In Arabia, there was a period of time called “the Days of Ignorance”. At that time (about 1450 years ago), people used to support their tribesmen even if they were wrong. You can call this a bias to the race or color … etc. In those days people used poem as a media propaganda to ruin the reputation of their enemies. It did not matter who is right or wrong. What mattered was to win at all costs. Wars used to last for decades just because someone from tribe A killed a horse that belonged to tribe B. Things escalated through media and lack of wisdom from heads of tribes and revenge became the master of the situation.

The world system now reminds me of those days of ignorance, even though we have far more technological advances and we appear to be more educated. Somehow part of being human is to be biased to something. The challenge and bravery is really to be biased toward high moral standards.

My dear network of intellectuals, as war emerges and intensifies (especially the ones you may contribute to on media outlets, social media included), it maybe challenging to get to the bottom of things and know truth and filter lies. It is challenging given the amount of information on media outlets to process things. It is even more challenging when you have friends from both sides of the conflict.

My suggestions to navigate this successfully is to:

1. choose your resources of information carefully. Academicians and historians are your friends. Mass media is your enemy.

2. Bias to your network does not help, try to challenge that and question their narrative.

3. Put yourself on other side shoes and check how you would feel

4. Ensure your North Star is high moral standards

After you do your homework, spread the word with wisdom. Maybe you can change the perception of one person towards truth. That is a win! Maybe you can use what you learned to take an action in next elections.

I admire many brave people who challenged their own society in a hope for change. There are enough resources (books and lectures by historians and academicians) in previous posts to know about the Palestinians-Israelis conflict.

By promoting truth and exposing lies we will be doing a favor to both of them and to ourselves. We will be also saving lives.

Link to previous posts:

https://ashmouny.com/tag/free_palestine/

I feel optimistic still. Part of that is my recent learning about the uprising of the American Jewish community to promote peace. I have learned about historians, organizations and academicians in both the US and Israel that recognize the problem in Palestine transparently and already translating this into action!

Israelism is an excellent documentary to watch and it emphasizes some of the items I raised in previous posts. The documentary gives me hope for peace.

“The story comes from two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs: Eitan joins the Israeli military, while Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield’, America’s college campuses. But when they witness Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.”

trailer

https://youtu.be/wnla4Qg18gI?si=ZBWva4TlwGm6cW0Y

Available to watch on demand (it is an eye opener and must watch in my opinion)

https://kinema.com/events/israelism-hvun7b

Similarly, attending a virtual event yesterday by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) gave me hope. They are so active to the extent that they were teaching kind methods to talk to your Jewish family and friends about Israel. There are also other organizations like “if not now” movement. There are also multiple organizations in Israel calling to end the apartheid.

I also recognize that the more Israeli regime exercise violence against Palestinians, the more antisemitism grows. To my surprise, antisemitism emerges in the US mainly from white supremacists! But that will be another article/research worth looking into and how it is connected to the practices of Israeli regime.

Hope things go well for everyone and we are all guided to the straight path.

It is clear that Israel’s regime goal is to make Gaza uninhabitable so Palestinians will be discouraged to rebuild what Israelis have destroyed.

This is the only explanation to the statements and actions from Israel:

A. Destruction of infrastructure, especially hospitals.

B. Destruction of homes region by region. First they claim their intelligence knew that Hamas is in the north of Gaza and asked civilians to move south then when they finished the North they stated that Hamas is in the south and started to destroy the south.

C. The constant effort to convince Egypt to host the people of Gaza.

D. In the West Bank (there is no Hamas but the Palestinian authorities) they are helping settlers to kick Palestinians out of their homes. Their ministers refused to call them settlers because they think the Great Israel is their Biblical right.

The funny and painful thing is that they started brainwashing of their kids by releasing a song in one of their TV channels that includes:

“Planes are bombing, ruin follows ruin.
See the IDF crossing the borderline
To annihilate the Swastika carriers.
In one more year
There won’t be anything left there,
And we’ll return safely to our home.
In one more year
We’ll eliminate them all and go back to plowing our fields.”

After many reports about this song they took it down, but you still can search about this song through the internet.

Creating the great Israel has been the plan all along. You can do a simple research or read books by Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe and many others to learn about the myths being promoted in Israel’s education system to keep their people continue to humiliate Palestinians and envision them as human animals. You can also see why they won’t accept a two state solution no matter how hard the world push them.

But are they going to succeed? I believe that depends on multiple factors. Some of them:

Would the leftest in Israel create a balance for the sake of human rights?

Are neighbors like Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia going to continue being silent?

Would the Islamic countries do something?

Would intellectuals around the globe (including Israel) play their role sincerely and consistently?

And finally, would the US and Europe continue to be one sided?

My guess is that Israel will dig a graveyard for Palestinians and succeed to take over Gaza and West Bank and create the dream of their current regime about the great Israel. Consequently, this means they have also dug another graveyard and ruined the peace with more wars to come.

I hope I am wrong.

Resources:

Col. Douglas Macgregor: Forecasting Global Security: The Israel Question and WWIII

Jeffrey Sachs Testimony at the UN Security Council meeting, 11/20/2030

https://youtu.be/wm4qLWc_Co0?si=87oZBoXdMBc-Ne-c

Ten Myths about Israel, by Ilan Pappe (image)

It is dangerous for the US to enslave its foreign policies to what the lobby wants.

It is dangerous for Israel to keep being pushed to the ruling of rightists.

It is going only to get worse for both!

As you read the previous two parts, you should realize the disconnect we have from the corruption and crimes our governments are committing while preaching about noble values. The ultimate hypocrisy. This is why I cannot stress more the role of intellectuals in exposing lies, promoting truth, abandoning propaganda and help the whole society elect officials from bottom up who really care about our developments and needs. If you look at the US, it wouldn’t take much reflection to realize the amount of insanity and hypocrisy, but here are couple of points:

1. How come our president still supports lies that got exposed multiple times about the vicious crimes Israel is committing in Gaza and West Bank? Regardless how many countries in the UN voting against Israel and towards ceasefire, US use Vito to suppress them.

1. how come the only choice we have of people to be elected for presidency are those above 75 years old? Does this really make sense for the most developed country on earth. Compare this with the energetic leaders of successful US corporates.
2. How come you walk in the downtown of San Francisco and Los Angeles and you see the amount of homelessness. You just walk in one of those cities to realize from the smell the disaster about drugs and people’s life. Why our tax money are not used to help US people out of their misery?!

You can reflect over and over, but at some point we need to help raise awareness and participate in electing people differently. We need to think about our representation differently and make sure that we at least play our role instead of being very passive and just focus on the limited scope of our own careers.

Unfortunately I don’t see a short-term solution in the horizon given the mutual arrogance of both US/Israel government and the amount of lobbying that will bring both to hell if we don’t wake up and support justice and insist to get our knowledge from academicians and historian to project the future instead of submitting to our media lies.

I added some resources below, but encourage everyone to:

1) check the disaster happening in Gaza and West Bank and read the history from reliable resources

2) do not think that we are far from this tragedy. This tragedy – and how the west and US deals with it- exposes a real disease and cancer within our countries

3) Listen to other sides and check their arguments and filter facts from lies or exaggerations

4) Prioritize basic human values when making judgments. No one should accept a war where a kid gets killed every 10 minutes.

5) Do your part in civic engagement and encourage everyone to do so. Participate in peaceful protests and write letters or call your representatives.

6) Give

Resources (please check any middle East political scientist in the US)

Prof. Norman Finkelstein

https://youtu.be/te1y7ahp2LQ?si=17eJq-HgmeLIeoa9

Prof. John Mearsheimer

https://youtu.be/MuDstZvaGbE?si=OwWHApM_elyZmkHf

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

https://www.youtube.com/live/brT0RZRpBEg?si=LG4P4aJUXSTZh1Rw

Prof. Noam Chomsky

https://youtu.be/kSxAMBJor2U?si=ob-fFoh3Uv2RIoGK

Prof. Ilan Pappe

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2023/11/5/why-israel-wants-to-erase-context-and-history-in-the-war-on-gaza

Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/11/karen-kwiatkowski/a-government-of-cowards/

News Channels funded by audience

https://www.democracynow.org

Photo from:

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/18/netanyahu-liability-joe-biden-peace-impossible-israel-gaza

In part 1, I have explained the position of Gideon Levy who has been covering the occupation for decades. He emphasized that Israel is an apartheid state, and the Israel lobby in the US is causing situation to get worse both for US and Israel.

In this part, I would like to see how political science professors in elite US Universities look at this.

To the intellectuals who seek truth and expose lies, I would like to introduce prof. John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago). He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.

In his book, the Israel lobby and US foreign policy, I grabbed the following summary (I also got the book so can highlight later some important parts in depth)

“Mearsheimer and Walt describe in clear and bold terms the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. They provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East- in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict-and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest.”

Here are also couple of interesting debates/lectures by Prof. John Mearsheimer.

I suggest you start with them in order:

https://youtu.be/62FCVJycwSA?si=JfheAmmhR-loJSmZ

https://youtu.be/MxSCe5U6qyY?si=QHQ-88kHzfYFGbgR

https://youtu.be/RTksWA1I2UI?si=OiiG_6DJNOH7hSo_

https://youtu.be/k8Mgdm_6-e0?si=DMrqig0rOi8cru14

I also urge all intellectuals to dig into this topic in depth because it is not just about Palestine. The more you dig you will realize that our own foreign policy are affected in a poor way.

Please educate yourself and others, make sure you get engage in future elections across the board and question those being elected on issues that may affect the future of this country and others.

The lobby is only one angle of this issue. There are more other factors (can check previous posts)

Needless to say, you don’t need to believe all what you hear/listen to without questioning and looking into scholars’ opinion from other side. I will try to find some and check their angle. Also, let the intention of all this to be for intellectuals to use their skills to help humanity by looking into the bigger picture of political dynamics.