Nir Rosen is a Jewish American journalist and fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security, and a former fellow of the New America Foundation. It also appears that his parents are Israeli. Though best known for his writings on Iraq, Rosen comments on other areas in the Middle East including of course Israel. In the selection of statements by Rosen below, he whitewashes the international terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing, justifies Palestinian violence on Israeli civilians and advocates a one-state solution.

Below is a selection of statements made by Nir Rosen “in his own words”:

“Question: The political turmoil in Lebanon continues even though the war with Israel has been over for more than a year. Tensions are escalating because of the upcoming presidential elections which are being closely monitored by France, Israel and the United States. Do you see Hezbollah’s role in the political process as basically constructive or destructive? Is Hezbollah really a “terrorist organization” as the Bush administration claims or a legitimate resistance militia that is necessary for deterring future Israeli attacks?

Nir Rosen: Hizballah is not a terrorist organization. It is a widely popular and legitimate political and resistance movement. It has protected Lebanon’s sovereignty and resisted American and Israeli plans for a New Middle East. It’s also among the most democratic of Lebanon’s political movements and one of the few groups with a message of social justice and anti imperialism. The Bush Administration is telling its proxies in the Lebanese government not to compromise on the selection of the next president. This is pushing Lebanon towards another civil war, which appears to be the plan. The US also started civil wars in Iraq, Gaza and Somalia.

Question: The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli sanctions for more than a year. Despite the harsh treatment—the lack of food, water and medical supplies (as well as the soaring unemployment and the random attacks in civilian areas)—there have been no retaliatory suicide attacks on Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers. Isn’t this proof that Hamas is serious about abandoning the armed struggle and joining the political process? Should Israel negotiate directly with the “democratically elected” Hamas or continue its present strategy of shoring up Mahmoud Abbas and the PA?

Nir Rosen: Hamas won democratic elections that were widely recognized as free and fair; that is, as free and as fair as you can expect when Israel and America are backing one side while trying to shackle the other. Israel and the US never accepted the election results. That’s because Hamas refuses to capitulate. Also, Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which is active in Egypt and Jordan and both those countries fear an example of a Muslim brothers in government, and they fear an example of a movement successfully defying the Americans and Israelis, so they backed Fatah. Everyone fears that these Islamic groups will become a successful model of resistance to American imperialism and hegemony. The regional dictators are especially afraid of these groups, so they work with the Americans to keep the pressure on their political rivals. Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah collaborates with the US and Israel to undermine Hamas and force the government to collapse. Although they have failed so far; the US and Israel continue to support the same Fatah gangs that attempted the coup to oust Hamas. The plan backfired, and Hamas gunmen managed to drive Fatah out of Gaza after a number of violent skirmishes.

Israel should stop secretly supporting Fatah and adopt the “One State” solution. It should grant Palestinians and other non-Jews equal rights, abandon Zionism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, compensate them, and dismantle the settlements. If Israel doesn’t voluntarily adopt the One State solution and work for a peaceful transition, (like South Africa) then eventually it will be face expulsion by the non Jewish majority in Greater Palestine, just like the French colonists in Algeria.

This is not a question of being “pro” or “anti” Israel; that’s irrelevant when predicting the future, and for any rational observer of the region it’s clear that Israel is not a viable state in the Middle East as long as it is Zionist.” Excerpts  from interview of Nir Rosen by Mike Whitney November 30, 2007

“Nor has the movement shown a long-standing inability to reconcile with its enemies. Most strikingly, in 2000, after Israel’s withdrawal from the Lebanese territory it was occupying, the thousands of Shia and Christian collaborators suddenly found themselves vulnerable to retribution and street justice from understandably aggrieved Lebanese. On strict orders from Hizballah, however, the vast majority were not touched. Rather they were handed over to the Lebanese army, dealt with by the Lebanese government and imprisoned and amnestied prematurely, in a move that offended many Lebanese. Nevertheless, today they can be spotted in towns in the south; everyone knows who they are, and they remain unharmed. Hardly the actions of a violent fundamentalist terrorist organization.

And what was so unreasonable about Hizballah’s demands? The movement insisted it wanted Lebanese prisoners to be freed by Israel, all of Lebanon’s territory to be evacuated by Israel, and for the Lebanese army, which had never defended Lebanon, let alone its south, to come up with a national defense plan.  Thirty years of proven Israeli brutality and 60 years of Lebanese government neglect of the south gave Hizballah a raison d’etre its leadership insisted it did not want.

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It was this culture of resistance that led to Hizballah’s surprise victory in what is now being called in Lebanon “the Sixth War” with Israel. (A note on my usage of “surprise victory”: If war is politics by other means, then Israel failed to achieve its stated political goals of disarming Hizballah and pushing it north of the Litani River; so too did it fail to achieve its unstated goals of cleansing the south of all Shias and intimidating Lebanese and Palestinian resistance— two failures that even Israel’s own generals are beginning to admit. Hizballah, on the other hand, not only survived the war intact, and with relatively few casualties, but it inflicted relatively heavy casualties on the Israeli military and achieved greater popularity than it ever had—winning the hearts of Muslims around the world, and many non-Muslims in Lebanon.)”

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As we Americans mourn our losses in the Sept. 11 attacks and in the subsequent war on terror (which has now cost more American lives than were lost in the attacks that provoked it), it is worth wondering: What exactly is terrorism? And if it is the infliction of violence on civilians for political reasons, then who are the terrorists?” Hizb’allah Party of God Truthdig October 3, 2006

 

 

“Over a year ago, I revisited Israel after a three-year absence. As my El Al plane landed in Tel Aviv, the intercom played an Israeli folk song of my childhood, “Its so good that you’ve come home.” Despite my cynicism, the child in me wanted to cry. I stifled the nascent tears, which I rejected as a vestigial remnant of the nationalist propaganda they had inculcated me with in the summer camps of my coastal village. Just like every other time I came, I was entering a maelstrom, new and unique, yet a mere variation on the same theme of bloody nationalism, paranoid identity and violent religion that defined Israel.

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My first morning in Israel I was awakened by the high-pitched voice of my grandmother shouting to other family members: “We will never give up the Temple Mount! It is the heart of hearts of world Judaism!” The Temple Mount is called the Haram al Sharif by Muslims. It is in East Jerusalem and both sides wanted it. I groaned to my grandmother my hope that they give back the Western Wall too, and pulled the pillow over my head. The day I arrived, Prime Minister Ehud Barak had indicated his acquiescence to a Clinton plan for Jerusalem’s partition. I had arrived at a time when the country was engaged in a violent debate over whether a bunch of rocks were more sacred than human life.

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Israel and the Palestinians cannot be reconciled. My father always spoke about the coming blood bath that would make Israel look like Bosnia and I am now inclined to agree with him when before I dismissed him as a sardonic veteran of three wars. “The Palestinians want justice and the Israelis want a compromise,” he told me. And never the twain shall meet. My father sighed, “It was a mistake for us to come here to begin with. Zionism was a colonialist idea. The Palestinians were the American Indians. It was not an empty land. The blood will soon be up to our knees.” I looked out the window and wondered if all this could be erased. I had been to Bosnia before, and I had seen the rotting carcass of a country.” This Broken Home Revisiting Israel April 23, 2002

“The powerful – whether Israel, America, Russia or China – will always describe their victims’ struggles as terrorism. The destruction of Chechnya, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the slow slaughter of the remaining Palestinians, the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, these will never be called terrorism.

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The Palestinians do not attack Israeli civilians with the expectation that they will destroy Israel. The land of Palestine is being stolen day after day. The Palestinian people are being eradicated day after day. They must respond in whatever way they can to apply pressure on Israel.

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It is not that Palestinians have the right to use any means necessary to resist, but they are weak. The weak have much less power than the strong, and can do much less damage. The Palestinians would not bomb cafes or use home-made missiles if they had tanks and planes. It is only in the current context that their actions are justified, and there are obvious limits.” Hamas has been targeted since it was elected The Nation December 29, 2008

On the pages of ‘Comment is Free’, Nir Rosen stated the following “in his own words”:

 

“A Zionist Israel is not a viable long-term project and Israeli settlements, land expropriation and separation barriers have long since made a two state solution impossible. There can be only one state in historic Palestine. In coming decades, Israelis will be confronted with two options. Will they peacefully transition towards an equal society, where Palestinians are given the same rights, à la post-apartheid South Africa? Or will they continue to view democracy as a threat? If so, one of the peoples will be forced to leave. Colonialism has only worked when most of the natives have been exterminated. But often, as in occupied Algeria, it is the settlers who flee. Eventually, the Palestinians will not be willing to compromise and seek one state for both people. Does the world want to further radicalise them?” Gaza: the logic of colonial power December 29, 2008