Paestinian Shame

There are many times where the term “wrong side of history” is used, but it is still a valid term, it is not an overused term, particularly when it comes to important events in history. A recent event that qualifies to have the term applied to it is the vote that took place in the United Nations to grant the embattled Palestinian Authority the status of “non-member observer state” in the United Nations. This would not give them the full status of a “member nation” like the United States, or Canada, but it would allow them to join other UN agencies, and more importantly, eventually bring cases to the International Criminal Court.

The vote in the United Nations took place sixty-five years after the historic partition of the British ruled territory that became Israel, but which was also supposed to become an Arab controlled nation; the nation of Palestine. The treaty has been broken from the first, and it is time for Palestine to be born. One hundred and thirty-eight nations decided that giving Palestine the stylus of a “non-member observer state” was the least that they could do at this time, while perhaps being a token, it was also the right thing; they recognised that the Palestinian people have been living under an apartheid rule, living under the threat of Israeli aggression at the slightest provocation. Guns answering rocks, bombs being dropped on unarmed civilians, and refugees languishing in camps for generations hardly seems like the fair observation of a treaty.

Instead of having the ambassador to the United Nations from Canada speak, the Foreign Minister himself, John Baird, decided to take it upon himself to travel to New York and personally address the UN on this matter. Rather than supporting the idea that Palestine deserved to have a greater voice in the international community, Canada’s Foreign Minister chose to be a vocal opponent to the vote. Canada's Foreign Minister chose to stand on the wrong side of history.

“This resolution will not advance the cause of peace or spur a return to negotiations. Will the Palestinian people be better off as a result? No, on the contrary, this unilateral step will harden positions and raised unrealistic expectations.” (Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird; Delivered at the UN, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2012)

If by “unrealistic expectations” Mr Baird is referring to the idea that the Palestinians might call on the international criminal court at some point, perhaps he is correct; the ICC tends to be slow to judgement, but that is no reason to deny the Palestinians admission to the United Nations, even if it is not a full member status. The fact that Canada, particularly under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has reiterated its staunch support of Israel and its policies regarding the Palestinians does not mean that the government must deny the Palestinian people representation in the United Nations. In fact, equality for the Palestinians would benefit both them and the Israelis. People who are equal, people who have the dignity of knowing that neither is being discriminated against, are less likely to take up irrational, violent acts, in order to make the point that could better be made politically.

How many violent acts have the Irish Republican Army committed since the issues in Ireland were dealt with politically? If you ignore the problems they do not go away on their own; they will not go away unless they are dealt with one way or the other. Some people believe that they can be dealt with through violence, something many people abhor, but it is used nonetheless. If Palestine were recognised as a state, and the rights of the people were recognised and respected, is it not conceivable that many of the problems being experienced in that part of the world would no longer be an issue? What are the causes of the problems today? People building houses, settlements, on land that is supposed to belong to the Palestinians; unlawful arrests and attainments; blockades of medicine; people being prevented to go to work because they cannot cross checkpoints; and other things that degrade and humiliate the population living within the Palestinian Authority.

Human dignity is being denied these people, and nine nations voted against giving them “non-member observer state” status in the United Nations. Those nine nations are on the wrong side of history. Canada, the United States, Israel, Panama, Palau, the Marshal Islands, Nauru, the Czech Republic, and Micronesia: these nine nations are not only on the wrong side of history, they are cowardly, insensitive, and ignorant of the historic importance of this vote.

Forty-one nations decided not to vote for, or against the proposal to upgrade the Palestinian status. The motive for the abstention is curious, but neither here nor there: these nations chose to ignore the opportunity to grant another nation more rights. For some of the nations this might not seem like a difficult choice, especially when you consider a nation like Romania, or Albania, both of which have histories where suppressing their citizens is not uncommon. However, the United Kingdom also abstained, as did the Netherlands, which is quite confounding when you consider that both nations received tremendous damage during the Second World War, and are intimately familiar with the suffering associated with persecution. One would have thought that this knowledge would have made them more sensitive, more empathetic to the cause of the Palestinians.
                           
In the words of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority:

“We did not come here seeking to delegitimatize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel’s policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace. Our endeavour is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed.

“Every voice supporting our endeavour today is a most valuable voice of courage, and every state that grants support today to Palestine’s request for non-member observer state status is affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of peoples and international law and peace.” (Delivered at the UN, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2012)

In light of these words, and the recent peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, it only seems fair that diplomacy should be given the chance that it deserves, rather than pushing a military agenda against a mostly un-armed civilian population. The reply to the words by President Abbas was nothing less than scathing, dripping with hatred and menace, and they came from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF and the citizens of Israel. Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner. ... The way to peace between Jerusalem and Ramallah is in direct negotiations, with out preconditions, and not in one sided UN decisions. By going to the UN, the Palestinians have violated the agreements with Israel, and Israel will act accordingly.” (Delivered at the UN, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2012)

One must ask, what does the Prime Minister mean by “acting accordingly”? After all, this was an act of peace, not an act of aggression; no one was killed, no missiles were launched, and no bombs were exploded. The United Nations is a diplomatic body, it is where peace is negotiated, it is where people go to negotiate treaties, it is where people go to have “peace talks” with their neighbours, and other nations. For the Prime Minister of Israel to assert that seeking “non-member observer state status” is some sort of precondition to the way the Palestinians will be addressing Israel in future negotiations is, in a word, delusional. One might want to remind Mr Netanyahu that even should the Palestinians become signatories of the Rome Statute, and therefore the International Criminal Court, Israel is not a signatory of the statute and does not fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu is feeling a pang of conscience knowing that charges could well be brought against Israel in the ICC, but unless Israel decides to sign the Rome Statute, there is nothing to fear, just as the Goldstone Report had no binding powers against Israel when it indicated that war crimes had been committed against the Palestinian people during Operation Cast Lead in 2009.

Advancing the rights of Palestinians has nothing to do with religion, nor does it have anything to do with whether or not you support Israel as a nation. Israel will continue to exist, just as Palestine has a right to exist as well. This vote by 138 nations is an acknowledgement that a majority of the members of the United Nations agree that the status of Palestine should be increased. It is a recognition that the fact that there is something wrong in the “Holy Land” is obvious; the only question that remains is which side of history will you be on when the final lines are drawn.

Taking Violence out of the Fight for Israel

Is it possible to support the Palestinian cause without supporting, or calling for violence? Yes, but it is difficult. However, it is also the only way to get things accomplished in a country where the land is seen as something that God specifically gave to one of the people living there, not the others. It also takes great patience, endurance, and something that demonstrates that we are better than those perpetuating violence against those who are being oppressed, just as those who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. supported the long march rather than the quick solution seemingly offered by riots and violence. King recognized that violence would only result in more hardship for black people across the United States; it would not advance their civil rights, it would diminish them, causing them to take a step back rather than a leap forward.

Supporting  peaceful solutions is sometimes seen in today’s paradigm of instant gratification as being impractical – it does not bear fruit quickly enough in the minds of some who would rather see the oppressors simply be overthrown with violent swiftness; but, in the case of Israel that is both impractical and, in psychological terms, something akin to magical thinking. The problems in Israel, in Palestine if you will, are being compounded by violence: they will not be, cannot be, solved by them. When we trick ourselves into believing that the solutions to our problems are to be found on the other end of a bullet, or a bomb, or a guided missile, it is time to step back and reassess the situation before we are further led down the garden path of deception.

Violence, as seen on the level that is currently taking place in Israel, and which Israel may respond with, cannot resolve any of the issues facing the Palestinians as a people. Threatening to send in a ground force of 75,000 troops, on the other hand, is not a way to find a handful of terrorists that aerial bombings have been unable to stop. How does the Israeli army expect to stop these attacks? Will they go door-to-door like the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, clearing out the insurgents? If they do the one thing that can be counted on is that there will be a massive amount of civilian casualties, and it will all be justified because rockets were fired into Israel.

People will always be divided about the Palestinian cause so long as there is ammunition for the Israelis to use as propaganda against them – that ammunition comes through the use of violence against the oppressive regime they are trying to defeat. But there is one question that deserves being explored for it reveals a great deal that may not be understood about this situation and the way it is perceived in the west, particularly in the United States (and similarly in Canada): Why does Israel maintain the support of so many in the west when there is so much evidence against them in the way they have treated the Palestinians?

The answer is quite simple, as we see with the present situation in Gaza: it is not because they break out the videos of violence perpetrated by blood-thirsty Palestinian terrorists, self-described as ‘freedom-fighters’ (that’s what they always call themselves, regardless of their cause), and they have their rationale for every retaliatory action, including the amassing of seventy-five thousand troops on the border of Gaza, in search of a handful of Hamas rocket installations that Israel has not been able to eliminate through aerial bombardment. That’s more than a subtle response to the rocket attacks and anyone who happens to be crazy enough to approach the armed juggernaut the Israeli Defense Forces represents. The reason that Israel receives such support from the west goes back several thousand years can be summed up with the term “Christo-Zionism” which is a conjunction of “Christian” and Zionism.

When exploring the issue of Israel and American politics it is impossible to not notice how important that tiny country seems to be compared to the United States, a much larger nation in every respect. The recent presidential election was a very easy way to demonstrate just how important the “Jewish vote” is to both political parties, even though it does not represent a large number of votes; both the Republicans and the Democrats spent a tremendous amount of time courting the Jewish vote even though Jews make up a very small part of the population. Yes, there are many wealthy individuals who happen to be Jewish, so there were was much money do be had, and as a demographic it is a very influential group of people, but, regardless of that, they still have only one vote per person.

The real reason that politicians in the United States are so interested in preserving their relationship with Israel, and have sought such close ties with the nation since 1948, is because of the misguided notion that Israel represents the prophetic fulfilment of the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. There is an idea that Zionism is something that the Bible meant to be, when in fact it is a new ideology ... new in the sense that it emerged at the end of the 19th century and had nothing to do with the Bible. Zionism is a construct that ignores the historical facts regarding the background of Israel. It ignores the facts that are recorded in the books that Jews revere as being Holy and inviolable, but that does not bother Zionists – like all good fundamentalists the facts are irrelevant – they just don’t matter.

It became fashionable for Christians to begin adopting the Zionist ideals when the state of Israel was established in 1948, believing that this heralded the beginning of the End Times. It became part of what was known in theological circles as a teaching called “millennialism” and quickly became associated with teachings about the Rapture of the Church which would occur, according to some teachers, after the Great Tribulation. Christo-Zionists became really excited when Jerusalem was captured after the 6 Day War in 1967, believing that this was truly the final piece in the puzzle, completing the fulfilment of the new Israel, spoken of in the Book of Revelation. The clock was ticking ... the Rapture was imminent ... the Mayan calendar was winding down and they didn’t even realize it existed. They were mistaken.

Israel exists as a nation that has more than one population: a population that existed before the Jews arrived, a population that was there long before the nation was established in 1948, and long before they arrived for the first time, when they were led by Moses and Joshua. When Joshua lead them to the “promised land” the people were given an opportunity to take possession of the land, without sharing it with anyone, as was decreed by the Lord. However, the people were disobedient. In essence, God gave the people permission to commit genocide, to eradicate the people living on the land that he had promised them, but they refused. Instead of killing, they made a contract to share the land. I’m not making this up, you can find the entire account of this in the ninth chapter of the book of Joshua. At the end of the chapter the people with whom this “treaty” was made are, in essence, turned into Temple servants – a fancy word for a slave. At that time it seemed preferable to survive as a slave than to face genocide at the hands of an army that carried the Ark of the Covenant.

The ramifications of that contract continue to this day: you do not get a “do over” to commit the genocide that you failed to commit a few millennia ago, it just doesn’t work that way; and no, it does not matter that you were tricked into making the contract. That, as the saying goes, is your problem. We don’t commit genocide in order to have more “breathing room” ... or don’t you remember when that was done a few generations ago? Don’t you remember when your home is were taken out from under you, your land was stolen, your families were hauled off without due process, their property stolen, never to be seen again. Lives destroyed all because somebody had decided they were sub-human? It is astounding that the people who grew up hearing the stories of the Holocaust would not be willing to learn its lessons and reach out to the people living on the land that they call their own. Yes, the land was promised to the Jews by God (or by Moses, depending on your point of view); but there were strings attached to that promise and that is something that has to be lived with; it is something that has to be recognised, and that is something that is being ignored when ever the Palestinians are oppressed by the present Israeli government.

Of course, it takes two to tango and what is going on right now in Israel is not the result of one hand clapping. There are two parties to blame in this craziness, but one of them can choose to stop it: one group is overreacting and another group is actively antagonising, making things worse for both themselves and for the Palestinians in general. When has violence ever solved a problem that should have been addressed politically, through diplomatic channels? We may argue that there have been justifiable wars: wars against despots and against fascism, but random violence has never solved anything, especially when it is aimed at innocent civilians. In fact, unless you manage to utterly destroy your opponent with an overwhelming first strike, the likelihood is that you are only going to make your enemy more intent on eliminating you than they were before: an attack begets a response, the response begets another attack, and so on, until everyone is dead or dying. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood that they will retaliate against the population in general, with innocent lives being lost, women and children, for what causes? There are many causes in the world, but are they worth the death of children, are they worth the loss of future generations? Consider this: if you and your children die for your cause, who is left to enjoy what you may have gained through your sacrifices? Nobody.

The point is, Israel has a far superior military and will have no problem destroying anything in its path, including the civilian population of Gaza if it so chooses. The rocket attacks that have been occurring of late have been coming from a small number of terrorists backed by Hamas, not by the citizens of Gaza (I am unapologetic about referring to those launching the rockets as terrorists: they cannot represent the best interests of the Palestinian people so long as their principal tool is violence). There is no reason for Israel to send in 75,000 troops to find a handful of terrorists. Please, do not get me wrong, I do not condone the actions of Hamas at all: I abhor violence on any level, especially unprovoked violence that is designed to provoke more violence and strike out at innocent civilians, which is precisely what these rocket attacks are designed to do: Hamas has to know that by supporting these attacks they are only adding to the suffering of the population they claim to love. It only demonstrates that fundamentalists are fundamentally warped and utterly illogical in their approach to conflict resolution. Adherents of fundamentalism are always, at their core, mentally unbalanced.

The question remains: how might it be possible for the Palestinians to resort to non-violent protest? How can they hope to stand against the policies of the Israeli government without appearing provocative? If they refused to take up arms against their oppressor would the world see the truth about how Israel had been treating them, about how Israel had been violating the treaties that it had signed with them? Would it change the way the United States supported Israel? There have been many examples of the brutality and even war crimes committed by Israel, as evidenced and documented in the Goldstone Report, but this “evidence” ends up falling on deaf ears for the simple reason that the United States government at the United Nations, and Christo-Zionists in general will not allow for any sort of criticism of Israel to stand. If you try to criticise Israel the Christo-Zionists will accuse you of being an anti-Semite, or say you are anti-Semitic.

This is not only patently ridiculous, it makes it impossible to pursue any sort of dialogue that advances the issues of the Palestinians. There is a great difference between criticism and anti-Semitism. Consider this: can you criticise the government of the United States and still love the country? Can you “disagree with the congress”, but still call yourself a patriot? Of course you can; many people would expect you to do so, it’s part of life. Or, on the other hand, can you be a proud American even if the man living in the White House is not someone you voted for? If you live long enough there are probably going to be several presidents that you do not necessarily adore, but that would not stop you, or it certainly should not stop you, from being a “proud” American. Your identity should not rely on the identity of one single politician.

As someone who was born to Jewish parents, who grew up learning about the rich tradition of “my people” there are many things that resonate when certain things are heard, but “Promised Land” and “Israel” are not synonymous for the simple reason that the illusion was not reinforced by the fictions that so many blindly accept. At the same time, the idea of “Palestine” and neighbours living together in peace was something that seemed so natural, it surprised me tremendously that this was not a common idea as I grew older, especially when the lessons of history became more evident. Criticising the government of a nation does not mean you hate the people of that country, it means you disagree with the way that country is being run: disagreeing with the government of Israel, with the policies of the Zionists, does not make you anti-Semitic, it makes you anti-genocidal. That is not racist, it is humane.

What is the likelihood of an Israeli politician having any desire of sitting down and discussing the concept of peace with the Palestinians if there are rockets being launched from Gaza? I would hazard that it would be far more likely that they would not want to talk, simply because they would feel that they are in a de facto state of war. However, if one side stops using violence, if they lay down their arms, how might that impress the others? What sort of message would that send to the rest of the world? Of course, people will ask “why should the Palestinians stop using violence first, the Israelis started this?” Or “why don’t the Israelis lay down their arms?” All good questions, but it does not matter. What matters is that violence must come to an end.
Did Israel start this? Did Hamas start this? Did Palestinians start this? Does it matter? People have died; people are dying: it’s time to stop the madness and put an end to the violence that has been plaguing the region for far too long.

Israel should not invade Gaza, and, as a gesture of good faith they should withdraw their troops and stand down their alert status. The terrorists in Gaza, the “freedom fighters”, must cease firing there are rockets at Israel immediately. Reciprocity does not accomplish anything when it comes to violence, that must be understood more than anything else or nothing will ever be accomplished. Israel must also be prepared to honour the agreement is that it has made with the Palestinians, especially those relating to the settlements.

Peace is possible, moreover it is essential: without it we cannot live.

The Open Goldberg Variations: Recording Review

What do you get when you combine an award winning pianist, one of the best pianos available, situated in one of the finest recording spaces, and one of the most important works composed for the keyboard, regardless of which instrument happens to be indicated? Well, the answer is quite complex, but the short answer is The Open Goldberg Variations, as performed by Kimiko Ishizaka. The Goldberg Variations is the kind of piece that any serious lover of music by Johann Sebastian Bach takes notice of whenever a new recording is released, if only for the perverse desire to make the inevitable comparisons with their favourite recordings that are inevitably found in one’s library. That said, The Open Goldberg Variations adds a new twist by virtue of the fact that Ms Ishizaka has chosen to release her recording as either a high quality Mp3 or Flac file, available to download for free online. Yes, you read correctly; this recording is free: a full length performance of the Goldberg Variations, including all of the repeats, for free ... and believe me, this is one recording that you cannot afford to miss. You can also listen to the piece in its entirety from their SoundCloud posting, from the Open Goldberg page (here), where you can also find the download links to the higher quality files.

As well as making a new recording of the Goldberg Variations, and releasing that to the public under a Public Domain license, The Open Goldberg Project went about creating an entirely new score for people to access, using an online engraving, or notation, program called MuseScore. The new score is quite clean and very easy to read, and if you are interested, MuseScore is free to use, so you may prepare your own musical scores online if you do not have access to another software. You may see the score here.

After the score, the thing that the pianist needs the most is, of course, a piano. The choice of instrument for this project has a great deal to do with the success of the performance for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the sound reproduction afforded by the instrument is of such a high quality, the listener is drawn into the performance from the opening notes of the Aria. The instrument used in this recording of the Goldberg Variations was supplied by the great Austrian piano builder Bösendorfer. They supplied Ms Ishizaka with an Imperial Grand Model 290SE, which comes with the revolutionary CEUS recording system invented by Wayne Stahnke, who brought the technology to Bösendorfer in 1978. Unfortunately for Mr Stahnke, the technology was never patented and is now more widely known as it appears in the Yamaha Disklavier, but the CEUS system was the first version, and remains the superior form of the technology.

Essentially, CEUS turns a grand piano into a giant reproduction device; it allows a pianist to create an exact duplicate of their performance, without regard for the extraneous sounds that may take place during the performance. So, if a pianist is in the midst of a great performance and somebody sneezes, they do not have to stop and “retake” the movement – the sneeze would not register with the CEUS equipment, only the music is picked up by the instrument. This performance of the Goldberg Variations was recorded using the Bösendorfer’s ability to faithfully reproduce every nuance of the performance that Ms Ishizaka set down, and there were plenty of nuances to capture.

From the opening of the Aria it is obvious that this is going to be a special recording; the tempo is just right: not too slow and not too fast. So many pianists have a tendency to want to milk the emotional content of this Aria, but they fail by making their performances overly sentimental, sounding as though it was composed in the 19th century rather than the Baroque period. Ms Ishizaka, on the other hand, takes the listener by the hand and, without giving in to mawkishness, makes us genuinely anticipatory of the impending 30 variations.

When you listen to Kimiko Ishizaka play the Goldberg Variations it is very easy to begin making comparisons to such luminous performances as those given by Glenn Gould for the way she isolates individual voices within each variation and alters her articulation in order to bring out specific voicings among the parts. This is something that many pianists do not do, but for Gould was famous. Ms Ishizaka brings out individual voices throughout the variations with a deft mastery that speaks of her tremendous technical prowess.

One of the wonderful things about the Goldberg Variations is the progression of the work itself, the way in which Bach organized his piece using different compositional techniques from one variation to another, leading invariably to the “canons” that occur every third variation. Bach begins with a canon at the unison, then a canon at the second, and ultimately ends with a canon at the ninth before winding up the piece. The technical challenges for the pianist playing these particular variations are numerous, but you would never know that there was anything difficult about the piece for the way Ms Ishizaka performed the piece: her performance has a sense of ease to it that gives the impression that she could perform like this all day, without having any fatigue.

The final variation of the piece, before the restatement of the Aria, is a Quodlibet, which is a piece of music that is made up of several melodies, in counterpoint. For many this is the highlight of the composition, and Ms Ishizaka did a magnificent job leading the listener to a point where this variation fit in perfectly. Her choices of tempo throughout the work never seemed inappropriate and the execution of ornaments on the repeats was also quite refreshing. Unfortunately, some players simply play the repeats in Baroque music, losing an opportunity to make something out of the repeat, which is exactly what Ms Ishizaka did in this brilliant recording. Every repeat was seen as an opportunity to express another element of her overall vision of the piece, and it is a very well thought out vision, indeed.

The only negative thing that might be said of the recording would be of the SoundCloud posting – and I stress – I have not listened to the higher quality download so I cannot state whether or not this applies to the fully mastered album (having posted lower quality files online and to SoundCloud myself, I would expect no) is that at the end of the 27th variation – track no. 28 – there is a bit of a glitch where the audio does not go to the very end of the track but instead jumps to the next track. It is a very minor thing, but – when you consider the quality of the rest of this album, any blemish is noticeable.

On the whole, Kimiko Ishizaka has produced an exemplary performance of an iconic piece and, by making it a Public Domain project, she may well have created a truly definitive recording for the masses – a recording that will satisfy the most discriminating listener, even those who are willing – and able – to purchase the expensive alternatives from record stores or from online. Angela Hewitt has always impressed me for her ability to make Bach’s music come alive; after listening to this recording of the Goldberg Variations by Kimiko Ishizaka it is very easy to see that there is going to be another album added next to Angela Hewitt ... and Glenn Gould. Ms Ishizaka is in very good company indeed.

Peter Amsel is an Ottawa based Composer and Writer