New Government Offers A True View of Israel

Over the past several weeks, the rumblings from the new Foreign Minister of Israel, the right-wing idealogist Avigdor Lieberman, has met with predictable and justified derision from Palestinians and Westerners alike who see the aftermath of the new ruling-right coalition spelling almost certain disaster to any prospects of a two-state solution in the region.

To his credit, Lieberman appears to be assuming the mantle of agitator far too comfortably - recently stating that Israel would not be bound by the agreement reached in Annapolis (i.e. the roadmap to a two-state solution). Using the hackneyed conservative battle-cry of non-negotiation with ‘extremists’, Lieberman not only outraged the only partner available to Israel in the peace process, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but sent the country into an almost certain collision course with the new Obama administration.

Shoring up the damage, Prime Minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu quickly sealed a coalition agreement with Labour’s Ehud Barak - an all too transparent message to the U.S. that things had not yet ‘gotten totally out of hand’.

Forgetting for a moment that Ehud Barak as Defense Minister engineered the recent offensive in Gaza - and even neglecting the troubling fact that Labour governments in Israel have presided over massive settlement expansion in the West Bank over the past two decades - does this moderate ’shift’ to the left spell a more benign government - or rather, a government poised to take the necessary steps toward peace?

For those who have followed Israeli politics closely, it is clear that the ongoing policies of international belligerence and racial cleansing will doubtless continue - and perhaps even intensify given the empirical belief system endemic in the new ruling coalition.

Digging deeper, however, there may appear to be a modest silver lining - a bittersweet opportunity amongst the impending suffering that is set to befall the Palestinians (yet again).

For decades, Israel’s well orchestrated PR machine has been the envy of Western governments - successfully winning ‘the hearts and minds’ of Americans and many European alike - with charismatic spokespeople (usually assuming American or British accents) ready to defend the actions of the country on the nightly news or challenging television debates.

Israeli Spokesman to the UK, Mark Regev, Defends the Bombing of a UN School in Gaza in January 2009 on BBC Television.

While the PR is still very much in place, can it possibly be prepared for the daunting task ahead? With caricatures like Benyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and even Ehud Barak set to guide Israel into the ‘Obama Era’, can the world fail to see what has been expertly polished away for so many years?

Perhaps the only positive effect of the ongoing rhetoric from ideologues such as Lieberman, is the slim hope that the world will finally glean the true policies of the Israeli government. Policies that are almost identical to previous administrations.

With the message remaining the same, perhaps the best hope lies in the messengers themselves - a government that cannot help but show their defiance to the West’s growing desire for a fair and just solution to the illegal occupation and rights abuses of the past 60 years.

At the very least, ambassadors like Mark Regev will certainly be working overtime to cover their tracks…

A Simple Denial of Culture

It is difficult to avoid obvious cliches when contemplating recent actions taken by the Israeli police on Saturday to silence a small crowd of Palestinians in East Jerusalem from celebrating the city’s new designation as ‘capital of Arab culture’ for 2009. 

According to Al Jazeera, about 20 Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem were detained, flags and banners confiscated, and at one school in the area, balloons carrying the colours of the Palestinian flag to be released by children to mark the day were burst.

Celebrations in Nazareth (the largest Arab city in Israel) were also cancelled by police.

With absolutely no violence reported, it is almost impossible to justify or condone the rampant silencing of culture within a claimed  democratic state. Given the recent violence in Gaza, and its subsequent mobilizing of Arab sympathy across Israel and the Middle East, such brazen attempts to further suppress Arab expression must be seen as inciteful, and perhaps even taunting.

With Jerusalem following Damascus as the capital of Arab culture (an honour that is passed to a different city by the Arab League every year since 1996), this weekend’s celebrations and events were in no way designed to inflame discourse between Jewish Israelis and Arabs. Historically, the chosen city has marked the occasion with poetry, music, dance, and sporting events. 

In the media vortex that is ‘Middle East violence’, everyday facts and events like the freezing of cultural expression are often neglected, and their significance underestimated. Because the crucial subtext of this article admits the term ‘no violence’, these acts go relatively unreported in world headlines or in local evening news segments. 

This is indeed a pity, as in many ways the acts of the Israeli police on Saturday better summarize the ongoing denial of cultural identity that is occuring both within Israel borders as well as those areas in occupation whose names light up headline ticker tape. 

Perhaps even more urgently, it is crucial to realise that this story occurs every day, in a thousand places from Israel to Darfur to Tibet. Without the media catalyst of ‘violence’, rockets, and casualties, these stories seem less important - less weighty. 

Marshall McLuhan famously quipped, ““All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” 

It is difficult to deny this point to some degree, but the facts remain that meaningful stories do exist - and in a world of fully interactive and real-time access to diverse media sources, blogs, and digital opinions, it is everyone’s duty to find them.

Crossing The Lobby

As reported in yesterday’s Al Jazeera, President Barack Obama’s selection for the Head of the US National Intelligence Council, Charles “Chas” Freeman, has resigned from his appointment accusing the Israel Lobby in the United States of plumbing “the depths of dishonour and indecency” in its all-out character assassination campaign launched over the past several weeks.

Following a number of libelous e-mails sent in a rare ‘mass coordinated’ campaign to supporters sympathetic to the Israel Lobby, Freeman said on Tuesday:

“The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.

“The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favours.”

The resignation is not only a setback for Barack Obama (as yet another chosen appointee has backed out of a high profile position), but again highlights that lobby organizations such as AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) retain considerable power and influence even within Obama’s radically updated administration.

As we have witnessed in elite American politics, crossing the interests of lobby groups like AIPAC can spell political disaster - with most pundits speculating the recent attacks were engineered to not only remind the adminstration of the group’s influence, but to serve as a ‘warning’ to undecided US Senators facing difficult re-election campaigns.

Freeman has been a target of the Israel Lobby since his 2007 ‘pro-Palestinian’ statements, including his remarks that “the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation shows no sign of ending.”

It is worth noting that the above relatively ‘mild’ statements - which we in Europe would view as almost commonplace amongst journalists and politicans - can create such political turmoil in the United States. Moving forward, Barack Obama’s ‘New America’ will ultimately be defined by its ability to face harsh internal friction from lobby groups such as AIPAC - if not, the ‘new’ adminstration will look awfully similar to the old.

A New Showdown In Gaza?

Prime Minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu, while experiencing a difficult path to his future leadership in a series of failed coalition talks with the likes of Kadima and Labour, has revealed a glimpse into his future policy this past weekend by warning the International Aid community that no money or aid will be allowed to flow into devastated Gaza until militant rocket firings from the area cease entirely. 

Flying the face of Gaza reconstruction meetings taking place in Sharm e-Sheikh today - with attendees to include the new Secretary-of-State of the United States Hillary Clinton - the group of representatives covering over 80 countries are expected to announce an aid package in the billions to help relieve the humanitarian crisis and to provide much needed infrastructure and services updates crucial to the viability of a Palestinian state in the region. 

International Development Secretary of the United Kingdom, Douglas Alexander, an attendee at the meeting today, stated:

“There is a desperate need for tough restrictions on the supply of goods to be relaxed. Gaza needs money, fuel and construction materials, and whilst these goods are turned away at the borders, repairs to homes, water systems and the electricity network will remain impossible. Israel must do the right thing and allow much-needed goods to get through to those men, women and children who continue to suffer.”

As Netanyahu attempts to appease right-wing elements that will prove critical to his ability to form a coalition comprising at least 61 Knesset seats, his recent rhetoric will likely intensify. Although the various conservative ideological parties such as Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu have pledged initial support to a Likud-led government, Netanyahu needs to prove his ability to stand up to the International community and satisfy a slew of right-wing agenda points - all converging on the question of a Hamas-led Gaza Strip. Perhaps the only subject in agreement across these disparate parties is the case for eliminating Hamas all together - a goal that can only be achieved in direct opposition to current international pleas for a lasting ceasefire. 

Even more damaging for Israel, this afternoon the UK Guardian reported the international criminal court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority is justified in demanding a potential war crimes tribunal against Israel for their recent actions in Gaza. 

The combination of today’s reconstruction meetings in Sharm e-Sheikh and the recent news from the international criminal court will no doubt strengthen Netanyahu’s resolve, entrenching the would-be leader further in both a political battle for supremacy and an international stalemate that will exist long after the ruling coalition is decided.

Endgame

Looking through the latest news reports from Israel this morning, I am reminded of a few lines from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that seem especially poignant. In the opening scene of Beckett’s most famous play the two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, appear lost, mercurial and wholly unaware of their purpose or the fate that awaits them. In a fit of confusion, they angrily begin to question each other on their predicament - attempting in vain to validate their choice of time and place.

ESTRAGON: You’re sure it was this evening?

VLADIMIR: What?

ESTRAGON: That we were to wait.

VLADIMIR: He said Saturday. (Pause.) I think.

ESTRAGON:  You think.

VLADIMIR: I must have made a note of it. (He fumbles in his pockets, bursting with miscellaneous rubbish.)

ESTRAGON: (very insidious). But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? (Pause.) Or Monday?   (Pause.) Or Friday?

VLADIMIR:  (looking wildly about him, as though the date was inscribed in the landscape). It’s not possible!

Like Vladimir and Estragon, we also wait for the results of an election that most believed was concluded over 10 days ago. And like the two doomed characters of Beckett’s drama, many of us have attempted to rationalize and validate our expectations.

On Friday, with Tzipi Livni effectively ending any possibility of a (somewhat) centre-right government in Israel by refusing to join a Likud-led coalition, the endgame was decided - with Netanyahu almost certainly set to become the next Prime Minister with Avigdor Lieberman close by his side. Livni has described the likely partnership as an ‘extremist right-wing government’ - one she refuses to collaborate with choosing instead to lead an opposition party to help balance the dangerously conservative coalition set to take the reigns as early as this Sunday.

Interstingly, Livni’s party, Kadima, having been formed by Ariel Sharon himself - a man whose policies most Western political observers would recognize as far-right, militarily aggressive, and religiously motivated - has been characterized by the media over the last few weeks as ‘centrist’, a label that that can only be applied when compared to Netanyahu’s Likud, or Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu. Indeed, in attempting to discern the levels of ‘conservative’ between the parties in these last elections, the media has been forced to include titles such as ‘ultra’, ‘far right’, and ‘extreme right’ to describe the coalition that is set to govern in a week’s time. Thankfully, we have not yet been subjected to terms such as ’super duper conservative’, or ‘mega mega conservative’ - but of course only time will tell.

Leaving aside the range of what we in the West would consider ‘right wing’, and focusing instead on the inevitable combination of the three hardline parties of Israel likely to form the government - Likud, Shas, and Israel Beiteinu - it is important to recognize that the only common ground these groups occupy is perhaps the media’s defined nomenclature of ‘more conservative’ than Kadima.

As a minor example of the contrasting sentiments of the new coalition’s leaders, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - the spiritual leader of the ‘mega’ religious right-wing Shas party - recently called Avigdor Lieberman “the devil”. Netanyahu himself has been loathe to award any power to his long-time rivals - and as publicly stated over the past month, everyone involved in this ‘conservative coalition’ thinks the other is either too conservative, dangerously imbalanced, or not nearly conservative enough.

None of this bodes particularly well for populations living on either side of the Green Line - or more widely, throughout the entire region.

Perhaps in the end, the rest of us watching from afar are not like Vladimir and Estragon after all. Perhaps the metaphor of a quarreling, confused collection of absurdist characters should be applied elsewhere.

A King Maker Arrives

With roughly 48 hours to go until President Shimon Peres formally selects either Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni or Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition government, the Knesset ‘horse-trading’ is well underway, with both parties working hard to secure the support of perhaps the election’s biggest winner, Israel Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman. 

Holding a projected 15 seats in the new Israeli Knesset when final tallies arrive on Wednesday - and in effect making himself available to the highest bidder - Lieberman now has the enviable position of selecting the best offer, truly inheriting the ‘King Maker’ title he has been hesitant to acknowledge the past week. 

According to today’s Jerusalem Post, Lieberman has already met with both party leaders over the weekend and although it would appear Netanyahu’s Likud would be the more ‘natural’ fit,  is shrewdly refusing to divulge any current preference. And why should he? With Livni likely offering his party (and by extension himself) attractive roles in the Foreign or Defence ministries in an attempt to best a similar Likud offer, the quesiton is no longer who will be the next Prime Minister, but more appropriately, how powerful will Avigdor Lieberman become. 

Earlier on Monday MK Stas Misezhnikov,  a key figure in Lieberman’s negotiating team, stated to the Jerusalem Post that the party would only settle (in either case) for one of Israel’s top three ministeries - Defense, Foreign, or Finance. With both parties likely to make further concessions to Mr. Lieberman in the proceeding 48 hours, it is doubtful he will ’settle’ for the position of Finance Minister, and instead will insist on either the Foreign or Defense ministries - arguably two of the most powerful positions in government.

Given Lieberman’s rather outspoken views on Palestinian loyalty and previously documented proposals for full racial seperation, his ascendency to one of top three posts in the government spells certain dismay for the Palestinian Authority and by extension, U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans for a negotiated peace settlement in the forseeable future. 

With a majority of Arab States alongside the Palestinian Authority labelling Mr. Lieberman a racist and a clear detriment to the peace process, the next few days will be very tense indeed. 

Perhaps more sobering, this could be the first Israeli election in history where the role of Prime Minister seems altogether unimportant.

A Box Of Chocolates

It is a pity Forrest Gump was never asked to elaborate on his views of Israeli politics. Had Robert Zemeckis added that dimension to his 1994 pseudo-epic, we might have been treated to yet another analogy featuring the now famous ‘box of chocolates’.

Indeed when it comes to Israeli politics and its subsequent elections - one never knows what one will get.

Following the apparent victory of Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party on Tuesday, most of the world awoke on Wednesday to the prospect of a Kadima-led coalition with Livni as the new Prime Minister. That’s how normal Democratic elections work, right.

Wrong.

As anyone following the situation this week can attest, navigating the maze of the Israeli election process is not unlike the Democratic Party Nomination cycle in the United States - a system rife with complications.

So here goes.

In order for an Israeli political party to win an outright victory to govern alone, they are required to capture over 50% of the total seats in the Israeli Parliament. As the Parliament (or Knesset) has a total of 120 representatives, it is therefore necessary for said political party to acquire a minimum of 61 seats.

So far so good.

In the case of the past week, both Kadima and Likud (the two leading parties in this election) fell well short of the required 61 seats to allow either a clear and autonomous victory. Early predictions put the total seats won by Kadima at 28, and Likud at 27. The ultra-right wing Yisrael Beitenu Party led by Avigdor Lieberman came in third, capturing  roughly 15 seats.

This is where it gets fuzzy.

In order for any party to form a government, its leader (i.e. Livni or Netanyahu) must demonstrate an ability to cobble together 61+ seats in the Knesset primarily through allying with rival parties in the formation of a ‘ruling coalition’.

So who has the best chance of making this happen?

As the fall of the Labour Party, and subsequent rise of far-right parties such as Shas and Yisrael Beitenu demonstrate, the Israeli political system is moving clearly to the right. With the large number of total seats in the hands of far-right parties (including Likud), it is very possible Benyamin Netanyahu will be viewed as the most likely candidate to form a majority coalition government.

Next week, President Shimon Peres will consult all 12 parties in the new parliament, and based on their feedback and party preferences, will choose Netanyahu or Livni to try to form a government. Incidently, the Israeli President is elected every 7 years, and while wearing an illustrious title, is more of a figure-head rather than a ruling Head of State.

So the election is not really a decisive election. And a winner is not really a winner. Well, not yet at least.

Perhaps it is simply best to avoid all this for now. Or as Mr. Gump would do, “Run Forrest, run…!”

Harsh And Disproportionate

On Monday Defense Minister Ehud Barak reassured the Israeli public that Operation ‘Cast Lead’ had been successful in curbing Hamas rocket attacks and dealing a fatal blow to the belligerent regime that continues to stand in defiance of both Israeli and PLO governments. Speaking on Israeli Army Radio, Barak hinted further strikes may still take place stating, “If we have to, we will hit Hamas again.”

Israeli politics have always demanded a macabre display of finger-wagging, threats, and brash military rhetoric. Some would call this the ‘language of the Middle East’. In a world where the ‘Arab’ understands only force (a phrase used more than once in the past 3 weeks), Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been playing his role to acclaim, adding an ominous warning on Sunday meant not only for Hamas, but for the uncooperative International media, when he predicted that a renewal of Hamas rocket fire will result in “harsh” and “disproportionate” action in Gaza.

“Harsh” and “disproportionate”.

These words have been used with such frequency by the world press during the Gaza campaign of the last month, that we have become all but anesthetized to their meaning. The famous political adage of ‘singing the enemy’s song’ cannot be understated as Olmert has in essence robbed the words of their meaning – defiantly accepting the challenge of the media, and forcing them to raise the stakes. 

Now that the Israeli government has publicly stated its strategy which has been illustrated with such bloodshed over the preceding weeks, how will the world’s media react? Rather than claiming the Israeli Defense Force will employ ‘surgical’ and ‘pinpoint’ strikes against military targets, the Prime Minister has told us all what we already know. The show of force that is endemic in the Israeli psyche (indeed a last method of survival of the current coalition government) will continue until the ‘politics’ are satisfied. Not before. 

Indeed with opposition leader, Benyamin Netanyahu criticizing the government for failure to eradicate Hamas entirely, we can expect the “harsh” and “disproportionate” reality to continue. 

After all, Olmert has revealed to us exactly how it will unfold. It is now up to the International media to respond to his challenge.

Fatah Enters The Fray

Now that we have reached the month ‘anniversary’ of the bloodshed in Gaza, let us review the political implications of the now (failed) attempt of Israel to depose Hamas in the disputed region. Not only has the death count exceeded 1,200 Palestinians (an enormous percentage of which have been confirmed by all major International Aid Agencies as civilian women and children), but the fragile ceasefire is all but a mirage - with the dramatic introduction of Fatah’s military wing (the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade) claiming responsibility for Wednesday night’s rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel. 

As expected, news coverage is beginning to tire of the images and repetitive daily updates of Gaza militants firing rockets into Israel/of the Israeli response (always overwhelming and disproportionate), and of the cries of NGOs and aid workers declaring an ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Bo-ring. 

What is perhaps ‘new’ and important to recognize, is the participation of the predominantly West Bank-based Fatah Party in the recent rocket attacks emanating from Gaza. Long viewed by the West as the ‘legitimate’ Palestinian faction and led by a recognized leader in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah is universally regarded as the only partner capable of continuing the almost non-existent peace process. In other words, the West’s preferred partner is turning militant. Not only that, the desired (and Western cultivated) belligerence between Hamas and Fatah is clearly melting away.

This leaves Israel - and the fate of the Middle East - in a precarious situatuon indeed. With Fatah’s military wing aligning with Hamas (perhaps signifying a precursor to a similar accord between the factions’ political segments), Israel is becoming surrounded. Worse, the West’s chosen partner (puppet?) is turning against them - and in the process, eliminating a key leadership with which to negotiate peace. 

It doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict what will happen next. A wider Intifada? Or perhaps a wider regional Arab conflict?

Sadly, both are becoming more probable.

How We Witness This War

Writing this post somewhere over the Atlantic en route to the United States with a few European newspapers spread around me, I can’t help but wonder what Americans are being told, or what they truly know about the disaster that is unfolding in Gaza. My original intention when I opened my laptop was to create a massive list of Human Rights violations, war crimes, and links to the articles I have just read highlighting the ongoing and irrefutable evidence of Israeli war crimes that are occurring all over Gaza - and have been for almost 3 weeks.

However, there is something about long-haul flights that prohibits the obvious and begs deeper consideration of the greater situation at hand and what as modern world citizens we are witnessing - and perhaps more urgently, how we are witnessing it.

I have been fortunate enough to have been granted access to two major newsroom broadcast centres in the past few years - CNN’s kinetic news floor in Atlanta, and the sombre and always proud newsroom of Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar.  I often juxtapose the stark difference between these two newsrooms as a larger metaphor for their divergent approaches to journalism and media responsibility.

The comparison is not difficult - CNN remaining firmly an ‘American’ news source with reporters camped well outside of Gaza (alongside almost every news organization in the world) - and Al Jazeera, deeply embedded within Gaza and providing the  most accurate picture of what is actually happening inside the heart of the conflict. But the metaphor extends well past access, with the nuances of the newsrooms providing a small glimpse into the greater (and divergent) approach to the trade.

In the Atlanta newsroom, you would be forgiven for believing you had stepped onto a Hollywood film set, with stylists, make-up artists, and yes, even a hairspray-attendent on call to adjust the appearance of the news-readers at any (and every) possible break. In Doha, by contrast, the feel is very technical (with plenty of lights and equipment) but given the relentless pace of their task, there is an unmistakable air of calm - of deep purpose. So laid back are the Al Jazeera presenters and support staff, that I was amazed I was even witnessing a live broadcast. Even more amazing when one considers the (now proven) military targeting of Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad and Kabul that makes even working in the Doha office a plausible hazard. As I walked around the Al Jazeera complex in Qatar, I was repeatedly struck by the devotion to journalism that is evident at almost every turn (from the quotes stenciled on the walls - including comments from Gandhi and Bob Dylan) to the outdoor monument to fallen journalists from around the world, proudly perched between the English and Arabic broadcast centres.

Media is about presentation. It is about appearance and delivery. It is also about journalism - a vocation while often (and easily) denigrated by outliers such as paparazzi and the tabloid press - remains a very necessary force for both good and evil.

As I cross the Atlantic and tonight will be watching CNN, Fox News or similar, I know the American people will not be receiving the entire story about the crisis in Gaza, much less the history of the conflict which is so crucial to understanding its solution. Rather, the sound-bites and news flashes I will witness will be choreographed, finely-tuned to fit within 90 or 120-second windows, and metaphorically, covered in make-up and hairspray. None of the raw images, the unrehearsed stories and desperate appeals - however disconcerting - will be allowed.

As we in Europe protest, and enjoy a wide array of press dispatches from across a broad spectrum of classically ‘conservative’ to overtly ‘liberal’ sources, our leaders remain hand-strung to truly voice what most of Europe is feeling about Gaza - fearing a stark departure from U.S. Foreign Policy, and carefully plotting the best path forward with a new administration only 4 days away.

So as citizens, where does the real power lie? Unfortunately not with Europeans, but most certainly in the hands of American citizens. We have seen the UN fail conclusively over the past week, issuing Resolution Order 1860, which aside from making a few news bytes, has done little to change Israel’s course in the war on Gaza. We have also seen a number of European leaders ‘demand’ an immediate ceasefire, calls that have been met with outright disdain from an Israeli leadership who have absolutely no fear of international criticism, save that heretofore un-voiced by America. With the full and blind support of the United States (a phrase that is even more poignant when one considers the media available to ordinary Americans), Israel will never back down from its desire to eradicate Hamas, regardless of the mounting civilian casualties and clear violations of human rights we know is occurring. The key is the United States, and the power rests firmly in the hands of its citizens.

We have witnessed a unity in America over the past year that has taken even the harshest cynics by surprise. The election of Barack Obama proved Americans can not only galvanize toward a new direction, but can swiftly act when a decisive moment is at hand.

And never has that been more required than right now.

I will keep an open mind this weekend as I thumb through the New York Times and Washington Post, hoping to find commentary or opinion pieces that match the European mood. But I cannot hold out hope that Americans will learn the truth about Gaza, its history, and most importantly, their vital place in stopping the bloodshed from CNN or Fox or ABC or NBC. Without news organizations such as Al Jazeera (which most Americans unfairly connect to images of Bin Laden crouched in a cave wagging an ominous finger at the U.S.), the truth will be very hard to come by here.

So perhaps this is a job for all of us.

If you see an American today, please pass this on. I intend to keep very busy doing just that over the next few days.

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