Gaza crisis has been described as a recurring Middle Eastern nightmare. I can understand why US president-elect has decided to keep quiet. He has inherited a tragedy/madness whose history dates back to almost 100 years of political skulduggery of the powerful Western nations in that part of the world dividing the Jews and Arabs who once lived there peacefully.
But Obama will have to break his silence when he wears the “crown” later this month. Meanwhile Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister and architect of the assault on Gaza, said that the operation would be “expanded and intensified” as much necessary. “War is not a picnic,” he said. More here…
The Guardian observes: “After the debacle of its 2006 invasion of Lebanon – not only a military disaster for Israel, but also a political and diplomatic one – the government in Tel Aviv spent months laying the groundwork at home and abroad for the assault on Gaza.” More here…
Sandy Tolan, the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East and a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, has an interesting take on this subject.
“Early signs suggest the Obama team is inclined to continue the Middle East status quo. But Obama is nothing if not practical and shrewd. He surely recognizes that in the aftermath of the carnage in Gaza, he will have the opportunity to make visionary change in the long-term interest of all parties.
“And he knows that the bleak alternatives – a new Palestinian intifada, diplomatic rifts across the Arab world, more wars without end – would undermine his desperately needed efforts to remake the image of America in the world.
“An Obama administration that recognizes the inherently equal value of Palestinian aspirations will promote a new ethic and a new pragmatism. For talks to succeed, the US must tell hard truths to old friends and make a clean break with the tired road maps of the past.
“Future negotiations will also be fraught with thousands of new facts on the ground. In 1993, when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin famously shook hands, the Jewish settler population in the West Bank was 109,000; now, after 15 years of the “peace process,” it’s up to 275,000.
“East Jerusalem, the supposed future Palestinian capital, is now ringed with Jewish settlements. The hard reality of any new negotiation is that because of Israel’s Judaization of the West Bank, the two state solution, long considered the only path to peace, is on life support.” More here…
Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, says: “In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I have not had to confront the horrific image of burned children – until today.
“Our rejection of ‘the other’ will undo us. We must incorporate Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish understanding of history, because they are a part of that history. We must question our own narrative and the one we have given others, rather than continue to cherish beliefs and sentiments that betray the Jewish ethical tradition.
“Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable – indeed, for some, it’s an act of heresy – to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end.
“As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain? The answers will determine who we are and what, in the end, we become.” More here…
Meanwhile, the Gaza ground offensives will put Israeli soldiers, Gaza militants and civilians in much closer quarters. Israeli military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronoth. “We’ll pay the international price later for the collateral damage and the anticipated civilian casualties,” Fishman said. More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.