Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: e bravo Cristopher Hitchins

 
http://www.slate.com/id/2298332/pagenum/all/
Boat People
Some questions for the "activists" aboard the Gaza flotilla.
By Christopher Hitchens
The tale of the Gaza "flotilla" seems set
to become a regular summer feature,
bobbing along happily on the inside
pages with an occasional update. A nice
sidebar for reporters covering the Greek
debt crisis: a built-in mild tension of
"will they, won't they?"; a cast of not very
colorful characters but one we almost
begin to feel we know personally. Such
cheery and breezy slogans—"The
Audacity of Hope" and "Free Gaza"—and
such an easy storyline that it practically
writes itself. Since Israel adopts a posture
that almost guarantees a reaction of
some sort in the not-too-distant future,
and since there was such a frisson of
violence the last time the little fleet set
sail, there's no reason for it not to
become a regular seasonal favorite.
However, given the luxury of time, might
it not be possible to ask the "activists" on
board just a few questions? (Activist is a
good neutral word, isn't it, with largely
positive connotations? Even flotilla, with
its reassuring diminuendo, has a "small
is beautiful" sound to it.) Most of the
speculation so far has been to do with
methods and intentions, allowing for
many avowals about peaceful tactics and
so forth, but this is soft-centered
coverage. I would like to know a little
more about the political ambitions and
implications of the enterprise.
It seems safe and fair to say that the
flotilla and its leadership work in
reasonably close harmony with Hamas,
which constitutes the Palestinian wing of
the Muslim Brotherhood. The political
leadership of this organization is
headquartered mainly in Gaza itself. But
its military coordination is run out of
Damascus, where the regime of Bashar
Assad is currently at war with
increasingly large sections of the long-
oppressed Syrian population. Refugee
camps, some with urgent humanitarian
requirements, are making their
appearance on the border between Syria
and Turkey (the government of the latter
being somewhat sympathetic to the
purposes of the flotilla). In these
circumstances, isn't it legitimate to strike
up a conversation with the "activists"
and ask them where they come out on
the uprising against hereditary Baathism
in Syria?
Then again, Syria's other proxy party in
the region is Hezbollah, which operates a
state-within-a-state and maintains a
private army on the territory of Lebanon.
Senior associates of this group have
recently been named in a U.N. indictment
concerning the broad-daylight murder of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri in February 2005. Hezbollah's
leadership and propaganda organs, while
refusing all cooperation with the United
Nations, are currently expressing
undying solidarity with the Assad
regime, which relies additionally on
heavy support from the dictatorship in
Iran. Again, the Hamas leadership seems
compromised at best by its association
with this local Tehran-Damascus axis.
Surely there must be some spokesman for
the blockade-runners who is able to give
us his thinking on this question, too? At a
time of widespread democratic and
pluralist revolution in the region, Hamas
imposes its own version of theocracy on
Gaza and seems otherwise aligned with
the forces that stand athwart the hope of
continued and deeper change. Who wants
to volunteer their time to make this
outfit look more presentable? Half the
published articles on Gaza contain a
standard reference to its resemblance to a
vast open-air prison (and when I last
saw it under Israeli occupation it
certainly did deserve this metaphor). The
problem is that, given its ideology and its
allies, Hamas qualifies rather too well in
the capacity of guard and warder.
Only a few weeks ago, the Hamas regime
in Gaza became the only governing
authority in the world—by my count—to
express outrage and sympathy at the
death of Osama Bin Laden. As the
wavelets lap in the Greek harbors, and
the sunshine beats down, doesn't any
journalist want to know whether the
"activists" have discussed this element in
their partners' world outlook? Does Alice
Walker seriously have no comment?
Hamas is listed by various governments
and international organizations as a
terrorist group. I don't mind conceding
that that particular word has been used
in arbitrary ways in the past. But what
concerns me much more is the official
programmatic adoption, by Hamas, of
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This
disgusting fabrication is a key
foundational document of 20th-century
racism and totalitarianism, indelibly
linked to the Hitler regime in theory and
practice. It seems extraordinary to me
that any "activist" claiming allegiance to
Advertisement
human rights could cooperate at any
level with the propagation of such evil
material. But I have never seen any of
them invited to comment on this matter,
either.
The little boats cannot make much
difference to the welfare of Gaza either
way, since the materials being shipped
are in such negligible quantity. The chief
significance of the enterprise is therefore
symbolic. And the symbolism, when
examined even cursorily, doesn't seem
too adorable. The intended beneficiary of
the stunt is a ruling group with close ties
to two of the most retrograde
dictatorships in the Middle East, each of
which has recently been up to its elbows
in the blood of its own civilians. The
same group also manages to maintain
warm relations with, or at the very least
to make cordial remarks about, both
Hezbollah and al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a
document that was once accurately
described as a "warrant for genocide"
forms part of the declared political
platform of the aforesaid group. There is
something about this that fails to pass a
smell test. I wonder if any reporter on the
scene will now take me up on this.

gi�, � proprio bravo.
"I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes
that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians."
�I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just
did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable.�
Hitchens has described Zionism as being based on "the initial demagogic lie
(actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land",
and he went even further saying "Zionism is a form of Bourgeoisie Nationalism"
when debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis at a town hall function
in Pennsylvania.[94] Hitchens has said that he isn't necessarily against Israel's
right to exist, but has argued against what he calls its "expansionism" in
the West Bank and Gaza and "internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want
to instate a theocracy for Jews".[95] Hitchens collaborated on this issue with
prominent Palestinian advocate Edward Said, in 1988 publishing Blaming the
Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens#Israel.E2.80.93Palestine
ma anche
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens#Socialism
AHR AHR AHR
e Zanna infila ancora una volta l'angolino sotto la traversa...
della sua porta.
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