The return of Tom Friedman

Tom Friedman is back in the Middle East, not in person but none-the-less he’s here. From time to time he takes time out from writing about globalization, climate change and closer to home topics in order to return to his old haunts. In the early 1980's Friedman reported for UP and the New York Times from Beirut and from 1984 till 1988 he lived in Jerusalem when he was a NYT correspondent. He has a strong affinity to this region, is familiar with its politics, struggles, hopes, delusions and has also hobnobbed with its kings, presidents and prime ministers.

I'm not sure what caused Friedman to leave oil spills, alternative energy sources and the US economy and turn his attention to our festering problems.

By his own admission he was motivated by a documentary directed by Israel’s Channel 10 news reporter Shlomi Eldar, a film titled "Precious Life."

Eldar is a sincere and professional journalist. His fluent Arabic and amicable manner have enabled him to maintain and use many working contacts in both the West Bank and Gaza. Tom Friedman recounts how Eldar heard about

Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a 4-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from a rare immune deficiency. I know we receive similar pleas in our ‘Inbox’ all the time. They ask for money or blood of a rare type. So why was Eldar moved by this particular case? Maybe it was a gut instinct that told him it had the makings of a good story. I want to believe that Eldar's proven integrity took precedence over all other considerations.

I'm sure he was truly moved by the baby’s plight. With the help of contacts and connections Eldar helped Mohammed and his mother get permission to go from Gaza to Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel for lifesaving bone-marrow treatment. The operation cost $55,000, a sum the baby's family couldn't possibly afford.

At that critical stage Shlomi Eldar put out an appeal on Israel TV and within hours an Israeli Jew whose own son was killed during military service donated all the money required for the treatment.

It seems that’s when Eldar decided to document the story of the medical procedure from the human interest/humanitarian aspect.

However the documentary took a dramatic turn, , when the baby's mother, Raida, who was being disparaged by people in Gaza for having her son treated in Israel, blurted out that she hoped Mohammed would grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem.

I'll pick up the story as Friedman relays it in Raida's words: "From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”

“Then why are you fighting to save your son’s life, if you say that death is a usual thing for your people?” asks Eldar, in one of the most dramatic moments in the film.

“It’s a normal thing,” she says, smiling. “Life is not precious. Life is precious, but not for us. For us, life is nothing, not worth a thing. That is why we have so many suicide bombers. They are not afraid of death. None of us, not even the children, are afraid of death. It is natural for us. After Mohammed gets well, I will definitely want him to be a shahid [martyr]. If it’s for Jerusalem, then there’s no problem. For you it is hard, I know; with us, there are cries of rejoicing and happiness when someone falls as a shahid. For us a shahid is a tremendous thing.”

Eldar was devastated by her declaration, so much so that he stopped making the film.

At this juncture it's important to stress that Eldar was making a documentary not a propaganda film. The drama of the Palestinian boy’s recovery at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for the barrages of Qassam rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza. Occasionally these retaliations incurred collateral damage,” namely, civilian casualties.

Friedman finely points the juxtaposition of the story. Dr. Raz Somech, the specialist who treated Mohammed as if he were his own child, was called up for reserve duty in Gaza in the middle of the film. “The race by Israelis and Palestinians to save one life is embedded in the larger routine of the two communities grinding each other up.”

“It’s clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified — no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets — but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side,” Eldar told Haaretz. “Because we were so angry at Hamas, all the Israeli public wanted was to screw Gaza. ... It wasn’t until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish — the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear — that I discovered the Israeli silent majority that has compassion for people, including Palestinians. I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings.” So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed’s life was saved in Israel.

At this point Shlomi Eldar exits and Tom Friedman returns to explain why he is writing about us again. “I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. I’m not here to defend Israel’s bad behavior. Just the opposite, I’ve long argued that Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy. I don’t think Israel’s friends can make that point often enough or loud enough. “

Friedman knows that Israelis have had their fill of critics and admonishers. Instead he tries a constructive approach, “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.” Some may but I fear the people who are firmly entrenched mentally and territorially won’t spare him the time of day.

Rightly so Friedman criticises some of the critics too.

“Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context that could explain your behavior, and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others. Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison, without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided — after Israel unilaterally left Gaza — to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran, Israel would have behaved differently, too. Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters, so why change?”

Turning Israel into a pariah state is being accomplished in part by repeated attempts made by the United Nations to investigate Operation Cast Lead and the boarding of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara.

I have already referred to the Giora Eiland commission of inquiry that investigated the boarding of Mavi Marmara and its findings.

Now Turkey has announced that it too is setting up its own Gaza flotilla inquiry. The Turkish probe will work under the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and present its findings to the United Nations, apparently to the UN inquiry also investigating the boarding of Mavi Marmara.

Early this month, Israel agreed to participate in the UN probe, as well as setting up its own investigation, “The Turkel Committee” which this week heard testimony from the Israeli prime minister, defense minister and army chief of staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi.

The Turkel Committee is led by Israeli retired Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel. The two other members of the panel are professor of international law Shabtai Rosenne, and former President of the Technion and military expert Amos Horev . The probe will be overseen by two International observers: Northern Irish former First Minister William David Trimble and Canadian former military judge Ken Watkin.

Hayyim Weizmann, Israel’s first president once complained we are a nation of experts. By the same token he could have added that we are also a nation of critics.

Criticism of the Turkel Committee has been on one of three levels: 1) Why a committee at all 2) Why a committee with no teeth. 3) The advanced age of the three Israeli members (average age, 85)

According to the BBC and Der Spiegel, both observers sitting on the committee are seen as friends of Israel. The foreign observers will take part in hearings and discussions, but not vote on the proceedings or the final conclusions. Judge Jacob Turkel has informed the two foreign observers that they will be allowed to question witnesses freely during the hearings and examine any material they wish, but they may be denied access to documents or information if it was "almost certain to cause substantial harm to national security or to the state's foreign relations.

In the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla raid , Israel rejected calls from the United Nations and governments all around the world for an independent investigation of the events, instead it set up two of its own probes – the Eiland Commission that investigated the military aspects of the boarding of the Turkish ship and the Turkel Committee which convened this week.

Judge Turkel’s committee will look into the legality of the Israeli blockade and the legality of the Israeli navy's actions during the raid, and will determine whether investigations of claims of war crimes and breaches of international law conform to Western standards. It will also look into the Turkish position, and the actions taken by the flotilla's organisers, especially the IHH, and will examine the identities and intentions of the flotilla's participants.

As long as the many free Gaza flotillas are still floating I might as well mention another flotilla that won’t get wet. This one is prepared to come all the way from New Zealand in an effort to break the “Gaza siege.” Their six member team plans to take an overland route ( from London). I received the hyperlink to their website from a friend in New Zealand. Unfortunately the link doesn’t open.

www.kiaoragaza.net

Nevertheless if you persevere and cut and paste the URL you should be able to access the site. Skip the drivel at the beginning and scroll down to the article by Gwen Whitmore. I once knew Gwen. In fact she briefly mentions me in her piece.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah took a page from Joseph Goebbels

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Last week he claimed,” We have evidence linking Israel to the Hariri assassination!”

Just ahead of reports that the UN tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri intends to indict members of the Hezbollah.

Lebanese member of parliament Nadim Gemayel said "Nasrallah's arguments are not reliable, they are simply political accusations based neither on legal bases nor conclusive evidence".

However, the Lebanese newspaper as-Safir reported that Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri had called for a serious investigation into Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's claimsof Israeli responsibility for the assassination of his father. I don’t know if Hariri junior would sell his own mother but he has certainly sold his dad.

Have a good weekend

Beni 12^th of August, 2010.