David A. Love's Open Salon Blog

Murdoch’s Unraveling and the Need for Civic Engagement

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:07:51 -0400

The only thing more remarkable than the news of the Rupert Murdoch hacking-bribery scandal itself is the rate of its unraveling—and Murdoch’s unraveling. For this international kingmaker and media mogul— who built an empire on yellow journalism and destroying the lives of others— it seems rather fitting that his fall from grace would take place under such sensationalism and salaciousness.

Allegations that the now-defunct News of the World, Murdoch’s largest tabloid, maintained a massive phone hacking operation targeting 4,000 people—including politicians, celebrities and murder victims—has led to 10 arrests in the UK. One of those arrested was Rebekah Brooks, Murdoch’s deputy at News International until she recently resigned. And the top two officials at Scotland Yard quit their posts amid allegations that the corporation bribed the police.

And now Rupert, his son James and the ousted Brooks come before the British Parliament, humbled and hat in hand, to apologize and express their shock that this sort of wrongdoing even took place.

U.S. lawmakers have hinted that the phone hacking scandal is about to spill over into the States, as the FBI announced an investigation into alleged hacking of 9-11 victims and their families. Meanwhile, Murdoch’s News Corp. has lost billions in just days, and rightly so, as he was forced to drop his bid to buy British company BSkyB. The deal would have garnered him 40 percent of the UK broadcasting market. And oddly, in a case of peculiar timing, the whistleblower, a News of the World reporter, mysteriously died. And certainly there’s more to come. After all, it is already known that Murdoch has paid about $655 million to erase charges of corporate espionage in the U.S.

Given the questionable ways in which the billionaire has conducted business over the years, the revelations should not come as a complete surprise. As he destroyed unions, competitors and political enemies, Rupert Murdoch was allowed to make his own set of the shady rules while everyone watched. And some were paid to look the other way. When one person is allowed to amass such power and influence, graft and corruption are often a part of the process. In Britain, the Murdoch family purportedly used criminals to do dirty jobs. And like any proper organized crime boss, he owned politicians, carrying them in his pocket “like so many nickels and dimes.”

In America, Murdoch’s New York Post and Fox News, masquerading as champions of working-class populism, offend our sensibilities as they endorse the most regressive rightwing policies. The Post’s cartoon depiction of President Obama as an ape shot to death by two white police officers reflects a long history of racially offensive images and words promulgated by that newspaper. Moreover, Murdoch’s “fair and balanced” Fox News Channel has operated as a media arm of the Republican Party, and an official network of the Tea Party movement. Fox News has carved out its niche by offering race-baiting as standard fare, and offering a soapbox to personalities with ties to hate groups, including Glenn Beck. Despite this, lawmakers have willingly appeared on the network. And one must wonder if Murdoch bought his U.S. citizenship, which he needed as a prerequisite for owning American television stations.

With the mogul’s downfall and removal from the company he built now a plausible scenario, Rupert Murdoch provides a cautionary tale. Journalism at its best acts as a disinfectant. But through the use of race baiting and outright lying in the reporting of the so-called “news,” Murdoch has polluted the public discourse and has helped to defile and degrade our politics. And while journalists at their best are supposed to act as a check on official power, News Corp. has reveled in its ability to accumulate power by any means and serve the interests of the greedy, a media version of the Koch brothers. No scruples, no code of ethics, no social responsibility, just cozying up to the powerful and providing them cover. Last year, News Corp. contributed $1 million each to the Republican Governors Association and the Chamber of Commerce on the grounds that it was “in the interest of the country and of all the shareholders ... that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”

The Murdochs still control a great deal of U.S. media real estate, most of which includes TV and movie studios, and they will undoubtedly scramble to protect it. But things now must change. For all of the harm News Corp. has caused, something good must come out of it. For one, society must prevent the circumstances that allow a future News Corp. to weld such power, unregulated and unaccountable, and unduly influence the affairs of government.

Democracy is stifled when a single player controls too much of the airwaves for its own good, and dresses up partisan hackery, unsubstantiated opinions and outright fabrications as the truth. However, a disinterested, uninformed public—disengaged from public life, perhaps due to the bad economy and daily stressors and hardships, among other reasons—facilitates democratic rot as well.

The American Psychological Association defines civic engagement as “Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern.” The New York Times defines civic engagement as “working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.”

Morally and civically responsible people see themselves as part of a larger social fabric. They take ownership of society’s problems, and may even take action when necessary. One organization that hopes to foster civic engagement and leadership in local communities is the Philadelphia-based Media Mobilizing Project. In partnership with several other community organizations— Philadelphia Student Union, SEIU Healthcare PA, Casa Monarca, Unified Taxi Workers Alliance, and Logan CDC— MMP just opened five Public Computer Centers throughout the city to train people in computer skills and community journalism. The centers were made possible with $18.2 million in federal stimulus funds.

MMP is a member of the Freedom Rings Partnership, which is led by the City of Philadelphia Division of Technology and the Urban Affairs Coalition, and is designed to provide computers, computer training and internet access to low-income communities. A total of 77 centers in community centers and social service organizations throughout the city will train 15,000 people in digital literacy. “MMP and the groups we are partnering with have led the way in improving education, working conditions, healthcare and quality of life for Philadelphians,” said Desi Burnette, Strategic Coordinator with Media Mobilizing Project. “This program will strengthen our ability to build community-driven solutions to the current economic crisis.” And as Bryan Mercer, MMP Program Organizer noted, they will use twenty-first century technology to bring low-income communities together to solve their problems. “In a time of budget cuts and unemployment, these Public Computer Centers offer a way to connect people – not just to the Internet, but to each other,” he said.

So, at a time when the policies of large corporations, disconnected from the community, are tearing the fabric of those very communities, it is good to see efforts to build them up. And when media empires crumble, we must prepare others to fill the void.

Dealing With Double Layers of Grief and Joy on Father's Day

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:06:06 -0400

I thought I would reflect on Father’s Day, not with my standard fare of global social and political analysis, but on a personal note for a change.

Father’s Day has a special significance to me, in a month filled with life’s milestones. After all, my birthday is in June, as is my father’s birthday, my parents’ anniversary, and the anniversary of my father’s death. My father, Al, died two years ago this month. And my older son, Ezra Malik, died nine months before my father, born sleeping after 34 weeks in his mother’s belly, taken away from us by a placental abruption. The placenta tore from the uterus, cutting off Ezra’s oxygen supply in utero. Never in my most hopeless and helpless state did I ever envision mourning the death of my father and my son - much less months apart from each other.

As for my father, he lived a long life of 82 years. In many ways we were different. I was born and raised in New York, and lived around the country and the world before settling in Philadelphia. Albert Love was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, in a segregated South. His mother was black and his father was Irish, as he reminded us. He fought in the Korean War and came back with medals. He was a union man who worked a printing press in Manhattan so that I could attend Harvard. And he was active in his church and with the local VFW post. He didn’t fully understand my world and the opportunities available to me - and I can only imagine the difficulties he must have faced in his life - but I came to appreciate him. And I regret that he spent his final days in a nearby veteran’s nursing home, dying suddenly a few weeks after complications from surgery, and away from home, rather than with his family beside him.

While my father lived a full life, my son Ezra never had a chance to live life. I met Ezra in the hospital, where fathers typically meet their newborns. The big difference was that my son was born the day after he died, and only a few weeks short of his due date. I helped my wife as she went into induced labor at the hospital, knowing our son was already lifeless, no heartbeat, as that final ultrasound ultimately had told us. To make matters worse, during our living nightmare spent in the maternity ward, a new father in the elevator asked me if I was a new father as well.

Meeting my son for the first time, holding him and kissing him, with his full head of hair and flat feet, was unlike any experience before or since. I was overjoyed to see Ezra, but overcome with a debilitating and painful grief, the kind of pain you can feel in your bones, in your soul. Reality is suspended, yet you are compelled to experience a reality like no other, the loss of a child.

His mother and I read him a bedtime story before we buried him. Ezra Malik was wrapped in shrouds over his alligator pajamas, covered in his blanket to keep him warm, and buried in a Jewish cemetery in the ways of his mother’s people. Ezra is Hebrew for helper. Malik means King in Arabic (Melech in the Hebrew). His name reflected his parents’ commitment to social justice. To think of all of the hopes and dreams that would never be. I can’t help but believe that somewhere in that spirit world, Ezra’s grandfather, Al, is taking care of the boy, in between all those extended trash-talking sessions, and even an occasional moment of wisdom, from the old black folks from down South and the old Jewish folks from the old country.

Late the following year, just a day before New Year’s Eve, Ezra’s younger brother, Micah Amir, was born. Micah was named in remembrance of his brother (M for Malik) and his grandfather (A for Albert). Micah means “resembling God” in Hebrew, and Amir means “prince” in Arabic and Hebrew. This prince has given me nothing but unspeakable joy from the moment I first met him, and I am proud to be his father. But sometimes, I dream of having both of my sons with me, playing with them at the same time. Other times, I imagine Micah sitting on my father’s lap, the two of them belly laughing as only they can. The boy reminds me so much of the grandfather he never got a chance to meet, with his sense of humor and warmth towards others, and the obvious physical resemblances.

My sense of grief two years ago was quite different from now. At that time, the pain was overwhelming much of the time, as if I had been hit by a train, or had run into a brick wall. Tears and crying came without notice, or triggered by a song on the radio. And I dreaded Father’s Day like the plague. These days, grief tends to hide in the background, from a distance, and visits on occasion. And when grief returns, it reminds me of my humanity, of the things and people in my life that are important to me.

Father’s Day will always be a bittersweet day of reflection for me. And every June, I imagine I will find myself engaged in this delicate balancing act, this cruel negotiation between the joy of being a father today, and the sense of loss over what used to be and what could have been.

This Jobs Crisis Is Obama's Kryptonite

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:06:19 -0400

Many commentators and observers, including this writer, argued for a far more aggressive and comprehensive strategy from the White House for getting America out of its economic morass. Obama's team chose a half-hearted, half-assed stimulus package, and the result is what we see today. Don't get me wrong, the stimulus helped. But it is running out, and you can see the effects that the empty well is having on state and local governments as they proceed to cut education and essential social services and programs.

Unemployment is high, twice as high for blacks, and the jobs aren't coming. 80 percent of recent college graduates are moving back home. And there is talk of a double-dip recession on the way, as housing prices are falling, with a faltering real estate market threatening to pull us back down in the hole. The President's abysmal failure of a foreclosure relief plan is blamed, in part, for the economic woes.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll reveals that President Obama has lost his post-Bin Laden bump in popularity. And more importantly, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans believe the country is seriously on the wrong track. Nine in 10 rate the economy negatively, and six in 10 say the economy is not on the road to recovery. About six in 10 give Obama negative marks on the economy and the deficit. This comes on the heels of the departure of Austan Goolsbee -- one of Obama's progressive-leaning economic advisors -- who was frustrated that the President abandoned more stimulus investment to spur the economy, opting instead to pursue the folly of attacking deficits.

Polls at this early stage in the game don't mean a whole lot, but it is worth noting that Obama leads 5 of 6 Republican contenders, and is in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. I believe that Obama could handily beat any empty suit the GOP throws his way. Given the proclivities of the Republican primary electorate, I'll bet that Romney's status as frontrunner will be short lived. I will bet on Sarah Palin or someone of her ilk. Howard Dean said himself that Sarah Palin could defeat Obama in the general election, particularly with unemployment as it is.

Now, do I really think that Palin is presidential material? Not for a moment. Her latest gaffe -- actually a botchery of the historical account of Paul Revere's ride, in which she claimed Revere warned the British -- shows how ignorant and flighty the woman truly is. That is precisely why she could win. I don't trust the American electorate, especially when times are tough. Too many Americans drink the stupid juice when the economy is in the tank, and pull the lever against their own economic interests. Or, demoralized and disenchanted, they just stay home and don't vote at all. The results of the 2010 midterm elections provide all the evidence you need of that proposition. Voters cast their ballots for some of the most regressive governors, state legislators and members of Congress one can imagine.

The country is hurting, but instead we get voter ID legislation, decimation of labor rights, criminalization of abortion, Vouchercare, and laws banning sagging pants. We knew they would do something like this, even though they didn't explicitly say they would. The Republican track record on overreach speaks for itself. And the lackluster Democrats did their best to bring a GOP victory last year, eager as they are to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Although Palin and the other Republican hopefuls hardly seem viable candidates at first glance, consider Ronald Reagan. People laughed at the prospect of an actor becoming president. His opponent, the incumbent, was smart and capable, and didn't drag the country into war. But Jimmy Carter was done in by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, not to mention an intra-party challenge from Ted Kennedy, and two opponents in the general election.

If the economy continues to suffer enough, as it appears it will, Obama should take heed. Americans will elect the factually challenged, knowledge deficient and intellectually starved if given half a chance, which is why Obama needs to get serious about jobs, jobs, jobs. Regardless of how much he can accomplish on that front between now and Election Day 2012, he needs to get started yesterday. And it is time for him to ignore the Republicans. They have two goals in mind: First, to wreck the economy for 2012, and second, to establish a nation fully owned and operated by religious fanatics, the greedy and the unstable. They are making good on both of these promises.

That's the short term situation. Obama must find some jobs or he'll be out of one. Now, here's the long term problem, which leads us back to the short term: America is a feudal capitalist state with the highest inequality in the industrialized world. The inequality has widened over three decades, and is now at chronic proportions -- the highest since the Great Depression. The elites have decided to ride this one out, not through economic growth, because all they have to do, they've decided, is to squeeze as much as they can from the rest of us sharecroppers. And they're doing a superb job of it. Favorable tax policies and deregulation ensure that they get more and more, and the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowed them to buy the political system outright. So, a bribery-based political system -- concerned only with the next election cycle -- serves the interests of a crony capitalist system that cares only about the next quarterly profit statement.

Say what you will about China, but at least they never pretended to operate under any pretense of democracy. However, China does look one hundred years into the future, when America can barely look past the latest episode of Celebrity Apprentice. And as China silently colonizes Africa and wrests the leadership in renewable energy, the U.S. has no industrial policy other than military contractors. We can't even build a national high-speed rail system because the superstitious among us brand it as socialist big government welfare spending.

These are the problems that President Obama must face, because hell, world leaders are paid to do that. He can solve this whole thing tomorrow is he just calls for a new New Deal program already. But will he have the courage? Time will tell, but the President, like this sad nation, is short on time.

The Limits of Tyrants Are Prescribed By the Oppressed

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:03:35 -0500

The Food Research and Action Center released a disturbing report about food hardship and hunger in the United States. According to the report, nearly one in five Americans simply does not have enough money to buy food that they and their family need. In 21 states, at least 20 percent of respondents said they did not have enough money to buy food in the past 12 months, while at least 15 percent of respondents in 45 states answered in the affirmative. No part of the country is untouched by this crisis.

And yet, Tea Party-sponsored governors and lawmakers around the country will make no mention of this, as they channel their inner tyrant and slash state budgets at the expense of the poor and working people. Megalomaniacs, they seem to derive pleasure from using their power to make people hurt -- certain people, that is. After all, their talk of fiscal responsibility is selective, as austerity is reserved for the poor. The rich are not being asked to tighten their belt, but rather are being rewarded with tax breaks. In that regard, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is doing exactly what his masters, the Koch brothers, instructed him to do. When America, backward and crumbling, should be investing in infrastructure and technology to create jobs and promote growth, some governors reject high-speed rail projects and wear their ignorance as a badge of honor.

Moreover, the concept of the budget crisis is being used as a subterfuge -- a scam, if you will -- to strip unions of their collective bargaining rights in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. And all the better for the extreme right if they can slip something devious like anti-gay language in the legislation when no one is looking. Because that's what tricksters do.

Unions have lost ground over the years, and not surprisingly, so too have working people, in terms of declining wages and a lower standard of living. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others would make public unions the new welfare queens, the new bogeyman. And we are supposed to believe that public school teachers are the new millionaires, getting rich at the public's expense and breaking the backs of state budgets with their exorbitant salaries -- if you consider $40,000 or $60,000 a lot, that is. And when nobody is looking, the true millionaires and billionaires are making out like true bandits, taking away most of the nation's wealth.

But people are starting to wake up, which is why they are engaging in nonviolent protest by the thousands in Madison and elsewhere in America. They have much in common with protestors in Tripoli, Cairo and other nations in the Mideast, where the masses are divesting themselves of the mob bosses, potentates and presidents-for-life that have passed for leadership in that part of the world. All they want is to be able to put food on the table, to feed their children. But they are unable to do so.

Like Egypt's Mubarak and Qaddafi, America's Tea Party rulers -- kleptocrats who feign populist tendencies -- are driven by delusions of grandeur and utter contempt for the will of the masses. When the people do not go along with the program, these authoritarian leaders maintain power by brute force, arrests or through the barrel of a gun -- or at least consider it is an option. The primary difference is that the Mideast rulers operate under no pretense of democracy. Politics in the U.S. enjoys at least a democratic veneer. And in a technical sense the electorate, however uninformed and prone to act in their own economic interests, actually cast their ballots for such walking disasters as Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio, and Walker of Wisconsin. But thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporations and wealthy interests have unlimited influence over elections. America really is owned by a handful of individuals, and the electoral system has turned into a tool to do the bidding of the oligarchs. So what is the real difference between an autocrat who holds no elections, or holds a sham election and declares victory, and a plutocrat who purchases an election with cash and utilizes corporate cronies to rule by proxy?

When the poor and working poor cannot afford to feed their families, all bets are off. Faced with rising inequality, oppressive laws and the naked greed of the powerful, people take to the streets. Here in the land of opportunity, wealthy conservative interests are jonesing to destroy the unions, the only thing standing between them and unlimited political and economic power. Who wins depends on how far the common folks are able and willing to take it.

Perhaps Frederick Douglass said it best: "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

The International Movement That Would Bring Mideast Peace

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:01:27 -0500

Recent talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians point to a seemingly dysfunctional and hopelessly intractable process. The construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has not abated, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls by defense minister Ehud Barak to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, recent news reports demonstrate that the occupation is both unsustainable and incompatible with democratic principles. For example, Israeli police are arresting Palestinian children as young as five for stone throwing. This, as Al Jazeera and The Guardian just started to release over 1,600 documents on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And recent Wikileaks cables revealed that Israeli officials took bribes to allow U.S. goods into Gaza, requiring American companies to pay up to 75 times more than the usual cost. Wikileaks also learned that Israel has intended to keep Gaza near collapse, just as the Israeli government plans to wage a full-scale war on the territory and Lebanon.

This year, the Palestinians hope to build upon the wave of nations recognizing a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. There is a strong and ever-growing peace movement that is joined from within Israeli society and the international community. Ultimately, the leaders of this movement want to bring about positive change in the Mideast, and they hope to succeed where the politicians and diplomats have fallen short. And in many ways, they are a nonviolent movement on the lines of the U.S. civil rights and South African anti-apartheid movements. They seek dignity and a respect for human rights for both sides of the conflict, and seek to liberate Israelis and Palestinians from a system that has hopelessly oppressed each.

Two human rights leaders from two different conflicts in different parts of the world found themselves participating in the recent flotillas to break the blockade of Gaza: Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who lost family members to sectarian violence and fought for nonviolent reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and Yonatan Shapira, a former elite Israeli pilot who decided he could no longer participate in the occupation of the Palestinian people. This unlikely pair of shipmates had a conversation recently, which was hosted and facilitated by Jewish Fast For Gaza, a group founded by Rabbis Brant Rosen and Brian Walt.

Maguire was transformed by a world of violence in Northern Ireland when her niece and two nephews were killed - all little children - and her sister injured on a Belfast street in 1976. “When that happened, myself and two others…we came out for peace, our message was that violence isn’t going to solve our problems, and there’s got to be another way to use nonviolence,” said Maguire.

At that point she cofounded the Community of the Peace People in 1976, and organized weekly marches and demonstrations that attracted over half a million people from across Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK. “I think we recognized that we had a deep ethnic conflict, but it wasn’t going to be solved through militarism and paramilitarism, and we had to begin to sit down with each other and dialogue and to find a way through our problems.” Along with a colleague, Maguire received the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for their peace efforts, and she would later broaden her work from Northern Ireland to other places.

Ten years ago, Maguire went with a delegation to Israel. She was invited by a group of rabbis who were fighting for human rights in the territories and against the demolition of Palestinian homes. Relating to her own experiences back at home, she was moved by the suffering on both sides, and inspired to see Israelis and Palestinians finding a way to working together and seek justice.

More recently, Maguire has decided to focus her efforts on Gaza, and has sailed on three humanitarian boats to the territory. Two of the boats were intercepted by the Israeli Navy, and one of them was a part of the Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by Israelis, claiming nine lives on the MV Mavi Mamara. “1.5 million people are living in a prison, cut off from the world, literally,” she said of the conditions in Gaza, of the tremendous suffering she witnessed. “The Palestinian people are really living in a prison and the Israelis are holding all the keys. This is not happening in any other part of the world, and yet we see Israel and the international community remaining silent on it.”

With its ports closed for 40 years, and bombed-out infrastructure, the Gazan population, half of which is under the age of 18, is the victim of a collective punishment, according to Maguire. Her words were echoed by Judge Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who issued a UN report on Israeli human rights violations during Operation Cast Lead, the military campaign in Gaza that claimed 1,400 Palestinian lives. According to the Goldstone report, “houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings were destroyed.” Around 240 of the Gazan deaths were police officers. And the Palestinian Legislative Council and a prison were bombed as well. The report called on Israel to do an independent investigation into Operation Cast Lead, and punish those elements of the IDF who were responsible.

The severity of the Gaza blockade - imposed by Israel following the Hamas victory and takeover - was brought home for Maguire when she appeared in court following her arrest. “When I was at the Supreme Court for the hearing, there was a case up just before me, and the case was a mother and father who had been visiting on the West Bank when the border was closed to Gaza and their young child was in Gaza. They were appearing at the court to ask if after four years they would be allowed to travel from the West Bank to Gaza to see their little boy who hadn’t seen them since the border had closed.”

And while Maguire condemns what she views as violation of international law against the Palestinians, the pacifist condemns all violence, including Palestinian acts of violence on Israeli cities. And yet, the Nobel laureate was hopeful at what she saw in the people in Gaza. “There is a passion among the people of Gaza for peace. They just want to have peace because they suffered so much. So we were hopeful because it reminded me of Northern Ireland when the Peace People started.” When Israel began bombing Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, however, there was a setback in the hopes of peace between Fattah and Hamas, and hopes the Palestinians would have a united voice that could reach out and dialogue with Israel.

Meanwhile, Yonatan Shapira’s introduction to the Mideast conflict came as a member of the Israeli Air Force, an elite Blackhawk helicopter pilot who had flown hundreds of missions over the occupied territories. Upon first glance, this seasoned, eleven-year veteran would appear to be the least likely candidate for a peace activist. But then again, no one knows how he or will she will react after becoming a firsthand witness to suffering and the effects of violence, on the Israeli side in Shapira’s case. “During this time I volunteered with victims of suicide attacks, mostly new immigrants, people who are poor and with less family support in the country. And I got to know Israeli suffering through my military service as a rescue pilot bringing children and soldiers and people to hospital after they were injured and killed, and as a volunteer meeting with the children and families of survivors, and trying to bring them back to society to try to overcome their trauma,” Shapira said.

Then there was a targeted bomb assassination attempt on Hamas leaders that left fourteen civilians dead in Gaza.

“And at some point along this process, I started to realize I am, there is a cycle of violence and I am just a part of this cycle, even if I am not killing anyone directly myself, I am part of a system that is causing huge suffering for people,” he added. Speaking of the Palestinians, he said “For many years I didn’t know their story, their narrative, the way I’ve been brought here up in Israeli society, to just know half side of the history. The first time I knew the word Nakba, the disaster for the Palestinians of what happened in ‘48 was when I was 30-something. And when you realize that you were blind to such a huge part of the history and the present, and there is a circle of violence and you are part of it, it’s a very strong emotional step to overcome, and I think at that point you can decide whether to ignore it, suppress it and continue to fight anyone that brings these issues up, or try to learn more and take responsibility and try to change the situation. And that’s what happened to me and to many of my friends.”

When Shapira found his moment of truth and chose to deal with the “dark side” of his existence, he decided to write a petition of air force pilots who declared they were no longer willing to fly missions over the territories. They would no longer be a part of “illegal and immoral attacks” on the Palestinians. In 2003 - on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year - the pilots placed the declaration on the desk of the commander of the air force. “I think that was the beginning of a new life for me in many, many ways,” Shapira noted.

Shapira founded Combatants for Peace on the assertion that it is not merely enough to say what you are not willing to be a part of. “It’s important to reach out to the other side you’re fighting against, and find people and work together - Palestinians who are rejecting violence and are refusing to be a part of this cycle of violence,” he said.

This IDF pilot made a transition from leader among soldiers to a solidarity leader with the Palestinians. He and other Israelis participate in the call by nonviolent Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS. Shapira sees this as a struggle for Palestinian liberation, a process that will also liberate Israelis from being oppressors of a horrible, decades-long occupation. “We don’t wait anymore for Lieberman and Bibi and Barak and other people to bring the solution today. We are calling on the international community, we call on Jews…, and we call on governments all around the world to understand the situation is disastrous, and there is no time to wait for a peace process that is being used just to delay and build more settlements.”

Shapira - who is disheartened by Mairead Maguire’s arrest in Israel - noted that it was his own squadron that dropped commandos on the Mavi Mamara. “It was a double shock because I know the organizers of the flotilla…and to see what the navy and the Israeli army did on the boats and especially this whole ordeal of not showing the whole video, just showing a few seconds of that and manipulating the whole world media. …And the same Blackhawk helicopter that Israel gets for free in billions of aid from the United States, that’s the same helicopter I flew on years back. So it was also very personal for me to decide I need to be on the side of the people trying to symbolically break the siege.”

And so this veteran pilot decided to participate in a flotilla to Gaza, alongside Israeli activists and a holocaust survivor. Shapira said it was sad to see 8 or 10 warships approaching them and violently attacking them, when the only weapons they were carrying to Gaza were harmonicas, musical instruments for the children. “I guess that was too dangerous for the Israeli army to let into Gaza,” he said.

Shapira, who had once been involved in logistics for the Navy, was arrested by the Navy. When the soldiers boarded the ship, they shot him with a stun gun, an electrical shock close to his heart. “My whole body convulsed. Now I also have accusations of attacking the soldiers because my legs were jumping form the shock in my heart, so they also accuse me of attacking the soldiers,” he said. “It is important to understand that if we were Palestinian fisherman, they’d just kill us from a far distance, and maybe Turkish activists we would be shot to death, so it is important to put this in proportion.”

Activists such as Shapira are touching a nerve in Israeli society regarding the occupation, and they are a thorn in the side of Israeli authorities. He sees hope in the Israeli resistance movement, noting that he sees more people attending demonstrations these days, types of people he hadn’t seen in the past. “Maybe with this tendency of this country becoming more and more fascist, and the laws are coming one after another, it may be able to penetrate this thick skin that many people have developed over here. There is a little bit of optimism that when things become so bad and brutal, maybe it helps people to wake up.” Shapira speaks of the ultra-right-Orthodox coalition that currently controls the Israeli government, and the oppressive and racist laws that have come down the pike. Examples include a law requiring non-Jewish Israeli citizens to proclaim allegiance to a Jewish state, a rabbinic ruling forbidding leasing property to non-Jews, attempts to bar Jewish women from the wailing wall, gender segregation in public areas, determining who is not a Jew, and laws forbidding a Jew to marry a non-Jew in Israel.

At the same time, Shapira realizes that his movement is a minority of a minority, albeit with an important role in helping to wake up world Jewry. “It is important not to exaggerate how effective we are here. We are very much hated within the Israeli mainstream, especially when we mention things like international pressure and BDS, it is almost like cursing God in a synagogue or something like that.” Shapira believes the change will come from international pressure, as was the case with South African apartheid. “It is important to remember that no struggle for liberation for equality and for freedom around the world nonviolently succeeded without the mass participation of people around the world. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, all of these heroes would never succeed without huge international pressure.”

Ultimately, Israel must find security through some other means outside of militarism, say these two human rights fighters. “Israel has a right to self-defense, and therefore the first thing for defending ourselves is to stop torturing and killing Palestinians,” said Shapira, who compares Israel to the participant in a gang rape who complains that the victim is fighting back. “When you imprison a million and a half people in a huge ghetto like Gaza, bombing them, what do you expect to happen?” he said. “Since we are committed to nonviolent principles we believe more killing of the other side will just cause you more suffering.”

“We have to move from culturally sanctioned violence wherever we live into building communities based on respect for each other and nonviolence,” said Maguire. She believes the best security the Jewish people can have is to make plans with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors, make friends, and begin to build policies based on human rights and justice. “We’ve got to move away from the idea - and really all of us not just Israelis - this idea that militarism provides our security. We have to move to human based and ecological based security. That’s a huge challenge for the whole human family, and particularly a challenge now in Israel and Palestine to move on to a different kind of security.”