The time to light a candle is when darkness has fallen and hope has evaporated like mist on scorching desert sands. Though it’s just a flicker pressing itself against a vast and fearsome force, the fragile light becomes everything. It ignites life and dreams, comfort and hope. It doesn’t stiffen in static containment, it dances. It can’t confine its own existence, it illuminates beyond itself. It cannot fully die when extinguished as it has already broken through and darkness now cannot be complete. Light has shone. It’s already won. This is what resistance is. It’s not an equitable tug-of-war between good and bad, light and darkness; it’s a desperate push against an imbalance to force equity. Like an elucidating shadow within a transposed world, the light of resistance imprints itself upon the negative and stains it with a merciful tear crying for justice. So very chiaroscuro, this light.
Such a light needs to be put to the narrative. It’s narratives that drive injustice and narratives that need challenged. The open-ended tragedies of the Middle East are poignant examples of fabricated chronicles suffocating justice. From Palestine to Iraq, Afghanistan to Iran – reason and humanity are being crushed under the weight of a powerful tale of convoluted victimization and distorted blame. As is said of lies; those told first and loudest are those that stick. It is Israeli propaganda, the Hasbara narrative that is asphyxiating public discourse and poisoning otherwise charitable inclinations that are the true nature of man. It’s all so sobering mad, fantastically bizarre. An embellished horror fiction that has no ending, it’s a gloomy tale of perpetual suffering designed to illicit guilt-laden remorse from a world not guilty; but a world willing to cower. A tale beyond the pale – yet, told and retold. A tale of melodrama shared at Manhattan penthouse soirees and Santa Barbara golf clubs, it is an elitist woe, a tale of self-pity. Anti-semitism is everywhere waiting to erupt and keep us downtrodden. We suffer so. Written, mouthed, and accepted with hardly a whisper of doubt raised in any venue that might alter the course of devastation inflicted upon country after country, people after people. All in the name of a myth called “Jewish vulnerability.”
The Hasbara narrative draws its core, as all magnificent fallacies tend to do, from certain truths. In this case, the first truth is the Nazi persecution and genocide of millions of Europeans, the majority of them Jewish. A great tragedy of ghastly cruelties, it has become a centerpiece of modern Jewish identity. From this, true though it is, has developed an explosive anthology of eternal exceptional victimization that necessitates hyper-entitlement to impunity and rationalization for universal protection in an illicit regional protectorate, and the poor little rich girl diaspora. Though menacingly cited as proof and justification of such a unique arrangement, the Zionist agenda for seizing Palestine predates the Nazi persecution by six decades and was pompously promised by British Machiavellian lords two decades prior to Hitler’s rise. Cause and effect appear somewhat dubious, especially so when the Zionist narrative, gleaning from a second truth, attaches to its claim of long inhabited Palestina a biblical deed – literally and figuratively. Here is where the Hasbara narrative becomes more dangerous in both its storyline and its plot. And here is where it cements its listeners’ irrational allegiance to the cause.
For brevity; Jews lay claim to land once promised by God to the Hebrew people who did inhabit, after wresting it from previous occupants, and did also self-exile following the final destruction of the Temple and the crushing suppression of their revolt under Roman occupation. 18 centuries later, eastern European Jews of eastern European ethnicity (defining Jewishness gets very tricky – is it cultural, ethnic, or religious?) conceive the idea of a Jewish homeland. This idea develops into a political ideology called Zionism. It is important to recall the original speculation for a homeland was not Palestine, and the founders of Zionism were not theists. Nonetheless, ill-fated Palestine became the coveted choice and God became the coveted precedent for such a claim. (And you will hear this even today from those who identify themselves as Jewish atheists – land given to them by God. As if God is their useful idiot.)
Literally on the heels of defeated Germany and the end of the Nazi Holocaust, another horror erupts against the Palestinian people who have inhabited Palestine for centuries. Nakba. Armed with western authority decreeing the Palestinian Territories to be partitioned to accommodate a Jewish State, an unleashing of terrorism (the Stern Gang must have its special recognition in this endeavor) and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian Semites of Palestine is begun. However, despite historical records, photographs, films, land deeds, and news accounts, the Hasbara narrative denies it. With malevolent effrontery to those whose lands they stole and whose relatives they murdered, to those whose homes and furniture and olive groves they took, to those who fought and died to liberate Jews in Nazi controlled Europe, the tale has been maliciously revised. While hunting down Nazis across the globe and seeking Hague indictments of war crimes against any person alleged to be a “Holocaust denier” the Zionist tale claims 1) there was no Nakba 2) there were no people in Palestine 3) there are no Palestinians. It is astonishingly brazen and devilish, yet this is the narrative consumed by an American public who was long ago hijacked into the ranks of idolizing dupes convinced they must give their holy fidelity to a foreign country bleeding them dry.
Since 1947, the State of Israel has waged an escalating campaign of terror, apartheid, imprisonment of an entire population, ethnic cleansing, deliberate starvation and deprivation, torture, murder, dehumanization, administrative/indefinite detainment, illegal settlement expansions, six wars, refusal to adhere to international treaties, disregard of human rights, international assassinations, espionage, murder of US servicemen and civilians, a massive build-up of weaponry including 400-500 nuclear weapons, chemical warfare against the civilian population in Gaza, destruction of livestock and agriculture, false flag ops, racist discrimination laws, and a clear intent to seize all of Palestine as a Palestinian-free Jewish state. All of this done under the banner “we have a right to defend ourselves.” All of this done waving a never ending revised hit-list of countries posing an “existential threat to Israel.” All of this done while Israelis enjoy a higher standard of living than Americans, dual citizenship, free health care, free education, subsidized settlements, military protection against children, and a night life in Tel Aviv – boastfully dubbed the “gay capital of the world.” And all of it paid for by Americans. There is nothing historically to compare it to. It’s truly far stranger than fiction.
1,000 and one miles away … in every way; Iran, the Persia of antiquity and culture; the great civilization of Cyrus and of Alexander’s awe. Iran, the ancient Persia of literature, music, art, poetry, and cuisine that flavored the world with splendor and spices and fruits; with Tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Iran, home to 77 million people of diverse ethnicities, languages, and religions; a highly educated people who cherish their land, their history, their legends, and their historical importance within the diplomatic circles of the international community. Iran, a country with no wars of aggression to cite, no nuclear weapons to launch, and no desires to rule the world. Iran, a country one would want to engage if one sought peace. Iran, now dangerously threatened by the world superpower by instigative demand of a rogue country the size of New Jersey with the morals of King Herod’s court. (Herod was known to slaughter not a few children of the West Bank, too.)
I don’t know how to put to words the tragedy of this depraved path we are on. The beauty and antiquity of Persia; its 77 million people to be sacrificed in a hideous cold-blooded manner for the barbaric, narcissistic, foul pretenders in a country barely One Thousand and One Nights old? A nightmare for a dream? Not even Palestine alleviates this hunger. There will never be enough blood to quench zionism’s thirst for staging a vulnerability narrative. We must light a candle for Persia, for Palestine. We must change the narrative.
ofpeasantsandothermatters 
I am Palestinian ,female, born in Jerusalem 76 years ago. Was 12 when we were unceremoniously ejected through fear and terror!
We all know the History of that tortured Land. But thank you , Prof. Ciuffo for the beautiful manner in which you evoke the story of our people’s misfortune.
If poetry could express anything of the sadness and desolation, you have, sir.!.
I salute you.
Nadia Saba
God bless you and all Palestinians, Nadia. Thank you.
thank you, i couldn’t agree more and your strength and grace is appreciated.
Thank you, Annie.
so true,so tragic,beautifully written; thank you
Thank you, Nadia.
With respect, Prof. Ciuffo, how true is that “first truth” — “the first truth is the Nazi persecution and genocide of millions of Europeans, the majority of them Jewish. A great tragedy of ghastly cruelties, it has become a centerpiece of modern Jewish identity.”
Indeed it has become the “centerpiece of modern Jewish identity, but the fact that its truth value is protected by a firewall criminalizing counter narratives, even if factual, suggests a la “The Tell Tale Heart” that somebody knows there is something terrible that must be hidden.
One way to discover the “truth” that must be concealed is by studying the behavior and words of those who have insisted on erecting that firewall. One approach is to set their claims within an accurate chronology and context.
Zionism first planted its flag in Palestine in the late 1800s; by 1908, Arthur Ruppin had already conceptualized and built the plan to displace indigenous Palestinian trade, commercial activities, homes, and livelihoods (see Etan Bloom, “Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Hebrew Culture in Palestine”).
In 1936, when, by my calculation, Nadia Boustany Saba was forced from her home, the Nazi government was deeply engaged in attempting to revive Germany’s economy — Germany was in a state similar to US today, but instead of bailing out banks, Hitler designed and pressed forward autobahn construction plus plans for the first ‘car for everyman,’ the VW. These projects employed hundreds of thousands of hitherto unemployed Germans, giving them money, pride, and hope, and also the model for the interstate system that Eisenhower used to create the backbone of the last century of America’s prosperity, and ‘populist cars,’ the engine of 20th century American prosperity. No, Hitler did not like Marxists and Jewish Marxists (who had created and dominated Weimar), and in 1936 he was still working, to Germany’s economic disadvantage, with zionist leaders to transfer Germany’s wealthiest Jews and their wealth to Palestine. (see R H S Stolfi: “Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny.”)
For their part, as Edwin Black writes in “The Transfer Agreement,” by early 1933 Jewish leaders in the US and GB recognized that without that transfer of German Jewish wealth, the zionist project in Palestine would be bankrupt. German Jews were not willing to move to Palestine, Black writes.
In 1936, influenced by the Focus Group in London, Churchill was only just getting on board with the agenda of waging war on Germany in Western Europe, a scheme that FDR joined secretly and illegally early on, and a scheme that Herbert Hoover ardently cautioned against — see “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and its Aftermath,” http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1470
Thus, your argument and chronology has a hole in it: from ~1890 to ~1946 zionists was actively and brutally displacing Palestinians; actively collaborating with the German and Nazi government to induce German Jews to move their lives and wealth to Palestine — frequently, by propagandizing and hyperbolizing the “persecution” Jews were experiencing in Germany especially in the very early months of Hitler’s rise to power — see the difficulties Erich Larson has in supporting the narrative that “Jews were victimized” in his book, “In the Garden of Beasts” in which the ONLY death of Jewish persons that he can substantiate (between 1933 and 1934) are three suicides — two elderly friends of Max Warburg, and a young journalist who was about to lose her job.
The zionist propaganda campaign was a full spectrum effort: the five major Hollywood studios were run by Jewish immigrants from E. Europe, and all were part of the propaganda campaign to gin up hatred of “the Hun”, [later Muslims, and now Iranians] coordinated and financed by resources organized by Samuel Untermyer, who was also a chief ‘bundler’ for the Democratic party [shades of Sheldon Adelson, Aubrey Chernick, Haim Saban] who helped to place FDR in the presidency (see “Hitler’s Bitterest Foe,” by Richard Hawkins).
Zionists had significant media outlets in Germany, Great Britain, and the US that were coordinated to “manufacture consent” — draw the logical conclusion and contemporary application.
Vladimir Jabotinsky was criss crossing the US drumming up support for militant zionism and crossing and recrossing the Atlantic acquiring armaments, fomenting provocations, and forming zionist terror groups to fight the British as well as Palestinian Arabs.
You note that “Since 1947, the State of Israel has waged an escalating campaign of terror, apartheid, imprisonment of an entire population, ethnic cleansing, deliberate starvation and deprivation, torture, murder, dehumanization, administrative/indefinite detainment,” and the implication of the kernel of “truth” that you assert is that this “escalating campaign of terror” was a reaction to Nazi brutality, but as the brief chronology laid out above suggests, zionist activities “since 1947” are really a continuation — even escalation– of activities begun in the 1890s and carried on — “escalated” — throughout the period 1908-1946.
Facts are terrible things. Please fact check the above. I draw no concrete conclusions; I do suggest that the demanded narrative might not possess the “truth value” that is claimed for it. If we wish to learn from history, we have to have an accurate assessment of it.
The current situation is unsustainable, not least for Jewish people throughout the world; they will be an inevitable target should mad man Netanyahu get his wish. And the suffering of the Iranian people — as well as Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghanis, etc. — demands to prick the conscience of the world. None of these populations is going away — not Jews, not Persians, not Iraqis, not Americans. We have got to figure out how to solve this zionist problem, this Jabotinskyite quest for permanent war — in a different way than Untermyer and Jabotinsky and their acolytes the Netanyahus, senior and junior, ‘resolved’ it in 1933, 1947, 2003, and, with respect to Iran, from 1992-today. The first step in finding that different way of saying “Never Again” is by shining the light of truth on what really happened, guiding the perpetrators to repentance and reparations, punishing the wrongdoers, and reconciling the affecting populations to each other.
The Catholic church used to have a formula for the Sacrament of Reconciliation; it’s similar to the 12-step program for addicts (and war IS an addiction — see Chris Hedges, “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning,”). That formula is:
Confess our sins
Do penance (in 12 step, that includes apologizing to those harmed & making reparations)
Repent (that means, ‘look back’ — figure out what and why things wrong were done)
Amend [my] life
Amen
Ameen
Shalom
Brooks,
Thank you for your lengthy and informative comment. You are raising so many issues of enormous importance and consequence pertaining to the history of zionism and I am anxious to pursue your theory/links. However, it is beyond the scope of this post as I was not presenting a history of zionism, rather a brief history of the creation of the State of Israel and the false narrative that continues to pervade all discussions pertaining to the persecution of Palestinians post WWII, and the fuel that is driving the blood lust for war against Iran.
“Thus, your argument and chronology has a hole in it: from ~1890 to ~1946 zionists was actively and brutally displacing Palestinians; actively collaborating with the German and Nazi government to induce German Jews to move their lives and wealth to Palestine —”
As I point out in my post, the assertion that the creation of this modern state was necessitated by and borne of the events surrounding the rise of Nazism in Germany is false. Indeed, zionists were engaged in violent uprooting of the Palestinian people prior to 1947; however, my purpose here is to address the false narrative that allowed and encouraged and funded the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the false narrative that continues to support this regime. I am not addressing the history of zionism, but the history of modern Israel and the continued persecution of the Palestinians which is enabled only by this powerful fallacious narrative.
I thank you for raising the issue of zionism in a wider historical scope – perhaps a topic that also requires an examination on this blog.
PS The Catholic Church still asserts this reconciliation formula!
PS. Prof. Ciuffo, a Persian surely is aware of the terrible outcome of misinterpreting “prophesies” — i.e. ‘truths’ or ‘historical narratives, or at least Croesus, the king of Lydia was forced to that awareness.
As Croesus heard the Delphic oracle, were he to lead Lydia to wage war on Persia, he would “destroy a mighty empire.”
So Croesus waged war on Persia.
And destroyed his own kingdom.
Brava! How very true and applicable.
PS. I am not a professor.