Rob Kall Interview with Chris Hedges on Gaza, Hamas, AIPAC and more
Rob Kall
ranscribed by Jim Magee. Edited by Jay Farrington and Carla Gilby
Click here for link to MP3 recording of interview, accessible until 2/7/2009 : Conference Recording
Rob Kall: this is Rob on the Rob Kall radio show WNJC 1360 and I have Chris Hedges here with me and Chris was a correspondent in the Middle East, for I think – was it seven years Chris?
Chris Hedges: yes.
Rob Kall: and you've been writing about it - you've got some pretty strong takes on it and we're going to have a conversation about it tonight - did you hear Obama speak just a couple of minutes ago?
Hedges: I didn't
Kall: well, not surprisingly, somebody asked him what he had to say and he said - well he’s not president yet
Hedges: well, that's what he been saying since the inception of...
Kall: and then he said my job is to monitor what's going on now and to put together the best national security team and on January 20 I’ll have plenty to say. That's what he said. Any thoughts on what he said, what he did, what he should be doing, what he could be doing?
Hedges: well, since the inception of his campaign he has been terrible on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Pretty much reading from the script handed to them by AIPAC, which delighted AIPAC when he spoke to them. But it's not going to do anything to resolve the tensions of the conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Kall: you know it's a really tough problem that every politician has. The only one that really stood up to him recently was Cynthia McKinney and they did everything they could to destroy her. And they did it.
Hedges: Ralph Nader
Kall: well, he's not elected, though. But if he were elected official, it's deadly to go after anything other than 100% AIPAC talk - I was amazed that Dennis Kucinich has stood up recently and said some things.
Hedges: yeah - Kucinich had a very strong statement recently - Kucinich has been pretty good on this - but yeah, it's a real career killer if you're an elected official
Kall: do you think that Jay Street will have much of an effect?
Hedges: no, because the power of AIPAC is the power of money and you know they're out there donating to congressional campaigns in Nebraska with there’s probably three Jews in the whole district. As long as you vote the way they want you to vote on Israel. They understand Washington, they are a very effective lobby - they target the few individuals, both inside and outside the political arena, who dare to speak out - and their vicious Kall: by the way, I'm Jewish, and I don't want to see Israel disappear and at the same time, I'm disgusted what they're doing and horrified by it. And I look and I try to see a way to get some kind of political change happening in this country. And with the influence of AIPAC it’s hard to see how that can happen. Do you have any ideas? Hedges: well, I think it's very important to characterize AIPAC for what it is. It is not an Israeli lobby. It's a right wing kadima lobby - previously Likud lobby. I covered Itzhac Rabin’s campaign to be prime minister in Israel and AIPAC as sort of lesser right wing Jewish groups in the United States, involved themselves in that campaign - I mean, even to the point where people are outside Rabin's house in Tel Aviv, chanting horrible slogans against him. They sent over advisors, they gave money. There's been a real shift and I think it began, probably under Shamir, where AIPAC welded itself to the right wing within Israel, and when Rabin was elected prime minister, he did not invite AIPAC and most of the other Jewish groups to the inauguration. There's a famous story about Rabin on his first trip to Washington. He was in one of the big hotels in Washington, the Schwalm or something and there were some figures from AIPAC and other groups that wanted to meet with him and Rabin, who was a very profane man turned to one of his aides and said "I don't have time to talk to scumbags." So I think it's important that within Israel. There is an understanding that the Israeli lobby in the United States, lobbies for the hard right in Israel. Not for Israel, and I think that those of us as long as I have in the Middle East - part of my heartbreak. Is that I think that this behavior is deeply self-destructive in the long term, to Israel. Israel can't pick itself up and move to another geographical location. It is where it is. And the brilliance of the Oslo peace agreement, which Rabin got, was that in order to break the cycle of violence and the conflict since the foundation of Israel in 1948, you had to give Palestinians and economic stake within Israel. That's why there was a $5 billion aid package - that's why there was talk about integrating Palestinians into the Israeli economy. It was that fundamental understanding that when you give off Achmed a worker from Gaza - the possibility to buy a refrigerator and to send his children to school and to have hope that he and his family can have a better life - you essentially began to weld together to peoples and give them a kind of common cause. You know, that's very much what happened with Northern Ireland. It was the raising of the economic standards of the Catholics to the level of the Protestants that I think did more than anything else to break the back of this sectarian violence in the same was true after Oslo. Unfortunately, after the assassination of Rabin, the Israeli leadership did everything they could to destroy and scuttle Oslo and in many ways I think are responsible for creating Hamas in the same way that they are responsible not only for creating Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. But empowering Hezbollah two years ago, when they bombed Lebanon, saturation bombing including Beirut. The goal was to free three captured Israeli soldiers who have not been freed of course, but to break Hezbollah. And of course we see the results in Lebanese politics, what they did was only empower Hezbollah, because these are groups that speak exclusively in the language of violence. They are groups that build themselves on the corpses of martyrs, and when you carry out indiscriminate violence - the kind of violence is being carried out in Gaza, you radicalize the population. You drive - you essentially snuff out the moderates. I mean, how can you, when thousands and thousands of pounds of fragmentation bombs and missiles are being dropped all over Gaza - the voice of moderates. The voice of people who want to create cooperation between them and the Palestinians that have no credibility, and that delights Hamas. Kall: the other day I wrote a piece that Hamas pimped Israel and I’ve run more since then, but my impression was, from what I understand Hamas was in trouble politically. Their ratings were lower than George Bush's - close to the level of Congress Hedges: that's a very good point, because Hamas, and I first granted Hamas in 1988 in Gaza, when they were a fringe group - who the Israelis when they did roundups, never touched because they saw them as a kind of wedge to break Fatah at Yemeni within Gaza - I don't know that the actively supported Hamas, there’s some claims that they did, but they certainly looked the other way. They didn't persecute them they saw them as a divisive force within Palestinian politics and nurtured their growth without question. Hamas’ great strength in Gaza on the West Bank is not so much its radical politics, but the huge charity organizations that it runs. I mean it's literally the delivery of bags of flour and cooking oil to families, week after week that gave Hamas, a kind of popular support that led of course to its elections - free and fair elections without foreign observers without question - they won a legitimate - their legitimacy is real Kall: I've got a question about that, you know, they say that more than half the population of Gaza is 17 years old or younger - so they wouldn't have voted right? Hedges: right
Kall: so it's a kind of the strange situation - and I wonder about those who are under 18 feel about Hamas as compared to the elders
Hedges: well, I think there is a real split and I think this comes from, and I think you touched on it correctly. It comes from that period before Hamas assumed power, and after because, what did Hamas do when they assumed power? They started acting like Saddam Hussein. They rounded up especially Fatah officials - especially senior security officials and executed them, they took over the Judiciary. They fired all sorts of civil service people.
They unleashed a sort of Taliban like oppression within Gaza, which still remains predominantly a secular culture. And you're right, that after they took power, their popularity or their approval ratings plummeted and I would say that before this invasion - you know, I'm guessing, but 80 or 90% of most Palestinians and Gazans hated Hamas, and longed for return to normalcy. What happens now, I don't know. And I think this was a terrible miscalculation on the part of Israel Kall: and that's why I say, they pimped them because Israel is literally helping them now because apparently Israel was planning this for a long time, and it was brilliant, the way they did the bombing of the time was on Election Day. Nobody noticed or paid attention to that. I had no idea until just this last week or so, because there are so many complicating factors in this. I've come to believe the Middle East problem is the hardest problem in the world Hedges: I don't think it is, I think that it has a kind of logic to it - and that the more you tighten the screws on the Palestinians, and if you look back, this really began during the first Gulf War - you've reduced Palestinians to a kind of subsistence level, economically. Most are living on less than two dollars a day. Half of the residents - 1.5 million people in Gaza depend on foreign aid for food. There has been a kind of Africanization of Gaza. Now, the idea behind it, according to the Israelis I think is that when you make daily life so difficult. You are going to blunt extremism. People are just too preoccupied with trying to survive, to join militant movements. I think unfortunately, that is misguided and I think that history has borne that out - that the more they tighten the screws, the more they empower the radical fringe. And this current debacle in Gaza - you know, with dozens and dozens of civilians dead. There was just a school hit where the UN had given the coordinates to Israeli air force and used it as a kind of sanctuary for people that had to flee from their homes. This kind of stuff is incredibly counterproductive; it's just breeding the next generation of terrorists. I think it's important to remember the people that lead the Jihadist moments in Gaza - Islamic Jihad, Hamas, or 8, 9, 10-year-old boys usually in 1956, and they witnessed as young children, the Israeli incursion into gossip, and the hundreds of executions that were carried out a Palestinian men, especially in Rafah and Khan Yunus, and it's no accident that most of the leadership of that generation that comes in both in Hamas and Islamic jihad came out of either Rafah or Khan Yunus that there is a long history and when you brutalize and humiliate a people - especially when your fathers, brothers, uncle's, great uncle's are all being killed - you create the next generation of terrorists. And that is precisely what Israel is doing now. This is not just a tragedy for Palestinian children; ultimately it’s a tragedy for Israeli children Kall: it's hard to picture any kind of ending to the hate and the anger that exists now. I try to think of ways in which something like the truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa occurred, but it just doesn't seem like even - this is so much worse - so much more horrible Hedges: well, you know, it's interesting, if you make a list of the prohibitions that were imposed on blacks in apartheid South Africa. You know the various gradations of travel permits - this kind of stuff and you draw a list up of what the draconian sort of impositions that have been thrust on the Palestinians by the Israelis - that list matches point for point with the one difference being that the apartheid regime. Never went in and use attack aircraft and attack helicopters to bomb townships. That's really the only difference and for those of us... Kall: a big difference though Hedges: it's a big difference - I think that, you know, I covered the war in Sarajevo, I was in Sarajevo during the war. And we're getting hit with 2000 shells a day, courtesy of Serbs, and these were not mortar rounds, these were 155 howitzers, they were Katyusha rockets, 90 mm tank rounds. When you understand the power of that kind of ordnance, and you hear that for instance, Apaches - Apaches are really designed as flying antitank weapons. I was in the Gulf War - the first Gulf War - I was in the last tank battle of the war with the Republican guard - I was with the first Battalion-first Marines. These missiles have the capacity to literally take out a tank. Now when you're using that kind of ordnance in densely populated areas - remember Gaza is one of the most heavily populated land masses in the world, you are going to create havoc and inevitably civilian casualties Kall: word is used more than havoc lately is Holocaust Hedges: well, holocaust - I don't like to go there with that. I don't think that the - I think that one could say there are similarities between Gaza and some of the kind of Nazi ghettos that was set up in Europe before deportation - Loates and Warsaw - okay maybe that's fair, but Kall: it's all over the blogs Hedges: well, I wouldn't use it, I wouldn't use it
Kall: then the Anti-Defamation League is coming back hard against it Hedges: yeah, I wouldn't feel comfortable using that word. I think it's better to speak in terms of legality. You know, if you look at Richard Faulk the UN special reporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories - a former Princeton law professor - he denounced, and this was before the invasion and bombing of Gaza - he denounced what was happening to the Palestinians in Gaza - a crime against humanity - he noted that under international law, collective punishment of a people such as the Palestinians in Gaza is a violation of international humanitarian laws laid down in article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention, and he even went on to ask the international criminal Court to investigate what's happening in Gaza and to determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders, while responsible for the siege, should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international law. I think that is the kind of language we should speak - I don't think it’s helpful to use terms – number one, I don't think it's true that this is a holocaust, but I don't think that it's helpful to get off into that very emotional and amorphous debate. The debate is what does international law say, that is happening in Gaza, and I think it's very clear that what it says is that Israel is in violation of international law.
Kall: okay. I wanted to talk to you about Nizar Rayan - how do you see the name? Hedges: Rayan - yep? Kall: Nizar Rayan was killed in a bomb attack along with his four wives and 11 children. This is a guy who you wrote about - we just reprinted the article, it was originally on - what was the site? Truth dig - we just republish it on op-ed news.com - with your permission. Thank you. This guy blows my mind, this is a guy who sent his son to become a suicide bomber and what you write about in this article is how his other children wanted to be suicide bombers - even his two and four-year-olds. Before I read your article, I was thinking and speaking to some people about how can it ever be any kind of peacemaking with somebody with that kind of mentality. How could he ever compromise, which is what it takes to make peace. And yet, what you write in your article makes it so clear how radicalized these people are, how desperate they are - they have nothing, they have no hope. How does this - what are the steps? Could he ever have been capable of negotiating peace? Hedges: no, but the point is to take away popular support for figures like Rayan and make sure popular support empowers other figures Kall: how does that get done? Hedges: Well, hope - you use the word hope. That's key - when you have no hope, the only way left to affirm yourself is through death - which is essentially the only route open to young males, and often now females in Gaza. People who have no work, no jobs, they’re trapped - they can't leave, they have no travel documents, they're sleeping ten to a floor. The only sort of way that they see their life being celebrated is to become a Shahid, become a martyr in the day that they become a Shahid, Hamas will put posters with their pictures up on the walls in their refugee camps or in their neighborhoods. And these are poster size photographs and they’re always the same - it's usually a young man holding a weapon in front of a gold topped al aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. They're all studio photos they were all taken before their death. The gun was a prop - the mosque was just a backdrop. The only thing that was real in those photos was the yearning for these young people to fight against Israel and for a Palestinian state - and to die. And for that moment, at least until the pictures are pasted over or fade away or peel away, those slain youths have, in their minds eye, a purpose for their very brief life and their heroism recognized. And I think that the way to blunt that is to offer these people over ways to affirm themselves. As long as Israel continues with its current policy, people like Nizar Rayan are going to be empowered. And you know, I think, I tried to write the piece, in such a way that it was clear that I find most all of the tactics of Hamas, morally repugnant - yet at the same time, I want people to understand, or I tried when I wrote it to help people understand what it is that went into creating a Rayan. Now to understand is not to excuse and I don't excuse. But unless we have that capacity for empathy, unless we have the capacity to understand how somebody comes to a point where they are willing to sacrifice their own life and as you said the life of their children, we're not going to be able to blunt this movement. If you look at and I did in the article right about the history of the family - is his grandfather, his great-uncle were killed in the 1948 war that led to the establishment of Israel. They lost their home - his grandmother died shortly after. Rhyon’s father was an orphan, he was passed around among family members and this was of course and 1948 when 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in a very deliberate policy by Jewish militias. Rhyon himself spent 12 years in an Israeli jail. His brother blew himself up as a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus in 1988. One of his other brothers was shot in a street protest by Israeli soldiers five years before that. And another brother was expelled to Lebanon, and you know, it's like family abuse. So when you batter the grandfather, the father, you end up with a Hamas figure - with someone like Rhyon Kall: well let's talk about Hamas. Is there any hope that peace can be made with Hamas? Hedges: well, I first went to the middle east, Yasir Arafat was sort of the terrorist du jour. Everybody said you could never talk to the PLO. They're just terrorist killers, and let's not sugarcoat the PLO – they’re engaged in many despicable and disgusting acts but not only against Israeli civilians, but against Americans as well.
And I think that you - you know politics is a game of pressure and a game of power and I would not want to do anything that would further the long-term viability of Hamas, but at the same time - it's sort of a moot point whether you should talk to them because frankly the Israelis have been talking to Hamas for a long time through Egyptian security officials as the intermediaries and that's how the original truce that was set up when July was arranged between these Egyptian go-betweens. So they’ve already been talking to Hamas. I think that one can have limited strategic negotiations with groups like this, but I think I would empathize at this point with Israel, that one wants to seek ways by which the power and reach of these groups are diminished. And I can guarantee you, having been on the ground in Gaza, and having been in situations such as the siege that Gaza is now enduring - that the policy that Israel has chosen is a lifesaver for a group like Hamas.
Kall: then there's the argument to be fair, is it possible for there to be peace with someone like Netanyahu running Israel? It looks very likely that he'll be the next leader. Hedges: well they don't want peace - I think what’s happened to Israel, and it’s very sad is very much what’s happened to the United States in that Israel in 1948 achieved quite a remarkable victory over Arab militias, poorly organized Arab armies - this was repeated again in 1956 and then repeated again in 1967, and then repeated again in 1973. And a very similar process took place in the United States after our victory in World War II. We began to think that we don't have to talk to anybody. We are so powerful and our military is so unchallengeable that we can just impose our will. And I think that those policies, if one looks at the history of states and empires that somehow feel they don't need to engage in diplomacy - the need to make compromises - they don't need allies because Israel in the world community is as much a pariah at this point as the United States are doomed. Our imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are without question going to end in failure and retreat. And I think that ultimately the policies that Israel is pursuing in the West Bank and in Gaza will lead to Israeli failure Kall: not only that, but there are reports that in Europe and around the world, attacks on Jews and Jewish communities are increasing Hedges: Well, this is my fear - and Israel bears some responsibility for this, you know the Holocaust was a good business for them. If you know the history of Israel, it's fascinating, because in the 50s, there was a kind of real shunning or of disdain of Holocaust victims, for in the Israeli eyes for not fighting back, and it was only in the 60s that they began to realize that this was a really great cause, especially if you were into the cult of victimization - I'm terrified this will result in anti-Semitism, which is as disgusting as any kind of racism. I think there is a great deal of racism towards the Muslims, especially Arabs within our own country and that scares me. You know when that violence is used as a justification to deny the humanity of anyone – be they Jew, Muslim, American, whatever, you know, Saudi. Then we begin to enter a very frightening world Kall: it's a challenge because, as publisher of op-ed news I see an awful lot of occasions where writers or commentators will mix Jews and Israeli policy - Judaism and Israeli policy. And that's just not the case. From what I understand there were 10,000 people in Tel Aviv protesting against what's happening...
Israeli Protest of Gaza Invasion Hedges: well, you know, I lived in Israel for two years and you know, everything I say is controversial in the United States, because unfortunately of the "lock" the Israeli lobby has but when I'm sitting around Jerusalem with my Israeli friends, they yawn and go to sleep. It's nothing that they don't read the pages of newspapers like ours. Israeli society has a much more vigorous and healthy debate and a much better understanding of the oppression that’s carried out by Israel of Palestinians - I mean, I think the best reporting of the plight of Palestinians, bar none is Haaretz with reporters like the Amira Hass and Gideon Leavy, Danny Rubinstein - all Arabic speakers, they know their history - very courageous Kall: that brings up my next question, which is about media coverage here in the United States, which is pathetic, really Hedges: it's tragic, I mean, the New York Times is the worst. You know it's that idea of balance - so okay, we are going to show pictures from Sderot, which there was a rocket that damaged the side of the roof then show another picture of the Bathsheba Hospital in Gaza. When I covered the war in Sarajevo for Muslims in Sarajevo would lob a few light mortars at the Serbs and on Serb TV that dominated the news. If you cling to this idea of balance and objectivity, then what you're promoting is a lie, because to somehow pretend that these rockets are reciprocal to hellfire missiles and tank rounds and iron fragmentation bombs is to give a grossly distorted picture of what is happening within Gaza, between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's safe, it doesn't get you in trouble, but it's not true.
And I think that's a perfect example of, for me, a kind of cynicism of much of the press. And unfortunately the New York Times and is a kind of moral abnegation. Our job, as reporters, and that's why I was in Sarajevo during the war is to make sure, that the outside world, sees, hears and understands what's happening to the victims, because without us the victims don't have a voice. Those in power, always have a platform, they don't need us. And to fail utterly - to present the proportionality of what's going on and make it clear that what is being carried out in Gaza just is so immense, as compared to, and what is happening to Israelis, by comparison, so miniscule. To fail to make that point is really to play into the hands of Israeli propaganda. I love the Times - I read it every day, but I can barely look at the coverage it’s just appalling Kall: Well, thank goodness that what we do have - Al Jazeera inside Gaza reporting, and there are ways now to get it online. Regardless of where you are, and I just discovered this - it's astounding the coverage they're giving - it's something that we would never see if CNN or MSNBC or any of the local networks were covering it, and that's all these pictures of dead children. It's horrifying Hedges: I can't even watch it, it's horrible, but you know, you have to remember that if you want that information then you have to be proactive. You have to go looking for it. The mainstream press, which you can receive if you're passive, is not giving it to us
Kall: what strikes me is they failed to do this throughout the entire Iraq war and the Afghan war. And if they had done this job right and if they had shown what was really going on, now that I'm seeing it with Al Jazeera - I don't think the American people would have stood for. This is why, in most American cities now we are seeing these protests, all over the place and by the way. I want to mention there’s a website - live Station.com. I have nothing to do with it--except I'm using it. You download some really quick, easy software and watch Al Jazeera online with audio free. This is what people need to be doing - they need to see what's going on, but you know, you've got Alan Dershowitz and all the defenders of Israel saying, and it’s their standard line and Obama said too – “if someone's dropping bombs near my house that they could endanger my children I have the right to do something about it. That's the standard line Hedges: well that's true, but the question is, what do you do? And I would argue that what you do is to create a cease-fire, which we had from July till it was broken by the Israelis in November and the people in Israel who were being hit by rockets were very happy when they're was a cease-fire because they weren’t being hit by rockets. I fully agree with that, but unfortunately, the cliché is used to justify this air assault and sea. I mean, they've been using naval vessels to ravage the civilian population in Gaza. So the question is legitimate. The problem is they don't go on from there, it becomes a kind of slogan used to justify very counterproductive acts of violence
Kall: it seems to me that if the Israelis were smart, during that time, when they had the cease-fire while they also had the blockade, what they could have done was the kind of stuff that Scott Mortensen talks about in his book - 3 Cups of Tea. He talks about giving all kinds of extra support to the West Bank and shown the way things could be if they were starting to get along, and they failed to do that...
Hedges: the problem is they've been using Lockwood in Abbas like a doormat, because settlement expansion has been going full pace. They've not done that - they have not in any way loosened the noose around the necks of the Palestinians in the West Bank. And this has just destroyed the credibility of Abbas - you know, when people voted for Hamas, it wasn't so much that people voted for Hamas. It's just that they realized how bankrupt five Fatah had become, and they had become bankrupt and corrupt - when I was in Gaza, these Fatah officials had built themselves little villas by the sea - were driving Mercedes that they had imported tax-free - I mean, it was a Mafia as much the same as Karzai in Afghanistan so. I think as you see in Afghanistan as a kind of tacit support for the Taliban - I think the root of that is revolution - at the Karzai thugs who run the place, and the same was true with Fatah, so that's sort of the tragedy of the Palestinians - it's not that there are great alternatives out there. I think that Hamas would have died on their own accord, because they were so brutal, and so vicious, once they took power
Kall: well, it seems to me from the history that you’ve described that it's very likely that the unintended consequence of what's going on today will be probably the end of Hamas and the beginning of something worse
Hedges: well, you know, every time they hit Hamas, and I've known the Hamas leaders from the beginning all the way back to Rantisi and others, you get are more virulent and radical
Kall: now what about the bloggers - how do you feel that the - do you think the Internet is having any effect on what's happening around the world
Hedges: I think the Internet has an effect on people who care about finding out what's happening, but I think we have to be clear that we are in a minority. I think most people don't care. I use the Internet, and I'm very thankful that it's there because I can watch videos from Al Jazeera. And I can see what's happening on the ground. I can read reports that emanate out of Gaza, either from Europeans or from Palestinians directly, but I have to search it out on the Internet. And I think we do have to be, we can't be Pollyanna-ish about this or utopian. I think we have to be clear that most Americans not doing that, they have no interest in doing that
Kall: okay and our last question and I really appreciate the time you've been giving me here. Iran - it looks like the Neocons and those on the right in Israel are trying to set up the narrative here. The story that Iran is a big part of this they've got their fingerprints on the rockets they've been firing – the katoushas - Iran is talking about sending over a boat to help. Do you think that there is an increased risk of confrontation between Iran Now?
Hedges: well, the Neocons will seize on anything they can to further a confrontation with Iran. It's interesting that when Hamas was formed. They appealed to Iran for help and Iran rebuffed them - now are they helping Iran now. I would say probably they are the same way that helping Hezbollah - but to somehow turn to Iran as the root of this problem was the root of the militancy or the root of the violence is mistaken. The root of all of this is Israeli miscalculation, and abuse of the Palestinians
Kall: now, if you come back to the beginning of our conversation. He talked about how AIPAC really represents Kadima and the far right in Israel. Who are those people - who are these far right?
Hedges: they are messianic Jews who believe that they
Kall: messianic like Christian Jews?
Hedges: well, that's why they love the Christian right. They believe that they have a moral right to dominate the Middle East
Kall: well you’re not talking about Christians Jews, you’re talking about
Hedges: I'm using the word messianic with a small m.
Kall: okay, well you’re talking about the extreme orthodox... Hedges: no, I'm talking about Netanyahu, and Olmert, and Livni and Ahoud Barack - they have a messianic vision of their role in the Middle East and it is one that they are going to remove the scourge of human impediments towards a powerful Israel - one that can't be challenged. And they are as misguided as the messianic Muslims who make up Hamas and their messianic allies in the White House who believe they talk to Jesus/
Kall: do they represent the majority in Israel? Hedges: no. They don't represent the majority in the same way that George Bush never represented the majority of Americans, you know from that aspect. You know, Israel, but that's another discussion, but the Israeli political system is so fragmented that the right has essentially always been in power in coalitions, because the only two things they want are the expansion of settlements and a hard-line military policy. And as long as you give them that they'll go along with everything else. So that's part of the confusion of Israeli politics that have even in the labor dominated coalitions, allowed the right wing to carry out these policies of seizing Palestinian land and tightening the screws on Palestinians Kall: so to wrap things up, any advice to listeners or readers on what they can do to make a difference? Hedges: divestment – moving in divestment campaigns. I think that we have - I mean we carry a lot of clout, and I think that divestment is big - I mean getting institutions to divest holdings within Israel. I think that anyway we can begin to punish Israel or create pressure on the Israeli government to moderate their policies is probably the most effective tactic at this point Kall: okay. Thank you so much Hedges: thanks for having me -
Kall: Rob Kall, bottom-up radio show, 1360 WNJC. Good night.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com and is a columnist with Northstarwriters.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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