[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [HumanRights] power shifts to the people

Thu Dec 9 15:59:12 CST 2010

Qumsiyeh's report, which includes links to powerful talks by Ilan Pappe, Ali Abunimah, Mazin Qumsiyeh and others.

> Ali Abunimah:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5033431-ali-abunimah-palstinakonferenz-in-stuttgart-am-27-november-2010 

> Ilan Pappe:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5039927-ilan-pappe-palestine-conference-in-stuttgart-26-november-2010 

> Mazin Qumsiyeh:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5039913-mazin-qumsiyeh-palestine-conference-in-stuttgart-26-november-2010-publicsolidarity 

This took place in Stuttgart, Germany at the end of November. 

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Mazin Qumsiyeh" <mazin at qumsiyeh.org>
> Date: December 9, 2010 12:29:28 AM CST
> To: brussel at uiuc.edu
> Cc: Human Rights Newsletter <humanrights at lists.qumsiyeh.org>
> Subject: [HumanRights] power shifts to the people
> 
> In this week's email: 1) Follow-up on Stuttgart conference and 2) the final
> dropping of all veils and dissolution of the last empires
> 
> Videos from the One State Conference in Stuttgart, November 26-28, 2010
> available at website: https://www.publicsolidarity.de 
>> From the number of hits, we can see that there is a big interest in the
> speeches and discussions so far and we hope there will be much more. It
> looks like the conference could be a turning point for the promotion of
> the BDS-campaign in Germany. For this reason the local organizers launched
> an extra homepage for the German BDS-campaign: www.bds-kampagne.de 
> Individual videos for some of the talks are also posted:

> Ali Abunimah:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5033431-ali-abunimah-palstinakonferenz-in-stuttgart-
> am-27-november-2010 
> Haidar Eid:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5023128-haidar-eid-palestine-conference-in-stuttgart
> -26-november-2010 
> Lubna Masarwa:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ju_Iv5rCJQ    
> Ilan Pappe:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5039927-ilan-pappe-palestine-conference-in-stuttgart
> -26-november-2010 
> Mazin Qumsiyeh:
> http://vodpod.com/watch/5039913-mazin-qumsiyeh-palestine-conference-in-stutt
> gart-26-november-2010-publicsolidarity 
> Photos of the conference 
> http://www.arbeiterfotografie.com/galerie/reportage-2010/index-2010-11-26-28
> -stuttgart-palaestina-konferenz.html 
> 
> The last of the veils are slowly dissipating.  
> By Mazin Qumsiyeh
> http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thelastoftheveils/ 
> 
> The extent of the Arab governments' conspiracies against their own people
> and sub-serviance to the US and Israeli governments was known to most
> people. But the documents released from Wikileaks simply confirm and extend
> this knowledge. For example, we now know how a Mr. Marwan Hamadeh, Lebanese
> official ran around to the US, France, Saudi, Jordanian and other officials
> to mobilize against Hizbollah's fiberoptic network in Lebanon. The first
> people he informed about this network were Hanna Seniora (now discredited
> who was then prime minister, Walid Jumblatt, and the Maronite Patriarch,
> clearly factional interests.  And w learn that Elias El-Murr, Lebanon's
> "defense" minister informed US officials that the Lebanese army would not
> interfere if Israel invaded Lebanon as long as the Israeli army does not
> attack Christian villages.
> 
> We also learn of Egyptian foreign minister mirroring his boss Hosni Mubarak
> to refuse to talk about human rights and freeing of political prisoners and
> instead kept emphasizing dangers of Hamas and their possible connections to
> the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and to Iran.  The way the governments work
> revealed via these cables proves what Barbara Tuchman had to say
> 
> "Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a
> remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in
> terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary
> signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be
> deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about
> Phillip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all sovereigns: No
> experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its
> essential excellence "  (The March of Folly. Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
> 1984).
> 
> In short the released cables while theoretically showing a fear of Iran and
> Islamic spread in the Middle East will only discredit Arab leaders and
> encourage people to start to look for alternatives to what is now a clear
> axis of evil: the US government, Israel, and the reactionary dictatorial
> arab leaders serving those. To be blunt, we had better possibilities in the
> 1960s and early 1970s to standing up to hegemonic US/Israeli designs of
> subjugating and dividing the Arab world than we do today. Today we face(with
> few exceptions) a solid block across the board of collaborative Arab regimes
> (known before but now clearly exposed via wikileaks with more to come) and a
> mostly apathetic Arab public including many Palestinians. What are
> alternative organizing centers for the period to come of dissolution of
> dictatorships and empires and the bankruptcy of racist ideologies of
> chosenness?   There are few possibilities:
> 
> 1) Leftist secular traditional parties (PFLP, DFLP, PPP, Baathists,
> Nasserites etc).  Each of these factions/parties is small on its  own.  They
> have lost much support after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Here I am
> not talking about financial or direct other support (it was relatively small
> and came to only few of these groups).  I am talking about the general
> decline of the left around the world that ensued with the "perceived win" of
> the capitalist west. It was a strong PR campaign from many quarters that
> enhanced this perception (wrong as it is) that the decline of the soviet
> union meant that the unfettered free market system is the only game in town.
> I do not want here to enter into an analysis of this phenomenon.  Others
> have done a far better job at it including candid and self-critical analysis
> by those belonging to those various (left) parties, factions, and liberation
> movement.  But my point is that even with their reduced cadres due to this
> and other challenges (e.g. the dependence of some of them on financing
> through the Palestinian Authority dominated but emasculated PLO), they
> remain collectively a potent force for the future.  When they did join
> forces (e.g. in selected local elections), this  power can be manifested.
> 
> 2) Islamic forces: Again I do not presume to try and analyze the power of
> these factions or their diversity let alone their potential to develop in
> positive directions that effect real change in their societies.  But I think
> everyone agrees that such groups are indeed gaining adherents and carry a
> significant weight in the streets and that they will play a role in the
> future.   
> 
> 3) Decent individuals within Palestinian elites (governing bodies and
> business people) and even elites in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon,
> and other Arab countries.  Of those I would give more possibilities for
> growth and providing decent alternatives to the status quo among
> Palestinians Lebanese (and perhaps Jordanians and Egyptians). Some may
> decide that even their own long term financial and societal positions are
> served better by challenging the status quo.
> 
> 4) Independents: people with a conscience but who do not belong to political
> factions and are not associated with governments.  Many of those are
> intellectuals who might finally move to activism as happened in the past (in
> Palestine and elsewhere).
> 
> These issues are increasingly being discussed by individuals within those
> sections of society.  I believe it is possible to organize those (or most of
> them) into a coherent positive force that challenges the roads of wars,
> racism, colonization, and occupation.   But my own humble opinion is: 
> 
> A) Do not discount the likelihood of the dissolution of the Israeli/US
> empire on its own ala the Roman and Soviet empire out of their own
> arrogance, hubris, and disastrous policies (the signs are all around us from
> the $3 trillion dollar war on Iraq, to the attacks on the freedom flotilla,
> to the bitter arguments in Israeli society about the reliance of this 4th
> strongest state in the world on foreign aid to put out a few fires, literal
> and otherwise etc).
> 
> B) Do not discount people (Palestinians, other Arabs, internationals etc).
> History teaches us that when we discount what people are able to do, we are
> almost always wrong.  Think of the perception of the French and after them
> the US government of what the Vietnamese peasants could do in the few years
> just before their liberation.  Think of South Africa in the early 1980s.
> Algeria in the 1940s and 1950s. India in the 1920s and 30s. Think of the US
> South in the 1940s.  Even here in Palestine, just think of the dismissal and
> opinions of pundits about the end of Palestine offered in 1928 (before the
> 1929 uprising), 1935 (before the 1936 uprising), 1955, 1970, 1981, 1986, and
> 1999. 
> 
> That even the US administration has stood unable to effect even the minor
> change in Israeli colonial settler activities is just one indication that we
> are reaching a dead end in the old ways and the new ways and new actors must
> step forward.   Things will change as power shifts to the people.  Around
> the world, many are now realizing what is happening and few are leading the
> way of change.  
> 
> WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks.
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-
> revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332 
> 
> Mazin Qumsiyeh
> http://qumsiyeh.org
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