White Fungus Releases Issue 10

White Fungus is about to release its 10th issue with launches at Adam Art Gallery in Wellington, Friday, March 6 and ARTSPACE in Auckland, Wednesday, March 11.Both launches will run from 6-9pm.

The Adam Art Gallery event will feature performances by Aotearoa Hip Hop pioneers Upper Hutt Posse, Our Love Will Destroy the World(Campbell Kneale), Peter Wright (recently returned from the UK) and Tao Wells. At ARTSPACE local band Evil Ocean will perform along with Empirical, Tao Wells and poet Iain Britton.

Number 10 is White Fungus’ biggest issue to date with 24 more pages. The new issue includes a new short story, Sewer Rat Debacle, by Duncan Sarkies and in an in-depth history article by Tim Bollinger, The Bone Collectors: Walter Mantel and the early days of New Zealand zoological discovery. It also includes a colour comic by Auckland artist Barry Linton and a reflection on the life of Diogenes by Richard Meros.

White Fungus has the pleasure of re-publishing, in this issue, classic artworks by Auckland iconoclastic feminist Judy Darragh along with work by Nick Austin from his 2006 show at ARTSPACE, On appetitb. There are articles on Brisbane artist Richard Bell, Berlin-based Marcin Cienski and Hong Kong artist Lee Kit. There is work by Andrew McLeod accompanied by two stories by Chris Cudby.

Music features include articles on Detroit Noise group Wolf Eyes, New York ‘hyperrealist’ composer Noah Creshevsky and interviews with musician Cristian Amigo and Australian sound artist Jodi Rose. Plus White Fungus talks to Te Kupu of Upper Hutt Posse about the group 20 years on from producing the first-ever Rap record in New Zealand, E Tu in 1988.

Simon Wickham-Smith writes about Mongolia’s most subversive poet, Baatarin Galsansuh. And the issue features poems by Cyril Wong, winner of the 2006 Singapore Literature Prize and the epic Jena: An Other Cartography by enigmatic Washington DC poet Francis Raven.

Based in Wellington, New Zealand White Fungus was started by the Hanson brothers Ron and Mark after a four-year sojourn in Taiwan. “’White Fungus’ says exciting cultural confusion to us,” Mark Hanson says. The name comes from a canned foodstuff found at a local supermarket in the industrial zone of Taichung City.

White Fungus is distributed by Disticor in the US and Canada. White Fungus is the New Zealand media partner to this year’s international magazine symposium Colophon2009 in Luxembourg. It has been selected for MOOH – The Magazine of Omotesando Hills Library in Tokyo.

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Former chief economist of the IMF Simon Johnson talks about taking on the banking elites





High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs
By Simon Johnson

There comes a time in every economic crisis or, more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that - they say - will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains.

Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble? The form of these vested interests, of course, varies substantially across situations, but they are always still strong, despite the downward spiral which they did so much to bring about. And fully escaping the grip of crisis really means breaking their power.

Not only is this a standard way of thinking about crisis resolution in many developing and post-communist countries, it also turns out to be a good guide to thinking about the US today. We have a powerful banking industry that has mismanaged its way into deep trouble. Yet these banks obtained an initial bailout - the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP - on generous terms, and have consistently failed to use the opportunity provided by this government support to turn their operations around. Not only that, but they have flaunted their power - and their arrogance - through paying themselves large and largely inappropriate bonuses.

We come now, this week, to the podium. And Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner takes the stand (on Tuesday), to tell us how he proposes to use the remainder of the TARP funds, support from the Federal Reserve, and other policies to turn around the financial system and pull us out of recession. We previously posed relevant technical questions for this week; answers (or lack of answers) to these should determine if Geithner’s approach is likely to succeed. Think of that as a framework for reasonable technocratic assessment. But there is also the key political dimension to emphasize.

The elites who run the US banking industry have had a great run of economic good fortune. They used this wealth to further strengthen their political power, both through donations to politicians of almost all stripes and more broadly through taking positions of formal and informal influence throughout the executive and legislative branches.

Our unsustainable debt-fuelled boom, in other words, produced both the conditions for a major global financial disaster, and a political strengthening of the people who benefited most from the risk-taking and associated compensation packages that made this disaster possible. Ending the financial crisis is relatively straightforward - a forced recapitalization and change of ownership/management in the banking system - although this will not immediately lead to an economic recovery (more on that here). But seen in deeper political terms, decisive action to restructure large banks is almost impossible. Such action would require overcoming perhaps the single strongest interest group in the United States today.

How can you do it? The answer must be by splitting this powerful interest group into competing factions, and taking them on one by one. Can this be done? Definitely, yes. In particular, bank recapitalization - if implemented right - can use private equity interests against the powerful large bank insiders. Then you need to force the new private equity owners of banks to break them up so they are no longer too big to fail. And then… there is always more to do to contain the power of a lobby that is boosted by any boom and which, the more it succeeds, the more likely it is to ruin us all.

From The Baseline Scenario: http://baselinescenario.com/2009/02/08/high-noon-geithner-v-the-american-oligarchs/

Paul Jay challenges The Nation Editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel on not being critical enough of Obama and his foreign policy.

Obama and Liberals: A Counter-Productive Relationship

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon.

There's a lot of harm that comes from a political faction being beholden to a leader rather than to any actual ideas or political principles.

The New Republic's John Judis today has an excellent analysis of the politics behind the stimulus package -- one which applies equally to most other political controversies. Judis argues that the stimulus package ended up being far inferior to what it could have been and points to this reason why that happened:

But I think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama's pocket. . . .

A member of one liberal group, Campaign for America's Future, pronounced the stimulus bill "a darn good first step." MoveOn -- as far as I can tell -- has attacked conservative Republicans for opposing the bill, while lamely urging Democrats to back it. Of course, all these groups may have thought the stimulus bill and the bailout were ideal, but I doubt it. I bet they had the same criticisms of these measures that Krugman or The American Prospect's Ezra Klein or my own colleagues had, but they made the mistake that political groups often make: subordinating their concern about issues to their support for the party and its leading politician.

By extremely stark contrast, Paul Krugman today explains why Republicans are so unified in their opposition to this bill and their willingness to uphold the principles of their supporters:
One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years. But it's now clear that the party's commitment to deep voodoo - enforced, in part, by pressure groups that stand ready to run primary challengers against heretics - is as strong as ever.

[Though I agree with Krugman's principal point here, I dislike his use of the word "heretics" here. It invokes one of the worst myths in our political discourse: the idea that there's something wrong, intolerant or "Stalinist" about pressuring or even campaigning against incumbents "from one's own party" who advocate positions that you think are bad and wrong. That activity happens to be the essence of democracy, and we need more, not less, of it. If anything is Stalinist, it's the sky-high incumbent re-election rates and the sense of entitlement in our political class that incumbents should not ever face primary challenges even if they support policies which the base of the party reviles. Why shouldn't GOP voters who love tax cuts and hate government domestic spending, regardless of whether they're right or wrong, demand that their elected representatives support those views (in exactly the same way that Democratic incumbents who supported the Iraq war and/or Bush's lawless surveillance state should have been targeted for defeat)?]

But Krugman's larger point is correct: Republican groups demand from politicians support for their beliefs. By contrast, as Judis describes, Democratic groups -- including (perhaps especially) liberal activist groups -- now (with some exceptions) lend their allegiance to the party and its leader regardless of how faithful the party leadership is to their beliefs. That disparity means that there is often great popular agitation and political pressure exerted from the Right, but almost none from the Left (I'm using the terms "Left" and "Right" here in their conventional sense: "Right" being the core of the GOP and "Left" being those who most consistently and vigorously opposed Bush's foreign and domestic policies).

Read the rest at Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126867/obama_and_liberals%3A_a_counter-productive_relationship/

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Justice Yeldham and Toecutter Hit Wellington

Two of Sydney’s most experimental and ferocious musicians - Justice Yeldham and the Dynamic Ribbon Device and Toecutter – are about to grace our shores culminating in a performance this Thursday, February 5 at Happy in Wellington. The night will also be an opportunity to catch a final gig by The Stumps before Antony Milton takes off for South America.



Formerly a turntablist – "in the loosest sense" -Justice Yeldham, aka Lucas Abela, is known world wide for his miced-up performances of triangular sheets of glass - wired to a super utility belt of effects pedals - which he plays with his mouth, hyperventilating and getting some of the freakiest industrial sounds you’ll hear in modern music, which, despite their nightmarish variety, Yeldham plays with practiced precision. Performances are intensely physical or ‘neo-brutalist’ and not for the faint-hearted.



Also a wayward turntablist, Toecutter joins Yeldham in his first trip to New Zealand. A veteran of the Sydney underground, Toecutter splices together unpredictable and hyperactive dance music as a euphoric yet oddball foil to the bloody savagery of Yeldham. Also playing will be Public Toilet, DJ Powerfull and The Lost Weekend. Installation by Tao.

"Fuck Hope!" - George Carlin



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Obama, King and Kennedy: Empire and the “End” of Racism
An interview with Juan Santos

“King spoke Truth to Power, while Obama spoke Lies to get in Power.

One might say that other than that, and other than the fact that King stood up to end Black people’s suffering while Obama stood silent in the face of it, they’re just alike.”

Juan Santos is a member of the Aztlan Mexica Nation Harmony Keepers/American Indian Movement, and author of the essays Barack Obama and the “End” of Racism, and Obama's Denial: The Fear of a Black Messiah.

Andrea Luchetta interviewed him for a feature piece on Obama’s inauguration for the Italian daily Il Manifesto. The following is the full text of that interview.
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Luchetta: I‘ve interviewed Ms. Makeeba Lloyd, of the "Harlem4Obama Commitee". According to her, racism is nowadays a minor problem. The main conflict, for her, is of a class nature, rather than racial in nature. The social dividing line, she says, is now between the rich and the poor, not between the white and the black. What do you think of this position?

Santos: This is nonsense, Lloyd’s claim is in line with Barack Obama’s utterly false claim that peoples of color are “90% of the way to equality” with whites in the US.

Ms. Lloyd is wrong. The poverty line is a race line. Race determines who is poor and who is not. Roughly a quarter of black and brown people in the US live in poverty, while less than 1/10th of Euro-Americans live in poverty. A black person in the US is 3 times more likely to be poor than a white person.

That’s 90% of the way to “equality”?

No. The very best thing I can say about the idea that peoples of color are approaching equality with whites in the US is that it is an example of extremely bad math, or of people promoting an illusion in hopes that it will come true.

Black unemployment in the US is currently at 11.1% - almost double the average for white people, whose rate of unemployment is 5.9%. Among the general population, - by which I mean those outside of the reservation system that imprisons Native Americans on the remnants of their lands - Blacks have the highest rate of unemployment in the US, followed by Latinos, at 8.8%. Among Black youth unemployment reaches a stunning 32.3 %. From 1976 through today, a new study shows, Latino unemployment rates typically exceeded that of the white population by some 65%. The absolute rate of unemployment for Native Americans on the reservations is, however, roughly SEVENTY PER CENT.

50% of Native American reservation homes have no phones and 1/5 of the homes lack complete kitchen facilities.

It might be interesting to show these figures to Ms. Lloyd to see if, reading them, she is still willing to claim a distinction between a race divide and a class divide in the US.

But economics is by no means the only measure of equality.

Race also determines who is imprisoned and who is not.

Black people in the US are 8.5 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned.

On any given day 1 in 9 young Black men are in prison.

Latinos are 4 times more likely to go to prison than white people.

68% of all U.S. prisoners are people of color, although Black, Latinos and officially recognized Native Americans together make up slightly less than 25% of the overall population of the U.S.

The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. It is a system of mass imprisonment aimed at the control of people of color, who, the elites fear, have the potential to violently and politically rebel again as they did in the 1960s. People in other parts of the world simply cannot begin to imagine the conditions that exist here; the US holds 25% of the world’s prisoners – a Gulag comprised mostly of prisoners from the minority populations of African and Native American descent – Blacks and Latinos.

This is no “minor problem,” contrary to what Ms. Lloyd suggests. It is a form of mass social control of potentially dissident and rebellious populations based on race and class status. Ms. Lloyd has missed the point entirely.

It’s not a matter of race versus class – race and class are in many ways one thing here in the US.
Usually that kind of system is called a caste system. Despite a few exceptions, like Obama himself, that’s exactly what exists in the US: a caste system.

What the white ruling class did here was this: following the mass rebellions and the burning of major US cities in the 1960s, the white ruling class decided on a strategy of divide and conquer. They created a Black middle class almost overnight, largely using government employment to do so, while at the same time they found another way to deal with the millions of people of color who could not fit into the system; mass imprisonment. These developments are 2 sides of the same coin. Ms. Lloyd’s failure to see this is why she can make the kind of mistakes of analysis she’s making.

Interview continues at The Fourth World: http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-king-and-kennedy-empire-and-end.html
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EUGENE CHADBOURNE at Happy

Described as a direct threat to the American way of life by the White House spokesman for president Reagan, Eugene Chadbourne now threatens our shores with his electric toilet plunger, and a mixture of improvised and folk banjo playing.

Un/Equal parts polymath, autodidact, inventor, scene-mongrelizing underground cult anti-hero and true Maverick of modern North American music, Eugene Chadbourne strikes Christchurch [and the rest of the COUNTRY!] with his eclectically singular and incendiary brand of electrified be-bop hillbilly improv.

While sharing a not-too-dissimilar profile to that of now-popular compatriot Daniel Johnston, Chadbourne has infiltrated contemporary rock music more as a true polemicist than a mere eccentric, a familiar icon of momentous experimentation, particularly in the New York 'loft scene' of the 1970s and beyond, where he has appeared alongside luminaries such as John Zorn, Bob Ostertag, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford, Henry Kaiser and Cellist Tom Cora.

With well-known producer and grunge guru Mark Kramer, Chadbourne later founded Shockabilly, who, after releases on Rough Trade and New York's Knitting Factory, were deemed the East Coast reply to The Residents.

Chadbourne has also appeared alongside Elliot Sharp, Violent Femmes and Sun City Girls on a CD called Jesse Helms Busted for Pornography, which shows where his humorous political targets lie. A top official in Ronald Reagan's administration once referred to Chadbourne as 'the biggest threat to the American way of life' and his G.O.I.N. (Get Out of Iraq Now) Band has
eloquently and satirically told the more recent administration where to go.

Mixed up with his raconteur wizardry, it will be a persuasive combustion. As Pumice put it recently, "Chadbourne issues forth scrambled LSD & whiskey country & western, free range plink plonk Ayler tunes on the banjo that went on uncomfortably long, fierce rake racket. He's totally fearless, reckless, and squirmy. I'll be there."

EUGENE CHADBOURNE (!)Thurs January 22, 2009HAPPY$10with Sign of the Hag, Basketcase and Manimanima! EUGENE CHADBOURNE (!)Fri January 23, 2009Happy$10with Secretaries on Standby and the BAD BLUES BAND

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SHAVE AN ARTIST

3rd FEBRUARY 2009

BACKGROUND TO THE EVENT: A number of months ago I was suddenly inspired to shave my long hair off to raise money for the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation of New Zealand as part of www.shaveforacure.co.nz. As a full-time painter, I felt that putting a Visual Arts twist on this shave event would make it of greater personal significance, would attract a wider audience, and would raise even more money. I immediately contacted Sophia Elise, the extraordinarily hard-working manager of the New Zealand Art Guild, in the hopes that she would come on board. Fortune smiled on us! Now together with the help of the Bruce Mason Centre and the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation, we are putting on an exciting, creative event, which will help support New Zealand cancer sufferers and their families.

“SHAVE AN ARTIST” EVENT DESCRIPTION: Tuesday 3rd February 2009, Artists from all over Aotearoa will shave their heads to raise money and help support the 6 New Zealand children and adults who are diagnosed with blood cancers like leukaemia and lymphoma every day. The Leukaemia & Blood Foundation provides essential support for those patients and their families - support that can last months, even years.

Top New Zealand Artists have donated 13 artworks, which will be auctioned off at this one-of-a-kind charity event. The audience will watch while 13 artists and friends have their heads shaved alongside their artworks being auctioned.

North Shore City Mayor Andrew Williams will open this shave/auction evening. The event will also launch a month long exhibition at the Bruce Mason Centre consisting of artworks depicting "LIFE" in all its facets by 41 talented artists from around Aotearoa.

100% of the proceeds from the art auction and head shaves will be donated to the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation. 20% of all artwork sales from the month long exhibition will be donated also.

CALL FOR SUPPORT:
Support our shavees by sponsoring them at www.shaveforacure.co.nz keyword “Shave an Artist”.

Come to the opening night and support these brave, generous people in person 3rd February 2009, 6:30pm at the Bruce Mason Centre, Cnr Promenade and Hurstmere Rd, Takapuna Beach, North Shore City, Auckland. Entry is free - All welcome.



Buy an Artwork at the LIFE Exhibition 3rd - 28th February 2009. Open Mon - Fri - 9am - 5pm and Sat 10am - 4pm. Bruce Mason Centre, Cnr Promenade and Hurstmere Rd, Takapuna Beach, North Shore City, Auckland

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Who and what is Hamas?


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The History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Real Estate War in Gaza http://www.counterpunch.com/buch01062009.html

By VICTORIA BUCH

I arrived in Israel 40 years ago. It took me many years to understand that the very existence of my country, as it is today, is based on an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The project started many years ago. Its seed can be traced to the basic fallacy of the Zionist movement, which set out to establish a Jewish-national state in a location already inhabited by another nation. Under these conditions, one has, at most, a moral right to strive for a bi-national state; establishing a national state implies, more or less by definition, ethnic cleansing of the previous inhabitants.

Albert Einstein grasped this fallacy a long time ago. A short time after WWI "Einstein complained that the Zionists were not doing enough to reach agreement with the Palestinian Arabs…He favored a binational solution in Palestine and warned Chaim Weizmann against `Prussian style` nationalism"[1]

But such warnings passed un-heeded by the Zionist movement. So here we are, nearly a century later, with a Jewish national state dominated by militaristic and militant nationalists, who diligently pursue colonization and "judaization" of the land under Israeli control, on both sides of the Green Line (1967 border). The project has been pursued continuously and relentlessly under the different Israeli governments, recently under the cover of bogus "negotiations" with President Abbas. Most of the Israeli institutions participate in it. Young Israelis, generation after generation, join the army to provide the military cover. The young folks have been brain-washed to honestly believe that the army pursues Israel 's "fight for existence". However it seems evident to the author of this article, as to many others, that the survival of the Jewish community in this country depends on establishing viable mechanisms of coexistence with the Palestinians. Thus, under the slogan of "fight for existence", the State of Israel is pursuing an essentially suicidal project.

This long-standing outlook of the Israeli governing classes was summarized succinctly in a recent book `Palestine Inside Out` by Saree Makdisi, an American academic. His book "suggests that occupation is merely a feature of an ongoing Israeli policy of slow transfer of the native Palestinian population from their lands. This policy predates the founding of the state, and all of the various practices of the occupier: illegal settlement, land confiscation, home demolition and so on, serve this ultimate purpose."[2]

If you do not believe the above assessment, consider several statements by David Ben Gurion himself, from the time before the establishment of the State of Israel (Ben Gurion was the leader of the Zionist movement before 1948 and the first Israeli Prime Minister after 1948):

"The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples…We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty, this is national consolidation in a free homeland." [3]

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]…I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it."[3]

During the 1948 war, about two-thirds of the Palestinians who would become refugees were in fact expelled from their homes by the nascent Israeli army, and one-third became refugees while escaping the dangers of war. All these people, 0.75-1 million of them, were prevented from returning to Israel after the armistice agreement, while their homes and property were demolished or appropriated by the State of Israel.

Among the common mantras provided to the Israelis to justify the above is the following: " Israel accepted the UN partition plan, and Arabs did not, so what happened afterwards is their own fault". What is conveniently overlooked is that Palestinian Arabs constituted between one third and one half of the population of that designated Jewish homeland (according to various UN reports). Why should these people, whose ancestors lived there for generations, accept living in somebody else's designated homeland? Imagine, for example, the reaction of French Belgians if their country were designated as a "Flemish homeland" by the UN.

But the main mantra drummed into the conscience of an Israeli citizen from kindergarten, is that in 1948 "it was either them or us", "Arabs would have thrown us into the sea if we did not establish a Jewish majority state with a strong army", etc. I have my doubts about that line, too, but let us suppose for the moment that in fact, it was so. And then came the year 1967, and the Six Day War. Another chapter in the Israeli "fight for existence" against recalcitrant Arabs who just keep trying to throw us into the sea. On the face of it, that is how it seemed. I together with most of my compatriots believed for years that 1967 was in fact a moment of existential danger for Israel . Until I stumbled upon some telling quotes, uttered by our very own leaders [4]:

"(a) The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Menachem Begin`s (1977 - 83) August, 1982 speech saying: `In June, 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that (President Gamal Abdel) Nasser (1956 - 70) was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.`

(b) Two-time Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1974 - 77 and 1992 - 95) told French newspaper Le Monde in February, 1968: `I do not believe Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel . He knew it and we knew it.`

(c) General Mordechai Hod, Commander of the Israeli Air Force during the Six-Day War said in 1978: `Sixteen years of planning had gone into those initial eighty minutes. We lived with the plan, we slept on the plan, we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it.`

(d) General Haim Barlev, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief told Ma`ariv in April 1972: `We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such a possibility.`"

So: instead of "thwarting an existential danger", in 1967 the State of Israel carried out an effective military operation to acquire some real estate. There is nothing new about that "existential danger" propaganda. Acquisition of real estate by conquest has been already called pleasing names by various other conquerors and occupiers, throughout the old and new history: such as "manifest destiny", "white man's burden", "spreading true religion / culture / democracy", whatnot.

The reader may like to know that the 1967 real estate acquisition by the State of Israel was anticipated some twenty years earlier by Ben-Gurion, at the time of the partition plan (which was supposedly accepted by the Zionist leadership). See the following quotes of Ben-Gurion, which can be found in the book by an Israeli historian[5]:

"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do not see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitutes one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy".
"After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine ".

I wonder if at any point in history there was any association of people who acquired goodies by brute force, and who viewed themselves candidly as such. Times and again, conquerors considered themselves unwilling victims of circumstances, and the barbarians (their own victims!) against whom they have to regretfully protect their rights. Consider the following pronouncements of Benny Morris, a historian who documented the 1948 ethnic cleansing. In a 2004 interview with Morris which was published in Haaretz one reads[6]:

Q: The title of the book you are now publishing in Hebrew is "Victims." In the end, then, your argument is that of the two victims of this conflict, we [Israelis] are the bigger one.
Morris: "Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us.
The above opinion is representative of the Israeli mainstream. It has been raised to the status of axiom over the years, and no reasonable peace offers (such as the latest Saudi one) are likely to put a dent in it. Israelis are using this slogan to exempt themselves from normal human decency towards Palestinians. Most Israeli Jews have convinced themselves that they have a moral right to expropriate and expel Palestinians because Palestinians are such barbarians, who did not respond to Israel 's"generous peace offers" and "only wanted to throw us to the sea". Because we are a nation of Holocaust survivors. My compatriots imagined themselves starring in a modern version of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" - starring as beautiful elves, of course, who were forced by sad fate to fight ugly goblins the Palestinians (goblins = "terrorists"). Human mercy does not apply to "terrorists". You do not make territorial compromises or peace agreements with "terrorists".

The above explains the mass participation of otherwise normal and more-or-less decent Israelis in the ongoing ethnic-cleansing projects. How else can you account for a dying elderly man and his wife being dragged out of their east Jerusalem apartment to make space for Jewish settlers. Building the Jerusalem " Museum of Tolerance " on the site of an ancient Muslim graveyard. Onslaught on West Bank orphanages supported by Islamic charities. State-subsidized Jewish settler-thugs conducting pogroms against Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories . Widespread sadism practiced by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian detainees. Trashing of Palestinian homes during nightly military incursions in Palestinian towns and villages. Demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the brazen pretext of "illegal construction". Extensive land grab for settlers. And much more.[7]

The Gaza Strip is the place where the self-righteous Israeli sadism has reached new heights. The Strip is densely populated, mostly by descendants of Palestinians expelled in 1948. Well before the Second Intifada, choice Gazan real estate along the beach (about ¼ of the Strip land) was confiscated for a few thousand Jewish settlers. Still, a million and a half Gazan Palestinians had a sort of normal life (under the Israeli occupation) – growing fruits and vegetables, making construction materials and other products for Israeli markets, and working as laborers within the Green Line. Before the second Intifada, very little terror was coming from there to Israel .

However, since the beginning of the Intifada (a year and a half before the first Palestinian rocket landing across the border) the Israeli army embarked on the systematic destruction of the Strip. Incursions were carried out every few weeks and included the destruction of factories and workshops, roads, agricultural land, homes, and whatnot. Access to the Israeli economy was closed. Eventually, desperate Palestinians resorted to shooting Qassam rockets which rarely caused casualties or real damage but served as an excellent pretext for Israeli military "action".

And then Sharon carried out his brilliant propaganda move of "disengagement" from Gaza . The whole operation was marketed as a demonstration of Israeli good will. The Israeli settlements in Gaza were in fact removed, but the army was redeployed around the Strip, and the Strip was converted to a large scale prison. The economic strangulation of Gaza was tightened to a draconian extent, especially after the Hamas government suppressed the Israel-cum-USA sponsored Fatah putsch. (I am no fan of Hamas but their government was democratically elected by the Palestinians) Hamas offered several times to conduct negotiations with Israel , based on 1967 borders, but the offers were under-reported and ignored. It is likely that such negotiations would have stopped the Qassams, but Israeli leaders appeared interested in continuation of the violence. The Qassams created a great opportunity for more "poor little us" propaganda, and a great pretext to wiggle out of legitimate international requests to stop the massive colonization of the West Bank .

Finally, a truce with Hamas was negotiated. Since the beginning of the truce defense minister Barak commenced preparations for a massive attack on Gaza [8]. On November 14th the working truce with Hamas was deliberately broken on Barak's orders, by killing several Hamas fighters. A totally predictable Palestinian response ensued - cancellation of the truce and a barrage of rockets. The barrage was used by Barak as a pretext for that large-scale operation, including the slaughter of hundreds of people in Gaza with missiles deployed from airplanes. This muscle-flexing is an obvious part of Barak's and Livni's forthcoming election campaign, at the price of hundreds of Palestinian casualties, and several Israeli ones (as meanwhile Palestinians have improved their aim). In a forthcoming ground operation Israeli soldiers are also likely to pay with their lives for this form of electioneering.

Do you know what mainstream Israelis make of the above? 'We, Israelis, in an act of self-sacrifice, removed poor Jewish settlers from their "homes" in the Gaza Strip and gave Palestinians a chance for free and happy existence. But the Palestinians spurned our peace efforts and preferred instead to pursue their addiction to "throwing Jews to the sea." Gaza could have become a new Singapore , but the Gazans chose instead to shoot rockets at Israelis.'

The disengagement was thus an act of brilliance on part of that evil genius, Sharon. He provided mainstream Israelis with a sweeping moral absolution. Palestinians "disappointed" them. Now the Israeli leaders can do anything they wish to Palestinians. Do not expect a squeak of public protest from the Israeli Jewish public, except for a tiny minority of "self hating Jews" like yours truly.

Believe me, these Jewish-Israeli mainstreamers are not natural-born monsters. They just do not know any better. Alas, I used to be one of them. Then one day I stumbled, more or less by chance, into the West Bank with a group of activists. I acquired some Palestinian friends and finally understood the criminality of the treatment of the Palestinians by my country. And I learned to ignore the daily portion of preposterous propaganda which is provided to my compatriots by the media in lieu of "news". But how to convince my compatriots not to listen to this propaganda? I do not know.

Then again, it does not have to be so. In addition to four million or so stateless Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories , there are about a million Palestinians living within the Green Line and carrying Israeli citizenship. Despite the very considerable internal racism, many of these Palestinian citizens are deeply involved in Israeli society. You meet Arab doctors and nurses in Israeli hospitals, Arab students in Israeli universities etc. There is quite an element of coexistence and cooperation between Jews and Arabs there. But a mainstream Jewish-Israeli colleague who might treat his or her Arab co-worker perfectly decently would still be proud of a soldier son who is "serving the country" in the Occupied Territories . He or she would still repeat racist propaganda about the "demographic danger" to the State of Israel from its Arab citizens, and believe the bloodthirsty speeches of generals and ex-generals on the TV. And vote for any of the three major Zionist parties, Likud, Kadima and Labour, whose leaders have been dedicated ethnic cleansers over the years.

For the sake of both nations living in this country, this outrage must be stopped. It must be stopped by pressure from outside, because at present within Israel there are no significant political forces to oppose it. Please do something, my friends, and do it urgently. And kindly ignore the endless "negotiations" between our government and the powerless Palestinian Authority, they are just a cover for more ethnic cleansing. If you do not believe me, come and see the massive settlement construction in East Jerusalem and West Bank . And the walls of the Palestinian ghettos.

Victoria Buch is an Israeli academic and anti-Occupation activist.

[1] From "The Pity of It All", a book by Amos Elon on German Jews.
[2] From a review of Makdisi's book: `Palestine Inside Out`, by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, IMEU 2008.
[3] From "Righteous Victims" by Benny Morris
[4] Collected by Stephen Lendman, see http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/15348)
[5] >From The Birth of Israel : Myths and Realities,by Simha Flapan
[6] The full text of the interview can be found in the Counterpunch website
[7] *Information can be found, e.g., in the Occupation Magazine, the website of Israeli anti-Occupation activists.
[8] "Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about" By Barak Ravid, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html