Charlie Rose Science Series
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Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America
by Thomas L. Friedman
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by Thomas L. Friedman
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06/12/2008
Rami Khouri, Marwan Muasher
A conversation with Rami Khouri & Marwan Muasher
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A conversation with Marwan Muasher, Senior Vice President, External Affairs of The World Bank & Rami Khouri, Editor-At-Large of the newspaper "The Daily Star"
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RE Comment by Roula on Wednesday, Jun 18 at 01:57 PM. ______ I agree. Anyone, like MARWAN MUASHER (a U.S. propaganda machine "embedded 'intellectual'") -- "the *good* A-rab" -- who seriously calls Hezbollah and Hamas "terrorists organizations" -- and Rami Khouri who sits by silently without challenging that, and I'm surprised that (since I can't be more direct without being *deleted*) 'Arab Anglo-Saxon' Fouad Ajami wasn't there too to make it a triad, and throw in Fareed Zakaria, "a *good* Muslim", for good measure -- indeed at least Muasher and, otherwise, Ajami and Zakaria being among those *handpicked* U.S. corporate media propaganda puppets -- is not only morally and intellectually *CORRUPT*, but ANALYTICALLY *USELESS*. They, on mainstream corporate media (including PBS/NPR), keep the U.S. pubic DUMMED DOWN so that the U.S. and Israel (with its well over 60-year ethnic cleansing campaign and oppression of anyone who isn't Jewish, but Israel isn't called a *militant terrorist state*) can continue their colonialist/imperialist projects in the Middle East without any domestic rising public moral challenge. HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH ARE ANTI-COLONIAL/ANTI-IMPERIALIST RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS (just like the ANC once was) -- and deliver a lot more honest and efficient government (and even safer neighborhood streets!) than the Israeli-/U.S.-corrupted Fatah (from the old PLO) leadership and the U.S.-backed party in Lebanon. And I'm not surprised that, as Roula put it about MUASHER and KHOURI, "THE WEST FEEDS, CLOTHES, AND SUSTAINS THEM. NO ARAB TAKES THESE PUPPETS SERIOUSLY."
These two men represent the corrupt fascist dictatorship that is Jordan; they are a product of a corrupt class in that poor, rotten Arab country, and pander to the West, as the West feeds, clothes and sustains them. No Arab takes these puppets seriously.
See Gandhi's statement on Palestine called, "The Jews of Palestine, 1938" -- availabe online.
Comment by Shalom Freedman on Sunday, Jun 15 at 09:26 AM: [1\ "'Mr. Just' as I will call him for short says that Israel is given a 'free pass ' by the media. Where has he been the past forty years? Israel is given more attention and criticism than any country in the world, except perhaps the United States." ______ JUST SAYING THIS DOESN'T MAKE IT TRUE. TELL ME ONE MAINSTREAM AMERICAN TV PROGRAM WHERE THIS HAPPENS. ______ [2\ "The Bible is in one sense the story of the Jewish people's entrance into and struggles to live in the land of Israel. The Jewish people have had presence in the land of Israel continuously for over three- thousand years. The Jews though they maintained a presence in the Land were largely exiled, and prayed and dreamed of their return." ______ THE *BIBLE* AS JUSTIFICATION FOR POLITICAL CONQUERING & RULE!!??? Religious ancestors' ancient presence? THIS IS A CONSTANTLY ZIONST-RECYCLED ARGUMENT THAT IS LITERALLY *WORSE THAN MEDIEVAL*!!! (Hitler used a similar argument about the presence of ethnic Germans throughout Eastern Central Europe to justify taking it over!!) The Western world, and in particular the U.S. and French Revolution, has abolished "the right to divine rule". Even George Will condemned "religion and ethnicity as violent and vicious drivers of world history." Unfortunately, in the typical white Western racist double standards, he meant supposedly all those A-rab and Moooslim states -- and not ISRAEL. As Malcolm X said, "The Zionist argument to justify Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine has no intelligent or legal basis in history." What if everyone decided to reverse 2,000 years of human migration and go colonize someplace else 1,000's of miles away on another continent, claiming their race/ethnicity lived somewhere else 2,000 years ago -- and that *"God"* gave them that right? All humanity originated in Africa: would that give Europeans throughout the world the right to go back and take over and colonize Africa? (Although, Europeans apparently felt that they once had that right for a long time.) *NO* COUNTRY IN THE WORLD -- INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY THE *U.S.* -- WOULD ACCEPT SUCH A *TOTALLY INSANE* ARGUMENT: SUCH AN INSANE ARGUMENT COULD ONLY BE FORCED AT THE POINT OF A GUN -- JUST LIKE WITH THE EUROPEAN JEWISH INVASION OF PALESTINE, another group of Europeans who subjectively believe that "God" gives them the right to go colonize someplace in the non-European world and to oppress the native population. THE ANCIENT HEBREWS WEREN'T EVEN THE FIRST INHABITANTS OF HISTORIC PALESTINE! And they by no means continuously politically control it for 5,000 years or even 3,000 years. And they didn't control all of what Israel controls now. _____ [3\ " The third charge about the Jews and Israel controlling everything is classical hate- filled and stupid anti- Semitism." _____ Except that's your hyperbolic Zionist strawman argument that I *DIDN'T* make. Instead of saying something that I *DIDN'T* say, why don't you -- as I said before -- *DIRECTLY QUOTE FROM* and SPECIFICALLY SAY *WHAT* you disagree with that I *DID* say. _____ [4\ "In any case I find it remarkable that with systematic torture being a fact of life in so many places in the world, with internal repression being the rule throughout the whole of the Islamic world , there should be such intense blaming of a country which is after all a democracy." _____ HERE WE GO!: TIME FOR ZIONISTS TO TRY TO *CHANGGGE THE SUBJECT*!! First of all, ISRAEL PRACTICES TORTURE AS OFFICIAL POLICY. One method was even on videotape on even the *American* TV news at the time, when Israeli soldiers were told to and did use large stones to *break the torso bones and the limbs of openly detained Palestinian civilians, even NON-VIOLENT Palestinian protesters, and Palestinian suspects. Secondly, as I said before, you want to divert to everyone else's and every other Mideast govt's behavior EXCEPT ISRAEL'S. Third, not every country that calls itself "a democracy" is one. The fmr East Germany official name was "the German Democratic Republic", North Korea's official name is "the People's Democratic Republic of Korea", apartheid South Africa (just like apartheid Israel) called itself one of the world's leading democracies -- but that didn't/doesn't mean they were democratic now did/does it. ISRAEL -- *FOUNDED ON TERRORISM* -- called itself a democracy even as it was *TERRORISTICALLY* driving off and ethnically cleansing away over a million Palestinians in just the initial years alone of its founding! (See, Israel Jewish academic historian Illan Pappe's book, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine".) The U.S. called itself "a democracy" even as most of the people in the U.S. could not legally vote for most of the history of the U.S. -- and even when the U.S. was genociding Native Americans and holding Black people in chattel or peonage slavery for *centuries*! Israel is about as much a democracy as apartheid South Africa was. In fact, ISRAEL IS *OFFICIALLY* A SEMI-THEOCRATIC RELIGIO-ETHNIC STATE!: THAT *BY DEFINITION* CANNOT BE A TRUE DEMOCRACY. _____ [5\ "Israel is the one country under the world which is under the greatest pressure and yet maintains a rule of law and respect for all its citizens." _____ ISRAEL IS THE *ONLY* COUNTRY IN THE POLITICALLY WESTERN WORLD WHO POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, LEGAL, REAL-ESTATE AND CULTURAL SYSTEMS ARE *OFFICIALLY* AND *LEGALLY* STRUCTURED TO *SPECIFICALLY* BENEFIT AND ADVANTAGE ONE RELIGIO-ETHNIC/-RACIAL GROUP OVER *ALL* OTHERS -- AND TO SPECIFICALLLY *EXCLUDE* OR DISADVANTAGE ANYONE WHO IS NOT PART OF THAT GROUP, NOT JEWISH. In fact, Israel is the only country in the world that defines its citizenship as "the state of alll Jews in the world" for *eternity*. EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE POLITICALLY WESTERN WORLD, AND AGAINST ANY OTHER COUNTRY EXCEPT FOR ISRAEL (WITH THE EUROPEAN WESTERN GOVTS' WHITE DOUBLE STANDARD), THIS IS OFFICIALLY CALLED *RACISM* -- rather than, as all other countries in the world do, define itself as the state of *all* its officially *resident* citizens. ISRAEL'S *OFFICIAL* *STATE POLICY* IS *DISCRIMINATION* -- *RACISM* -- AGAINST NON-JEWS. And yet ZIONISTS -- who *BY DEFINITION* ARE RACISTS -- are always screaming about anti-Semitism! ....Whereas, for example, in Scotland (and any other Western country), ANYONE is a *citizen* -- REGARDLESS OF RELIGION OR ETHNICITY -- if they are a resident citizen of the country of Scotland -- with *full* legal rights to the weath, resources, land, government and institutions of the nation whether one is ethnic Sottish, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, white, black, Asian, African, or Latin American. ISRAEL IS A RELIGIO-THEOCRATIC STATE *JUST LIKE SOME OTHERS* IN THE MIDDLE EAST. ...ISRAEL IS *NOT* A SECULAR STATE. _____ [6\ "I just came back from the downtown Jerusalem Post - office where I saw tens of Arabs collecting social security and support payments from the Zionist government. Most of these people insist they wish to remain in Israeli jurisdiction and would not want to be part of any Palestinian Authority." _____ First of all, your *story* is *purely anecdotal* and critically, intellectually and analytically *meaningless*, and rather politically loaded -- as well as *RACIST* BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THEM AS *PALESTINIANS*. Why didn't you ask them if they wanted a re-unified, *secular*, truly democratic Palestine with absolutely equal national, civil and citizenship rights for ALL people regardless of religion or ethnicity? Hmmmm??? I'll bet they would have said *yes* to that, rather than, ideologically, "the Jewish state" of Israel. ...Second, Black-Americans got highly limited social security and welfare payments even under the U.S. apartheid system called "Segregation"/"Jim Crow". The Nazis gave Jews (and other oppressed minorities) *some* food in the concentration and labor camps (and some Jews may have even gotten payments under the Nazis, but before the concentration camps were established): does that meant the Nazis weren't racists? _____ [7\ THESE ARE THE KIND OF POINTS YOU WILL NEVER HEAR ON AMERICAN TV -- AND CERTAINLY NOT ON PBS OR THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW. ...IF YOU DISAGREE, THEN AGAIN, TELL ME ON WHAT AMERICAN TV PROGAM.
This is a reply to a previous comment. Its first accusation by someone who courageously calls himself 'just Zionist diversion'. 'Mr. Just' as I will call him for short says that Israel is given a 'free pass ' by the media. Where has he been the past forty years? Israel is given more attention and criticism than any country in the world, except perhaps the United States. I am not speaking of the Media of the Islamist world but rather of that in the free and Western world. The second charge is that Israel is a 'colonial state'. Apparently Mr. Just knows little of human , and certain of Biblical history. The Bible is in one sense the story of the Jewish people's entrance into and struggles to live in the land of Israel. The Jewish people have had presence in the land of Israel continuously for over three- thousand years. The Jews though they maintained a presence in the Land were largely exiled, and prayed and dreamed of their return which they were able to begin in mass only in the middle of the nineteenth century. The third charge about the Jews and Israel controlling everything is classical hate- filled and stupid anti- Semitism. It is the kind of Anti- Semitism which makes George Bush Jewish and Barack Obama Jewish and John McCain Jewish, and everyone who the haters want to hate- Jewish. Moreover the old law of 'two Jews and three opinions' means that passionate Zionists like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are somehow not quite as Zionist as some of us would have wished them to be. In any case I find it remarkable that with systematic torture being a fact of life in so many places in the world, with internal repression being the rule throughout the whole of the Islamic world , there should be such intense blaming of a country which is after all a democracy. I just came back from the downtown Jerusalem Post - office where I saw tens of Arabs collecting social security and support payments from the Zionist government. Most of these people insist they wish to remain in Israeli jurisdiction and would not want to be part of any Palestinian Authority. Israel is the one country under the world which is under the greatest pressure and yet maintains a rule of law and respect for all its citizens. Yes, the talk-back writers who curse Israel are ignorant and stupid. I suggest Mr. Just , that you go and study the subject truly and not simply be misled by your prejudices.
RE Comment by Shalom Freedman on Saturday, Jun 14 at 06:51 PM: "It is discouraging to read the comments here. They are by and large ignorant, abusive, hate- filled and simply stupid." _____ THIS INTELLECTUALLY EMPTY LINE seems to be your opening ZIONIST mantra all the time whenever you disagree with someone. Why don't you DIRECTLY QUOTE FROM and SPECIFICALLY SAY *WHAT* you disagree with in other people's comments, and REFERENCE THE SPECIFIC PERSON WHO POSTED what you disagree with? That is how you should engage in intellectually critical debate/rebuttal. You want to divert to everyone else's and every other Mideast govt's behavior but Israel's. The time has passed (except on most American TV, including on PBS and most of the time on the Charlie Rose show) when Israel -- after apartheid South Africa, the last European settler-colonialst apartheid state of its kind in the world -- gets an automatic moral pass anymore in most of the world. Zionists and the Israel lobby can *terrorize* people in the media and those with public status, but I'll tell you: more and more ordinary people are (at the least secretly in the U.S., because they want to avoid vicious attacks by the Israel lobby apparachiks) fed up with Israel, Zionists, their propaganda, their politically/economically terrorizing others (especially our American politicians, academics and journalists), their always crying wolf about "rampant anti-Semitism" all over the world (even in the West) -- for one, Palestinians don't hate Jewish people per se, Palestinians hate Jewish *RACISM/RACISTS* -- and Zionist Jews sheer *HYPOCRISY*. ...I call this "hate-filled": You Zionists Jews brutally mass invaded another country --on entirely another continent, no less-- and ruthlessly dispossess, *TERRORIZE*, ethnically cleanse, and oppress (with the help of especially the U.S. and UK, using the Israel lobby in both countries, against yet another indigenous, 3rd World people) another (the *native*) people, the Palestinians, and then shout "Israel wants peace!"
It is discouraging to read the comments here. They are by and large ignorant, abusive, hate- filled and simply stupid.One wonders why more informed ,intelligent and fair- minded viewers of this show do not contribute their comments. As for the conversation itself there was one positive element. Both Muashar and Khouri speak of Arabs recognizing and living in peace with Israel. But their presentation of the actual situation and attitudes within the Arab and Islamic worlds was I believe misleading. They say nothing about the conflicts between Shiite and Sunni which go through the heart of this world. They minimize the role of terror though Muashar to his credit expresses repulsion towards suicide- bombing. They make much of the rise of Hizbollah and Hamas as if these were forces for light and progress. But they are Islamic fundamentalist movements filled with hatred for the West. The conversation instead of covering the real divisions and problems within Arab and Islamic worlds again worked on the mantra- "Solve the Israeli- Arab conflict and solve it all". It is is simply false. Charlie Rose should have been more had more to say about the actual character of the regimes in the Islamic world. He did try a bit by mentioning Ahmadinejad but he should have had more penentrating questions about the Iranian regime and its ideology.
Comment by Christopher on Saturday, Jun 14 at 04:08 AM: "And when I speak to Jewish acquaintances, they claim that Arabs cannot be trusted, that they are anti-Semitic, and that they will always resent Jews in the Middle East." _____ That's like some non-Jew moving into the middle of a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn and complaing about "too many Jews"! If European Christians wanted to atone for their European atrocities commited against European Jews, then those European Christians should have given land for European Jews in *EUROPE* (or in the U.S., if the U.S. feels so damn strongly)! And, likewise, B (European Jews) shouldn't (im)morally make C (the Palestinian people) -- far away, on entirely another continent at that -- pay for atrocities commited against B (European Jews) by A (European Christians)! That would only make 'sense' if parties A *and* B were BOTH racists. And both parties, first A and then B, claiming "God's" approval!
You know, I don't think the Israeli Arab crisis will end. I think that, based on conversations I have had with Middle Eastern acquaintances, the reaction has been negative; i.e. they question the 1948 Israel (they say, why not set up a state in Russia instead), they believe that Israelis have a grand expansionist plan backed by the US. And when I speak to Jewish acquaintances, they claim that Arabs cannot be trusted, that they are anti-Semitic, and that they will always resent Jews in the Middle East. It is hopeless. In the immediate future, it is hopeless.
Dear Mr. Charlie Rose, you note that what is urgently needed in the middle east is a political movement with a sense of social justice and religious diversity, one which would keep any faction from feeling insecure, and feel instead included in the democratic process. he also mentions the incompetence of middle eastern governments. Such a group exists: the Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement, lead by the General Aoun (http://tayyar.org/Tayyar/FPMParty/CharterNLogo/). This movement created a multi-confessional opposition to the sectarian Lebanese government. This government attaempted, according to an American source (The New Yorker, march 5th 2007, Seymour Hersh) to fabricate a civil war in Lebanon in order to subdue the opposition. (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh). This movement reached out to the once alienated Hezbollah and guided it back into the democratic process (http://tayyar.front1.customers.artful.net/NR/rdonlyres/FC03642C-AF93-4A07-BF30-0E871CAAFD09/0/fpm_hezbollah.pdf), as you suggest should be done, on your show on June 12, 2008. When you and the western media black out this movement, you hinder the very goals you mention the middle east needs to reach.
DEAR MR ROSE:.........................You have finally showed the viewers, your cards with respect to Obama and his Presidential bid. Your comments on how will Obama's thought process be viewed in the ME belied your adulation/bias for the man. Mr Obama's words do pander to the people who view themselves as the "cultural elites" in America. However his rhetoric is woefully lacking in substance as to how he actually plans to accomplish the "change" he glibly promises with the fervor of a Southern Baptist Minister....Mr Rose one needs to look further at Mr Obama's history to get an idea of what the man is capable of. Mr Obama himself has stated on your program that the biggest influence on his life was his mother, who he parsed his words in describing as, "a very socially conscience individual." Second Mr Obama's world view has been shaped by 20 years of community activism is South Chicago which is in the purview of the Daly Family political empire, as well as shaping his view as to what the needs and wants are of the American people outside of South Chicago. Third his experience in governing has been limited to the South Chicago world he has lived in. Will he be able to bite the hand that feeds him when he has to tell his Democratic Party comrades "No they have gone too far" in their legislative zeal to right the wrongs of America according to the Hoyle of the Liberal manifesto. Or will Mr Obama turn out to be another Grey Davis unwilling and unable to stop the Party zeal in effecting Liberal change. Which is likely to turn American into a pre Thatcher Great Britain. Is this the possibilty of America that your ready to sign unto so readily?
Until these commenters shut the hell up and educated muslims from all over besides the Arabs expresses themselves --- nothing will be solved. Until we stop Arabs representing Muslims and Israelis representing Jews - this will not get any where. Only educated and cultured guests like these can bring change. I am so fed up of listening to Arabs and Israelis as if the rest of us Muslims and Jews don't even exists. The whole lot are a bunch of desert tribes - Arabs and the Israelis. This is getting freaking old, after a while everyone will stop caring and both the groups will wise up real quick like.
What is Israel to do with all the emigres that arrived since the fall of the USSR?
RE "Actually, Israel trying to wipe historic Palestine off the map was like Hitler trying to wipe Poland off the map!" -- on Friday, Jun 13 at 04:24 AM.
RE Comment by fred on Thursday, Jun 12 at 11:33 PM: "Why does Israel have a right to exist? Aren't Israel's occupations in 1967 like Hitler's before WWII?" ______ And the National Zionists, Israel, being given part of Paletine, was like the National Sozialists, Nazi Germany, being given Czechoslovakia -- given the land of an innocent people in both cases. It wasn't enough for the National Sozialists, the Nazis, and it wasn't enough for the National Zionists: neither respective invaders were satisfied with what they had already been immorally given by the imperialists -- through military means the respecitve invaders genocidally grabbed more (even ruthlessly razing cities and towns to the ground), while claiming that "Germany/Israel wants peace". (The joke goes, yeah a piece of this land, a piece of that land, and a piece of some other lands.) And both parties, respectively, called any resistance to invasion "terrorism" and instituted systematic humiliation and collective punishment (indiscriminately killing people and cutting off food, medicines, and utilities).
RE Comment by jawboning for us asses on Friday, Jun 13 at 12:55 AM: "Obama [Mr. "Change", 'rrrrighhhht'...\ threw away his main tool of being at least a semblance of an honest broker by ceding Jerusalem to the Israelis even before he takes office." ______ Obama and Hillary were even tripping over themselves offering to attack -- actually, *NUKE* -- *Iran* for Israel (a country with some 200 nuclear weapons of its own)!: I guess the U.S. attacking Iraq for the Zionist Jewish neocons/Israelis (in which no Israeli Jew has lost a single drop of blood) still wasn't/isn't enough. Nuking Iran would make "al-Qaeda" look like a bunch of cub scouts, the reaction (including a nuclear armed Pakistan) and/or retaliation from the Muslim and Middle Eastern world would be so intense -- especially U.S. interests/facilities in the Muslim world. The European West's economy --especially the U.S. economy from the resulting Muslim and Middle Eastern backlash -- would be thrown into an utter CATASTROPHE that would make today's oil/gasoline situation look like a damn picnic -- because as high as gas prices are now -- record highs and still rising in significant part because of the political fallout that the U.S. has caused -- at least we can still *get* oil.
Au contraire, Obama threw away his main tool of being at least a semblance of an honest broker by ceding Jerusalem to the Israelis even before he takes office. Which suggests he may indeed be too immature for the major issues of office. The gaffe was too revealing. We are relegated to eight more years of disappointing nonprogress. Or more. Sir Issac Newton's prognosis for a 2060 end-of-days is too optimistic. Based on the Israeli situation alone.
For my own recent abusive comment against guest, Susan Schwab, I may be (deservedly)persona non grata on this site, not even able as I might see to apologize. Nevertheless, I do apologize, if it helps any. First of all, Isreal's "right to exist" seems much too large a concept vis-a-vis the 1967 war and what you call its subsequent occupations by Israelis. Or, at least, I couldn't answer on that score alone. I would say Israel has a right to exist, at least, based on the possibility that we, meaning Muslims as well as Christians, will someday rise up to the point where we will understand ourselves to have been shortchanged for it to be otherwise. At bottom Achilles and Hector loved one another - needed one another. If the former hadn't been so peeved at Agammenon, or the whole state of affairs, or whatever it was, I think he would have carried Hector off for a fitting death display to mark his own sorrow. To this day might we still be too much what we ain't?
The Palestinians need to save face, at least to some extent, in order to even begin a process in which peace can be realized and not just talked about. The Israelis must know this, because they are not so different, and must know that their repeated humiliations of them not only works in the opposite direction, but also encourages extremists on both sides. That the US admin often acts the same way is no help either. But as long as Palestinians are not accepted in other Arab countries that will not matter, because some will have to be no matter what happens between Palestinians and Jews, and I believe face operates just as much in this, as in the other.