U.S. Interventions in the Middle East
The current occupant of the White House has said, “The Middle East is a troubled place. There are a lot of bad things happening in that part of the world.” Indeed. But why is it a troubled place and why are bad things happening there? There is no mention of Washington’s role. Actions have consequences. U.S. invasions, occupations, coups, and economic warfare in the Middle East have significantly contributed to turning the region into a disaster area. Washington has aligned itself with feudal despotic regimes. Decades ago, the U.S. identified Middle Eastern oil as crucial to its designs to dominate the world. Fast forward. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has to be one of the greatest war crimes in history. Its ramifications continue to reverberate throughout the Middle East and beyond. And Palestine? Things are as bleak as ever.
Recorded at the University of Washington.
Speaker
Edward Said
Edward Said, an internationally renowned Columbia University professor, practically invented the field of post-colonial studies. His great works Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism have been translated into many languages and are widely used in colleges and universities. The New York Times called him, “one of the most influential literary and cultural critics in the world.” As one of the few advocates for Palestinian rights in the U.S., he was the target of vilification, death threats and vandalism. The Economist said he “repudiated terrorism in all its forms and was a passionate, eloquent and persistent advocate for justice for the dispossessed Palestinians.” He was a trenchant critic not just of Israeli policies, but also of Arafat, the corrupt coterie around him and the despotic Arab regimes. He wrote: “While I have always advocated resistance to Zionist occupation, I have never argued for anything but peaceful coexistence between us and the Jews of Israel once Israel’s military repression and dispossession of Palestinians has stopped.” Though invited, he refused to attend the September 1993 White House signing ceremony of the Oslo agreement. He denounced it saying “What Israel has gotten is official Palestinian consent to continued occupation.” He felt strongly that intellectuals had a special responsibility to speak out against injustice, challenge power, confront hegemonic thinking, and provide alternatives. His friend Noam Chomsky said of him, “Said was one of the most remarkable and influential intellectuals of the last half-century. Much of his immense effort and talent was dedicated to overcoming the insularity, prejudice, self-righteousness, and apologetics that are among the pathologies of power and defending the rights of the victims.” His memoir Out of Place won the New Yorker Book of the Year Award. His two books of interviews with David Barsamian are The Pen & the Sword and Culture & Resistance. Edward Said died in New York in 2003.
Leslie Barnave –
I, tonight (Nov. 12, 2018), was attentive of the re-broadcast of Edward Said’s speech given15 years ago or so; and, while critical the gentleman made a favorable impression on me. His perspectives concerning the Middle East situation is factual and irrefutable.
I think the only manner of (human) being which could oppose Edward Said’s ethics either are ignorant American evangelical Zionists, or (unethical) Jews which fraudulently defame Zion, Yehoshalom (id. Jerusalem) [meaning, Yehowah’s Peace], and the authentic descendants of the ancient Hebrew-Yisraelites (an ethnicity within the Negroid race).
The (ethical and unethical) Jews aren’t descedants of Shem, the son of Noah; and therefore not the so-called “Semite”. They’re rather descendents of Japheth (the son of Noah) grandson, Ashkenaz. The difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jew is not ancestry but which Talmud (the Babylonian or Jerusalem) is recognized.
This argument corroborated by sound passages from the Bible and secular history is material to bring an end to the occupation and defamation of Zion and Yehoshalom by a people which are oppressing so-called Palestinians which are probably authentic Semites. You see the power of “sorcery”, id. lies. The most powerful weapon against sorcery is irrefutable and indisputable truth and morality, not mankind’s weapons of war. The boycott, divestmenbt, and sanction campaign is effective and must be expanded, with education of authentic ancient history..
Brad Will –
An unsanitized and clear-eyed assessment of the intensive, programmatic containment of Middle Eastern states by the U.S. and its geopolitical special interests and friends. Here’s the news that never made it – or makes it – to the MSM. We are all embedded and our news diet fastidiously controlled.
Thank you, Edward Said.