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  abunoor 6:01 pm on November 4, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Ali Abunimah, Hussein Ibish, Jeffrey Goldberg (3), one state (2), palestine (241), two state (2)

  Former Progressive Muslim leader (although self admittedly not a Muslim by belief) Hussein Ibish is here promoted by Jeffrey Goldberg for his attacks on the idea of the one-state solution which is gaining strength among a strand of Palestinian activists here in America.

  Ibish, who is currently described as “Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine” (referred by As’ad Abu Khalil as the “Dahlan Lobby” or “Dahlan Embassy” in Washington). Ibish seems to be frustrated that his pro two-state arguments are not being engaged by the one-state proponents, including Ali Abunimah. Ibish used to be at least professionally close with Abunimah, coauthoring several items, but claims that Abunimah views have shifted radically in recent years. He know accuses him of being an extremist and an Islamist sympathizer (all of this discussion is taking place essentially among secularist thinkers, although some Muslims are undoubtedly supporters of Abunimah and Abu Khalil, etc. in their critique at least). Let me be clear that Abunimah does engage with all range of arguments and critiques of his one-state proposal in his book and in the media, but apparently has chosen not to engage specifically with the work of Mr. Ibish.

  Now, Mr. Ibish is interviewed at some length by Jeffrey Goldberg (a figure whom I, shall we say, do not admire) about how the one state solution is fantasy. I actually have had some conversations with a Modern Orthodox Rabbi here in Chicago with whom I have done several interfaith programs, who is planning to move next year to Israel, who is also a supporter of a one state solution.

  Let me say that although I certainly oppose occupation and support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, I personally find it hard to get excited about or invested in supporting a Abu Mazen/Dahlan bantustan state as the outcome of the long Palestinian/Muslim struggle in the holy land. I understand the difficulties of a one state solution but it is more inspiring to me than the illusory peace process. Again, at the end of the day I am really an observer. Although I am emotionally invested due to the sacredness of Jerusalem, my love for my Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine, and my concern for all humans everywhere including Israelis and Jews, I realize that it is not up to me to decide what the Palestinian people do, let alone can I determine what Israel will do.

   

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  abunoor 11:42 pm on January 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Ali Abunimah, Egypt (94), Gaza Massacre (33), Mahmoud Abbas (2), Mubarak (3), Obama (249)

  Ali Abunimah on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman:
  
  ALI ABUNIMAH: I want to say, Amy, first of all, that we have to go back to the Warsaw Ghetto or Guernica to find crimes in the modern era of the scale of the viciousness and of the deliberateness of what Israel is committing with the full support of the United States, not just the Bush administration, but apparently as well the incoming Obama administration. We have to recognize the complicity not just of the so-called international community, but also of the Arab regimes, Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak, the Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt. Tzipi Livni, when she issued her threats against Gaza, was in Cairo in the biggest Arab capital, and Aboul Gheit stood next to her silently.

  Mahmoud Abbas is not a bystander, the so-called president of the Palestinian Authority. For two years since the elections, which Hamas won, he and his coterie have been collaborating with Israel and the United States, first to overthrow the election result and then to besiege Gaza. We have talked before of the Palestinian Contras, funded and armed by the United States, which sought to overthrow Hamas in June 2007 and had the tables turned on them. And now this. The complicity of Mahmoud Abbas is very clear and must be clearly stated. He does not have the authority, moral or otherwise, to call together the Palestinian people for anything. He has gone over to the other side. He has joined the Israeli war against the Palestinian people, and I choose my words very carefully.

  And let me say this, as well, Amy, that Israel is trying to produce and promote the fiction that it is engaged in a war with a so-called enemy entity. What Israel is doing is massacring a captive population. You heard—you said in the headlines how Nancy Pelosi, our so-called progressive, liberal, antiwar Speaker of the House, gave her full support to these crimes. Obama has done the same through a spokesman. And that will not change. The United Nations issued a weak statement aimed at covering the backsides, let me say, of those who issued it, not aimed at changing the situation.

  What are Palestinians calling for today? Yesterday, the Palestinian National Committee for the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions reissued and reaffirmed its call on all international civil society in the United States, in North America, in Europe, everywhere, to redouble the efforts for boycott, divestment and sanctions modeled on the anti-apartheid movement. This is necessary. This is moral. This is the nonviolent resistance we can all participate in. And it is more urgent than ever. Let’s not look back at these crimes like we look at the Warsaw Ghetto and like we look at Guernica and we look at the other atrocities of the twentieth century and say, “We had the chance to act, but we chose silence and complicity.” The time to stop this is now.

  And we also have to be clear that those who are accountable—Ehud Barak, his orders over the past few months to withhold insulin, chemotherapy drugs, dialysis supplies, all forms of medicine from the people of Gaza, were just as lethal and just as murderous as the orders to send in the bombers and warplanes to attack mosques, to attack universities. The Islamic University in Gaza is not a military site. It is a university with 18,000 students, 60 percent of them women. Last night, Israeli warplanes attacked a female dormitory in the Islamic University. This is what Israel is attacking. They attacked the fishing port. No food gets into Gaza. People can barely fish enough to sustain them, and Israel has attacked the fishing boats that sustains them. These are historic crimes, and we cannot be silent about them.

  And we have to continue this nonsense that there’s fault on both sides. We have a captive occupied population. 80 percent of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees. 750,000 of them are children. Where else in the world can these crimes be committed while the world looks on, while our elected politicians in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, sit there applauding, when you see the shameful statement of Howard Berman, the Democrat chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, giving his full support to Israel? People have to stand up to this. We cannot sit on our hands anymore and say change is coming. Change is not coming unless we create it.