Aeschylus wrote the original play eight years after having participated in the sea battle of 480 BC, in which 310 Greek Ships under Themistocles beat off the attacking 1200 Persian ships lead by King Xerxes, son of the late King Darius. Xerxes mother appears in the show, Darius’s ghost is acting up also. Aeschylus was on the winning side, so was large part of the audience that saw the play. The Play probes the losers ambitions, the idea of empire, and was probably intended to off-warn similar development in Aeschylus’ own Athens. He achieves his goals of forewarning Athens by presenting a remorseful Xerxes, and by showing his demotion in his openness post-factum, Aeschylus tells generations to come of how war is misery. Dr. Mahmood Karimi-Hakkak explains in the program that in his Siena version, he punctuates scenes with contemporary sounds and imagery, so that by relying on what we know, we can then understand the misery and horrors that Xerxes caused, and how he concludes about himself as “a sad hollow, born to bring home …/ sorrow, sorrow … my heart howling from its bony cage.” But then, on the other hand, to bring the drama even more home to us, when Xerxes finally vanishes under the weight of the shields of the dead, those shields’ backsides turn to us as mirrors - now think - you folks how things are right here in our times!

We see The Persian as a man whose life is devastated by his actions and the effect the fall of his people had to cause his fall, which then effected even further his surviving people. The Editor of this version, Michael Sham, reminds us that Herodotus, the historian, was keen at saying that the World, history itself, as embodied by the Gods, mitigate against imperial designs, an overreaching grasp, an arrogant spirit.

“Xerxes’ recognition that he has gone too far and has angered the gods does not necessarily imply a reclaimed nobility; there is too little time for that.” The cruel end of Xerxes’ monologue reminds us of Oedipus taking the brooches and plunging them into his eyes. That is the spirits lowest ebb. The entropy or time’s arrow, has no return or forgiveness. The Greek tragedy is unidirectional. The play was a warning to the Athenians and to us. We are reminded that we lost our ways in Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Darfur. So, what is our future relation to Iran? Whose posturing in this arena is now tending to reach to the brink?

Again, based on the production’s program - “The Siena production attempts to create a bridge that spans our leaders unquenchable thirst for power and history of their arrogance. It is staged in the tradition of Persian Ta’ziyeh, an annual ritual performed on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, to help us remember how swiftly we forget the past and thus allow history to repeat itself. The method uses a theater in the round - with actors occupying the central space. In this form the actors at times break the dramatic illusion and speak directly to the audience.”

The Persians invade Greece - We Watch the Persian court:

Will they come home ? - Time Stretches Thin.
The Whole Fleet Went Down:  No War - Peace Now.

Never Again Silence.
Home Again.

Something Not Human Has Cut Our Forces Down.  The TV camera rolls in.  It was the Greek ship that opened the fight and every Persian ship went down.
Our men died of thirst and hunger.
He closed the Bosphorus and had them cross the sea.
How can this not be sickness of the mind that moved your son? Asks the old King that was resurected to hear the chant as happened.

The gate to the underworld is closed.

Q. Where are they now?
A. The sorrow is mine!

Q. My son too. I am stunned. The few that followed your carriage are back.
A. I am the leader - I mispaced.

Q. You Sped of defeat - Ships went down!

They are Gone, Gone, Gone.
They are Dead
They are Gone.

And the women hang on his neck the photos of their dead sons.
The music in the background is from Africa.
The photos weigh him down and they put on him their masks on his shield.

Before entering the enclosed round space of the show, we had the chance to look over stacks of statistics of the unhumanity of man-to-man.

I will just bring one of the 70-80 pages Mahmood allowed me to take with me:

After the show, while waiting for the Director, I spoke with a gentleman connected to the College, whose son was in the cast. The father was in Albany all his life and went to school also at Siena College.
He was here in the sixties. His generation at Siena protested the Vietnam war - Now his son protests the Iraq war. The father is now an environmentalist and gave me the reference to someone else who is                                             now an environmentalist active at the UN. He told me that the war is about oil and this is the wrong war. Is this going to war similar to the Persian King who went for an unexplained war against the Greeks?

This production was entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) and we hope that it will be given the chance to be seen outside its College home.

From The Asia Society’s “China’s Rise Series” - China’s Africa Strategy: On Trade, Aid, and Development.

May 5th, 2008, The Asia Society organized an interesting panel discussion chaired by Scott Malcomson of the New York Times, who is also a Member of PEN and the Council on Foreign Affairs. Himself an author of books on The American Misadventure of Race, on the falt between the Ottomans and Europe, and on the Pacific Islands. He had a very leger way of handling the three very different members of the panel and the inquisitive crowd.

Victor Zhikai Gao, a graduate of the Yale School of Law is Director of the China Association of International Studies (CNAIS) in Beijing - where much of China’s Official International Activities is being decided. With his understanding of both worlds he is also a welcome Councilor to the Asia Society and to the China Association of Mayors and the natural President of the Yale School Association of China.

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt was his opponent. She ones worked for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva where she was in charge of the activities in China. She is no fan of the UN in particular and is now working with the International Crisis Group on Prevention of Conflict with her area including North East Asia / China.

Harry G. Broadman, Economic Adviser for the Africa Region, World Bank, was the man in the middle. He once was also on the White House Staff of the Office of the Council of Economic Advisers, and practically all over the spectrum on China issues in political Washington. At the World Bank he authored in 2007 the volume: “Africa’s Silk Road: China and India’s New Economic Frontier.” We must note that he was quite aloof when looking at the arguments of the two sides. His position was the position of a pure economist who might miss a tidal wave that shows up unpredictably. We tried to obtain his volume for review purpose from the Office of the World Bank at the United Nations, but there was no cooperation on their part. i was told I can try to buy that volume. Did not provide me even his contact coordinates.

Broadman was given the opportunity to be the opening speaker in order to put China in the context of India’s much earlier involvement in Africa. He explained that a Chinese deal is a State-to State affair, while in the Indian case it is a medium size family owned company that comes to Africa. Interestingly he also remarked that the Indian who comes to Africa wants to be seen as African and not as Indian - this leads to an Indian involvement in local markets. China on the other hand comes in with large National company and markets from abroad via large outside distributors. (In short, as we remarked in our articles about the recent Opera Satyagraha, about the Indians in South Africa, they became settled African-Indians. No such thing with the Chinese. At least not yet at this stage.)

Later, Broadman also remarked correctly that Africa is a large continent and is very diverse. China on the other hand, though diverse, it is still one State. This makes it inaccurate to speak of China and Africa as if there were an equivalence here. Things are indeed much more complex. Much more nuanced views are needed. To this the moderator added the description of those two elephants fighting and killing the grass under their feet - so Africa is the grass. The Question about who are the elephants was left hanging. It is obvious that China is one elephant now. Is it possible that Europe is the other Elephant? Will It Become India In a Short Few Years? Any place on the grass for the US? Now, there clearly was no time to go further into details at the panel discussion.

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt pointed out that China is grateful to the African Countries for helping defeat the votes on Human Rights in China as well as for having a one China policy. North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma - that is where the tectonic plates of the West and of China meet - and it shows. Non-interference is a great way to secure a deal but not the security of your investment. 80% of Sudan’s oil-fields are in South Sudan. China realizes it has to deal also with the people of that area.

Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, there was kidnapping of Chinese personnel. Continuing to back Zimbabwe, a basket case, is not attractive. The overland pipeline in Burma needs stability. China is thus pressuring the parties to reach agreements.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the agreements with China stipulate that China cannot bring in more then 20% of Chinese personnel. In Latin America China got very little entrance in part because of the question of the execution of projects - they just did not want to see an influx of Chinese - besides, China likes to work with dictatorships that are happy when you let them line their pockets.

Gao, presenting China’s perspective on Africa, pointed out that China was called names unjustifiably. It was said that China is neo-colonialist - focusing on oil and raw materials with disregard of Africa. But this negates that China has already 50 years of relations with Africa - right from the start when it broke away from the Soviet Union and was isolated from the US. That is when China looked at the emerging states of Africa. China had no colonial experience and it was set aside from Europe and the US. The US with its legacy of slavery had its own burden in its relations with the emerging Africa.

Then, Africa, with its demand for lower and medium rang products - set very good marketing goals for China.  China could not buy UNICAL in the US, so they went to Nigeria and the US started to label them for that.

In a world where investment in oil is declining, it was China’s investment in Nigeria that can be viewed as having started an enlargement of oil production that brought more oil into the world market. China does not get most of this oil - this oil goes to the west. China has it easier to transport the oil from the Middle East!

Regarding the global oil market, China has to be brought into the discussion on reducing energy content in production.

When Question were opened to the floor -  Patrick R.D. Hayword, Director office of The Special Adviser On Africa, observed that Africans are not children and that he hopes that in the future, when Africais being discussed, there is also an African on the panel. He was amazed at the whole issue - Why is there so much alarm in this part of the world - from the fact that Africa has relations with China? To that there was total agreement, but Stephanie added that there is skepticism because of the way Zimbabwe is being backed- we would like here to note that the backing is both - from china and from Africa - and the problem is self-defeating except if you accept the proposition that you make friends by backing the dictator in power. Gao added that while the Africa push was enhanced during 1987-1990, the oil subject started only later.

Other questions dealt with: Food commodities versus soft commodities; Services provided by the Chinese are of poor quality - like the example of air conditioners in hotels with instructions in Chinese (to which we have to add that it seems those cheap hotels were built for the Chinese employees and for future tourism from China); UN peace-keeping operations and the fact that the UN cannot come up with UN Security Council Resolutions because of the looming China veto.

Gao explained that China was the first to send troops to Sudan, and that China has a top principle which calls for non-interference in other countries’ affairs.

Broadman added that China’s wonder was how it was able to feed itself. That is an area where the development partners were unable to come up with results. China helps thus in moving Africa away from only exporting natural resources into the production of food. NOW THAT IS SOMETHING TO REMEMBER WHEN TALKING ABOUT BIOFUELS VERSUS FOOD CROPS - CHINA COULD LEAD AFRICA AWAY FROM DESTRUCTIVE WESTERN FOOD POLICIES INTO AN ERA OF ENHANCED PRODUCTION OF FOOD WITHOUT HARMING ALSO THE PRODUCTION OF FUELS.

Gao added immediately that CHINA DID BETTER IN CREATING SELF-SUFFICIENCY in FOOD.

China has now a surplus of $1.7 trillion. Wealth it accumulated in 30 years. It came from exports. Talking about Sovereign Funds - China’s Fund got only $200 billion out of above amount.

Gao called for more people-to-people exchange. At this stage there are less NGOs in China then in the West. Stephanie said that actually China responds to head-to-head agreements, where lists of needs are presented, by starting deliveries 3-4 months later - something that would take longer time in the western pipelines.

nbsp;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/736197…

Darfur deaths ‘could be 300,000′. Says BBC Wednesday, 23 April 2008.

An estimated 300,000 people, about 100,000 more than previously thought, have died in the last five years of conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, John Holmes, humanitarian affairs head for the United Nations, said Wednesday. Sudanese officials dispute such high figures, saying only around 10,000 people have died. You can bet your lunch that the Africans will not bring this subject up at Durban II.

Not to be exposed to genocide does not seem to be part of Africa’s leaders view of human rights.
More than two million have been displaced by the conflict.
The figures released today are an increase of 50% from the previous figure of 200,000 killed in the five years of fighting in the region in western Sudan.
Mr Holmes gave the revised total to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York.
Sudan disputes the figure, saying 10,000 are now known to have died.
The previous figure of 200,000 came from a 2006 study by the World Health Organisation.
It included those killed in the fighting itself as well as people who died from disease and malnutrition because of the conflict.
The 2006 figure “must be much higher now - perhaps as much as half again,” Mr Holmes said.
He said the new total was an extrapolation from the previous figure and was not based on a new study.

Speaking later to reporters, Mr Holmes added: “I am not trying to suggest this is a very scientifically-based figure. It is extrapolated from the 2006 figure, it is not new research.” Mr Holmes said: “We continue to see the goal posts receding to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever.”

The UN Security Council is told of ‘high levels of sexual violence and exploitation’ in Darfur.
Mr Holmes’ comments were hotly disputed by the Sudanese ambassador to the UN, Abdul Mahmoud Abdel-Halim, who accused him of exaggerating the figure.
“These remarks by Holmes are not helpful, are not correct, are not credible,” Mr Abdel-Halim told the Reuters news agency.
“He should tell us who made that study, who commissioned it and how was it done.”
Mr Abdel-Halim put the number who died at 10,000, which is 1,000 higher than the Khartoum government’s previous estimate. The Sudanese number only comprises those who have died in combat, he said.

Eric Reeves, the American author of a book on Darfur, “A long day’s dying” says the figure may be even higher than that estimated by Mr Holmes. “We know that the figure has been far too low, for far too long,” Mr Reeves told the BBC.

“Mr Holmes said that 300,000 was a conservative figure. In my own view based on many mortality assessments, looking at all the data that I can put my hands on the figure is likely to be closer to 500,000,” he said.

He also said that the government in Khartoum was refusing to allow mortality studies to be conducted in Darfur.

Peacekeeping force: {that is the macabre joke!}

The Security Council was also told that the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur is unlikely to be up to full strength this year.

The joint UN-AU special representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, said troop levels in the UNAMID mission he leads “is at less than 40% of its mandated level of 19,555 and it is very unlikely to achieve full-operating capability before 2009″.

After the meeting, he suggested the force could reach 80% of its strength at the end of this year as attempts were made to accelerate deployment.

The conflict in Darfur in western Sudan began in 2003 after rebel groups began attacking government targets, saying their communities were being discriminated against in favour of Arabs.

In retaliation, the government launched a military and police campaign in Darfur, prompting 2m people to leave their homes.

Arab Janjaweed militia are accused of following up on government raids on villages with a campaign of murder and rape.

The Sudanese government denies links to the Janjaweed, but admits establishing “self-defence militias”. It says the problems have been exaggerated.

The Ohel Ayalah Community led by conservative Rabbi Judith Hauptman, a Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, held this year’s Passover Seder in the Banquet Hall of the First Presbyterian Church in the Village -on Fifth Avenue at West 12t Street.    The Haggadah that was used was “The Lively Seder Haggadah” by Dr. David Arnow that combines the traditional text with a look at our world today. The real world intruded into the deliberations at this Seder more then at the UN. Participation was by tables. There were 17 tables with the full house I estimated at over 150 people.

BUT SLAVERY IS STILL A REALITY TODAY:

And Just Look At a Story out of Sudan:

FOR THE THE PART OF THIS SEDER THAT TOUCHED UPON CLIMATE CHANGE - AN INSERT THAT WENT BEYOND THE ARNOW HAGGADAH  - AND SPILLED OVER INTO THE SERVING CUPS AND PLATES -
WE ARE RESERVING  A SEPARATE POSTING.

But, nevertheless, let us point out here that as per added material to the Arnow Haggadah, there were two pages written by Rabbi Jeff Sultar and Julia Porper, that point out that PASSOVER IS ABOUT RENEWAL OF EARTH-LIFE IN THE SPRING - something that in Hebrew is expressed as THE FESTIVAL OF SPRING - CHAG HAAVIV - as well as about the renewing of our freedom from oppression - OPPRESIVE TOP_DOWN POWER (as the insert says).

BOTH ABOVE ISSUES ARE RAISED IN THE DANGERS ENHANCED BY THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS.

Johann Hari - a “Comment” published by The Independent: Boycotting the Beijing Olympics won’t work, but here’s a proposal that just might. It’s not the protesters who politicise the Olympics, it’s the Chinese dictatorship.

{But the good article also says that it is all of us who want to buy the cheap China-manufactured goods. www.SustainabiliTank.info}

Monday, 7 April 2008

On the streets of London, the Chinese dictatorship has just learned with a painful jab that their Olympic Slogan – “One World, One Dream” – is true. In every city the Olympic torch sashays through on its world tour, its greeting is the same. Tibetans wave their banned flag and grieve for their freshly-slaughtered countrymen. Falun Gong refugees hold aloft pictures of their co-believers who have vanished into China’s vast “re-education camps”. Darfuris cry for an end to the massacres against them backed from Beijing. And ordinary people line the streets to support them. Yes, they all have One Dream: an end to human rights abuses.

But aren’t the Olympics meant to be apolitical, one of the few places where we can gather and leave our ideologies at the door? Yes. But it is not the protesters who politicised the Olympics; it is the Chinese Communist dictatorship. As the leading Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng – who taught himself law in a shack in Shaanxi Province – explained last year: “The Chinese Communist regime sees the hosting of the Olympics as political. They are using it to prove to the Chinese people that the world is still acknowledging the party as a legal government, despite all the suppressive and bloody tyranny, and all the horrible crimes against humanity the Party has committed.”

(Shortly after he issued this warning, Gao “disappeared”, as so many Chinese human rights activists do. With this move, the Chinese government proved his point.)

The protesters are simply trying to stop the Chinese dictatorship from continuing to wave the Olympics as a bogus global seal of approval for their cruel rule. Now they are asking: how do we keep disrupting the 100-metres propaganda sprint that takes us up to August? Should there be a boycott of Beijing?

j.hari@independent.co.uk

Kofi gets his Bounce Back.
An excerpt from Comment is Free, Guardian, March 25, 2008, by Ian Williams.

Last week, previous and present UN secretary generals Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon appeared together at the Waldorf Astoria on the occasion of the MacArthur Foundation’s presentation of its first International Justice Award to Annan. It was pretty much their first public appearance since Annan handed over the reins to Ban on January 1, 2007, and it was a significant occasion for both them and the UN itself.

The explanations for Annan’s absence vary. Certainly, in his ineffably polite way, he did not want to cramp his successor’s style, but also in the early stages of Ban’s tenure, his team paid too much attention to the “American” view - as expressed by the former unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, and the Murdoch press.

The vitriolic prejudice and attacks on Annan from Bolton and … did much to redeem the Ghanaian’s reputation with the rest of the world, but clearly influenced Ban’s team when they arrived, basically clutching Bolton’s “reform” plan in their hands. Their experience at the UN has clearly taught them a lot, not least about the qualities of the former secretary general.

It was Ban who approached Annan to undertake what seems to have been a remarkably successful mission to Kenya, and in fact leaned hard on the Kenyans to accept him.

In fact Ban and Annan have much in common. Both are humble men, in the best possible sense, confident enough in their own dignity to be approachable and personable, and they both have a strong moral sense that they do not brandish ostentatiously but manifest when needed.

In fact, a just criticism of both would be that they let their diplomatic duties muffle their use of the bully pulpit that the office provides. Even so, when he was campaigning for the office, Ban expressed his support for the “responsibility to protect” (R2P), and the International Criminal Court - anathema to Bolton, who had spent years trying to strangle it. { In effect, Ban may also have picked up from Annan on Climate Change after the subject was presented to him as a most important item for the future of the human ibvolvement with life on earth.}

Ban reiterated that support at the presentation last Thursday, giving due credit to Annan, whose chief legacy was indeed getting the whole membership of the UN to agree to R2P. In effect, at the sixtieth anniversary of the organisation the membership agreed to reinterpret the UN charter so that threats to international peace and security against which the security council can take action included humanitarian disasters within states where the governments concerned had failed in their responsibility to protect their own people.

Of course, with the bleating from Belgrade about “sovereignty”, the repression in Tibet or the continuing disaster in Darfur, and events in Palestine, a cynical and superficially appropriate response would be “Big deal! So what?”

Certainly there has been a loss of momentum behind the idea, not least as the non-aligned and African states that Annan recruited to the concept have stepped back in the face of western double standards. Now that a rested and recuperated Annan is back on the world stage, allied with Nelson Mandela, an equally respected world figure, he can return to advance the work he started.

It will not be quick. It has taken several thousand years for the precept “thou shalt not kill” to gain acceptance, and the R2P may take some more. However there are signs. Already, in Sudan for example, China cannot preach absolute sovereignty to excuse Khartoum, so it has come under heavy pressure for its abuse of its veto.

Marvin Belsky of FrontPageMagazine.com titled following article: “Tibet Needs Arab Oil and Universalist Jews.” www.SustainabiliTank.info obviously agrees with him because of his emphasis on the destructive political power of oil - but in this case we would have rather emphasized his last two arguments - those that dealt with the UN and the power of the media - specifically that part of the media that is called THE TUBE.

“The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China’s sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.

The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.

The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians — no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media — and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.”

The Full article follows:

A Tale of Two Peoples.

By Dennis Prager
FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/25/2008

The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.

Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world’s oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.

Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, “Palestinian” had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, “Palestinian” and “Palestine” almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.

None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel’s creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known — since the Romans renamed Judea — as “Palestine.”

But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians’ deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans’ near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.

So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?

The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people — first Jews, and then anyone else — was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, “Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics…” It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.

The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world’s most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.

The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel’s Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world’s hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe’s hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe’s guilt about the Holocaust — “see, the Jews act no better than we did.” Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.

A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.

A fifth reason is the world’s Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world’s media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.

The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China’s sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.

The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.

The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians — no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media — and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.

Dennis Prager hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show based in Los Angeles. He is the author of four books, most recently “Happiness is a Serious Problem” (HarperCollins). His websi