tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1449722699333079615..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Mahmoud Darwish: Silence for GazaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59133195687717077572014-07-17T18:05:24.213-07:002014-07-17T18:05:24.213-07:00Nora Barrows-Friedman from Gaza, 17 July 2014:
Af...Nora Barrows-Friedman from Gaza, 17 July 2014:<br /><br />After a week of threats and “warning rocket” fire last Friday on the al-Wafa rehab and geriatric hospital in eastern Gaza City, the Israeli army heavily shelled the building just hours ago and caregivers are scrambling to evacuate the most vulnerable patients.<br /><br />I spoke with Dr. Basman Alashi, the executive director of al-Wafa, at a little past 10pm Palestine time today, Thursday, about an hour after Israel started to bomb the hospital.<br /><br />“It started just before nine, they started it and it continued every other minute, firing at the hospital. They started on the fourth floor, continued to the third, then from the back of the hospital, then to the side, then to the front, then they cut the electricity, we have fuel everywhere. I don’t know the extent of the damage but it reached a point where my nurses were unable to function, unable to stand, unable to help the patients,” Alashi said.<br /><br />And meanwhile, the bigger picture:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/israel-begins-ground-assault-in-gaza-hamas-tunnels" rel="nofollow">Israeli forces enter Gaza: Peter Beaumont, 17 July 2014</a><br /><br />"Operation, involving Israeli infantry, tanks, engineers and artillery bombardment, intended to target Hamas tunnels into Israel."<br /><br />That echo you hear comes from the vacuum chamber of historical memory.<br /><br />Anyone old enough to remember the confidence with which those orchestrating the massive bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia a half century ago assumed the enemy could be bombed back to the Stone Age, stifled in their tunnels, strangled and suffocated like a plague of rats, should also recall the hollowness of those arrogant assumptions of the superiority of the technological might of an invading power over the determination and resolve of those invaded, once it was discovered that, yes, they were still in those tunnels, after the last reverberations of the brutal ordnance had faded away.<br /><br />Those in the tunnels could make do with so little. Their rubber sandals were cut from old automobile tires. They could fight for nights and days and months and years on end without saying "Yes" to the invader.<br /><br />And by the way -- don't look now, but, they won that war we started on the slimmest of pretexts.<br /><br />The Pueblo Incident was the Hamas rocket of that epoch.<br /><br />As it happens, and due to circumstances largely beyond my control -- when it came time to go to college, I couldn't afford it, and so accepted a scholarship to a small school that had, back in the nineteenth century, been one of those schools to which the government granted land in return for the school's participation in the Reserve Officer Training program -- I attended, between 1959 and 1961, a number of classes on global political/military strategy, which inevitably boiled down to hypotheticals -- how to plan for the next war.<br /><br />The Middle East was a study area of choice (along with, of course, Southeast Asia).<br /><br />The key hypothetical was, Suez is threatened, what to do?<br /><br />The "practicals" were always going to be complicated.<br /><br />The present Israeli invasion of Gaza, with concerted deployment of infantry, tanks, engineers, navy, helicopters & c, is plainly not something that was hatched overnight.<br /><br />You've got to know the plan was always on the table. Waiting for its moment. Of total insanity.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-24974971228331922512014-07-17T14:22:02.247-07:002014-07-17T14:22:02.247-07:00I'd been waiting for somebody who knew a bit a...I'd been waiting for somebody who knew a bit about Tony Blair, from experience, to pipe up to the crackerbarrel analyst on that brilliant suggestion.<br /><br />Talk about those "staggering propagandist contortions we've been subjected to this last week" (Barry).<br /><br />You've got to remember all Tony's great contributions to peace, such as his vigorous egging-on of the Iraq tragedy.<br /><br />(Or was that grand historical faux-pas on his part to be written off as mere outright stooge-ism, just another of "our" "special relationships" at work?)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29360200024630701762014-07-17T14:08:12.582-07:002014-07-17T14:08:12.582-07:00"We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into..."We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into a myth, because we will hate it when we discover that it is no more than a small poor city that resists".<br /><br />We slip into the myths so easily and they seem to fit well. What fierce courage and dialectical acuity does it take to turn from them.<br /><br />With your good small gesture you are letting Darwish live here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.<br /><br />Elmo, if you have an argument to make, don't bring Blair into it. It certainly won't wash this side of the pond.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75884726075426987292014-07-17T13:27:34.752-07:002014-07-17T13:27:34.752-07:00Many thanks, friends, we hear you.
Hilton's w...Many thanks, friends, we hear you.<br /><br />Hilton's words, for me, offer a small light in this time of great darkness.<br /><br />"Every small gesture, every poem and shout, every ad, every cry and song, everything counts, meager as they may seem."<br /><br />Maureen's comment brings home a truth that's been impossible to avoid since yesterday. The killing of the kids on the beach, and the propaganda efforts to blame it on the victims, was just that last drop that tipped the beaker of revulsion over the brim.<br /><br />Hail to Chile, nation of poets.<br /><br />Hail to Darwish, hail to Darwish, hail to Darwish, poet. <br /><br />Elmo,<br /><br />I hate repeating myself, so, as to your reiterated Blair Proposal, kindly see my response <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.fr/2014/07/emily-dickinson-tell-all-truth-but-tell.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />Make sure not to miss the bit reported by the great Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, on how Blair made off with the big cash Israeli peace prize for his heroic efforts as mediator last time round -- when he stopped by Gaza on the run, was told the people needed water pipes, but couldn't persuade his Israeli friends to permit delivery...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38500783263294852392014-07-17T10:04:38.037-07:002014-07-17T10:04:38.037-07:00Tom, thanks for posting this. Darwish can say it a...Tom, thanks for posting this. Darwish can say it all on yet another level of insight. One bit of news: I signed an ad against the Israeli onslaught with other US and Israeli academics that appeared today in HaHaretz. Every small gesture, every poem and shout, every ad, every cry and song, everything counts, meager as they may seem. I appreciate all your posts about Gaza.Hiltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04497545378045907642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-11571857868913973862014-07-17T09:42:35.416-07:002014-07-17T09:42:35.416-07:00The picture this morning on the front page of The ...The picture this morning on the front page of The New York Times needed no words. My heart stopped when I saw it; my eyes filled with tears. <br /><br />Whatever one's politics, no one anywhere can justify those children's deaths. <br /><br />Desmond Tutu in his book 'The Book of Forgiving' includes a graphic showing the Revenge Cycle and the Forgiveness Cycle. It is at the point of pain, Tutu explains, that one can make a choice to choose harm and continue the revenge cycle or choose healing that puts an end to the vicious violence. I'd like to think both sides still can make a choice. The choice truly is a matter of life and death.Maureenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13290283101378474845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13275576189544515082014-07-17T09:12:47.955-07:002014-07-17T09:12:47.955-07:00The hard-won self-knowledge of Darwish's persp...The hard-won self-knowledge of Darwish's perspective, without self-flattery or self-pity, stands in stark contrast to the staggering propagandist contortions we've been subjected to this last week.Barry Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02121653352771218338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-44424769771529479202014-07-17T08:48:06.754-07:002014-07-17T08:48:06.754-07:00There's no reason why Gaza and the
rest of Pal...There's no reason why Gaza and the<br />rest of Palestine as well as Lebanon is not some part of paradise,<br />A Mediterrean coast, the Holy sites of three<br />major religions....all you need<br />is peace and now all you have is war...Islam is a religion of the<br />sword or it least many of its proponents act that way...now in the 20th and 21first centuries <br />with weapons of mass destruction<br />is violent Jihad a viable option for the human race. There's enough<br />wealth in Middle East to fund a<br />higher standard of living and <br />civilization. Religion and the<br />romance of struggle are<br />in the way.<br />The UN: a third of the countries<br />in the UN treat their own citizens<br />worse than Israel treats the Palestinians.<br />If you want to do something right<br />do it your self. You make peace with your enemy. Your friends you<br />are already at peace with. So what<br />does your enemy need and what do you need.<br />What's the Hamas dialogue? Anachronistic won't cut it.<br />Be Dubai, be the Beirut of old,<br />anything but endless blood. Also<br />when Hamas teaches their children<br />that Jews are descendant of Apes and Pigs...consider Einstein and<br />the mushroom clouds that are in the background and consider the<br />Palestinian and Jewish diasporas<br />that thrive, sometimes together<br />outside the Middle East as long as<br />they don't talk about the Middle<br />East. I refer those of you who are aghast at these pictures and hear<br />the drum beat of Darwish amidst<br />the silence to consider the practical proposals of Tony Blair<br />who had no personal dog in the fight. Common sense practical proposals as opposed to fanatical<br />religion and romance on both sidesElmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-31635321282117377632014-07-17T08:06:03.214-07:002014-07-17T08:06:03.214-07:00Chile has just suspended trade talks with Israel o...Chile has just suspended trade talks with Israel over that nation's continuing atrocities in Gaza, and may recall its ambassador. The world is not totally devoid of conscience.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89741228960412624592014-07-17T06:35:57.678-07:002014-07-17T06:35:57.678-07:00heartbreaking, as alwaysheartbreaking, as alwaysLallyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05310472614196384595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-19518005064684614072014-07-17T02:36:03.505-07:002014-07-17T02:36:03.505-07:00thanks Tom —one is nearly glad that Darwish does n...thanks Tom —one is nearly glad that Darwish does not have to see this anymore. — PierrePierre Jorishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17620468904568794519noreply@blogger.com