Al Mayadeen – April 29, 2024
US-Saudi security pact for normalization with 'Israel' nears 'completion'
The United States is close to finishing a security pact with Saudi Arabia that would be offered if it signs a normalization agreement with "Israel", Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.
"The work that Saudi Arabia, the United States have been doing together in terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion," Blinken said in Riyadh.
The US Secretary of State further claimed that it was diplomacy that halted regional escalation since the war on Gaza started, including after the unprecedented Iranian retaliatory attack earlier this month.
"We did come very close to an escalation or spread of the conflict, and I think because of very focused, very determined efforts, we've been able to avoid it," Blinken told the World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh.
A delegation from Hamas was due on Monday in Egypt, which with Qatar has been seeking to broker a deal that would halt the Israeli genocide and see captives freed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken commenced his diplomatic tour of the Middle East on Monday, as he arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday. This visit reportedly serves as the starting point of a broader itinerary aimed at addressing regional issues across the Middle East.
In Riyadh, he is anticipated to meet with senior Saudi leaders and also convene a broader meeting with counterparts from five Arab states – Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan – "to discuss the potential governance of the Gaza Strip following the conclusion of the war," a senior State Department official said.
Blinken will also engage with Saudi authorities to discuss efforts toward a normalization agreement between the Kingdom and "Israel". This deal reportedly encompasses Washington providing Riyadh with agreements on bilateral defense and security commitments, as well as nuclear cooperation.
Following his visit to Riyadh, Blinken will travel to Jordan and "Israel", where the emphasis of the trip will reportedly "shift toward initiatives aimed at addressing the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza."
In a related context, Blinken emphasized the critical need for a ceasefire as the most effective means to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Speaking on the aid situation, he acknowledged "measurable progress" in recent weeks but stressed the necessity for further efforts.
He highlighted the importance of "deconfliction" and claimed that humanitarian aid would be a primary focus in the days ahead.
On his part, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne stated on Monday that discussions regarding a ceasefire in Gaza were advancing as he joined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Saudi Arabia for "diplomatic efforts" amid the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Sejourne is expected to engage in discussions in Riyadh with ministers from Arab and other Western countries, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"Things are moving forward but you always have to be careful in these discussions and negotiations. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and we need a ceasefire," Sejourne said as quoted by Reuters on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting.
"We will discuss the hostages, the humanitarian situation, and the ceasefire. Things are progressing, but we must always remain prudent in these discussions and negotiations," he stressed.
On his part, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh emphasized the importance of all parties working toward a "two-state solution" to the struggle to prevent another catastrophe in the Middle East. He stressed the need for an irreversible pathway toward achieving this solution to avoid repeating the current situation and risking further tension in the region and global peace and security.
This is happening as the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated despite international protests and intellectual uprisings in US and European colleges. The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza due to the Israeli genocidal war, ongoing since October 7, has now reached 34,488, in addition to 77,643 injuries.
Israeli proposal meagre, no decision to be reached, PIJ official says
Palestinian Islamic Jihad politburo member Ihsan Ataya tells Al Mayadeen that the terms of the new Israeli proposal barely changed from their predecessors.
The proposal presented to the Resistance in the negotiations is not as generous as the Americans, who are trying to deceive the world, are claiming it to be, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) politburo member Ihsan Ataya told Al Mayadeen on Monday.
"The proposed offer has major loopholes and malicious plots," Ataya stressed. "The proposal presented is three and a half pages long and talks about details in three stages," he revealed.
Unity has peaked between the PIJ and Hamas, and "therefore we have rejected all proposals that could disrupt Palestinian solidarity," Ataya added.
The aggression on Rafah, the Palestinian official stressed, is linked to the port that the US is attempting to build in Gaza.
"The goal of the port is to turn the crossings into besieged American-Zionist crossings, as Washington is trying to alter the situation for the Palestinians," he said.
According to Ataya, the United States, after changing the geographical status quo in Gaza, wants to end everything related to the Resistance. However, "the Resistance's leadership is aware of the malicious plots being sown by the enemy."
A high-ranking Palestinian resistance official told Al Mayadeen days earlier that the Israeli occupation was forced to make some changes to its latest proposal, which it presented to mediators some time ago.
The Palestinian official explained that these amendments were made after the Israeli regime acknowledged that Hamas and other Resistance factions outright rejected its latest proposal.
The Israeli proposal presented in the negotiations does not reflect a fundamental shift in the position and does not give clear answers on the issue of withdrawal and a comprehensive ceasefire, the official stressed.
The official said Hamas "is still studying the proposal, but there are no high expectations for its acceptance unless fundamental amendments are made to it."
The expert on Palestinian Resistance affairs, Hani al-Dali, told Al Mayadeen that one of the clauses is that 20 to 40 captives, and 4 or 5 female IOF members or elderly IOF members, be released in exchange for their release of numerous Palestinian prisoners held for life in occupation prisons.
He emphasized that the Israelis indicated possible flexibility regarding a withdrawal from the beginning of al-Rashid Street to the Juhr al-Dik area, and the return of the displaced Palestinians should be flexible.
Al-Dali pointed out that the occupation’s proposals are the terms of a partial deal and not a complete deal.
This comes after the Deputy Head of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, announced that Hamas received on Saturday “the occupation’s official response to the movementﾒs position that it delivered to the mediators a few days ago.”
He also said that the movement will study this proposal, and “once its study is completed, it will deliver its response to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators.”
A source within the Palestinian leadership disclosed to Al Mayadeen that Qatar had faced significant pressure from both the United States and "Israel" some time ago. In turn, this pressure was intended to compel Qatar to exert influence on the Hamas movement regarding ceasefire negotiations in the Gaza Strip.
The source clarified last Tuesday that this context sheds light on the recent statement by Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, indicating that Doha is currently "evaluating the mediation it is conducting."
According to him, the Hamas movement informed all concerned parties that it “is committed to Qatar’s mediation” and that it “does not accept any alternatives."
Yemeni forces target US warships, vessels in support of Palestine
The Yemeni Armed Forces targeted an Israeli ship in the Indian Ocean and other vessels, spokesperson Saree announced.
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) conducted a series of operations in support of the Palestinian people and their Resistance, the spokesperson for the Yemeni military Brigadier General Yahya Saree stated. In their operations, the Yemeni Unmanned Air Force targeted two United States warships in the Red Sea, Saree revealed.
The YAF's Missile Force, Navy, and Unmanned Air Force launched a joint operation targeting the CYCLADES bulk carrier in the Red Sea, achieving precise hits to the target. The last update for the location of the bulk carrier was made 12 days ago, according to maritime trade concerned sites.
CYCLADES was targeted after breaching the decision imposed by the YAF, barring ships from sailing toward or from Israeli-occupied ports. The ship was heading to the Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) port on April 21, according to Saree.
The ship's crew changed identification credentials to state that it is heading to a port other than the Eilat port, however, after continued monitoring, the YAF determined the real destination of the ship, warning it against sailing toward Eilat.
The Israeli-affiliated MSC ORION container ship was also targeted by the YAF's Unmanned Air Force in the Indian Ocean.
Earlier on Monday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed that the US military engaged five drones over the Red Sea.
"Between 1:48 and 2:27 a.m. (Sanaa time) [22:48 - 23:27 GMT], April 28, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) successfully engaged five airborne unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) over the Red Sea. It was determined the UAVs presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels in the region," it wrote on X.
The announcement comes a couple of days after the YAF successfully shot down an American MQ-9 aircraft carrying out hostilities in the airspace of Saada Governorate using an appropriate missile. The Yemeni military media published footage showing the operation.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/yemeni-forces-target-us-warships--vessels-in-support-of-pale
Countercurrent –April 29, 2024
Netanyahu Awaits ‘Arrest Warrant’ Against Him
by Dr Marwan Asmar
The Jewish Maariv daily based on senior sources says Benjamin Netanyahu is deeply worried the ICC is on the verge of issuing a warrant for his arrest and other senior politicians in his government.
The newspaper stated Netanyahu is “unnaturally afraid and worried” about the upcoming arrest warrant accusing him of genocide in Gaza.
And as a result he has been meeting ministers in emergency session and legal experts to discuss the possibility of issuing the warrants and the implications of such a move for him as well as other ministers and generals and for Israel.
The Israeli prime minister has been courting world leaders to see whether the ruling of the International Criminal Court could be stopped and talked to the UK and German foreign ministers David Cameron and Annalena Baerbock on their recent visits to Israel. The ruling could take effect as early as this month of May.
The waiting continues. if the ruling is approved he would be banned from 123 countries and hinder him from international movement. But this needs the approval of the United States at the UN Security Council.
Observers suggest Washington may vote for the issuance of the warrant in an attempt either to end the political career of Netanyahu and stop Israel’s war on Gaza. Sources suggest that also that warrants are going to be issued for the arrests of the Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
News reports suggests Halevi may soon be quitting on another related matter to do with the resignation of the Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva for the failure to forecast the debacle of 7 October in which Hamas operatives penetrated the Gaza fence and 1200 Israelis were killed.
The ICC has already accused Israel of ‘plausible genocide’ on Gaza in a merciless war that lasted seven months and is about to start its eight with no end in sight. Meanwhile Israeli has killed over 34,000 people, injured over 77,000 people and displaced 1.9 people put of a population of 2.3 million.
Dr Marwan Asmar is an Amman-based writer covering Middle East affairs.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/04/netanyahu-awaits-arrest-warrant-against-him/
Palestinian Resistance: Heroic example of the battle for national freedom
Alexander Tuboltsev
In our time, colonial Westernization has changed but remains with the same main goal: to deprive other peoples of their own culture and impose on them a Western view of the world.
Exactly 88 years ago, in April 1936, the Great Arab Revolt against the British colonialists and Zionist settlers began in Palestine. The first stage of the uprising was a general strike declared in the Palestinian city of Nablus. It was an absolutely peaceful action, which very soon was massively supported by the Arab population.
The British colonial administration immediately began to brutally suppress peaceful protests. Searches and arrests were carried out in Palestinian villages, and the British armed Zionist settlers with weapons. In response to these aggressive actions, many Palestinians joined the armed resistance against the colonialists.
If we analyze the events of 1936, we will understand that the British authorities and Zionist structures organized a total infringement of the indigenous Arab population of Palestine, land was taken from the Arabs and given to Jewish settlers, Arab workers were paid lower wages than Jewish workers, and the Arabs, who had lived in their homeland for centuries, faced the dire consequences of colonialism and occupation.
Just like 88 years ago, the Zionists, with the support of Western countries, continue their barbaric attacks on Palestinian land. The policy of seizing land and building illegal Zionist settlements became even more brutal than in the first half of the 20th century.
The Palestinians continue their courageous resistance, which is admired by people around the world. And this great resistance is not only a struggle in the name of defending the Motherland and independence; it is also a struggle to preserve one’s own identity. This is what I want to talk about in my article.
Since the inception of European colonialism until today, Western expansion in different parts of the world has always been accompanied by a policy of Westernization. This is the imposition of alien Western values on different peoples, an attempt to carry out cultural assimilation, pressure on the original traditions of peoples, and the forced introduction of Western models of behavior, thought, and ideology. This policy led to the fact that the peoples who were colonized were literally deprived of their own traditions, culture, and national and religious identity. In parallel with forced Westernization, colonialists organized the economic exploitation of foreign resources, using the captured territories as a raw material base for the metropolis.
In our time, colonial Westernization has changed but remains with the same main goal: to deprive other peoples of their own culture and impose on them a Western view of the world.
The tools of this process were Western propaganda, the idea of a “free, neoliberal market,” and the myth of American-European democracy.
With the first point, everything is very clear. Western official propaganda is aimed at forming an opinion among its consumers about the “advantages” of the Western way of life and political system. It uses false narratives and manipulation of mass consciousness to impose opinions that benefit it.
The idea of the "neoliberal market" is another example of modern forms of Westernization. The idea of an “omnipotent” market economy failed even in the West itself because they began to use a policy of economic sanctions (which completely contradicts the doctrine of the free market). However, the political establishments of the United States and the European Union continue to use the concept of the “free market” for their own purposes - for example, to continue to exploit the economic resources of foreign countries. Two more Western concepts stem from the idea of the “neoliberal market” - globalism and consumer society. In the first case, we are talking about an attempt to create a “single global economic environment” where there are no interstate borders, but there is total control on the part of Western transnational corporations. In the case of a consumer society, we are talking about a social model where all human life is built exclusively on the consumption of goods and services. There is simply no place left for the individual, sincere religious faith, traditions, and national, cultural, and historical identity in such a model of society. The emergence of such a dependence on the consumption of goods and services is another consequence of Westernization.
The myth of Western democracy and its “advantages” is another part of the propaganda foundation of modern Westernization. It consists of describing the imaginary advantages of the Western political system and imposing such a system on other states (mainly in the countries of the Global South, which are still subject to Western expansion). It is not difficult to debunk the myth of Euro-Atlantic democracy. There are so many social contradictions in the United States and the European Union that it has long been clear: democratic institutions there serve only as decoration, behind which completely different, openly tyrannical methods of governance are hidden. A striking example is the harsh pressure exerted by the highest governing bodies of the European Union on specific member states if their position differs from the opinion of the EU itself. What kind of democracy can we talk about in the case of the modern West? Only about pseudo-democracy, where the power of large corporations and the caste of the political elite is hidden behind external decorations.
As Western expansion continues, the traditions and national identities of many peoples around the world are being attacked. Globalism, which blurs borders, also blurs the self-awareness of entire civilizations. In the 21st century, the struggle of peoples for their own identity (national, religious, cultural) has become a continuation of the great anti-colonial struggle of past centuries.
The Palestinians in this case are an outstanding example of a selfless struggle for their own identity. While fighting for their land, they also defend their history, faith, culture, and traditions. By fighting against the Western-sponsored Zionist regime, the Palestinians are showing the world an example of courage, loyalty to their people, and readiness to resist. They don't just fight: they wage a holy struggle.
Moreover, the great Palestinian national resistance is an example that should motivate all the oppressed peoples of the Global South subject to expansionism and neo-colonialism. The modern world urgently needs new values - instead of those imposed on peoples as a result of Westernization.
Instead of globalism, the idea of national sovereignty and identity should prevail. Instead of the exploitative neoliberal "free market", international trade based on mutually beneficial cooperation should be applied. Instead of imposed Western ideologies, societies can rely on their own traditions, history, and culture.
In my opinion, the history of the Middle East shows us very clear examples of outstanding and just struggles - for one's own identity against colonialism and the illegal interference of the West. One can recall, for example, the hero of the liberation struggle for the independence of Algeria in the 19th century, Emir Abdelkadir, or the leader of the Palestinian national liberation resistance against the British occupation, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.
And these historical national liberation movements are not just the past. They are based on three ideas: justice, the struggle for sovereignty, and the liberation of the people from colonial oppression. These ideas are quite suitable for the modern world. They can become the foundation for such a large-scale process as the emergence of a multipolar world. Meanwhile, this process itself can be called the revolution of the Global South. The destruction of the old, Westernized system of world order and the emergence of a new system - without unipolar dictate and Western hegemony.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/palestinian-resistance--heroic-example-of-the-battle-for-nat
Sermon for Gaza by Chris Hedges
By Chris Hedges
This is a sermon I gave Sunday April 28 at a service held at the encampment for Gaza at Princeton University. The service was organized by students from Princeton Theological Seminary.
In the conflicts I covered as a reporter in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, I encountered singular individuals of varying creeds, religions, races and nationalities who majestically rose up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. Some of them are dead. Some of them are forgotten. Most of them are unknown.
These individuals, despite their vast cultural differences, had common traits—a profound commitment to the truth, incorruptibility, courage, a distrust of power, a hatred of violence and a deep empathy that was extended to people who were different from them, even to people defined by the dominant culture as the enemy. They are the most remarkable men and women I met in my 20 years as a foreign correspondent. I set my life by the standards they set.
You have heard of some, such as Vaclav Havel, whom I and other foreign reporters met most evenings, during the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, in the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague. Others, no less great, you probably do not know, such as the Jesuit priest Iganacio Ellacuria, who was gunned down by the death squads in El Salvador in 1989. And then there are those “ordinary” people, although, as the writer V.S. Pritchett said, no people are ordinary, who risked their lives in wartime to shelter and protect those of an opposing religion or ethnicity being persecuted and hunted. And to some of these “ordinary” people I owe my own life.
To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic. And, perhaps this is the most important point, it is to accept that the dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character. When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq and being publicly reprimanded by the paper for my stance against the war, reporters and editors I had known and worked with for 15 years lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby. They did not want to be contaminated by the same career-killing contagion.
Ruling institutions — the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities — mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority. All of these institutions, including the academy, are complicit through their silence or their active collaboration with radical evil. This was true during the genocide we committed against native Americans, slavery, the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, the civil rights and anti-war movements and the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The most courageous are purged and turned into pariahs.
All institutions, including the church, the theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, are inherently demonic. And a life dedicated to resistance has to accept that a relationship with any institution is often temporary, because sooner or later that institution is going to demand acts of silence or obedience your conscience will not allow you to make.
The theologian James Cone in his book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” writes that for oppressed blacks the cross was a “paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.”
Cone continues: “That God could ‘make a way out of no way’ in Jesus’ cross was truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real in the souls of black folk. Enslaved blacks who first heard the gospel message seized on the power of the cross. Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life—that transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in God’s eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the ‘troubles of this world,’ no matter how great and painful their suffering. Believing this paradox, this absurd claim of faith, was only possible in humility and repentance. There was no place for the proud and the mighty, for people who think that God called them to rule over others. The cross was God’s critique of power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat.”
Reinhold Niebuhr labeled this capacity to defy the forces of repression “a sublime madness in the soul.” Niebuhr wrote that “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ” This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, “truth is obscured.” And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity. Liberalism, Niebuhr said, “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks. It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.”
The prophets in the Hebrew Bible had this sublime madness. The words of the Hebrew prophets, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, were “a scream in the night. While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven.” The prophet, because he or she saw and faced an unpleasant reality, was, as Heschel wrote, “compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what their heart expected.”
This sublime madness is the essential quality for a life of resistance. It is the acceptance that when you stand with the oppressed you will be treated like the oppressed. It is the acceptance that, although empirically all that we struggled to achieve during our lifetime may be worse, our struggle validates itself.
The radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan — who was sentenced to three years in a federal prison for burning draft records during the war in Vietnam — told me that faith is the belief that the good draws to it the good. The Buddhists call this karma. But he said for us as Christians we did not know where it went. We trusted that it went somewhere. But we did not know where. We are called to do the good, or at least the good so far as we can determinate it, and then let it go.
As Hannah Arendt wrote, the only morally reliable people are not those who say “this is wrong” or “this should not be done,” but those who say “I can’t.” They know that as Immanuel Kant wrote: “If justice perishes, human life on earth has lost its meaning.” And this means that, like Socrates, we must come to a place where it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. We must at once see and act, and given what it means to see, this will require the surmounting of despair, not by reason, but by faith.
I saw in the conflicts I covered the power of this faith, which lies outside any religious or philosophical creed. This faith is what Havel called in his essay “The Power of the Powerless” living in truth. Living in truth exposes the corruption, lies and deceit of the state. It is a refusal to be a part of the charade.
James Baldwin, the son of a preacher and briefly a preacher himself, said he abandoned the pulpit to preach the Gospel. The Gospel, he knew, was not heard most Sundays in Christian houses of worship.
This is not to say that the church does not exist. This is not to say that I reject the church. On the contrary. The church today is not located in the cavernous, and largely empty houses of worship, but here, with you, with those who demand justice, those whose unofficial credo is the Beatitudes:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus, if he lived in contemporary society, would be undocumented. He was not a Roman citizen. He lived without rights, under Roman occupation. Jesus was a person of color. The Romans were white. And the Romans, who peddled their own version of white supremacy, nailed people of color to crosses almost as often as we finish them off with lethal injections, gun them down in the streets, lock them up in cages or slaughter them in Gaza. The Romans killed Jesus as an insurrectionist, a revolutionary. They feared the radicalism of the Christian Gospel. And they were right to fear it. The Roman state saw Jesus the way the American state saw Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, like now, prophets were killed.
The Bible unequivocally condemns the powerful. It is not a self-help manual to become rich. It does not bless America or any other nation. It was written for the powerless, for those James Cone calls the crucified of the earth. It was written to give a voice to, and affirm the dignity of, those being crushed by malignant power and empire.
There is nothing easy about faith. It demands we smash the idols that enslave us. It demands we die to the world. It demands self-sacrifice. It demands resistance. It calls us to see ourselves in the wretched of the earth. It separates us from all that is familiar. It knows that once we feel the suffering of others, we will act.
“But what of the price of peace?” Berrigan asks in his book “No Bars to Manhood.”
“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm … in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”
Bearing the cross is not about the pursuit of happiness. It does not embrace the illusion of inevitable human progress. It is not about achieving status, wealth, celebrity or power. It entails sacrifice. It is about our neighbor. The organs of state security monitor and harass you. They amass huge files on your activities. They disrupt your life.
Why am I here today with you? I am here because I have tried, however imperfectly, to live by the radical message of the Gospel. I am here because I know that it is not what we say or profess but what we do. I am here because I have seen that it is possible to be a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or an atheist and carry the cross. The words are different but the self-sacrifice and thirst for justice are the same.
These men and women, who may not profess what I profess or believe what I believe, are my brothers and sisters. And I stand with them honoring and respecting our differences and finding hope and strength and love in our common commitment. At times like these I hear the voices of the saints who went before us. The suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who announced that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God, and the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who said, “The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” Or Henry David Thoreau, who told us we should be men and women first and subjects afterward, that we should cultivate a respect not for the law but for what is right. And Frederick Douglass, who warned us: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” And the great 19th century populist Mary Elizabeth Lease, who thundered: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.” And General Smedley Bulter, who said that after 33 years and four months in the Marine Corps he had come to understand that he had been nothing more than a gangster for capitalism, making Mexico safe for American oil interests, making Haiti and Cuba safe for banks and pacifying the Dominican Republic for sugar companies. War, he said, is a racket in which subjugated countries are exploited by the financial elites and Wall Street while the citizens foot the bill and sacrifice their young men and women on the battlefield for corporate greed. Or Eugene V. Debs, the socialist presidential candidate, who in 1912 pulled almost a million votes, or 6 percent, and who was sent to prison by Woodrow Wilson for opposing the First World War, and who told the world: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” And Rabbi Heschel, who when he was criticized for marching with Martin Luther King on the Sabbath in Selma answered: “I pray with my feet” and who quoted Samuel Johnson, who said: “The opposite of good is not evil. The opposite of good is indifference.” And Rosa Parks, who defied the segregated bus system and said “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” And Philip Berrigan, who said: “If enough Christians follow the Gospel, they can bring any state to its knees.” And Martin Luther King, who said: “On some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ And there comes a time when a true follower of Jesus Christ must take a stand that’s neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take a stand because it is right.”
Where were you when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there to halt the genocide of Native Americans? Were you there when Sitting Bull died on the cross? Were you there to halt the enslavement of African-Americans? Were you there to halt the mobs that terrorized black men, women and even children with lynching during Jim Crow? Were you there when they persecuted union organizers and Joe Hill died on the cross? Were you there to halt the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in World War II? Were you there to halt Bull Connor’s dogs as they were unleashed on civil rights marchers in Birmingham? Were you there when Martin Luther King died upon the cross? Were you there when Malcolm X died on the cross? Were you there to halt the hate crimes, discrimination and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and those who are transgender? Were you there when Matthew Shepard died on the cross? Were you there to halt the abuse and at times enslavement of workers in the farmlands of this country? Were you there to halt the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese during the war in Vietnam or hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan? Were you there to halt the genocide in Gaza? Were you there when they crucified Refaat Alareer on the cross?
Where were you when they crucified my Lord?
I know where I was.
Here. With you. Amen.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact. His most recent book is “America: The Farewell Tour” (2019).
|
Published since July 2008 |
Your donation
is tax deductable.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
