Violence and Death from a Gnostic's Perspective

The following video is from Steve, from truebluehealer.com, talking about what you will NOT find in gnosis. This is a must watch video for those concerned with the "pagan" stamp placed on gnosticism by literalist churches(i.e. Vatican), when in fact the opposite is true: gnosis is the ultimate and most intimate relationship with the divine. No priests or Hail Mary's required. Gnosis is for everyone!!!

After you are finished watching the vid continue reading down below. If you don't watch the vid then what I write next may not make much sense.

If you look at gnosticism's history you will see this is very true. The All/Pleroma does not protect us with a Holy Umbrella. Look at the Cathars and all the other gnostic communities through the ages for proof. We are still expected to learn how to do things on our own in the physical world and to use our common sense and good judgment. We do not get a free Get Out of Experiencing Physical Death card by default of being gnostic.

Steve touched on the broad topic when he mentioned violence and death. I wanted to go in deeper with this and talk about death from the All's perspective.

The past months have shown me a new perspective on the topic of death and it's not necessarily a warm and fluffy one. Not impersonal. Hardly that!! Just... a different way to look at Pleroma's 'agenda' so to speak.

Last episode of Saving Grace. Anyone see it? I did. And the last few minutes of the episode clearly shows what I have difficulty putting into words. I'll describe the scenes instead and go from there.

Grace is given two options: go look for and stop a Very Bad Demon/Entity which is personified evil and chaos or to look the other way and play it safe. She chooses the first route. Earl, Grace's angel, is here and there and everywhere, setting things in motion to go according to God's plan dependent upon what Grace decides to do.

Meanwhile, Grace's best friend goes to a woman named Neely who also shares Earl as an angel(long back story there). Grace's friend asks Neely to call Earl and give him a message-- "Tell me if Grace is going to be ok." A physical sign given a few hours later points toward Earl giving an affirmative response. Yes, Grace is going to be ok.

Grace died. She flicked a lit lighter onto a few tons of fertilizer and went boom, thereby taking out the bad entity with her.

Did Grace have a choice? Was Heaven pushing her? Was Grace cornered like a whipped dog?

Yes, Grace always had a choice. Heaven nudged her but always gave her the option to say no and go in another direction. Free will. And no, Grace was frightened at times of the magnitude of what lay before her but she was never cowed and too terrified to put one foot in front of the other to search for what God ultimately wanted to show her and teach her about herself. Granted, she did have her tantrums. We all do when faced with monumental decisions and the unknown. But she made her choice and she stood her ground.

And she died. So was Grace "ok"?

Grace's best friend felt betrayed by Earl and by default, God. Earl said Grace was going to be ok.

Steve: "you cannot be excessively guided or you no longer have free will."

Exactly.

And "gnostics do get run over by buses."

Darn!

And we're also not going to "get winning lottery numbers." Steve, you ruined my plans!! I was going to retire at thirty-five in the Bahamas. *sob*

So where does that leave us? Why would the All not save us with a Golden Parachute or Holy Umbrella of protection? We're special, right?! We're GNOSTIC!

...... back up there. Delete that "s" word. It has no place in gnosis. Absolutely none. We are all unique individuals with individual paths... and here's the kicker- our paths intersect with millions of other intersecting paths of other individuals. We're all special in the All's eyes. We are all worthy of the same amount of care and attention and he is fully capable of giving it.

So what is the deal with this "everything is going to be ok" type line that gnostics know and feel to be true? And where does fire and brimstone come into this? The answer is that it doesn't. Hell is a human creation whereas heaven is being reunited with the body and fabric of the All. Our existence is simply an evolution of our soul. Learning, thinking, and discovering how much love we can feel for someone even as they are making a mistake. Being able to love is key.

Why would the All tell us(and even convey to us through "angels") that everything is going to be ok? More simply put- divinity runs on a very different clock than humanity. In the long run the All is more worried about the nature and growth of your soul than more immediate concerns that you may have. A non-functioning car does not always merit heavenly intervention!! It's not that he doesn't care. Because he does. But ultimately, everything will be "ok" if you died at that very moment, with or without your car working again so try not to take it personally. The All is concerned with your soul.

He wants to show you, teach you, listen to you, and be your most intimate companion. But that does not mean he will protect you from disease or accident. Even murder. Because remember- our lives intersect millions of other people's lives and this includes their bad decisions. Not just the good. We can't always have the good.

This realization that everything truly WILL be ok makes it much harder to be terrified of physical death.

Nonviolentpeaceforce.org

www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/

This organization is now listed on the Human Rights Sites and Organizations section on the blog.

The site states:

Our Mission

The mission of Nonviolent Peaceforce is to build a large-scale trained, international civilian nonviolent peaceforce. Nonviolent Peaceforce is sent to conflict areas to prevent death and destruction and protect human rights, thus creating the space for local groups to enter into dialogue and to seek peaceful resolution to local conflicts.

Our Vision

We envision a world in which large-scale unarmed civilian peacekeeping using proven nonviolent strategies is recognized as a viable alternative in preventing, addressing, and mitigating violent conflicts worldwide. Our primary strategy for achieving this vision is the creation of space to foster dialogue.

Our Work

We most often respond to invitations by credible local organizations committed to nonviolent solutions. Once invited, we meet key players, including commanders from opposing sides, local police, religious, business, and civil society leaders. We live and work in communities within conflict zones alongside local people.

When violence erupts, civilians under threat often contact us. They know and trust us. We have been living among them. Visibly nonpartisan and unarmed, we arrive in NP uniforms, with NP vehicles, letting our presence be known.

We build the confidence and safety of civilians deeply affected by conflict so they can access available structures and mechanisms for addressing problems and grievances.

Our activities have ranged from entering active conflict zones to remove civilians in the crossfire to providing opposing factions a safe space to negotiate. Other activities include serving as a communication link between warring factions, securing safe temporary housing for civilians displaced by war, providing violence prevention measures during elections and negotiating the return of kidnapped family members.

In Remembrance of Thich Quang Duc

Forty-seven years and one month ago today this picture was taken at a busy crossroads in Saigon, North Vietnam. It shook the world. President Kennedy nearly fell out of bed reading the paper the following morning, exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!"

Buddhists monk Thích Quảng Đức, (b. 1897 – d. 11 June 1963) Burned himself to death with gasoline and a match to protest the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration.

As much as I strive to walk the middle path and veer not too far to one or the other side concerning my emotions or beliefs, this act deserves a moment of silent respect and at the same absolute grief and compassion. This sixty-six year old Buddhist monk had seen his country raped and pillaged by it's own government for years. The Vietnam War had raged for several years already and it appeared as though South Vietnam was going to end up with the same type of intolerant government as the North... but with a literalist religious slant.

The First Lady of South Vietnam is quoted as saying she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show."

In the end, pressure by the United States forced Diệm to sign the Joint Communique which (supposedly) gave religious and social equality to the people of the country.

The Buddhists pushed for a five point agreement: freedom to fly religious flags, an end to arbitrary arrests, compensation for the Huế victims, punishment for the officials responsible and religious equality. Diệm labeled the Buddhists as "damn fools" for demanding something that, according to him, they already enjoyed.

Diệm was a staunch Catholic and blatantly favored those countrymen of the religious group.

Wiki says:
In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,[5][6][7][8] President Ngô Đình Diệm was a member of the Catholic Vietnamese minority, and pursued policies widely regarded by historians as biased. Specifically, the government was regarded as favoring Roman Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions.[9] Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that he was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[10] Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Roman Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it.[10] Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons only given to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.[11] Some Roman Catholic priests ran their own private armies,[12] and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye.[13] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime.[14] The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm.[15] Roman Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform, and U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Roman Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.[16] The Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Roman Catholic Church was exempt from land reform.[17] The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam,[18] and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.[16]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diệm was the Vietnamese version of Hitler. He was a literal nobody who after decades of worming his way into Joseph McCarthy's arms managed to garner American support to liberate Vietnam from the colonialist French and communist elements from the North. That's not so bad. But once Diệm got power he decided that the majority religious group in his country had to be subjugated- the Buddhists.

Catholicism murdered South Vietnam. It's really that simple. It wasn't only a war against communists. It was about personal favoritism, trade, and control. What is truly disheartening to learn is that whatever Diệm's faults he was ultimately the only chance South Vietnam had for separating from the communist North.

With US support, Diệm was assassinated by his own General on November 2st, 1963.


The North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh is reported to have said, "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid." The political chaos afterward did indeed reveal just how idiotic the US was to support such a coup instead of taking alternate actions to assist in humanitarian ways. South Vietnam fell and it hasn't risen since.

Diệm was a US puppet who got out of control. Publicity about a monk immolating himself in protest to human rights abuses got out and suddenly the US couldn't stop the train wreck they'd set up years ago. It was imminent. There was no stopping it. Diệm refused to see reason and kept the violence escalating even after the Communique was signed.

President Nguyễn Minh Triết, the current president of South Vietnam was formerly the head of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hồ Chí Minh City. The country is communist and has been since.

Does it seem as though only evil has happened since our monk made such a sacrifice? On the surface it appears so; that his sacrifice was in vain. But let us look deeper.

The day after Thích Quảng Đức self-immolated, the entire world was brought to it's knees in mourning. (Excluding China and North Vietnam, of course.) The world mourned that such a sacrifice apparently had to take place in order to garner attention to what was truly happening. The monk was only concerned with doing what he thought was right. The rest he left up to the people. And that is where responsibility always lies: with the people. The monk did not think he would miraculously stop war with his actions. He knew there was much more bloodshed to come. But he wanted to get word out and take a stand.

The gnostic gospel of Philip says,

Light and darkness, life and death,
on the right and left, these are children,
they are inseparable together.
But the good are not good, the wicked not wicked,
life not life, death not death.
Each element fades to an original source.
But those who live above the world cannot fade.
They are eternal.

A Gnostic's Perspective On Gaza Violence

Browsing around Amnesty.org I tripped across a startling article and interview concerning the ongoing fighting over Gaza. It is copy/pasted below in its entirety.Before you scroll down to read it, however, I'd like to offer my own concerns and thoughts over the bloodshed.

I have tried and tried to understand what the fight is about, desperate to see something more than what I was. Behind all the rhetoric and slander and propaganda the only thing which seems to be a resounding theme on both sides is: this is our land and the Lord says so.

I don't mean to belittle or downplay the seriousness of the bloodshed which has occurred for so many decades in that area of the world but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! Cripes, people.

The United Nations is literally allowing this to continue. I have to agree with Norman Finkelstein on that. It's the equivalent of (True story. Just happened yesterday.) my eight year old son getting out of line to do a task and then when he comes back the boy who moved up to his space punches him in the nose rather than let him back in. The repercussions which the school enforced was a one week suspension of the boy who punched my son. Does the UN do anything? ..... not really. They seem to be putting their own spin on who's worse and slapping them with sanctions but the bloodshed tells a different story altogether. And on it goes.

In relation to gnosis this is the lowest of the lowest asinine behavior to tolerate after this many years. Naturally Jehovah doesn't really seem to give a twit that this war. Or, it feeds His ego driven greed even further. Two groups of people fighting not just over a sand box but over some supposed religious "right" to it. Says who? A God who condones war over land and material possessions or men who have twisted the "words of God" to mean what they want it to? Nobody is ever going to get to the Land of Milk and Honey until they're dead. Give it up. IT'S A METAPHOR!!

Both sides refuse to back down and nothing will change. The bloodshed will continue, whole generations will be lost, and we'll still be sitting back watching with more and more loud sighs of boredom as the years pass.

The argument has become a morbid, overgrown beast which doesn't even sell newspapers anymore. I do it myself and so do my friends: Open the newspaper to the World section. See a new article on bombing in Gaza and say to each other

"Another bombing over there."
"Over where?"
"Gaza."
"Huh. ok."

And that's the end of the discussion. No tears. No charity drives. Why? The propaganda machines from every side(and faction) in this war have websites, paid-ad-banners, recruitment efforts.... it's endless. But the empathy is at an all-time low because quite honestly, there are too many other issues forced in our faces on a daily basis. Local issues.

If it's the UN's job to force the region to get it's act together then by God(or whoever the heck you believe in) DO SOMETHING before somebody does something truly drastic over there and drops bigger bombs.

Interview Norman Finkelstein: "We ask the ones who were kicked out of their homes, to recognise the legitimacy of the ones who kicked them out."

09 September 2008 at 00:49 by Pieter Stockmans

Norman Finkelstein is an internationally recognized scholar on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Finkelstein was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1953. His mother, Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, is survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Maidanek concentration camp. His father, Zacharias Finkelstein, is survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp. Until recently he taught political science at DePaul University, Chicago. His books include The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah Finkelstein remarkably unites scholarly rigor with moral outrage

Norman Finkelstein follows human rights organizations closely and writes extensively on Israel’s human rights abuses. Often he cites Amnesty reports, also in his latest book Beyond Chutzpah. At the same time, he argues that human rights organizations should pause and reflect from time to time on their communications about human rights violations in conflicts, in particular in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein speaks openly and does not shy away from controversy. I discussed with him the role of the EU and of human rights organizations in the in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He is not afraid to call the EU hypocritical when it continues to give massive financial aid, without throwing in the political weight it could have to solve the roots of the conflict.

Finkelstein: There is a human rights clause in a lot of the EU trade agreements that is not implemented at all and completely ignored when it comes to Israel and this is shameful. As to why EU member states do not call for the implementation: every state has its priorities and Palestinian life is simply not that important in the EU. Under pressure of domestic Jewish organizations politicians and the public turn a blind eye to Israel’s human rights abuses. Each state has its own incentives to ignore the Palestinian question, whether it’s a domestic lobby, whether it’s fear of the USA. But it’s a fact that the EU ignores its own organizational instruments, especially economic treaties.

The official EU policy on Israeli human rights abuses is one of dialogue. The Commission’s view is as follows: “Suspending the Association Agreement, which is the basis for EU-Israeli trade relations but also the basis for the EU-Israel political dialogue, would not make the Israeli authorities more responsive to EU concerns at this time. Keeping the lines of communication open and trying to convince our interlocutors is hopefully the better way forward.” What are your thoughts on this?

Finkelstein: This is nonsense. This was the exact argument that was used for a long time to deal with the apartheid regime in South Africa. They call it ‘constructive engagement’. There’s no need to talk now. There’s no need to dialogue. What is there to dialogue about? There is a need to impose sanctions. That’s the very beginning. Israel is economically very dependent on the EU: the EU is Israel’s number one trading partner. Israeli leaders are not stupid. If the EU only starts threatening to suspend the Association Agreement, they will start calculating. We’re not even talking about controversial sanctions like a cultural boycott. We’re talking about provisions that are right there in their own trade agreements. The human rights clause is being grossly violated. The whole thing of having a human rights clause is not to talk about it, but to do something about it.

It is not only nonsense. It is also pure hypocrisy. Why does Israel gets a soft treatment and Hamas gets the full blow of boycott and sanctions, while Israel’s human rights record is much worse? Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 there have been 4700 Palestinians killed and 1045 Israeli’s killed. On both sides, as Amnesty has written, the overwhelming majority were civilians. So Israel’s record of killing civilians is about 45 times worse. When you kill that many civilians, it becomes hard to argument that it’s only out of self-defense. It becomes state terrorism. Leaving aside house demolitions, confiscations, curfews, collective punishment, torture, etc. We’re just looking at fatalities and clashes. Why do you recognize Israel? Why aren’t there sanctions imposed on Israel?

The standard answer is because Hamas must first recognize Israel.
Finkelstein: On the Palestinians, mainly on Hamas, numerous unreasonably demands are imposed, like the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as a state for the Jews. But think for one second: it’s crazy to try to impose the legitimacy of a state for the Jews in Palestine on the surrounding Arab world. Would any American go to a Cherokee Indian and impose on him to recognize the legitimacy of the English settlers and the American state on Indian land? Basically you ask people who were kicked out of their homes, to recognize explicitly the legitimacy of the ones who kicked you out.

But first of all, Hamas has officially accepted the settlement of the conflict along the 1967 border. Secondly, give me one Israeli document where Israel has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Is there any official who has ever recognized it? This is pure hypocrisy. You apply the principle to one side. These are the kinds of demands that are literally insane. It’s about making demands which you know the other side will not accept, and thereby assuring that you could continue to annex the land and take over everything. They could solve the conflict tomorrow, but they don’t want to solve the conflict because Israel doesn’t want these 1967 borders. This is never said out loud, but this is a fact. It’s like Jimmy Carter said: peace will come to the Middle East when Israel accepts international principles and the concept of legal borders, when Israel is prepared to determine its borders according to these principles. They don’t want to. So they keep on making unreasonable demands, which they know are unreasonable.

You hold a strong plea for international law. But what should we do when international law doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on Israel. For example, the advisory opinion of the ICJ will never be translated into a binding UN security council resolution.
Finkelstein: Well, in that case the EU could turn to its provisions in its trade agreements and act decisively upon the findings by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and B’tselem. The EU has provisions that allows it to force Israel to give an effect to international law. But the EU isn’t doing anything. We only impose these provisions on the weak.

You think ‘urging’ Israel to change its policies won’t get us anywhere?
Finkelstein: All you have to do is look at the track record: is there any evidence in the past that Israel changed its policies because it was ‘urged’ to? Dialogue is necessary with people misunderstanding each other. You have dialogue to clarify misunderstanding. There is no misunderstanding here. Israel itself knows exactly what it’s doing. It know it’s illegal. The EU knows. It’s not a misunderstanding. What’s the point of a dialogue? To tell them it’s wrong? Well, they already know it’s wrong.

Then why does the EU maintains its soft approach?
Finkelstein: There are numerous reasons. One is indifference to Palestinian suffering. There is also an element of racism. The Western world likes stupid Arabs. With Arabs who are intelligent, who do not back down, they have a real problem. The West doesn’t hate Hezbollah because they are terrorists. Half of the states in the world are terrorist. They don’t like the fact that they’re smart, dignified and resistant. The EU is also accomplice to Israeli crimes. Israel wants peace. Nobody wants war. Most people don’t think of war as a desirable human activity. But Israel wants its own version of peace.

The EU is accomplice to Israel’s unilateral imposing of a solution and it thereby even promotes impunity. There are sins commission and sins of omission. The EU is not doing what they are supposed to do. They go on trading with Israel as Israel is committing these atrocities. It’s also the EU’s present relation to the US, the pressure of domestic organizations that work for Israel’s interest and the theory that sanctions against Jews is the Nazi boycott all over again. This is what the Nazi’s did. Don’t you remember 1934, they imposed an economic boycott. This kind of crazy arguments are very effective.

Jewish suffering is being used for political purposes. This is one of your main arguments.
Finkelstein: Exactly. The claim is, that if you suffered more, you shouldn’t be held to the same standards as anybody else. That your suffering gives you unique rights. It’s like the security argument. Everywhere else in the world it’s being considered preposterous to occupy someone else’s territory because of security. But Jews are allowed to derive from elementary principles. Why? Because of the holocaust. That I find unacceptable. The holocaust industry says you can’t compare the holocaust to anything else. But this is the end of history!

History is all about compare and contrast. Compare and contrast the French and the Russian revolution. By refusing to compare the holocaust to anything else, the holocaust industry keeps us from learning from it. I have a real problem with measuring human suffering. I think it was Plato who said, that if you take two happy people and it’s impossible to prove that one is unhappier than the other. Someone who has been in prison for 30 years and survived and someone very wealthy who has been in the prison of his self-torment up to the point of committing suicide. Who was more unhappy? Who suffered more. I don’t know. How do you measure it? I don’t want to get into that. It’s not my business. Nobody has the courage nowadays to speak ordinary truth. Amnesty is pretty cowardly too. They are very cautious when it comes to Israel. Also Human Rights Watch research and publications on the Lebanon war. It was disgraceful.

Then what is, according to you, the role of human rights organizations in this highly sensitive conflict, where human rights fall victim to ‘security considerations’ more than anywhere else? And how they position themselves?
Finkelstein: I think the most striking thing about human rights organizations is, how completely detached their language is from what is actually happening. There is a huge gap between the language used and the reality that it refers to. Take the striking case of Gaza. You constantly use the word ‘disproportionate force’. Is that really what’s going on? Is that really only what’s going on. The only problem is the disproportionate. If Israel would us proportionate force, everything would be fine. Is that really the only problem? Or is the real problem that Israel is committing an atrocity?

You are criticizing the laws of war now.
Finkelstein: International law is the minimum we have. But it’s the very minimum. Let’s not forget international law is not holy. It allows for so much suffering, it allows for so much killing. The idea of laws of war is like etiquette for cannibals. Human rights organizations shouldn’t always stick to its technical, bureaucratic dehumanizing language. The use of language is of vital importance to explain the world what’s going on on the ground. By using technical language, you will not reach the public and you will not have the impact you’re looking for.Why is someone like Jimmy Carter courageous enough to use the word ‘atrocity’ to describe the horrible situation in Gaza. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have never found it in them to use language like that. I think this is very odd.

Of course I am aware of Amnesty’s strong work on individuals and in this way they do show the human side. But I don’t think that’s the issue here. Take the issue of Gaza again. What is going on in Gaza, the blockade, is state terrorism, it’s not merely ‘collective punishment’, it’s pure state terrorism because it’s aim is political. But you never see it described as terrorism. If terrorism means the targeting of civilians to achieve political goals, what are the Israeli’s trying to achieve in Gaza? They’re trying to get the Palestinians to get rid of Hamas. That’s exactly the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal.

Still you cite Amnesty quite a lot in your writings.
Finkelstein: Correct. But I also know Amnesty has a terrible record when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict, a shameful record. After 1991 it started to get better. But now they’ve all gotten terrible again. Up until 1979 Amnesty refused to denounce Israeli use of torture. From 1967 on, Israel was systematically and methodically torturing Palestinian detainees. From 1987 until 1993 Israel tortured, according to Israeli human rights organizations like B’tselem, tens of thousands of Palestinian detainees. Amnesty refused to write about it. The most it would recommend was that Israel should look into the question of torture. Only in 1991 they raised the issue, when they put out their book on Israel’s military courts. Amnesty acknowledges now in its most recent publication on torture, that Israel had been torturing Palestinian detainees since 1967, which is true.

When it comes to Israel, Amnesty becomes afraid that jews decide to pull the money from the organization. Jews as liberals finance liberal organizations like Amnesty. In the last report of Human Rights Watch on the Lebanon war, they claimed that Israel targeted civilians by mistake. How is it possible to drop 4,6 million cluster bomblets in South Lebanon indiscriminately on villages and HRW couldn’t figure out if it was a war crime. It didn’t find evidence of a war crime.

You write about anti-semitism and the misuse of the argument. Let me quote you in one of your articles on your website: “Although the subject of many reports by human rights organizations, Israel's real human rights record in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is generally not well known abroad. This is primarily due to the formidable public relations industry of Israel's defenders as well as the effectiveness of their tactics of intimidation, such as labeling critics of Israeli policy anti-Semitic.” Also Amnesty is being accused of anti-semitism Is this strategy of the misuse of these arguments a big threat to human rights work?
Finkelstein: The threat is as big as people are cowardly in giving in to the threat. Carter is pretty good. People keep calling him an anti-semite and actually his record and arguments are getting better. If you have a clear conscience, the anti-semitism thing won’t bother you and you go your way. It’s as strong a weapon as you allow it to be. The real threat is that Amnesty and other human rights organizations are becoming apologists for Israel. And then you have those who say that it is not enough of an apologist to satisfy Israel’s supporters.

What should organizations who work for peace and human rights do against these false accusations that serve only to weaken their call for justice?
Finkelstein: The answer is very simple. Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that we’re anti-semitic. How does that change the facts? Do they become different, just because I’m anti-semitic? And if we are anti-semitic, how does that explain all the other human rights organizations, including the Israeli human rights organizations? B’tselem reached the same conclusions as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Are they all anti-semites? So either everyone is anti-semitic, or maybe they’re telling the truth.

What about the security argument?
Finkelstein: The security argument does not justify just about any action. International law says that a state cannot use force unilaterally. The US used terrorist tactics against Cuba since 1959. Does that mean Cuba gets the right to annex Florida, as Israel claims the right to occupy and annex the West Bank because it is under a security threat? The US invaded Nicaragua. Does that give the right to Nicaragua to occupy Louisiana? You have to see what security allows for. And it doesn’t allow for answering to security threats with occupation or annexation. Under security, a state has the right to build border protection, deploy troops, build checkpoints on its own side of the border. And I’ve got news for you: in July 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are occupied Palestinian territory. It’s not Israeli territory. You’re not allowed to deploy troops on somebody else’s territory without their permission. These are very obvious principles.

You speak of uniting the many against the few, what do you propose very concretely?
Finkelstein: Let’s look at what the consensus is today and unite the many around this consensus. Let’s look at the UN General Assembly, let’s look at the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, let’s look at what human rights organizations say and they give us a sense of what’s the consensus among the many. We should organize around this consensus. That’s the way you change things. God helps those who help themselves. Unless we demand power for ourselves, unless we won’t enforce our will based upon reasonable principles that can be understood by the many, things won’t change.

If you would’ve told me thirty years ago that Nelson Mandela would be the president of South Africa, if you would’ve told me thirty years ago the US would have a black president, if you would’ve told me a guerilla army of 1500 could force one of the four most powerful armies in the world to defeat, I would’ve told you ‘you’ve lost your mind’. People who organize, can get their act together and force change. But by staying indifferent, nothing will change.

You said the Lebanon war has been a turning point for Israeli’s and the broader Middle East. Why is that so?
Finkelstein: It was the first time it was Israel urging the UN to enforce a resolution. All of a sudden Israel became dependent on the rule of law, because its power is weakening. It was for Israel a very poor showing. And the other side is getting more efficient and more organized. Israel has throughout its history depended on two facts: that its adversary is corrupt. That their Arab adversaries are stupid. For a long time this has in fact been true. Now Israel begins to see its adversaries not corrupt and quite intelligent. That’s causing them a very big problem. Hezbollah has a strict model of being organized, no empty slogans, no promises you can’t fulfill.

You seem to talk about Hezbollah as if they are morally superior.
Finkelstein: I don’t want to talk in terms of moral. Simply look at their record. Their record is better! Of course we don’t know what their record would be like if they ever gained state power. Look at the Lebanon war. On the Israeli 160 killed, 25% civilians (33 civilians). On the Lebanese side 1200 killed, 80% civilians. It’s just a fact that the record of Hezbollah is much better. Take the case of cluster bombs and bomblets. Hezbollah has been accused by Human Rights Watch of using 3000, Israel 4,6 million. Or take the Amnesty International report on damage done to civilian infrastructure. Israel in the millions, Lebanon in the billions. Whichever way you look at it.

Will a Palestinian state under the two state settlement be viable enough, according to you?
Finkelstein: It’ll be a garbage state, trapped between Israel and Jordan. It won’t have much independence. I don’t have any illusions about it. It will end the occupation, which is a good thing. Beyond that, not much. People will still be miserable, corrupt leaders. But it will be a first step. It sets the parameters.

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