Dove's Eye View

Prayers, not Blogs

I keep saying that following politics on the internet is bad for my liver. I keep saying I'm going to swear off the internet, blog less, and focus on healing.

The events of the last two days in Lebanon convince me that now is the time for the Dove to shut up. I am going to pray, for myself, my relatives, my father's compatriots, my own compatriots, the salmon run in California, the people of Palestine, Iraq and Egypt, Myanmar and Darfur. I pray for the rainforest and the oceans, the polar ice caps and the polar bears, the honey bees, the mountain snows, the wheat crop, CO2 levels and the restoration of harmony on the planet.

I have nothing more to say for the moment on the subject of Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, America, Iraq, Iran or anywhere else. May God help us all.

Today was a good day in chemotherapy. I laughed and talked with another young woman who has metastatic breast cancer, as I do. Her son is three, my two are six and eight. We have everything to live for and we intend to survive. Afterward I ate at my favorite Middle East deli, King of Falafil on Divisadero Street; the proprietress is from Ramallah and gave me some green almonds to taste; I promised her I'd get her fresh grape leaves from my secret Oakland source. Then I came home and saw the news.

Only God can heal me of what I have got, and only God or Ultimate Life Force or Universal Intelligence can heal the people of the eastern Mediterranean; only God could knock some sense into George Bush/Dick Cheney/Condi Rice. So I'm signing off and giving it all up to God. (The Great Mystery/Ultimate Unknown/The Tao/Your Favorite Big Prime Mover Term here)

Pray for me. Pray for all of us.

And don't forget to plant a food garden, use your bicycle, turn off the lights and conserve water.

Not celebrating

Regarding Israel's 60th anniversary and the Palestinian Nakba, British Jews and others write: Letters: We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary | The Guardian.

Hat tip to Philip Weiss, who is running a Nakba watch at his blog. He celebrates Lila Abu-Lughod and her book, Nakba, published last year.

As'ad Abu-Khalil alerts us to this letter to Nadine Gordimer from a professor in Gaza whose students are literally starving while reading her books.

My cold and hungry students have divided themselves into two groups, with one group adamant that you, like many of your courageous characters, will reconsider your participation in an Israeli festival that aims to celebrate the annihilation of Palestine and Palestinians. The other group believes that you have already crossed over to the side of the oppressor, negating every word you have ever written. We all wait for your next action.

All Palestinian Factions Agree to Ceasefire

From The Hindu News Update Service.

all the Palestinian militant factions have agreed to an Egypt-mediated ceasefire with Israel, "starting in the Gaza strip".

"All the Palestinian factions have agreed to the Egyptian proposal on a truce with Israel," Egyptian state news agency, MENA said citing an unnamed high level Egyptian official.

The Egyptian proposal included a "comprehensive, reciprocal and simultaneous truce, implemented in a graduated framework, starting in the Gaza Strip and then subsequently moving to the West Bank, the official said.

The BBC also gives details.

I find this stuff by checking Google News occasionally.

Turkey sending envoy to Israel for Syria talks

Colonel Patrick Lang alerts us to this development: Turkey plans to send envoy to Israel for Syria talks.

Turkey is planning to send an emissary to Jerusalem in an attempt to find a compromise that would pave the way of peace talks between Syria and Israel, as it played down the high expectations saying there is a long way to go.

Israel's Haaretz said on Monday Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan plans to send an emissary to Jerusalem to brief Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on his recent talks with Assad in Damascus. Erdogan will apparently send his foreign policy advisor Ahmet Davutoglu, who is also in charge of talks with Syria and has in the past met with Olmert adviser, Yoram Turbowicz, in Ankara, it reported.

Israeli officials believe Turkey's involvement in the issue will increase. "Erdogan has decided to go all the way on the issue of Israel and Syria," the Israeli government source told Haaretz.

The source added that Israel has not yet received an update on Erdogan's talks in Damascus. "Talks are being conducted to chart out the issue," the source said. "The goal of Turkey's activity is to allow talks to start. That's how we view it. So far, no real negotiations are taking place."

Turkey has been mediating between Syria and Israel to restart peace talks. Israel and Syria's last round of direct talks broke down in 2000 over the details of Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Golan.

Syria has said it received word from Turkey that Israel would be willing to give back the Golan in return for peace with the Arab state.

Peace can arise from any direction.

Hamas on Jimmy Carter’s Statement from Hamidi

Josh Landis at Syria Comment just published a translation of Hamas' response to the latest Carter diplomatic moves: Hamas on Jimmy Carter’s Statement from Hamidi.

Syria Comment has become a meeting place where Israelis, Syrians, Palestinians and others exchange views and information. Professor Landis, director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a long-time scholar of Syria, keeps an open forum and doesn't do much to censor or moderate the free-wheeling comments section. If you want more background, analysis, and information on the situation in the region, you need to monitor Syria Comment regularly. But if you are a regular reader at the Dove, you knew this already...

In Syrian Villages, the Language of Jesus Lives

My dad often spoke of this: In Syrian Villages, the Language of Jesus Lives - New York Times.

When he was growing up in Lebanon, my father's church still used Aramaic in the liturgy, so he knew some psalms and prayers in that language. He was very proud of his connection to that ancient world and spoke often of those villages in Syria where they still used Aramaic.

The article strikes certain sour Orientalist notes - "a vestige of an older and more diverse Middle East that existed before the arrival of Islam" - excuse me, the Middle East has continued to be diverse throughout 1300 years of Islam, so get over yourself. And the little explanation about a man named John Francis "western names are common in Syria and Lebanon." Oh please. Where do you think the names John and Francis come from anyway? Read your Bible, mister. The guy who gave you his name probably goes by Hanna Francis but he said John, the English form of Hanna, for your benefit.

Lebanon News from The New York Times

The most interesting thing about the linked page to follow is that it features that Blogrunner feed I mentioned last week. Whenever I post something with a Lebanon tag, it shows up here: Lebanon News - Breaking World Lebanon News - The New York Times.

At the moment it's showing my grandmother's bulghur and tomatoes recipe. ???

Frankly, the page is quite static except for the blog feed, so I don't see the point in checking it regularly. But I'm just showing off. The NY Times Lebanon page features Dove's Eye View! Wow, all I had to do to get published regularly in the New York Times was blog for four years.

And by the way, I did indeed write this post in my pajamas and bathrobe. But I set it to publish after my bedtime, so it looks like a fresh item for April 22, when Beirut is just waking up. Good morning, Beirut!

Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor

There it is: Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor - Yahoo! News.

Former President Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

But Carter warned that there would not be peace if Israel and the U.S. continue to shut out Hamas and its main backer, Syria.

The Democratic former president relayed the message in a speech in Jerusalem after meeting last week with top Hamas leaders in Syria. It capped a nine-day visit to the Mideast aimed at breaking the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.

"They (Hamas) said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace," Carter said.

The buzz on the internet and from my cousins with Lebanese army connections: war, war, war.

Carter's visit shows that peace is always possible. No war could solve any real problem this summer. We need sane leaders to pull the bloodthirsty back from the brink.

Update: The New York Times elaborates.

Also, regarding war, war and more war, see Joshua Landis at Syria Comment. He reprints a long analysis of the prospects for war, but Josh himself states at the outset that he thinks it won't come to that. Too costly, too little benefit to anybody. My hopeful self believes that cooler heads will prevail.

Who's playing?

A dust-up in the press: corporations and a few leading Jewish groups are SHOCKED over Mr. Mosley's possibly Nazi-scented S&M sex play. Toyota, Daimler Benz, various Jewish groups are all issuing condemnations and asking that he resign his job in racing.

You see, Mosley used a German accent during consensual, paid role-play in which he whipped a woman; then let some more women dressed in black and white stripes whip him. Therefore hinting of Auschwitz. Everybody is so horrified that he might have play-acted the Holocaust in what he thought was a private sexual act. (one of the women had a hidden camera in her bra). The black-and-white miniskirt outfits might imply prison camp...and his father was a British Fascist and notorious friend of Hitler.

Meanwhile the Israelis have put up a giant walled ghetto and are starving the inhabitants; rounding people up and expelling them; celebrating the sixty-year anniversary of a mass expulsion with massacres; etc. (draw your favorite Nazi tactic here) and is Toyota complaining? The World Jewish Congress? Anybody? I guess play-acting a Nazi is horrible, but really doing what Nazis did is okay - if you're Israeli.

Yes, yes, I know that Israelis have not sent anybody to gas chambers, and when they committed mass expulsions they did not put people on cattle cars or build work camps for them; nor have the Israelis killed six million Arabs. (Not quite a hundred fifty thousand dead Arabs by now, if you include Israel's wars on Lebanon. And of course a hundred fifty thousand dead Arabs don't matter to anybody but their relatives and countrymen).

If you don't see the similarity between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto, then you are trying not to look. I think the Israelis are acting out their own trauma unconsciously upon the Other, stimulating all kinds of murderous response, which they use as an excuse to continue killing and oppressing the people under their control.

Hotheaded replies will tend to one of several positions: 1) it's not so bad what the Israelis are doing; 2) Arabs deserve it anyway; 3) Israel is justified because she's under so much stress/threat or 4) you are anti-Semitic for talking about this.

What's the highest spiritual truth about this? We all need to forgive each other and quit hurting each other. Pretty simple.

Arab-Jewish Peace Actions

American Goy is surprised to hear of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, which I blogged in February 2004. I thought I'd review the last four years of this blog for other joint Arab-Jewish efforts:

Philip Weis reported on this Palestinian-Jewish protest at Gaza, 2008.

Palestinian-Jewish peace camp held yearly in California - one of several such camps around the nation.

September 2007: Islamic Society of North America Welcomes Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue.

The Sulha Peace Project (YouTube video) in Israel. Sulha is a traditional Arab mediation technique.

Jewish Voice for Peace sends a medical delegation to Palestine to work with partner groups including The Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

Jewish Voice for Peace's Olive Harvest Delegation goes to Palestine to help harvest olives with Palestinians under attack by violent Israeli settlers.

Some words from a Jewish teacher revered by Christians and Muslims alike.

IDF soldiers and Palestinian fighters form Combatants for Peace.

A Palestinian and Israeli, both professors, teach a joint history class in which they show each party's narrative side-by-side.

Palestinian teacher of Holocaust history.

List of projects for coexistence and Palestinian-Jewish peace from Answers.com. I know I have blogged a lot of these groups... where are my old posts? Neve Shalom, Givat Haviva. Heck, my parents went to a fundraiser for Givat Haviva back in the late 1980s, when Camryn Manheim's uncle, the late Bill Nuchow, invited them to NY for the shindig. The Answers.com list also includes peace initiatives put out by both sides.

Mayors make peace in Jerusalem - 50 from Israel and Palestine.

Two cool projects for writers and artists.

There's more - I've only gone back to 2005 and there's another year's worth of posts to sift.

American Goy, are you happy?