This is a news report by El Ciudadano (The Citizen) in Santiago, Chile.
The original is here.
Forgive any errors in translation.
El Ciudadno (the Citizen) is a Chilean Newspaper.
More of the same, but as we note, Chile has a very influential Palestinian population. So the Gaza War is drawing strong interest.
Apparently, this World Social Forum – with an emphasis on Palestine is becoming a minor Internet Cause Célèbre.
I wish nothing but the best for the Palestinians, but the minimum concessions the Palestinians would accept would be more than Israeli is willing to concede. I do not see any of this doing any good.
The Palestinians are in bad situation, but Israel is not goint to commit national suicide to oblige them.
HispanTV’s report on the King Fahd Mosque in Buenos Aires
The report notes that this is the place where a fusion of Islam and Latin America meet.
Iran has opened up a major televison propaganda network in the Spanish language called HispanTV. While the USA was ignoring South America, Saudi Arabia, and Iran were not.
Until the King Fahd Mosque opened, Islam was dying out in Argentina. It hovered officially between 1% and 2%, but in reality, an Argentine Acadmenic, Pedro Brieger, had shown that practicing Muslims in Argentina had whittled down to a small, and declining, number. Almost all Argentine Muslims had been non-practicing.
Source: Muslims in Argetina – Pedro Brieger
The number of Muslims in Argentina is decreasing, and this is due to several factors. Firstly, in families of Muslim origin, customs are being lost, from the Arabic language to food and drink. Secondly, there is relatively little reading material on Islam available in Spanish. There is a growing tendency toward mixed marriages in which children lose all references to Islam, and there are too few study centres for disseminating Islam. This may, however, change in the future with the construction of the new Islamic Cultural Center King Fahd, financed by the Saudi government, which includes a school and a mosque with a minaret in the heart of Buenos Aires.
But this successful effort at assimilating the Muslim immigrant came to an end around 2000.
In 1995, President Carlos Menem donated land in downton Buenos Aires so that the Saudis could build the King Fahd Mosque. Islam was given a chance to recharge itself.
Centuries of Christianizing efforts in Latin America were undone in one stroke. By 2011, the Saudi financed mosque had pressured Argentina’s Public TV to grant them an hour of public TV program time to prosyletize – weekly on Sunday mornings.
Worse yet, the time slot for the program was taken from a Christian-run secular TV show hosted by Christian Arab-Argentines, who were furious that a Muslim minority, who did not represent Argentine-Arabs, had stolen their time.
The damage is in its early stages, and it can be undone; but an attempt to undo the damage has to be made. No attempt seems forthcoming.
This is a disaster in slow motion.
We Americans have to show an interest in South America.
The World Social Forum is running into some problem in Porto Alegre in Brazil.
It was supposed to be major political form about the Palestinian problem. Mondoweiss – a pro-Palestinian site – is reporting that Zionist groups in South America are interfering with the forum.
Brazil’s barbarians at Israel’s gate: South American Israel lobby tries to shut down World Social Forum on Palestine
by Marc H. Ellis on November 3, 2012Whatever the internal squabbling, the outside pressure is worse. It’s being brought to bear on the conference itself. I received this update from the organizers yesterday:
In part they succeed, because now the WSF have lost the Usina do Gasômetro, the place where it would be held.
(… READ MORE)
The Usina do Gasômetro is a cultural center in Porto Alegre, which was converted from a former power plant. Apparently some pressure was made to withdraw the venue. They now have to look for another venue.
Mondoweiss is right that Israel is starting to notice Latin America. Until recently, Latin America has been ignored by everyone. Chile and Brazil, which are now starting to emerge, are making that an impossible luxury.
Porto Alegre has a small Palestinian community. Brazil has somewhere between 10-15 Million Arabs; almost all are Christian, mostly Catholic.
I suppose it would only be natural that Palestinians would try to draw Brazil into the conflict. However, Brazilian Arabs are heavily Lebanese Maronites, descended from Maronite Lebanese Christians who fled waves of Muslim genocide, starting in the 19th century. These are not going to present a fertile ground for pro-Palestinian sympathies. Neither will the Arabs in Brazil who have become Evangelical Christians – and there are many in Brazil.
One should not necessarily equate Arab with pro-Palesitnian viewpoints, especially Christian Arabs in South America.
This does show that, inspite of relatively small numbers, Israel’s community has some clout in South America.
I have no problem with pro-Zionists trying to make their case known; however this strikes me more as trying to suppress the Palestinians from making their case. Rather than presenting the Israeli view, it seems they are trying to stop the Palestinian view. Rather than acting pro-Israel, they are acting anti-Palestinian. This does not strike me as right.
Israel should contend for itself, but not interfere with free speech.
The point here is that South America is becoming a battle ground between Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists. A region of the world which was one ignored is now being contested. I suppose, for the South Americans, it is a step up. They are getting noticed.
This was posted in August 2012 on YouTube
In the end, while the Palestinian cause may seem right, at an initial glance, it has the problem of purpose. What does it propose?
If the end result of Palestinian Liberation is an Islamic state like the Hamas run Gaza, mockingly called Hamastan, then Liberals the world over should flee from the cause.
I am not saying Israel is innocent. Some Israeli actions are appauling; but to favor an Islamic cause is sheer lunacy for Liberals. This is not a native vs. colonial, worker vs. capitalist, contest. Some Liberals cannot shake the old paradigm.
Old paradigms do not apply in the Mideast.
If you want to help the Palestinians, the first thing you must do is shake them of Islam. To free them of the very real settler violence and restore them to a pre-Medieval Mullah driven tyranny is NOT an improvement.
One has to be careful in this cause. The Palestinians look like a people worthy of solidarity; and certainly the Christians among them would be. However, 92% of the Palestinians are Muslim; and more fundamentalist strains are arising among them.
There is no happy solution to this problem, at this point; but while the Israeli treatment of Arabs in Judea and Samaria (what the world calls the West Bank) is harsh – and at times, brutal – one must be careful to make sure that the remedy is not worse than the disease.
Rather than spending money to finance BDS, Liberals might set up legal funds to buy construction permits for Palestinians; and to contest every land siezure in Israeli courts.
This would have the benefits of:
1) Being Legal: Setting up a legal fund is, by definition, legal
2) Avoiding the legal question of boycotting Israel: Boycotting Israel can be illegal in some jurisdictions. The matter of boycotting settlements falls into a gray area. Do you want to be on the wrong end of a lawfare litigation?
3) Forcing Israel to act legally: A people committed to HaTorah (the Law) can sometimes be restrained by appeals to law.
My point here is that the Liberals in the West are not embracing the Palestinian cause with wisdom.
Are the Arabs in Judea and Samaria (what the world calls the West Bank) oppressed?
Absolutely! They have been for a long time.
Would creating a Palestinian government help them?
Not necessarily.
Restoring the Arabs in Judea and Samaria to Islamic rule is not an improvement.
So what should progressives do?
Set up a fund to help Arabs pay for the expenses necessary to get permits.
Set up a fund to help Arabs build once the permits are granted.
Set up a fund to help Arabs leave Islam, which is their chief oppressor.
The Left is out of its mind to be blanket supporting any cause which is tainted with an Islamic flavor.
Any Leftist cause which supports Palestine against Israel while ignoring the greater atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, etc. is hypocritical.
