In a Week of Genocide Remembrances, Right Wing Leaders Play Up Rhetoric
This Tuesday, an Israeli reporter described her experience attending a Holocaust Remembrance day ceremony in Tel Aviv, where she and others were frisked a number of times before being permitted to enter.
The writer outlines her growing discomfort with the affair as she finds the Prime Minister's opening remarks appear less focused on the children who passed during the Second World War (though there is certainly mention), and more on the rising tide of anti-Semitism globally.
Rather than sharing the author's ambivalence, this is one instance where Israel's Prime Minister and I likely agree. On a trip to Italy a few months ago, I came upon a tiny, isolated mining town, mostly overridden by tourists in the summer, but where over half the residents otherwise attain at best only seasonal employment.
I noticed that on the streets and inner walls of town, anti-Semitic epithets and symbols plastered nearly every beautiful old block; all dealt with the bombardment of Gaza. The town was otherwise weirdly quiet.
It was February, though, and still winter. But it felt alarming, partly because perhaps one doesn't expect this in a popular vacation destination (where were the carbinieri, after all -- and don't people wash the graffiti off their buildings?).
Research released this week, however, now reflects the phenomenon was far from unique. The December and early January Israeli invasion of Gaza was followed closely by a precipitous rise in hate speech against Israel. The conflict between Muslims and Jews is age-old, and this contributes to some of the outrage, I suspect. As I belong to neither side, nor to Christianity, I can honestly claim a limited view though I have read about it from time to time. In terms of this year, it seems anti-Semitic incidents jumped markedly as compared with 2008 and preceding years.
Professor Dina Porat, head of the Stephen Roth Institute in Israel, reported this past Monday that there has finally been a "sharp decline" in recent months from peaks earlier in the year. As part of what the institute uncovered, Porat notes that the United Kingdom alone saw 250 anti-Semitic incidents in the month of January (as compared with 35 that same month, a year earlier).
All this has happened despite polls reflecting that 75 percent of both Palestinians and Israelis favor a two-state solution.
In fact, it now appears that spiraling vitriol is spurring Muslim/Jewish divisiveness. The sacrificial lambs in these debates have been Palestinians in Gaza, but also moderates in both groups. Muslims on the ground continue not to receive the urgent attention they deserve, and, in particular, a raging genocide remains underway in Darfur. Little has been done by political leaders, although 300,000 are estimated to have been killed and over 2 million displaced.
I, like many others, would argue that the radicalization of the Jewish/Muslim divide has, in part at least, contributed in stealing attention away from the genocide today that endures. In Darfur, which truly is today's largest, most harrowing ethnic conflict (and in which the victims are millions of Muslims), residents face challenges similar to Palestinians daily, as they are routinely forced from their land. Rather than being a romantically tragic, religiously-driven war, however, this conflict is modern and concerns a grab by the Sudan government for greater resources.
And so Darfuris continue to be part of a community that lives in constant fear of its government. Few non-Western allies have shown the strength or political will to reconcile or even discuss today's genocide with Sudan's ruling classes, even though it is these allies that wield the greatest influence over local Sudanese officials. In fact, rather than rallying other countries over the conflict in Darfur, the Arab League has colluded with Sudan's president for six years and continues to do so. Last month, the League even invited President Omar al-Bashir to Qatar for a summit. Read here about how Arab nations said they would intervene in 2006. They have since shirked this responsibility.
On Tuesday, while the international news media drowned its sorrows in a near-pointless offensive at Israel launched by the Iranian premier, one slimy Mr. B (and no, I don't mean B Netanyahu) made a nonchalant state visit to Ethiopia where he received a relatively warm reception. There's an international arrest warrant out for al-Bashir, but so far, to little avail.
Mia Farrow plans to go on a hunger strike to protest political inaction in the region starting this Monday. She has already made several trips to Darfur since 2003 when the region's genocide first began -- here's hoping this works out, this time, somehow. Apparently, she plans to continue for as long as she can survive without food.
In the meanwhile, neither Jewish nor Muslim politicians, it seems, are close to doing their own folk any favors; chances are we'll still be seeing hate-speech from Jewish and Muslim politicians alike and more less-than-sincere collective action.
Furthermore, Porat's research, in particular, has shown how mobilizing politically around genocide may be something that's at risk of becoming marginalized as Holocaust survivors age, and younger Jews begin to distance themselves from the issue. But it may already be having repercussions for some.
In a UN conference on racism earlier this week, Rwandan genocide survivors who had been invited apparently received little deliberate attention. Reason was they were sandwiched in a Mid-East discussion, in which one self-proclaimed "humble" former mayor of Tehran, the dashing Mr. A, spent considerable time lamenting the Jewish state.
The survivors, in comparison, couldn't stir up nearly as much enthusiasm in members of the deeply polarized audience, many of whom appeared to have rather ardently already taken a side. One moderate Muslim-American on the same panel who tried to voice nuanced views, alongside Rwandans, Iranians and others, received a startling response post-discussion, when, in a rather misplaced interaction, he was spat on afterwards by two Israelis.
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It is stunning to me how powerful nations can use the word terrorist as a battle cry to go to war when madmen attack us But, when a nation terrorizes citizens within it's on borders our leadership and the media falls on dead silence.
If we citizens activists are to be taken as for real then we must demand an answer from powerful people in leadership and media for the dissonance in there approach to terrorism towards ourselves and others.
What the Darfurians need is for activists and awake citizens of the united states to boycott all Chinese made goods until china stops all trades and oil development in Sudan. We have to demand change through denial of the dollar. We don't have time to continue to speak to the wind. The denial of income is the only way short of military intervention to stop this genocide. so I ask for all my brothers and sisters who believe in the sacredness of life and who believe that we are all gods children to push for a citizen, activist, alternative media, message to not spend your money on any thing chinese manufactured. Boycotts worked in South Africa it can work in Sudan.
We must act Now!
There is more to the Sudan, Darfur story than most people realize. Sudan has the highest quality oil in the world and China currently has access to it.
There is speculation that the US and NATO want to militarily overthrow the current government and take over the oil resources. As I understand it, the US as well as others are supporting one or two of the rebel groups.
Oil is much more of a factor than is being reported.
It always is.
Those who live by the sword, will d.i.e by the sword.
There's no exception foretold for any state, people or religion whatsoever.
9/11, London, Madrid, Sharm el-Sheikh, Casablanca, Khobar Towers:U.S
Theo van Gogh,Nick Berg, Daniel Pearl, Shosei Koda,
http://en.
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