Note of Thanks to Japan and Montana: After a tiring but highly productive trip to Japan, I am back in Palestine welcoming visitors and speaking to visiting delegations and about to start teaching the fall semester. While in Japan, I was awarded Montana's Peace Seeker of the Year
More about my trip to Japan at
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rational for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades:
-Lies about the need to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagazaki (not to end WWII but to start WWIII or the cold war)
-Lies about why Britain issued the Balfour declaration and France the Jules Cambon declaration in support of Zionism
-Lies about why Israel was created in Palestine
-Lies about why Henry Wallace was replaced by Harry Truman as a vice president in the Democratic convention
-Lies about why Truman supported the creation of Israel on top of Palestine
-Lies about the ethnic cleansing of 530 Palestinian villages and towns
-Lies about September 11, 2001
-Lies about the reasons for the war on Iraq
-Lies about safety of nuclear power plants
-Lies about violations of US citizen rights by their own government
-Lies about US/Israel want to subdue Iran now
-Lies about the US role in propping-up dictatorships
-Lies about western governments and human rights
-Lies about Vietnam, Cambodia, and much more
With a little effort, any person could easily find 1001 lies and the sometimes painful truth about them. With very minor effort, I compiled 65 lies/myths told to us about Zionism http://www.qumsiyeh.org/liesandtruths/ There are many more.
But even when it has nothing to do with going to war, lies can be very dangerous. I am not talking about naiveté or stupidity because that is not what the politicians have. Take for example the Palestinian authority “leadership” represented by Mr. Mahmoud Abbas. Is it naiveté that would make him go into fruitless negotiations for 20 years with Israeli politicians then suspend negotiations telling his people that we will not go back to negotiations until Israel stops colonial settlement building and then tell his people that he went back to negotiations anyway while Israel is building. This flip-flop is the typical politician: no principles and no honesty. Yet, again many continue to clap for him. I do not say vote for him since his term is expired a long time ago and no elections are going to happen.
Even when confronted with paper evidence of political lies, many people ignore the mounting evidence. In our case, there was the lies about support for right of return told to our people while Abu Mazen tells Israeli TV that 1948 areas are Israel and he has no right to go back there (maybe should be able to go “visit”). There were the lies about being good negotiators with Israel. Saeb Erekat even wrote two books about negotiations full of such lies. Those lies were clearly debunked by the leaking of the Palestine papers which show that even a middle school student could do a better job at these negotiations than this groveling charade that these Palestinian negotiators are going through. The fate of 12 million Palestinians and the legacy of 80,000 martyrs are left to lying politicians: Israeli, Palestinian and American.
But we cannot blame politicians for our ill societies. It is us the people who let them do what they do by not challenging them.
An example of a good grasroot project (this one in Canada but similar ones can be done in every country)
Israel Deserves to Be Expelled from UN, Miguel D'Escoto Says
Will Israeli-Palestinian negotiations get my family back home?
[Disgusting] Israel’s relationship with the Arab Gulf states
US Green party foreign policy platform: a breath of fresh air in the politics of the US
[nauseating] The mayor of “upper nazareth” defends racismhttp://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.540278
Tawfiq Saleh, famous Egyptian Director ands Producer died at age 86 year old. The film that most effected me was his film AlMakhdoun (the Duped) based on Ghassan Kanafani famous novel “Men in the Sun” (Kanafani was assasinated by Israeli agents in 1972)
Dying for Freedom in Egypt: I was shocked by how many generally good people lost their basic values by fear or hatred or political calculations...This is a call to go back to the basic values, and first of all Human Rights, Dignity, Freedom and Democracy. We, the oppressed people, need them just as we need air to breath. http://freehaifa.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/dying-for-freedom-in-egypt/
[I would simply ask those who support the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood (a group I obviously do not support) one simple question: how will you have political reconciliation or build a democratic Egypt if you kill, exclude and jail the leaders of the largest organized group in Egypt?]
"http://freehaifa.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/dying-for-freedom-in-egypt/">http://freehaifa.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/dying-for-freedom-in-egypt/
[I would simply ask those who support the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood (a group I obviously do not support) one simple question: how will you have political reconciliation or build a democratic Egypt if you kill, exclude and jail the leaders of the largest organized group in Egypt?]
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