It was still shocking, if not entirely surprising, to hear US President Joe Biden proudly refer to himself as a “Zionist” during his visit to Israel last Wednesday.
According to Reuters yesterday, when Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders in a closed-door meeting, he had said that: “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist”, to which his select audience nodded in approval.
That Biden, the Catholic American of Irish descent President of the United States and the so-called ‘leader of the free world’ said such a thing at all was remarkable enough. That he said it just the day after Israel killed 471 Palestinians—half of them women and children—taking shelter or receiving treatment at a Gaza hospital was extraordinary. But even as he said it at a Tel Aviv hotel, Israeli missile strikes were flying past into Gaza, to kill yet more unarmed Palestinians, 11 long days after Hamas militants had killed hundreds in a surprise attack on Israel.
Yet, it all became clear why. There were only two reasons why Biden was literally summoned from Washington to Tel Aviv in the shortest possible time and when his Secretary of State Blinken was still in the country: to declare to the world that he is a Zionist and to endorse Israel’s Zionist war crimes in Gaza which are not and cannot be excused by Hamas’ prior crimes.
Zionism is of course the ideology of endless violence, whatever its textbook definitions, that most people, including millions of Jews, would not want to be associated with, let alone to celebrate openly in the very moment the whole world was expressing revulsion against yet another round of Zionist violence.
In fact, few people are more critical of Zionism than non-Zionist Jews, who, like most people in the world, just want to find a way for Israel and Palestine to live together in peace, either in a one-state or two-state framework. But with a self-professed Zionist in the White House, that dream is a long way off.
From my mailbox
Re: Remembering Edward Said
“Remembering Edward Said” reinforces the fact that the West simply use their literary and media power to dominate and misinform the rest of us. They speak of the New World Information Order. But that is simply a smokescreen to becloud the reality.
With the Zionist control of the World’s most powerful and influential media organisations, the voice of the hapless in the so-called Third World and Muslim nations remain largely unsung.
Imagine as someone put it, President Joe Biden of America flying the Air Force One for 13 hours from the US to Israel only to show solidarity with an aggressor nation! To make matters worse, the American No. 1 citizen literally lied before a global media that it was the Palestinians who bombed the Gaza Hospital which claimed the lives of some 500 patients, medical staff and others sheltering there. Now it is that shameless narrative they are forcing down the throats of hapless global audience who believe in their media as if they were the gospel truth.
The West, led by America, has decided to use the military, media and hunger weapons in treating the Palestinian issue rather than a just and equitable solution which is the panacea for lasting peace in the Middle East and indeed the World.
- Garba, 08029169551
Re: Remembering Edward Said
Thank you for refreshing our memories about the theoretical and intellectual legacy of Edward Said. I first encountered Edward Said on the pages of a 1994 CODESRIA Bulletin in a debate between Archie Mafeje and Alli Mazrui on the latter’s proposition of the benign recolonisation of Africa.
Ever since, I have been glued to Edward Said and the other patriarchs of poststructuralism. Indeed, Said’s Orientalism has been a groundbreaking theoretical paradigm on the scene of contemporary critical studies.
That said, let me make two observations. One, Prof. Claude Ake is a political scientist, not a sociologist. Two, more often than not, we appropriate the occidentalists’ castigation of the orients as peg to hang and lionize the theoretical agency of Orientalism but sadly do we spare a moment to critique and contradict the characterizations of the Orient/Africa imbued in the theoretical assumptions of Orientalism.
In the face of excruciating multidimensional poverty in Africa and the unpalatable indices of underdevelopment in the midst of resource abundance, can one say that Africa and Africans are developed, civilized and superior contrary to what Orientalism would have us believe? Food for thought
Atah Pine, Dept of Pol Sc, BSU Makurdi
I read your piece on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and my position is that it is one-sided and the exact reason why this conflict has not been resolved for ages. The refusal by commentators on the different sides of the divide to apportion blames appropriately is exacerbating the problem.
I don’t think that people fully understand the Israel/Palestinian conflict. There is a tendency to reduce it to Muslim/Christian battle or Arabs against the West. It is much more than that. It has serious political undertones.
Extremists on both sides of the divide have hijacked this dispute and perpetuated it for years.
For years, hawks within Israel have refused to make concessions – ensuring that the mild and more liberal Palestinians like Arafat could not do much. Instead for years they have embarked on an inhuman blockade that is close to practicing apartheid against Palestinians. Taking up more land and squeezing the people of Palestine into a tiny corner of the earth. Yet some Christians support them. I don’t know how people that are Christians can support evil.
Hamas and Iran on their part want Israel erased out of the face of the planet. They know that it is impossible but continue to pursue it in the most brutal manner. Why would you go and butcher innocent people sleeping in their homes? What is the justification? Yet some Muslims support it. Is that what Islam teaches?
Look, Hamas and Iran knew what was to follow – that Israel will go to war and that it is mostly people in Gaza that would bear the brunt. These wicked people use their people as pawns and they don’t care.
There is suspicion that this latest attack was motivated by the desire to ensure that Israel and Saudi Arabia do not sign the peace accord that was brokered by the US. Of course, they have now scuttled that peace accord at what price? The murder of innocent people in Gaza.
This accord was ostensibly to lead to negotiating a way out of this intractable conflict. Iran does not want Saudi Arabia to wield more influence in the area and they are willing to sacrifice their fellow Arabs to achieve this? What would happen at the end of this stupid adventure is that Israel will find the justification to acquire more disputed land. What a tragedy!
I just hope that Nigeria continues to keep out of it. Very soon our Christian and Muslim brothers will go and adopt a fight that they don’t even understand and start fighting each other.
George: 08033146928
Salam, your piece ‘Remembering Edward Said’ in today’s Daily Trust makes an interesting reading. Late Prof. Claude Ake is a political economist NOT a sociologist, as represented in your piece today. Thank you, sir. Just to let you know you have admirers who read Daily Trust just for your column.
08163233366
Thank you for the correction. I actually meant to reference Peter Ekeh, the sociologist, and his paper ‘Two Publics in Africa’, not Claude Ake, the political economist. The mix-up is regretted.
-Suleiman
