What Of The Palestinian People?

There are certain realities in the hundred-year-OLD war THAT IS CURRENTLY being aired on the 24-hour news cycle between Israel and Hamas. First, American politics have, and for the foreseeable future, aligned itself with Israel. Hamas has refused to retract on its founding principles that Israel must be destroyed, and thus have been declared by America and the European Union, to be a terrorist organization. Hamas is the duly-elected representative of the Palestinian people as a result of fair and open elections. Israel and America responded to Hamas' election by imposing a smothering economic boycott of Gaza, that has had a devastating toll on the Palestinian people.

Finally, there have been atrocities committed by both sides that blur the meanings of words such as "terrorist."

President-elect Barack Obama said in Israel this summer, "If someone was raining rockets down on the house that my daughters slept in, I would do everything I could to stop it." Who could not agree with the President-elect on that statement? However, even the Israelis knew that Obama's words were an act of political pandering to the Jewish vote, in a hotly contested Democratic Primary election. It was also a simplistic response to a nuanced set of political realities. Clearly, someone who gave a complex speech on race just a few months earlier, knew that.

The MORE POIGNANT questions for the President-elect are "what if someone built a fence around the south side of Chicago and then imposed an airtight economic boycott of those caged inside?" "What if the people were not allowed to travel outside of that wall, and WERE subjected to what former President Jimmy Carter described as apartheid conditions?" "What if the sole purpose of this economic boycott was to force the elected representatives from power?" "Would the President-Elect simply sit in his living room and watch his daughters world slowly strangled?"

And it must be remembered that the Palestinian people did not turn to Hamas because of its political ideology. The Palestinians had lost faith in the corrupt Palestinian Authority and what they saw as the West's unwillingness to reign in Israel's expansion policies into Palestinian lands through illegal settlements and the building of a security wall –on Palestinian land.

There is no debate that Hamas' adherence to radical Islam is a major impediment to peace. Only despots carry on a war in the name of God. It is unrealistic to expect that the person sitting across the table from you would trust any agreement as long as you openly called for his destruction. Even the Arab governments in the region despise Hamas.

However, the Israelis raining high-tech weaponry down on one of the most densely populated centers on the planet, simply cannot go unchallenged by the moral world. This war was launched as much for internal politics as it was for attacking Hamas.

It has become too exhaustive to assign blame to this mess. What is clear is that the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot resolve this conflict on their own. The United States needs to be honest brokers. No other President has come to power with the goodwill of the world AND THE ABILITY TO force the TWO parties into a meaningful and lasting peace AGREEMENT MORE than Obama. Obama needs to speak to the world with the same moral complexities that he did on race. To the shock of the media, America appreciated HAVING A MATURE DIALOGUE on its original sin. I suspect the world is ready for the same nuanced analysis on the middle-east, too.

To speak of Israeli pain and not mention the pain that Palestinian people have lived with since the formation of Israel, can no longer be this country's policy. The fact is - the people who have suffered the most in THIS mess - are the Palestinians families, who want no more than anyone else –a future for their children. In poll after poll, residents of Gaza support a two state solution with Israel as a peaceful neighbor.

When Barack Obama speaks of this crisis as President, he must speak not only of Israel's security, but also, "what of the Palestinian people?"

Checkmate Blagojevich

In an earlier blog I wrote that true criminals are often brilliant, charming and delusional in how they see themselves and the world around them. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a true criminal and naming Roland Burris, a former state attorney general, who has a fairly distinguished career as public servant is brilliant. Oh did I mention that Burris is African-American.

Now the ball is in the Democrats and Barack Obama's court. The Democrats have indicated they will not seat any appointment by Blagojevich. However, the Governor has the legal and constitutional authority to appoint the replacement for Obama.

The Senate has no legal or constitutional authority to deny the appointment. The United States Supreme court in Powell v. McCormack ruled that congress could not deny Harlem Democrat Adam Clayton Powell his seat in congress. Just two years earlier, the court in Bond v. Floyd enjoined the Georgia Legislator from denying Julian Bond a seat in that body.

Burris, on the other hand, has a legitimate claim to a United States Senate seat for the next two years. He is in no way implicated with Blagojevich's criminality. He rightly states that the citizens of Illinois have a constitutional right to two senators and he is answering the call for public service. And besides Burris is 70 years-old. What the hell does he care if Harry Reid is pissed off?

The problem that the Democrats have is that the reality of the white boy club called the United States Senate will now come into full view. The debate will move away from Blagojevich's sleaziness and possible criminality to 99 white men looking down their nose at an African-American from taking his senate seat.

You have to appreciate the move from that insane Governor in Illinois.

Give The Man The Oscar

I have watched Dark Knight three times since its release, twice in the theater and last night on DVD. I have yet to see Heath Ledger acting in that movie. There is no actor playing the Joker. There is an evil specter brought into the world of the living to terrify our souls by some Hollywood witchcraft.

As a movie, Dark Knight is closer to Sidney Lumet's classic Prince of The City, than an action movie. Dark Knight is about the dark side of urban living. It reminds me of why, on my nightly walk in Harlem, I stick to main avenues and not dare stroll down a side street. For down those side streets that are perfectly safe in day, may be lurking my worst fears. The movie is a masterpiece.

Heath Ledger turns Dark Knight into the best horror movie in a generation. It is as close to watching pure evil that I ever hope to come in contact with. It is Osama Bin Laden, Jack The Ripper, the Zodiac Killer and Son of Sam all combined in one. Ledger’s Joker is the nightmares of our dreams come alive.

Ledger forces us to contemplate - what if a serial killer did not hide out in caves in the mountains of Pakistan, or lurked in the shadows of urban neighborhoods stalking his victims? What if that serial killer was brazen enough to walk into the mid day light and declare "I am in charge"? What would we do? Would we, as the Joker told Batman, "turn on each other."?

In a memorable line when Batman asks "why do you want to kill me?" The Joker responds "I don’t want to kill you. You complete me." Maybe what is so frightening about Ledger’s performance is that deep down inside of each of us lives that evil. And that evil completes us.

Give the man the Oscar and cry that such a talent left us at the tender age of 28.