Poems and Pictures about discrimination

http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Discrimination-and-equality-poem-2



http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Discrimination-and-equality-poem-3

Poem: Discrimination Here's You Come and Go

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/discrimination-here-s-you-come-and-go/

Discrimination Here's You Come and Go

Discrimination’s like a snake
Its teeth in poisoned prejudice,
Causing ache

Discrimination abolished all warmth and spirit
And returned with a new hate
Relishing its pain brought
Never thought of halt

Hey
Discrimination’s the new law
Stony and steel and
Square without feelings
Like window frames
Of the Hall
In court

I wonder where the White’s Purity all gone.

Tears and Fears
Now the norm
In the name
Of discrimination

now
Gladly Discrimination has gone
Kicked out hard,
square and fair

Yet-
It left a hole
In everyone’s hearts.

Jixin Gao

Submitted: Saturday, August 02, 2008

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Social Justice Zionism

Zionism: The Highest Stage of Imperialism
الجزيرة Home News Archive Arab Cartoons News Photo Columnists Documents Editorials  Opinion Editorial letters to the editor Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Islam Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people  Media Watch Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah Peace Activists Poetry Book reviews Public Announcements     Women in News Cities, localities, and tourist attractions		By Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar 5/15/2002     A Background Note from the Author The author is a Muslim. This means that he believes in the Torah (Old Testament), the Engel (New Testament), and the Holy Qur'an. He is also a Semite Palestinian Arab. This means that he shares a racial background with Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Jews. Thus, his analysis of Zionism is not an analysis of Jews or Judaism, which is a religious tradition that is recognized by Muslims as one of God's messages to humanity. As a result, Zionism is not synonymous to Judaism. Rather, it's a secular political movement that can be criticized and found faulty. It follows that Zionists are not synonymous to Jews. They are supporters of the Israeli ideology, whether they live inside or outside of Israel. They can be Jews, Christians, Muslims, or followers of other faiths or creeds. ***                Zionism is the political ideology that has created the state of Israel and has dominated its government ever since. It has called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine on the expense of the Palestinian people. It has pressured and has been capable of influencing many world governments, particularly in Western Europe and North America, to support its imperialist project. In doing so, it has abused the Old Testament, particularly using the idea of "the promised land" to convince the general Christian public opinion to be quiet about its crimes against Arabs and Muslims generally, and the Palestinian people in particular. [1] However, the fact is that wherever and whenever "the promise" was mentioned in the Bible, it was a promise from God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who was also called Israel) and their descendants. Thus, the promise was not for Jews per se. The difference between the two words should be crystal clear. Anybody can be a Jew, by converting to Judaism, but this does not make him or her a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. This has been the biggest deception that Zionism and its adherents have been perpetuating. [2]   Consequently, if Zionism is not based on a true religious principle, what is it based on? What is its reality? Zionism is the highest stage of imperialism, which is the third stage of the development of capitalism. Its ultimate goal is hegemony over the world economies, using its control over the United States foreign policy. Its continuous wars in the Middle East for more than half a century have aimed at controlling the world power house, the Arab oil, and consequently the Arab oil wealth, which is estimated at about $15 trillion by current oil prices (about $25 per barrel, in May 2002). Zionism involves all the horrors that characterize this terrible stage of the development of capitalism. It is a combination of racism, greed, and exploitation. It is in a continuous state of hunger for wars and thirst for oil. Like its destructive European counterparts, Nazism and Fascism, Zionism has caused massive human suffering. As a result, a collective global effort is needed to contain it and rid the world of its terror.                   When Columbus set out to the West, in 1492, his goal was reaching east and southeast Asia in a new trade route. That journey highlighted mercantilism, as the earliest stage of the development of capitalism, which focused on the accumulation of wealth through trading among nations. Ultimately, it led to the establishment of the New World colonies to secure trading partners and trading monopolies. The second stage of the development of capitalism, colonialism, depended heavily on population transfer. This included transferring poor Europeans to the New World to be used in mining for bullion, in agriculture, and in forcing indigenous populations out of their territories. This also included transferring Africans from Africa to the New World, where they were used as slave labor. When the New World colonies started to get their independence, European capitalism evolved to its third stage, imperialism. Starting from the second half of the 19th century, European armies moved to Africa and Asia, invading the two continents and dividing them among themselves. [3]   The United States inherited the European imperialist legacy following World War II, as a result of the destruction of the European powers. Thus, the United States started to invade and launch wars against other nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. [4] Within this context of Pax Americana, [5]   the US world economic hegemony (globalization) has been reflected in the form of controlling most of the multinational corporations and the World Trade Organization. [6]   Zionism has used its unchecked influence on American foreign policy to support its expansionist project in the Middle East. By its ability to use the US global hegemony for its own purposes, it has reached the highest stage of imperialism. [7] But, what about its origins, how did it emerge on the world arena?                   In 1897, a group of European Jewish intellectuals and financiers got together in Basle, Switzerland, under the leadership of an Austrian lawyer called Theodore Herzl, in what became known as the first World Zionist Conference. They discussed the establishment of a colony that targeted European Jews as its colonists. Three geographic locations for the prospective Jewish homeland were proposed. Argentina and Uganda were quickly rejected and the Holly Land of Palestine (which was also referred to by Muslims as Beitul Maqdes, or the House of Holy) was approved as the most appropriate of the three locations for the establishment of the European Jewish colony. The developments that followed were to a great extent a replica of European colonization of the New World. These included massive population transfers of Jewish populations from Europe to Palestine and massive population transfers of Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) from their villages, towns, and cities to refugee camps. [8]    The Zionist project was facilitated by the assistance that Zionists received from the British and US governments. In 1917, the British government promised to help establish the Jewish homeland in Palestine, through what became known as the Balfour Declaration. In 1947, the US influenced the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to pass Resolution 181, which partitioned Palestine between the Arab (Muslim and Christian) population and Jewish immigrants. Thus, the Partition resolution gave birth to the Zionist state. [9]     In 1948, the Jewish colony became a state but with ever expanding borders. Israel launched six major wars against the Palestinian people and the neighboring Arab states. These were launched in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1978, 1982, and 2002. In all these wars, Israel expanded its borders. In 1948, it annexed the Galilee, Auja area, and the Jerusalem corridor, which were Palestinian territories according to the 1947 UN Partition Resolution 181. [10] In 1956, Israel collaborated with the imperialist European powers of Britain and France in invading Egypt and the Palestinian territory of Gaza Strip. Only a firm stand from President Eisenhower forced the Zionist Israelis to withdraw from Gaza Strip and Sinai. [11] In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the Arab territories of Sinai, Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. In 1978, Israel invaded and occupied South Lebanon. Then, it invaded Lebanon, including its capital, Beirut, in 1982. When it withdrew, few months later, it expanded its occupation of South Lebanon. In addition to these wars, Israel launched major air raids on Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia. [12]                   Thus, like colonists of the New World, who expanded their territory on the expense of native Americans, Zionist Israelis kept expanding their borders on the expense of Palestinians and other Arabs. They also have used force in evicting Palestinians from their lands in 1948 and crushing their two uprisings, in 1987-1993 and 2000-2002, just like colonists of the New World did to native Americans. They have never tried to accommodate Palestinians by allowing them to return to their villages and towns, or by compensating them, according to resolution 194, which was passed by the UNGA in 1948. They have resisted until now to let them have their own independent state, as stated by the UN partition resolution, 181. More dangerous, they have systematically persecuted the Palestinian people, replicating what the Nazis did to Jews and to gypsies in Europe. They have forced most of them to live in refugee camps, for more than half a century, which are worse in conditions than the Jewish ghettos in Poland under the Nazi rule. Moreover, they have used indiscriminate collective punishment against the entire Palestinian population. [13] Finally, like the Nazis, they have used derogatory adjectives to describe Palestinians with words that range from barbarism to terrorism, in order to justify killing or evicting them. They have committed so many massacres against the Palestinian people, the last of which was in Jenin, on April 2002, with the sole objective of subjugating and ruling them against their will. [14]                   Like fascism and Nazism, which elevated Italians and Germans above other nations, Zionism has exalted Israelis as people who are above the international law. It has claimed that a nation can be created on basis of one idea, religious superiority, and justified the atrocities that a nation has committed against other nations. Although Zionists brag that Israel is a democracy, it is in fact a dictatorial regime that has zero tolerance toward non-Zionists. Zionism has elevated Jewish Israelis to rule over Palestinians who exceed them in number. If it is a democracy, like they say in their propaganda, then they would allow Palestinians to vote. Only about one million Palestinians are Israeli citizens, who are allowed to vote. The rest, more than six and a half million Palestinians, have no right to vote because they are not citizens. [15] By denying Palestinians equal political rights, Zionist Israelis have ruled as a dictatorial group that exploits the rest of the population for its own benefits.                   Zionism is racism, as most nations of the world have recognized. In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. Only during the Gulf Crisis, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in December 1990, the Bush Sr. administration was able to force the UNGA to rescind its resolution, for the first time in the history of the UN. [16] However, all the reasons that prompted the UNGA to equate Zionism with racism are still there, and have even intensified than ever before. First, immigration to Israel is limited to Jews, followers of other religions are denied immigration. This includes denying Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, the  right of return to their homeland that they were evicted from, in 1948. Second, Zionist Israel has practiced racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian people. Palestinian workers are not protected by Israeli law. They receive a fraction of the wages and benefits that Israeli workers receive. Moreover, Palestinian workers have to return to the Palestinian territories everyday after work, no matter how long the distance is between work and residence. Finally, there is no equality of opportunity even to Palestinians who have the Israeli citizenship, particularly in relation to jobs or funds to Arab communities and social institutions. [17]                   The Zionist exploitation and greed is represented by evicting Palestinians from their lands, then building settlements on these lands for Jewish immigrants. In 1948, most Palestinians became refugees after they had been evicted from their lands. Israel has controlled 78 percent of historical Palestine, as a result of the war, although the 1947 UN partition resolution gave Israelis only 54 percent of the country. [18] However, Zionist Israelis were never content. In 1956, they attacked and occupied Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, in collaboration with the then aging colonial European powers: Britain and France. They had to withdraw because of pressure from the Eisenhower administration. However, they reoccupied more Arab lands in 1967. They annexed the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, in violation to international law that prevents any changes in the status of occupied territories. Then, they started to confiscate more Palestinian lands and build new settlements, on the remaining 22 percent of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza). They have never been content with what they obtained, for free, from the UN. They have always wanted more to the extent of denying the existence and the future of Palestinians in an independent Palestinian state. [19] Even the Labor Party, which tries to appear more accommodating to Palestinian rights than the settlers' party (Likude), has its share of denying Palestinians a viable Palestinian state. The Camp David talks between Barak and Arafat collapsed, in September 2000, because Barak insisted on keeping most of the settlers in the West Bank, surrounding Palestinian cities with Israeli roads, denying the Palestinian state borders with Jordan and Egypt, denying any responsibility for refugees, and denying Palestinians real control on East Jerusalem. [20]                   The Zionist Israeli oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people is represented by the continuous military occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has refused to withdraw, using all kinds of excuses. The Zionist strategy has been using protracted negotiations, which continue for decades, without withdrawing from the Arab territories. [21] If Arabs accept negotiations, fine, this is forever. If they resist the Israeli military occupation, then they are described as "terrorists," who should be punished. [22] The end outcome is more suffering, more wars, and more bloodshed. The ideal Palestinian for Israelis has become the one who leaves, but without coming back. They keep denying Palestinians their political and human rights until their life becomes unbearable, then they either leave or accept life under the Israeli military occupation, which is not much different from slavery.                   Finally, Zionism allied itself with Britain during the first half of the 20th century, which resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel. But when the United States became the world superpower, in the second half of the 20th century, Zionism shifted its attention from Britain and focused on influencing the US government. One more evidence of the Zionist influence on the US government is the huge amounts of financial and military assistance Israelis receive annually, despite the fact that the US government is the most indebted government in the world (more than $6 trillion). The US aid to Israel has cost American taxpayers about $135 billion, or about $23,240 for every American citizen. [23] Pro-Israel lobbying groups, like AIPAC, made that possible by having a considerable number of loyalists in Congress, having loyal appointees in major decision-making positions in government. The Zionist influence on the US government has become big enough to allow the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to ignore all President Bush's Jr. demands that Israel should withdraw from the West Bank and stop its April 2002 war against the Palestinian people. [24]                   Since the Gulf Crisis, that led to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Israelis and their Zionist supporters have been relentless in their efforts to drag the United States into a Cold War-like conflict with Arabs and Muslims, which may weaken or destroy both of them. They were successful in influencing the Bush Sr. administration to opt for war to resolve the Iraqi-Kuwaiti crisis. The destruction of Iraqi military and economic capabilities relieved expansionist Israel from the major Arab rival in the region. The Gulf War resulted in the US presence in Arabia, which has angered Arabs. Now, expansionist Zionists can't wait or rest until the US invades Iraq. When this happens, they will be looking for a share in the booty, the Iraqi oil. More important, this will revive their dreams to dominate the entire Middle East, as a step toward extending their Zionist state to include the lands located between the Nile and the Euphrates, including the oil-rich Gulf States. [25] It is a scenario of continuous wars, continuous suffering, and continuous bloodshed. This is the price humanity has been paying, and will be paying until Zionism loses its hegemonic status in the world system, which has been reinforced by its influence on the US government. Zionism has reached the highest stage of imperialism, indeed. * Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar is a sociologist and a cultural anthropologist. He is also  the editor of www.aljazeerah.info . Notes    [1] Al-Hifni, Abdul Mun'im. 1980. "Al-Mawsou'a Al-Naqdiya Lilfalsafa Al-Yahudiya" (Encyclopedia of the Jewish Philosophy: A Critique).  Beirut: Lebanon: Dar Al-Masira. Pp. 135-139. [2]   For more details about the promise in the Bible, see El-Najjar, Hassan, "The Holly Land: Was it Promised to Jews?" here at Al-Jazeerah.info. [3]   For more details about the three stages of the development of capitalism, read Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. "The Modern World-System." New York: Academic Press. [4] The list of American wars, following WWII include the following: [5] Pax Americana is a concept cherished by the power elite realists, like the Bush Sr., James Baker, and Henry Kissinger. It refers to engaging America as a dominant military power in maintaining stability in international relations. It also means wielding an American worldwide influence (El-Najjar, Hassan. 2001. "The Gulf War: Overreaction & Excessiveness." P. 198. Amazone Press. [6]   Among the largest 25 multinational corporations, only five are non-American (Two Japanese, one German, and one Dutch). The rest are headquartered in the US.  ("The Global Giants: US and Tech Firms Gain Ground in Annual Survey." Wall Street Journal, September 27, 1999: R29. [7]   For more about the Zionist (pro-Israel) influence on American foreign policy, see Chapters 7 & 11 in El-Najjar, Hassan. 2001. "The Gulf War: Overreaction & Excessiveness." Amazone Press. "Unchecked influence" refers to appointing staunch supporters of Israel in key US foreign policy positions without counterbalancing that with appointing Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the same levels of decision making. [8]   For more details about the number of refugees and refugee camps inside and outside Palestine, see El-Najjar, Hassan. 1993. "Planned Emigration: The Palestinian Case." International Migration Review. Vol. 27, Spring. Also, see El-Najjar, Hassan. 1988. "Effects of Planned Change on Social Organization: A Case Study of A Palestinian Refugee Camp. A Master's Thesis. The University of Georgia, Athens: GA. Also see Ann M. Lesch's article, "Zionism and its Impacts," by clicking on the "Zionism and its Impact" link, on the front page or in the "Documents" section of http://www.aljazeerah.info [9]   For more details about this and other UN relevant resolutions, see El-Najjar, Hassan. 2001. "US Foreign Policy: Designed to Create Enemies, not Friends." It is found in the articles section of: http://www.aljazeerah.info [10]   See the UN partition map by clicking on the Palestine Maps link, on the front page of http://www.aljazeerah.info   [11]   El-Najjar, Hassan. 2001.  P. 67. "The Gulf War: Overreaction & Excessiveness." Amazone Press. [12]   While Egypt restored Sinai in 1982, in return for a peace treaty with Israel, Lebanon liberated its occupied South  in June 2000 by resistance, particularly from Hizballah. [13]   They have done that systematically since 1967. During the Israeli military campaign in the West Bank, in April 2002, the entire Palestinian population was punished collectively by being subjected to the direct military occupation, by imposing curfews that lasted months after that, by denying the population food, water, and medical supplies. More important, the whole military campaign was a collective punishment for the individual acts that were conducted by suicide bombers. The same collective punishment was inflicted on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza Strip, in May 2002, for one single suicide bomb in Rishon Litzion, south of Tel Aviv. [14]   Read more about Zionist massacres committed against the Palestinian people by clicking on the "Zionist massacres" link, on the front page of http://www.aljazeerah.info  [15]   By the year 2000, it was estimated that there were about 7.760 million Palestinians distributed as follows:  about 915,000 in  Israel; 1,381,000 in the West Bank; 838,000 in Gaza Strip; 2,600,000 in Jordan; 466,000 in Lebanon; 411,000 in Syria; 598,000 in the rest of the Arab World; and 551,000 in the rest of the world. These figures are the year 2000 projections of "Facts and figures about the Palestinians" (Washington, DC: Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, 1992. Pp. 4-5), cited in Farsoun, Samih and Christina Zacharia. 1997. "Palestine and the Palestinians." Pp. 128-129. Westview Press. [16]   This incident represents an evidence of the Zionist influence on the American government, not the other way around, as some Arab intellectuals and politicians have argued for a long time. More elaborate analysis of the Zionist control of the American foreign policy can be found in a lot of works, such as those of Paul Findley. But an article written by Jason Vest, titled, The Men from JINSA and CSP, by Jason Vest is a detailed documentation of how Zionist and Conservative alliances controls the US government. The article is a genuine contribution in this field and is a documented support for the major thesis of this article, "Zionism: The Highest Stage of Imperialism." Another article also written by Jason Vest, titled Turkey, Israel, and the US  provides further evidence about the Israeli influence on American foreign policy.  [17]   Benvenisti, M. 1986. "1986 Report: Demographic, Economic, Legal, Social, and Political Developments in the West Bank." Jerusalem: Jerusalem Post. Actually, the political platforms of Palestinians who have the Israeli citizenship are based on the struggle to achieve equality with the Jewish citizens of Israel. A prominent advocate for that was Azmi Bishara, who ran for the Prime Minister's office, for a short time before withdrawing, in 2000. [18]   See the Partition map, which can be located in the right column of the aljazeerah.info, in the Palestine Maps link. Also, see El-Najjar (1993) for documentation concerning the percentages. Zionist have maintained for decades that Palestinians left their lands, villages, towns, and cities voluntarily. However, researchers have demonstrated that the eviction of Palestinians happened systematically by force, according to a Zionist plan called "Plan Dalet" (El-Najjar, 1988). [19]   On May 12, 2002, the ruling Likude Party adopted a decision that opposes a Palestinian state, which is agreed upon by the UN partition resolution, and the UN Security Council Resolution 1597 (2002), and by the Labor Party. This is a tantamount of denying the existence of the Palestinian people, after confiscating their lands systematically and giving them settlers, who have just arrived from overseas. [20]   For more details, see Stephen Zunes's article, "Challenging the myths about the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks." It can be found at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0205talkmideast.html [21]   The Israeli occupation of Palestine has continued despite the negotiations that started in the Madrid Conference, in 1991. Palestinians had to go through continuous negotiations for more than ten years without an end to the Israeli military occupations. Israeli governments and leaders alternate power but with one constant goal, to keep the occupation until Palestinians give up resistance and accept to live under occupation as slave labor without any political or human rights. [22]   One more evidence about the Zionist influence on the American government is using the term "terrorism" as a weapon against Palestinians and anyone who supports their cause. Before the first intifadha (uprising), the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was described as a terrorist organization by Israelis and by the US government (as mentioned in the annual reports of the Department of State). In 1988, the PLO accepted the existence of Israeli. This resulted in changing its status to a non-terrorist organization. However, during the first and the second intifadha, Palestinian factions were described as terrorist groups. In 2002, all Palestinian groups have been described as terrorist groups. The US House of Representatives , in its infamous April 2002 resolution, even condemned the Palestinian President as a supporter of "terrorism." See the aljazeerah.info editorial, "Congress Resolutions Blaming the Victim and Praising the Oppressor" (5/3/02) [23]   For more details about the US aid to Israel, see the link mentioned in the right column of aljazeerah.info [24]   President Bush started by demanding Israel to withdraw. The following day, he added "withdraw now." Then, he said, "withdraw without delay." Colin Powell, his Secretary of State, clarified it later by saying that the President means, "withdraw immediately." Sharon ignored all that and continued until he finished committing the Jenin massacre. He also ignored the UN Security Council resolutions 1402 and 1403, which demanded the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities. He was sure of the US government protection, by using the veto power in the Council. For documentation of dates, see editorial of aljazeerah.info.       During the Clinton administration, due to Clinton's continuous legal problems, pro-Israel experts held all decision-making positions in the administration. This included Sandy Berger, the National Security Advisor; Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State; William Cohen, the Secretary of Defense; Dennis Ross, the Presidential Envoy to the Middle East; and Martin Indyk, the US Ambassador to Israel. [25] See aljazeerah.info editorial, "What does Israel want?" for more details about the "Greater Israel" Zionist dream.  http://www.aljazeerah.info/Editorials/2002/May%202002/Zionism,%20the%20highest%20stage%20of%20imperialism%20By%20Hassan%20A.%20El-Najjar.htm

Social Justice Terrorism: Theirs And Ours

Terrorism: Theirs and Ours By Eqbal Ahmad(A Presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder, October 12, 1998)
		In the 1930s and 1940s, the Jewish underground in Palestine was described as “TERRORIST.”  Then new things happened. By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring, and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the Western world. At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started to be described, by 1944-45, as “freedom fighters.” At least two Israeli Prime Ministers, including Menachem Begin, have actually, you can find in the books and posters with their pictures, saying “Terrorists, Reward This Much.” The highest reward I have noted so far was 100,000 British pounds on the head of Menachem Begin, the terrorist. Then from 1969 to 1990 the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, occupied the center stage as the terrorist organization. Yasir Arafat has been described repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, William Safire of the New York Times, as the “Chief of Terrorism.” That’s Yasir Arafat. Now, on September 29, 1998, I was rather amused to notice a picture of Yasir Arafat to the right of President Bill Clinton. To his left is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan­yahu. Clinton is looking towards Arafat and Arafat is looking literally like a meek mouse. Just a few years earlier he used to appear with this very menacing look around him, with a gun appearing menacing from his belt. You remember those pictures, and you remember the next one. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of bearded men. These bearded men I was writing about in those days in The New Yorker, actually did. They were very ferocious-looking bearded men with turbans looking like they came from another century. President Reagan received them in the White House. After receiving them he spoke to the press. He pointed towards them, I’m sure some of you will recall that moment, and said, “These are the moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers”. These were the Afghan Mujahiddin. They were at the time, guns in hand, battling the Evil Empire. They were the moral equivalent of our founding fathers! In August 1998, another American President ordered missile strikes from the American navy based in the Indian Ocean to kill Osama Bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan. I do not wish to embarrass you with the reminder that Mr. Bin Laden, whom fifteen American missiles were fired to hit in Afghanistan, was only a few years ago the moral equivalent of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson! He got angry over the fact that he has been demoted from ‘Moral Equivalent’ of your ‘Founding Fathers’. So he is taking out his anger in different ways. I’ll come back to that subject more seriously in a moment. You see, why I have recalled all these stories is to point out to you that the matter of terrorism is rather complicated. Terrorists change. The terrorist of yesterday is the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the terrorist of today. This is a serious matter of the constantly changing world of images in which we have to keep our heads straight to know what is terrorism and what is not. But more importantly, to know what causes it, and how to stop it. The next point about our terrorism is that posture of inconsistency necessarily evades definition. If you are not going to be consistent, you’re not going to define. I have examined at least twenty official documents on terrorism. Not one defines the word. All of them explain it, express it emotively, polemically, to arouse our emotions rather than exercise our intelligence. I give you only one example, which is representative. October 25, 1984. George Shultz, then Secretary of State of the U.S., is speaking at the New York Park Avenue Synagogue. It’s a long speech on terrorism. In the State Department Bulletin of seven single-spaced pages, there is not a single definition of terrorism. What we get is the following: Definition number one: “Terrorism is a modern barbarism that we call terrorism.”  Definition number two is even more brilliant: “Terrorism is a form of political violence.” Aren’t you surprised? It is a form of political violence, says George Shultz, Secretary of State of the U.S. Number three: “Terrorism is a threat to Western civilization.” Number four: “Terrorism is a menace to Western moral values.” Did you notice, does it tell you anything other than arouse your emotions? This is typical. They don’t define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension and adherence to some norms of consistency. That’s the second characteristic of the official literature on terrorism. The third characteristic is that the absence of definition does not prevent officials from being globalistic. We may not define terrorism, but it is a menace to the moral values of Western civilization. It is a menace also to mankind. It’s a menace to good order. Therefore, you must stamp it out worldwide. Our reach has to be global. You need a global reach to kill it. Anti-terrorist policies therefore have to be global. Same speech of George Shultz: “There is no question about our ability to use force where and when it is needed to counter terrorism.” There is no geographical limit. On a single day the missiles hit Afghanistan and Sudan. Those two countries are 2,300 miles apart, and they were hit by missiles belonging to a country roughly 8,000 miles away. Reach is global. A fourth characteristic: claims of power are not only globalist they are also omniscient. We know where they are; therefore we know where to hit. We have the means to know. We have the instruments of knowledge. We are omniscient. Shultz: “We know the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, and as we look around, we have no trouble telling one from the other.” Only Osama Bin Laden doesn’t know that he was an ally one day and an enemy another. That’s very confusing for Osama Bin Laden. I’ll come back to his story towards the end. It’s a real story. Five. The official approach eschews causation. You don’t look at causes of anybody becoming terrorist. Cause? What cause? They ask us to be looking, to be sympathetic to these people. Another example. The New York Times, December 18, 1985, reported that the foreign minister of Yugoslavia, you remember the days when there was a Yugoslavia, requested the Secretary of State of the U.S. to consider the causes of Palestinian terrorism. The Secretary of State, George Shultz, and I am quoting from the New York Times, “went a bit red in the face. He pounded the table and told the visiting foreign minister, there is no connection with any cause. Period.” Why look for causes? Number six. The moral revulsion that we must feel against terrorism is selective. We are to feel the terror of those groups, which are officially disapproved. We are to applaud the terror of those groups of whom officials do approve. Hence, President Reagan, “I am a contra.” He actually said that. We know the contras of Nicaragua were anything, by any definition, but terrorists. The media, to move away from the officials, heed the dominant view of terrorism. The dominant approach also excludes from consideration, more importantly to me, the terror of friendly governments. To that question I will return because it excused among others the terror of Pinochet (who killed one of my closest friends) and Orlando Letelier; and it excused the terror of Zia ul-Haq, who killed many of my friends in Pakistan. All I want to tell you is that according to my ignorant calculations, the ratio of people killed by the state terror of Zia ul-Haq, Pino­chet, Argentinian, Brazilian, Indonesian type, versus the killing of the PLO and other terrorist types is literally, conservatively, one to one hundred thousand. That’s the ratio. History unfortunately recognizes and accords visibility to power and not to weakness. Therefore, visibility has been accorded historically to dominant groups. In our time, the time that began with this day, Columbus Day.  The time that begins with Columbus Day is a time of extraordinary unrecorded holocausts. Great civilizations have been wiped out. The Mayas, the Incas, the Aztecs, the American Indians, the Canadian Indians were all wiped out. Their voices have not been heard, even to this day fully. Now they are beginning to be heard, but not fully. They are heard, yes, but only when the dominant power suffers, only when resistance has a semblance of costing, of exacting a price. When a Custer is killed or when a Gordon is besieged. That’s when you know that they were Indians fighting, Arabs fighting and dying. My last point of this section – U.S. policy in the Cold War period has sponsored terrorist regimes one after another. Somoza, Batista, all kinds of tyrants have been America’s friends. You know that. There was a reason for that. I or you are not guilty. Nicaragua, contra. Afghanistan, mujahiddin. El Salvador, etc. Now the second side. You’ve suffered enough. So suffer more. There ain’t much good on the other side either. You shouldn’t imagine that I have come to praise the other side. But keep the balance in mind. Keep the imbalance in mind and first ask ourselves, What is terrorism? Our first job should be to define the damn thing, name it, give it a description of some kind, other than “moral equivalent of founding fathers” or “a moral outrage to Western civilization”. I will stay with you with Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: “Terror is an intense, overpowering fear.” He uses terrorizing, terrorism, “the use of terrorizing methods of governing or resisting a government.” This simple definition has one great virtue, that of fairness. It’s fair. It focuses on the use of coercive violence, violence that is used illegally, extra-constitutionally, to coerce. And this definition is correct because it treats terror for what it is, whether the government or private people commit it. Have you noticed something? Motivation is left out of it. We’re not talking about whether the cause is just or unjust. We’re talking about consensus, consent, absence of consent, legality, absence of legality, constitutionality, absence of constitutionality. Why do we keep motives out? Because motives differ. Motives differ and make no difference. I have identified in my work five types of terrorism.  First, state terrorism. Second, religious terrorism; terrorism inspired by religion, Catholics killing Protestants, Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis, God, religion, sacred terror, you can call it if you wish. State, church. Crime. Mafia. All kinds of crimes commit terror. There is pathology. You’re pathological. You’re sick. You want the attention of the whole world. You’ve got to kill a president. You will. You terrorize. You hold up a bus. Fifth, there is political terror of the private group; be they Indian, Vietnamese, Algerian, Palestinian, Baader-Meinhof, the Red Brigade. Political terror of the private group. Oppositional terror.  Keep these five in mind. Keep in mind one more thing. Sometimes these five can converge on each other. You start with protest terror. You go crazy. You become pathological. You continue. They converge. State terror can take the form of private terror. For example, we’re all familiar with the death squads in Latin America or in Pakistan. Government has employed private people to kill its opponents. It’s not quite official. It’s privatized. Convergence. Or the political terrorist who goes crazy and becomes pathological. Or the criminal who joins politics. In Afghanistan, in Central America, the CIA employed in its covert operations drug pushers. Drugs and guns often go together. Smuggling of all things often go together. Of the five types of terror, the focus is on only one, the least important in terms of cost to human lives and human property [Political Terror of those who want to be heard]. The highest cost is state terror. The second highest cost is religious terror, although in the twentieth century religious terror has, relatively speaking, declined. If you are looking historically, massive costs. The next highest cost is crime. Next highest, pathology. A Rand Corporation study by Brian Jenkins, for a ten-year period up to 1988, showed 50% of terror was committed without any political cause at all. No politics. Simply crime and pathology.  So the focus is on only one, the political terrorist, the PLO, the Bin Laden, whoever you want to take. Why do they do it? What makes the terrorist tick? I would like to knock them out quickly to you. First, the need to be heard. Imagine, we are dealing with a minority group, the political, private terrorist. First, the need to be heard. Normally, and there are exceptions, there is an effort to be heard, to get your grievances heard by people. They’re not hearing it. A minority acts. The majority applauds. The Palestinians, for example, the superterrorists of our time, were dispossessed in 1948. From 1948 to 1968 they went to every court in the world. They knocked at every door in the world. They were told that they became dispossessed because some radio told them to go away - an Arab radio, which was a lie. Nobody was listening to the truth. Finally, they invented a new form of terror, literally their invention: the airplane hijacking. Between 1968 and 1975 they pulled the world up by its ears. They dragged us out and said, Listen, Listen. We listened. We still haven’t done them justice, but at least we all know. Even the Israelis acknowledge. Remember Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, saying in 1970, ‘There are no Palestinians.’ They do not exist. They damn well exist now. We are cheating them at Oslo. At least there are some people to cheat now. We can’t just push them out. The need to be heard is essential. One motivation there. Mix of anger and helplessness produces an urge to strike out. You are angry. You are feeling helpless. You want retribution. You want to wreak retributive justice. The experience of violence by a stronger party has historically turned victims into terrorists. Battered children are known to become abusive parents and violent adults. You know that. That’s what happens to peoples and nations. When they are battered, they hit back. State terror very often breeds collective terror. Do you recall the fact that the Jews were never terrorists? By and large Jews were not known to commit terror except during and after the Holocaust. Most studies show that the majority of members of the worst terrorist groups in Israel or in Palestine, the Stern and the Irgun gangs, were people who were immigrants from the most anti-Semitic countries of Eastern Europe and Germany. Similarly, the young Shiites of Lebanon or the Palestinians from the refugee camps are battered people. They become very violent. The ghettos are violent internally. They become violent externally when there is a clear, identifiable external target, an enemy where you can say, ‘Yes, this one did it to me’. Then they can strike back. Example is a bad thing. Example spreads. There was a highly publicized Beirut hijacking of the TWA plane. After that hijacking, there were hijacking attempts at nine different American airports. Pathological groups or individuals modeling on the others. Even more serious are examples set by governments. When governments engage in terror, they set very large examples. When they engage in supporting terror, they engage in other sets of examples. Absence of revolutionary ideology is central to victim terrorism. Revolutionaries do not commit unthinking terror. Those of you who are familiar with revolutionary theory know the debates, the disputes, the quarrels, the fights within revolutionary groups of Europe, the fight between anarchists and Marxists, for example. But the Marxists have always argued that revolutionary terror, if ever engaged in, must be sociologically and psychologically selective. Don’t hijack a plane. Don’t hold hostages. Don’t kill children, for God’s sake. Have you recalled also that the great revolutions, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Algerian, the Cuban, never engaged in hijacking type of terrorism? They did engage in terrorism, but it was highly selective, highly sociological, still deplorable, but there was an organized, highly limited, selective character to it. So absence of revolutionary ideology that begins more or less in the post-World War II period has been central to this phenomenon. My final question is - These conditions have existed for a long time. But why then this flurry of private political terrorism? Why now so much of it and so visible? The answer is modern technology. You have a cause. You can communicate it through radio and television. They will all come swarming if you have taken an aircraft and are holding 150 Americans hostage. They will all hear your cause. You have a modern weapon through which you can shoot a mile away. They can’t reach you. And you have the modern means of communicating. When you put together the cause, the instrument of coercion and the instrument of communication, politics is made. A new kind of politics becomes possible. To this challenge rulers from one country after another have been responding with traditional methods. The traditional method of shooting it out, whether it’s missiles or some other means. The Israelis are very proud of it. The Americans are very proud of it. The French became very proud of it. Now the Pakistanis are very proud of it. The Pakistanis say, ‘Our commandos are the best.’ Frankly, it won’t work. A central problem of our time, political minds, rooted in the past, and modern times, producing new realities. Therefore in conclusion, what is my recommendation to America? Quickly. First, avoid extremes of double standards. If you’re going to practice double standards, you will be paid with double standards. Don’t use it. Don’t condone Israeli terror, Pakistani terror, Nicaraguan terror, El Salvadoran terror, on the one hand, and then complain about Afghan terror or Palestinian terror. It doesn’t work. Try to be even-handed. A superpower cannot promote terror in one place and reasonably expect to discourage terrorism in another place. It won’t work in this shrunken world. Do not condone the terror of your allies. Condemn them. Fight them. Punish them. Please eschew, avoid covert operations and low-intensity warfare. These are breeding grounds of terror and drugs. Violence and drugs are bred there. The structure of covert operations, I’ve made a film about it, which has been very popular in Europe, called Dealing with the Demon. I have shown that wherever covert operations have been, there has been the central drug problem. That has been also the center of the drug trade. Because the structure of covert operations, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Central America, is very hospitable to drug trade. Avoid it. Give it up. It doesn’t help. Please focus on causes and help ameliorate causes. Try to look at causes and solve problems. Do not concentrate on military solutions. Do not seek military solutions. Terrorism is a political problem. Seek political solutions. Diplomacy works. Take the example of the last attack on Bin Laden. You don’t know what you’re attacking. They say they know, but they don’t know. They were trying to kill Qadaffi. They killed his four-year-old daughter. The poor baby hadn’t done anything. Qadaffi is still alive. They tried to kill Saddam Hussein. They killed Laila Bin Attar, a prominent artist, an innocent woman. They tried to kill Bin Laden and his men. Not one but twenty-five other people died. They tried to destroy a chemical factory in Sudan. Now they are admitting that they destroyed an innocent factory, one-half of the production of medicine in Sudan has been destroyed, not a chemical factory. You don’t know. You think you know. Four of your missiles fell in Pakistan. One was slightly damaged. Two were totally damaged. One was totally intact. For ten years the American government has kept an embargo on Pakistan because Pakistan is trying, stupidly, to build nuclear weapons and missiles. So we have a technology embargo on my country. One of the missiles was intact. What do you think a Pakistani official told the Washington Post? He said it was a gift from Allah. We wanted U.S. technology. Now we have got the technology, and our scientists are examining this missile very carefully. It fell into the wrong hands. So don’t do that. Look for political solutions. Do not look for military solutions. They cause more problems than they solve. Please help reinforce, strengthen the framework of international law. There was a criminal court in Rome. Why didn’t they go to it first to get their warrant against Bin Laden, if they have some evidence? Get a warrant, then go after him. Internationally. Enforce the U.N. Enforce the International Court of Justice, this unilateralism makes us look very stupid and them relatively smaller. Q&A The question here is that I mentioned that I would go somewhat into the story of Bin Laden, the Saudi in Afghanistan and didn’t do so, could I go into some detail? The point about Bin Laden would be roughly the same as the point between Sheikh Abdul Rahman, who was accused and convicted of encouraging the blowing up of the World Trade Center in New York City. The New Yorker did a long story on him. It’s the same as that of Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani Baluch who was also convicted of the murder of two CIA agents. Let me see if I can be very short on this. Jihad, which has been translated a thousand times as “holy war,” is not quite just that. Jihad is an Arabic word that means, “to struggle.” It could be struggle by violence or struggle by non-violent means. There are two forms, the small jihad and the big jihad. The small jihad involves violence. The big jihad involves the struggles with self. Those are the concepts. The reason I mention it is that in Islamic history, jihad as an international violent phenomenon had disappeared in the last four hundred years, for all practical purposes. It was revived suddenly with American help in the 1980s. When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, which borders on Afghanistan, saw an opportunity and launched a jihad there against godless communism.  The U.S. saw a God-sent opportunity to mobilize one billion Muslims against what Reagan called the Evil Empire. Money started pouring in. CIA agents starting going all over the Muslim world recruiting people to fight in the great jihad. Bin Laden was one of the early prize recruits. He was not only an Arab. He was also a Saudi. He was not only a Saudi. He was also a multimillionaire, willing to put his own money into the matter. Bin Laden went around recruiting people for the jihad against communism. I first met him in 1986. He was recommended to me by an American official of whom I do not know whether he was or was not an agent. I was talking to him and said, ‘Who are the Arabs here who would be very interesting?’ By here I meant in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said, ‘You must meet Osama.’ I went to see Osama. There he was, rich, bringing in recruits from Algeria, from Sudan, from Egypt, just like Sheikh Abdul Rahman. This fellow was an ally. He remained an ally. He turns at a particular moment. In 1990 the U.S. goes into Saudi Arabia with forces. Saudi Arabia is the holy place of Muslims, Mecca and Medina. There had never been foreign troops there. In 1990, during the Gulf War, they went in, in the name of helping Saudi Arabia defeat Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden remained quiet. Saddam was defeated, but the American troops stayed on in the land of the kaba (the sacred site of Islam in Mecca), foreign troops. He wrote letter after letter saying, Why are you here? Get out! You came to help but you have stayed on. Finally he started a jihad against the other occupiers. His mission is to get American troops out of Saudi Arabia. His earlier mission was to get Russian troops out of Afghanistan. See what I was saying earlier about covert operations? A second point to be made about him is these are tribal people, people who are really tribal. Being a millionaire doesn’t matter. Their code of ethics is tribal. The tribal code of ethics consists of two words: loyalty and revenge. You are my friend. You keep your word. I am loyal to you. You break your word, I go on my path of revenge. For him, America has broken its word. The loyal friend has betrayed. The one to whom you swore blood loyalty has betrayed you. They’re going to go for you. They’re going to do a lot more. These are the chickens of the Afghanistan war coming home to roost. This is why I said to stop covert operations. There is a price attached to those that the American people cannot calculate and Kissinger type of people do not know, don’t have the history to know.
		Eqbal Ahmad, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, also served as a managing editor of the quarterly Race and Class. A prolific writer, his articles and essays have been published in The Nation, Dawn (Pakistan), among several other journals throughout the world. He died in 1999.
Courtesy: University of Colorado

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