* * * * * * * * * *
Battleship Potemkin blog
Commentary on current events, never lacking in fury and possibly even signifying something.
|
[NOTE: Previously published articles can be viewed on the Past articles page but you must click on "Details" on that page to view content.] __________________________________________________________________________________________
Image credits, left to right: Marek Studzinski, Manuel Guerrero, Mufid Majnun; all via unSplash.
ON THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD, or WHY CEASEFIRE IS A DIRTY WORDBeing a socio-historical-ethical examination of the humanitarian crisis on the Gaza Strip, incorporating an appreciation of The Book of All Books, by Roberto Calasso
Written November 18-20, posted November 20, 2023
[Author’s introductory notes: When I sat down to type some notes for a radio discussion with two other veterans of the US Armed Forces to take place November 15, I found I had soon come up with more than six pages of talking points to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So an article for this website was simply demanded. It will be far-ranging, I warn you. Full disclosure: I am a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, which has been a leading element in the call for a ceasefire in this conflict. I had a Jewish Romanian grandfather in my paternal genealogy; I do not hesitate to reveal such information. Like any modern human, I am a mongrel. And I enjoy that status. I do not identify personally as Jewish; I could be described as a “secular humanist.”] To begin, a simple rhetorical question: How many members of the torch-carrying mob that marched thru the streets of Charlottesville, VA in 2017 chanting “Jews will not replace us!” were members of Hamas? Or had any connection to Palestinians? On October 7, did Hamas guerillas appear from out of a void to enter what is deemed Israeli territory? Was there a rift in the Space/Time Continuum whereby these soldiers entered from an alternative universe? Earth-shaking events do not occur in a historical vacuum. So we must examine the background to this event. A Zionist zealot, driven by the emotional memory of persecution of Jews around the world and above all the Holocaust perpetrated against them by Nazi Germany, would be incapable of such a rational exercise. Zionism, the idea of a return to the homeland of the Jews dispersed around the world and persecuted, is a train of Jewish thought that goes back a long, long way. But the modern Zionist movement is credited to Theodor Herzl, who issued a call in 1896 (“The Jewish State,” published in German) that galvanized sentiment. Anti-Jewish hatred had long existed in Europe, including Czarist Russia, where murderous pogroms were enacted and Jewish property stolen. It was in Russia that the infamous forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published in 1903. This purported to be the notes of a meeting of Jewish financiers from various countries, conspiring to dominate the global economy. This “International Jewish Conspiracy” idea is still around, kept alive by the world’s real anti-semites. [It must be noted at this point that the Arabs are also a semitic people.] During World War I, the region known as the Levant, which included Lebanon and the territory now occupied by modern Israel—and thus Jerusalem—was under control of the Ottomans of Turkey. The Levant in “Biblical times” included Canaan Land (more on this later) plus parts of what present day maps designate Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and part of Egypt known as Gaza. The Turks were allied with Germany and therefore officially enemies of Britain, France and eventually the US when it finally entered the war. British Army officer T.E. Lawrence gained his fame trying to unite the Arab tribes against the Ottomans, as depicted in David Lean’s spectacular movie of 1962. Before the end of that war, the British government, which had economic interests in the area, issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917. It endorsed the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as follows: “His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” In 1922, The League of Nations endorsed Balfour and placed Britain in position of civil administrator for the region. This was called the Palestine Mandate. The modern borders of nations cited earlier as spanning the Levant were drawn pretty arbitrarily around this time, by these foreigners, at the end of WW I. The early Jewish settlers in Palestine, very largely arriving from Europe, where they had been persecuted and discriminated against for centuries—think the Spanish and other inquisitions—established their kibbutzes and lived relatively at peace with their Arab neighbors. [A kibbutz is a cooperative community effort to farm or manufacture on a small basis. No small number of these early settlers considered themselves Socialists.] The League of Nations reasserted that whatever form of governance would be established, it would “…safeguard the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.” THE ZIONIST CLAIM TO JERUSALEM I am currently reading one of the most fascinating books I have ever encountered (pursued based on NY Times review). This is The Book of All Books, by Roberto Calasso (1941-2021), translated from the Italian by Tim Parks; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, English edition 2021. It is an examination of some of the major personalities and events depicted in the Old Testament, drawing on classical rabbinical commentary, speculating on what may have actually transpired or the real motives of certain actions undertaken. Individual chapters are devoted to Saul and Samuel, David, Solomon, and Moses (the longest). On page 42, we read: “Jerusalem is far from being the native home of the Jews. Jerusalem is the city the Jews bought from the Jebusites. But as with the Cave of Machpelah, where Sarah was buried, the previous owners asked that they never be forced to leave Jerusalem. So Jerusalem was always going to be a mixed society where past and present owners lived together.” [my emphasis added; Jebusites—a tribe in Canaan Land; Sarah was one of Abraham’s wives. GL] We will return to the specific question of Jerusalem shortly, but must now review factually the founding of the modern State of Israel. When the world saw what had happened in the German death camps, it wondered “Why didn’t the Jews fight back? Why weren’t there more uprisings like in Warsaw?” Seizing on this criticism, the Zionists formulated the slogan “Never again!” They proclaimed that henceforth a new generation of Jews would defend themselves by any means necessary. The Zionist movement encouraged American Jews to emigrate to Israel and start a new life. They would “make the desert bloom,” finding ways to raise crops in a dry, hostile environment. But mostly it was surviving Jews in Europe who answered the call to come to Palestine. Like any high-minded declaration of principles, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations endorsement thereof would have no force of law. Jewish extremists, which would form the base for the Likud Party, launched a campaign of terror against the indigenous population, to drive them from their land and make room for Jewish settlement. This transpired in 1947-48. These extremists—foreign immigrants, remember—drove about 3/4 of a million Palestinians from their land by force of arms. This event is called “the Naqba” by Palestinians, Arabic for “catastrophe.” Menachem Begin, probably the most rightwing Prime Minister of Israel prior to Netanyahu, was the subject of WANTED FOR ACTS OF TERRORISM posters issued by the British Palestine Mandate authorities. Zionism stakes legitimacy for the establishment of a Jewish homeland that includes Jerusalem on the notion of dispersed Jews returning to the place of their origin. Yet if Palestinians driven from their homes in the Naqba—rather, the descendants of those originally expelled by force—assert that they have a right to return to Palestine some day, Israel says they have no such right. In 1967, in but six days, the Israeli military inflicted a humiliating defeat on Nasser of Egypt and Arabic allies. The victor seized neighboring portions of Egypt (the Gaza Strip), Jordan (the West Bank) and Syria (the Golan Heights). To this day, Israel retains control (to some extent at least) of all these chunks of territory, in arrogant defiance of the United Nations. How can a small nation do this? Very simply, and solely, because of the support of the USA. (More on that below.) And so it came to pass that the Palestinian Arabs—some of whom adhere to Christianity, by the way—forced from their land at gunpoint were settled in these occupied areas. Generations have passed with lives lived, and lost, in squalid refugee camps. The festering resentment and rage over this decades-long denial of basic human rights, not some rift in the Continuum, gave birth to the military assault against Israel on October 7. Tensions have been escalating in recent years over the question of whose territory is Jerusalem. Jews and Muslims each claim extremely holy sites in the Old City. There have been numerous clashes over this issue. The decision of the (first!) Trump administration to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was nothing less than a deliberate provocation to stir up yet more violent clashes. Israeli military and police units have always had the upper hand in the realm of internal security. Machine guns versus hurled rocks has been the pattern in the earlier Palestinian intifadas (uprisings). Such relatively peaceful protests have never gained a shred of reform in Israeli internal policies. More frustration, more resentment, more rage. The never-ending cycle of violence and vengeance. “An eye for an eye”? Israeli forces have always taken ten or more Palestinian eyes in avenging the loss of one of their own. The world looks on in horror, but is powerless to do anything. Final observations, for the moment, on the question of whose home is Jerusalem: I have read very extensively in subjects such as Human Evolution, Anthropology, Archaeology. And I can tell you that human history is nothing if not the story of countless mass migrations over the millennia. We have two formerly nomadic semitic peoples contesting the soil of Jerusalem. The Balfour Declaration is now a relic of history, but had its precepts been followed we would be living in a different world. U.S. SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL Now we must ask “Why does the United States Government, regardless of which party holds the White House or the majority in Congress, send billions of dollars of American taxpayer funds in aid to Israel every single year, regardless of the Israeli regime’s behavior?” Note that I have separated the Israeli government from the citizenry. There has long been a peace movement in Israel, seeking a fair resolution of “the Palestinian Question.” And in recent years, domestic opposition to the increasingly fascistic Prime Minister Netanyahu had been growing dramatically. The current crisis of violence conveniently makes it harder to oppose the regime. Likewise, our own government hardly reflects the sentiment of our citizenry on most any topic you would care to name. So, do Americans on the whole love Jews?? Are you kidding? Persons of Jewish heritage, or just suspected of it, were discriminated against in this country for a long time. There was a “quota system”: if persons of Jewish heritage weren’t outright prohibited from buying homes in certain parts of town, or barred from membership in country clubs and other private organizations, a quota was set for how many would be allowed in. (See the 1947 movie Gentleman’s Agreement, in which Gregory Peck plays a WASP pretending to be Jewish to publicly expose these practices.) And the rise of actual anti-semitic sentiment and acts of violence in the US has risen in lockstep with the increasing influence of so-called White Christian Nationalism. This trend started long before the present events in the Middle East. Shall we blame all this on Hamas? Even before someone coined the term “conspiracy theory,” attempts to deny that the German Nazis murdered Jews by the millions had become practically a cottage industry here. How many of these ignorant Bible thumpers don’t even accept the obvious: that Jesus of Nazareth himself was born of Jewish lineage. Yet they cry “The Jews murdered our Lord!” Some of them probably still believe that Jews hold secret rituals where they drink the blood of slain Christian babies. They may even still believe that Jews have horns and tails! So, to the point: if it is not sympathy for the suffering of Jews over the ages, what motivates US Government support for the rogue state of Israel, which has been condemned my majority vote in the UN General Assembly for running an apartheid system of discrimination and repression? Look no further than the crude oil under the sands of countries in the Middle East. So it was deemed beneficial to the US to have a heavily armed Jewish State on Arab doorsteps— dedicated militantly to the concept of “Never again!”, requiring mandatory military service by the young—to threaten the Arab world and “keep it in line.” Marxism—which strives to scientifically examine all phenomena under the sun and beyond—has been crudely described as simply “economic determinism.” But has not Man been an economic creature since the founding of what we call civilization? And in the modern world, despite the glitter of gold and the brilliant hues of precious gems, is there any commodity more crucial than crude oil and its byproducts? If it all vanished overnight, the modern world would grind to a halt within a few days. And there is your answer to the question: why does the US arm a heavily militarized “Jewish” regime on the doorstep of the oil-rich Middle East? “THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE” And now we plunge deeper, into the very psyche of the human animal. I warned you this article would range far and wide. When Netanyahu labeled members of Hamas “human animals,” he was simply regurgitating the ignorance and arrogance of humans who fail, day in and day out, to remember that we are all animals. Carl Sagan described trees as “our cousins.” We truly all are part of the vast web of life on our planet. Humans have been obsessed with the shedding of blood from the beginning, sad to say. Imagine our primitive ancestors at the stage of human evolution when they have figured out how to devise weapons for hunting (or against a rival clan): spears, arrows, knives. They observe that if they inflict major wounds on the prey, or immobilize it to the point where they can approach and cut its throat, blood flows from the wounds. More quickly, of course, if the hunter severs the carotid arteries or jugular veins. The blood flows, the victim goes into shock, loses consciousness, and dies. So, the blood is the life! Cause and effect become clear. Irish Victorian author Bram Stoker had his Count Dracula make this very declaration: “The blood is the life!” When supernatural beings, the gods, were invented by humans to try to explain the phenomena of the Natural World, it was decided that they must be propitiated, they must be sacrificed to to keep them satisfied of human respect for their (imagined) tremendous powers. The power to bring a devastating tempest, a drought, a plague of grasshoppers. In some primitive human societies, probably the majority early on, the victim was human. Eventually the idea of substituting a non-human animal arose. And so in barbaric societies—and I include here most definitely the primitive tribes of Israel and their neighbors *—it became essential that blood be shed in sacrificial ceremonies. For what is more precious than life itself? The gods would not be satisfied with anything less significant, less substantial. Read the Old Testament! I have, as well as the New, and the Koran to boot. These matters are addressed in the book referenced earlier, by Roberto Calasso. The blood flowed, and it flowed, and it flowed, endlessly. Yahweh—the god of the ancient Jews—repeatedly instructs his Chosen People to commit herem against other tribes. I was not acquainted with this term prior to reading The Book of All Books. It can be defined as a form of excommunication, an utter shunning of a disgraced individual by the community. But there is a far more significant meaning: to subject a whole community—family, clan, tribe, nation—to herem is to annihilate, to exterminate them from the face of the Earth and from the memory of Man. And this, I believe, is what Netanyahu’s regime is attempting to perpetrate against the Palestinians. It is inconvenient to have living witnesses to testify to Israeli crimes since the time of the Naqba to present day. So the refugees on the Gaza Strip are to be exterminated, under the guise of “eliminating” the Hamas operatives. With 100% endorsement of this from the Biden Administration. * [It must be noted that the ancient societies that deemed themselves the height of civilization in the run-up to the advent of Christianity and beyond—primarily Greece and Rome—certainly also continued the blood sacrifices of earlier times. The Roman Empire became legendary for the intentional infliction of cruelty on animals, human and non-human as well.] The Book of All Books presents this commentary (pages 218-219) on the land Yahweh supposedly offered to the ancient Jews for their Promised Land, which lay in what was then called Canaan: “Isaac lived all his life in Canaan; Abraham had spent part of his life there. Likewise Jacob. After that the children of Israel had passed more than four hundred years in Egypt. They had had nothing more to do with Canaan and by now knew almost nothing about the place. Canaan was just a name that turned up in stories about their three ancestors. Centuries later, the Jews who headed for Palestine after the diaspora would find themselves in a similar situation. Palestine was a place they knew from a book: the Bible.” Calasso explains that Moses reported his instructions from Yahweh for waging war differed depending on the location of the enemy. To attack a distant town or encampment, it sufficed to merely (!) put all the adult males to the sword. The women, children and livestock could be exploited at the leisure of the conquerors. From page 225: “But for the ‘towns of those peoples that Yahweh, your God, gives to you as your inheritance,’ Moses laid down quite different laws. These peoples were to be cut off from all others and condemned to herem, which is to say, exterminated. But what crime exactly had these peoples committed? First and foremost the crime of living in the places that Yahweh had promised to the children of Israel. Places where no trace of any past, inevitably reprehensible, must remain.” [my emphasis added—GL] These words, in a work being completed (in the original Italian) around 2019, now seem a chilling premonition of what unfolded starting October 7. Later on the very day I wrote the earlier comments on the human lust for shedding blood, I came upon additional material of relevance in Calasso’s book, regarding the creation of the human being and the earliest times in the Garden of Eden. As recounted in the Book of Genesis, God planted the Garden with vegetable foodstuffs sufficient to sustain Adam and Eve. Their diet initially was vegetarian, and members of the Seventh Day Adventists still advocate vegetarianism. Adam was invited to give names to the other animals, the varieties of which had been created during the six days of creation. Now enter the brothers born of the First Couple, Cain (born first) and Abel. To honor the Creator, Cain offered Yahweh “the fruits of the Earth” he personally gathered. From Calasso, starting on page 294: “Abel’s case was quite different. So far the Bible had never mentioned the act of killing. And Yahweh had not yet allowed man to eat meat. We do not know why Abel felt the need to kill some of his animals and offer them to Yahweh.” Yahweh rejected Cain’s offering, but was pleased with that of Abel. “Every sacrifice presupposes a bloody sacrifice. . . . Blood is the only incontrovertible manifestation of life. The first fruits of the Earth alone are not enough. Which brings us to the crucial question about sacrifice: why must a living being be killed in order to approach the invisible? It’s a question that has never been answered, or you might say that all of history has been an attempt to answer it. A failed attempt.” [the “invisible” here is synonymous with the supernatural—GL] As we know, Cain’s resentment would lead him to slay his brother in a field. The sin of murder was loosed in the world. Yahweh became increasingly displeased with what he had created, until He succumbed to the urge to drown all with the Great Flood. But still offered humans a fresh start, courtesy of Noah and his family. The central revolution in the New Covenant Jesus of Nazareth would offer the world was his self-sacrifice as The Lamb. Unfortunately for untold trillions of non-human animals slain ritually, and to allow their flesh to be consumed by humans, and despite the success of Christianity in gaining adherents in the ensuing two millennia, this message seems to have gone over folks’ heads. “I am the Lamb, who suffered on the cross on your behalf. You need not go on murdering innocent beings to satisfy our Heavenly Father.” Pardon my paraphrasing! THE CRISIS IN GAZA IS A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS With support around the world growing for the simple right of Palestinians to not be murdered by 2000 pound bombs, artillery shells and (some reports say) white phosphorus and other deadly assaults, the Biden Administration keeps changing its tune. “The optics,” as the saying in the media goes, are looking pretty bad for the United States, with thousands of children already dead, who knows how many maimed for life. 100% support for Israel remains the US stance, but US spokespersons say out of the other side of their mouths “Let’s urge Israel to exercise a little restraint where innocent civilians are concerned.” Of course, we are expected to believe Israeli weapons are so “smart” they only kill designated bad guys. We were asked to believe this same nonsense when the Bushes, father and son, launched their respective wars against Iraq when Saddam Hussein reigned there. When it comes to sheer HYPOCRISY, yes, our nation is pretty damned exceptional. As I approach the conclusion of this article, it appears the Israeli regime is having to work pretty hard to “prove” that Hamas had been using the area of the al-Shifa Hospital as a “command center.” Why did CNN not hoist blaring headlines with Israel boasting of its findings shortly after they seized possession of the hospital complex? More than ample time to manufacture and plant “evidence” passed before media representatives were invited inside. “In war, the first casualty is Truth.” And truer words have never been penned. Our taxpayer dollars are now being spent with greatest generosity—without consent of we the people, as usual—to sustain wars in the Ukraine and Gaza. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. apparently has been informed by God, like George Walker Bush before him, that his destined role in life is to be a “war president.” What could be more obvious than that, as chief bankroller of and adviser to one side in each of these wars, the US cannot possibly present itself as an “honest broker” or neutral mediator. Just as Lady Macbeth struggled to cleanse her guilty hands, despite all the soap and water in the world the rulers of the USA can never remove the stains of blood on their own hands. Merely to call for a ceasefire, to at least temporarily halt the killing, earns a person of good will the label “anti-semite.” This new McCarthyism, so vile and utterly dishonest, will be the subject of my next article. _____________________________________________
* * * Why "Battleship Potemkin"? Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 movie about the mutiny in the Tsar's Black Sea fleet during the failed 1905 Russian revolution is acknowledged as a masterpiece of cinema. The author of this website endorses the film's message: To rise against cruel oppression is not only justified, it is essential for the preservation of human dignity. |
________________________________________________
Previous two blog articles, available on Past articles page:
________________________________________________
Previous two blog articles, available on Past articles page:
________________________________________________
My current writing projects
I am having fun writing my first novels--yes, plural. The third I launched into ended up the first to be completed. I am currently seeking a Literary Agent to represent me.
I am having fun writing my first novels--yes, plural. The third I launched into ended up the first to be completed. I am currently seeking a Literary Agent to represent me.
This blog site addresses and comments on these topics (among others!): peace, war, US politics, American politics, political analysis, climate crisis, climate change, climate change deniers, Donald J. Trump, social commentary, social criticism, social satire, current events, racism, anti-war movement, anti-racism, religion, religious extremism, religious fundamentalism, atheism, Buddhism, fascism, anti-fascism, socialism, communism, American war in Vietnam, the Vietnam War, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, "The Vietnam War" PBS TV series, GIs, GI resistance to war, US Army, US military, militarism, anti-militarism, 'Bowe' Bergdahl, national debt, Pentagon budget, literature, books, authors, writers, cinema, music, movies, environment, ecology, anthropology, evolution, human race, humankind, misogyny, homophobia, philosophy, resistance, "Star Trek," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," United States Constitution, The Federalist Papers, James Madison, "The Simpsons," Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues," Commander-in-Chief, al-Baghdadi, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, endless wars, Major Danny Sjursen, Fritz Lang, Peter Bogdanovich, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, M, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, Josef Goebbels, Hollywood, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Carl Sagan, Joe Biden, "With God on Our Side," TAKE THIS WAR AND SHOVE IT! A Most Unwilling Soldier 1967-1971, Albert Einstein, Nuremberg Trials, sexual identity, non-binary sexual identity, sexual orientation, suppression of right to vote, human rights, civil rights, Erik Edstrom, UN-AMERICAN--A Soldier's Reckoning of Our Longest War, Chelsea Manning
* * * * *
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NOTICE: Unless otherwise indicated, owner of this site is the sole author and owner of all material posted (with exception of public domain graphics). Permission is granted to share contents of this site elsewhere on the Internet or by other means of reproduction provided original author (Gregory Laxer) is credited. Please include a link to this website as a courtesy. If only excerpts are shared, original context must be accurately conveyed and, again, credited to original author. Please include a link to this website. EXCEPTION: Selections from my as yet unpublished memoir (see Memoir Page of this site) may not be reproduced elsewhere without express permission of the author.
DISCLAIMER: The author/owner of this website is not responsible for or necessarily in agreement with ideas expressed on other websites to which links are provided, nor does he endorse products that may be advertised on this site by the website service provider.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NOTICE: Unless otherwise indicated, owner of this site is the sole author and owner of all material posted (with exception of public domain graphics). Permission is granted to share contents of this site elsewhere on the Internet or by other means of reproduction provided original author (Gregory Laxer) is credited. Please include a link to this website as a courtesy. If only excerpts are shared, original context must be accurately conveyed and, again, credited to original author. Please include a link to this website. EXCEPTION: Selections from my as yet unpublished memoir (see Memoir Page of this site) may not be reproduced elsewhere without express permission of the author.
DISCLAIMER: The author/owner of this website is not responsible for or necessarily in agreement with ideas expressed on other websites to which links are provided, nor does he endorse products that may be advertised on this site by the website service provider.
