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In two recent Press TV debates I sided with the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah—not something one can do anywhere in the Zionist-dominated Western mainstream media.
First 25 minutes: “This edition of The Debate is about the US-engineered annexation of Palestinian territories to Israel. Political commentator William Spring and Middle East expert Kevin Barrett exchange views on this issue.”
Second 25 minutes: “This edition of The Debate is about the United States claims of Lebanese Hezbollah misusing state funds. Kevin Barrett, Middle East expert, and Fredrick Peterson, senior US Congressional defense adviser, exchange views on this issue.”
Speaking of resistance to Zionism…Last week I was annoyed when my colleague Rabbi Michael Lerner (who contributed to my books on 9/11and Charlie Hebdo) published an essay by David Mevorach Seidenberg arguing that Jews, and by extension Zionists, are the “indigenous” people of Palestine! I responded:
Dear David Seidenberg,
I share your ecological concerns, your ethical monotheism, and your respect for Indigeneity. I even share some of your enthusiasm for Jewish mysticism—I love the tales of the Ba’al Shem Tov, am a fan of Martin Buber, and in fact became monotheistic (by accepting Islam) thanks to a Kabalah class I fortuitiously wandered into.
But I also respect truth. And I think this essay plays on idealistic illusions in rather the same way that mainstream environmental organizations do, as revealed in Planet of the Humans.
While it would be nice if Judaism were an indigenous religion—it’s a pleasant fantasy—such is obviously not the case. Jews are by and large rootless cosmopolitans (which is not always or entirely a bad thing). In this they are proverbially like everybody else only more so. Very few of us are truly indigenous, tied directly to the land and making a living off it in pretty much the same way our grandparents and great-great-great grandparents did.
Though almost nobody today is fully indigenous, among those who are relatively indigenous are the Palestinians, the great majority of whom were, just a few generations ago, peasants with informal title to their lands dating back centuries. They have been genocided by Jewish rootless cosmopolitans, most of whom could very easily leave Occupied Palestine tomorrow, fly to any one of dozens of big urban centers on various continents, and land on their feet—which is in fact what precisely they all should do, after apologizing and paying reparations for the genocide they have perpetrated.
The notion of Palestine as indigenous Jewish land is a poisonous fantasy. Just as my Celtic ancestry does not give me the right to return to any ancestral homeland of the Celts to murder and expel the present inhabitants, your Jewish ancestry does not give you any such right either.
Your essay obscures these unfortunate truths, indeed seems almost calculated to obscure them, by pushing a big lie, a narrative that overall serves up the precise opposite of the actual facts.
I suppose it would be presumptuous to urge you to publish a retraction. So I will try to be polite and invite you to defend your position on my radio show. We could pre-record at a date an time of your convenience. Feel free to call or Skype me between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern.
Sincerely
Kevin Barrett