Opinion Editorials, October 2007
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Crusades: Then and Now
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
ccun.org, October 29, 2007
My visit to England reminded me of the role of English royalty and elites in pushing for a conflict starting with the leadership of the first Crusade and on to the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916, dividing Western Asia into British and French interests) the Balfour Declaration (1917 promising a homeland for Jews to get support for the war effort) to the first British occupation of Iraq and Palestine (1919-1920 and beyond) and to the latest British occupation (with the US) of Iraq and its support of the continued occupation and colonization of Palestine (so far 7 of the 10 million Palestinians were made refugees or displaced people). But on the other hand, now as then many individual citizens and groups were doing such fantastic job for human rights and justice. Believing indeed that silence is complicity these groups are making a huge difference (e.g. at the University of London and this excellent group that does twinning with Palestine: http://www.twinningwithpalestine.net/ )
The intensified media and educational campaign to vilify Muslims and Islam reached a new low with the David Horowitz blitzkrieg on campuses to promote Islamophobia and titled "Islamofascist awareness week." Imagine the outrage if we had a Christofascist or Judeofascist awareness weeks on campuses!!. A good summary of this campaign is found on the Black Agenda Report http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=404&Itemid=36 (My own guess is that this will help further awaken the sleeping giant, which is the Arab and Islamic world)
The intensified efforts and plans to attack Iran (thinking of it as a supposed preempting of a potential/supposed liberator of the Holy Land). On this front, the attack on Iran is playing a significant factor in choice of president: de jure by the US public but de facto by the Israel lobby. In fact, Israel has the Chutzpa to even rate them on their allegiance: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerPage.jhtml Giuliani and Clinton are top in subsuming US interests to serve Israeli interests. And here is the Israel positions of these presidential candidates taken from the Zionist think tank "Council of foreign Relations: which claims the conflict goes thousands of years: http://www.cfr.org/publication/13579/
There is now a malicious campaign of vilification and attacks on any one who dares discuss Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. It was interesting to note the hysterical reactions of Zionist establishment to publications of books like Paul Findley's "They Dare to Speak Out", Jimmy Carter's "Palestine: Peace not apartheid" and Profs. Mearsheimer and Walt "The Israel Lobby: influence on US Foreign Policy." It is interesting to note that at every talk I give, the requisite quorum of at least three Zionists show up (a bad cop, good cop, and a supposed psychological commentator). This weekend, they are going full force against the Sabeel Conference (Sabeel is a Palestinian Christian liberation theology group with friends around the world). See Friends of Sabeel Website at http://fosna.org and the article promoting the racist demonstration at http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/news/?content_id=3885
In all cases and failing to really address the substance, the attackers resort/ed to name calling the most common of which that was used over the years to silence people are calling them "anti-Semite" and/or "self-hating Jews". For apologists of an apartheid regime to claim victimization is not unusual (white rulers in Apartheid South Africa and their elite supporters in the West for decades claimed victimhood of ANC Terrorism and being trapped on the tip of a black and backward continent. The white rulers literally looked at themselves as a beacon of democracy in the barbarity of those who burn people alive (called neck lacing). Today it seems unusual to speak about blacks in Africa in denigrating terms (although it is still done in the elite think tanks of Washington and behind the scenes in academic and other elite circles). The attack on Arabs and Muslims is now full fledged and is out in the open. The list is long from the PATRIOT act to warrantless surveillance, to profiling, to verbal abuse, to denial of the right to speak, to denial of employment and promotion, to Guantanamou and Abu Ghraib, to "rendering" and secret CIA prisons, and on and on. One looks to history to understand the period we are in. The closest I could come-up with is the eleventh century when the Crusades were the norm.
For the first 100 years of the crusader onslaught, the Arab and Muslim masses were divided and leaderless. The Crusaders were pragmatic and even established treaties and trades. Then they got greedy and expanded and broke treaties (see Karen Armstrong's book "Holy War") and aroused anger and aroused the sleeping giant of Islam. We see the signs of a similar thing today (as posted above). Here is one more: "Extremist Jews Burn a Church in a Jerusalem" http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/916567.html (Of course hundreds of religious sites were destroyed by Israel when they depopulated 530 Palestinian Towns and Villages between 1947-1950 and later in 1967 and beyond)
Bizarre news: Israel to purchase Chinese fighter jets that have US technology (the article claims Israel technology when everyone knows that the Israeli Lavi was based on US F-16 technologies and that is the reason it was canceled but Israel profited handsomely). http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380641058&
pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
On good news, in a win for freedom of expression (and against Zionist attempted censorship) the University of Michigan Press will continue the distribution agreement with Pluto Press (the publisher of my book Sharing the Land of Canaan). And in a vuisually impressive action: Condoleeza Rice was confronted by Code Pink activist Desiree Firoos calling her war criminal (in the opening of the hearings in Congress presided over by AIPAC stooge Tom Lantos, Lantos was visibly shaken).: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9GytISiHzw
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD http://qumsiyeh.org
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