TRUE HEROES

I know that the people of Gaza will honour those international citizens who took part in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla May 2010, and in particular those who have lost their lives. Beneath the sorrow there will be a kind of joy that others in the world care enough to be injured or to lose their lives for them, out of love and concern for them.

You have the unreal heroes of Hollywood, but the real hero is physically helpless against evil and yet steps forward and lays his/her life on the line regardless. Jesus Christ is the epitomy of the true hero. He was oppressed both by the power of empire and by the corruption of the Jewish establishment yet courted their violence by having another vision.

Whatever the ethnicity and religion of those on the Flotilla they have all acted in a Christian way, some laying down their lives for others. The true hero is a true Christian.

There would have been those on the Flotilla who knew very well that Israel was capable of anything and yet they did not allow their sense of foreboding and vulnerability to deter them. This is true heroism. When you know that you are up against implacable power and refuse to back down you are among the best that the world can produce.

The foreign minister of a nation which is a master at provocation described the Flotilla as a provocation. The foreign minister of a nation which is supreme at manipulating public perception described the Flotilla as a publicity stunt. Yet for a mere provocation and publicity stunt this sick nation of Israel determines that at least 9 international unarmed civilians must be killed and at least 50 injured.

If this is a picture of Israeli behaviour toward the citizens of other countries only God knows how the people of Gaza manage to cope. There must be many true heroes among them.

BAROUD, RAMZY. MY FATHER WAS A FREEDOM FIGHTER: GAZA'S UNTOLD STORY

Like Abdel Bari Atwan, Ramzy Baroud was born and lived in an Israeli concentration camp in Gaza, from where with the selfless effort of his father he also has managed to breath and write about his people and the Middle East. He is editor of PalestineChronicle.com

What is plain enough for me for the first time is that the state of Israel was already well on the way to being established regardless of the holocaust. The Zionists had been intent upon this for decades while the British and others allowed the terrorism to happen. Zionism is to the Jew as Nazism is to the German. They are both race-based, hate-filled ideologies. The Palestinians were set down for catastrophe long before any holocaust in Europe.

Baroud draws a loving picture of his father and gives an understanding of Palestinian and Israeli politics. As with any society, the elite were always essentially corrupt and collaborated with the occupiers. When a real democratic election occurred in 2006, a real choice, for which Baroud's father with a sense of liberation voted for Hamas because they were decent people, the United States and Israel were incapable of any action other than vengeful and immoral blockade.

Rating: Very good.

ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA

It is heartening to find one's own insights given expression by prominent commentators one respects, but it is somewhat disconcerting to find that there are those in the establishment media who are also perfectly aware. So here in New Zealand John Campbell who normally twitters on in a most irritating fashion suddenly shows a genuine knowledge and admiration in an interview with Robert Fisk. Or some right-wing morning radio journalist switches to a real knowledge and appreciation in an interview with Dahr Jamail. They are living a double life, normally happy to espouse an antithetical establishment viewpoint.

The election of Obama was a good example which showed that members of the establishment media know the truth perfectly well. In New Zealand they decided to awake from their cowardice and begin to express hopes for necessary change in the world. Suddenly it was OK to publicly hope that the United States would be more reasonable in the world, that it would take Israel by the nose and force it to behave decently. Statements mildly critical of Israel surfaced; sympathetic items about Gaza and the Palestinians occurred. Iran or Venezuela or you name it escaped irrational villification.

However, the media establishment manoeuvres ponderously. The Gaza war crime had already occurred. It was already too late. The real nature of the new man was revealed in one telling scenario, but the media wanted to miss it. In the midst of the international crime, Obama was shown playing golf, a vision horribly reminiscent of his predecessor. He said not a word then on the subject nor thereafter.

But now the establishment media has rushed back into obedient silence and untruth. It has seen again that the truth cannot be revealed and will not be acted upon by this unsavoury new president.

A HOUSE WITH A VIEW

In 1970 we moved into our house in a street of group housing. In those days (in any days?) everyone was expected to be the same. If you did not like noisy vehicles or parties, or having your privacy invaded in any way, you were uppity and peculiar and subject to harassment. As a result we built a six foot fence and within the fence we grew small trees which blocked the environment.

Decades have passed, some have moved, others have aged and there now exists a kind of truce, even neighbourliness. We decided to replace some trees with sunshine and having removed them discovered what we had been missing all these years: a view. Or to put it more correctly a view truncated by the roof-line of the house next door below. What an imposition and an aggravation!

If this were Israel - God forbid - and I was an Israeli Jew and my neighbour a Palestinian, I could probably go to the local authorities and get something done about my lack of a full view. I know that we could trump up some story about the illegality of my neighbour's dwelling, how it does not conform to this or that. How he did not do the right thing when he moved in to it.

Now I am a reasonable man and I would be willing to compromise even though I know my neighbour would not possess the qualities necessary to appreciate my humanity. I would not require that his house be completely bulldozed - after all we are civilised people - but just that his peaked roof be sliced off and replaced with a flat one. Then everyone has to be happy; he has a house and I have an uninterrupted 180 degree view.

There is just one small added benefit in that I could save on rubbish disposal costs, for his flat roof below me would be an ideal spot for me to deposit all my rubbish.

WENDELL BERRY AND ME

I have just read some more essays by Wendell Berry (The Gift of Good Land). This extraordinary ordinary man, an academic who farms in Kentucky, grapples with the problems facing family farming and what we like to call subsistence farming elsewhere in the world. These problems are primarily caused by agribusiness and its governmental allies. Berry is concerned with agricultural and horticultural health. Ecology is long-term economics: farming and gardening based only upon economics can be short-sighted and destructive. A previous generation had fine individuals like Sir Albert Howard and Friend Sykes, leaders of a movement involving healthy farming, composting and soil associations. We have Wendell Berry.

I marvel at the fact that I enjoy reading Wendell Berry so much, a practical intelligent man who works in a way that I do not. Although I have had a persistent relation to working with the soil that is greater than the majority of people in my society it has also been a strange relation. I have done the work with enjoyment but also as if under duress. It is good work to think about other things when doing, whereas my inclination to plan and think about the soil work itself is weak. Men like Howard and Berry are philosophical toward working with the soil, whereas I shirk and try to be philosophical about other things.

Why have I been so involved with working with the soil? I remember helping my father with potatoes on his allotment. You planted them a certain way and then you dug them up and enjoyed eating them. He also grew berry bushes as well as other vegetables. Even in his day, although he belonged to an association of allotment growers, he was unusual in his application. Before him his father was an agricultural labourer before he married and had a large family and worked in a factory (although he then spent his evenings gardening), and before him my great-grandfather was an agricultural labourer.

At the age of about eleven I became employed on a local small-holding on Saturdays and during school holidays. It took only five minutes to walk from my Council house to what I experienced as countryside where this small-holding was situated. Here I worked very hard picking fruit, cleaning out the hen barn and pig styes, building the manure heap, watering the seedlings and tending to the vegetable plants (celery on frozen mornings), working in the glass-houses, sterilising soil with wood-fired steam, plucking chickens. Then close by there seemed to me to be an enormous field in which long rows of planted brassica had to be hoed in teams. This was all naturally organic. There was the camaraderie of work-mates but there was also the ability to think about other things, about the latest TV adaptation of a literary classic, and to foster my interest in literature.

Then there was New Zealand and choosing to leave university and work in Wellington parks and reserves department, tending to flowers and flower-beds in various parts of the city. Why I did this I cannot remember.

Then there was marriage and finishing university, Jacqueline and I wanting to have a garden, to compost and to grow our own vegetables, joining the local soil association and overseas research associations, subscribing to Rodale journals, visiting organic and bio-dynamic farms, meeting with other individuals, and reading, reading, reading. We kept bees and hens, which involved the whole paraphernalia of honey extraction in the kitchen, and an interest in and knowledge of the various hens. There were the truckloads of commercial compost delivered steaming on the front path, the trailer-loads of various manures - chicken, cow, horse and goat, the bales of hay or straw for mulching and the continual collection of firewood for the open fire-place in the living room. All this on a suburban section of one sixth of an acre. Jacqueline had even less previous experience but 100% motivation.

Now that we have fed our family and they have grown up physically healthy I take some pride in what Jacqueline and I have spent our time doing. We have been doing work that Wendell Berry advocates with such cogency. It is work that is becoming trendy, although often on a small and impractical scale, almost like a life-style accessory rather than a really necessary alternative life-style. It requires a certain philosophical input, lots of hard work and bears a certain spiritual fruit, regardless of the worker's personal qualities.

This way of living has felt like a compulsory training for me. It does not require the profit motive. It is no guarantee of a good or happy life, but it is perhaps legitimate to say that it has been a decent way of life.

ERASMUS. PRAISE OF FOLLY

I am going to be really childish and say that if there be any person in history I would have wished to have been in a previous life the primary candidate would have to be Erasmus. He possesses those qualities I wish I had, or more correctly which I believe are important in life. He is an independent thinker. He is a humanitarian Christian who is free of Christian institutions. He is a Christian humanist who places absolute emphasis upon the Gospels. He is respected on the European intellectual scene and has like-minded friends such as Thomas More and John Colet. He is civilised in the sense that he is moderate and middle-of-the-road, upsetting the Catholic hierarchy on the one hand and the crude Lutheran protestantism on the other. He is sharp and witty, honest and clear-sighted. The message of Christ is essentially a call for a charitable outlook and behaviour. We must act according to the spirit of the Gospels. To act according to the letter of the Law Erasmus terms Judaism.

I want to be childish again and say that if I had to choose one book to keep with me that book would be Praise of Folly. It is relevant for all times and places and circumstances where there is society. Folly makes the world go round. Sometimes it is wicked, sometimes it is charitable. A thoughtful person sees the folly that most others are subject to, but recognises also that it is very easy and disagreeable to be a wise fool. There is magnificent and justified satirical treatment of obvious targets such as rulers, politicians, lawyers, theologians and churchmen, including monks. Yet folly enables the world to go round, whereas intellectualism can be devastating.

The thinking of Erasmus is flexible and unconditioned, the language sophisticated yet clear and uncluttered. His expression is remarkably timeless, unlike other writers of his period (early 16th century). Here in a short and unique satirical work of literature is the essence of how life works.

BECKETT, SAMUEL. MURPHY. WATT.

I am trying to give Beckett another go and read all his novels. As a young man I could read Patrick White even though I thought he put the reader in a coffin, leaving the lid open. But I could not read Beckett because he put you in a coffin and nailed the lid down. Now that decades have passed perhaps I am old enough to appreciate him.

Well I have read Murphy and most of Watt and I am beginning to founder. It does not appear to be a matter of the reader's age at all. Indeed for me there is something of the precocious adolescent in Beckett. (I find the same in Joyce).

There are some laugh out loud remarks in these novels and in Murphy some valuable comment upon establishment psychiatry and its practices, but what I can only describe as computer language takes over and swamps Watt.

Here is a sample taken at random: "With regard to the so important matter of Mr. Knott's physical appearance, Watt had unfortunately little or nothing to say. For one day Mr. Knott would be tall, fat, pale and dark, and the next thin, small, flushed and fair, and the next sturdy, middlesized, yellow and ginger, and the next small, fat, pale and fair, and the next middlesized, flushed, thin and ginger, and the next tall, yellow, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, middlesized, ginger and pale, and the next tall, thin, dark and flushed, and the next small, fair, sturdy and yellow, and the next tall, ginger, pale and fat, and the next thin, flushed, small and dark, and the next fair, sturdy, middlesized and yellow, and the next dark, small, fat and pale, and the next fair, middlesized, flushed and thin, and the next sturdy, ginger, tall and yellow, and the next pale, fat, middlesized and fair, and the next flushed, tall, thin and ginger, and the next yellow, small, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, flushed, ginger and tall, and the next dark, thin, yellow and small, and the next fair, pale, sturdy and middlesized, and the next dark, flushed, small and fat, etc." This is about a quarter of the sample. The infinite computations presumably involved in one person's perception of another is interesting, ho-hum.

If anyone thinks they suffer from depression, just read Beckett, and if you can read passages like this without skipping them, you are in a bad way. Just one of them may seem amusing, or clever, but this sample is one of very many, and they become overwhelmingly tiresome. If they make any point it is lost in the technique. In fact I would claim that this technique is the basic feature of Beckett's writing.

I hope to have the strength to keep reading Beckett in order to appreciate the fact that he received the Nobel prize for literature. Obviously I realise that he could be said to be giving expression to the nature of our civilization, a civilization which is in deep shit without a shovel, but strangely even a melancholic depressive like me cannot take it. Am I meant to thank Beckett for his awful honesty and to put him on the shelf like a picture on the wall? Books that I will never want to open. And is not an unopened and unread book like a festering evil?

DONNE, JOHN. NO MAN IS AN ISLAND : A SELECTION FROM THE PROSE

Unlike Seneca, John Donne appears to be subject to no controversy about his honesty and integrity. This could be due to the fact that he patently is a hypocrite. Or it could be because very few would be interested in his prose nowadays. It is shite. He is very lucky indeed that without his knowledge and consent someone published the verse of his earlier years for which he is now justifiably known.

When he was down on his luck, having misjudged the reaction of his rich father-in-law to his secret marriage, he wrote abject prose for about fifteen years to those who could help him. When he was given a job in the Anglican Church he becomes somewhat unctuous. Reading his letters it becomes obvious when this job occurs because they suddenly become full of holy sentiments and references to God and Our Saviour.

The tortuous turn of phrase which is an asset in his poetry is diabolical in his prose. He uses many tortured phrases to say very little. He invents arguments which have no cogency. He is a boring clever-dick.

As he rises in the Anglican Church and becomes known for his public sermons the reader gets a sense of the showmanship and grandstanding implicit in the performance, while the substance of the sermons can be trite and common-place. There is absolutely no originality of thought. Given that he is now a leading figure in a Christian church, the references to Christ are few and far between and when they occur there is a complete lack of grappling with the meaning of this spiritual individuality. It is all God and the Old Testament, fearfulness and death. His sermons, which are fearfully dated to death now, have no timeless value whatsoever.

Donne is the archetype for all mountebank preachers. From young man to elder church-man who staged his own funeral, from first to last, he is a complete tosser and toady.

SENECA. LETTERS FROM A STOIC

Seneca has a bit of a mixed press. Some of it brands him a hypocrite. Here we have a millionaire talking of the value of simplicity and poverty. How did he amass his wealth? Individuals I respect, such as Coleridge and Milton, do not think much of him. Others equally eminent throughout history look back to him with respect.

I can only think that if a hypocrite writes as much as Seneca he ought to be found out in his writings. All the hypocrites of our contemporary political life can be found out in their writings in a moment or two, quite apart from the fact that they would be incapable of even beginning to write with the cogent thoughtfulness of Seneca. Can you get hypocrites of a deeply philosophical nature? Would they exist more in the religious or esoteric arena?

In one letter Seneca arrives home to his country estate unannounced and the servants have not made preparations for him. He stoically maintains his equilibrium until they can attend to him. He does not criticise them. This is an uncomfortable example. Quite clearly if he maintains a spare diet and lives simply it is within a setting of material comfort.

On the other hand, when Seneca effectively ruled Rome for five years during Nero's childhood, it has been described as one of the finest periods in Rome's history. Perhaps he made his money because of his position in a way considered appropriate. Then he retires to lead a philosophical life.

Do I have to know whether or not Seneca was a hypocrite, whether or not I like him, in order to appreciate the thoughts he expresses? These thoughts fail to be self-serving or inhumane. I am left with the impression that the individuality which incarnated as Seneca around the time of the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant in the history of humanity. And this is despite the fact that for Seneca the emerging Christians were just one of a number of foreign religious cults. They meant nothing to him.

His significance is reinforced when I read his plays, which are so powerful and unique they seem to point to a future theatrical art form which in part finds its expression in Shakespeare and other Elizabethans. It seems inconceivable that Shakespeare did not know Seneca's work, there is just too much corresponding resonance. Then in the modern era Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in part, seems to pick up on Seneca's techniques although full development still awaits some knowledgeable and able esoteric dramatist.

GOSPEL HALL

From the ages of 3-13 I was sent to Sunday School by my parents so that they could have Sunday afternoon to themselves. The walk from Council house to Gospel Hall would have been a good mile which included crossing a main arterial road. The Gospel Hall was in no way evangelical. Its superindendent was a caricature of a Church of England Sunday School superintendent: benevolent, elderly, white-haired and kindly Mr Fryor. His 2IC was a large rotund man who fittingly arrived in a Humber. We called him Jumbo. Both men in their ways were well-intentioned comfortable middle class administrants to the children, some of whom came from the wrong side of the arterial road.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. If anyone should believe in Me he shall have eternal Life.

I learned two things from this benevolent Sunday education, despite my rebellion. I came to know the Bible stories inside out and probably still remember them. And I learned that Christian life was all about the New Testament. The stories of the New Testament are completely different in tone from those in the Old.

The Old Testament stories formed an historical context only to the coming of the Son of God in the New Testament. The values of the New Testament given through Jesus Christ were an advance and improvement on the values of the Old Testament. A studious Christian can live without reference to the Old Testament but of course cannot do so without the New.

So when I hear high profile Christian leaders emphasising God and the Old Testament in the content of their sermons I believe that I am listening to someone who should belong to another religion. Literature of the 19th century, especially Dickens, is littered with cold and loveless individuals who in the name of God insist they are Christians performing some form of necessary tyranny against others. If they are not self-professed Christians they are rank materialists who believe in the over-riding power of mechanical science and industry. The segue between the two is minimal.

So long as Bishop Tamaki of Destiny Church spouts the Old Testament he can justify his tyranny and his materialistic success. He can think he deserves to become comfortable after all his industry. But he has to steer clear of the Spiritual Being Who after His hard work was very uncomfortably nailed to a Cross for His pains.

In the Gospel Jesus Christ comes incognito, isolated and homeless into Galilee and begins gathering His disciples. I can assure Bishop Tamaki that if He came today He would not arrive on a Harley Davidson taken from the garage of His material mansion. The unpretentious education of the Gospel Hall fifty years ago allows me to guess that the man Jesus would come from the nondescript people, and that his non-violent radicalism would be too much for the Tamakis and politicians of this world. He would be seen as a troublemaker, a dangerous loner gathering together a dangerous group, leading to only one inevitable outcome.

I thank the humble Gospel Hall for helping me to see clearly without effort the false prophets of our times, whether they come from within the Christian establishment, or from some supposed alternative, or from political circles. What allows Blair of the maniac glare to consciously carry out a crusade and criminally invade other countries belongs to the medieval Catholic Church just as much as to any petty Tamaki tyrant. And they all belong to the ethos of the Old Testament.

It is when I see odd individuals - and some of them may be odd - carrying out loving actions without beating any drum that I feel myself in the presence of the New Testament, in the presence of a true Christian.

JEWS FOR JESUS

I recently made the mistake of purchasing a DVD entitled 'Dylan: Busy Being Born Again - inside Bob Dylan's Jesus years. Dylan is neither a contributor nor a feature. Instead, a number of individuals chunder on about the topic, talking as much about themselves as the supposed feature, and presumably making money out of associating themselves with Dylan.

Most of the contributors appear to be Jewish, including Mitch Glaser who speaks for Jews for Jesus. On the face of it I assumed I was going to hear Jews indicate how they came to Christianity in some form, including their associate Bob Dylan, because it enhanced the limitations of Judaism. Not a bit of it. Their emphasis was on the fact that Jesus and his disciples were Jewish and that therefore it was not they who needed converting but the Gentiles.

What can I say? Without appearing anti-Semitic?

When the man Jesus was baptised in the Jordan something important happened. The spirit of the Christ descended into him. From that moment for the next three years of his life (and his mission) he was no longer Jewish Jesus but the universal Christ on earth. And it showed. The Jewish establishment did not like what he said and what he did at all and became the primary instruments of his crucifixion. They and their followers and descendants certainly needed conversion.

Paul began taking the universal Christ to the world which also needed conversion, and Christianity ceased to be a Jewish cult.

By concentrating on the man Jesus, Jews for Jesus and others are taking a superficial and materialistic view of Christ. The spiritual Christ is non-personal, but so long as you emphasise Jesus you can talk to him with closed eyes as if he is listening in the room next door ready to respond to all your ridiculous and ambitious expectations. To emphasise Jesus rather than the Christ is to emphasise the subjective feeling life of the soul instead of the objective thought-filled life of the spirit.

I can fully understand the wish not to be involved in Christian institutions and the Christian establishment, but this is not solved by ditching Christ.

Update. I have since found in the local library a new book on Dylan by a Jewish-American academic which is yet another fanciful manipulation of the subject in the author's own image. This one is a bit too distasteful. The author is intent upon turning Dylan into a fanatic orthodox Jew conversant with the mysteries of Judaism. Is there a movement to claim him before the man dies? The book is not worth reading in full, but on the principle of a drop giving a taste of the whole ocean, there is a wilful manipulation of complex facts to produce a limited ideological purpose and consciousness in the artist. So despite Dylan writing and speaking of his significant connection to Woody Guthrie, for example, who must not be Jewish, the Jewish academic sets out to destroy this fact with absurd and superficial argument. Gentile that I am, I like and admire Dylan on the basis of his being an unpredictable and independent artist whose stature in modern life is truly outstanding. Behind ethnicity, or nationality, or gender, or religion, or culture stands the individual human spirit and the true artist works from this and the individuality of the other responds. If either Dylan or any other wants to see his work in the conditioned terms of religion, etc. then the work will be rendered barren.

ORWELL IN TRIBUNE

'As I Please' and other writings 1943-7. I know that Orwell is the independent journalist that all contemporary independent journalists look up to. Even people who have no right to quote him do so. Here he is performing the luxury of writing an uncensored column. The range of his subject matter and the depth of his insight are impressive. What is an insight? In Orwell's case it seems to be extreme common sense and logic. With these he makes many an uncanny prediction.

What is actually most remarkable about Orwell's journalism for me is the complete lack of egoism. This absence produces the impression that he has rather a lacklustre style. He writes his perceptive comments in a matter-of-fact and unemphatic manner. His style does not button-hole you, hold you by the collar, or grab you by the throat. You are fully responsible for your attention.

Orwell comes across as a thoroughly decent and civilised man, and also perhaps as a somewhat reserved Englishman concerned with particulars. He is an undoctrinaire socialist. Statements he makes during these years on topics such as world peace and international affairs turn out to be completely valid and relevant today. They turn out to be true.

Rating: Very good

THE ROLL CALL

An extract from Drinking the Sea at Gaza : Days and Nights in a Land under Siege, by Amira Hass appears in Tell Me No Lies : Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs, edited by John Pilger. Amira Hass is an Israeli correspondent regarded as the most courageous reporter of occupied Palestine. The injustices she reports in Gaza in the 1990s literally take your breath away.

Why should I be so concerned? Why cannot I be like most of Hass's Israeli readers, among the best of them, who read one of her items, have their breath taken away, but then put the knowledge aside and get on with their lives? Of course we do get on with our lives, we have to, but surely the putting aside is a consciously wilful action. We are choosing not to have a response. We are choosing to be an unresponsive bystander. This is the role the New Zealand media plays in relation to Gaza.

Amira learned from her mother the evil of the unresponsive bystander when being transferred from cattle truck to concentration camp German women stood on the side just looking. (Her father and mother survived, went to Israel where they refused to accept a house offered them which had been taken from Palestinians).

I am afflicted with an inner compulsion to react to injustice, to bullies. It is involuntary and I cannot put it aside. I do not know why injustice in the Middle East affects me more than in other parts of the world. I fully realise that the victim in this life may be the bully in the next. So why can I not say to myself: why worry? I wish I could. I dare say all those magnificent investigative journalists wish they could. All those people involved with human rights.

Amira Hass, choosing to live among the Palestinians, details the military and bureacratic inhumanity and torment they are subjected to. They are unable to live normally. Suffice to say that in the 10 - 15 years since it has become abundantly clear that Israel intends giving the Palestinians nothing and the only reason it insists upon a moderate Palestinian leader is because he will be amenable to management and the perpetuation of occupation and oppression.

The life of Gazans states Hass is synonymous with mass internment and suffocating constriction. One Gazan joke is that you can get an exit permit if you are about to die. Another joke is that only the roll call is missing. (The point of this latter not seen or appreciated by many Jewish Israelis). Another piece of humour: It's a good thing the roads are in such bad shape - it takes a whole hour to get from one end of the Strip to the other and you don't notice how small it is. If you drive really slowly, say fifteen miles an hour, you can pretend that you're actually going a very long way".

Here I am standing on the sideline wondering what on earth can the Gazans do to have some notice taken of them. They are concentrated into a sealed camp and that mythical international community does not give a damn. What if they adopted a measure of mass demonstration by secretly making or having made a concentration camp uniform? And everyone, literally everyone, began walking about their daily business in these camp clothes?

In what way would Israel go ballistic? Would it mow everyone down with machine guns? Would it put everyone into prison? Would it drive them into the sea? Would it turn the level of deprivation from malnutrition to mass starvation? Would we see the Israeli army back in Gaza full-time administering every neighbourhood and instituting a morning roll call?

Would we international bystanders find ourselves looking into the Gaza camp at skeletons in camp uniforms, some crawling, some dying, some dead? The question has to be asked: does Israel actually know to what depth of fascism it is prepared to sink? Would it even see the irony?

Or would the real international community get the point and refuse to cooperate with the United States, which would of course be blaming the victims for their outrageous bad taste.

LAOR, YITZHAK. THE MYTHS OF ZIONISM

There is a sense of spontaneity about the writing of this work, of creative insight and courage which gives it its form, and I respond to the challenge to the best of my ability.

I approached this work hoping that it would give me better understanding about why Israel is the way it is, and why it behaves the way it does. I remain uncertain, but the exercise has been very worthwhile.

Some of the myths, which appear to be held by all Israelis and not just liberal Zionists, are as follows. The vulnerable child soldier who, no matter what atrocities he/she may commit, requires the protective excuses of the population. The besieged few surrounded by the inveterately hostile many. The victimising victim, from father to son, from Israel to its perceived enemies. The weak merciless father figure or authority figure for whose actions God will take responsibility. (Has Zionism replaced God with the United States for this role?) The learnt cruelty from past history and generations. The 'native' Jewish pioneer, pre-World War II, who has replaced the real native Palestinian. The European Israeli, the modern Jew, who requires the Arab Jew (and the Arab) to put off "backward' culture.

Such myths are in many instances interesting and helpful, but the question remains: why? Why, for example, does Israeli society continue to exemplify the story of Abraham who is prepared to bind and sacrifice his son unless a more caring God intervenes? Why is there so much emotional blackmail in the Israeli (Jewish) family and in Israel's approach to other nations of the world? Why do the sons and daughters conform to the blackmail and carry it on in their own later lives? (This must make the few young men and women who refuse to serve in the military among the bravest individuals in Israel). Why, for example, does the poor East European forebear (and holocaust victim) have to fill the modern Israeli with shame? Why not just have an interest in one's forebears without judgement?

Having carelessly misread the title of this work I began reading as if about the myth of liberal Zionism, but in a way the book is also very much about this topic. The author is to be commended for trying to crack a formidable nut, the liberal Zionist who passes himself off as a member of the Israeli peace camp. He illustrates the hypocrisy of three such high profile persons in David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. These persons exhibit not only a lack of liberalism, if by this we mean civilised tolerance and compassion, but also subscribe to all the myths of the modern Israeli. The fear and hatred of Arabs - and the threat of their return - is self-induced and pathological.

These liberal Zionists, pretending peace, are the most difficult enemies of truth. They appeal to the same sort of pretenders in the West. The author indicates for me that the Left of the 1960s and 1970s who supported the Palestinian cause have been replaced by the Greens, who are pro-Israel. Even though in New Zealand we have a Green foreign spokesman who happens to be very good on the Middle East, I believe there is general truth in what the author says. For the Greens are essentially not an alternative radical party, but an alternative establishment party. Its followers tend to be comfortable people, more or less content with privatisation, tasteful and even precious in their brand of self-preservation.

The author indicates that The Holocaust remembrance is a recent development which allows Israel to take a seat among the world's elite nations, while allowing the Western world to put all the emphasis upon the victims of this one event and forget about the conditions and crimes within their own societies which allowed this and many other events, then and now, to happen. The Holocaust, besides being the only allowable holocaust to be remembered internationally and officially, is also the only allowable definition of evil. This allows the West and Israel to carry out contemporary evil unchecked.

Once again, how does it come about that the countries of the West fall over themselves to act in the same way toward Israel and holocaust remembrance? I can only think that it is a bit like all the copy-cat behaviour to implement unrestrained capitalism in the 1980s. The behaviour of mediocre minds all over the world, or minds with a low cunning rather than a decent intelligence. Or, worse still, are these negative changes, like supposedly positive ones, simply blowing in the wind? Does this then degenerate into believing that whatever will be, will be?

Having divested themselves more or less honourably of colonialist status the West now allows colonialist Israel to tap into this historical mind-set and find affinity there. The West and its establishment intellectuals are now able to turn their hate from the 20th century Jews toward the 21st century Muslims. Apparently for mediocre minds there always has to be a segment of humanity on the outer which can be treated as non-human.

A thought-provoking book.

Rating: Very good

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST DAY

The way the state of Israel makes use of and is allowed to hijack International Holocaust Day is an absolute disgrace. A Catholic priest somewhere has caused a stir because he apparently said that Israel uses the holocaust as a propaganda tool. I hope he said it because he is spot on.

That scumbag Netanyahu supposedly remembers those who died at Auschwitz by making anti-Iranian statements and comparing that nation to Nazi Germany. If it was not Iran it would be some other nation. What respect does this really show to victims of the holocaust by making outrageous political point-scoring which could just lead to the destruction of yet another of Israel's unfortunate neighbours.

As for the survivors of the holocaust, I do not believe Netanyahu or the state of Israel really gives a damn about them. They are just useful.

Israel is a nation which strictly speaking should not exist. It forced itself into existence by terrorism. This is a simple fact. However, having done so, it is accepted by the so-called United Nations, including the Arab countries and the Palestinians. Furthermore, I think it is probably the case that any claim that Iran wants to wipe out Israel is a wilful manipulation of the truth. Although why any Arab or Persian country would want to wipe out Israel is perfectly understandable to me. It is completely focussed on wiping out them.

Meanwhile are there independent Jewish voices expressing dismay at Israel's misuse of the holocaust? I am sure there are but they certainly are not allowed into the news. Nor is Israel's bestial treatment of Palestinians allowed to spoil International Holocaust Day. The holocaust survivors who were part of the Free Gaza convoy were not news either.

I quote that wonderful American Jewish journalist I.F.Stone back in 1971: "While the Palestinian Arabs are beginning in their homelessness to talk like Jews in a new Diaspora, the Israeli leadership is beginning to sound more and more like unfeeling goyim. This reversal of roles is the cruellest prank God ever played on His Chosen People."

And if that sounds a little too much like an ambiguous self-indulgent Jewish joke how about the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibovitz who in 1969 anticipated that in the occupied territories " concentration camps would be erected by the Israeli rulers......Israel would be a state that would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it". We are way past that date.

GAZA: A GIRL CALLED ALMAZA (JEWEL)

I am Almaza Ibraheem Helml Mahmoud Samouni. I'm in the seventh grade. I am thirteen years old. In the future, when I become a politician, I can work on children's rights for those who have been deprived of their families and were brought up as orphans

Every minute I remember my family. Every minute I remember when they were martyred in front of my eyes. I looked at my nephew, I saw that he was martyred. Also, I looked the other way, I saw all my family martyred. They were dead, lying together, one on top of the other. Really, it was a scene I couldn't believe.

All my family is gone at once. Thirty of my tribe was killed. It is completely unjust. Now, when Eid comes, I won't see my uncles. On the day of Eid I used to visit my uncles, go to uncle Talal's home, go to Rashad's home and go to Atia's home. What have I done to be deprived of my family, to be deprived of my uncles and my mother?

I was at home. We were unaware of anything. In the early morning about 6am the Israeli's started invading. First they invaded with planes and when they knew the area was safe for them the tanks and bulldozers followed after. About four o'clock at night there were suddenly shells and bullets coming inside our house. We went into the living room. We were very close to my uncle Talal's house. There's only a narrow pathway between us. They started firing shells that made a very loud noise and gave off a strong smell. Eventually we couldn't hear or breathe. We were suffocating. We were about to die and then suddenly the Israelis blew a hole in the wall and pointed their weapons at us. The look of them frightened me of course. If they're coming at night, how would you know who they were? You could not even see their shadow. They kicked us out of the house and sent us to Wael Samouni's house. We stayed there for three days without food, without water. Even the little children who wanted to drink - and some were about six months old - there was not even anything for them.

We stayed there for three days. My brother went to get some wood but when he was about to leave the house they fired a missile at him and he was martyred. So we had to go inside. I was left with my sister-in-law and her nine month old baby. They executed the baby. They opened fire on him. The little boy was martyred in front of her eyes, while he was in his mother's arms, cradled by his mother. He was executed right after they executed his father.

I went inside where I found them all martyred. I saw three missiles in the house. All of them were martyred. All of them were bleeding and they were in a pile, one on top of the other. A lot of bleeding, bleeding over each other.

We used to study here. We used to play here. This was my brother's room, here's my mother's room and here are my siblings' room who were all martyred. May Allah bless their souls. This is where my books were and I used to put my satchel here. I have a lot of memories.

This was mine when I was little. This was my mother's, may Allah bless her soul. This belonged to my brother Nassar, may Allah bless his soul. This is mine, I used to wear it when I went to the mosque. This is also mine. And this was my nephew Mo'tasem's, may Allah bless his soul. This is my mother's robe, may Allah bless her soul. This is my brother Ismail's, he was martyred.

Here is my uncle's house. We used to bake here. Here we used to play 'Idreas' with stones. Here is the mosque. Here we used to learn the Quran, pray and have lessons in Quran verses. Here, of course, was the praying place for men and upstairs there was a floor for the women.

Here you can see the martyrs. There is my brother Mohammad Ibraheem Samouni, and that is my cousin Walid. Here is the dome of the mosque where a crow used to stand. The dome was so high. This is the dome. We used to study here. Our teacher used to sit over here. It was a sitting room with the breeze blowing through. We used to come to study here and learn the Quran. Here, we used to have our meetings, bring the chairs and sit. The sheikh would sit here. This was a room where we used to sit and study.

Here we used to raise a lot of chickens. A lot. The Israelis bulldozed it and killed them all. Here there were olive trees from which we used to get olive oil and store olives to keep. Here was a pomegranate tree which we used to make the famous local dish 'Rummaniyya'. I used to love pomegranate, I used to love 'Rummaniyya' as its called. This is also where my uncle's wife's house was, my uncle who was martyred. My uncle Atia, he was her husband. My cousin was also martyred. Also, there were lots of orange trees here, there were citrus trees. Lots of trees.

This is the school, the destroyed school. They targetted the school with burning phosphorus bombs. They burned the school. The lab that we used to go to, it was also burned. We had drawn a map. Even that was destroyed, as you can see. They didn't leave anything untouched. This was the lab I used to go to and do everything. It was bombed as well. Here was the library where we used to borrow storybooks and sit and write. They've all been destroyed too. We used to go to a morning school then this was switched to the afternoon.

Now there are about sixty orphans, maybe more, they are all orphans. What have they done? A girl of two and a half who's now an orphan. Who will play with her, who's going to teach her? Her mother, father and elder brothers are all martyrs. Can a girl who's twelve or thirteen years old raise an eighteen month or two year old girl?

(ALMAZA'S FRIEND): No, because she doesn't ask or respond. When my mother was martyred, she was in her arms. We asked her: "Do you want to go to see your mother?" She said: "No, because mum is dead, she was shot by the plane. I don't want to go to her. There was so much bleeding from here and here, I don't want to go there". She refused because when my mother was martyred, she was in her arms and with my father. When they were putting the bandage on my father, when he was injured, she wouldn't ask about her or about anything else. She just keeps on screaming.)

We used to play here. The place was an empty yard. It was bulldozed.

I have the right to claim my rights because they deprived me of my mother and my sisters, deprived me of living in a good home and in a safe place. They took it all away and destroyed everything. This area was pretty, full of everything, trees, it was a nice green area. You can imagine what it looked like. When the Israelis came in, the left nothing.

We will never leave our place here. We will remain in it and Allah, please God, may make it easy for us, to help us rebuild our homes and live in them - Allah willing.

HAITI

We all want to see international support for a people suffering a catastrophe, do we not? The sudden outburst of sympathetic promises for Haiti after its earthquake is, however, extraordinary. There is a positively orgiastic international outpouring, led by the United States, for a poor little shit country nobody knows anything about. The spectacle of the last three U.S. presidents spear-heading a fundraising campaign is strange indeed. What is going on? What we are told is that Haiti is the poorest nation in the region, but at the same time it is a special little friend of the United States. How can a nation be both these things at the same time? Not a case of child abuse?

Omnipotent Obama has declared many a thing for Haiti but especially a contingent of paratroopers to protect Haitians from their own natural propensity for criminality. He is acting to protect Haiti in the awesome image of its big special friend. He has commissioned his special envoys, the Celestial Clintons, to do what has to be done. Indeed Beelzebub Bill has a personal interest in Haiti, He sent in the United States military when He was Himself the Omnipotent One, and did what had to be done when an elected government threatened to go astray. He is personally affronted that God should visit such a catastrophe upon His own Haiti. He takes it very personally.

I cannot say it any better than Carl Dix: "The United States has promised $100 million, sounds like a lot, but that is about 1% of the US military budget for occupying Iraq and Afghanistan for one month. What have they done so far? What they have mainly brought in are paratroopers to help secure the situation and to control things as opposed to focussing on what people really need which is food, water, access to healthcare and relief operations. I think about Afghanistan where they have helicopter gunships going around firing missiles at villages, think about what those helicoptors could do if they had been deployed to Haiti where they are talking about how the roads are down and nobody can get supplies through, well a helicoptor could airlift rescuers, airlift food or water or doctors.
So there is a question of what the priorities are here, as well as the history of US-Haitian relations. The problem is when you talk about Haiti's lack of infrastructure you have to talk about the political and economic strangulation of Haiti historically by the US going all the way back to the founding of Haiti. The US and France attempted to isolate and blockade Haiti when the Haitian slaves rose up and chased the French out because the US felt it would be a very bad example for all the African slaves in the US to hear that the slaves in a neighbouring country had gotten free.
You need a rescue and supply effort that doesn't suppress the Haitian people but actually unleashes and helps them in doing this because there has been a portrayal of Haitians as thugs and criminals just as the way they tried to portray the people in New Orleans after Katrina as criminals who were looting and killing everything, when people were actually saving themselves because the government at all levels, local, federal and state had refused to do that, people were stealing food to get something to eat, taking boats to save other people.
You need a relief effort that is backing up the Haitian people and doing that, not one that is suppressing them in order to maintain Haiti as a low wage area where people can be paid starvation wages to produce goods for export, and not an area where globalisation can destroy the domestic agriculture as US efforts have done in Haiti since the 1980s."

I just know that this analysis is going to be proven correct. Already the US is a military presence controlling who else can land in Haiti. Just today two aircraft carrying medical equipment were turned away by the US military whose helicoptors appear to patrol the skies not to be helpful but to survey the country for trouble, which given the US approach is almost guaranteed to occur.

Update: As the hysterical goodwill towards poor little obedient Haiti continues, one has to wonder when comparing this to the complete indifference toward Gaza which was hit in similar fashion not by an act of God, but by an act of fascist man. I realise that the world's establishment media is comfortable expressing compassion for Haiti and indifference for Gaza but what about the people of the world? Do they really have compassion for one set of people and indifference for another set? because if they do, then the compassion has to be completely phoney. Pretty scarey.

GAZA: A CRIME OF WAR

Rawhiya was a 37 year old wife and mother, a native of Gaza, who was murdered on the 13 January 2009.

IMAN AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): For 2 or 3 days before that day they had been firing phosphorus bombs randomly, but they weren't targetting our neighbourhood, they were actually firing from here, so we could see the bombs flying over our heads and falling in different areas.

We thought at first it was the usual firing of bombs overhead but then my neighbour Rawhiya started calling me. She was shouting to us that our homes were burning. We went out, the smoke was like fog covering everything. Every house received their share of phosphorus bombs. Rawhiya was trying to put out the fire at her house and other neighbours were doing the same. Then she told me hurry up your house is on fire. I ran to the house but it was all on fire.

The special forces had taken the high building and alleyway while we were putting out the fires. They later told the prisoners that they took that we saw you trying to put out the fire but we didn't see you carrying any weapons. They told them that if you had been carrying weapons we would have wiped you out.

The sun had not yet come up, it was still early, when we heard our neighbours scream. So I shouted What's wrong? and she said they're demolishing the house from the front while we are still inside.

They were destroying them like you crush a matchbox and we stood there watching. The soldier that was in the bulldozer was laughing, he was chewing gum and laughing. He turned the head of the bulldozer towards us in a playful manner as though he was telling us you are all going to die.

Nawhiya was leading them. She said if all the women and children start moving out then everyone else could follow afterwards. So she distributed white flags and led them out. She walked at the front carrying a white flag, followed by other women carrying their children.

A couple of radio stations called and we tried to echo our voice and call upon the world to find a solution for us, ar at least save Rawhiya. We didn't know at this point if she was still alive or dead.

No-one answered our call for help. At the end we decided to go out together and face the bombardment. The way we saw it was that it was better to walk into the fire than stay here and die under the rubble. If we went out some of us might get hit and some of us might die but at least someone would make it out alive to tell our story to the outside world.

I used to believe that there are international laws and that there are international courts that prevent Israel from abusing the rights of humans. I have learnt that Israel can do anything it wants without being punished, without anyone stopping it, or even asking it why. Israel can kill, demolish houses, destroy trees and wreck not only a small neighourhood or village but an entire country without anyone stepping in. The Security Council can't stop it, nor can international organisations. That's what I learnt.


NASSAR AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's husband): We used to think that this area was safe because there were no resistance fighters here. They used to bulldoze farms and agricultural lands and then leave. We didn't expect them to demolish houses. We didn't expect this extent of criminality.

At Khuza'a the villagers were used to living under the guns of the Israeli watch-towers and in the first two weeks of the war I'd become accustomed to the artillery and air-strikes but the night before Rawhiya's murder it became clear that this was something different.

She said she didn't want to leave her house and that if she was going to die, they were going to kill her, she would rather die in her own house. She said the white flags [?] so they wouldn't harm them, but they didn't respect the white flag.

My heart is wounded. It fills me with sorrow to look at the place where she died. We spent a lifetime together. She was my friend and companion since I was just 17 years old. What can I say?


HIBA AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's daughter): When they were putting out the fire the neighbour started coughing because phosporus emissions were suffocating him, so my Mum grabbed a towel and soaked it with water because we had been told that water helps.

I was right next to her, a centimetre away. My neighbour was also walking next to her. She was holding up her child as though a flag. Then he shot her. He shot her and she immediately fell to the ground.

I immediately knew that she died. I told the women she's gone. My mother died. They were trying to comfort me by saying she's going to be fine, but I shouted at them She's gone, she's dead, I know she's dead.

We were screaming and holding our white flags so they would see us and not demolish the house with us inside, but they didn't care, it made no difference to them, they started collapsing the walls with us inside.

(Crying) Whenever there's bombardment or gunfire starts we stay inside our houses. We can't go out. It is not fair what they are doing to us. We are imprisoned in our homes. We go from home to school, from school to home. What did we do wrong?


YASMINE AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): And then they breached the wall of our house, so we tried to escape through the window. We all escaped and gathered in this empty square behind me.

We all gathered here and then the bulldozer breached the walls of the house here which was right next to us, so we started to escape. Just before that the Israelis had gathered the men and told them that we had to evacuate the area within half an hour. But it seem like they hadn't spoken with the special forces.

When we reached the top of the road the special forces were positioned in the house right opposite to us that took us by surprise.

A bullet hit Rawhiya in the head, It entered through one side and went out through the other. I was so close to her, but there were special forces in front of me. They started shooting at me again and the bullets were passing over my head, but they didn't get me this time, only a small splinter of metal that stuck in my arm.

We went through that alleyway but just as I was about to pass and cross an exit in the road, followed by most of the neighbourhood, they started shooting at us again, so everyone went in one of the houses on the street and were stuck there, but I kept running for about 300 metres until I reached an ambulance and paramedics who were waiting for us.


MOHAMMAD AL NAJAR (Rawhiya's neighbour): The place where you are sitting now was a staircase but they levelled it and placed a mattress on it. Then a soldier lay down on his stomach here. I was hearing everything that was happening and when they were taking me to the toilet they took off the blind-fold and untied my hands, so I could see a few things.

They asked me to sing along with them but I refused. They were still talking to me and one of them was translating. He said to me that if I don't do what they ask they will kill me, so I did what they asked, I started to sing with them until they retreated.

I was really scared. I was worried that something was going to happen to my family. I heard the shots being fired at Rawhiya and I heard her scream God is great. Well that scared me more because it meant that they were killing people and I thought that they were going to kill me when they started pulling out.

They were starting to pull out of the area and so they told us when you hear a few gunshots being fired you can leave. They didn't want anyone to see them, they didn't want to draw attention to themselves.

MARWAN ABU RAIDA (Paramedic): I drove straight there, I was still 60 -70 metres away from the body when what I think were Israeli special forces started shooting at me. I felt powerless, there was nothing I could do for her. My understanding was that medical teams were protected under international law and ethics. Medical teams should be protected, they should have freedom of movement and work because they are emergency services.

I ran out of the ambulance and headed toward the body of the martyr who was dead by then. She bled to death after she was lying there for about 12 hours. I took the body which was in horrible condition and headed for hospital in Khan Younis. You could tell she was killed intentionally because she received only one shot straight to the head. It was obvious that the sniper meant to kill her. I wish the International Court of Justice would take action against those who committed these crimes, because what we witnessed here is unbelievable terror.

EDWARDS, DAVID & CROMWELL, DAVID. NEWSPEAK IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The authors are co-editors of Media Lens (http://www.medialens.org/) a website devoted to challenging how British newspapers and broadcasters report the news. We discover as a result of detailed evidence provided, that there are no sources of news which are reliably independent of power and establishment, of the government, owners and advertisors, not even the so-called liberal newspapers such as the Guardian or Independent. All we have in print are independent commentators who can be named on one hand: Chomsky, Pilger, Fisk, perhaps Seamus Milne. Chomsky and Pilger in particular are subject to the resentment of hacks who yap at them from the end of their corporate leashes. No sense of admiration for a better workman in the world of media.

The point is made that for those of us who wish to think for ourselves, rather than to sit back and receive the supposed knowledge of establishment journalists, we have only the internet. It is also the internet which allows freedom of speech and dialogue, whereas the newspaper editor deletes contributions.

There is no such thing as neutral reporting, there is either indifference or compassion. We are either honest or bent. Many of us of course cannot decide which. If we are a human being another's pain must be felt as our own, otherwise what real value is there in what we have to say? We would only be contributing to the power of Newspeak. "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" - George Orwell.

One hack is quoted equating thoughtful and honest language and presentation as boring, indicating that we have in journalism persons who have no wish to read. This attitude leads to an atrophy of thought and language. "In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it" - George Orwell.

There are chapters on the BBC and on the British media's complicity in refusing to speak the truth on topics such as climate change, the Blair government's duplicity and criminality in invading Iraq, the Iraqi death count, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela.
Rating: Very good.

INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES

This declaration was published in The Times on 5 February 2007 and in the Jewish Chronicle on 9 February 2007.

We are a group of Jews in Britain from diverse backgrounds, occupations and affiliations who have in common a strong commitment to social justice and universal human rights. We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole. We further believe that individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring accusations of disloyalty.

We have therefore resolved to promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices, particularly in respect of the grave situation in the Middle East, which threatens the future of both Israelis and Palestinians as well as the stability of the whole region. We are guided by the following principles:

Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere. Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives. Peace and stability require the willingness of all parties to the conflict to comply with international law. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance. The battle against anti-semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-semitic.

These principles are contradicted when those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people. The Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip face appalling living conditions with desperately little hope for the future. We declare our support for a properly negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people and oppose any attempt by the Israeli government to impose its own solutions on the Palestinians. It is imperative and urgent that independent Jewish voices find a coherent and consistent way of asserting themselves on these and other issues of concern. We hereby reclaim the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights and social justice. The lessons we have learned from our own history compel us to speak out. We therefore commit ourselves to make public our views on a continuing basis and invite other concerned Jews to join and support us.