The Dalai Lama and Zionism – Tibet and Palestine

When Zionist youth leaders "travelled to India to help run a residential summer camp, they were invited to meet with the Dalai Lama, where they received his blessing for the project," reported Haaretz.
One Zionist youith leader "stayed to volunteer at a new, Israeli-initiated museum which documents the tragedies of the Tibetan people." In 2001 a group of young Tibetans had launched Longsho, a youth movement modelled on the UK Zionist groups, whose name means "arise" in Tibetan. Marc Bergen, a young Zionist who worked in Dahramsala claimed that Tibetans "want to learn from us. After 2,000 years, we got our homeland back."

The Dalai Lama's appearances in three Scottish cities tomorrow and Saturday, June 22nd and 23rd, were quickly sold out. The events are part of a UK tour which proclaims three "key themes...of non-violence, compassion and universal responsibility". Against a backdrop of rapidly declining affiliation to traditional Christian denominations, Buddhism is a modest exception and the positive response to the Dalai Lama's visit indicates the hopes that some place in him.

These hopes look to be seriously misplaced; while the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been proceeding without cease, while the Israel regime openly proclaims its plans to alter the ethnic composition of all the territories its military controls by building Jewish-only settlements and driving out Palestinians, the Dalai Lama endorses the Zionist youth movement as a role model for Tibetan youth.

Let us be clear; the Israelis share with the Chinese regime the practice of working more-or-less openly to dilute the element of the native population in favour of immigrants, as well as routine torture, shooting peaceful demonstrators, mass detention without trial, restricting outside access to the regions where human rights are suppressed, a lack of investigation of killings by the security forces and paramilitaries, and much more.

The Israeli practice and plan goes beyond that of the Chinese regime, however, in so far as it has long aimed to achieve the complete removal of the entire native population of Palestinians and is entrenching an extremely harsh apartheid system to control the natives while this dispossession and publicly proclaimed ethnic cleansing is carried out. Brutal though the Chinese regime is towards the entire population of the People's Republic, and harsh its suppression of nationalist sentiment in Tibet and other minority regions, there is no "Chinese Zionist" policy of trying to create an ethnically pure state by driving out the Tibetan population. Even under a brutal dictatorship, the Tibetans might see the Palestinian plight as even worse.

In the light of the above, we read that Israeli daily Haaretz in 2003 reported how the Dalai Lama was urging Tibetan youth to attend UK Zionist summer camps to learn how to emulate the Zionist movement. "Inspired by the Zionist youth movement model, the young Tibetans are in the process of establishing their own youth movement." In 2001 a group of young Tibetans had launched Longsho, a youth movement modelled on the UK Zionist groups, whose name means "arise" in Tibetan. Marc Bergen, a young Zionist who worked in Dahramsala claimed that Tibetans "want to learn from us. After 2,000 years, we got our homeland back." Marc did not say who he recommended the Tibetans should attack and displace after "learning from us", whether he thought Tibetans should announce Tibet as a Buddhist State where Buddhists would drive out the Tibetan Muslim and Christian minorities to prove they have learned well their lessons in Zionism.

The story involves a Liverpool woman who moved to Israel, then went on the hippy trail to India and "fell in love with" Dharamsala in Northern India where the Dalai Lama has his residence–in-exile. Kalela Lancaster's "experience...moved her deeply", to such an extent that she "stayed to volunteer at a new, Israeli-initiated museum which documents the tragedies of the Tibetan people." Kalela was so inspired by working at an Israeli museum preserving the memory of the tragedy of the Tibetan people that she asked young Tibetans to write essays on identity in exile. "I wanted to see on paper how passionately they felt about who they are and how that was affected by being in exile."

Kalela could have saved an airfare abd investigated how passionately Palestinians feel about life in exile, an exile the Liverpool woman is determined should continue, in order to preserve the Jewish nature of Israel.

Tibetans, like many other citizens of China, struggle against a brutal dictatorship; the crucial difference is that while the Chinese Government is committed to maintaining its harsh rule over Tibetans and every other national group within China's current borders, the Chinese regime harbours no dream of ethnically cleansing Tibet of all Tibetans. Key Ministers in the Israeli Government, on the other hand, openly call for the removal of all Palestinians from Israel

Back in Israel, Kalela had the sudden idea of "some kind of exchange" between Tibetan exile youth and Zionist youth groups. Kalela described one summer camp for Tibetan and Zionist youth: "The theme was freedom and slavery through the Exodus story. We looked at modern day issues that relate to freedom and our responsibilities." The Zionist youth have gone to Dharamsala for some years now and a have worked to train leaders of a Tibetan youth movement called Longsho ("Arise" in Tibetan).

It is difficult to reconcile the Dalai Lama's proclaimed commitment to "non-violence, compassion and universal responsibility" while he urges Tibetan youth to work with, and learn from, Zionist youth groups which are part of a movement that participates through military service in an illegal occupation and a programme of ethnic cleansing. The dispossession of Palestinians, purely on the grounds of their non-Jewishness, is carried out with great violence by murderous settlers and an army notorious for its massacres and human rights violations.

Ironically, Israel has been second only to Russia as an arms supplier to the Chinese Government. Israel is notoriously arms supplier of choice to many of the world's most brutal dictatorships. Israel enjoys a competitive edge in the global arms bazaar where its unique selling point is that its weapons, from white phosphorous to killer drones, are tested on Palestinians in the Gaza concentration zone.

There were other signs of the moral turpitude of some leading Scottish Buddhists. In 2008, Buddhist monk Kamburawala Rewatha Thero took part in a shameful interfaith delegation to Israel/Palestine whose participants variously denied there was any illegal Israeli occupation, complained of Palestinians even mentioning Israeli ethnic cleansing, dismissed as 'utopian' some Palestinians who expressed a wish to live together in peace and equality with Jews, and promoted a programme endorsed by extreme right wing Israeli parties.

Rewatha Thero eschewed all talk of human rights or apartheid and saw only a "need to develop more interfaith relationships built on love", presumably while the Zionist bulldozers continue their grisly demolitions. Shortly before Israel's massacre of 1,400 Palestinians in Operation Cast Lead, the monk saw signs in 2008 that his prescription for peace was beginning to be realised: "It was great to see that after more than 5 decades they are realising it, and have started to build from grassroots level." The spiritual group got on well, despite some being committed to apartheid and Jewish supremacy in the 'Holy Land': "We felt that we were all very close friends...Every one respected the others, their culture and religious beliefs." Presumably they would have "respected" any religion, however barbarous the behaviour of its adherents.

It seems everyone loved their guide, one Eliyahu MacLean. Mr MacLean is very committed to interfaith work, often hugging other members of other religions, but on the dark side he echoes the fanatics of the Temple Mount Faithful who campaign to demolish the Al Aqsa mosque as a 'pagan shrine' and build a Jewish temple on the site. Mr MacLean "would like to see a Temple Mount where we could all come and pray and cooperate together", presumable after the demolition of the Muslim mosque that has stood there for 1,300 years.

Religious figures shouldn't have an easy ride. Someone should ask the Dalai Lama and his followers some questions:

1. Do we accept the racism of the Jewish State towards non-Jews (e.g. Jewish-only settlements that exclude all Palestinians)?

2. Is it acceptable to express solidarity with those who actively support the violation of the Palestinian people?

3. Do we promote Zionist schemes for 'peace' and 'dialogue' while the violation of Palestinian human rights continues?

4. Do we see occupation soldiers – e.g. checkpoint abusers - as morally equal to the occupied Palestinians they abuse and kill?

5. Should we allow the Zionists to conceal their land grabs by suggesting the conflict is in some way 'religious'?
&
6. Will you join Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others and support the Palestinian appeal for boycott and divestment against their colonisers and dispossessors?

Mick Napier
Edinburgh 21 June 2012
chair@scottishpsc.org.uk