The problem of Israel/Palestine was solved 70 years ago. Amazing but at least arguably true. It was determined then that the establishment of two states within the land then known as Palestine was the only feasible or practicable way to resolve the murderous impasse between Arabs and Jews. Depressingly enough, that prospect seems as distant now as it must have been back then.

What has inspired this train of thought was a very interesting book I was reading over the weekend, Mandate Days, by A.J.Sherman, published ten years ago. Sherman based his book primarily on the hitherto unpublished private correspondence, records and diaries of British officers and other ranks deployed to Palestine between 1918 and 1948 to execute the Mandate with respect to Palestine conferred on Britain by the League of Nations following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

To my reading, Sherman is scrupulously fair, as unflinching about Jewish terrorism in the immediate post-WWII period as he is about Arab terrorism during the Arab Rebellion of 1936-39.

The Mandate, as is well known, was based on the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

“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, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Over the years of the Mandatory Government, it became clear that it was impossible to reconcile the two wings of the Declaration: a national home for the Jews, and preservation of the rights of the indigenous Arabs. Yet Britain was bound by the Mandate to struggle for the achievement of both.

The British officers posted to Palestine to implement the Mandate saw clearly their task was impossible. The hatred between Jews and Arabs could, even then, be cut with a knife. It smouldered below the surface like an inextinguishable fuse.

The British didn’t care for the Zionists by much. Accustomed to the more amenable “natives” of India and Kenya (even if such existed only in their imaginations), they found the Jews — especially those born in Palestine — hard, brash, arrogant, pushy. Most of all, and quite unlike the Arabs, they lacked the proper spirit of deference. They didn’t know their place. To the upper-middle and upper classes of the Empire, effortlessly possessed of a sense of their own social and cultural superiority, this was both puzzling and offensive. In the words of Reader Bullard (see this post), the unintellectual, sport-loving British found a natural affinity with the Arabs, and reserved their distrust for the “intellectual, complicated Jew”. Sherman’s correspondents are almost universally pro-Arab.

From the first, the British on the ground tried to turn Palestine into the kind of colony they were familiar with, complete with hunts (for jackals!), parties, “at homes” and the endless social round. They seemed not to understand that the Mandate did not confer upon them imperial powers, but only administrative responsibilities.

For their part, the Zionist Jews were uninterested in becoming the subjects of Empire. They busied themselves, instead, with fulfilling their part of the Mandate — the construction of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. They bought land from absentee Arab landlords, usually domiciled in Damascus or Cairo, drained the swamps, rescued the sand dunes and, as even the British grudgingly recognised, really did make the deserts bloom. They built a state within a state, with its own schools, language (Hebrew), administrative machinery and taxation to fund their education and health infrastructures. Undoubtedly this was in preparation for the formal establishment of a Jewish state (as opposed to a mere “homeland”).

Meanwhile, the Arabs of Palestine too had their aspirations. Like Arabs elsewhere, they longed for national self-determination. This they had been promised by the British in return for their help in defeating their overlords, the Ottomans. By the late 1930’s, Syria and Iraq were on the verge of achieving it. But in Palestine, the terms of the Mandate made it impossible, for their land had, perforce, to accommodate a national home for the Jews. This the Palestinian Arabs hated above all else. They watched the increasing pace of Jewish immigration and land acquisition with fury and fear, as their land was sold from under them, and the remorseless logic of demographics foretold they would soon be a minority in their own land. The dream of self-determination would be gone like drifting smoke.

The British in Palestine, torn between pro-Zionist policy directives from Whitehall and a profound local conviction that both the Mandate and the Declaration upon which it was based it were profoundly mistaken and unworkable, tried hopelessly to keep the irreconcilable parties apart. Violence erupted throughout the 1920’s, with a series of massacres perpetrated against Jewish populations of Hebron and and other towns in 1929, and culminating in a serious, territory-wide uprising by the Arabs beginning in 1936, urged on by the anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini.

It was then, in 1937, that the solution to Israel-Palestine was proposed: partition. Lord Peel was appointed to lead a Royal Commission into the causes of the Arab Rebellion. The Commission’s report is a model of impartiality, diligence, good sense and good governance. The summary of the report is here.

In short, Peel concluded that the Mandate had failed, that the differences between the peoples were irreconcilable, and that the only feasible solution was the establishment of two states, one for the Arabs, and one for the Jews.

The problem cannot be solved by giving either the Arabs or the Jews all they want. The answer to the question which of them in the end will govern Palestine must be Neither. No fair-minded statesman can think it right either that 400,000 Jews, whose entry into Palestine has been facilitated by the British Government and approved by the League of Nations, should be handed over to Arab rule, or that, if the Jews should become a majority, a million Arabs should be handed over to their rule. But while neither race can fairly rule all Palestine, each race might justly rule part of it.

Seventy years later, now as then, it remains the only solution. And seventy years later, now as then, the Jews accept it, and the Arabs do not.

Other highlights of the Peel Commission’s findings are below the fold. They’re rich in insight and well worth reading.

In order to obtain Arab support in the War, the British Government promised the Sherif of Mecca in 1915 that, in the event of an Allied victory, the greater part of the Arab provinces of the Turkish Empire would become independent. The Arabs understood that Palestine would be included in the sphere of independence.In order to obtain the support of World Jewry, the British Government in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration. The Jews understood that, if the experiment of establishing a Jewish National Home succeeded and a sufficient number of Jews went to Palestine, the National Home might develop in course of time into a Jewish State.

…

The Jewish National Home is no longer an experiment. The growth of its population has been accompanied by political, social and economic developments along the lines laid down at the outset. The chief novelty is the urban and industrial development. The contrast between the modern democratic and primarily European character of the National Home and that of the Arab world around it is striking. The temper of the Home is strongly nationalist. There can be no question of fusion or assimilation between Jewish and Arab cultures. The National Home cannot be half-national.

….

Arab nationalism is as intense a force as Jewish. The Arab leaders’ demand for national self-government and the shutting down of the Jewish National Home has remained unchanged since 1929. Like Jewish nationalism, Arab nationalism is stimulated by the educational system and by the growth of the Youth Movement. It has also been greatly encouraged by the recent Anglo-Egyptian and Franco-Syrian Treaties.

….

The evidence submitted by the Arab and Jewish leaders respectively was directly conflicting and gave no hope of compromise.

The only solution of the problem put forward by the Arab Higher Committee was the immediate establishment of all independent Arab Government, which would deal with the 400,000 Jews now in Palestine as it thought fit. To that it is replied that belief in British good faith would not be strengthened anywhere in the world if the National Home were now surrendered to Arab rule.

The Jewish Agency and the Va’ad Leumi asserted that the problem would be solved if the Mandate were firmly applied in full accordance with Jewish claims: thus there should be no new restriction on immigration nor anything to prevent the Jewish population becoming in course of time a majority in Palestine. To that it is replied that such a policy could only be maintained by force and that neither British public opinion nor that of World Jewry is likely to commit itself to the recurrent use of force unless it is convinced that there is no other means by which justice can be done.

…

The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought.

…

The continuous impact of a highly intelligent and enterprising race backed by large financial resources on a comparatively poor, indigenous community, on a different cultural level, may produce in time serious reactions. The principle of economic absorptive capacity, meaning that considerations of economic capacity and these alone should determine immigration, is at present inadequate and ignores factors in the situation which wise statesmanship cannot disregard. Political, social and psychological factors should be taken into account. His Majesty’s Government should lay down a political high level of Jewish immigration. This high level should be fixed for the next five years at 12,000 per annum. The High Commissioner should be given discretion to admit immigrants up to this maximum figure, but subject always to the economic absorptive capacity of the country.

…

Tel Aviv has unique problems of its own caused by its phenomenal growth during the last five years. The objectives which the people of Tel Aviv have set before them in the way of social services are in themselves admirable, and the ratepayers have shown a commendable readiness to bear high rates for their realization. The town has been faced with, and to a considerable extent surmounted, exceptional difficulties without seriously impairing its financial position.

…

The Arabs of Palestine, it has been admitted, are as fit to govern themselves as the Arabs of Iraq or Syria. The Jews of Palestine are as fit to govern themselves as any organized and educated community in Europe. Yet, associated as they are under the Mandate, self-government is impracticable for both peoples. The Mandate cannot be fully implemented nor can it honourably terminate in the independence of an undivided Palestine unless the conflict between Arab and Jew can be composed.

…

The application to Palestine of the Mandate System in general and of the specific Mandate in particular implies the belief that the obligations thus undertaken towards the Arabs and the Jews respectively would prove in course of time to be mutually compatible owing to the conciliatory effect on the Palestinian Arabs of the material prosperity which Jewish immigration would bring in Palestine as a whole. That belief has not been justified, and there seems to be no hope of its being justified in the future.

…

An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State.

As I said at the beginning, Lord Peel and his colleagues had the whole thing pegged seventy years ago.

Hollywood’s favourite full-on-dictator-in-waiting, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez –

Graphic via Gateway Pundit.

– has lost his attempt to change to the constitution to allow him to be president for life (and other important measures).

Venezuela celebrates.

The BBC grits its teeth.

It’s (or he’s) a hot topic these days, what with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens weighing in for the negative. Does God exist, and why should we believe in him, her or it?

There was an interesting debate a couple of days ago in the US at The Tufts Freethought Society, between Daniel Dennett, atheist (whom I admit I’d never heard of) and Dinesh D’Souza, Christian, of whom I had, but generally vaguely bad stuff.

It’s about God. The nominal topic of the debate was “God is a manmade invention.” (Rather along the lines of Voltaire’s aphorism that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”) Daniel Dennett argued the affirmative, and Dinesh D’Souza the negative. But the debate did not really address that question. It was more about whether it was rational, or not, to believe in God.

You can catch all the whole thing at Richard Dawkins’ website. It’s worth the hour or so it takes to watch all 15 YouTube videos.

Or there’s audio of the debate here (thanks to Solomonia, who was there, and with whose readout of the debate I agree).

I didn’t take too much to D’Souza’s megaphone style, but I’d say intellectually he won the day and the debate. For the first time since I read St Anselm of Canterbury, I’m thinking there may be a compelling philosophical case for the existence of God.

David Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy describes the history of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA), set up in 1949 to assist the Palestinians who who fled or were expelled from Israel, but which has only served to ensure they maintain their refugee status in perpetuity.

Established in December 1949, UNRWA began operations the next May. The UN Agency’s job was to help settle the Palestinians who had left Israel because of the 1948-49 war. According to General Assembly resolution 302(IV), UNRWA’s mandate was that “constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.”

Over half a century later, UNRWA’s annual budget is nearly half a billion dollars, including nearly $150 million from US taxpayers. As UNRWA’s website explains, “In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate.” Stated another way, UNRWA’s bureaucratic existence depends on making sure that the Palestinian refugee problem is not solved, and that “international assistance for relief” is not terminated at an “early date,” or ever.

Well worth a read, as are the comments.

One commenter, Prof. Ethan, makes some important observations, which echo an argument advanced by Bernard Lewis prior to the recent Annapolis conference:

The Palestinian refugee situation is hardly unique, neither in suffering nor in scale.

There was a lot of these events at the end of WWII and during decolonization:

About ten million Germans had to flee their centuries-old homes in eastern Europe in 1945. A million died; another million were raped. They were not welcomed in western Germany, and there was much suffering. None of these people or their descendants is blowing up discos in Danzig.

About seven million Hindus had to flee from what became Pakistan (and an equal number of Muslims fled from India). No Hindus are blowing up schoolyards filled with students in Islamabad.

The number of Palestinian refugees resulting from the Nakbah of 1948 is about 750,000. Bernard Lewis is right: the number of Jewish refugees expelled from Muslim states between 1948 and 1960 was larger: about 850,000. These Jews were forced to leave everything behind (uncompensated). Some Muslim is enjoying their property even as we speak (perhaps this illegally-seized property could be a source of compensation for the Palestinians!). None of these people is blowing up supermarkets in Marakesh or Aden.

About 300,000 Greeks were intentionally forced from Egypt by the Nasser government policies 1953 and 1960–in order to Egyptianize and Muslimize Egypt; ethnic and religious cleansing to the max. Most of these Greeks had come to Egypt in the early 19th century; but some had been in Egypt for 2,300 years. The refugees weren’t happy, nor was it easy for them to assimilate where they ended up. They had to leave everything behind (uncompensated); some Muslim is enjoying their property as we speak. No Greeks are blowing up buses in Cairo.

Millions of Greeks were forced from western Turkey in 1922; the ethnic cleansing of Greeks by the Turkish government went on as late as 1955 in the area called “Pontus” on the south coast of the Black Sea; the refugees remain bitter and when a Greek “Pontic” refugee girl won a gold medal in the Olympics in 1992 the bitterness in Greece was very public. None of these Greeks or their descendants is blowing up restaurants in Ankara.

About 50,000 Hindu Indians were driven from Uganda in 1972 by Idi Amin in a program of ethnic and religious cleansing. Their property was confiscated (uncompensated). None of these people or their descendants are intentionally shooting rockets at civilians in Uganda.

When I pointed out these parallel tragedies to a Palestinian, his response is revealing: “None of these people is as honorable as the Palestinians are.”

I wish I was making up this psychologically revealing story. I assure you that, unfortunately, I am not.

As far as I can see, there was no just solution to the problem of Palestine in 1947 — at least, not one that would be just to both sides. A solution just for the Jews involved an injustice to the Palestinians. And the opposite was equally true.

The British were tired of of the burden of their Mandate, and wanted out. The Jews had fought for the establishment of a Jewish state against the Mandate, and their struggle was not going to stop. The Arabs did not accept the Jews in Palestine, and their struggle was not going to stop. The only possible solution was what the UN in fact proposed: two states, one for each people. The Jews accepted, the Arabs did not.

And still do not.

Erin Gray as Colonel Wilma Deering in the 1979-81 sci-fi TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Sexier. Than. Heaven.

On 29 November 1947 the United Nations approved Resolution 181, which brought Israel into the world. It sought also to create a contiguous Palestinian state, a move rejected by the Arab nations.

Today (or yesterday? I get confused by time zones), Dan Gillerman, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN and a hugely impressive orator, delivered this speech to mark the 60th anniversary of that decision.

(With thanks to Aussie Dave. Video here, commencing at 1 hr 35 mins.)

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

I know these words evoke a different voice and a different precedent. But with all seriousness, Happy Birthday. On this day, 60 years ago, the Jewish State was born out of the historic 1947 General Assembly session, where two extraordinary gifts were given to humanity: the gift of a modern state for the Jewish people and the gift of Israel to the world.

I have just come from a commemorative ceremony at Lake Success, where that United Nations, met 60 years ago. You see, throughout history, nations traditionally have been created through war and conquest. Israel, however, was created by UN decree and by the nations of the world. To be there today – representing my Government and my People – was indeed a joyous occasion. So, I wish you all, a Happy Birthday.

Mr. President,

Late last night, I returned from Annapolis. It was a memorable occasion, with representatives from over 40 nations – chiefly among them moderate states of the Arab and Muslim world – committed to supporting the bilateral process between Israel and the Palestinians. The air in Annapolis was filled with the hope that by working together we can realize a peaceful and better tomorrow. I have no doubt that this sense of optimism was felt by all those in attendance.

Yet, back here in New York, standing before this august Assembly – in a place so distant from Annapolis in body, mind, and soul – I cannot help but wonder whether today’s debate will contribute to the spirit, promise, and hope of Annapolis.

After all, this Assembly hall is also the birthplace of the annual 21 resolutions defaming Israel – with a litany of predetermined, impractical, and completely biased conclusions – that have only given the Palestinians a fictitious sense of reality and a discourse of rights without responsibilities, both of which render the United Nations completely incapable of playing a meaningful role in addressing the conflict.

Today – 29 of November – is perhaps the greatest example of how this Assembly continues to stifle hope and faith for peace in our region. According to the calendar of the United Nations, today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which by definition precludes Israel.

Let me be clear: Palestinian self-determination is a cause Israel wholeheartedly supports. Indeed, at the Annapolis meeting, just two days ago, my Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Olmert said “we will find the right way, as part of an international effort in which we will participate, to assist these Palestinians in finding a proper framework for their future, in the Palestinian state which will be established in the territories agreed upon between us”.

Over the years, however, the proceedings held in this Hall and at UN centers around the world have corrupted the cause of Palestinian self-determination and transformed it into a denigration and defamation of the Jewish state.

I have been listening carefully to the statements delivered this afternoon. They all focused on Israel, and I know many will focus on Israel later.

The narrative is the same: it is unjust, draining, grossly erroneous, misleading, and – I dare say – viciously boring. It is sadly, yet again, déjà vu, all over again.

The penchant for blaming Israel for the repeated Palestinian failures is so widespread and contagious that the absurdity of it goes completely unnoticed. And today reminds us why: the Palestinian addiction to the culture of victimhood is fed by this world body and specifically many of its Member States – as we just witnessed – who day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, use this international forum for their rhetorical theatrics. Broadway might have been on strike, but the theater on the East River is always open for business.

It is time to close the gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric in this Hall now, forever, once and for all.

For us – for Jews and for Israelis – today is not a bitter day at all. We are not downtrodden or haunted by vanquished dreams. Today is a day of great victory and success – victory over oppression and tyranny, and success over the painful tragedies and suffering of Jewish history. Today, we celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people and our eternal bond to the land of Israel, where after so many years of yearning and longing in exile we merited the return to our homeland.

The joy felt on 29 November 1947 is recounted by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated writers, and a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature:

“There was dancing and weeping … Bottles of fruit drink, beer and wine passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, strangers hugged each other in streets and kissed each other with tears, … frenzied revelers … waved the flag of the state that had not been established yet, but tonight, over there in Lake Success, it had been decided that it had the right to be established”.

Travel to any city in Israel, and you will no doubt find a street named for this very day – כ”ט בנובמבר – the 29th of November – a testament to its importance and significance to our people.

In fact, I live in Tel-Aviv, just yards from a street named after the 29th of November, and my eldest grandson, Ron, as born on this very day nine years ago. It is on his behalf and on behalf of all children of Israel and the children of the region that I stand before you here today.

Distinguished Excellencies, think of the past 60 years, and consider Israel’s many contributions to the world in the fields of science and technology, medicine, art, and culture. A country that has discovered ways to stop deserts from receding; a country that has engineered critical advancements in medicine, cures for illnesses and limbs for the disabled; a country that has endowed the world with rich treasures of art and culture, through its Nobel Laureates, poets, artists, and writers.

Think about where the world would be today without the State of Israel – and I know some in this Hall perversely dream about such a question. But Israel is here to stay, to flourish, and to continue contributing to the advancement of man, progress, and human civilization.

It is then the greatest insult to us, to history, and to this Assembly that while Israel celebrates, others at the United Nations mourn.

Some Member States will note my delegation’s absence from past 29th of November proceedings. We stopped addressing this session because some Member States hijacked and abused the forum for their own political interests and turned it into yet another venue to demonize Israel. We cannot allow that to happen any longer. Today is our day.

It is high time for Israel and for all those committed to peace in our region, to reclaim this day for what it truly means: the peaceful coexistence of two independent states in the region, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, living side-by-side in peace and security, each fulfilling the national aspirations of its respective people.

Mr. President,

In this regard, it is all the more bewildering that of late the Jewish character of the State of Israel has been called into question. Last week, as Israelis and Palestinians set out for Annapolis, a veteran Palestinian negotiator said “the Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity”.

The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance – General Assembly resolution 181 – speaks of the creation of the “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. Even before that, the notion of a Jewish state in the land of Israel was cemented in the 1922 League of Nations British Mandate on Palestine, which put into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to establish a national home for the Jewish people.

The Arab refusal to recognize the existence of our Jewish state has been at the core of the Palestinians’ inability to achieve a state of their own. When the Jews accepted the UN partition plan, the Arabs made a fateful – and indeed fatal – choice to reject it and invade the newly borne Jewish state, rather than coexist with it.

Had the Arabs accepted the UN’s decision, there would have been two states, one Jewish and one Arab, all this time, for the past 60 years. Had the Arabs not rejected the decision, my Palestinian colleague who spoke earlier would have represented a Member State, not just as an Observer entity.

The wrong choices did not end in 1947. We saw them again in 1967, 1973, 2000, and 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip only to have the Palestinians bring the Hamas terrorists to power. The wrong choices of the Palestinians continue until this very day, when, on average, Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip fire rockets at Israel every three hours.

For their brutal violence, arrogance, and intransigence, Israel has paid an enormous price: with the lives of our people – the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism: men, women, and children, young and old, doctors and lawyers, artists and scientists, all who would have contributed so greatly to life in Israel and to the betterment of the entire world.

The terrorism we still see today stems from an innate refusal to recognize Israel, a refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and a refusal to recognize the value of our lives. So long as there is a denial of the existential issues, I fear, there can never be an agreement on the territorial ones.

Mr. President,

Annapolis – I hope and believe – represents a new wind of change. Moderate Arab and Muslim states today recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of instability in our region and that the conflict can and will end. They also recognize that the real dangers come directly from Islamic extremism and its champion Iran, who sponsors terrorism around the globe, tries to attain nuclear weapons, denies the Holocaust while preparing for the next one, relentlessly defying the will of the international community.

The Coalition for Peace, which the world saw assembled in Annapolis just two days ago, will support the process between Israel and the Palestinians. But it is also a coalition that will hopefully counter and confront the extremists in Teheran.

I hope that the winds of Annapolis will blow to the north, to this very Hall. For there could be no better time for the nations of the world – and in particular the moderate Arab and Muslim states in this Hall today – to show their commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian process. And there could be no better place than here at the United Nations –where for decades Israel has been discriminated against and singled out, contrary to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter – for Members States to tell Israel and the Palestinians that they support our dialogue.

Mr. President,

Allow me to take you back once more to sixty years ago, to 2 October 1947, when David Ben-Gurion, founding father and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, two months prior to the General Assembly’s historic vote, said in Jerusalem:

“We will not surrender our right to free Aliyah, to rebuild our shattered Homeland, to claim statehood. If we are attacked, we will fight back. But we will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish cooperation gainful to both. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for the common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals”.

Mr. President, sixty years later, today here, Israel’s message to the Arab nations and the Palestinians has not changed. Shoulder to shoulder for the common good. Now, more than ever, with the winds of change blowing strong from Annapolis, to New York, to the Middle East, to all corners of the earth.

Thank You.

Lotte Lenya sings Seerauberjenny (Pirate Jenny) from Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera).  The clip is from G.W. Pabst’s 1931 film of the original stage play by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill.  No-one has ever sung it better than Lenya.  After all, Weill did write it for her.

Another marvellous poem by Iraq’s greatest poet, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, translated from the Arabic by Shareah Taleghani.

“A Stranger By the Gulf” is from 1953.

The wind gasps with the midday heat,
like a nightmare in the late afternoon
And on the masts, it continues to fold, to spread for departure
The gulf is crowded with them–laborers roaming the seas
Barefoot, half-naked
And on the sand, by the gulf
A stranger sat–a baffled vision wanders the gulf
Destroying the pillars of light with the rising wail
Higher than the torrents roaring foam, than the clamor
A voice thunders in the abyss of my bereaved soul: Iraq
Like the crest rising, like a cloud, like tears to the eyes
The wind cries to me: Iraq.
The wave howls at me: Iraq. Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.
The sea is as wide as can be, and you are as distant
The sea is between you and me: Oh Iraq.

Yesterday, as I passed by the café, I heard you Iraq . . .
You were a spin of a record
This, the spin of the cosmos in my life–it rolls time on for me
In two moments of tranquility if it has lost its place
It is the face of my mother in darkness
And her voice,
They glide with the vision until I sleep
And it is the palm trees that I fear if they grow dim at sunset
Crammed with ghosts snatching every child
who doesn’t return from the paths,
And it is the old woman and what she whispers about Hazam

And how the grave split open over him before the beautiful, young Afra
And he took hold of her . . . except for a braid

Rose red . . . do you remember?
The glowing fireplace crowded with palms seeking warmth?
And my aunt’s whispered tales of bygone kings?
And behind a door like a decree
That was closed on the women
By hands forever obeyed–as they were the hands of men
The men would carouse and pass the night in revelry
without tiring

So, do you remember? Do you remember?
Content, we were resigned
With those sad stories–as they were the stories of women.
A collection of lives and times, we were in its prime
We were its two spheres–between which it rested
So, isn’t that nothing but dust?
A dream and a spin of the record?
If that were all that remains, where is the consolation?

In you Iraq, I loved my spirit or I loved you in it
Both of You, the lantern of my spirit, you–
and evening came
And the night pressed down–so let both glow in the darkness,
so I will not lose my way
If you came to me in a foreign land–the encounter would be
incomplete
Meeting you–Iraq at my hand . . . this, the encounter
Longing for it penetrates my blood, as if all of my blood is desire
A hunger for it . . . like the hunger of the blood of the drowned for
air
The desire of the unborn stretching his neck from the
darkness to birth
I wonder how it is possible for traitors to betray
Does one betray his country?
If he betrays the meaning of being, how can he be?

The sun is more beautiful in my country than any other, and
darkness
Even darkness–there, is more beautiful
for it embraces Iraq

What a pity . . . .when will I sleep
And sense on the pillow
Your summer night–gilded by your perfume, Iraq?
Between timid villages and strange cities, my footsteps
I sang your beloved soil
And I carried it–for I am the Messiah in exile dragging his cross
And I heard the footfall of the famished moving, bleeding
from faltering
And dust, from you and from padded feet–my eyes filled with
tears
I still walk, disheveled–with soiled feet on the roads
Under foreign suns
In tattered rags, hands outstretched, calling
Pale from fever and disgrace, the disgrace of a strange
beggar
Amidst foreign eyes
Amidst scorn, and rejection, and aversion . . . or pity
Death is easier than pity
Than the pity foreign eyes squeeze out as
Drops of mineral water
So be doused, you, Oh drops, Oh blood, . . . oh . . . currency
Oh Wind, Oh needles tailoring the sail for me,
when will I return
To Iraq, when will I return?
Oh Flash of the waves staggered by oars—
carrying me to the Gulf
Oh great constellation . . . oh currency.
If only the ships didn’t charge their passengers for traveling?
If only the earth like the vast horizon was without seas
I am still calculating, oh currency, I count you–I ask for more

I am still repelled by you from the intervals of my alienation,
I still ignite my window and my door with your glow,
On the other shore over there,
So tell me, oh currency . . .
When will I return, when will I return.
Do you see that joyous day approaching before my death?

And in the sky, in the fragments of clouds
And in the breezes, hailstones saturated with August perfumes
I reveal with a cloak, the remainder of my lethargy, like a silk veil
Disclosing what is and is not visible,
What I have and barely have forgotten,
when doubt is within certainty
It is clear to me–as I extend my hand to slip on my clothes–
What answer was I searching for in the darkness of my soul
That the hidden joy did not fill the abyss of my spirit like fog?
Today–as delight floods through me–surprising me–I return

What a pity–
I will not return to Iraq
And will he who lacks currency return?
And how is it saved?
And will you eat when you are hungry? And will you spend
what
Dignity deems generous, on food?

So cry for Iraq
For what do you have but tears
But your futile anticipation, for the winds and the masts.

In April 2002, the Israeli Defence Forces mounted a major operation in the PA-administered West Bank town of Jenin, identified by the IDF as the major fountainhead of the wave of terrorist suicide bombers then infiltrating Israeli territory and killing scores of Israeli nationals. Before long, the western (and Middle Eastern) media were full of horror stories about the operation, including reports of hundreds of innocents deliberately killed by the IDF. “Genocide” was a term freely employed by local journalists (mainly Palestinian stringers), and repeated uncritically in the MSM.

What actually happened back then was hotly contested at the time, and has been ever since. Eventually, a report by a UN investigating team found that only 56 Palestinians had been killed in fierce street fighting, and 23 Israeli soldiers.

In this connection, there was an interesting report yesterday on YNet:

Reservists to receive compensation for ‘Jenin Jenin’ screening

Tel Aviv, Jerusalem cinematheques to pay NIS 40,000 to five IDF reservists who claimed screening of contentious documentary about Operation Defensive Shield in West Bank town offended them

Yoram Yarkoni

Published:

11.26.07, 10:11 / Israel Culture

Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv cinematheques will pay NIS 40,000 in restitution to five IDF reservists who were offended by the screening of the contentious film “Jenin Jenin”. The reservists maintained that the film, in which actor and director Mohammed Bakri depicts IDF excursions into Gaza during Operation Defensive Shield, is defamatory and slanderous.

First screened in 2002, the documentary “Jenin Jenin” asserts that the IDF committed atrocious war crimes and deliberately slaughtered innocent civilians during Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank town. Following the screening, the reservists filed suit for defamation against both Bakri and the cinematheques that screened his films to the tune of NIS 2.5 million.

CAMERA critiques the film here, and compares it with the counter-narrative described in The Road to Jenin.

Jenin, Jenin’s maker, Mohammed Bakri, lauds his own film thus:

I’m proud that justice was done and the truth came to light,” filmmaker Mohamed Bakri exulted in November 2003 when the Israeli Supreme Court reversed a ban on his controversial documentary Jenin, Jenin. “Every truth has two sides–our side and your side–and the two truths are one big truth.”

Ah-ha — “the accidental post-modernist”.

______________________

Here are the “two truths”. You decide. I’ve already made up my mind, of course.

Jenin, Jenin

The Road to Jenin

And finally, a footnote from Richard Landes, of Augean Stables and Second Draft fame: The Living Dead — Resurrection in Palestine. This footage of a funeral in Jenin involving an over-active “corpse” was taken by an IDF surveillance drone.

______________

There is much that needs to be said about the role of the media in situations such as at Jenin — and, even more crucially, Iraq. Fortunately, Yankee Wombat has said it far better than I could.

I think the intentional creation of footage - real or faked - by our enemies to sell to our media is possible only because our media is open to it. One vector is the endless appetite of TV for dramatic footage to maximize the emotional impact of their coverage. Another is the general disaffection of our press with the goals of our government and military.’

From the British Army’s 40th Commando.

More over at Defence of the Realm.