, the United Nations Security Council is ruled out as arbiter (unless all parties to a dispute agree to the UNSC fulfilling such a role).

Why is the UNSC a disreputable intervener or arbiter? The UN has too many examples of debacles, or in some cases, outright capitulation to imperialist powers. One need look no further than the UN debacles in Haiti, where MINUSTAH prevents a Haitian resistance to the coup sponsored by the US, Canada, and France⁵ or to the crimes committed by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.⁶ There was the UN authorization of military force in the Korean War, the UN involvement in Iraq following the US aggression in 2003 (casting a pallor of legitimacy to the invasion), and also the devastation wrought on Libya — enabled by a UNSC resolution.

3. Enemy states must be precluded from participating directly or indirectly in a humanitarian intervention. Collaborators with an insurgency must be prevented from participating in any humanitarian intervention.

Who may intervene if a government is unable to rule or establish safe rule over a citizenry?⁷ If a government is unable to establish safety for its citizens, then it must be permitted to call upon outside intervention of its own choosing.

Where history reveals that certain states have wreaked colonialist or imperialist violence against other peoples, this would prima facie eliminate such a state as a disinterested player in events transpiring in a former victim. For example, based on their history of colonialism and imperialism, France, Britain, the US, and Israel have no moral authority, whatsoever, to pontificate about strife or lack of democracy in Syria.

The old aphorism, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” is prudent in cases of purportedly humanitarian intervention.

Some further questions to ascertain the true intentions of states posing to intervene on humanitarian grounds:

a) What is that state’s own behavior toward the state accused of human rights violations or blocking democracy?

b) What is that state’s own domestic history – especially current history — vis-a-vis human rights and democracy?

c) Apply the Israel test. How does the state respond to the Israeli occupation, dispossession, racism, and slow-motion genocide carried out against Palestinians?

How is it that recent events in other states, states that are opposed to Zionism, are immediately placed at the top of the queue for so-called humanitarian intervention when the Palestinians have been languishing for decades under Israeli occupation: routinely suffering discrimination, racism, massacres, and being denied democracy?⁸

Does Syria even approach within light years to the crimes of Israel?

4. States may not intervene in the affairs of another state without the imprimatur of the state’s own people. Therefore, dictatorships like Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia would not be permitted involvement in regime-changing actions such as was carried out in Libya. Since the regimes serve without genuine electoral consent, the support of the citizenry cannot be implied.

The paucity of democratic credentials would preclude Israeli involvement anywhere since a democracy is right of all people in a state.⁹

5. Social justice/humanitarianism demands that longer-standing and more pernicious violations be dealt with first. The decades-old Zionist occupations of Palestine, the Golan Heights in Syria, and Sheba’a Farms in Lebanon have long demanded just settlement.

6. An intervention must not be imposed militarily. As pointed out in the preamble to the UN Charter, war is a scourge bringing untold sorrow from which succeeding generations of humanity must be saved.

7. International law must apply equally to all states. States must adhere equally to stipulations of the UN, stipulations which must be applied equally. The preamble to the UN Charter affirms equality of states: “the equal rights of … nations large and small.”

The UN, in theory and practice, should be a world organization that respects the sovereignty of all member states equally.

Before it embarks upon extemporaneous exploits, it needs to rigorously develop this principle of sovereign equality. However, the mere fact that there are five permanent, veto-wielding members of the UNSC is proof positive that the UN is an institution wherein all members are not equal. In fact, the equality is such that the approximately 200-member UN General Assembly has less power than the the 15-member UNSC. This is clearly minority rule.

If one country is permitted (without censure or penalty) to flout ethically valid UNSC resolutions, then all member states – in accordance with sovereign equality of all states¹⁰ – must be accorded equal measure to react to UN resolutions without censure or penalty.

If the UN cannot abide by its own Charter and regulations in a principled and legal manner, then what moral or authoritative stature does it appeal to?

If there is a sovereign equality of states, how can Iran be sanctioned for development of its uranium enrichment technology¹¹ (within the bounds of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it must be emphasized¹² ) without the same sanctions being placed on DPRK, Israel, India, Pakistan – or for that matter US, China, USSR, UK, France since they are in longstanding contravention of the NPT.¹³ Does the NPT supersede every state’s inalienable right to self-defense? When faced with a nuclear weaponized enemy what defense is there? Either all states have the right to a nuclear deterrent or none do. Arguably and logically, if every state had a nuclear deterrent, then war would be a very losing prospect for all sides. War would truly be a tactic of the mad.

Dealing with Strife in Syria

What if it is the genuine mass demand of the citizenry to remove its government, the government having lost all legitimacy?¹⁴

How should progressives react to reports out of Syria? How should progressives react to governments labeled as dictatorships — after all, democracy is a principle embraced by progressives? Progressives should simply call for full democracy and call for it everywhere.

Progressives should call for non-interference by outside agents in the affairs of another state, especially military or other belligerent interference. This does not mitigate criticism of human rights violations by rogue regimes in rogue states.

Progressives should call for the case of Syria to be treated with equal concern, deliberation, and urgency with outstanding cases everywhere — for example, in Bahrain, Yemen, Haiti, US, Canada, Aotearoa, Australia.

It must also be clearly articulated why Syria suddenly became a more pressing case than, for example, the plight of the Palestinians who have suffered under Israeli occupation-oppression, who endure racism and discrimination on a 24-hour basis, and who have endured decades of expulsion as Nakba refugees.

Why can the Sunni ruling minority trample upon Shi’a rights in Bahrain without nary a finger lifted in the UN?

Why is Syria suddenly at the top of the regime-change list?

Over and over again Muammar Gaddafi was demonized as a dictator by the West and western media and stooges within the Arab League. I saw little compelling evidence for the slur of “dictator” being used against Gaddafi. Libya presented itself as a participatory democracy, relatively independent of western capitalist shackles, with the highest standard of living on the African continent. Even if Gaddafi were a dictator (of which I am skeptical¹⁵ ), there is nothing to prevent a dictator from being benign. What is preferable: a war-mongering Barack Obama (indirectly responsible for killing families in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and standing by while Israel commits crimes against humanity in Palestine) militarily siding with an insurgency or the Libyan government fighting the insurgency to preserve freedom from imperialist-Zionist control? If indeed Libyan forces were slaughtering civilians, then the civilians should be protected. The question remains how to protect and who should protect the civilians?

There are varying accounts that emerged from Libya and now Syria. Who to believe? Is it really a difficult question? Does the US and its corporate media have a milligram of credibility? Did the US have any moral right to topple the elected government of Mossadegh in Iran and install the dictatorship of the Shah? Did the US have any moral right to split Korea and attack the North? Did the US have any moral right to attack Viet Nam to split the country and install its puppet in the South? Did the US have any moral right to depose the elected government in Haiti and send the president Jean Bertrand Aristide into exile?¹⁶ One could carry on ad nauseam back to the formation of the US on the lands of its Original Peoples. So where do the pronouncements of the US derive credibility given the historical train of its propaganda and disinformation and the stenography of its fourth estate?

The raison d’être of the UN is purportedly to protect the world from the scourge of war. How does the US play into that noble UN goal? William Blum describes the US as anything but a peace-monger in his Rogue State.¹⁷ How can anyone support peaceful intentions on the part of the US? Even Colin Powell has said the US doesn’t do peace treaties. “We won’t do nonaggression pacts or treaties, things of that nature.”¹⁸

What is not called for is for progressives to do nothing (although doing nothing is sometimes the best strategy), but rather act according to principles and end-goals of progressivism. Burying the globe deeper in hyperempire is not laying a foundation for social justice in the world.

By all means progressives should support protection of peoples everywhere, but they should not get duped by the rhetoric of hyperempire. Progressives should also eschew a false dichotomy being imposed on them. Humanitarian intervention does not necessitate it be carried out by imperialists. Where cases are presented as an urgent call for humanitarian intervention, progressives must not feel pressured to choose between two wrongs. Reject all wrongs and accept what is right and just. In the case of Syria, reject Bashar’s unchallenged grip on political power¹⁹ (and apply this principle everywhere equally), but also reject – even more fervently – imperialists seeking to impose their own puppet in Syria.

Tune out the false declamations of the corporate media. The recent lessons of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan still reverberate loudly in the independent media.

1. Ex-US intelligence officer Ralph Peters has written of a scheme for redrawing of the borders of the Middle East and farther afield. See Kim Petersen, “A Bloody Border Project: Zionist-Imperialist Dogma from the Armed Forces Journal,” Dissident Voice, 5 June 2007.
2. AP, “Foreign monitors fuel Syrian protests,” Philippine Star, 31 December 2010, A17.
3. AP, “US finalizes deal to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia,” Philippine Star, 31 December 2010, A-18.
4. In his speech in Damascus on 10 January 2012, Assad charged a widespread media attempt to push Syria into “state of self-collapse…” Assad also charged that western media has doctored an interview with him, but that he had an original copy to refute it. Shades of the disproven (See Juan Cole, “Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, “We don’t Want Your Stinking War!” Informed Comment, 3 May 2006) but still serially repeated media disinformation campaign against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
5. Yves Engler, “UN: Putting a Value on Haitian Life,”Dissident Voice, 13 September 2011. Seth Donnelly, “UN ‘Peacekeeping’ Soldiers Launch Brutal Attack on Haitian Street Vendors,” Dissident Voice, 26 April 2008.
6. Stephen Lendman, “UN Peacekeepers Complicit in Sex Trade,” Dissident Voice, 23 October 2010.
7. As an anarchist, I do not accept that one group of citizens be granted rule over the masses of society. The masses must be included in the decision-making of society.
8. See Amira Hass, “Palestinians are heroes, braving Israeli dictatorship,” Haaretz, December 2012. “The head is the head of the demos, the Israeli-Jewish people, who by the democratic process send governments to be the dictator over the Palestinians…

   The Israeli dictatorship is the art of the double standard (Palestinians cannot build on their agricultural land so as not to impair rural zoning, but the state can legalize a Jewish outpost on Palestinian agricultural land). It is the champion of self-righteousness and arrogance (‘the only democracy’), and holds an advanced degree in hypocrisy (‘ready to return to negotiations any time’ ).”

9. See Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, “The necessary elimination of Israeli democracy,” Haaretz, 25 November 2011.
10. Article 2 states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”
11. See United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747.
12. The NPT clearly states in Article IV (1): “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”
13. Article VI states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
14. This begs the question of which governments do have legitimacy and by what grounds such governments claim such legitimacy. I submit that the governments in the US, Canada, and other western countries can lay claim to legitimacy under the present conditions of so-called democracy.
15. “How can you call someone a dictator leader who overthrew a corrupt monarchy, modernized the country, won the highest HDI in Africa, and applied a direct democracy system of government?” … “Gaddafi is not president or prime minister of Libya, but the media wants him to resign a post which does not exist.” See Antonio Cesar Oliveira, “Who is Muammar Gaddafi?” Dissident Voice, 3 March 2011.
16. For a history of pretexts see Kim Petersen, “Grasping at Straws: Searching for a War Pretext,” Dissident Voice, 4 March 2003.
17. William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000).
18. Quoted in Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Weighs Reward if North Korea Scraps Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 13 August 2003.
19. I state this admittedly simplistically because Syria is under continuous threat from Israel and imperialists, and this necessitates maintaining a government free from enemy influence.

The United States could manage an expression of condolences but balked at apologizing. Meanwhile the US corporate media obfuscated the matter by reporting it as a NATO mistake.¹ If it was a NATO mistake, then why should the US apologize? Is that any way to treat your allies?

The US insisted on an investigation. Why was NATO not insisting on an investigation and carrying it out?

The Pentagon issued the investigation’s report on 22 December; it stated both sides were to blame. One side was cited as US forces (not NATO), and the other side was Pakistani forces. There was no apology.²

Pakistan called the report “short on facts.”

The Pentagon did “express sincere condolences to the Pakistani people, to the Pakistani government and, most importantly, to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who were killed or wounded.”

Liberal Media Take

Democracy Now! (DN) turned to New York Times senior reporter Eric Schmitt for analysis of the US killing of 24 Pakistani troops, and they got imperialist talk. Take, for example, Schmitt’s statement “… despite the important relationship that the U.S. and Pakistan has not only over counterterrorism priorities, but also given that Pakistan is a nuclear state, and there’s a lot of concern if those nuclear weapons or any nuclear material were ever to fall into militant hands.” DN host Amy Goodman let the statement stand unchallenged.

One might naturally surmise, therefore, that Amy Goodman and DN accept the premises of the US’s “war on terror” and that the terrorists are not the US (even though the US is owning up to killings in Pakistan, and, as part of the NATO contingent, to civilian killings in Libya.)³

One might further assume that DN holds that the US has a right to nuclear weapons and the Pakistanis do not because, supposedly, there are either no militants in the US or Pakistan cannot safeguard its nuclear weapons as well as the US. The US, by the way, is a country which has lost — as in never recovered — 11 nuclear weapons.⁴

DN is a puzzling media. It claims, “We don’t take money from corporate advertisers. We rely on donations from our global audience — people like you — to maintain our editorial independence.”

“And with the corporate-owned media for sale to the highest bidder, the need for independent news has never been this urgent,” says DN.

Some criticize DN and see its independence as compromised by being in receipt of Ford and Rockefeller Foundation money.⁵ DN does not acknowledge receipt of foundation money on its donation appeal page.

At best DN can be called liberal media; nonetheless, as with any media (including this one) open-minded skepticism serves media consumers best. DN’s progressivist credentials are questionable considering its open support for the imperialist attack on Libya and its proclivity for eschewing corporate media but turning to corporate media figures as experts. In the present case DN turned to the New York Times, a newspaper that frequent DN guest Noam Chomsky calls a “masochistic exercise” in reading.

The Etiquette of Apology

If I pass by someone in close quarters, and my shoulder nudges that person, I should hope that I would immediately respond with an apology. Little incidents like that can occur in crowded confines or when one is not paying sufficient attention. A simple sorry usually smooths the situation over.

Etiquette is the art of decency; it is an essential part of the social fabric providing a set of rules/guidelines for human-human interaction. Common etiquette requires that when you wrong someone you acknowledge the wrong by apologizing for it

Furthermore, an apology should be forthcoming without prodding because an important element of the apology is sincerity. A genuine apology cannot be coerced. It is quite difficult to coerce hyperempire, and closing a border and a drone base will not cajole an apology.

Reparations would be another important element of an apology. When, through one’s wrongdoing, damage is caused, that damage should be atoned for, in an as meaningfully as possible manner, by financial compensation or other satisfactory (to the aggrieved party) compensatory manner.

Many tributaries, very tricky to navigate, flow from this main current of public avowals and disavowals; not least, must an apology lead to reparation, if it is to be to be at all meaningful? That is, without a subsequent act of reparation or restitution, can it be fully constituted as an apology? Or is the performance of a speech act something that itself makes change?⁶

Eight days had passed before US president Barack Obama called the president of Pakistan to express regret for the killing of 24 Pakistani troops by NATO forces.⁷

In his refusal to apologize, Obama fits into the company of George H.W. Bush who while vice-president said, “I will never apologize for the United States, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”⁸

1. See Elise Labott, “Pakistan military insists NATO attack was deliberate,” CNN, 16 December 2011.
2. News Release, “Department of Defense Statement Regarding Investigation Results into Pakistan Cross-Border Incident,” U.S. Department of Defense, 22 December 2001.
3. See “U.S. Admits Fault in Fatal Bombing that Killed 24 Pakistani Troops,” Democracy Now!, 22 December 2011. “NATO Forced to Admit Air Strikes Killed Dozens of Libyan Civilians, Contradicting Initial Denials,” Democracy Now!, 22 December 2011.
4. See No. 44, “50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” Brookings. See also Kim Petersen, “Nuclear Tragedy; The Struggle against Colonialism and Imperialism in Kalaallit Nunaat: Part 2,” Dissident Voice, 7 May 2007 for a nuclear explosion that occurred near the US military base in Thule, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) in 1968. It was also denied by the Pentagon.
5. See bob feldman, “Alternative Media Censorship: Sponsored by CIA’s Ford Foundation?” questions, questions…
6. Marina Warner, “Sorry: the present state of apology,” Open Democracy, 7 November 2002.
7. Richard Wolf, “Obama regrets Pakistani troop deaths but doesn’t apologize,” USA Today, 4 December 2011.
8. Quoted in “Perspectives,” Newsweek (15 August 1988): 15.

It makes one wonder: on which side of the looking glass are we?

If one wandered to the other side of the looking glass — where up is down and down is up, where left is right and right is left, where good is bad and bad is good — what would one find? How does imperialism look like on the other side of the mirror?

Just imagine what would have been the reaction of the United States if Iran was running a covert spy operation against it and refused to discuss the matter?¹

What would have been the reaction if an Iranian drone had been brought down/crashed in the continental United States? One can easily imagine the outcry and indignation. It would certainly be described as a clear-cut casus belli. What if the Iranian reaction to its “lost” drone were merely to deny the authenticity of the drone?² Or what if it the reaction were to deny its drone had been brought down by the US?³ ,⁴

What if the reaction were merely to downplay US acquisition of Iranian technology?³ What if the Iranian reaction to the loss of its surveillance craft⁵ were unapologetic, as if spying on a sovereign nation was its right?⁶

What if this were one of many preceding drone tresspasses?⁷

What would the reaction be if Iran built a case against the US based on dollops of disinformation, manipulating international personnel charged with nonproliferation responsibility, and targeted the US economy by pressing for worldwide sanctions⁸ for failing to live up to many clauses in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty including the preamble which states,

Desiring to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control…⁹

In the “real world,” the US has continued to maintain and update its nuclear stockpile in clear contravention of the NPT.¹⁰

What if the Iranian president and foreign minister all declared that “no options were off the table” in how to deal with the nuclear threat posed by the United States?¹¹

Imagine if Iran had attempted to shut down nuclear facilities in the US and Israel with a computer virus?¹² How would the US and Israel have responded?

Imagine if Iranian black operatives were assassinating nuclear scientists in Israel while denying it all back home “with a smile.”¹³ Imagine if explosions mysteriously erupted from Dimona?¹⁴ What would be the reaction in Israel – especially if a former Iranian head of state security hinted his state was behind it all acting as “the hand of Allah”?¹⁵

What if part of the justification for destruction of Israeli nuclear facilities was that Israeli-made drones were used by Iran’s nemesis, the US, to overfly its neighbour state, Iraq?¹⁶ ,¹⁷

If, as a part of modern historical record, Iran had plotted and helped bring about the overthrow of an elected US government and then replaced it with an authoritarian monarch kept in place with a draconian state security, how would Americans view the Iranian state?¹⁸

If everything detailed here has happened mirror opposite against Iran, how then is it that a serial aggressor state like the US¹⁹ has any moral clout to denounce Iran? How is that Israel, a serial violator of international law, has any moral standing to pronounce on Iran?

Is the United Nations not based on the “sovereign equality of all its Members” as stated in the UN Charter?²⁰ Why then should the reaction among UN members differ in response to similar provocations?

How does one state justify its possession of weapons of mass destruction while denying other states the same right of possession? What happened to Iraq and Libya when they gave up possessing WMD? What has happened to North Korea which gained possession of nuclear bombs? What conclusions should the Iranian state reach from all of this?

Does each state not have the inalienable right to self-defense equal to that of other states?²¹

1. Scott Shane and David E. Sanger, “Drone Crash in Iran Reveals Secret U.S. Surveillance Effort,” New York Times, 7 December 2011.
2. CNN Wire Staff, “U.S. officials, analysts differ on whether drone in Iran TV video is real,” CNN.com, 9 December 2011.
3. Laura Rozen, “Iran releases video of downed U.S. spy drone–looking intact,” Yahoo News, 8 December 2011.
4. On our side of the mirror, the Christian Science Monitor had the gumption to admit “a significant loss for the US” from the downing of its drone in Iran. Scott Peterson, “Downed US drone: How Iran caught the ‘beast’,” Christian Science Monitor, 9 December 2011.
5. It needs to be acknowledged and emphasized that drones are killing machines. See Lesley Docksey, “Armed Drones: Time to Call a Halt,” Dissident Voice, 19 July 2011.
6. After all, does Iran not have the same right to verify US compliance with the NPT as the US assumes for itself?
7. “Iran ‘shoots down Western spy drones’ in Gulf,” BBC News, 2 January 2011.
8. See Tom Burghardt, “Washington’s Countdown to War: Target Iran,” Dissident Voice, 26 November 2011.
9. “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).”
10. Hans Kristiansen, “The Nuclear Weapons Modernization Budget,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, 17 February 2011. The US nuclear stockpile is estimated to be a little more than 5000 nuclear weapons in 2012. Hans Kristiansen, “Estimates of the US Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, 2007 and 2012,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, 2 May 2007.
11. See Norman Solomon, “The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack, John … and Whitewash,” Dissident Voice, 14 April 2007.
12. James Hider, “Computer virus used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear plans ‘built by US and Israel’,” The Australian, 17 January 2011.
13. Matthew Cole and Mark Schone, “Who Is Killing Iran’s Nuclear Scientists?” ABC News, 26 July 2011.
14. Documents from the United States National Archives, “Dimona Revealed,” Israel and the Bomb.
15. See Corky Siemaszko, “Bombing of Iranian nuke facilities no accident?” New York Daily News, 30 November 2011.
16. Safa Haeri “Iranian-Made Drones Flew Over Israel,” Iran Press Service, 9 November 2004. Note: Haeri is an Iranian-born exile who agitates against the Iranian government. Thus, despite the name, Iran Press Service is not an Iran-based media organization.
17. Meanwhile staunch the US, uses Israeli-made drones next door in Iraq. Steve Weizman, “Maker: Israeli ‘Drones’ Fly Over Iraq,” AP, 19 March 2007.
18. William Blum, “Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings,” excerpted from Killing Hope, Third World Traveler.
19. See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000).
20. “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Article 2.1, Charter of the United Nations.
21. See Kim Petersen, “The Inalienable Right to Self Defense: Balancing the Power,” Dissident Voice, 27 February 2006.

United States president Barack Obama has promised “hope,” “change,” comprehensive healthcare reform, shutting down the Guantánamo gulag, the redeployment of US troops in Iraq, to take on the “fat cats” of Wall Street, and a host of other unfulfilled, ignored, insincere utterances.¹ Obama is just one of many politicians throughout history who have learned that lies can sway masses of people. Republican presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich is no stranger to the persuasive power of the lie.

In an interview to be broadcast Monday on The Jewish Channel, Gingrich said that Palestininans [sic]² are an “invented” people without claim to their own state.

When asked if he is a Zionist, Gingrich replied: “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.”

Dr. Ismail Zayid, who was born in Palestine, responded to me a few years ago on the topic of who the Palestinians are:

The Palestinian people of today are the direct descendents of the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites and other Arab tribes that lived in this land, of historic Palestine, since history began. Professor Maxime Rodinson, Professor of History at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and he is Jewish, stated in 1968: “The Arab population of Palestine was native in all the senses of the word, and their roots in Palestine can be traced back at least forty centuries.”

The British historian, H.G. Wells, responding to the Balfour Declaration, stated: “If it is proper to ‘reconstitute’ a Jewish state, which has not existed for two thousand years, why not go back another thousand years and reconstitute the Canaanite state? The Canaanites, unlike the Jews, are still there.”

In essence, the Palestinian people of today are the indigenous people of this land and, hence, their right to self-determination and statehood in their native land is in complete accordance with international law and the UN Charter.

The Israelis are not the original inhabitants of Palestine. They came as invaders. The land of Palestine, because of its geographic location, was exposed, throughout history, to a variety of invaders including the Hebrew tribes, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Turks and the British and finally the Israelis of today. The Hebrew tribes [The Israelites], as invaders have no more legitimate claim to this land than the Greeks, Romans, Turks etc. If conquering invaders, in occupation for a period of time, have any legitimate claim to a territory or country, then the Romans should claim England as their land, and the Arabs should claim Spain as their land, and so on.

I don’t know where Gingrich gets his information from. It sounds like former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir: “There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? … It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”³ Or was it from Jane Peter’s From Time Immemorial which claimed that Palestine was an empty land. Peter’s work was revealed as a fraud by Norman Finkelstein.⁴ Or was it the plagiarized version of Peter’s fraud by Alan Dershowitz⁵ Chutzpah, whose academic transgression was exposed again by Norman Finkelstein.⁶

Where does the logic of Gingrich arise and where does it lead? It is also true that there also was no Israel as a state. Before European invaders came to Turtle Island there was no Canada or the United States. Indisputably, there were no Canadians or Americans. Does Gingrich, therefore, by the same token regard Canadians and Americans⁷ as an “invention.” Did Gingrich, perhaps, hit upon the use of the word “invention” from the title of a book by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand who had the academic fidelity and courage to write The Invention of the Jewish People. In his book, Sand delves into Jewish historiography and states that ethnicity is not a shared trait of Jewry and the claim to Palestine is not historically valid.⁸

Gingrich even surprised The Jewish Channel interviewer, Steven I. Weiss: “It’s a comment I’ve heard before because I’ve covered the far right in the Jewish community and the pro-Israel community. But I was surprised to hear a mainstream Republican figure say it…” Newt Gingrich is mainstream Republican? One wonders what the right wing of the Republican Party sounds like.

Gingrich appears to have read Mein Kampf wherein Adolf Hitler wrote, “… all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward..” In other words, it appears as if Gingrich and his pals believe that repeating the canard of “no Palestinians” will reify the lie.⁹

1. For more see “Promise Broken rulings on the The Obameter,” PolitiFact.com.
2. The right-wing, Zionist-supporting Washington Post can’t even get the spelling of P-a-l-e-s-t-i-n-i-a-n right one day after publishing. Amy Gardner, “Gingrich says Palestianians [sic] are an ‘invented’ people,” Washington Post, 9 December 2011.
3. Quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969) and Washington Post (16 June 1969). In Wikiquotes. Upon Meir’s death, her life-long friend Lou Kadar told journalist Alan Hart: “Golda made me promise to tell you, but not until she was dead, that as soon as those words left her lips, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she had ever said!” In Alan Hart, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: Volume One: The False Messiah (Clarity Press, 2009; review.) This writer considers it extremely odd that someone would want to live the rest of her life with “the silliest damn thing” she ever said uncorrected. In the same book, Hart revealed the sinister side of Meir when he asked her on-air: “You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and even the whole world down with it?” Meir’s response: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
4. Famed scholar Noam Chomsky praised the rigor of Finkelstein’s research:

   … From Time Immemorial. It was a big scholarly-looking book with lots of footnotes, which purported to show that the Palestinians were all recent immigrants … And it was very popular — it got literally hundreds of rave reviews, and no negative reviews: the Washington Post, the New York Times, everybody was just raving about it. Here was this book which proved that there were really no Palestinians! Of course, the implicit message was, if Israel kicks them all out there’s no moral issue, because they’re just recent immigrants who came in because the Jews had built up the country. … That was the big intellectual hit for that year: Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, everybody was talking about it as the greatest thing since chocolate cake. Well, one graduate student at Princeton, a guy named Norman Finkelstein, started reading through the book. He was interested in the history of Zionism, and as he read the book he was kind of surprised by some of the things it said. He’s a very careful student, and he started checking the references — and it turned out that the whole thing was a hoax, it was completely faked: probably it had been put together by some intelligence agency … Noam Chomsky, “The Fate of an Honest Intellectual,” Excerpted from Understanding Power (The New Press, 2002): 244-248.

5. Adding to the shame of having been caught citing from a work without proper attribution is that the book the Harvard law professor chose as his source, was noted by Chomsky in 2002 as having been dropped from discourse among American intellectuals because it was an “embarrassment.”
6. See Matthew Abraham, “Review Essay: Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, AARGH Reprints, December 2005.
7. And so on, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego for the rest of the European invaders in whoever’s territory they found themselves.
8. See review by Jack Ross, “Shlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People,’” Mondoweiss, 10 October 2009.
9. Adolf Hitler, “War Propaganda,” Mein Kampf, Volume 1 (1925).

There is a hint of guarded optimism in the air, and it seems like an inspiring time for progressives. At a time when so many people voice defiance against the status quo, it seems like a propitious moment for progressives to stake out a new revolutionary path — a path not laid down by the establishment preceding them.

In the progressivist realm, Norman Solomon is a well-known figure. Yet, has Solomon embraced the swirling winds of change?

Solomon must have pondered many choices available to a well-educated and articulate man as himself. For instance, have any opportunities been opened up for progressives to seize in the electoral arena? Should progressives even participate as candidates in the highly rigged system of elections that some people refer to as democracy. Do people really think that a system which elects 90+ percent of the highest campaign-spending candidates is democracy?¹

Solomon has decided to participate in the farce of elections. That left the choice of being a candidate dedicated to the reform of a corrupt political body from within or to participate in kick-starting or reviving a progressivist political movement without the corrupt baggage. It seems unlikely that Solomon even considered the latter option as his candidature appears opportunistic. He made his announcement when it became known that the Democratic incumbent Lynn Woolsey would not stand for re-election to the US Congress.

Robert Jensen wrote about Solomon’s declared candidature.²

One DV reader took exception to the article. He wrote,

Are you having an attack of dementia? Norman Solomon? You might as well post a piece praising Obama, they both stand for the same bullshit. wake up. Jezuz.

Solomon’s record is clear, he’s a DemoRat operative. All that crap about “green” and “pwogwessif” is just cover for his real job: misleading the dull of wit.

First, I agree with the basic sentiment expressed by the reader, although I would not impugn the integrity of Solomon. Second, I would choose a different phraseology. Third, regarding the tactics of Solomon, I respect the right of readers to reach their own conclusions about what progressivism really is and how best to attain the aims of progressivism.

It is clear that the Democratic Party is part of the political-corporate duopoly in the US. The Democrats are a warmongering party serving elitist interests that differs from the Republican Party ever so slightly in that they are less open about their corporate and militaristic ties.

Solomon touted Barack Obama — the hyped “hope” and “change” candidate — for the presidency in 2008, and when Obama demonstrated himself to be anything but the Great Progressivist Hope, Solomon complained. Now he wants to join Obama’s team. How does Solomon reconcile the contradictions?

“I’m skeptical about election campaigns that abandon principles, but I’m also skeptical about campaigns that have no hope of winning and that are only for protest or public education,” Solomon said.

With all due respect, I’m skeptical of Mr. Solomon. Before Obama, Solomon also supported the presidential candidacy of Democrat John Kerry. Solomon and colleague Jeff Cohen pointed to leftist author Tariq Ali’s support for Kerry. Ali opined that since an Al Gore was not a neo-con, his administration would not have attacked Iraq, and presumably since Kerry was not a neo-con, he would be more dovish than his opponent George W. Bush. The argument is severely flawed because facts contradict it. The Bill Clinton-Al Gore administration enforced genocidal sanctions against Iraq and ordered bombing campaigns in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Kerry’s rhetoric suggests that his administration would have been just as violent as the Clinton-Gore administration.³

Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. There has been no let-up in warring by either the Democrats or the Republicans. Moreover, they both support the neoliberalism which oversees the transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

Despite the record of the Democrats, Solomon argues the solution is more progressive-minded politicians: “Having John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McGovern, Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey in Congress is important. We need more of those sorts of legislators as part of the political landscape.”

However, Kucinich is a good example of a progressivist voice being drowned out by the Democratic Party’s corporate cacophony.⁴ What makes Solomon think his fate would be any different than the political veteran Kucinich? The fact is that Solomon has shown the same willingness to compromise progressivist principles as has Kucinich by supporting the candidature of Kerry and now Obama.

Lesser evilism is a large part of the problem.⁵ As long as people continue to confine themselves to the choice between neoliberal warmonger 1 and neoliberal warmonger 2 (as Solomon and some other “progressives” advocate), then why would the system change? Do the progressives have the cash for the highest-spending-candidates-win electoral system? Solomon claims to be running a grassroots campaign. I’m skeptical.

Lesser evilism has not brought about change, and part of the reason is that the term is misleading. It is just plain evilism (there is no lesser) — whether it is a Democrat or a Republican administration.⁶

The reader added,

Now I consider the problem presented by Solomon, Moveon, Obamism among African Americans, Trumka and others claiming to represent the interests of the “American People” while really working for the interests of the SuperRich to be a top priority, a key obstacle, maybe THE key obstacle to efforts to oppose the current insanity and all its evils.

I agree.

Forget change! It is past time for a revolution. It is past time for an end to warring, an end to poverty, and an end to inequality. Hope is not enough. The Occupy movements must stand firm. Either people power wins or it is the continuance of a top-down society where the elitists wage war, profit from corporate greed, and oppress Indigenous peoples, minorities, Palestinians, workers, and the poor.

The stamina and solidarity required for a full-fledged revolution will be demanding, but then living on the trickle-down droplets from the so-called 1% isn’t a cakewalk either.

1. See Communications, “Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. Election Ever,” OpenSecrets.org, 5 November 2008.
2. Robert Jensen, “Occupy Congress: Norman Solomon sees a role for progressive legislators,” Dissident Voice, 28 November 2011.
3. See Kim Petersen, “The Futility of Revolving Warmonger Regimes: Time for the Revolution,” Dissident Voice, 14 August 2004.
4. See Kim Petersen, “Same Shit Different Asshole!” Dissident Voice, 19 February 2004.
5. See Kim Petersen, “The Utter Futility of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 24 May 2007.
6. See Kim Petersen, “Evilism: There Is No Lesser: The Left Can Pose Its Own Challenges to Ron Paul,” Dissident Voice, 29 July 2011. “… there is little substantive difference between the Republicans and Democrats; they are both corporate dominated and controlled parties. As futile as lesser evilism is, it is also futile to talk about there being a lesser evilism between the two utterly dominant political parties in the United States.”

Not that you lied to me but that I no longer believe you has shaken me.

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“This morning we reminded the Israeli ambassador how much we deplore the consequences of this raid for the head of our consulate and his family,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Immediately a pretext was added: “While we recognize Israel’s need to ensure its security, …”

Why is it that the security of the perpetrator of violence is emphasized but the victim of the violence’s security is not mentioned? Why is the violence deplored when one’s own group members die at the hands of violence but so little is said when out-group victims die? Many would call this racism.

Gaza is under a siege that is illegal and immoral. It is immoral because of the principle which holds that any actions against an enemy must be targeted solely against that enemy such that civilians are not put at risk. The Israeli actions target indiscriminately — not separating combatants from non-combatants.

As for Israeli violence against Palestinians, any and all violence from the Israelis is unjustifiable and immoral — even on the pretext of Palestinians having fired rockets into Israel.

Why? Because Israel was established through the dispossession of an indigenous people, the Palestinians, whose land was occupied. Only if dispossession and occupation are deemed acceptable actions can the responses of Israeli be justified. Hence, since the Palestinians were dispossessed, and since their land was occupied, then Palestinian actions against the siege, dispossession, and occupation are justifiable. The principle is that the dispossessed and occupied have the inalienable right to resist such dispossession and occupation. If the dispossessed/occupied/oppressed do not have the right to resist, then what is to stop dispossession, occupation, and oppression?

Lies Do Not Shake Friendships in Empire

As French president Nicolas Sarkozy made known in Cannes recently, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “a liar” and a person he “cannot stand.” Sarkozy subsequently wrote to Netanyahu to affirm his friendship, despite their “differing views on the Middle East.”

Their differences are mild in comparison to their similarities. Israel and France are allies. What does this mean for the Palestinians? It does not matter because the Palestinians are people in the way of Eretz Israel.

Empire is not built on moral principles — and lies, even between imperialist allies, are just part of Empire’s endgame.

In his latest article, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy turns his focus from Israeli crimes against Palestinians to Iran which threatens no Palestinians.² So what is Levy’s problem with Iran?

Levy writes, “Iran will apparently have an atom bomb [what does Levy base this on? Are mere words enough to adduce his assertion?], and that is very bad news.”

Nuclear weapons are bad news, but Levy does decry the “very bad news” of Israel possessing nuclear weapons and upgrading its stockpile of nuclear weapons. Instead Israel is criticized for double standards and hypocrisy — something Iran cannot be criticized for regarding nuclear weapons. Levy does not discuss whether Iran would feel any need to pursue (without acknowledging that it does so) nuclear weapons if other countries, such as Israel and the United States, did not possess such weapons. Levy did not mention that Iran supports a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone unlike Israel. Why omit such relevant facts?

Then Levy says of Iran, “It is a country that sows evil.” Levy’s sentence can only be construed as racist in sentiment. Levy does criticize the crimes of his own country against Palestinians, but has he ever criticized his country to the extent of saying it sows evil? Maybe. One wonders, however, how is it that Iran sows evil? Does Iran occupy another people’s land? Does Iran commit massacres against other peoples? Does Iran initiate wars against neighboring countries? Does it initiate wars against any countries? How is it then that Iran might compare in the slightest to Israel when it comes to sowing evil?

Levy adds to the demonization of Iran while purporting not to do so: “There is no need to add words about its dreadful threats or its dark regime – the Israeli media does so more than enough.”

Why is the Iranian government a “dark regime”? And if the Iranian government is a “dark regime,” then how much darker (or in Levy’s mind, “lighter”) is the Israeli regime?

Levy asserts: “True, Iran is threatening Israel and the United States, …”

Where is the evidence? Where are these threats by Iran? Good journalists back up what they say.

Yet Levy repeats his unsubstantiated claim “… that Iran is threatening us, Israel …” Either the state of Iran is incredibly stupid to challenge a state believed armed with over 200 nuclear weapons and backed by the hyperempire which has used nuclear weapons, or Levy is propagandizing.

Levy concludes his piece with a question: “But does Israel want in any way to resemble Iran?”

Levy is demonizing. Without offering one reason for his ad hominem aimed at Iran, and although criticizing Israel, Levy has nonetheless attempted to paint Iran as the “dark regime” that the occupation/apartheid/aggressive regime in Tel Aviv must avoid becoming – despite Iran not being an occupier, a racist state, or an aggressive state.

Iran deserves criticism on social justice issues (for example, homophobia, gender issues, and capital punishment), and so do many other states. These issues do not rise to the level of opprobrium that state-sanctioned racism and discrimination, slow-motion genocide, dispossession and occupation of an indigenous people merit.

Assertion is empty rhetoric, but that is what Levy proffers? Such “journalism” is an insult to critically thinking readers. So why did Levy engage in such shoddy “journalism”? Whose purposes does Levy’s writing serve coming as it does when many speak of an impending Israel-US attack on Iran?

Demonization is not meant to correct an errant country; demonization, itself, likelier has a more sinister intent.

1. Kim Petersen, “Subtle Loyalties to Zionism,” Dissident Voice, 4 July 2006; “Talk Is Cheap, Human Life Is Not: Justice and Freedom for Palestinians Now!” Dissident Voice, 22 December 2008.
2. Gideon Levy, “What Israel can learn from Iran,” Haaretz, 10 November 2011.

If one believes in peace, then it seems the proper thing is to revere the warriors for peace. Yet those are the people who are disparaged by the media, whose movements are brutalized by state police. The warriors who head off to far-flung lands that pose no threat to Europe, the United States, or Canada — why should they be lauded? The warring soldiers of today are — by and large — indoctrinated killers, not protectors of peace or high principles.

People “volunteer” for the grist for the soldiery today. Iraq, Haiti, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan … have nothing to do with defence; it is all about warring and killing. The multitude of killings, the war crimes, and the destruction of the aforementioned countries provides ample evidence of this.

Iraq, Haiti, Libya, and Afghanistan, Pakistan found (and find) themselves victimized by the military weaponry of the West. Fighting in close quarters is eschewed for fighting from a great distance via planes, ships at sea, bombs, and drones high in the sky. Such push-button soldiery has little to do with bravery.

Furthermore, if fighters should be remembered for their supposed “heroism” (and I do not deny that some acts of heroism occur), then they should also be remembered — and reviled — for commission of war crimes, massacres, and other wicked deeds; and they should incur whatever punishment is deserved.

Is there a day of remembrance for the Somali teenager — Shidane Arone — brutally murdered by members of Canada’s “elite” Canadian Airborne Regiment? (Graphic photo)

Whose freedom have all these soldiers for past wars really been fighting for? Is it the freedom of the 99% or the 1%? Whose cause does mind-numbing patriotism serve? The 99% or the 1%? Are the 1% putting their sons and daughters on the frontlines? All these wars have been fought over the years and what has the result been? A greater and greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy few. Is such a societal outcome really worth fighting for?

When schools commemorate Remembrance Day, what are they really commemorating? Is it not an inculcation of warrior sentiment into the younger generation? I found myself having Chinese students being exposed to the Canadian tradition of commemorating their warriors.

Fine, that is what happens in Canada, but I have to be honest with students. I am opposed to the nonsense of celebrating warring and warriors. I made that known to my students.

I presented my Chinese students with the words of one of their own, Lin Yutang. The renowned writer Lin said, “[Chinese] hate war, and always will hate war. Good people never fight in China. For ‘good iron is not made into nails, and good men are not made soldiers.’”

I am adamantly opposed to indoctrination or inculcation of any sort. I always encourage my students to doubt what I say, especially when it runs counter to that told to them in wider society. I urge them to ask questions, research, and form their own conclusions. I encourage them to challenge whatever views I (or anyone else) may present. I inform them that if I wish to be a critical thinker, then I must yield to superior facts, logic, or morals.

If educators encourage critical thinking, then they must be open to the most divergent views, not just those that cluster around so-called conventional representations.

Who should society and its education system laud and commemorate: the gun-toting soldiers or the fighters for peace?

Recently, Dictionary.com featured a question: “Why is it called America, not Columbusia?”:

But what about America itself? Why aren’t the continents of North and South America called “Columbusia” after Christopher Columbus? The word America comes from a lesser-known navigator and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci.¹

Maybe Vespucci is the source for the naming of the western hemisphere, but it is disputed by others. The historian and sailor Samuel Morison was sure the hemisphere’s continents are named after Welshman Richard Amerike, the man who financed John Cabot’s westward voyage in 1497.²

BBC History wrote, “… it is also probable that, as the chief sponsor of the Matthew’s voyage, and with Cabot’s wife and children then living, at his instigation, in a house belonging to a close friend, Amerike sought reward for his patronage by asking that any new-found lands should be named after him.”³

A weeks ago, I read a grade 10 Social Studies test. On it was a question: “Who discovered Vancouver Island?” The multiple-choice question offered the names of five Europeans. Even if the question had been posed as “Which non-Indigenous explorer first reached an island later to become named Vancouver Island?,” all five proposed names were wrong. It was a terribly worded and trivial question. People who are not blinkered by ethnocentrism today realize that it is incorrect to depict a place where human beings already reside as being discovered by human beings from another ethnic group.

Can it therefore be morally correct to append a colonial designation upon the land inhabited by another people without their consent?

Three major First Nations reside on Vancouver Island (immodestly named Quadra and Vancouver Island by seafarers Bodega y Quadra and George Vancouver): Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, and Coast Salish. I have never been able to determine an Indigenous designation for the island. These nations each reside in their own section of the largest island on the west coast of Turtle Island.

Turning to the northern continent, how then should one refer to the landmass in deference to the Original Peoples? The eastern nations of the Haudenosaunee and Anishnabek both refer to the continent as Turtle Island – a name derived from folklore.

One Indigenous website, Mexica Uprising!, urges Indigenous peoples to “rise up against the illegal settler population whom continue to enslave us socially, economically, politically and spiritually.”⁴ It proffers another name for the landmasses of the western hemisphere.

The website complains, “Latin America is named after the White people of Latin descent who stole our land and claimed it as their own. The Europeans brand everything they ‘own’ with their name, it is no different with our land.” The proper name in Nahuatl is given as Ixachilan – “one mass of land united by the Eagle and Condor not two seperate [sic] continents.”

Mexica Uprising! implores Indigenous peoples, “It is time to de-colonize our minds and think as individuals. Don’t let the wasicu control your destiny, learn your true history and culture!”

Is de-colonization just meant for the minds of the colonized? Is it not about time for those who have profited from the actions of colonialist ancestors to reorient their thinking along a different moral path — a path that acknowledges and rejects past crimes against humanity and seeks to atone for past crimes, not committed by themselves, but from which they profit in some sense?

Or is aggressive Martian morality acceptable?

1. the hot word, “Why is it called America, not Columbusia?” Dictionary.com, 9 October 2011.
2. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
3. Peter MacDonald, “The Naming of America,” BBC History. Last updated 29 March 2011.
4. “Welcome to Mexica Uprising!” Mexica Uprising.

The vote to grant membership to Palestine in the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO was 107 votes in favor, 14 against, and 52 abstentions. The United States was one of the 14 votes against, demonstrating that it was only “leading” a small group of nations.

The reaction of the US was embarrassing. It announced cancellation of its $60 million payment due in November to the UN body. Membership dues paid by the U.S. account for about 20 percent of UNESCO’s annual budget. Canada also announced it would withholding “voluntary contributions” (are there involuntary contributions?) to UNESCO.

What does withholding funding of UNESCO mean? Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO gives some examples:

… thousands of girls and women in Afghanistan, in Africa and around the world, who have learned to read and write, with the help of UNESCO… the Iraqi education satellite channel that supports learning to Iraqi girls and boys, including refugees and internally displaced persons… hundreds of journalists around the world who are at this very moment harassed, killed or imprisoned, because they stand by the truth … the stolen treasure of Benghazi, Libya, for which UNESCO was first to ring the alarm bell… the millions of lives that may be saved by the Tsunami warning system …¹

The sore loser reaction of the US, Canada, and Israel conjures up visions of children playing where one child threatens to take his ball home unless the others play by his rules. This seems an apt analogy for the behavior of the “leader of the free world.”

So much for respect for democratic values that the United States claims to be exporting (often through the barrel of a gun) to the – supposedly – unfree world. The US is violating again an expression of democracy by the world body.

The decision to cut funding to UNESCO was difficult for the US to defend. AP reporter Matthew Lee had US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland scrambling – unsuccessfully – to offer credible responses for the US line.²

“Leader of the free world” … whatever free world means. Certainly many wage slaves do not feel free, and neither do migrants forever evading Homeland security feel free. So what is the “free world”? The 13 other nations that voted along with the US on the UNESCO vote? And who are the free peoples?

Then US President Harry Truman said, “The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own Nation.”³

There is no greater warmongering nation than the United States.⁴

Are the 99% free? If one observes the police state repression against them in such places as Oakland, one can only conclude that they are not even free “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” as is constitutionally guaranteed by the First Amendment in the US.

All this is transpiring because the Palestinians are asking for what the Israelis always demand for themselves (backed by the US): recognition of statehood. The hypocrisy could not be much starker.

Despite all the pandering of the US on behalf of the Zionist state, the hawkish (and mawkish) Washington Times is declaring a new “leader of the free world”: Israel.⁵

Israel – cited serially for violations of international law, peace, human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity – is no friend of an uncontrolled United Nations. Israel routinely requires the US to wield its undemocratic veto to protect itself against world censure.

The US rarely fails in this regard. But at what price? Apparently at the price of the “leadership” that it claims for itself.

1. Irina Bokova, “à l’occasion de l’examen du point relatif à l’admission de la Palestine comme Etat membre de l’UNESCO,” UNESCO, 31 October 2011.
2. View the exchange at “U.S. Pulls All Funding for UNESCO After Sweeping Vote to Support Palestinian Membership,” Democracy Now! 1 November 2011.
3. “The leader of the free world – Exceptionalism,” Encyclopedia of the New American Nation.
4. See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000).
5. Editorial, “Leader of the Free World no more,” Washington Times, 28 November 2009.

Denmark elected a staunch right winger as prime minister. Denmark joined in military attacks with imperialist states against weaker states. I turned to journalist Ron Ridenour, who lives in Denmark, to give a first-hand voice to what is taking place.

I support revolution against occupation, oppression, exploitation; however, I hold that the long-term viability of a revolution must be rooted in the people — not in a personality. Therefore, I have reservations about “leaders” — for example, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — who (besides implementing socialism for the masses) seemingly covet the esteem, if not the perks, of governmental office. Ridenour speaks Spanish, has lived in Cuba, written many books about the revolution there, so he is an informed go-to person for reflections on the revolution there and elsewhere.

Ridenour, notably, has also given voice to the very marginalized plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, has long been active in journalism, has his own website, and in his own words, “Besides using words in an effort to eradicate racism, inequality and wars, I have been an activist against wars, racism, chauvinism and for socialist solidarity.”

This week, I interviewed Ridenour about Denmark, Cuba, and the leaderless revolutionary stirrings against the financial elitists.

Kim Petersen: Denmark is supposed to be a peace-loving state with an envious social safety net. You pointed out in a recent article that the Danish political landscape has slanted rightwards? What caused this? And how can progressivist politics become predominant?

Ron Ridenour: The causes are several, both historical and contemporary. Leftist parties and unionists in Denmark, like people in most of the world, lost faith and hope in socialist-communist solutions due to the atrocities and corruption of Communist parties in power, and then with the fall of those governments in eastern Europe. Even those governments still calling themselves communists base their economies on capitalism today.

One of the main problems of nearly all leftist parties and governments is that they do not believe that the mass—unionists, unemployed, family farmers, students—are actually capable of ruling “sensibly.” One of the best of benevolent “dictators,” Fidel Castro, does not believe such either. Most leaders believe in themselves and not the mass. So, in fact, real socialism has yet to be attempted. No party in power has ever really begun the process of educating workers+ to use political power and then turning over power to the working class, as our ideology calls for.

Another factor, especially Danish, is a national inferiority complex. That is, “We’re just a little country, you know,” so we can’t expect to run things ourselves. This was actually a folksy saying of one of Denmark’s best known politicians, Erhard Jacobsen. For decades, Denmark relied upon Germany and since WWII it relies on the US, first for its economic Marshall Plan and since for its military might. And today Denmark is not a peace-loving state. It is involved in four wars alongside its Big Daddy.

Then there is the national complex of indifference, or “ligegladhed.” There has been a lot of charitable giving of money to the poor abroad but little engagement or true solidarity. Even the left-ish parliamentary party, Unity List (Enhedslisten), opposes support for opponents of the terrorist terror laws, or for armed resistance by the invaded of US-NATO wars.

One can never answer fully what causes policy without taking the economy into account. Danes still live comfortably economically, almost all, in relationship with others even European neighbors. I think that the left parties rely on parliamentarian politics because of this. They do not believe that significant numbers of people will actually support grass roots radical struggles. And the unions long ago aligned themselves with capitalist reformism and oppose extra-parliamentary struggles, including sustaining strikes, of any consequence. Why risk being arrested, losing your job and then your mortgage, your car or one of them simply to do the “right thing”?

How can progressive (?) politics become predominant? Well, if progressive means pushing for reformist policies within capitalism that is becoming dominant now for the two Danish so-called socialist parties in parliament. (Unity List and People’s Party/SF), and it has been so for the major Social Democratic party for decades. But if progressive means radical, then the economy has to collapse, or when it is in deep crises as it is now, then grass roots groups have to take to the streets and stay there just as is possibly happening with Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Uproar, perhaps in Spain and Greece. We have to kick the parliamentary-based politics out of our movements. We have to feel the power in ourselves and push the politicians out.

Yes, there must also be strong unions and workers must strike and/or join Occupy Wall Street. Radical-revolutionary political parties must educate and protest with sensible and morally just programs. They should not act against the more autonomous oriented grass roots groups but in parallel.

KP: This touches on the previous questions, in many countries, people scoffed that Americans could “elect” a born-again, foot-in-mouth, right-winger such as George W. Bush as president. Yet Canadians soon found themselves with Prime Minister Stephen Harper (a man to the right of Bush), and Danes wound up with Anders Fogh Rasmussen as prime minister (also a hawkish right-winger). Why do you think this is happening in much of the western world?

RR: Precisely because the left gave up actually being left. It was too difficult and most got too comfortable within the capitalist system. The left adopted the bourgeois democratic premise of making policy within parliaments whose role is to protect finance power. In Copenhagen, Wall Street is Børsen and its building is literally next door to parliament and the executive government.

When finance crises occur, you only have two sources to acquire money to pay for it: from the workers-pensioners-students or from the owners of capital and industry. The latter approach would mean that the rich will refuse to pay for their crises and so, you must nationalize their “private” property, that is, the production centers where wealth originates and the banks that manipulate the wealth for a few. But that takes guts, struggle, sacrifice.

PM Fogh Rasmussen was awarded the greater job of being the commander of NATO. He is loved by the warmongers on Wall Street and the Pentagon, and hated by the peoples who are invaded, but all the parliamentary parties here congratulated him. He should have been ostracized as well as the biggest of capitalists here, AP Møller-Mærsk, the world’s biggest shipper and a major warmonger. Instead his supermarkets, which take in half the food sales, are much of the left’s favorite stores because they are cheap.

We have to find that indignation that many Arabs have found, that some Spanish and Greeks are finding, that is part of OWS, and that us oldies had in the 60s-70s. We have to practice what we preach. Boycott the worst companies (like Mærsk and Coca-Cola…). Go on strike. Refuse to do the system’s bidding. Find our inner strength and alternative life styles. Act in solidarity with the oppressed-exploited-invaded.

KP: The progressivist image of Denmark is further diminished now with its participation in the NATO (currently headed by Fogh Rasmussen) invasion of a sovereign state. There are reports of Danish troops engaging in torture and massacres. How do you read this playing out on the streets in Denmark?

RR: Unfortunately, nothing is happening regarding these atrocities. There is one small group of pacifists who conduct a vigil in front of parliament daily since the beginning of the war against Afghanistan. But it is more of a curiosity than a threat. The anti-war movement died, in part because the Unity party dropped out of protesting because its leaders wanted “influence” with lucrative jobs in parliament. And the climate movement has so far refused to take up wars as part of their anti-pollution protests albeit wars are a major cause of pollution and adverse climate changes. I think they are just too scared of being accused of being outsiders or radicals….

KP: You hinted at a “shaky future” for the Cuban revolution. Do you see Cuba falling further away from the socialism won through the revolution? Who will stand to benefit (or lose) from Cuba’s opening to capitalism?

RR: Yes, I am afraid that what I foresaw in that piece nearly a year ago it occurring rapidly now. More and more openings for capitalism have been adopted even before the Communist party national conference body has met and decided on precise policies to propose to the state. Raul Castro as both leader of the state and the party, following his brother, has already decided. Now, private property (housing) can be bought and sold; cars can be bought in hard currency at big prices, which very few Cubans can acquire legitimately; small enterprises are encouraged to employ workers, and thereby opening up officially for exploitation of labor.

Who will benefit is a new class of small capitalists and real estate hustlers, and speculation will become widespread. Relatives of Cubans in Miami and Spain will be even more privileged than those Cubans without such remittances. Wall Street will benefit in the end, because the blockade against Cuba will be lifted in the not distant future. Other Wall Streets in the world already benefit.

KP: In a summer article on the state of the revolution in Cuba, you defined ethics partially as “We act so that no one person, race or ethnic group is either over or under another.” You added, “We struggle to create equality for all.” If, indeed, the revolution is a revolution of the people and not about a personality or personalities, what does the unbroken political “leadership” of Fidel Castro from 1959 to 2008 speak to such ethics?

You also quoted from Che that “one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into an isolation from the masses.”

In general I support much of what Fidel Castro has helped to bring about in Cuba, but I find that his one-man leadership of the revolution is dangerous in that it embeds the revolution in a person (in this case in a family) rather than in the people. Is Fidel Castro the only person besides his brother fit to “lead” (and do the people require a leader?) the revolution for Cubans?

RR: The points you quote from my piece and your question are part of dialogue, both fraternal and violently hostile, the non/anti-capitalist left has had for more than a century. In my own view, after half a century of struggle and thought that also embraces these points, my conclusion is NO to your question. And that, of course, holds true for Hugo Chavez (and all other leaders), albeit most of the left in Venezuela, as well as a large sector of the general population, believes Chavez is unique and most be their one and only leader for, perhaps, a lifetime. That was also the case with the Cuban people and Fidel for the first decade or so. Well, that is what the Arab uproar wants to end, albeit those gruesome dictators cannot be compared to the kind-hearted Fidel.

The main problem with one leader syndrome is that it saps the vision, inspiration and energy from the mass. I have seen this happening before my eyes during the eight years I worked in Cuba and lived with the people. They lost hope that socialism could actually be the best solution when they always had to wait for answers/permission/resources/materials from above. The same happened in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Now it has come to past that most Cubans, I think, really don’t believe socialism is worthwhile and they want a chance to try supply-demand marketing. This will split the people into classes and further antagonize the true solidarity amongst themselves and with other peoples that they had assiduously built. And that is the essence of what Che meant in the cited quotation—the state and the party have become isolated from the mass and they see no other way out than capitalism with some bourgeois democratic-oriented reforms, such as what the big powers are endeavoring to impose on the Arab rebellion.

Another major mistake that Cuban leaders made is not separating some powers between the state and the Communist party. As the unity strategy goes in Cuba when the state makes a policy for short-term economic benefit or for some diplomatic reason—such as backing the genocidal, brutal governments of Sri Lanka against the entire Tamil population—the party is disallowed from criticizing this or for showing solidarity with, for instance, the much discriminated-against Tamils.

KP: There is growing dissent in the United States, but it is marginalized and propagandized in the corporate media (nothing surprising there). The Occupy Wall Street movement in the US seems to be gathering momentum, having staying power, and perhaps causing ripples in the system. If the grassroots activism proves influential in the US, how do you think this might affect Europe?

RR: I see that 66% of the people Gallop polled in the US want the rich to be appropriately taxed, and 54% want all politicians out of a job. It is that spirit that has to take root, and that is growing in Europe too.

The most important and radical elements in these protests are that they are 1) anti-capitalist, 2) not led by self-interest seeking persons or parties. In fact, OWS is more radical than what we created in the 60s-70s, because it is primarily aimed at the true enemy: capitalism, which is the main cause for adverse climate changes and aggressive wars.

The first solidarity demos with OWS in Denmark are taking place Saturday (October 15) alongside hundreds other cities in scores of lands. This initiative was taken by the indignados in Spain. There, and in other countries on the verge of bankruptcy such as Greece, there is greater potential for sustained radical movements than there is right now in Scandinavia and Germany. But this economic crisis will not just melt any time soon—a spell of anger is mounting. I think in a few European countries protests will arise and continue sporadically, at least.
I see it as a positive development, in fact, that in the recent Danish election, the so-called red block won and with it the Unity party and SF have dropped key programmatic elements of any socialist nature. I think the Unity Party/SF sellout will help create a backlash that could become a true protest movement. But we must also recognize that too few people are really hurting enough economically here to cause them to develop a real sustained fight. I hope I’m wrong.

In Denmark, we must not go to a demo to hear jazz music and a handful of “leaders” speak and then go home to TV or to a cafe for beer and wine. We must find that inner indignation and with it empower ourselves. We must develop leadership in all of us. We must take over tactical areas and stay there. We have one big problem, even greater than the might of police brutality, and that is the weather. Already temperatures are falling to freezing in the evenings in some of Europe and in NYC it is getting cold too. We might have to postpone our staying power over the cold, raining, snowy winter months and return in even greater numbers and strength in the spring.

I close with a quote from Naomi Klein’s talk at Wall Street, October 6. “We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That’s frightening… Always be aware that there will be a temptation to shift to smaller targets… Don’t give in to that temptation… Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is the most important thing in the world.” “It is!” and she points to her favorite sign: “I care about you!”

Fortunately there is a book, Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine by William Parry, that pictorially deflates monopoly media disinformation and complicity.

Against the Wall indisputably drives home the dispossession, brutality, racism, and oppression that one group — Israeli Jews — inflicts daily on another group — Palestinians.

Although text accompanies the evocative photographs, the photos speak for themselves. Against the Wall depicts Palestinian families being separated from one another, being prevented from tending to their crops, Israelis inflicting economic deprivation on Palestinians, Israelis targeting of school children, and Israelis intended humiliation of Palestinian workers passing through checkpoints in the wall.² Against the Wall reveals the spirit, art, and determination of the Palestinian resistance, the anger of the occupied people, messages to the world, etc.

One message reads, “The only peace Israel wants is a piece of my land.” Given the de-Arabization of East Jerusalem and the growing Jewish colonies in the West Bank, in contravention of Israel’s obligations under the Oslo Accords, and given that the Wall (deemed illegal by the World Court) encroaches inside the Green line from the 1967 War further stealing Palestinian land³ — there is no denying the truthfulness of the message. This has not caused the US government to stop giving $3 billion+ a year to an OECD member (historically an economically elitist grouping of states) that openly engages in the occupation and the siege of an indigenous people.⁴

Usually when there is an occupation, and especially when that occupation is oppressive, there is resistance. Much of the artful resistance and messages on the Wall come from non-Palestinians, and Parry acknowledges that not all Palestinians support the wall being used as a medium for artful resistance. Parry relates an exchange between British street artist Bansky, who supports the Palestinian resistance, with a Palestinian elder:

OLD MAN: You paint the wall, you make it look beautiful.
BANSKY: Thanks.
OLD MAN: We don’t want it to be beautiful. We hate this wall, go home.

Against the Wall answers the question: what does occupation, apartheid look like? It appears somewhat like a coffee table book. Unlike the usual coffee table book, however, the photos and text in Against the Wall convey a message of grave importance. It is a book hard to put down. One can stare at the photos for long periods of time and return again to the photos a short while later. It is not a book that is read and placed on a shelf. It invites you back time and again. Against the Wall should be on the coffee tables, in the libraries, and on the gift lists of every person who cares about human rights for all humans.

Where words — despite their sincerity, truthfulness, and morality — alone cannot convince, the pairing with authentic photography creates a vividly more powerful impact. That is Against the Wall. Get this book and share it!

1. Yes, supporters. If one is actively against non-violent resistance to occupation and oppression, then one is undeniably supporting the aims of the occupiers.
2. I write “intended humiliation” because, in fact, it portrays the dignity of Palestinian workers who day-in and day-out withstand the indignities to support their families – an honourable act – and it is rather a self-humiliation for the Israelis that people in positions of power would lower themselves to behave so inhumanely to other humans.
3. If land acquired through violence is wrong, and unless the United Nations has a moral right to dispossess peoples of their homeland, then arguably all the land of Israel and Palestine is Palestinian land. This principle holds for all lands acquired through violence, including Canada, the United States, etc.
4. Although preponderantly responsible for helping Israel maintain its occupation, the US is not alone, as many western states, and Arab dictators are complicit in the occupation of Palestine.

So how to define an intellectual? An intellectual is someone who thinks beyond the strictures imposed by upbringing, education, societal norms, dominant media, etc. to arrive in agreement with other conclusions or to form one’s own conclusions. It is more than simply thinking outside a box or applying critical thinking to issues and challenges because intellectuality also demands honesty and integrity.

Gilad Atzmon is someone who encompasses what it means to be an intellectual. He is someone seemingly unbound by a specific group or milieu. Atzmon turned away from the Zionism of his father and the – what he calls — Nazism of his fellow Jews in Israel. Atzmon recalls the plight of captured Palestinian freedom fighters at the Ansar internment camp during his time in the Israeli military: “The place was a concentration camp. The inmates were the ‘Jews’, and I was nothing but a ‘Nazi’.” He has discarded the scoundrel’s refuge of patriotism. He has rejected what is morally anathema inculcation, propaganda, mendacious narrative, and supremacism of Jewish “culture.” Atzmon realizes that we all are human beings; we all possess 23 pairs of chromosomes.

Atzmon exposes a twisting of history, a narrative that lies about who the Jewish people are, lies about a historical and contemporary dispossession, occupation, and oppression carried out by his kinsfolk. That is an exceedingly difficult dilemma for most people to recognize, acknowledge, and overcome. It is especially difficult to fight because when such a colossal crime is denied, whether consciously or through gullibility, by the masses of one’s kinsfolk (Atzmon states: “Israel is largely supported by world Jewry institutionally, financially and spiritually.”), it estranges one from one’s tribe.

Atzmon has written The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics wherein he answers the titular question. Atzmon is interested in identity: who are the Jews? He differentiates “between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion), and Jewish-ness (the ideology).” Jews, Atzmon notes, do not form an ethnicity. He describes Jewish society as an amalgam. It is assimilationist for Jews and separatist from Goyim.

The Jews and the Jewish state come first for Zionists. Atzmon details how financial, economic, and political control are sought. He cites “the first and prominent Zionist prophet Theodor Herzl” as to “what political Zionism is all about: getting superpowers to serve the Zionist cause.” The abject speech by US president Barack Obama rejecting Palestinian statehood is a prime example of serving Zionism.

He cuts through the hasbara: “For most Israelis, shalom doesn’t mean ‘peace’, it means security, and for Jews only.”

When it comes to history, Atzmon seeks truth even when it is ugly. Like any good scientist or historian, Atzmon believes a theory or narrative that has been disproven is one that should be disregarded for a superior explanation. Historical revisionism for Atzmon is part of the search for the closest approximation to the truth. When a clearer picture emerges of history, then amending the narrative to reflect the new facts and clearer picture is demanded.

The narrative is important, and many Jews are highly skilled in discourse. Atzmon writes that Zionists realised that full control over language would allow them to impose their worldview on subsequent generations of Jews. Israel Shamir in his book, Masters of Discourse, illuminated how pervasive the Jewish narrative is in many societies.

But the Jews are not always so clever in their attempts to control the message. Atzmon relates how the IDF prevented all foreign media from entering Gaza, not to propagandize the Goyim but to keep Israelis and Zionist Jews from seeing themselves through the eyes of the Goyim. Atzmon describes this approach as “completely countereffective”: “the Israelis ended up seeing themselves through the gaze of Arabs, Iranians, Muslims. … Humiliated and pulverised, Israelis saw their true nature exposed.”

Atzmon explains, “… it is not the idea of being unethical that torments Israelis and their supporters, but the idea of being ‘caught out’ as such.”

Atzmon identifies a hypocrisy in Jews identifying as Jews. “Some Jews,” he writes, “may, for instance, proudly carry the Jewish banner (Jews for Peace, Jews for Justice, Jews for Jesus and so on) as if they believe that the ‘J’ word contains special righteous attributions. However, they will also be gravely offended if they are called a ‘Jew’ by others. Suggesting to a Jew that ‘he is a Jew’ or ‘behaves like a Jew’ can be regarded as a serious ‘racist’ offence.”

Jews for Peace exemplifies Jewish separation. However, as for offensive labeling, context is important. When the speaker is equating group membership with a negative attribute and stereotyping all members with that attribute (although untrue), then that is indeed a racist offense and umbrage at such labeling is warranted.

Wondering about Atzmon

Atzmon knows who he is: “I regard myself a ‘Hebrew-speaking Palestinian’, I do not seek anyone’s approval to do so. I also regard myself as a ‘proud, self-hating Jew’ and again, I do not need anyone’s approval.”

Why does Atzmon describe himself as a self-hating Jew? He does not hate himself, but he hates what being a Jew – to him — represents, especially a Zionist Jew: “ Zionism is all about the abolition of the other, the re-creation of conditions in which Jews can celebrate their symptoms, in which they can love themselves for who they are – or, at least, who they think they are.”

It is not just the message that Jews manipulate, according to Atzmon, but also the economic system. Atzmon cites Milton Friedmann who made it clear: “Jews do benefit from hard capitalism and competitive markets.”

In fact, again citing Friedmann, Jews were never about sharing and caring economies and their ideologies: “Jews or Jewish intellectuals are not really against capitalism, it was just the ‘special circumstances of the nineteenth century that drove Jews to the left, and the subconscious attempts by Jews to demonstrate to themselves and the world the fallacy of the anti-Semitic stereotype’. It was neither ideology nor ethics.”

How does one understand a people without a history? Atzmon says, “It is an established fact that virtually no Jewish history texts were written between the first and early-nineteenth centuries. That Judaism is based on a religious historical myth may have something to do with this.”

Atzmon dispenses with biblical fiction — “an ideological text that is being made to serve social and political ends” and the mythical exile of Jews (citing the work of Israeli historian Shlomo Sand).

The Wandering Who? examines the political landscape, wondering about the “overwhelming” overrepresentation of Jews in the political institutions of the United Kingdom and United States. This is a fact, but should one blame Jews for taking advantage of the political system and the voting tendencies of the citizenry? Politics in western so-called democracies is, after all, about forming groups that can gain political power.

Atzmon criticizes the leaders in the UK and US, asking: “And what qualifications did [Tony] Blair or [George W.] Bush possess before taking the wheel?” Atzmon supplies the answer: “none.” He continues, “Our lives, our future and the future of our children are in the hands of ludicrous, clueless characters.” Here Atzmon digresses weakly and too far from his core thesis. Ad hominem should be unpersuasive in intelligent discourse, and Atzmon fails to address what are the qualifications that Bush and Blair lack; what qualifications does Atzmon propose are necessary?

In a speech arguing against Palestinian statehood, United States president Barack Obama said: “There is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades…” Atzmon demurs: “… the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved in 25 minutes once both people decide to live together.”

However, according to Atzmon, “The only people who can bring peace about are the Palestinians, because Palestine, against all odds and in spite of the endless suffering, humiliation and oppression, is still an ethically-driven ecumenical society.”

The Wandering Who? reveals the infatuation with self and the Jewish struggle for identity; it presents a reasoned and principled account into understanding the mentality of an occupier and oppressor.

I agree with his depiction of the utter immorality of Zionist dispossession and occupation of Palestinians. However, I know from our previous conversations that we differ markedly on the Canadian state’s dispossession of its Original Peoples.

He is the author of The Host and the Parasite and his latest book is Exploding Middle East Myths: 15 Years of Fighting Zionist Propaganda. Exploding Middle East Myths reveals that Zionists formed common cause with Nazis, disabuses the notion that all Jews are Semites and historically tied to a Holy Land, argues that Hamas is a legitimate resistance, portrays Israel as rejectionist, describes how Israel fought the 1967 War on pretext, details how the United Nations Partition Plan is without UN Security Council approval, and hence, Israeli statehood is dubious,¹ especially relevant given that Palestine is currently seeking recognition of its statehood in the UN, which would seem a concomitant outcome of Jewish statehood.

Kim Petersen: You reveal many myths about Israel and Palestine. Why are such myths not more widely known, and how can the genuine facts be made more widely known?

Greg Felton: These myths aren’t widely known because they are actively censored in our schools, universities and media. The subjugation of Palestine is so intricately bound up with deeper, official beliefs about the treatment of Jews under the Third Reich and the creation of Israel that a rational investigation of the subject would necessarily expose these beliefs as fraudulent. So much of our power structure owes its existence to these beliefs that the lies they harbour must be defended at all costs.

Unless we debunk these false beliefs, we will continue to be enslaved by them. The best way to do this lies in reading and supporting independent media, and challenging historical fallacies as much as possible. That’s why the Internet is the last bastion of free speech. Of course, net neutrality is under attack from armies of myth defenders.

KP: You wrote, “For the U.S., aiding and abetting Israel’s subjugation of Palestine and its neighbours supplanted oil security as the prime determinant of Middle East policy from 1980 onward. In the services of this foreign entity, the U.S. government freely squandered, and continues to squander, American lives, resources and self-respect.” You conclude the United States is not in control. If this is the case, why do you think the US government relinquished control?

GF: The U.S. did not “relinquish control” in any formal sense; the country was subverted from within by the Israel Lobby. This is the thesis of my first book The Host and the Parasite—How Israel’s Fifth Column Consumed America. Without recapitulating the entire book, a shorthand answer traces this subversion to 1980, when the U.S. public voted for religion over reason. Under President Ronald Reagan, Zionist Jews would infiltrate policy-making levels of government and proliferate like a cancer. When combined with the growing constellation of influential propaganda “think tanks” like AEI and WINEP, Zionists and evangelical Christians proceeded to turn the U.S. into a servant of Israel. Congress is now so thoroughly colonized that it cannot act in the U.S. interest.

KP: You state that myths used to prop up ideologies and false histories will ultimately tear a country apart. If true, should this deter the use of myths for ulterior goals? Given that the Zionists are creating facts-on-the-ground, could it not be that such myths will ultimately secure that dispossessed from others? And since some Zionists have been forthcoming about the dispossession (as Exploding Middle East Myths gives ample examples of), why do you believe it will tear Israel apart?

GF: If all Jews in Israel were rabid Zionists, I might agree, but the illusion of Israel as a legitimate, democratic country is at odds with its behaviour. Every country needs to have a governing ethos in which all citizens can see themselves. The disconnect between theory and practice, once deniable during the Cold War and the farcical Oslo “negotiations,” is now unbridgeable. Israel is now reduced to repudiating any pretence to democracy and even attacking Jews who support democracy and right for Palestinians. If Israel purports to be a Jewish state, it cannot long continue to be a living contempt of that idea.

KP: You apparently are against the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. You say that many Iranians consider him to be a “needlessly provocative buffoon.” You accuse him of something that many people would accuse you of: “anti-Israel bombast.” What is the difference between your opposition to Israel and that of Ahmadinejad?

GF: In fact, I support Ahmadinejad. He is a rational, well-spoken man who understands the Middle East better than most Westerners. Many Iranians may find him unnecessarily provocative, but I don’t. Our attitudes toward Israel are, in fact, similar but by no means could I be called bombastic or buffoonish. My writing is carefully researched and even my detractors cannot find fault with my facts. That’s why they have to resort to character assassination. My writing may at times be theatrical and satirical, but only a Zionist would dismiss it as bombastic.

KP: You criticize James Petras for not having looked at the 2009 Iranian elections from the “public’s point of view.” To substantiate this claim, you cite Richard Haass from the Council on Foreign Relations (arguably, an extreme establishment organization). With all due respect, I found such reasoning uncompelling, comparing the sources. Why should the views of the CFR be believed over that of Petras?

GF: I did not cite the views of the CFR. I cited a view that belonged to Richard Haass. It does not matter to me in the least who a person is or what agency he may belong to. All that matters is the accuracy and believability of the argument. If we judge the accuracy of an argument based on the arguer’s résumé or political affiliation we “credentialize” truth and fall into irrationality.

KP: You compare the “official” narrative of 9-11 to the Iranian government’s reactions to the protests of the 2009 elections and conclude that “it is logical to conclude that Ahmadinejad’s election might well be a fraud.” With all due respect, my logic did not come to such a conclusion. Second, you asked how an economist, Mark Weisbrot, “deemed himself competent to write on Iranian politics.” So I respectfully inquire how do you deem yourself more competent to write on Iranian politics than Weisbrot?

GF: I do not deem myself more competent than Wesibrot to write on Iranian politics. He may in fact be competent, but he gave no sign of it in his analysis of the Iranian election. In short, he had no evidence to back up his charge that the election was legitimate. He resorted to the same lazy guesswork that defenders of the official narrative of Sept. 11 did. Instead of making a case, he hides behind the hypothetical mood. To give the illusion that it was logistically impossible. “Indeed, if this election was stolen, there must be tens of thousands of witnesses—or perhaps hundreds of thousand—to the theft. Yet there are no media accounts of interviews with such witnesses.” An honest arguer cannot deny the validity of a cause by denying its effect, yet that is what Weisbrot did, and what numerous apologist for the official narrative of Sept. 11 do.

Regarding Petras, he offers no evidence to support his claim that Ahmadinejad’s opponents were pro-Western, or that there are Western protégés in Iran. Mir-Hossien Mousavi, who many argue really won the election, is in fact more liberal, but he is not about to undo the Islamic nature of Iran. Petras’s arguments seemed more reflexive than researched.

KP: You note that in 1947 the United Nations voted to establish an Arab and Jewish state in Palestine. Given that it has already been established by a UN vote, what effect do you think this will have on the current Palestinian attempt for UN re-recognition of statehood?

GF: First of all, the UN did not establish Israel. That is a popular myth. The 1947 Partition Plan that ostensibly carved out a Jewish State out of Arab Palestine was never ratified in the Security Council, and therefore does not exist. Israel has never had legal, moral or political legitimacy, and this is the reason that Israel and its client states are so desperate to sabotage UN recognition of Palestinian statehood. Inasmuch as the Partition Plan was illegal—the UN has not right to take land from one people to give it to another—there was much reference made to an Arab state. The very idea of partition implies two parts, yet Israel has never recognized Palestine’s right to exist. To do so would expose the utter criminality, not only of the incessant Jewish colonization, but the illegitimacy of Israel itself. As I said in my first column on this topic: “We can have peace in the Middle East or we can have Israel; we cannot have both.”

KP: You write that overseas media like BBC, the Guardian, Al Jazeera (the latter accused by many critics of disinformation abetting the NATO coup in Libya) as keeping Canadians “well informed about the Middle East,” contrary to what many independent journalists contend, e.g., Media Lens and other writers at Dissident Voice. Should readers regard such corporate/state media sources as reliable, especially compared to independent media sources?

GF: All media should be judged critically. The British and Arab sources mentioned above do a comparatively better job than North American sources, but have their own particular problems. Al-Jazeera has lost some credibility since the Saudis bought into it and the station got into North America, and the BBC is largely zionist house-trained; however, it is more likely to broadcast an intelligent Palestinian perspective than anything over here. The Guardian is by far the best of the lot, and I would place it in the first rank along with Le Monde Diplomatique and Press TV’s international service. Generally speaking, independent sources are more reliable because they are not as vulnerable to financial and political pressures. But what matters the most is the way the news is reported, not who reports it.

KP: Anarchist professor Noam Chomsky holds (and I agree) that people should focus on the actions of their own states: “My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences.” [Noam Chomsky, On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures (South End Press, 1987.)]

Your focus, however, seems to be very much on criticism of Zionist crimes against Palestinians and criticism of Canadian government complicity in Zionist crimes. If there is substance to what Chomsky says, why do you not write more frequently about colonialist crimes against Canada’s Original Peoples, given that non-Indigenous Canadians (similarly to Ashkenazi Jews) live on a land gained through war crimes and dispossession?

GF: I dissent very strongly from Noam Chomsky. He is of the opinion that the U.S. is the dominant partner in the U.S. relationship, and for this reason he directs so much of his criticism towards the U.S. However, I find no support for this position. In fact, the ease with which Israel humiliates U.S. presidents and causes deliberate harm to U.S. interests should be enough to show Chomsky has it backwards. He does not appreciate that the U.S. has no government; Congress and the White House has been so thoroughly colonized by Israel that any discussion of U.S. national policy is a polite joke. I see little merit in the quote you cite. Given the overwhelming zionist influence on U.S. (and Canadian) policy, protesting the actions of one’s national government makes as much sense as treating the symptoms of a disease rather than the cause.

Since I find no substance in what Chomsky says, I see little reason to write about colonialist crimes against Canada’s original peoples. In fact, I go out of my way not to conflate this issue with the zionist destruction of Palestine.

First, I reject the parallel between Ashkenazi Jews and European Canadians. Though there are superficial similarities, the magnitude, duration and sadistic ferocity of Jewish war crimes against Palestine are orders of magnitude beyond what Europeans did to the natives.

Second, the European colonial period is history, and cannot be changed; the Jewish colonial period is current, and can be changed. (I think Chomsky would appreciate this point.)

Third, zionists use Canada’s colonial past to deflect criticism of Israel, such as: “Why criticize Israel when you did the same thing to your natives? You’re nothing but a hypocrite!”

Fourth, Canada’s native leadership is only too happy to suck up to the Israel Lobby and identify the persecution that they suffered with Jewish persecution. This puts Canada’s natives in the position of giving propaganda cover for zionist atrocities.

1. I wrote almost 6 years ago: “Nonetheless, in 1950, the UN General Assembly granted membership to Israel but under certain conditions. UN General Assembly Resolution 273 decreed that Israel must implement UN General Assembly Resolution 181 that defines the borders of Israel and Palestine and Resolution 194 that recognizes the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel has so far refused. UN General Assembly Resolutions, however, are not binding under international law.” “Anti-Israel?” Dissident Voice, 27 October 2005.

Banned in Vermont
By Rosemarie Jackowski
Publisher: Shire Press
Manchester, VT (2010)
Paperback, 251 pages
ISBN: 978-1-60571-100-3

Kim Petersen: The title Banned in Vermont refers to antiwar protest being banned in the state?

Rosemarie Jackowski: That and more. I really am talking about the whole issue of freedom of access to information. The problem is that when something is banned — people don’t know that it exists. When a candidate for elected office is banned from debates and forums the voters are unaware of it. This happens during every election in Vermont. Candidates are arrested if they try to participate — unless they are members of the Democratic or Republican Party. Ironically, when copies of BANNED IN VERMONT were donated to the public library, the library banned the book. In my view, that makes it more worthy of being read.

KP: Patriotism. You make a distinction between blind patriotism and informed patriotism. Yet even if people were informed about the great crimes committed by their government, wouldn’t that negate any patriotic sentiment? How can a person love a country that exists because of a genocidal past? I submit that people have to get past loving a geopolitical entity and love people wherever in the world they may live.

RJ: I agree with your thought behind this question. Maybe one can’t love a country with a genocidal past… but in that case, the highest form of patriotism might be in working toward reparations for those who have been victims. An immoral or unjust act cannot be forgiven until amends are made. This is important for the victims but also for the victimizers. I like your point about getting past loving a geopolitical entity and loving ALL people. I often make that point in the book when I say that no one should be given any privilege because of the location of his mother at the time of his birth.

KP: “Any candidate who participates in a forum, which excludes others on the ballot, shows contempt for voters and the democratic process.” What you write is sound insofar as respect for the democratic process; however, for there to be a democratic process, there should be a democracy. Do you consider the United States a democracy?

RJ: No, the United States was never a Democracy. That word gets thrown around a lot. I do believe that there could be a ‘democratic’ process. It would be very hard to achieve, and there would be the issue of the influence of group-think and the pecking order in any attempt at getting to a democratic process.

KP: You consider the topic of justice often and deeply in your book. Have you ever considered that capitalist society has utter contempt for justice, that justice is just a slogan to be wielded for the ends of those who hold power?

RJ: I love this question. I don’t know if there can ever be any justice in a capitalistic society. But, the concept of justice is very important to me… maybe more important than anything else because it encompasses everything. Justice for everyone is even more important than love for all of our fellow beings. Love is an emotion that may or may not result in humanitarian acts. Working for justice for all is a very concrete concept. Working toward justice for all is the ultimate moral dedication of anyone’s life… an important matter of conscience. That is why the back cover of the book states: “Where there is no Justice, nothing else matters. War is the ultimate injustice, because it imposes Capital Punishment on those who have not been Tried or Convicted. Therefore, every Officer of the Court should be openly and actively opposed to war.” There will never be a completely just society, but we surely can do better than what we have now.

KP: What do you mean by your “profound respect for the rule of law”?

RJ: I have respect for some Libertarian and also some Anarchist philosophy. Because people are aware of that, it seemed important to state that I do have “profound respect for the rule of law”. Boundaries on human conduct are necessary because without them we would have rule by ‘the pecking order’. The rich and powerful would have no limits. That is sort of what we now have because the ‘system’ is used as a tool of those in the upper economic class. I have a lot of respect for the rule of law and almost no respect for the legal system as it is. If we had a just legal system, everything would be different. War criminals would be prosecuted. The economic system would be fair – because if it wasn’t, there would be legal recourse.

KP: The reason I asked that question is because law is usually written by those who hold power, not by the unempowered. Therefore, laws can be written to protect the interests of the powerful against the unempowered.

RJ: I see your point. To me the Rule of Law implies Justice — not always the law as it is written. An unjust law would be trumped by the concept of fairness and what is just. Nullification is required when the law is unjust, unethical, or in violation of human rights.

KP: You often mention 1492, yet you wrote, “our government will not regain its legal and moral authority until it gives up its life of international Crime…” Do you believe that the government of the United States ever had legal and moral authority? Given that the country is situated on land gained by the murder and dispossession of its Original Peoples, it seems the only moral and legal action would be to pay reparations and return whatever has been stolen to its rightful owners.

RJ: The legal part is a hazy area. Laws change. Laws are written by whoever happens to be in power at the time. Slavery was legal. Original Peoples have a moral right to reparations. This creates a conundrum. How far back should we go historically? Actually, this is an issue that I think about often because of the suffering of the Palestinians, the Chagossians, and many others. Maybe there is a somewhat fair way to look at this… a formula… mathematically decreasing the reparations over long periods of time. That would mean that land confiscated 50 years ago would deserve greater compensation than land confiscated many, many centuries ago. The bottom line is that it is impossible to undo an immoral or unjust act.

KP: A few things struck me from your answer. First, with all due respect, I submit the bottom line is that morals and human decency demand people of conscience to, as far as possible, atone for the immoral acts of forebears that the descendants are benefitting from now. Living on, and from, that dispossessed from others would seem to fit that bill. Furthermore, there is no statute of limitations for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide under international law. So if how to atone is based in “profound respect for the rule of law” (and I have little respect for laws created by plutocrats, national or international) then surely justice should be carried out according to the law. Second, your formulation posits the longer a people have suffered dispossessions, the lower the reparations would be. Is that not a formula that encourages the dispossessors to draw out the dispossession as long as possible and profit to the maximum before international justice, if it does at all, enforces its tardy laws? Third, and this overlaps somewhat, but your question “How far back should we go historically?” is dangerous because it might encourage the creation of long-term facts on the ground, something Israel is often accused of (and it seems to be a successful strategy for Zionists because few people talk about the legally [which does not imply morally] recognized 1948 borders anymore but refer to the 1967 borders gained through aggression (which is, I submit, a sop to the “supreme international crime”).

RJ: I agree with what you say. My thought was that, for example, justice would require us to place some value on the fact that the land that the USA now occupies was owned by others in 1492. Simply returning all of the land now to the previous owners would punish those who had no responsibility for the original crime. After many generations have passed, that fact has to be considered relevant. On the other hand, the descendants of slaves are closer in generation and still suffering some of the harm of slavery, while others are enjoying some of the benefit. Therefore reparations for slavery would be higher up on the scale. You mention the Zionists and the 1948/1967 borders. What would you say to those who say Israel has the right to land there because they had been there thousands of years ago? Maybe a claim that goes back thousands of years is diluted by time???? How would you answer those who suggest that the nation of Israel should have been located in Europe? Holocaust survivors deserve compensation, but why from the Palestinians? Why not from the Europeans? This topic always reenforces my belief that all religions should be respected. This is currently not a popular view. Many of my friends are absolutely opposed to all religions. They are Evangelical Atheists. I understand their view, but do not agree with it. My view is that actions should be judged, not religious systems. Borders changed through aggression should not be recognized by the international community.

KP: With all due respect, your sentence that vegans “have reached a higher moral plane than the rest of us” sounds hyperbolic to me. For example, what should humans living in Arctic regions subsist on to reach the higher plane?

RJ: You got me with this one. I do believe that vegans have reached a higher moral plane, but I also believe that respect for human life takes precedence for those who have no access to other food. I have had discussions about the morality or immorality of using antibacterial soap, or taking antibiotic medicine. Great topic for philosophical debate, but I come down on the side of human life when forced to choose whether or not to protect the life of a microbe.

KP: You wrote, “The main challenge to 9/11 conspiracy theorists comes from Osama Bin Laden. He explained why the attack occurred.” I do not understand the logic presented since you later call into question the government’s story. Also, how does someone’s view on the reason underlying an attack connect to how the attack was carried out? Why do you label those who question the government’s version of what happened on 9-11 as “conspiracy theorists”?

RJ: I do not believe that the government directly planned and caused 9/11. I refer to 9/11 as ‘the goose that laid the golden grenade’ because the US used it as an excuse for unending war. The government has a long history of lying and is not above sacrificing US citizens. It just seems to me that Blowback is the more likely cause. I am often confronted on this issue by those who disagree with me. Actually, on this issue I am sort of agnostic. The more important question is: “Would it make any difference if someone came forward with absolute proof that 9/11 was a government act?” Probably not — it is on the public record that the USA has killed 500,000 Iraqi children, that 45,000 US citizens die every year from lack of access to health care, that WikiLeaks has exposed government secret plots… on and on. I am convinced that most citizen/voters have very little interest in what the government does and hardly notice. If someone came forward with absolute proof of a government connection to 9/11, it would make the headlines for a day or two and then public interest would be refocused on the latest football scores or which celebrity is sleeping with someone else’s spouse.

KP: I wished you had asked John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in your interview why it took so long for him to figure out he was a gangster for capitalists. It seems he knew a long time before he gave up the perks he received from his part in the gangsterism.

RJ: That would have been a good question. In a way, maybe many of us share that with Perkins. Living under Capitalism gives the illusion of ‘perks’ to all of us. The pressure from society to ‘fit in’ is a very powerful force. Speaking out against the system is very hazardous and anyone who does it pays a high price. It takes a long time to overcome the toxic misinformation that comes to us from the culture. This makes me think about how many are ‘for peace’ but unwilling to actively oppose war. To oppose war it is necessary to oppose the entire war machine – that includes those who finance the weapons, manufacture the weapon systems, and also those who use the weapons to kill. As a former flag-waver, I do not exonerate myself. Now I finally ‘get it’ and understand the influence of the culture and the school system. There was a time when I believed what the textbooks and teachers taught me. As I say in the book — in the town where I grew up, the only heroes were the ones in military uniforms. Those who are selected as heroes in any culture can have a powerful influence on a young person. Sad to say, now there are uniformed troops going into elementary school classrooms. This is done to honor the troops as role models and instill patriotism in the young student.

KP: Finally, what do you feel is the moral responsibility of judges who rule on laws that they know are immoral and unjust?

RJ: Actually [former New Jersey Superior Court] Judge Andrew Napolitano talks about this often. He talks about Natural Law. In my view this is not even a close call. Morals and justice come first. Maybe that is why I would not be a good lawyer.

British journalist Robert Fisk’s writings have taken a highly tendentious slant — sometimes incongruent with progressivist ends.¹ He is a staunch critic of dictatorial regimes² in the Arab world.

Syria has not been untouched by the protests of Arab Spring, and violence has ensued. Fisk notes that the Arab League wants Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to cease the violence forthwith. Fisk’s finger is pointed at Assad as culpable for the violence.³

Why cite the Arab League? Since the regimes in the Arab world are composed of unelected “leaders,” what legitimacy can it call upon to back its proclamations? The support of the Arab people for the Arab League is doubt-able. This is the same despotic Arab League that sacrificed a democratic Libya (maybe the most democratic nation in the world despite monopoly media disinformation to the contrary⁴ ) to NATO’s guns and rues the decision.⁵

Fisk continues, “The UN has roared, though it managed to smear Syria’s protesters by calling for both sides ‘to exercise restraint’ – as if the demonstrators had tanks.” Fisk surely knows that bombs can kill as well as tanks, and having the US (and others) supporting an insurgency tilts the battlefield markedly.⁶

The US is poising itself to influence power inside Syria.⁷ It is part of US plans for restructuring the Middle East according to the interests of its ruling classes.⁸

Fisk complains, “The trouble is that everyone has been running out of patience with Syria since the spring, and no one has done more than turn up the rhetoric as the statistics of innocent dead ticked up from 500 to 1,000, to more than 2,000.” What about the “innocent dead ticked” up by NATO in Libya?⁹ This Fisk knows well about, but he blames Gaddafi for the NATO murders.¹⁰ Is this factually accurate and honest reporting? It is bad enough to rail one-sidedly against the Syrian regime, but it is something else to pin NATO’s killings in Libya on a man who represents, for so many Libyans, a revolution that deposed a corrupt monarchy (the antithesis of democracy) over 40 years ago.

Fisk laments the absence of journalists inside Syria preventing the full story from being known. It would help to get the full story out if NATO would stop killing journalists.¹¹ It depends on how Fisk defines journalists, and on whether journalists have some greater claim to the “full story” than others. There are journalists and others in Libya reporting, and many of them are reporting something entirely at odds to what the monopoly media is reporting.¹² Certainly Fisk does not expect the western state and corporate media to present the “full story” of any state being attacked by American or allied forces. Does the monopoly media report the “full story” of Zionist crimes against humanity? Examples of media control are myriad, such as the censorship over repoorting the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,¹³ to the massive disinformation campaign over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,¹⁴ to the present battle to censor Wikileaks. The world is filled with media complicity in crimes against humanity making the monopoly media guilty of crimes against humanity.¹⁵ The monopoly media cover-up of the genocide in Iraq is one glaring present-day example of blood on media hands.¹⁶

Disinformation is also at play against Syria.¹⁷

That Syria is a family fiefdom is irrefutable evidence that Syria is no democracy. However, where is the democracy that Fisk admires? Is it the corporate-bought presidency in the United States or the premiership in the United Kingdom? If one is going to rail against the lack of democracy elsewhere then shouldn’t one focus foremost on the poor example of democracy in one’s own country? Fisk’s friend Noam Chomsky argues that dissidents should focus foremost on the crimes of their own regimes. Chomsky said:

When enemies commit crimes, they’re crimes. In fact, we’re allowed to expand them, lie about them, make up stories about them and so on, but surely to get angry and infuriated about them. When we commit crimes, they didn’t happen.¹⁸

Does Fisk disagree with Chomsky?

Fisk goes so far as to advocate a NATO assault on Assad’s rule in Syria.¹⁹ He writes of a “Syrian bloodbath,” without drawing a link to the bloodbath in Libya, something that NATO is deeply complicit in, despite NATO’s pro forma denials.

Fisk ponders what could have been: “Britain’s RAF bases in Cyprus are infinitely closer to Syria than to Libya. Had we prevented the bloodbath in Benghazi and left the Libyans to their civil war, we might have found a public opinion strong enough to stomach an assault on the Assad legions.”

If an attack is predicated on regime criminality, then should Fisk not advocate war against the regime at home?

I do not advocate launching a war against anyone. I prefer diplomacy in regional wars and conflicts and military non-interference. However, I do recognize the right of resistance against occupiers and oppressors.

Is Robert Fisk advocating more imperialist wars in the Middle East? If so, then why is he not advocating a war on the regime in Israel?

Is Fisk contradicting himself? Earlier Fisk wrote about Obama’s Cairo speech: “Then we had to hear what America’s ‘role’ was going to be in the new Middle East. We did not hear if the Arabs wanted them to have a role.”²⁰ Did the masses of Syrians tell Fisk that they wanted Britain’s RAF fighters to attack Syria?

If the Syrian regime falls, few progressives will feel sympathy for Assad. However, what will replace Assad? The toppling of Hosni Mubarak’s western-backed regime in Egypt appears, at this juncture, only to have led to a takeover by the elements of the previous regime: the Egyptian military.

Will the toppling of Syria’s government be an opportunity for imperialists to install a lynchpin in the Middle East? It might certainly please the regime in Israel. The removal of an anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist regime in Syria — an ally of Israel’s designated enemies, Hezbollah and Iran — might help to consolidate Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms. With a weakened Hezbollah, parched Israel may once attempt to seize control of water resources in South Lebanon.

Compared to Zionist and imperialist crimes, the crimes of the Assad regime are a decidedly lesser evil. All evils should be opposed, but seldom should a lesser evil be sacrificed to the benefit of a greater evil. Imperialism and Zionism are responsible for massive killing, suffering, and poverty throughout the world. Consequently, if Fisk wants to advocate regime change, how about starting with Washington and Tel Aviv? Once these destructive forces are removed from the picture, then the Arab peoples will be freer to pursue their own destinies.

Fisk’s words appear to serve imperialist and Zionist ends. His words act to create divisions within the Muslim world. However bad the regimes in the Arab world are, only through a unified front against Zionists and imperialists can they gain freedom from outside forces. To this end, the Arab regimes require a unity with their peoples — something utterly lacking. Nonetheless, this is for Arabs to decide and not Israel, the US, Europe, or Robert Fisk.

1. Kim Petersen, “Is Robert Fisk a Psychologist?” Dissident Voice, 21 March 2011.
2. The use of the term “regime” is pejorative for “government.” This writers holds that it is equally applicable to the regimes in Washington and other western states.
3. Robert Fisk, “This slaughter will end only when words of condemnation are acted on,” Independent, 9 August 2011. This is disputed, as there is evidence that the massacres are part of a bloody disinformation campaign. See John Landis, “Syria and the Armed Gangs Controversy,” Dissident Voice, August 2011. While I distance myself from Landis’s trust in CNN as a news source, important is the writer casts serious doubt on Syrian government involvement in the killings.
4. See “Understanding the Green Book & Libyan politics, the easy way,” Youtube.
5. Edward Cody, “Arab League condemns broad Western bombing campaign in Libya,” Washington Post, 2011.
6. See Craig Whitlock, “U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show,” Washington Post, 17 April 2011.
7. “Syrian Organizations in the United States form a Syrian Coordination Committee (SCC),” PR Newswire, 3 August 2011.
8. See Kim Petersen, “A Bloody Border Project,” Dissident Voice, 5 June 2007.
9. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “NATO Massacres of Civilians Aimed at ‘Cleansing’ the Libyan People’s Resistance: Photographic Evidence of NATO War Crimes,” Global Research, 2011. “Gaddafi Regime: 85 Libyan Civilians Killed in NATO Bombing,” Democracy Now!, 10 August 2011.
10. Robert Fisk, “Remember the civilian victims of past ‘Allied’ bombing campaigns,” Independent, 21 March 2011.
11. AFP, “3 journalists killed in Nato raid: Libya,” Times of India, 31 July 2011. This in no way implies that the killing of journalists is one-sided.
12. See, e.g., “Eye Witness Account From Libya,” ICH, 11 July 2011. See videos at “The Marches,” libyanrevolution. “Leonor is a Frequent Visitor to Libya – She Tells All,” Youtube. “Open letter from Russian doctors in Libya to the President of the Russian Federation,” Leonoren Lybia, 30 March 2011. Leonor Massanet interviews Eloy Pardo, “A Spaniard’s Testimony from Libya,” IJID. “EYEWITNESS: Dedon Kamathi Returns from Libya and Reports,” Spectrum Today News, 10 June 2011.
13. See “Hiroshima Nagasaki,” Democracy Now!.
14. Seth Ackerman “The Great WMD Hunt,” FAIR, July/August 2003.
15. Kim Petersen, “Disinformation: A Crime Against Humanity and a Crime Against Peace,” Press Action, 21 March 2005.
16. See Kim Petersen, “Genocide in Iraq: The Numbers Tell the Horrific Story of a Lying Government and Complicit Corporate Media,” Dissident Voice, 16 October 2006.
17. Zainab Cheema, “‘Gay Girl in Syria’ hoax points to US-led counter-revolution,” Media Monitors, 17 July 2011.
18. Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian, “War Crimes and Imperial Fantasies,” International Socialist Review, 37, September–October, 2004.
19. “Had Messrs Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama stopped short after they saved Benghazi – had they reined in their juvenile enthusiasm for destroying Gaddafi – they may have had the spittle (I use Sir Thomas More’s word for courage) and the munitions to destroy some of Assad’s 8,000 tanks.”
20. Robert Fisk, “Lots of rhetoric – but very little help,” Independent, 20 May 2011.

Walsh argues there is a difference: “Rep. Ron Paul (R, TX) the only contender who is a consistent, principled anti-interventionist, opposed to overseas Empire, and a staunch defender of our civil liberties so imperiled since 9/11.” His argument is that because Ron Paul is anti-war that the Left should embrace his candidature, and he views it as a challenge to the Left.²

Without a doubt, any president that would put an end to the imperialist wars being waged by the US would be light years better than a slew of corporate-backed warmongers that have long sat in the White House, including Obama. This means that a future president Paul, insofar as he would and could implement a policy of no wars, is far preferable to the irredeemable warmonger Barack Obama, who curries negligible favor among progressives.

Paul, however, carries a regressivist side with him that many progressives consider anathema. I consider Paul’s ideology as anti-human, basically every man and woman for his/her self.³ Under Paul, tough luck for those people that fall through the cracks.

Yet Walsh makes the case that Paul is the moral choice. However, based on Paul’s libertarian ideology (which he, arguably, does not always adhere to), the morality of a Paul presidency is open to criticism.

Walsh asks, “Is not the very first obligation of the Left above and beyond all else to stop the killing, done in our name and with our tax dollars? Is any other stance moral? And does not the Paul candidacy need to be seen in this light?”

The Paul candidacy needs to be seen in the light of all his stances and the morality of all those stances. Morality is not a unitary, single issue.

Thus, insofar as participating in rigged elections is a correct strategy, if there were a candidate who is anti-war and progressive on other issues, would not the moral choice be to vote for that candidate? For example, if Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney were to run again?

Nevertheless, should no progressivist candidate stand for the next presidential election, can one argue seriously that lesser evilism is a moral choice?

Obama is not a lesser evil. He is on par with any other Republican candidate — with one exception. Based on Paul’s anti-war stance, it appears that he is a lesser evil to Obama (or any other Republican candidate). Does that make Paul the best candidate to vote for?

Two quotations stand out well for me about the dangers of lesser evilism. Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián warned: “Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other ones invariably slink in after it.”

Lesser evilism has pushed most parties to the Right. The lesson of lesson evilism is that if a party wants to grab a section of the Right, it appeals to with receptiveness to certain rightist issues, believing that it can hold onto whatever leftist base it has because there is no other viable alternative. The result worldwide has been a slide to the right among all prominent political parties. In the US, the Democrats have slid side-by-side with the Republicans; in Canada there is little to distinguish the Conservatives and the Liberals (and the so-called leftist New Democrats are hardly what I would call a part of the Left, at best right of center); in the United Kingdom, the Blairites shoved the Labour Party over toward the Conservatives (and the Liberal Democrats work hand-in-hand with the Conservatives to form a government); in Germany the Social Democratic Party slid to the Right under Gerhard Schröder; etc. What this rightward shift did is vanish, neuter, or marginalize a leftist electoral option. This phenomenon, occurring far and wide, has paved the way for neoliberalism — an extreme form of capitalism — that has caused the middle and lower socioeconomic classes to fall farther behind.

By sliding to the Right, only the corporatocracy wins. Lesser evilism in the form of a Ron Paul government might result in a roll back of the US military — admittedly a stupendous achievement. However, a rightward drift economically might fuel xenophobia, blaming outsiders for the problems caused by right-wing economic policy. This sentiment eases launching of wars against outsiders. Paul does appeal to a base that fears immigration. Moreover, the Tea Partiers, whose support Paul is courting, contradictorily call for reining in government but supporting militarism — a huge drain on the public purse.

Only by holding onto it principles and political goals will the Left, in the long-term, be able to realize its goals in government.

If lesser evilism opens the doors to other evils, then British preacher Charles Spurgeon opted correctly when he stated, “Of two evils, choose neither.”⁴

1. See Kim Petersen, “The Utter Futility of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 24 May 2007.
2. Charles Davis earlier made the argument that Ron Paul is a lesser evil compared to Obama. “Ron Paul: A Lesser Evil?” Dissident Voice, 28 April 2011.
3. See Pham Binh, “Don’t Fall for Ron Paul,” Dissident Voice, 16 May 2011.
4. See Kim Petersen, “The Lesser-of-Two Evils,” Dissident Voice, 19 April 2004.

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper defended Israel, saying: “But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.”

Out of the conference gave rise to Parliamentary committee called the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA). In July the CPCCA presented its final report.

The CPCCA report provided examples where criticism of the state of Israel is held to be anti-Semitic:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
• Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.

What if Israel is the only state committing breaches of law and morality? The examples given by the CPCCA are logically and morally challengeable on many fronts. Nonetheless, there is an out: where criticism of Israel is similar to that leveled against any other country it cannot be construed as anti-Semitic.

Philosophy professor Deborah Cook found the report flawed “by its very nature, fundamentally opposed to the foundational values of Canada, including its multicultural identity, its Charter guarantees of freedom from discrimination, as well as the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” [italics added]²

Cook points out a contradiction:

The report also makes the contradictory claim that criticism of Israel both is and is not anti-Semitic. Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic when it is “similar to that levelled against any other country,” but it is anti-Semitic when it singles ‘Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium.’ This is an invidious distinction; it can be used to silence all criticism of Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank because such criticism necessarily singles Israel out for condemnation given that these policies are unique to Israel.²

The CPCCA points out was has been emphasized starkly by Canadian prime ministers in recent times. Harper has pledged that his party and government would always stand by Israel.

Harper stated, “Those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada.”³

In stating so, Harper is trying to go one better than the Liberal Party, whose former leader and prime minister, Paul Martin, told delegates at the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Toronto: “Israel’s values are Canada’s values — shared values — democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights.”⁴

Clearly both parties are tying Canada and Israel together: Israel’s values are Canadian values, and Canada will always stand by Israel. So what are these identical values that Canada will always stand for?

1. Is fear of love a Canadian value?

Does Canadian society take a stand against romantic mixing between religious or ethnic groupings? Would a Catholic cashier dating a Protestant grocery bagger raise eyebrows and undue concern in Canada?

In Palestine – specifically, the Gush Etzion colony — a romance between a Jewish cashier and Palestinian bagger led to a separation of workers. Workers at the supermarket and a leading local rabbi say the Palestinian worker was fired, but the supermarket owner denied it saying the bagger had gone to Jordan. The cashier quit on her own. ⁵

Rabbi Gideon Perl demanded that the supermarket owner prevent a re-occurrence of mixed pairings.

2. Is boasting of assassinations (and assassination per se) a Canadian value?

In Israel, boasting of assassinating Palestinians is TV fare.⁶ Would Canadian TV show Canadian intelligence officers bragging about killing other human beings?

3. Is the killing of unarmed protestors a Canadian value?

The Canadian security apparatus is becoming increasingly dismissive of the right to protest, and many Canadian police abused their authority as recently as the 2010 G8 Summit in Toronto.⁷ The security forces, however, did not slaughter the protestors. If only Israeli forces were so restrained.⁸

4. Is depriving one group of rights to education a Canadian value?

In Canada, rights to an education have also been abused as a tool to try and assimilate the Original Peoples (i.e., disappear a minority into a majority population). The government finally offered an apology in 2008, although what that apology was worth is questioned by many.⁹

The educational situation is different in Gaza, but similarly terrible. Life under occupation has made education most difficult for Palestinians according to the Minister of Education and Higher Education, and international bodies such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).¹⁰

5. Are Christian-only roads a Canadian value?

In Israel, and in occupied Palestine there are Jew-only roads.¹¹

Even in Apartheid South Africa, one never heard of any White-only roads.

6. Is building a humongous wall between peoples (in violation of the International Court of Justice ruling) a Canadian value?

The Apartheid Wall, as it is commonly known, cuts off Palestinians from Israelis and from each other, imposing all kinds of oppression on Palestinians.¹²

7. Is siphoning off the money owed to a particular ethnic group and laying siege to the destitute and hungry people a Canadian value?

Israeli journalist Amira Hass tells of $105 million stolen from Palestine at border crossings under Israeli control.¹³

8. Do Canadian values prohibit discussion of a genocidal takeover by Europeans of Canada?

The genocide in Canada is documented if not widely discussed in the corporate or state media.¹⁴

Israel, however, seeks to shut down discussion of the Nakba. A bill was passed by the Israeli Knesset to deny government funding to any organization that commemorates the catastrophe that Jews inflicted on Palestinians.¹⁵

One could go on and on citing Israeli values that if stated as an item only, no Canadian politician would embrace. Racism is the quintessential non-value for progressives, and while many Canadian politicians will deny Israel is an apartheid state, the evidence of Zionist Israeli racism is voluminous.¹⁶

To be fair, however, Canada does share sordid background with Israel. It has racism, even arguably institutionalized. For example, as with Israel’s high rates of incarceration for Palestinians¹⁷ there are also much higher rates of incarceration for Original Peoples than White Canadians.¹⁸

9. Is displacement of one ethnic group a Canadian value?

In Israel, Palestinian residency is being revoked to allow Jewish families to move in.¹⁹

That couldn’t happen this day and age in Canada, could it?²⁰

It would appear so, although the government will avoid owning up to it. After all, Canada is a territory where the Original Peoples were killed, displaced, discriminated against, and to this day many live in Bantustans/reserves.

It is a “value” shared by Israel and Canada, and it is despicable.

Where the steadfast supporters of Israel or any state err is in their unrelenting support of a geopolitical entity. The steadfast support should be to the principles that all principled states must adhere to — for example, peace, human rights, respect for diversity, good neighborliness, egalitarianism, and social justice. Solidarity with states that share and uphold fundamental values is where fealty and allegiance should reign. A steadfast friendly state speaks out when an ally state strays from a principled path.

Of course racism directed at Jews is odious and wrong; but racism directed by Jews against other humans is also odious and wrong. Dispossession, occupation, and oppression are wrong; they are the antithesis of progressivist values. Canada should forcefully renounce such anti-values in any state that upholds them, but Canada should first hold the mirror up to itself and deal ethically with its own dispossession, occupation, and oppression.

1. Gloria Galloway, “Harper pledges ‘relentless’ stand against anti-Semitism,” Globe and Mail, 8 November 2010.
2. Deborah Cook, “Anti-Semitism report contradictory,” Toronto Star, 23 July 2011.
3. See Al Jazeera video-report on Canada’s one-sided support for Israel.
4. Press Release, “Canadian prime Minister Paul Martin Addresses Delegates at Opening of United Jewish Communities 2005 General Assembly,” UJC.
5. Chaim Levinson, “Israeli grocery store keeps Arab baggers and Jewish cashiers apart,” Haaretz, 26 July 2011.
6. “Israeli undercover agents boast of killing Palestinians on TV,” Ma’an News Agency, 19 June 2011.
7. See “Is There a Right to Protest in Ontario?” TRNN.com, 26 June 2011.
8. “Bloody Sunday: Israeli Forces Kill Protesters,” ICH, 15 May 2011.
9. Mike Krebs, “‘Sorry’ For Genocide?” The Dominion, 18 July 2008.
10. Al Bawaba, “Palestinian children deprived of basic rights to education,” uruknet, 15 September 2010.
11. Shulamit Aloni, “This Road is for Jews Only: Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel,” Counterpunch, 8 January 2007.
12. Gabriel Ash, “Another Brick in the (Apartheid) Wall,” Dissident Voice, 8 June 2006.
13. Amira Hass, “The robbery is going off without a hitch,” Haaretz, 11 May 2011.
14. E.g., Robert Davis and Mark Zannis, The Genocide Machine in Canada: The Pacification of the North (Black Rose, 1973).
15. Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Israel criminalizes commemoration of the Nakba,” Electronic Intifada, 29 March 2011.
16. Writing colleague BJ Sabri and I tackled Zionist racism in a 12-part Dissident Voice series: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, & 11, and 12.
17. Email from Adam Keller “Israeli security forces practice suppression and mass detention of Israel’s Arab citizens, in implementation of Lieberman’s ‘population exchange’ program,” Gush Shalom.
18. See Kim Petersen, “Land and Jail,” The Dominion, Part I, Part II, and Akiva Eldar “Erekat: Israel’s cancelation of Palestinian residency is a ‘war crime’,” Haaretz, 1 May 2011. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-israel-s-cancelation-of-palestinian-residency-is-a-war-crime-1.361079
19. See Kim Petersen, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Africville,” Dissident Voice, 29 March 2004.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Our morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education.

– Albert Einstein¹

While at university, I was once required to write an essay on personal ethics to guide an educator. Of course ethics entailed respect for the rights of all humans, but mere respect for rights is insufficient.

Each person must decide on which principles they hold and abide by them as much as possible.

I propose the following as a simple basis for making decisions that have ethical consequences.

1) Respect that others abide by different principles. Therefore, before rendering any decision, the reasons held by others for or against any action must be heard and considered.

2) Principles must be open to scrutiny. If a superior conception of a principle exists, then an inferior principle must be abandoned.

3) Given that a principle is morally and logically sound, decisions should be rendered upon this principled basis.

4) Since mass participatory democracy is preferable to dictatorship, decision-making should be achieved, as much as possible, through a consensus.

As for my personal ethics, I hold that all humans must be not only regarded as endowed with equal rights but provided with equal conditions. The United States Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal.” This is factually inaccurate. We are all created unique, each person with his own strengths and weaknesses. From this mindset, how “we” value certain attributes determines how “we” view equality among humans. Society² values certain attributes more than others; consequently, individuals proficient in certain skills or possessing other attributes valued by society will be treated differently than individuals who do not possess society’s valued skills or attributes.

The phrase “all men are created equal” is obviously a platitude. It would have been much more honest to simply state that we are all different; nevertheless, we are all entitled to equal rights – and importantly, because it is not stated in the Declaration of Independence – equal conditions. (The Declaration of Independence undermines itself by referring to the Indigenous peoples of “America” as “merciless Indian Savages.” This is pertinent because it is a document held sacred by most Americans; and Americans and Canadians hold a similar — not identical — colonial origin and culture.)

That everyone is entitled to equal conditions is seldom stated as a principle in society. This is not surprising because it does not exist, and this is unsurprising because it thoroughly undermines all notions of equality in society. Canadian society is capitalist (with socialist elements). Theoretically, capitalist society is predicated on competition in the market, and current capitalist mythology holds that anyone with skills who works hard enough can make it to the top of society. There is a top and there is a bottom. That fact that there is a top of society, itself, refutes the notion of equality.

Yet, it is simple to demonstrate that equality of conditions is a sine qua non of a society where equality of rights exists. For example, very few people would argue that a 100-meter race where some runners start from positions far behind the start line is fair. It is axiomatic. Very few people would argue that a professional boxing match between a heavyweight and flyweight is fair.

Yet, many people — and most educators!! — think it is fair to grade children using identical parameters, despite the inequality of their conditions. In the education system, a child from a poor, single-parent family who is poorly fed, often going to school in the mornings with an empty stomach, and who must help out his parent will be assessed the same as a child from a wealthy, loving family where both parents are professionals and the shelves are filled with books and educational DVDs. Is this fair? I submit it is not, but the system requires educators grade regardless of conditions outside the classroom.

The obvious solution seems to recognize the inequality of conditions and reflect this in the assessment of students. Better would be to provide for equality of conditions.

Not only is a system of testing and grading unfair but it is inefficient, as study after study shows that cooperation is superior to competition in promoting achievement.

Cooperation is something that should be fostered in society. Therefore, the imposition of competitive grading should be eliminated and cooperative learning encouraged. It seems sufficient that students can decide upon their own goals and plan (with facilitation from a teacher/parent) their paths to their goals.

Yet education is fraught with authoritarianism, and one consequence of this authoritarianism is that learners are taught that it is normal in society to wield power over others, often without accountability to those the power is being wielded over.

Hence, a discussion of ethics in education is rendered moot because education (in the mainstream of the capitalist system) is flawed by an unethical foundation.

1. Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Helen Dukas and Barnesh Hoffman (Eds.), Princeton University Press, 1979: 83. The quotation continues: “The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.”
2. Here I am not referring to the masses in society because society is not governed by the masses; society is a function of agendas set by owners of corporations and their political faces.