Reaping as One Sows

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Al Jazeera English


Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-09-11, Cairo – Comment on:
Bravo, Mr Rosenberg! Bravo!

I just switched over to Al Jazeera English Live for a moment and saw an American politician speaking to a gathering saying, “That day was a declaration of war by stateless actors bent on changing our way of life.” They were bent on a lot of things but one might imagine that changing our way of life was perhaps further down on their agenda than simply seeking an end to America’s unconditional support for Israeli Apartheid… or at least raising the cost to America for doing so.
The Yanks still don’t “get it” ten years on. Some of them do, I suppose. Many of us did at the time. Fourteen percent of us surveyed after 9/11 felt that we mainly had ourselves to blame due, as in my view at least, to the American government’s failure to rein in Israeli Apartheid.

In September of 2000, for instance, Ariel Sharon ascended Temple Mount under armed guard, symbolically proclaiming that there would never be an end to the occupation, there would never be an end to the settlements, there would never be an end to Apartheid, there would never be a Palestinian state and East Jerusalem would never be its capital. Was he wrong?
A few months after the 1967 war, Charles de Gaulle observed that – “[ Israel ] ... is organising, on the territories which it has taken, an occupation which cannot work without oppression, repression and expulsions - and if there appears resistance to this, it will in turn be called ‘terrorism’.” He had just a few years before presided over his own country’s failed attempt to impose its will on Algeria. He knew where Israel’s path would begin to lead. And what it might cost those who helped.

With AIPAC’s guarantee of standing ovations for Israeli prime ministers in joint sessions of Congress, it appears that America is still doing little more than jerking its collective knee.
Most of us remember nothing of Obama’s visit to Cairo except his premature peace prize and the inconvenience of having had him in town for the day. It makes me think of my American passport and why I no longer use it.

Syed Bushra said:
You have hit the nail in the head, Jeffrey. Palestine is an issue that every Muslim relates to and Al-Qaeda has exploited that into a stage to speak from, which is sad. Take away that stage and what remains is a hollow propaganda that no one can relate to. Apparently, this is too difficult to comprehend for any US Politician.

Jeffrey C. Marck said:

Thank you, Syed.

And of course, there was only bewilderment on the part of Americans when Sharon's fabled foray up Temple Mount under armed guard instantly and spontaneously resulted in the Al Aqsa Intifada. For THAT particular man to have imposed himself upon THAT particular holy site would have been plenty of provocation by itself but to have done so under armed guard symbollically proclaimed just what I said above... "never..", "never.." etc. and as I ask above: "Was he wrong?"
Then Sharon more or less immediately went on to become Prime Minister on an election platform of being the only candidate strong enough to suppress the riot that he himself provoked. Palestinian teenagers were becoming suicide bombers because Sharon had just told them they had no future and they knew he had the power to bring his vicious visions to pass.

I finally wrote to my two Senators in June or July of 2011 asking if they knew or cared that these things were going on. One sent back a six page corporate letter that would have sounded like he had rocks in his mouth if he tried to read it out load. I sent his letter back with a lot of red ink and then there was September 11.

His name is Chuck (Charles) Grassley. I left America for good in 2004 precisely because of the violence of Grassley and people in leadership of his ilk.

Chuck was a stupid, useless, violent degenerate during the Viet Nam War (he seemed to think carpet bombing rain forests was useful somehow) and he remains a stupid, useless, violent degenerate today in terms of Palestinian rights and Israeli government WRONGS.

The Arab Spring has rendered him less relevant. And I've already mentioned the low opinion of Obama in Cairo at this point in time.


Syed Bushra said:

Countries voting against Palestine: US, Israel, Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Nauru. And more than 150+ vote for Palestine yet US loves vetoing anything that remotely benefits Palestine. Why?
Jeffrey C. Marck said:
I'm most unhappy to say that I know pretty much exactly why in each instance.

I lived in Hawaii (2 years), Micronesia (6 years), wrote one of the Micronesian dictionaries and went to university with some of the men who became “presidents” or other high officials around Micronesia… I know them or about them (Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Nauru) and I can tell you they vote against Palestine for promises of the money they will get from America.

It’s a back-scratching situation.

30 or 35 years ago some of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) negotiators showed some spunk and told the Yank negotiators that if America would give their new country $500 million a year, FSM would NOT invite Chinese warships to use their ports.

And China was quite a different country at the time. This hurt the feelings of the American negotiators for some reason (when they or Americans out of similar offices had just forced, through skulduggery, the Northern Marianas people to give up their sovereignty).

In the case of America few members of Congress come to Congress knowing much about the outside world, do not know how to think for themselves and just do whatever something called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) wants them to do (otherwise AIPAC uses the money they would have given them for their election campaigns and spends it on ruining them instead). Soon they become pawns of their parties, the people who give them contributions (AIPAC, especially), etc. And the general population thinks they’re saving Jewish lives or something and that American funding for Israeli Apartheid is the way to accomplish this.

And in Australia, where I lived about 10 years and am also a citizen, forces like AIPAC were becoming very influential when I left to retire in Cairo in 2008. Antony Loewenstein (www.antonyloewenstein.com) is Australia’s most prominent pro-Palestinian writer (he is, he says, a “Jewish atheist”) and his web site would give a lot more about the current pro- and anti- Palestine situation in Australia than I can at this point in time. I know the Prime Minister of Australia is very unpopular. Maybe she’s just making that kind of UN vote to save her party or her own wide hide.

So, I’m American-Australian. And things are much worse than that, I’m afraid. I’m a Danish-American-Australian and I was here in Cairo in September of 2005 when the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten published their vile Muhammad (PBHN) cartoons. I was here. I saw all the Danish products disappear from the shelves in the shops and they have never come back (and little Danish things that I own are stuffed away in boxes at the far end of our apartment).



I asked Egyptians why they don’t make some cartoons of a naked Christ draped in the American flag, urinating on Palestine. But that’s not the Egyptian way and I thought that was wonderful and married one of them. And here we will stay. Enjoying our second childhoods on a small motorcycle in the midst of the very, but for Mubarak’s legacy, non-violent Egyptian Revolution.

I had followed historical advice to know the enemy and hitch-hiked across North Africa in 1968, going home to America with the idea that the enemy was not "the" Arabs. Lucky me. I have a nice place to live - the murder rate is much lower than America and maybe even a bit lower than Australia. And I always ride a bicycle or motorcycle so I wanted to retire somewhere with little rain. And Cairo is ALIVE which university towns sometimes are not.

Jeffrey from Nebraska and Iowa
Jafar min El Haaram




Syed Bushra said: Thank you Jeff for a thoughtful response. I really enjoyed reading it.




53 "Likes" 8 "Dislikes"
Haaretz - Israel


Jeffrey C. Marck: 

2011-09-11, Cairo – Comment on:


Marshall Plan? "Not right now, thanks."

Just as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt declined to sully its reputation by standing behind Mosni Mubarak, SCAF perhaps felt it would be unwanted carry on baggage for the eventual elected government for SCAF to take the $3 billion loan Obama offered some weeks ago.

Obama... whose right-hand man in the "Quartet" is Tony Blair. Tony Blair. The man who recently said that if there was a two state solution: "...Israel would get to keep the settlements and Palestine would get... aaah... aaah... aah... what's left."

He said that.

I sat here in my lounge room and watched him say that on TV.

Ultimately, anything that one-sided would make the continuing threat of terrorism to the United States and Israel, a greater and more permanent threat of terrorism to the United States and Israel.

In September of 2000 Sharon ascended Temple Mount under armed guard, symbolically proclaiming that there would never be an end to the settlements... there would never be and end to the occupation... there would never be a Palestinian state... and that East Jerusalem would never be it's capital.

Was he wrong?

May Bibi have a stroke like Sharon and may they both wake up in ten years to find the settlements removed to the Negev.

The only thing we remember of Obama in Cairo, is the inconvenience of having him in town for the day.







"Best Rating #1"
Al Jazeera English


Jeffrey C. Marck: 

2011-09-12, Cairo – Comment on:


A little boy picks up a big block of wood and smashes his little sister over the head with it just as their mother walks into the room.

As the little boy sees his mother bearing down on him, he cries out, "But I made my bed this morning."

America is in the position of the little boy... the good things it does do not stand as an excuse for the bad things it does.

But, unfortunately, it will go on much as the little boy above, the world standing by - more and more indifferent to the problems it has brought on itself.

The only thing we remember of Obama's visit to Cairo is his premature Nobel Peace Prize and the inconvenience of having had him in town for the day.





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Jerusalem Post


Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-09-15, Cairo – Comment on:

Tony Blair. The man who recently said that if there was a two state solution: "...Israel would get to keep the settlements and Palestine would get... aaah... aaah... aah... what's left."

He said that. I sat here in my lounge room and watched him say that on TV.

Ultimately, anything that one-sided would make the continuing threat of terrorism to the United States and Israel, a greater and more permanent threat of terrorism to the United States and Israel.

Remarks about the murderousness of some Gazans flutter by without images of The Government of Israel's use of phosphorous bombs against Gazan women and children and infants coming to mind? No. They don't. And the whole world watched in on TV - oh, the horror - and remembers it as if it was yesterday.




148 "Likes" 5 "Dislikes"
Haaretz - Israel


Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-09-16, Cairo – Comment on:

I’m older than Netanyahu and I hope that fat little Apartheid expert has a stroke like Sharon and that they both wake up in ten years to find the settlements removed to the Negev.




Recommended by 15 Readers
New York Times

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-09-22, Cairo – Comment on:

I feel very glad about what is happening at the UN and what it means for Palestinian President Abbas.

And I feel very sorry for President Obama with respect to what Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has forced him into.

The only thing the Palestinians have ever got was through resistance: resistance that made Sharon fly to DC in 2005 and tell Boy George that Gaza was unmanageable and that he was going to have to pull out his obnoxious settlers. But before that Sharon needed the permission of that befuddled president so as not to upset the basic stream of AIPAC demands granted by Congress. The narrative was about to change and Sharon had to teach Boy George some new fibs. He upstaged the ultra Zionists in America and pulled out of Gaza. Obama, on the other hand, is not in a situation of his own making.

Negotiations… I can’t remember them being of any use to the Palestinians… Israel all the while stealing more Palestinian land, life and liberty.

It was a breath of fresh air to watch those gorgeous European and other leaders at the UN on Wednesday, spelling out the gulf between their nations’ positions and that of America.

This is just breathtaking. It seems the UN may one day be taking the government of Israel to court on timelines I could not imagine just a few days ago. I feel very happy for Mr Abbas and Palestine. This is most wonderful.

I feel very sorry for President Obama although I'm not sure he knows enough about the outside world to have done spectacularly better without Netanyahu and AIPAC's interference. The only thing we remember about his visit to Cairo is the inconvenience of having had him in town for the day.




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Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-09-24, Cairo – Comment on:

And now Obama/Clinton want Palestine to go sit down and talk with Tony Blair and the "Quartet" for 14 months.

Tony Blair. The man who recently said that if there was a two state solution: "...Israel would get to keep the settlements and Palestine would get... aaah... aaah... aah... what's left." He said that.

I sat here in my lounge room and watched him say that on TV.

Pihtooooey.

Israel should be standing before a war crimes tribunal in Den Hage, not elbowing its way around the corridors of power in Washington and New York.





"Best Rating #2"
Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-10-17, Cairo – Comment on:

America had no moral capital to be messing around in Iraq due to the Israeli government's theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty and the AIPAC-sponsored American government’s de facto acquiescence to the Israeli government's theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty.

The “Coalition of the Willing” waltzed in with no moral capital at all and on the backs of caravans of neo-con lies and name calling – questioning the “patriotism” of the reluctant in the American Congress, in the end, to successfully push their “argument” over the top in that particular venue.


 Boy George!
The Great Connector of Dots!
Conqueror of Baghdad and                                                 Fallujah!
Instrument of the Messiah!

Pihtoooey.

It was all about oil, led by the evil Vice President Mr. Halliburton… who “taught” Boy George about the outside world.

Boy George was too ignorant to realise what he was doing and Mr. Halliburton was too despicable to care.

So now people like Robert Grenier roam the earth trying to claim there were noble intentions when, in fact, hegemony was the only concern whatsoever. And to top it off he now wants to sell us a bill of goods that says sectarian violence is “inevitable” in the new democracies… may he rot in hell.





"Best Rating #1"
Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-11-23, Cairo – Comment on:

I grew up in Iowa and have well known for over 45 years that Chuck Grassley is dumber than dirt.

In September of 2010 Ariel Sharon ascended Temple Mount under armed guard, symbolically proclaiming that there would never be an end to the Occupation, there would never be an end to the settlements, there would never be a Palestinian State and that East Jerusalem would never be its capital.

Finally, after 10 months of Intifada I wrote my first letter to him saying, more or less, "Well, Chuck. What do YOU suppose THIS is all about."

He then sent me a 6 page corporate letter that would have sounded like he had rocks in his mouth if he had been asked to read it out loud.

I sent it back marked up in red ink and then there was 11 September and his ultimate support of the Iraq invasion, which I, like a lot of security expects, thought was one DUMB project. The proximate reason for my leaving America for good.

In the history of America there has seldom been a member of Congress who stayed so long as Chuck, rose to such heights and NEVER did ANYTHING thoughful or forward looking.

I hope he has a stroke like Sharon and that they both wake up in ten years to find the settlements removed to the Negev.





"Best Rating #1"
Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-11-26, Cairo – Comment on:

America had no moral capital to be messing around in Iraq due to the Israeli government's theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty and the AIPAC-sponsored American government’s de facto acquiescence to the Israeli government's theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty.

The “Coalition of the Willing” waltzed in with no moral capital at all and on the backs of caravans of neo-con lies and name calling – questioning the “patriotism” of the reluctant in the American Congress, in the end, to successfully push their “argument” over the top in that particular venue.

Boy George!
The Great Connector of Dots!
Conqueror of Baghdad and Fallujah!
Instrument of the Messiah!

Pihtoooey.

It was all about oil, led by the evil Vice President Mr. Halliburton… who “taught” Boy George about the outside world.

Boy George was too ignorant to realise what he was doing and Mr. Halliburton was too despicable to care.

This is how you want MY country going to war?

The biggest threat to American security is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

One of many unfortunate aspects of America's violent adolescence on the world stage.





"Best Rating #1"
Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-11-28, Cairo – Comment on:

Boy George!
The Great Connector of Dots!
Conqueror of Baghdad and Fallujah!
Instrument of the Messiah!

pihtooey..

The violent little imbecile! I hope there was donkey doo on the shoes thrown at him in Iraq.

And then there is Tony Blair who recently said that, "If there is a two state solution, Israel will get to keep the settlements and the Palestinians will get aaah..., aah..., ah... what's left." He said that a couple months ago. I sat here in my lounge room and watched him say that on TV.

It's time to call in Jimmy Carter. Way past time. The Clintons were and are a joke.

The only thing we remember of Obama's visit to Cairo is the incovenience of having him in town for the day.

It would be well if Muslim nations, to begin with, issued travel bans on Bush and Blair. And the International Criminal Court, in the end, issued warrants for their arrest.

Through the 2000s, when anyone bothered to survey them, Europeans felt "Israel" was the greatest threat to world peace, presumably due to its theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty. The UK people took a slightly different position, most often indicating that "America" was the greatest threat to world peace, presumably due to its AIPAC inspired acquiescence to Israel's theft of Palestinian land life and liberty.

This has gone on long enough. And now Canada is the only very large native English speaking nation that isn't voting against Palestinian humanity in the UN - Australia's Prime Minister Gillard now also bowing to AIPAC sorts of forces to save her own wide hide.

I was born in America. I love the place. But I can't stand to live there anymore.

A pox on America in this, its violent adolescence on the world stage. A pox on America and the horsies it rides around upon. I'll watch it's rot from Cairo for the rest of my life, I suppose. The people here aren't so STUPID.




"Best Rating #1"
Al Jazeera English

Jeffrey C. Marck:

2011-12-1, Cairo – Comment on:

“the US has far more at stake in Pakistan than it does in Afghanistan.”

How then, does the US imagine that it can coherently pursue those objectives when the fate of the Palestinians, for all American intents and purposes, lies in the hands of AIPAC?

If America wishes to speak of Pakistani “duplicity”, what are we to call America’s notion that the Pakistani and Afghanistani peoples, their governments, and those to their west, should look to American “leadership” in its “war on terror”, offer their cooperation and then go home every night and swallow the bitter pill of reality as the Palestinians experience it?

We would say that America wants to have its cake and eat it, too, and wonder why MORE people of conscience are not doing what they can to frustrate that vile vision and America’s violent, conflicted adolescence on the world stage.

Comment by "efbya": First of all, why do people have to drag Palestinian issue into every article in Aljazeera?  Even if the article is about exploration of life in Mars, some AJE folks will "discover" a link to the Palestinian issue.

Reply by Marck: Because Palestine IS the issue. Ask a Pakistani if America has any credibility in their neck of the woods in light of America's conduct with respect to right of return, etc. Ask enough of them.

See Syed Bushra's comment, 11 Sept 2011, AJ: "9/11's self-inflicted wounds..."

America has run out of money to pursue a "security-based approach" and is going to have to turn to a "rights-based approach". You're going to have to start learning this stuff, son.




Letter to the American Ambassador

Jeffrey C. Marck:
2012-02-06, Cairo

Jeffrey C. Marck
Pyramids EGYPT
 
6 February 2012
 
Re: The Egyptian trials for 19 Americans on criminal charges
 
Her Excellency Anne W. Patterson
Ambassador of the United States of America
The Embassy of the United States of America
Cairo EGYPT
 
Excellency,
 
As only eight percent of Egyptians want closer ties with America (I have seen no surveys published on the other ninety-two percent’s depths of disdain), it would seem to me that America is now going to have to hunker down and live with the prosecution of these 19 Americans now said by Egyptian authorities to be going to trial.

The only effective action the Government of the United States that I can imagine that would satiate Egypt’s general desire for such revenge upon America would be for State, preferably personally and loudly by the Secretary of State, to announce forceful measures to end Israeli Apartheid that lead to the immediate end of Israel’s theft of Palestinian land, life and liberty and the brisk removal of the West Bank settlers to the Negev.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama won’t force this issue in an election year… and Secretary Clinton, perhaps, never will. I saw a report recently that Secretary Clinton does not wish to be Secretary of State during President Obama’s second term. Good. The time for the Clintons to do something useful in the Middle East has come and gone.

Perhaps a second term for President Obama will allow him the freedom to deal with Israel for what it is: a hysterical, murderous, Apartheid state with no respect for the conventions of civilized nationhood. The Geneva Conventions, for instance ("The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."  Paragraph 6 Article 49 of The Geneva Convention of 1949).

All most of us presently remember of President Obama’s visit to Cairo is the inconvenience of having had him in town for the day.

At this point in history, I hope to be remembered as standing by Thurgood Marshall’s famous words that What I say is I have faith in the efficiency of the law. Perhaps that is because I'm a lawyer and not a missionary. But I think history, which proves so many things, proves me right.

The United States can no longer have its cake and eat it, too. It can no longer fund Israel’s daily rape of Palestinian land, life and liberty and enjoy undue influence in Egypt and beyond. More colloquially yet we might accuse America of schizophrenic conduct in preaching liberty while giving Israel carte blanche to rape Palestine. It’s time for America to get on a regular schedule of antipsychotics and the trials of the 19 Americans would appear to be, as a beginning, what the new Egypt will be offering up towards that end.
 
Not entirely cordially yours,
 
 
Jeffrey C. Marck
 
CC: The Egyptian Independent




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