Edward Said: The Loss of an Irreplaceable Mentor
By Sarah Eltantawi, Electronic Intifada 9/29/2003
Picking up a work by Edward Said is never intellectually or emotionally easy. Following Said through one of his thrusts into the meaning of the intellectual, of being an Arab or a Palestinian, or exploring with Said what it truly meant to be political is an experience so deep, at times, so painful, so unflinchingly honest that one emerges from it reborn, enlightened, and often on fire. I speak from experience as a young student set aflame by Said's work in the mid-1990's. I did not know Edward Said personally. I saw him lecture at Harvard and in Southern California, and I met him once at a conference in Boston. I talked to him about the challenges of being sympathetic to the Palestinians in academia. He responded, with real compassion and even a flash of anger in his eyes, "keep fighting."
first encountered Edward Said in college where I picked up "The Question of Palestine". Before this point, as a student of literature and philosophy, I had come to unconsciously associate the pursuit of the humanities with the West, specifically with ancient and contemporary white men of distinction. In addition to persuading me to turn my moral and emotional energy toward the Palestinian issue, this book introduced me to beautiful man worthy of emulation -- an Arab and an American, a lover of art in every culture, a voracious reader, writer, thinker and creator who did not allow his tremendous intellectual achievements to shield him from fighting on the forefront of the rhetorical war over Palestine. To read "The Question of Palestine" was to become angry, morally indignant, inspired and equipped with a priceless intellectual guide to the Palestinian question. Edward Said was a human being who fought, yelled, coaxed, and persuaded the history of his people from suppression into the light. He did this by applying wit, elegance and brilliance to his writings and lectures. As young students dedicated to the Palestinian cause, we were, in addition to being star struck and enlightened by Said, deeply proud of the man
A Transcendent Vision: The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
By George Naggiar, Palestine Media Center 9/27/2003
Edward Said's life and work is a story of transcendence of the cultural and spatial barriers that so often thoughtlessly divide humanity. Born in Jerusalem, the capital of the three great monotheistic faiths and a city that he once called "a seamless amalgam of cultures and religions engaged, like members of the same family, on the same plot of land in which all has become entwined with all," he would live most of his late life and finally leave us in New York City, the capital of the modern world and where men and women from every corner of the earth converge to form a modern amalgam of peoples unlike anything ever known before. There could have been no more fitting places for the beginning and end of the life's journey of Edward Said.
In between, Said's journey would take him from Palestine to Egypt to the United States and around the world. At home nowhere and everywhere, Said described his condition as one of exile, perpetually without a home, or out of place, to use the title of his brilliant memoir. Nowhere more, however, than in his exile, was Said the symbol of his people, whose dispossession his life reflected and for whom he so eloquently advocated in works like The Question of Palestine, After the Last Sky, The Politics of Dispossession and Peace and Its Discontents. Through these writings and others, Said introduced the Palestinian people and narrative to an American-and international-audience as Zionism's all-too-often unrecognized victims. In so doing, he was widely known as one of the Palestinian people's most passionate advocates for peace, reconciliation and coexistence with Israeli Jews on the basis of justice and equality.
In Honor of Edward Said (A letter to President Bush)
By Annie Annab, Miftah 9/27/2003
Dear President Bush,
I am writing you today, in honor of Eward Said, a great and wise man who spoke out against America's massive support that arms and empowers Israel's ugly and racist war on the native Palestinians.
Edward Said bravely spoke out to help build a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. He, like so many others who dare point out the very real plight of the Palestinian people, was accused of supporting terrorism- but still he spoke out and encouraged others to do so also.
There is a phrase from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar ... "the rocks and stones themselves will start to sing".
Edward Said died today and his memory is being lifted up by many on the internet as all around the world people from many different races and religions and back grounds join together to mourn the passing of this amazing man who encouraged us all to speak out for the truth and for justice and for the inherent dignity of each individual and every culture and the beauty of music and the possibility of real peace.
Farewell to Edward Said
By Mustafa Barghouthi, Daily Star 9/27/2003
It is with heartbreaking sorrow that the Palestinian National Initiative announce the tragic death of Edward Said who passed away Wednesday after 11 years fighting leukemia. At this time our thoughts and love are with his family. We wish them strength and courage and assurance that Edward will be a man forever remembered not only for his incredible achievements but for his remarkable qualities as a friend. Though words may do little at such a time to assuage the pain and grief, something must be said to pay homage to a man and a life we should truly celebrate.
A man with great courage and clear conviction Edward Said was a shining light in a confused world. As a true intellectual giant, Said inspired all fields with his accomplishments. The passion which infused his intellectual abilities presented him as a man with clear visions to be greatly admired, trusted and respected.
Though his beliefs and commitments presented him with many challenges, his statements and many testimonies of outrage at the hypocrisies, contradictions, and indignities so rife in the world gave him the integrity and honesty for which he was renowned. A prolific writer, Said addressed all issues of culture, colonialism, imperialism, language and literature. As a Palestinian exile, much of his political writing came from personal memories, yet he remained objective and grounded not only affirming the Palestinian presence but also pointing toward a future where peace is possible. Among spokespeople for the Palestinian cause surely there was none so articulate, so inspiring, so admired.
Edward
By Hanan Ashrawi, Palestine Chronicle 9/27/2003
What consolation is there for the passing of a great man? He does not leave behind a great void—rather a heaviness of spirit, a weight almost unbearable that mercilessly seems to crush the heart and render each breath an ordeal.
But Edward Said was not just a great scholar, a brilliant mind, a creative artist, an ardent nationalist, an advocate of justice, a free spirit, an unrelenting force for integrity, an uncompromising fighter on behalf of human dignity, and all the other sets of superlative depictions that he so aptly deserves.
Edward was amazingly human, vulnerable in his larger-than-life status to all the personal pain and doubts that beset ordinary mortals, and never too self-preoccupied to let you gain entry to his life unnoticed.
He had a spring in his step and an almost-electrical spark in his gestures as he lectured us on literary criticism on an early visit to AUB, with Edward not much older than his student audience, Beirut, late 1960’s.
He had a tremor in his voice and excitement in his tone as he articulated the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, imbuing it with Palestinian authenticity and universal applicability, Algiers 1988.
He had sorrow in his heart at the passing of his friends—Iqbal Ahmad, Ibrahim Abu Lughod—and he grieved openly at their loss.
A one-state solution
By Ahmad Samih Khalidi, The Guardian 9/29/2003
A unitary Arab-Jewish homeland could bring lasting peace to the Middle East -- Something is stirring in Israel these days. After a long hiatus, the country's left is gearing up for a new ideological offensive. Major figures, including the writer David Grossman and former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, have recently spoken out against the right-wing policies of Ariel Sharon. Their impassioned pleas for a radical alternative cannot but impress all those who genuinely seek a way out of the deadly cycle of Palestinian-Israeli violence. But there is something poignant about the Zionist left's continuous attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. Its criticisms of Sharon hark back to an idealised notion of a Jewish state in which democracy, decency and tolerance are the guiding principles. In moving forwards towards peace with the Palestinians, the left seeks to take a few steps back; consolidating the Jewish state, preserving its Jewish character, withdrawing from the quagmire of occupation and reinstating the values of a democratic and humane society. But to Palestinian ears there is something inherently wrong here: for us, there is a basic and inescapable contradiction between Zionism and democracy. If Zionism means anything, it means a Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority - and in Palestine this has necessarily been at the expense of Palestinian Arab rights.
The Magnificent 27
By Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle 9/27/2003
A year and a half ago, a small group of Israelis decided to break a deeply entrenched taboo and bring up the subject of war crimes. Until then, it was self-evident that the IDF is “the most moral and humane army in the world”, as the official mantra goes, and is therefore quite incapable of such things.
The Gush Shalom movement (to which I belong) called a public meeting in Tel-Aviv and invited a group of professors and public figures to discuss whether our army is committing such crimes. The star of the evening was Col. Yig’al Shohat, a war hero shot down over Egypt in the Yom Kippur war. His damaged leg had to be amputated by an Egyptian surgeon. Upon his return, he studied medicine and became a doctor himself.
In a voice trembling with emotion, he read out a personal appeal to his comrades, the Air Force pilots, calling on them to refuse orders over which “the black flag of illegality is waving” (a phrase coined by the military judge at the Kafr Kassem massacre trial in 1957). For example, orders to drop bombs on Palestinian residential neighborhoods for “targeted liquidations”.
Threatening to harm ourselves
By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz 9/29/2003
No national movement and no government, including Israel's government, would ever agree to appear to play the role of collaborator with the conqueror in order to improve the conqueror's security situation. -- The lethal terror attack at Negohot on the eve of Rosh Hashanah confirmed the forecasts voiced in holiday interviews. This new year, like the previous three, apparently will belong to religious fanatics and other intransigents rejecting compromise.
Ariel Sharon has announced that "there is no possibility of forging a settlement so long as terror continues, and so long as the Palestinians fail to crack down on terror."
Ehud Barak, Sharon's predecessor as prime minister and perhaps his rival-to-be in the next national elections, has supported this position, opining: "Sharon is right when he says that it would be wrong to move one millimeter on an a major issue before it is clear that the Palestinians are doing their utmost to destroy terror."
The demand that the Palestinian police succeed in an effort that has frustrated Israel's air force, tank corps, Border Police, and Shin Bet security service, Sharon knows, is implausible. Barak understands that no Palestinian organization for national liberation has put down its arms in the absence of a guarantee that the occupation is to be brought to an end. Barak himself once said in a television interview that had he been born a Palestinian, he doubtlessly would have joined militants who fight Israel.
Israel is in peril? and it is self-inflicted
By David Hirst, Daily Star 9/29/2003
By the summer of 2002, US President George W. Bush had firmly set his new course: “regime change” and reform in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and, where necessary, US military intervention to achieve it.
Hitherto, it had been assumed that the US could not go to war in one of the two great zones of Middle East crisis Iraq and the Gulf before it had at least calmed things down in the other, Palestine. But the US administration’s neoconservatives had a very simple answer to that. The road to war on Iraq no longer lay through peace in Palestine; peace in Palestine lay through war on Baghdad. It was all set forth, in its most comprehensive, well-nigh megalomaniac form, by Norman Podhoretz, the neocons’ veteran intellectual luminary, in the September 2002 issue of his magazine, Commentary. Changes in regime, he proclaimed, were “the sine qua non throughout the region.”
....But would the world permit such ethnic cleansing? Van Creveld [professor of military history at Hebrew University] continued: “That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’
Prisoner swap: collusion that dares not speak its name
By Michael Young, Daily Star 9/29/2003
Last Monday, As-Safir’s Ibrahim Amin scored a coup of sorts when Hizbullah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, gave him the inside track on the prisoner exchange the party is currently negotiating with Israel. It was to a degree payback for the journalist’s closeness to Hizbullah, so that he has become an authoritative mouthpiece for its intentions. That’s why Nasrallah was also outing information that had a bearing on the ongoing haggling process, which is not at all over.
There were several messages in what Nasrallah told Amin. The first and most obvious was that Hizbullah was driving a hard bargain with the Israelis, having compelled the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to accept that any deal must be comprehensive. This evidently means all Lebanese will come home, but also a sizable number of Palestinians and other Arabs, including, it now seems, prisoners held in Europe.
For Nasrallah, the exchange speaks to the virtues of taking a hard line on Israel, which can only encourage militant Palestinians to do the same. Sharon was willing to go along for several reasons: anything that makes Palestinian President Yasser Arafat look bad is fine with him, and Arafat’s inability to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners has been a black mark on the PA. Whatever serves to discredit Arafat and the Palestinian government also makes unlikely a return to the “road map,” which is precisely what Sharon seeks. And Sharon is probably keen to use the exchange as a means of exiling the released Palestinians, who will not soon return home. Hizbullah, meanwhile, will happily welcome them, seeing an opening to indoctrinate a new wave of militants.
Abusing 'Anti-Semitism'
By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com 9/29/2003
The eve of the Jewish New Year is an excellent occasion for what Jewish tradition calls Kheshbon Nefesh, or soul-searching on so-called "anti-semitism", which has now become the single most important element of Jewish identity. Jews may believe in God or not, eat pork or not, live in Israel or not, but they are all united by their unlimited belief in anti-semitism.
When a Palestinian kills innocent Israeli civilians, it's anti-semitism. When Palestinians attack soldiers of Israel's occupation army in their own village, it's anti-semitism. When the UN General Assembly votes 133 to 4 condemning Israel's decision to murder the elected Palestinian leader, it means that except for the US, Micronesia and Marshal Islands, all other countries on the globe are anti-semitic. Even when a pregnant Palestinian woman is stopped at an Israeli check-point and gives birth in open field, the only lesson to be learnt is that Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy – who reported two such cases in the past two weeks, one in which the baby died – is an anti-semite.
Anti-semitism is an all-encompassing explanation. Anything unpleasant to anti-Palestinian ears is just anotherance of anti-semitism. Jewish consciousness focused on anti-semitism has taken the shape of anti-semitic conspiracy theories, like that of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: whereas the anti-semitic classic relates every calamity to Jewish conspiracy, Jews relate to anti-semitic conspiracy every criticism of Israel. As we shall see, this is not the only similarity between anti-Palestinianism and anti-semitism.
Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: Interview with B'Tselem's Jessica Montell
By Jessica Montell and Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org 9/21/2003
Jon Elmer, FromOccupiedPalestine.org: Three Jewish settlers from the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin were convicted on [17 September] of plotting to bomb a Palestinian girls school in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of At-Tur, as well as a hospital. Judges said that scores of school children would have been slaughtered if the attack had not been foiled. Back in April a group calling itself Revenge of the Infants hurled grenades into a high school in Jenin, injuring 29. Can you discuss the threat of Jewish settler terrorism?
Jessica Montell, B'Tselem - Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: Over the past three years we have seen an increase in violence against both Israelis and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It seems that as part of this intifada, people on both sides are taking the law into their own hands and committing acts of violence against the other community.
From a human rights perspective, we are more concerned with the response of the Israeli authorities, and the responsibility of Israel to enforce the law and to punish people who violate the law. The Israeli authorities are, on the whole, much more lenient toward Jews who break the law - including acts of violence - than they are toward Palestinians.
Edward Said: A Lighthouse that Navigated Us
By Ilan Pappe, Palestine Chronicle 9/27/2003
We, who supported the Palestinian cause, have been orphaned with the untimely death of Edward Said. For Israeli Jews, like myself, he was the lighthouse that navigated us out of the darkness and confusion of growing in a Zionist state onto a safer coast of reason, morality and consciousness.
I am sorry I only met Edward in 1988, but I feel fortunate for the time we did spend together. His insights of, and inputs on, the global reality in general and the Palestine one in particular will guide us all for many years to come. But above all, we shall miss Edward's unique ability of articulating in the public sphere the evil inflicted upon the Palestinians in the past against the continued effort in the Western media of sidelining, if not altogether eliminating, the plight and tragedy of Palestine. There is no one who could easily feel his place on that stage -- no one who could in few sentences associate so clearly the wrongs of the past with the tragedy of the present in the land of Palestine.
The academic and intellectual world would equally be disorientated without his original thoughts and conceptualization on the West's relationship with the world. We should be grateful, nonetheless, that so many of our colleagues went in his footsteps as he so brilliantly deconstructed the power bases and more sinister interests behind the knowledge production in West on the Orient in general and the Middle East in particular.
Emerging Alternatives in Palestine
By Edward Said, Palestine Chronicle 9/28/2003
[originally published by Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 10 - 16 January 2002] -- Since it began 15 months ago the Palestinian Intifada has had little to show for itself politically, despite the remarkable fortitude of a militarily occupied, unarmed, poorly led, and still dispossessed people that has defied the pitiless ravages of Israel's war machine. In the United States, the government and, with a handful of exceptions, the "independent" media have echoed each other in harping on Palestinian violence and terror, with no attention at all paid to the 35-year Israeli military occupation, the longest in modern history: as a result, American official condemnations of Yasser Arafat's Authority after 11 September as harbouring and even sponsoring terrorism have coldly reinforced the Sharon government's preposterous claim that Israel is the victim, the Palestinians the aggressors in the four- decade war that the Israeli army has waged against civilians, property and institutions without mercy or discrimination. The result today is that the Palestinians are locked up in 220 ghettos controlled by the army; American-supplied Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks, and F-16s mow down people, houses, olive groves and fields on a daily basis; schools and universities as well as businesses and civil institutions are totally disrupted; hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed and tens of thousands injured; Israel's assassinations of Palestinian leaders continue; unemployment and poverty stand at about 50 per cent -- and all this while General Anthony Zinni drones on about Palestinian "violence" to the wretched Arafat, who can't even leave his office in Ramallah because he is imprisoned there by Israeli tanks, while his several tattered security forces scamper about trying to survive the destruction of their offices and barracks.
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