Obituary

On Mayday, a day of pagan symbolism and working class solidarity, Usama Bin Laden, the greatest trickster, the Loki of the planet, the closest reality ever got to having a real super villain, died. 

He died eerily, in the most absurd of hiding places.  As they've been saying, it were as if he'd been hiding in West Point, NY.  How absurd!  How embarrassing for Pakistan, and how embarrassing for him.  Burning his own trash?  What kind of comedy is this?  This bearded idiot out there at night with his henchmen, fanning the flames of a huge junk pile?  In a walled luxury McMansion in a Pakistani suburb?  

I want to know what it was like, to sit shoulder to shoulder with other suicide bombers, kneeling and listening with awe, looking up at his white robes, brilliant like an angel against the blue desert sky.  How did he sound?  What the fuck did he say?  He must have said the kinds of things that uplift the lost from their despair.  I hear he had a very gentle and soothing voice. 

He orchestrated mass murder for television.  He was a reality show host who charged us trillions of dollars to watch and participate as a contestant.  He charged us what little economic equality we had left.  He provided the consternation to distract us while our economic system became what Rachel Maddow tonight called "feudalism with cable."  He knew how weak our leadership would be, how the Bush administration would respond like a blustering ineffectual man o' war about to lose its empire.  For a man who hated music so much, Usama bin Laden's timing was perfect.

He knew us better than we knew ourselves.  

Hamas-Fatah Rapprochement

Fatah and Hamas have announced that they will form a unity government, ending several years of division.  Bad idea.  C'mon guys.  I can't begin to imagine how how hurtful the rift between Gaza and the West Bank must be, and how strong the desire for rapprochement with Hamas is.  But don't you see how much the Fatah/Hamas schism does for the Palestinian cause as a whole, crappy though it is?

Israel's entrenched right wing will always try to stop a Palestinian state from forming, whatever the cost.  To do that, they need the United States to back them 100% regardless of the moral consequences.  In order to ensure this, the specter of Hamas as anything more than an isolated faction must be rekindled.  So in order to shame the Israelis and obtain representation at the U.N., Hamas must remain your enemy.  As long as Israeli warmongers need Hamas, you can't need them.  They're terrorists in the classic milieu of Arab/Israeli bullshit.  They will get you nowhere.

So at the moment when the U.S. has the most Palestinian-friendly president ever, at a time when everyone's sympathy is with the struggling Arab protester (a role to which the entire Palestinian people have been consigned for so long), why do you sabotage yourselves??  The Israeli hawks are wetting themselves with excitement, reveling in your grave miscalculation.  They can now happily build more settlements on your land, justified by the need for more security ('cause you know building houses right next to people who want to kill you is like mad safe, right?).  Just as the Israelis know that building more settlements will destroy negotiations, you must know that negotiating with Hamas will do the same.  Perhaps you could have gotten away with it - but only after a decisive UN resolution in your favor!

Why did Fatah do this?   According to a UCLA history professor quoted in the above CNN article, both factions fear the spread of the Arab protest movement to their doorstep.  This professor, James Gelvin, considers the move insurance against possible unrest.  If they're more afraid of their own people than Israeli cluster bombs, well then that's really sad.

Whatever the reason, it seems like no one in this conflict is willing to make the right choices.  In fact, it seems as though both sides seek to make exactly the wrong choice at the most crucial juncture.  It seemed just as illogical, for example, when Israel began a settlement-building Blitz DURING the last round of negotiations.  But these choices only sound wrong or illogical to those of us who believe that peace is the right choice.  If neither side believes peace is a good choice - indeed, if both sides believe they have more to gain by carefully building up a fake peace process designed to be dashed at the most critical yet hopeful moment - well then, I guess it suddenly all makes sense.

PS of course, the rapprochement itself could topple a week from now.

PPS: I was about to post just now when I remembered a recent string of incidents where Gaza was infiltrated by Al-Qaeda militants.  Despite their similarities on the surface, Hamas and Al-Qaeda are enemies.  Most Al-Qaeda militants are from other Arab states, and the truth is most Arabs hate the Palestinians.  Could these skirmishes be an underlying cause for the rapprochement?  Only time will tell...