Laila Lalami

Over the past 21 days, a number of explanations have been offered for Israel’s air-, sea-, and land-based bombings of Gaza: a) Israel was only defending itself against rocket fire from Hamas; b) Israel wanted to destroy Hamas once and for all; c) Israel wanted to tilt polls in favor of Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan, and Co. in the upcoming Palestinian elections; d) Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni were desperate to get ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections; e) Israeli strategists wanted to get a long-planned assault executed during the change in U.S. leadership; f) and, last but not least, according to the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Israel was bombing Gaza just because.

But while the explainers were busy explaining, 1300 Palestinians were killed and 5400 injured; 13 Israelis were killed in the same time period (4 of them soldiers in “friendly fire” incidents). Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been driven out of their homes, becoming refugees within a refugee camp. A university has been bombed and dozens of UNRWA schools and hospitals have been destroyed.  And all for what?

David Horowitz (the editor of the right-wing rag FrontPageMag and the author of The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America) was invited to speak on a panel called “Academic Freedom” at the MLA.  That must have been some panel. The Chronicle reports: Impasse at the MLA.

Israel’s siege of Gaza, which began on November 5 with the blocking of food, medicine, fuel, animal feed, supplies, and other basic necessities to the Palestinian population, and which culminated on December 27 with the bombing and ground assaults that killed more than 510 people and injured as many as 2500 others, is the largest military action against Palestinians since 1967.  Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza have killed 4 people in Israel.

When I think about all those who have died (like the five daughters of the Balousha family, Tahir Balousha, 17; Ikram Balousha, 14; Samar Balousha, 12; Dina Balousha, 8; and Jawaher Balousha, 4, all of whom were killed by an Israeli bomb that fell on the mosque next door to their house) I feel that our collective humanity is diminished.  This war is a crime.

It is also the biggest gift Israel could have given to Hamas.  Hamas will now almost certainly gather more support among the survivors, a fact that is unlikely to make a political solution to the conflict any easier. Iran will also seek to capitalize on the fact that the Arab League buffoons implicitly or explicitly condoned the strikes.

While the Palestinians were being bombed, Mahmoud Abbas (who only fifteen years ago would have been labeled a terrorist because of his membership in Fatah, but who is considered an acceptable partner now that Hamas is around) was sipping coffee with his good friends, the Saudi princes.  In fifteen years, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh will be sipping coffee with someone else while Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, and the other Israeli leaders who support this illegal occupation bemoan the lack of a real partner in peace.  And so it goes.

Interesting piece by Slavoj Žižek in the LRB.  I think he’s right that far too many political observers get caught in cynically realist positions and don’t see what is happening in front of their noses:

The paradigmatic cynic tells you confidentially: ‘But don’t you see that it is all really about money/power/sex, that professions of principle or value are just empty phrases which count for nothing?’ What the cynics don’t see is their own naivety, the naivety of their cynical wisdom which ignores the power of illusions.

The reason Obama’s victory generated such enthusiasm is not only that, against all odds, it really happened: it demonstrated the possibility of such a thing happening. The same goes for all great historical ruptures – think of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although we all knew about the rotten inefficiency of the Communist regimes, we didn’t really believe that they would disintegrate – like Kissinger, we were all victims of cynical pragmatism. Obama’s victory was clearly predictable for at least two weeks before the election, but it was still experienced as a surprise.

And he goes on to connect the power of illusion and narrative to the way in which the financial meltdown is currently being framed. The piece is freely available here.

There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots to count in California, but it now seems that Prop 8, the disgraceful proposition to amend the State Constitution to take away the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, will pass. Tom Toles of the Washington Post puts it succinctly in his cartoon:

I voted for Barack Obama. I donated money to his campaign several times. I phonebanked for him. So I am very, very happy that he has won; I am relieved; and I am hopeful.

Still, campaign slogans notwithstanding, the idealists who think Obama will change everything have no brains; and the cynics who think Obama will change nothing have no heart.

Obama probably can: nominate liberal Supreme Court judges so that disastrous decisions like those of the past 8 years (e.g., Ledbetter v. Goodyear) can perhaps be avoided; put checks and balances in place to manage the $700 billion bailout (excuse me, the “rescue plan”) so that, instead of being completely fucked, the taxpaper will be maybe, maybe less fucked; reinstate a few of the banking regulations that had been eroded under Bill Clinton and eliminated under George W. Bush; provide incentives for the creation of green-collar jobs; set up some sort of basic health care system; extend the existing dialogue with Iran and avoid additional confrontation there; draw a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq; close Guantanamo Bay. But Obama probably can’t: change foreign policy on Israel and Palestine in any drastic or even significant way; draw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately or unconditionally; bring high-level military personnel who were responsible for torture in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay in front of U.S. courts; take a public stand in favor of gay marriage; or build a Canadian-style or Australian-style health care system.

The United States is headed in the wrong direction. In fact, it would not be too much an exaggeration to say that, if current policies and trends are not reversed, the United States is headed for its demise. American voters have sensed this, which is why they’ve elected Obama. After eight years of disaster after disaster, I think some people were ready to settle for a president who can speak grammatical English. Electing Obama means that the country can start regrouping after neo-con rule and begin the long, slow process of change. It was the smart choice.

But it’s also the symbolic choice. Having an African-American president will go a long way toward opening the office of the presidency to all people–of all colors, races, religions, and creeds. It gives a lot of young voters who worked so hard for their candidate a chance to believe in the future of their country. And it represents the triumph of hope and belief over fear and cynicism.

At last, at long fucking last, a new leadership:

I have to teach today, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to focus. So much is at stake in this election. Please don’t forget to vote!

Remember that awkward exchange between McCain and one of his voters? (She: “[Obama] is an Arab.” “No. No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man.”) Here is Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi’s take on it:

In the most recent issue of the London Review of Books, Adam Shatz has a short piece about “Obsession,” the infamous, anti-Islam DVD that has been distributed to millions of American homes through their Sunday newspaper:

In the last two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. ‘The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,’ the sleeve announces. ‘It’s our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed vote in November.’ The Clarion Fund, the supplement’s sponsor, doesn’t explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just happened to coincide with Obama’s leap in the polls.

The Clarion Fund is a front for neoconservative and Israeli pressure groups. It has an office, or at least an address, in Manhattan at Grace Corporate Park Executive Suites, which rents out ‘virtual office identity packages’ for $75 a month. Its website, clarionfund.org, provides neither a list of staff nor a board of directors, and the group still hasn’t disclosed where it gets its money, as required by the IRS. Who paid to make ‘Obsession’ isn’t clear – it cost $400,000.

Shatz’s detective work is interesting, and you can read the whole piece here. I don’t, however, think that the DVD will have any effect on swing voters. We are so awash in Islamophobia in the States that any voters likely to be swayed by yet another Muslims-equal-terrorists rant are likely to have already made up their mind by now (and it’s not for Obama, let’s face it.)