The phrase, “Never again”, can be taken to mean that we are united in opposing the genocide of any group or nation in a new Holocaust (though Darfurians rightly wonder at why the rest of the world chose not to live up to that creed). But for Jews, it has other meanings as well: never again will they put their security in the hands of those who could and often did make the choice to abandon them in their time of need. Even among those who spilled horrendous blood and treasure to defeat the Nazis, the Israelis wonder why these allies did not, for instance, bomb Auschwitz and destroy a camp where a few hundred prison workers were able to apply industrial methods to murder thousands of people per day.

Update: The full article is also published in the Mark: Never Again?

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The government’s move is also a not-so-subtle indictment of a broken refugee support program that has arguably only perpetuated Palestinian misery and held up the Middle East peace process. As we look forward, the international community might take a lesson from the other side of the border from the UNRWA camps to Israel, which may fairly take the title of most successful refugee camp in modern history.

The Forgotten Refugees
When someone uses the phrase, “refugees” in the context of the Middle East, we typically think of the Palestinian refugees who lost their homes during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. The common narrative also holds that when we talk of Jewish refugees, we’re talking about white, European Jews who escaped the Holocaust to seek some measure of safety not only in the Holy Land, but also in the USA, Canada and elsewhere. But these narratives overlook a movement of nearly one million Jewish refugees from Arab countries during those same years, roughly equivalent in number to the original Palestinian refugees. They were largely persecuted, second-class citizens set upon by their neighbors and governments.

“We call these people the forgotten refugees,” says Regina Waldman, founder of JIMENA, an organization seeking recognition for these people in the context of an overall settlement in the Middle East. Waldman was herself a refugee from Libya in 1967, surviving anti-Jewish riots and other violence that claimed the lives of her friends and neighbors before escaping the country. Waldman wants to see a regional peace deal that puts Palestinians’ claims “on an equal footing with the Middle Eastern and North African Jews”.

“When the Six-Day-War broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors, I was 19 year old,” Waldman remembers. “My mother called me at work to tell me that thousands of people had taken to the streets rioting and burning Jewish properties… Killing people, rampaging and burning Jewish properties went on for days. I lived in hiding for a month before returning home.”

A Jewish community that had lived in that country for over 2,000 years, albeit under second-class Dhimmi status, was wiped out as Jews fled lynchings, mob violence and torture and imprisonment by the government. This process was repeated across the region in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran.

One Group Finds Haven, Another is Rejected
Most of the refugees were resettled in Israel. For many, their first stop looked much like refugee camps elsewhere: a sprawling tent city in the middle of a wasteland. But these traumatized survivors would have a vastly different outcome than their counterparts elsewhere, particularly the Palestinians. The refugee tent cities were way-stations, not permanent residences. “All of these people were absorbed into Israel and became part of the society, and without even taking a nickel from the United Nations,” Waldman noted. Israelis ignored the obvious difficulties for a tiny relatively poor state to take in so many refugees at once, understanding that the priority was to give people with a common heritage a home and a chance for better life.

In contrast, where Palestinians attempted to find homes among their Arab neighbors, they were nearly always turned back, despite the ancient links of culture, ethnicity, religion, trade and even close family ties that formerly bound them to other countries in the region. Notably, many Palestinian refugees have migrated quite successfully to countries well outside the Arab world such as Canada. But for the Palestinians who remain in the camps, they have inherited a United Nations welfare state. They’ve received billions of dollars since 1948. Meanwhile, conditions in the Palestinian territories remain atrocious.

Canada’s decision on changing its funding vehicle for Palestinians works as a wake-up call to the international community that we don’t want to keep reinforcing failure. We want to see better outcomes. Hopefully, when a solution does come, it will recognize the claims of all the refugees, including the forgotten ones.

NEW MEDIA EDITOR’S NOTE: If you are a Jewish refugee from the Arab world, the people at JIMENA would be grateful if you would share your personal story with them. They have a growing collection of personal stories of the refugees who immigrated to Israel and other countries. You can contact them here.

A Record of the Forgotten Refugees

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He also had nearly $1 million in gold coins on him, though he had declared only $10,000, to avoid paying tax on the funds. That’s according to his lawyer. So, assuming he has no ties to militant extremists, our newest potential citizen is only a confessed tax evader. How nice for us.

Read the full article in the Vancouver Sun’s Community of Interest

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After catching a screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival, the director stuck around to ask questions. “Given what some of the brave young people in the film are saying about Ahmadinejad’s regime, are you hopeful about the future for Iran?” I asked.

Director Peter Lom shook his head, noting that many young people had been co-opted by the hardline government, such as those who joined the Basji (the paramilitary volunteer militia accused of killing and torturing 2009 election protesters). And it’s not just in Iran — here in Canada, Lom said his Iranian assistant director had been threatened in Farsi by the moderator of a publicity event for the film.

Still, as Lom says, the brutality of the Iranian regime has shown all but the most brainwashed dead-enders that “the Emperor has no clothes”. Anti-colonialism and anti-Americanism plays well around the world, but Ahmadinejad and the theocracy can no longer distract the Che Guevara T-shirt crowd from the fact that they are no longer revolutionary. The regime and it’s supporters are counter-revolutionary. And the democratic revolution won’t be stopped forever.

Marg bar dictator.

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DAY INT. UNITED NATIONS ASSEMBLY

AHMADINEJAD
I’d just like to begin by denouncing the Great Satan known as the United States for it’s diabolical meddling…

BAN KI MOON
Mr. Ahmadinejad?

AHMADINEJAD
Who dares interrupt the glorious revolutionary leader of the great Islamic Republic of Iran?

BAN KI MOON
I’m just the Secretary General of this organization, Mr. Ahmadinejad. But as Secretary, I must, ah, regretfully inform you that you don’t have an appointment to speak here today. I’m afraid the agenda for today’s gathering just doesn’t have time set aside.

AHMADINEJAD
You can’t be serious!?

BAN KI MOON
The rest of the assembly felt that since they’d pretty much heard what you had to say in your previous, ah, rants, they wanted to “skip” the speech. It was pretty much unanimous. Much regret, but as Secretary, I do have to set an agenda while juggling priorities. My apologies. Your speech just didn’t make the cut.

AHMADINEJAD
What new conspiracy is this?

BAN KI MOON
I’m terribly, terribly sorry, Mr. Ahmadi… Ahmedo… Golly, do you mind if I just call you Allan? Look, Mr. Chavez dearly wanted to hear you speak, but I understand he had to be fitted for a new beret to encompass his bloated cranium. And as you can see, you’re just not on the agenda. Terribly, terribly sorry.

AHMADINEJAD
This is unprecedented! Here is proof that the Zionist entity’s satanic agents have infiltrated the highest levels of…

BAN KI MOON
Allan! That’s quite enough. I must insist that you step down and let the Peruvian ambassador begin his dissertation on the global consequences of depressed prices on Llama pelts.

AHMADINEJAD
You cannot stop the voice of God’s revolution, vile Jewish swine. If we were in Iran right now, I’d have you thrown in prison, sodomized, and executed for being a godless Zionist homosexual.

BAN KI MOON
My goodness, that’s wrong on so many levels. Allan, for the last time, I have to insist that you step down. Mr. Gonzalez is waiting, with some very fine Llama pelts.

AHMADINEJAD
A thousand curses on your pork-flavored head, I shall go on! Once more, the downtrodden nations of the Earth condemn the United States for it’s…

BAN KI MOON
I. Said. Shut. Up. And. Sit. Down. Allan.

AHMADINEJAD looks down the barrel of an M1911 pistol. BAN KI MOON cocks the weapon.

BAN KI MOON
I would remind the representative from Iran that in addition to being a Secretary, I am also a General. When I give an order, I expect that it will be followed. Is that understood?

AHMADINEJAD
Yes.

BAN KI MOON
What was that? I didn’t hear you?!

AHMADINEJAD
Yes, sir!

BAN KI MOON
Damn right. Sit your ass down, Allan.

AHMADINEJAD slinks into his seat. The ASSEMBLY is intimidated into absolute silence. BAN KI MOON goes to his podium and withdraws from a hidden compartment a king-sized bottle of fine aged soju. Breaking the bottle open with his teeth with a sickening crunch, the Secretary-General proceeds to take a swig from the jagged edge. He keeps his pistol out in the open.

BAN KI MOON
Mr. Gonzalez, you have the floor.

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The satellite the Koreans were trying to put into orbit sadly fell back to Earth, burning in the atmosphere. The plucky Koreans are surely undeterred. You can depend on them to ultimately succeed.

As for the peace talks I mentioned, they will probably go nowhere fast, just like most recent efforts. But even if they do make progress, it really doesn’t matter. Real peace, not just fragile cease-fires pretending to be peace, will require a different kind of thrust than mere diplomacy.

Let us imagine that the latest announcement of a new beginning for peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians leads to something really genuine. Further suppose that talks gather momentum, somehow breaking the perennial deadlock of settlements, borders and the status of Jerusalem. Finally, let us visualize, on the eve of the signing of this historic treaty, the leaders of all of the Arab states and Iran are swept up by this peace fever and line up at the UN to sign a 1000-year peace treaty with Israel.

It would not matter.

Treaties may get both sides to not shoot at each other (which for the most part, has already been achieved, even between Israel and the Arab states with which it is still formally at war). But a lasting peace in the Middle East will not come so long as terrorists (think Hamas and Hezbollah) or revolutionaries (a la the innumerable Islamist political opposition groups) threaten to overthrow the Arab regimes. The horrendous social and economic conditions of the Arab make it likely that any peace agreement that might be reached in the short term would be overturned by radicals aching to tear up those treaties the deposed regime made with the “Zionist entity”.

This is not to let Israel and its backers off the hook. Peace in the region is still a far greater guarantor to Israel’s security than it’s current military superiority. But to truly achieve something more than a decades-long ceasefire, radicalism among its neighbors must be squelched.

Anti-Semitism plays a part, but is certainly not the most important reason why increasing numbers of Arabs are turning to radical Islam. Syria, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Iran and others just have too many young people, not enough jobs to go around, and no ability to change their situation so long as the thuggish regimes of the Middle East continue to hold sway. To drain the swamp of radicalism, these states themselves will have to open up their sclerotic political and economic systems, provide some measure of freedom and prosperity to their people and thus engender the kind of stability that can lead to true peace in the Middle East.

This brings us back to Korea. From a xenophobic and technologically backward hermit kingdom at the turn of the twentieth century, this place went on to be in turn an enslaved Japanese colony, a splintered yet liberated American protectorate, and finally a devastated war-torn mass of ruined villages and refugees the North Koreans left in their wake in the South. In 1950, this tiny country was broken, worse off even than the Arab Middle East of the time.

Sixty years later, South Korea is the 15th largest economy in the world, with an entrenched democratic political system and, despite the temporary setback of this week, an active space program. No one worries that South Korea, or a radical group within that country, will suddenly provoke war with it’s neighbor (which is particularly nice, since now we only have to worry about the North Koreans setting off a war along the most heavily fortified border on the planet). And Korea is merely one of the more dramatic examples of what a nation bereft of natural resources but willing to invest in its human capital can achieve within two generations.

But back in the Middle East, all of the Arab states, comprising a far larger population and geographic area than South Korea, have a combined GDP less than the country of Spain (at one time a Muslim outpost in Europe). Space program? The closest thing to an Arab astronaut we might see in the next while could only be a Hamas suicide bomber strapped to an augmented Ashoura rocket.

The point being, that for real, sustainable peace between Israel and its avowed enemies to take hold, extreme transformations must take place in the Arab world and Iran. Economic development alone is no guarantor of peace, since certain Arab states and Iran may simply continue to buy more weapons or fund terrorist groups. The transformation will be more about their young people getting trained to produce and sell the products and ideas that the rest of the world wants, rather than spending long hours considering the evil of Western influence and the extent to which Jews are biologically related to pigs and monkeys. It will be about political leaders focusing on building themselves up, not on the evils of foreign devils. These societies surely won’t change in order to make peace with Israel, but rather because this kind of development is what their people want. Peace could simply be a by-product.

With great resolve from the concerned nations of the Middle East to meet their internal challenges and defeat radicalism, “peace in the Middle East” can mean far more than just ink on paper .

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But for some months now, reports of protests inside and outside Iran have consistently shown two types of messages amongst demonstrators. The first type is familiar and inspiring, but the second gives me the chills. I see Iranian protesters potentially falling into the trap that Canadian Tamil protesters recently found themselves in, of believing that the worthiness of their cause permits the use of bloody rhetoric.

From a CTV News story today, here’s what I’m talking about in terms of the two types of messages with very distinct implications:

* “We are here to show our solidarity with the people of Iran and to urge the Iranian government to respect human rights” – Tom van den Brand, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Amsterdam.

* “Death to the Islamic regime!” – group of anonymous protesters.

Some of my friends will probably say I’m just being squishy, or that unity of the protest movement is too important to quibble about semantics. But I feel the words you choose to protest with are not a minor, inconsequential thing. When a state still holds a monopoly on violence and all you have is your voice, your message defines you. How the democratic revolution finally comes to Iran will depend in part on the words the movement chooses to engage its supporters.

For decades, we’ve heard “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, “Death to…” whatever, from mass gatherings of furious Iranians. (I can’t recall a mob chanting “Death to Canada”. When that happens, I suppose that means we’ve hit the big leagues). It’s not just in Iran, but the Islamic Republic is practically synonymous with massive rallies incorporating these frightening modern versions of the Two Minutes Hate.

I’ve attended and observed plenty of protests in Canada. Typical slogans at protests include “This is what democracy sounds like!”, “Justice for the (INSERT-NAME-OF-PERSECUTED-GROUP)”, “Freedom for the (INSERT-NAME-OF-PERSECUTED-GROUP)!”, or “Hell no, we won’t go!”. Chanting “death” to anything is pretty much beyond the pale, because we recognize the obvious danger that such words are incitement to violence. That’s not only illegal, but it’s also a practice, if it were to become mainstream, that could lead to violent acts. The proof of this ranges from violent hate crimes by racist thugs to acts of genocide, like in Rwanda. And let’s face it: there are no problems in Canada that would require demonstrators to commit acts of violence against fellow citizens or the state to get what they want. We’re lucky that way.

So here’s a problem. I’m not convinced that the Iranian regime will fall to a democratic movement without bloodshed, as has happened most recently in parts of Eastern Europe. The ruling thugs have shown a clear willingness to deploy axe-and-gun-wielding militias against their own people. And they have to be mindful that during and after the last big Iranian revolution, tens of thousands of the ruling classes were tortured or killed. With that kind of precedent, even if the regime’s leaders and apparatchiks were of a mind to allow a transition to democracy, simple survival instinct will have them maintain the status quo at any cost.

So if there is going to be a democratic revolution in Iran, people may have to die. When the protesters’ chant, “Death to the Islamic regime”, they know that a “regime” doesn’t really die – the people who run the regime do. Such chants may be very pragmatic preparation to steel Iranians’ minds for coming violence.

I understand that decades of chanting “death” to anything is ingrained in the culture of political protest in Iran or other countries in a way that we just don’t get here. But these words don’t just offend “decadent” Western sensibilities: I suspect that they have already sapped a significant amount of goodwill towards the Iranian protesters.

It’s not enough for the protesters to want democracy. The words they use to motivate their own democratic revolutionaries will help determine the kind of society that comes after the regime is swept away. There needs to be a culture of basic respect for human life, to the obvious minimum standard that you don’t shout “death” to anything. Let the Iranian regime issue the death threats. This movement needs to be better than that.

Iranians chanting “Death to the Dictator”

Iranian rally shouting “Death to America”

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So far, official Iranian government websites and propaganda outlets including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Official Blog, Office of the Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the vile scab-ridden Iranian Press TV and a long list of others are either under attack, unresponsive, or providing only “Service Unavailable” messages (Zero Day). The hacktivists’ tactics are simple: use Twitter to organize and enable large groups of instant hackers through use of automated tools that overload websites with repeated web-page refresh requests.

It’s far from clear whether the cyber-offensive, supposedly launched by the Iranian opposition and supported by hackers outside Iran, will cause enough disruption to give the regime real cause for concern. The leadership and government bigwigs that have already shown willingness to shoot, jail and torture protesters who are demonstrating against a perceived electoral miscarriage (NP), may not feel overly inconvenienced by the online disruption.

Hijacking online communications as a means to spread the opposition message is a tactical victory. The question is whether they’ll be able to do far more. If hackers are able to shut down critical infrastructure, and if it turns out that there’s a mass movement of protesters across the country, not just in Tehran, just waiting for the chance to beat down the leadership, then this initial hacktivism could turn out to be a historic victory of Web 2.0 tools over tyranny.

By way of comparison, those who know a bit about the increasing capabilities of cyber-warriors point to attacks on critical infrastructure and government sites in Georgia last year, leading up to Georgians going toe-to-toe with the Russians (AFP). But the reality is that Georgia was not deterred from sending forces into South Ossetia after the cyber attacks started. And Georgia didn’t ultimately give up because the hackers killed the electricity. It was an overwhelming mass of Russian army soldiers, airpower and tanks that brought the tiny Eastern European country to its knees. The cyber-attacks were a sideshow while the real blood-and-guts war was happening.

The point is that even if the hacktivists in and outside Iran can step up the pace and severity of attacks to do things like disable police and military infrastructure, these tactics won’t have lasting effect without a mass movement willing to face down attacks with their own brand of violence.

Riot cops with clubs and guns don’t need much technology to do the dirty work of the regime. It’s not at all clear that the Iranian opposition will have the stomach for the kind of knock-down, drag-out fight required to oust a thuggish government.

Mind you, the regime is doing an excellent job of creating a resistance movement willing to spill blood through its harsh crackdown, and undoubtedly social media tools are helping incite the masses with live reporting of atrocities against protesters. The question is whether Iranians in the rest of the country, particularly the countryside, will also be seeing these images.

The mullahs won’t be brought down by a ragged band of hackers, bloggers and Tweeps. But there is a chance that Web 2.0 will make this protest against the government go viral in a way that the leadership – and quite possibly, the opposition – never expected.

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Dawn.com: “The Taliban on Wednesday night demolished 11 houses of the Sikh community in the Orakzai Agency for refusing to pay ‘Jazia’.

Earlier, the Sikh community had postponed its decision about vacating the area following the demand of the Tehrik-i-Taliban for payment of ‘Jazia’ being non-Muslims for their protection.”

Seriously, at times like these, one breathes a sigh of relief at being so remote from the ground zero of such injustices.

It might seem like ludicrous fear-mongering to suggest that Canadians in any community might soon have to pay protection money to any particular ethnic group (well, unless it’s extorting it’s own ethnic constituency, as the Tamil Tigers have apparently done in Toronto for years). But Sharia law nearly became a reality in Canada not too long ago. And most of us were probably very surprised to learn that Canadian taxpayers are already subsidizing polygamous families made possible by marriages performed under Sharia.

Orakzai sounds far away, but it isn’t so distant as we think.

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The arrest came just after the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, greeted President Bashir at the airport with a red carpet treatment. “We lured Omar here with guarantees of sanctuary, which we never had any intention of honoring,” Al-Thani said. “The moron sure fell for it. It’s going to be a slam-dunk case for the ICC to prove that this thug enabled the rape, torture and pillage of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, may of them in the decades before the current atrocities happening in Darfur. As good Muslims, we couldn’t possibly allow this monster to go free.”

“Look, we’re trying to get the rest of the world to take seriously the human rights abuses going on in Gaza, said Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, explaining in an aside that electrocutions, beatings with electric cables, and other methods to cripple and murder detainees would no longer be used in Syrian prisoners as of next week. “So it’s incumbent on us as responsible leaders of democra…, um, I mean, demographic countries, to cooperate with international standards of justice. That’s just fair, eh?”

A nice little daydream of what is possible in our world.

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