Cable News: Enough!

Whenever you turn on the tube to watch the news, on any channel, you don't need to wait long to figure out where the deception is. Most media critics focus on the actual news being delivered, and on how it's being delivered and the choice of words and tone used - they're looking in the wrong place. The real deception is in the news that is not being reported at all.

Pick any day and you will find this problem to be ubiquitous. In the US, the media corporations give the viewers the illusion that the three main Cable news channels (MSNBC, CNN, and FOX) represent the semi-totality of the ideological spectrum, yet they all report the same news stories except with three different sets of opinions/commentary. This past week, and still ongoing, the major stories have been: the invasion of illegal immigrants, the anchor baby (with a special edition of terror anchor baby, comes with fries and coke), the mosque "at" ground zero, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger's N word. Even if you don't watch the news for an entire week, you're bound to hear about some of these stories from friends and colleagues who did get exposure. That is if you haven't watched them with a Stewart/Colbert twist, for those who would normally get a heart attack from looking at Soledad O'Brien's facial expressions.

After that, the discussion of these same stories is carried onto the net: email forwards, facebook statuses and messages, links to Youtube, then related-links to those links, then emailing each other and commenting on them, reacting to them, contemplating them, only to sit down the next day, and the next, and the next, watching the same news sources shed "more light" on the subject with more experts and celebrities, voicing their five- to seven-minute sound bites while audaciously being referred to by the show hosts as "discussions" or "debates."

What the viewer should be wondering is: what news hasn't been covered today? Why do we have to wait for Wikileaks or Michael Moore to find out what happened five or ten years ago in Afghanistan and Iraq? Most worthy news seems to have a very hard time getting to the surface, without delays. For instance, to find out what really happened on September 13, 2007, when Israeli F-16s and Falcons bombed a North Korean building (for WMD manufacturing) in Syria, with not much Syrian protest, we had to wait till Richard Clarke's book "Cyber War" came out in April of 2010! What else is happening right now that we will only discover three years later?

If the news we watch today, on any channel, is nothing but a deception; a pot pourri of mindless yammering about eye-catching stories, we might as well just stop following the mainstream news altogether. Let us also not forget to add Neil Postman's insight (from his book: Amusing Ourselves to Death) that world news actually makes us numb, because it's always happening "there," completely irrelevant to our lives "here." Moreover, for every hour of news, 20 to 25 minutes are reserved for commercials. We're spending a little under half of our time on the tube watching commercials.

The 24-hour cable news channels are entertainment venues, and their task is to steer the entire country away from the important issues, and into the topics they want us to be thinking about, providing the same story through different ideological binoculars to suit all the varying tastes, while simultaneously having their pundits and anchors reminding us that they don't understand why everyone is talking about those topics. But this should not come to anyone's surprise. As profit-generating entities, these news channels will put anything between two commercial breaks that attracts the viewer's attention. The more ridiculous and controversial the story is, the more profits are expected to rise.
You can almost see them in your head, editors and contributors sitting together every day, sifting through news stories, deciding on which piece will give them the highest viewership, while simultaneously receiving the approval of their corporate masters. Once the channel is on, it's really hard to take one's eyes off the screen! Well, I want to know what's gonna happen to that ground-zero mosque, don't you? The anxiety keeps building up! And the more I watch, the more I want to keep watching. But by the time the story comes to an end, I would have already been following two or three newer stories. Today they didn't mention the anchor baby story, but they did bring up the "Is Obama a Muslim" story.

You don't have to wait for a power outage to make you feel alive again. Turn the TV off, put some soothing music on that stereo you haven't used for ages. Grab a drink from the kitchen, recline your seat, and read that book you have been postponing for some time now.

The Origins of Hamas and Hezbollah

Sometimes, too much focus on current events makes us lose sight of the big picture, forgetting about the underlying reasons for the birth and growth of Hamas and Hezbollah. Zooming out in time, we can see that Hamas was actually born in 1987; very young compared to Fatah (1958), PFLP (1967), and of course the PLO (1964). While Hezbollah was born in 1985; so much younger than SSNP (1932), Phalange "aka Kataeb" (1936), PSP (1949), Marada (1968), Amal (1975), and Lebanese Forces (1977).

Although serious attempts for politicized Islamic parties were made, none really came to fruition except for the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928. The party's entire philosophy was (and still is) based on pacifist, missionary work. It was about preaching and spreading the message of Islam, with the goal of resurrecting the Islamic Empire (aka Caliphate). But right from the start, the great majority of Arabs in Greater Syria (including modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq) and Egypt have found such ideologies "cute" at best, and completely useless at worst. The Arabs in the early years of Anglo-Franco colonialism have shown a great tendency to fight. Arab Nationalists, and soon after joined by Communists, Marxists, and Socialists came together to fight for the liberation of their lands, as early as 1920 (battle of Maysaloun). The rebellion was so furious that the British resorted to what was known back then as "the Arab Kings" to quell the fire of revolution. When the Arabs revolted again in 1930s, especially between 1936 and 1939, the British once again resorted to the Arab Kings to subdue the population by offering themselves as their political leaders, telling them that they can get independence through negotiations. No need for all that fighting. They utilized pan-Arab and pan-Islamic ideology to convince them of their fantastic destiny.

ISRAEL: Show me 'Proper' !

Note: This talk is directed at those Arabs and Palestinians who have truly given up on the 48 lands, as their true compromise for peace and justice to both sides of the conflict.

Where is Palestine? Is it the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip? What about Akka, Beer Sheeba, Haifa, Nazareth, Negev, and Yafa? Where do some Arabs, including Palestinians, find the audacity to refer to those cities as "Israel proper"? I don't recall Palestinians signing any referendum where they relinquished lands occupied in 1948 to become eternally part of the land of Israel. As for those who have publicly given up on 48 Palestine as a political decoy in order to justify their demand for the West Bank and Gaza, they are only cunning themselves; like a policeman molesting children so that he can understand the criminal mind of a child molester. These Arafat-type hypocrites, telling the world that they no longer have any claims to 78% of British-mandate Palestine, then turning to a Palestinian audience and winking as though saying "don't worry, we wont give up an inch of Palestine;" are excluded from the discussion here.

Our natural tendency, as human beings, to be attracted to equality as the basis for justice should not be used to obscure reality! It is not true that both Palestinians and Israelis have equal rights to the land of Palestine. The Palestinians (of all religious and ethnic backgrounds, including Palestinian Jews) are the indigenous people; the rightful owners and citizens of Palestine. The Israelis, on the other hand, are foreigners who have entered Palestine illegally, under the illegal British colonialist rule of the land. The legality of all land purchases by Zionists was administered by an illegal occupying force, thus nullifying all such transactions. But even if we were to overrule the illegality of the land purchases and accept them, there is no legal precedent that gives foreign land owners the right to expel the indigenous people, overthrow the existing government, and establish their own nation-state! Imagine if Chinese citizens buy 7% of California's land over decades, then one day announce that 51% of California is, from now on, the independent state of Hanland, instantly recognized by the whole world (except for US, UK, Israel, Australia, and Micronesia of course). Not only that, but when the American government (rightfully) rejects that decision and declares war on Hanland, the whole world collaborates with the Chinese, who end up capturing the entire state of California, and expelling all non-Chinese people into bordering states, telling them "don't be such whiners! You're Americans, you have 49 states to choose from, why can't you let us have just this one state? So unfair!"

No one is saying that Chinese people have no right to live in California, or even purchase land, build homes, and establish businesses in California. But for the Chinese to have been plotting for 70 years on how to take over California, because they really can't stand sharing the state with Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and other Asians, is despicable by any measure. No one on earth would be able to seriously justify the creation of Hanland, not even on one inch of California! So why is it OK for European Jewish foreigners to have done that to Palestine?

"God promised this land to the Jews," they say. So these illegal land thieves are using the Bible as their legal document in the courts to prove that Palestine belongs to them, overriding International law, and thousands of land deeds in the hands of Palestinian refugees. And the world is supposed to take this seriously? Alright, let's take them seriously for a second. Genesis 15: "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.'" This magical covenant is repeated a dozen times throughout the Bible. Well, Arabs are the descendants of Abram, just as much as the Jews are. So in fact, God promised these great lands to the Arabs as well.

Western media, as well as the Israeli media, have been tirelessly distorting the story to make the whole world at least acknowledge that both European Jewish invaders, and the indigenous multi-ethnic people of Palestine, are both entitled to the land, with equally controversial documents to back them up. And of all people on Earth, never have I thought that some Arab (especially a Palestinian) would one day accept the Western narrative of the story, and find the audacity in their hearts and minds to accept Israel (a state for Jews only) as a legitimate entity, erasing four fifths of Mandate Palestine, along with its people, their belongings, their identity and history.

If waiting for 62 years is all it takes the Zionists to convince you that they have a legitimate and exclusive right to 48 lands, then all Israelis have to do is wait another 19 years for the pro-Palestine camp to stop calling for returning to the 67 border. The Palestinians living in Jordan seem to be doing just fine. Why not complete the Zionist project and move the remaining Palestinians to Jordan, so that everyone can live happily ever after?

Sarakenos

Who Said the Quran Preaches Aggression?

The assertion “the Quran preaches violence against non-Muslims” seems to have become unquestionable in American society and media. When some pundits try to defend Islam in response to that accusation, they contend that: “all religions have violent language” and begin quoting verses from the Old Testament, like the ones in Samuel 15:3 in which God commands: “put to death men and women, children and infants.”

First of all, there are no such instructions in the entire Quran, commanding or hinting at genocide! When Orientalists accuse the Quran's language of being violent, they will mostly quote from Chapter Nine, such as verse 29 where God says:

“Fight against those who do not believe in God nor the Last Day; who do not forbid what God and His messenger forbid, who do not follow the religion of truth which had been bestowed upon the people of the book, until they pay the poll tax after having been humbled [in war].”

If you start reading Chapter Nine from the beginning, you will immediately recognize that these Arab Pagans (descendants of Abraham “i.e. former followers of Divine Scriptures”) to be "fought against" are singled out as the violators of a particular treaty; the aggressors who shed blood first. How does this compare to the Old Testament God demanding from the Israelites to invade, conquer, rape, and kill every man, woman, and child because the Lord promised the land of Canaan to them? The Canaanites did not attack the Israelites. It was the Egyptians who persecuted them and killed their first-born sons!

It is true that the Quran calls for jihad (to fight), but only to eliminate injustice. This is clearly shown in chapter 60, verses 7-9, where God says:

“May there be love between you and those who were your enemies, for God is omnipotent, forgiving, and merciful. God does not forbid you from befriending those who did not fight you because of your religion; who did not expel you from your homes, those you must show kindness and treat them on equal terms, for God loves the equitable. However, God does forbid you from befriending those who fought you because of your religion, and expelled you, or aided others to expel you from your homes, those you must not befriend, for if you do, then you are a tyrant.”

The call for war in the Quran was always in self-defense and to uphold justice. There are no exceptions!

Some will ask: “why call for any violence at all in response to injustice? Why not non-violence, like Jesus preached?” It is important to note that between the birth of Muhammad's religion (610 AD) and that first battle in Badr (624 AD), there have been no attacks by any Muslim under any circumstance. For fourteen years, Muslims chose the non-violent way of rebellion; acts like emancipation of slaves, calling for an end to human sacrifice rituals (infanticide), and the attempt to discard business-generating idols in the holiest Temple in Mecca (Muhammad imitating Jesus when he turned the tables of money changers in the Temple of Jerusalem). For fourteen years, Muslims were persecuted, tortured, expelled from their homes in Mecca, and many killed, before finally seeking refuge in the neighboring city of Yathreb (Medina). They begged Muhammad to allow them to carry the sword and fight for what is rightfully theirs, but he forbade any armed resistance, as God did not permit it (yet).

Four years after that first battle, the Pagan leaders in Mecca proposed a peace treaty, known as Al-Hudaybiah Treaty (628 AD). The terms included (1) the right of any Pagan to convert to Islam and any Muslim to revert to Paganism, (2) ten years of peace, and (3) no aggression by either side under any circumstances. Muhammad agreed and the treaty was signed. That is the treaty discussed in Chapter Nine (mentioned above); how the Pagans broke their promise and attacked in the middle of the night, killing scores of Muslims. In short, God was saying “no more,” and called for a final all-out battle to end the war.

Ironically, that very war called for in this Chapter (the one Orientalists love to quote from) never took place! The Muslims marched into Mecca in numbers unimaginable to the Pagans. They entered the four gates of Mecca, while Muhammad and the other brigade leaders were shouting out loud the rules of engagement: “Do not harm any child. Do not harm any woman. Do not harm any elderly. Do not cut down a single tree. Do not break into anyone's home. Do not harm unarmed men. Those who stay inside their homes shall be safe.” Apart from minor clashes, the return to Mecca was peaceful. Muhammad (and his brigade) surrounded the Pagan leaders and said to them: “What do you think I am going to do to you?” They responded: “We have known you to be kind and merciful. We think you will let us go free.” And Muhammad said: “It is so. You are free to go.”

The evidence points in one direction: the Quran preaches peace, freedom of religion, equality based on righteousness (not religion, race, or ethnicity), and demands justice to be upheld at all costs, even if some violence in self-defense was absolutely necessary to accomplish it.

Hamas In the Eyes of Ibish

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), landed another one of his controversial articles in NowLebanon, this time on “Hamas’s many splendored contradictions.” I take this opportunity to shed light on some of his misconceived ideas regarding Palestinian internal affairs.

The main contradiction espoused by Ibish is that Hamas has both a religious and a nationalist agenda, intertwined and at odds with one another. It is true that, as a Muslim Brotherhood byproduct, Hamas has the desire to establish Islamic rule in Palestine, with no Israel in sight.  Nevertheless, the major ideological difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas (something Ibish did not point out) is that the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to resurrect the Islamic Empire (aka the Caliphate) through peaceful means, mostly through preaching and missionaries, before dealing with Israel’s existence and freeing Palestine.

Hamas, however, does not want to wait till that happens. Hamas believes that freeing Palestine (i.e. eradicating Israel) is a prerequisite to the resurrection of the Islamic Empire (the reverse strategy of Muslim Brotherhood central), thus permitting and requiring armed resistance against Israeli Occupation.

This resolves the first mysterious contradiction of intertwining theological and national aspirations: Hamas believes that freeing Palestine, on a nationalist agenda, is the first step towards the Palestinian Muslim’s bigger aim of resurrecting the Muslim Caliphate on all Muslim-majority lands (of which Palestine is only a province).

The second contradiction in his article is “the fact that Hamas is the only Sunni Islamist party in the Arab world to be simultaneously part of the Muslim Brotherhood network and the largely Shia pro-Iranian alliance.” In other words, how can Hamas be Sunni, while in coalition with a Shia entity? Of course the contradiction is only valid in the wording. Hamas is not part of any Shia pro-Iranian alliance. It is this so-called Shia pro-Iranian alliance that chooses to support Hamas, not because its members are Muslim, but because they are fighting against Israel (the common enemy of all Arab and Iranian factions).
The mass majority of Fatah’s members are Muslims too! Yet they get no direct support from Iran because Fatah has openly colluded with the enemy (Israel) against all other Palestinian and Lebanese factions of all faiths, sects, and ideologies. The article also insinuates that to be pro-Iranian you have to be Shiite, thus adding to the mystical Sunni Hamas collaboration with Iran. There is no mystery here. The Middle East alliances are not based on Sunni/Shiite, Muslim/Christian identities, but on the pro Palestine and the pro US-Israel camps. As a Lebanese, Ibish knows this.

The article brings up another false contradiction: “Hamas’ conduct needs to be viewed in the context of its primary strategic aim, which is to politically defeat the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, and replace them as the primary agent for the Palestinian national movement.” A very dangerous, easy-to-miss fallacy is embedded in this statement which equates the PLO with the PA. Yes, Hamas aims to defeat and replace the Fatah-dominated PA, but certainly not the PLO. The PLO, for example, includes other active Palestinian factions (aside from Fatah), such as the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which is a Marxist, secular movement that predates Hamas by twenty years. The PFLP today is, and has been for a decade, a strategic ally of Hamas. There have been hundreds of collaborated rocket attacks between these two parties (and several others), despite their deep ideological differences.

On the Palestinian political/ideological spectrum, Hamas (far right) has so much more in common with Fatah (center-right), than with the PFLP (left). Yet Hamas and PFLP were able to overcome their political/ideological differences and work together for their one and only true strategic aim: to defeat Israel, not the PLO or Fatah! It is Fatah and the PA (created by Israel) that are in collusion with Israel and constantly put themselves willingly (for money) at the Israeli front lines as proxies to fight Hamas and the entire Palestinian population, on behalf of Israel.

It is true, as Ibish insinuates here and in previous articles, that most Palestinians identify, politically and ideologically, with Fatah (centrist group). But they do not identify with Fatah’s actions! That is exactly why they have overwhelmingly voted for Hamas in the elections of 2006 – not because they approve of Hamas’s ideological views, but because they approve of Hamas’s actions. What did Hamas do with all its financial resources? It built schools, libraries, hospitals, and mosques (nothing wrong with building a place of worship). What did Fatah do with all its financial resources (which far exceed those of Hamas)? It bought Audis and Mercedes-Benzes for its members, purchased mansions and privately-owned businesses to make a profit off the already suffering Palestinians, and put the remaining millions of dollars and euros in secret Swiss bank accounts.

The truth is, Fatah chose financial corruption and military collusion with Israel over the interests of the Palestinian people, and over the plight for an independent state based on the 1967 borders. Fatah destroyed its popular base by its own actions! And the people, desperate for aid and for the end of occupation, turned to the only alternative still allowed to exist, Hamas (Israel had actively crushed all other alternative political parties), and voted them into government to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, not to impose a religious lifestyle. And suddenly Israel showed its true colors! Israel never had the intention to dismantle settlements or end the occupation. So when Hamas, a more honest representative of the Palestinian people’s plight, made that demand in accordance with international law and signed agreements, Israel (and Fatah) waged war on Hamas, coming up with the most insane reasons to why they refuse to even negotiate with Hamas, such as their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist. How come Israel never demanded that from Fatah while it was in power and involved in peace talks for over a decade?

When authors bring up the Hamas so-called coup d’etat in Gaza, they conceal the fact that this coup d’etat came only after Mahmoud Abbas fired the democratically elected Ismael Haniyyeh along with his entire elected government from office, and Fatah brigades received large shipments of weapons from the CIA in preparation to annihilate Hamas in Gaza once and for all. Hamas found out about this, and quickly moved to preemptively take over the Fatah-run “security” apparatus. The real coup d’etat was that of Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah; a failed coup d’etat that is. As a result of Hamas’s de facto takeover of the security apparatus in Gaza, crime and corruption have been falling steadily according to independent statistics, despite the Israeli economic and military blockade. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, including those who are not ideologically aligned with Hamas, admit that law and order have much more respect under Hamas rule, and that Hamas security and police forces are manifold more disciplined than Fatah’s.

All these noncontroversial facts are obscured from the article. As a secularist myself, I can’t help but agree with Ibish’s distaste to some of Hamas’s fantastic views on the great resurrection of the Islamic Empire. But also as a secularist, I can easily see why a secular party like the PFLP had no choice but to side with Hamas in its struggle for justice and freedom for Palestine.