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There will always be a Palestinethecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.comBlogger827125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-65556665059522012722008-05-28T21:01:00.003+02:002008-12-11T00:11:20.419+01:00Petition: Lift Travel Restrictions on Palestinian Journalist!!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LSfKHE5y-5r3O6VMCP8QWFFil9_PrWsb-kjBQfhPrGfbb_EWziIVHPdkNkMDCBLTvh65lJK4f-WwB6hxnFduD9hkPyV083YZXyUqWSfP3mh0OJsD0aOnnRRW-fs-gaN0qPCAng/s1600-h/roadblock.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205506558233242722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LSfKHE5y-5r3O6VMCP8QWFFil9_PrWsb-kjBQfhPrGfbb_EWziIVHPdkNkMDCBLTvh65lJK4f-WwB6hxnFduD9hkPyV083YZXyUqWSfP3mh0OJsD0aOnnRRW-fs-gaN0qPCAng/s320/roadblock.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/petition.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">SIGN THE PETITION</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> To: Israeli and Palestinian Authorities - Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, who lives in the West Bank, has been invited to attend a media conference in Germany. As required, he set about to request all of the necessary travel documents, including a visa that needs to be granted from the German representative office in Ramallah. After routine questioning regarding his political affiliations, it was not only determined that he was not a member of any party, nor formally associated with any organisation, but it was clear that he had never been arrested or detained by Israeli authorities. Mr Amayreh was granted an entry visa to Germany. However, the Israeli military authorities have refused to give him a permit to leave the West Bank. No Palestinian can travel abroad without receiving such a permit beforehand, otherwise he or she would be turned back once arriving at the Israeli-controlled border terminal at the Allenby Bridge.<br /><br />Mr Amayreh then went to his local District Coordination Office in Dura, where he was informed that his information was forwarded to the Shin Bet (General Security Services) of the Israeli government. Then two days later, the GSS informed the Palestinian office that Amayreh was “barred from leaving the West Bank for security reasons.” No further explanation was given.<br /><br />His fortune in obtaining the required travel permission did not change as he applied to the Civil Administration Headquarters in Hebron, a metallic pen holding persons seeking the mandatory permission even to go to East Jerusalem for medical treatment, where it is not unusual to find them huddled and waiting their turn for ten or more hours, under the watchful eye of Israeli military watchtowers.<br /><br />The Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination Office in the West Bank was also unable to mediate on his behalf, as they too are entirely dependent upon the decisions, without clarification, evidence or justification, made by the Israeli Security division.<br /><br />There is indeed no justification for the violation of this man’s civil and human rights, and along with him, the rights of all others who are denied freedom of movement with no justification whatsoever. The Occupation authorities, while they have no sovereignty over citizens of the Palestinian Authority, dictate what must be done with those citizens and the world seems to consider the violation of their rights acceptable and normal praxis. These people are not pawns on a chessboard, but are individuals who seek the basic liberties that all democracies are obligated to provide for their people. The Palestinian Authority does not exercise its duty of guaranteeing civil liberties to its own citizens, and treats them as if they shall be subject to the whims of the Occupier.<br /><br />We ask for the immediate revision of the decision regarding Mr Amayreh, so that he is granted the documents necessary for him to exercise his freedom of movement allowing him to continue to provide for himself and his family in the work that he is employed in, as well as for the Palestinian Authority to assume a position that sets the freedoms of its citizens as a priority that is greater than the perceived “security” risks declared by the agency of the State of Israel.</span><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/petition.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/petition.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />SPANISH<br />El periodista palestino Khalid Amayreh, que vive en Cisjordania, ha sido invitado a asistir a una conferencia de medios en Alemania. Según la reglamentación, se le solicitaron todos los documentos necesarios, incluyendo una visa que necesita le sea concedida por la oficina de la representación alemana en Ramallah. Después de un interrogatorio rutinario relacionado con su filiación política, no solamente se determinó que no era miembro de partidos políticos, ni que estaba asociado formalmente a alguna organización, sino que fue evidente que nunca había sido arrestado ni detenido por las autoridades israelíes. Se le concedió al Sr. Amayreh una visa de ingreso a Alemania. Sin embargo, las autoridades militares israelíes se han opuesto a concederle un permiso para salir de Cisjordania. Ningún palestino puede viajar al extranjero sin recibir tal permiso con antelación, de otra manera sería devuelto una vez que llegue a la terminal de frontera controlada por los israelíes en el Puente Allenby.<br /><br />Después, el Sr. Amayreh fue a su Oficina de Coordinación de Distrito local en Dura, donde fue informado que sus datos personales habían sido enviados a la Shin Bet (Servicios de Seguridad General o GSS por sus siglas en inglés) del gobierno israelí. Luego de dos días, los GSS le informaron a la oficina palestina que Amayreh tenía “prohibido salir de Cisjordania por razones de seguridad.” No le dieron detalles adicionales.<br /><br />Su suerte para obtener el permiso de viaje requerido no cambió cuando solicitó el permiso en las Oficinas Centrales de la Administración Civil en Hebrón, un corral metálico para detener a las personas que buscan el permiso para ir a Jerusalén Este por tratamiento médico, donde no es raro encontrarlos amontonados y esperando su turno durante diez horas o más, bajo la mirada observadora de las torres de vigilancia militares israelíes.<br /><br />La Oficina de Coordinación de Asuntos Civiles palestinos en Cisjordania tampoco pudo mediar en su representación, dado que son totalmente dependientes de las decisiones, sin aclaraciones, evidencias o justificaciones, realizadas por la división de seguridad israelí.<br /><br />De hecho, no existe justificación para la violación de los derechos civiles y humanos de este hombre, y junto con él, de los derechos de las demás personas a quienes les es negada su libertad de tránsito sin ninguna justificación en absoluto. Aunque las autoridades de ocupación no tienen soberanía sobre los ciudadanos de la Autoridad Palestina, dictan qué debe hacerse con esos ciudadanos y el mundo parece considerar que la violación de sus derechos es una práctica aceptable y normal. Estas personas no son peones en un tablero de ajedrez, sino individuos que luchan por sus libertades básicas, mismas que toda democracia está obligada a garantizarle a su pueblo. La Autoridad Palestina no ejerce su deber de garantizar libertades civiles a sus propios ciudadanos, y los trata como si estuviesen sujetos a los caprichos del ocupante.<br /><br />Solicitamos la inmediata revisión de la decisión relacionada con el Sr. Amayreh, de manera que le sean concedidos los documentos necesarios para que ejerza su libertad de tránsito y pueda continuar desempeñando su trabajo para abastecerse él mismo y su familia, así como también que la Autoridad Palestina asuma una posición que le brinde la libertad a sus ciudadanos como una prioridad mayor a los riesgos de “seguridad” percibidos y declarados por la agencia del estado de Israel.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Sincerely,<br /></span><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?k1h2a3l4"><span style="font-size:85%;">The Undersigned</span></a><br /><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/petition.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/petition.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />French abstract:<br /><br />À: Les autorités israeliennes et palestines<br />Invité à une conférence en Allemagne, le journaliste palestinien Khalid Amayreh s’est vu octroyer un visa d’entrée en Allemagne par les autorités consulaires allemandes à Ramallah mais les autorités israéliennes lui ont refusé le visa de sortie de Cisjordanie. Cette pétition s’adresse aux autorités israéliennes et palestiniennes pour qu’elles permettent à Khalid Amayreh d’exercer sa liberté de mouvement.<br />Bien à vous,<br /></span><a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?k1h2a3l4"><span style="font-size:85%;">Les signataires</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">SEE ALSO: </span><a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/26/finkelstein-and-me/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Finkelstein and Me</span></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/28/petition-lift-travel-restrictions-on-palestinian-journalist/"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/28/petition-lift-travel-restrictions-on-palestinian-journalist/</span></a></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-27979619130364649312008-05-16T00:27:00.002+02:002008-05-16T00:31:41.844+02:00See you at the Palestine Think Tank!This blog hasn't gone away just when it's come back! I've been extremely busy uploading and editing dozens of posts for <a href="http://www.palestinethinktank.com/">www.palestinethinktank.com</a><br /><br />Make sure you bookmark it and visit it! Not only has it had great success with readers, many articles have been reprinted in sites such as Dissident Voice, Online Journal, AMIN, Mid East Online, Norman Finkelstein, The People's Voice, Redress, Rense, Al Jazeerah info, Rebelion, Alternet and quite a few more.<br /><br />Will be back to add more content here, as you can always check out 890 archived articles, visit the links, and find new articles that even PTT won't carry.thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-2287844962016283532008-05-10T17:20:00.003+02:002008-12-11T00:11:20.866+01:00Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry: Lies are Truth<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTrWy3DlpKhwpqBY3SA1FqhAJSdgasZ_AyekFhPxdinys6wxr-ho9ipAsZp6WwqzL0c5uD6h122LLC1QZd8b3xZLi6pZ9LIy6NbtyYFmfqc-YOF3TCahmQDGkGezRK7JefOh4PA/s1600-h/ihc.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198771173104148226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTrWy3DlpKhwpqBY3SA1FqhAJSdgasZ_AyekFhPxdinys6wxr-ho9ipAsZp6WwqzL0c5uD6h122LLC1QZd8b3xZLi6pZ9LIy6NbtyYFmfqc-YOF3TCahmQDGkGezRK7JefOh4PA/s320/ihc.gif" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">The people in the press staff of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry are talented science fiction writers. Almost nothing that they write has any bearing on reality, and it seems that they use Orwell’s 1984 as a guidebook for news dispatches. All that they need to do is look at the facts on the ground (terminology that was invented by the hasbara commission, more than likely, because it is something different than reality. It has a bit of the sense of imposition of a negative reality that cannot however be challenged by ‘ordinary’ people), and turn them on their heads. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. That’s exactly how the Israeli PR staff represents reality with their warped mirror.<br /><br />I do suggest, for those who, like myself, find some pleasure in reading nonsense to subscribe to their newsletter or to read it on their site. It is just about as absurd a thing one can find to read. The trouble with it is: it’s taken seriously by the Big Mass Media and a lot of the dispatch services never verify any of the information that is released. If you wonder just why everyone is so wrong about Israel and Palestine, look no further.<br /><br />On 7 May, this was their press release. I will deconstruct it. Their original in Israeli Blue.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;color:#3366ff;">Behind the Headlines: Hamas holding civilian population in Gaza hostage.</span><br /><br />How’s that for a shock headline? It is as if the people of Gaza are in a concentration camp and kept hostage. Well, they are, of course, but it’s not Hamas who has locked them in and thrown away the keys, but this does not matter. Israel KNOWS that people are going to notice sooner or later that Gaza has become the place on earth where the greatest number of people are confined and held hostage, but passing the stick to<br />Hamas is going to resolve any nasty questions about who is keeping them prisoner.<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">By seizing the fuel, food, and medical supplies that Israel is transferring to the Gaza Strip, and using the supplies itself, the Hamas terror organization is basically holding the civilian population of Gaza hostage.</span><br /><br />Ah, so all of these wonderful things have been delivered by generous Israel to Gaza? No one has seen any of it, so it must be the bad guys of Hamas who have diverted all of it and probably are storing everything in warehouses, or selling it on the black market. The crossings have all been closed, but no one should become aware of the fact, unless they wonder how a million and a half people can get by without replacement of the material that is consumed. Naturally, it’s not a good idea to indicate to people that a blockade has been made in order to break the resistance of these people, which at least are classified as civilians by the people who bomb them indiscriminately when it suits them. But for Israel, all that material has arrived, in fact, Israel itself is transferring it to the Gaza Strip! But since things have a material presence, they don’t just disappear, the culprit for these enormous quantities of goods simply NOT BEING THERE has got to be the bad guys. Hamas can’t let anyone see all the truckloads of material, including fuel, that Israel is donating. Seizing it for political purposes, so they can justify the uprising. Well, of course, none of that is true. Since the siege started last fall, nothing has entered into the Gaza Strip, and very little has gotten out. The population is indeed being held hostage, but Israel is doing a three card shuffle – blame it on Hamas (repeat as well that they are a ‘terror organization’ so that it’s easier to insert in a copy and paste journalist report.<br /></span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#3366ff;">Israel has continued to supply fuel, food, medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, despite Hamas attacks precisely on those crossings Israel must use to transfer the supplies.</span><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Israel has supplied nothing, nor have they let anyone else do so. Yet, to deny material sustenance would be a crime against humanity, because the occupier is obligated to provide for the people who are being occupied. However, Israel will state that they no longer occupy the Gaza Strip. “We left! The settlers are gone,” they say. Well, one does not have to have colonial presence to exact control over a territory. All that needs to be done is to control its borders, and Israel does just that: stick them in the prison and let them fight it out between themselves is the policy that Israel has decided to enact in order to bring Gazans to their knees or, failing that, make them beg for Fatah to take control of the elections Hamas won, therefore, giving Israel the electoral results they wanted but were denied. Israel controls the air space, territorial waters, offshore maritime access, and the border between Israel and Gaza, with most of the crossings being closed even for those needing medical assistance. Egypt controls the southern border. This means that they are committing crimes against humanity by denying Gazans aid, food, fuel and freedom of movement. But, they won’t admit it. In fact, that’s what the lie about Hamas taking the materials is there to cover.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#3366ff;">It is apparent that Hamas is targeting the crossings in order to prevent the transfer of humanitarian aid to the civilian population, thus both needlessly depriving its own population as well as causing an artificial humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Clearly, Hamas wants to create a crisis in order that international pressure will be placed on Israel.</span><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">It is apparent to those who invent this lie, and it is tragic that many believe it! Hamas does not have any control over the crossings of incoming goods. Nothing has been turned back or stashed away for the simple reason that nothing has been delivered! The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is far from artificial. It is real and evident to anyone who has access to view it. Clearly, the crisis was created by Israel, but passing the buck of the ‘international pressure’ is the only remedy that Israel can come up with. They have no intention to break the siege. It is in their interests to continue it to the bitter end. Unfortunately, neither Gazans nor Hamas can do anything to change this. We are going to see a long, hot summer ahead, and Israel is doing damage control.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Recent reports indicate that not only is Hamas depriving the civilization population, it is allocating the supplies for its own use.<br />Then, we get a flaming headline:<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#3366ff;">Hamas steal fuel from the civilian population</span></strong><br /></span><br /><a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1208870521477" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3366ff;">A Jerusalem Post report</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#3366ff;">, on the 29th of April, ( ) states that Hamas stole 60,000 liters of fuel from the civilian population of Gaza. This was confirmed by the head of the Palestinian Authority’s gas agency, who added that Hamas gunmen had raided the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, stealing at least 60,000 liters of fuel meant for the Gaza power station, for use in their own vehicles.<br /></span><br />Of course, this quote is in quite a few papers, all of them stating that Mohahed Salama stated as such to Israeli Radio. I’ve been unable to find any other source to confirm this. As a matter of fact, Israel doesn’t like to quote him when he stated something much more sinister:<br /><br /><span style="color:#999900;">Mojahed Salama, head of the PA Petrol Agency in Gaza, said that fuel imports Sunday showed a 40 to 50 percent reduction in diesel and benzene supplies and a 12 percent reduction in fuel for Gaza’s power plant. “We sent the supplying company the same daily requests, but they said they were sorry and that because of the new imposed sanctions they could only send us a reduced quantity”, Salama told Reuters. A spokesman for Dor Alon, the Israeli energy company that supplies Gaza, said the company had “received instructions” from the Defense Ministry and was “acting according to those instructions”.<br /></span></span><a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-172296528.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-172296528.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />So, who is stealing fuel from the civilian population? Ask the Israeli Defence Ministry all about their instructions.<br />Of course, these international reports are very worrying if one takes them by the soundbites provided by Israel. Take the London Independent report:<br /></span><br /><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-fuel-crisis-forces-un-to-stop-food-aid-deliveries-815427.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3366ff;">The London Independent</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#3366ff;"> reports on the artificial crisis caused by Hamas, which even caused the UN to suspend food aid to 650,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip after running out of fuel for its delivery vehicles. An emergency tanker sent to the Nahal Oz terminal was turned back by demonstrators, and was forced to return empty. EU condemns Hamas actions which lead to further suffering of the Palestinian population.</span><br /><br />Now, that sounds really awful. But, if someone actually did read the article they would find these quotes:<br /><br /><span style="color:#999900;">Both sides agree that storage tanks on the Gaza side of the terminal are full, with stocks of up to 1 million litres of fuel. But Mahmoud Khozendar, the distributors’ vice-chairman, said that was only enough to meet three or four hours’ demand. They needed at least 10 times as much as Israel was prepared to deliver.</span><br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Did you see what I saw? That last line kind of sticks like a pin in the cheek. They needed at least 10 times as much as Israel was prepared to deliver.<br /><br />And this quote from the same article:<br /><br /><span style="color:#999900;">Last night Hamas proposed a six-month cease-fire with Israel, saying the Gaza Palestinian group would stop firing rockets into the Jewish state if Israel lifts its blockade of the coastal strip at the same time, Egypt’s state run Mena news agency reported.<br /><br />The report came after a day of closed-door meetings between Egypt’s powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been mediating between Hamas and Israel, and Hamas’ strongman, Mahmoud Zahar.<br /><br />Under the international boycott imposed after Hamas seized Gaza by force last June, Israel’s declared policy has been to allow in enough fuel, food and medical supplies to keep people alive, but not enough for them to live well.</span><br /><br />So, even the best article that Israel propaganda experts could fine from an independent source point out something that doesn’t make Israel look too wonderful:<br /><br />Namely, Hamas has offered a cease-fire of the Qassam Rockets (which at any rate cause limited damage). It is willing to come to a solution to have the blockade lifted. Evidently, while this is what Israel claims is behind the blockade, when action is taken to do so, they refuse to accept it and blame Hamas of being terrorists and depriving their own people of things they need to live. Ah, but remember, Israel admits it will KEEP PEOPLE ALIVE, at some level of survival, but they are going to have to suffer. Sounds like Auschwitz to me.<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">On 24 April, </span></span><a href="http://domino.un.org/UNISPAl.NSF/22f431edb91c6f548525678a0051be1d/6ba1ff19f48d584f85257436004a58d0!OpenDocument" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3366ff;">the Presidency of the EU</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#3366ff;"> stated that Hamas activities were obstructing and even preventing humanitarian work by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).</span><br /><br />This is terrible news. Let’s see what else is on that press statement by the EU:<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">…the Presidency urges regular and unrestricted delivery of fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip in order not to aggravate further the humanitarian crisis there. The Presidency reiterates the EU’s call on all parties to work urgently for the controlled re-opening of the crossings in and out of Gaza for both humanitarian reasons and commercial flows.</span><br /><br />In other words, they are calling on Israel to put an end to their policies and to urgently act so as not to aggravate the humanitarian crisis that everyone knows is in full swing.<br /><br />But let’s conclude this press release.<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">Hamas nationalizing fuel supplies meant for the civilian populationIn another report, Nissim Keinan of Israel’s Second Radio channel reported on 4 May that Hamas was in fact holding the civilian population hostage.<br /></span><br />Who is this reporter? I never heard of him, but he’s very famous in Israel. Here is something to give us an idea of who our source is:<br />Nissim Keinan, nationally famous for his Voice of Israel broadcasts from the Sderot and Gaza regions, told Arutz-7 the IDF Gaza offensive accomplished a “drop in the ocean” of what needs to be done.<br /><br /><span style="color:#999900;">Nissim Keinan is the voice heard several times a day on national radio, reporting from the south on Kassam rockets in Sderot, terrorist activity from within Gaza, and nearly everything else that goes on in that area of the country.<br /><br />Speaking with Arutz-7´s Hebrew newsmagazine on Monday, Keinan said, “Yes, it was a successful operation, but it appears that the terrorist activity will simply revert right away to the way it was before. We’re talking about looking for a needle in a haystack - because Beit Hanoun, where the offensive took place, is just a small town of 30,000 people; but what about Beit Lahiya and all its terrorists? And what about Jebalya, and the entire area of the Shati refugee camp, and the Khan Yunis area, and Dir el-Balach - I mean, the entire place is swarming with terrorists. Just because you took care of one place and confiscated weapons and ammunitions, it still doesn’t mean that you´ve achieved the goals.”<br /><br />“In any event,” Keinan continued without stopping, “it´s strange to hear the army talk of such great successes, when really it was just a routine operation. They moved the Kassam launchers southward, true - but you can fire Kassams from the south too, you know, and they also fire them from the north. Yes, the accuracy of the firing has been impaired, but they were never accurate; they just shoot and it hits wherever it hits.”</span><br /></span><a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/115008"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/115008</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />The Summer Rain Offensive was a Drop in the Ocean of what needs to be done? So, Keinan thinks that </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/sep/07/israel"><span style="font-size:78%;">197 civilians and 48 children killed by the IDF</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> is a good and positive thing? Sounds again, a hell of a lot like Auschwitz to me. So, I leave you to speculate on his final words here:<br /><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;">He stated that Hamas has nationalized all the fuel supplies transferred by Israel for the civilian population, and for operation of the electricity plant, and is using it solely for its own purposes. In addition, food sent by the donor countries is allocated in accordance with Hamas instructions. Of the thousands of tons of grains, food and fuel that were transferred, none was able to reach the civilian population.<br /></span><br />All of a sudden, he cares about the civilian population of Gaza? And I am Santa Claus.<br /><br />See also </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/israel-has-what-you-like-jewish-week-article-on-hasbara/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Israel has what you like! Hasbara Instructions</span></a></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-89849844062393426962008-05-08T16:27:00.004+02:002008-12-11T00:11:21.193+01:00Gilad Atzmon - Anatomy of a Conditionally Unresolved Conflict<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLNZV49T6BOLBA8PmNEwIcXzywiapwsuYBy6rYWlHM27l3M7ZpQjjnhmbB1JQ7ZDzKCNksxQ085ZRo3k8PsMr6cno8Q623JJgMrjKd0dl_-eKrz4bZamgNgayNSII4CcZg3mdRA/s1600-h/Boogie2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5198016886460311570" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLNZV49T6BOLBA8PmNEwIcXzywiapwsuYBy6rYWlHM27l3M7ZpQjjnhmbB1JQ7ZDzKCNksxQ085ZRo3k8PsMr6cno8Q623JJgMrjKd0dl_-eKrz4bZamgNgayNSII4CcZg3mdRA/s320/Boogie2.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">According to Hegel, attaining 'self-consciousness' is a process that necessarily involves the other. How am I to become conscious of myself in general? It is simply through desire or anger, for example. Unlike animals that overcome biological needs by destroying another organic entity, human desire is a desire for recognition.<br /><br />In Hegelian terms, recognition is accomplished by directing oneself towards non-being, that is, towards another desire, another emptiness, another ‘I’. It is something that can never be fully accomplished. "The man who desires a thing humanly acts not so much to possess the thing as to make another recognise his right. It is only desire of such recognition, it is only the action that flows from such desire, that creates, realizes and reveals a human, non biological I." (Kojeve A., Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, 1947, Cornell Univ. Press, 1993, p. 40). Following this Hegelian line of thinking, we can deduce that in order to develop self-consciousness, one must face the other. While the biological entity will fight for its biological continuity, a human being fights for recognition.<br /><br />In order to understand the practical implications of this idea, let us turn to the 'Master-Slave Dialectic'. The Master is called the Master because he strives to prove his superiority over nature and over the slave who is forced to recognize him as a master.<br /><br />At first glance, it looks as if the master has reached the peak of human existence but as we shall see, this is not the case. As has just been stated, it is recognition that humans fight for. The master is recognised by the slave as a master but the slave's recognition has little value. The master wants to be recognised by another man, but a slave is not a man. The master wants recognition by a master, but another master cannot allow another superior human being in his world. "In short, the master never succeeds in realising his end, the end for which he risks his very life." So the master faces a dead-end. But what about the slave? The slave is in the process of transforming himself since, unlike the master who cannot go any further, the slave has everything to aspire to. The slave is at the vanguard of the transformation of the social conditions in which he lives. The slave is the embodiment of history. He is the essence of progress.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#6666cc;">A Lesson in Mastery</span></strong><br /><br />Let us now try to apply the Hegelian Master-Slave Dialectic to the notion of Jewish ‘chosenness’ and exclusivity. While the Hegelian 'Master' risks his biological existence to become a master, the newborn Jewish infant risks his foreskin. The chosen infant is born into the realm of mastery and excellence without (yet) excelling at anything. The other awards the chosen baby his prestigious status without the requirement of facing any process of recognition. And in fact, the ‘chosen’ title is given to Jews by themselves (allegedly God) rather than by others.<br /><br />If, for instance, we try to analyse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the Hegelian mechanism of recognition, we realise the impossibility of any dialogue between the two parties. While it is more than clear that the Palestinian people are fighting for recognition, which they declare at every possible opportunity, the Israelis avoid the whole recognition issue altogether. They are convinced that they are already fully recognised in the first place. They know who they are - they are born masters who happen to live on their ‘promised land’. Israelis refuse to join the dialectic 'meaning transformation' game and instead divert all their intellectual, political and military efforts into demolishing any sense of Palestinian recognition. The battle for Israeli society is to suppress any Palestinian symbol or desire, whether material, spiritual or cultural.<br /><br />Strangely enough, the Palestinians are managing quite well in their fight for recognition. More and more people out there are now beginning to understand the just nature of the Palestinian cause and the level of inhumanity entangled with the entire concept of Zionism and Jewish politics in general. More and more people out there find the Palestinian people and their spokesmen very easy to empathise with. Even the Hamas who were despised by most Western political institutions are now managing to get their message across. The Israelis, on the other hand, are falling behind in such manoeuvres. The average Western listener finds them almost impossible to sympathise with. While a Palestinian will call you to share his pain and misery, talking straight to your heart, the Israeli spokesman will demand that you to accept his views. He will insist on selling you a ready-made fantastic historical narrative; a repetitive tale that starts somewhere around Biblical Abraham, continues with a series of Holocausts and leads eventually towards more current bloodshed. It seems as if the Israelis, the masters, always present the same faceless story. Can Abraham and the Holocaust justify Israeli inhuman behaviour in Gaza? Not really, and the reason is simple, Abraham and the Holocaust and historical narratives in general do not evoke genuine emotional feelings. And indeed, the Jewish political world is so desperate to maintain its narrative that the last Holocaust has now been transformed into a legal narrative. The message is as follows: “beware, if you doubt my narrative you will end up behind bars.” This is obviously an act of desperation.<br /><br />Following Hegel, we learn that recognition is a dynamic process; it is a type of understanding that grows in you. While the Palestinians will use all their available, yet limited, resources to make you look at their faces, in their eyes, to carry you into a dynamic process of mutual recognition, the Israelis would expect you to accept their narrative blindly. They would expect you to turn a blind eye to the clear fact that as far as the Middle East is concerned Israel is an aggressor like no other. Israel is an occupying regional super power, a tiny State heavily engaged in exploring different nuclear, biological and chemical arsenals. It is a racially orientated apartheid state that bullies and abuses its minorities on a daily basis. Yes, the Israelis and their supportive Jewish lobbies around the world want you to ignore these facts. They insist upon being the victims, they want you to approve their inhuman policies referring to Jews endless suffering.<br /><br />How is it that Jewish politics has become aggressive like no other? It is simply the fact that from a Jewish political perspective, there is ‘no other’. The so-called other for them is nothing but a vehicle rather than an equal human subject. Israeli foreign affairs and Jewish political activity should be comprehended in the light of a severe lack of a 'recognition mechanism'. Israeli and Jewish politics, left right and centre, is grounded on locking and fixing of meaning. They would refuse to regard history as a flux, as a dynamic process, as a journey towards 'oneself' or self-realisation. Israel and Israelis view themselves as if they are external to history. They do not progress toward self-realisation because they have a given, fixed identity to maintain. Once they encounter a complex situation with the surrounding world, they would then create a model that adapts the external world into their chauvinist self-loving value system. This is what Neo-conservatism is all about; this is what the fantasmic yet sickening newly emerging Judeo-Christian discourse is all about.<br /><br />As sad as it may sound, people who are not trained to recognise the other are unable to let them be recognised. The Jewish tribal mindset: left, centre and right, sets Jews aside of humanity. It does not equip the followers of the tribal mindset with the mental mechanism needed to recognise the other. Why should they do it? They have done so well for many years without having to do so. Lacking a notion of an other, indeed transcends one far beyond any recognised form of true humanist thought. It takes one far beyond ethical thinking or moral awareness.<br /><br />Instead of morality, every debate is reduced into a mere political struggle with some concrete material and practical achievements to aim for.<br /><br />Hegel may throw some further light on the entire saga. If indeed one becomes aware of oneself via the other, then the ‘Chosen subject’ is self-aware to start with. He is born into mastery. Accordingly, Israelis are not practicing any form of dialogue with the surrounding human environment since they are born masters. In order to be fair to the Israelis, I have to admit that their lack of a recognition mechanism has nothing to do with their anti-Palestinian feelings. As a matter of fact, they cannot even recognise each other - Israel and Israelis have a long history of discrimination against its own people (Jews of non-European descent such as Sephardim Jews are discriminated against by the Jewish elite, those of Western descent). But are progressive Jews any different? Not really. Like the Israelis and similar to any other form of tribal chauvinist ideology, they are continuously withdrawing into self-centred segregated discourse that has very little to engage or grab the interest of anyone besides themselves. Consequently, like the Israelis who surround themselves with walls, the Jewish progressive cells have already set themselves into cyber ghettos that are becoming increasingly hostile to the rest of humanity and those who supposed to be their comrades.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#6666cc;">Historic Materialism<br /></span></strong><br />If one cannot establish relationships with one's neighbour based upon recognition of the other, there must be another way of establishing a dialogue. If one cannot form a dialogue based upon empathy with the other and the rights of the other, one must pursue another mode of communication. It seems as if the alternative 'chosen' dialogical method reduces any form of communication into a materialistic language. Almost any form of human activity, including love and aesthetic pleasure, can be reduced to a material value. The Chosen political activists are well practised in using this method of communication.<br /><br />Recently the Israeli ultra-Zionist author A B Yehoshua has managed to upset many American Jewish Ethnic leaders at the American Jewish Committee conference by saying: “You [Jews in the Diaspora] are changing jackets … you are changing countries like changing jackets.” Indeed, Yehoshua came under a lot of pressure following his remark, he was very quick to regret his statement. However, Yehoshua’s insight, while far from being original, is rather painfully truthful.<br /><br />It is quite apparent that some politically orientated Diaspora Jews are engaged in an extremely fruitful dialogue with any possible core of hegemony. Yehoshoua’s criticism was fairly spot on. Following Yehoshua, once it is clear that a new country is becoming a leading world super power, it won’t take long before a wave of liberated assimilated Jews would try to infiltrate into its governing elite. “If China ever became the world’s foremost super power,” he warned, “American Jews would migrate there to assimilate rather than in the US.” (</span><a href="http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2006/june/june30-1.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2006/june/june30-1.html</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">).<br /><br />A decade ago, at the peak of the legal battle between major Jewish institutions and the Swiss Bank, Norman Finkelstein stood up and said that very little remains of the Jewish Holocaust apart from various industrial forms of financial bargaining for compensation. According to Finkelstein, it was all about profit-making. Without any criticism intended by me about financial compensation, it appears as if some people are quick to translate their pain into gold. (It is important to mention that pain as well as being transformed into gold, can be transformed into other values such as moral or aesthetic ones). However, the possibility of transforming pain and blood into cash stands at the heart of the Israeli false dream - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the refugee problem, is resolvable. Now we know where this assumption originates. The Israelis, as well as Jewish leading institutions, are fully convinced that if they were happy to come to a financial settlement with the Germans (or the Swiss for the matter), the Palestinians would be equally happy to sell their lands and dignity. How do the Israelis arrive at such a strange conviction? Because they must know better than the Palestinians what the Palestinians really want. How? Because the Israelis are brilliant, they are the Chosen People. Moreover, the chosen subject doesn’t even try to engage with the human in the other. Sixty years after the Nakba, the mass the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians, the vast majority of Israelis and world Jewry do not even start to acknowledge the Palestinian cause, let alone do they show any form of empathy.<br /><br />When you talk to Israelis about the conflict, one of their most frequently used arguments is the following: "When we (the Jews) came here (to Palestine), they (the Arabs) had nothing. Now they have electricity, work, cars, health services, etc." This is obviously a failure to recognise the other. It is typical of the chauvinist colonialist to impose one’s own value system on the other. In other words, the Israelis expect the Palestinians to share the importance they attach to the acquisition of material wealth. “Why should the other share my values? Because I know what is good. Why do I know what is Good? Because I am the best.” This arrogant and completely materialistic approach obviously lies at the heart of the Israeli vision of peace. The Israeli military calls it ‘the stick and the carrot’. Seemingly, when referring to Palestinians they actually have rabbits in their minds. But, as bizarre or even tragic as it may sound, the Israeli born, ultra-left Mazpen movement was not categorically different. They obviously had some revolutionary dreams of secularisation for the Arab world. They obviously knew what was good for the Arabs. Why did they know? Shall I let you guess? Because they were exclusively and chauvinistically clever. They were the Marxists of the chosen type. Hence, I wasn’t overwhelmingly surprised that as time went by, the legendary ‘revolutionary’ Mazpen and the despised neo-conservatism actually united into a single catastrophic message: “We know better what is good for you than you yourselves do.”<br /><br />Both Zionists and Jewish leftists have a "New Middle East dream". In Peres’s old fantasy the region turns into a financial paradise in which Israel would stand at the very centre. The Palestinians (as well as other Arab States) would supply Israeli industries (representing the West) with the low cost labour they need. In turn, they, the Arabs, would earn money and spend it buying Israeli (Western) goods. In the Judeo progressive dream the Arabs leaves Islam behind, they become Marxist cosmopolitan progressives (East European Jews) and join the journey towards a world revolution. As much as Peres’s dream is sad, the Judeo Marxist version is almost funny.<br /><br />As it seems, within the Zionist dream, Israel would establish a dual coexistence in the region where the Palestinian people would be the eternal slaves and the Israelis their masters. Within the Judeo progressive cosmopolitan dream, Red Palestine will establish a dual coexistence in the region where the Palestinian people would be the eternal slaves of a remote Euro-centric ideology. If there is a big categorical difference between the two Judeo centric ideologies, I just fail to see it.<br /><br />However, according to Hegel, it is the slave that moves history forward. It is the slave that struggles towards his freedom. It is the slave who transforms himself and it is the master who eventually vanishes. Following Hegel, we have good reason to believe that the future of the region belongs to the Palestinians, the Iraqis and nation Islam in general. One way of explaining why Israel ignores this understanding of history relates to the conditional detachment of the exclusive 'chosen' state of mind.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#6666cc;">Welcome to Cuckoo land<br /></span></strong><br />Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian doctor who lives and works in the occupied West Bank, referred to Israel as "trying to be David and Goliath at the same time" (Dr. Barghouti was speaking at a debate at the House of Commons, 22 Nov. 2000). According to Dr. Barghouti, this is impossible. He also claimed that "Israel is probably the only State that bombs a territory it occupies." He found this very strange and even bizarre. Is it really strange to be David and Goliath simultaneously? Is it really strange to destroy your own property? Not if you are insane. The lack of mirroring (again, seeing oneself through the other) can lead people, as well as nations, into strange dark corners. The lack of a framework which would allow you to discern your own image through the other, the lack of a corrective mechanism, appears to be a very dangerous state of affairs.<br /><br />The first generation of Israeli leaders (Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Meir, Peres, Begin) grew up in the Diaspora, mainly in Eastern Europe. Being a Jew living in a non-Jewish environment forces one to develop a sharpened self-awareness and imposes a certain kind of mirroring. Moreover, early Zionism is slightly more developed than other forms of Jewish tribal politics for the simple reason that Zionism is there to transform the Jews into ‘people like other people’. Such a realisation involves a certain amount of necessary mirroring. However, this was not enough to restrain Israeli aggressive acts (e.g., Deir-Yassin, Nakba, Kafer Kasem, the '67 war, etc.) but it was more than enough to teach them a lesson in diplomacy. Since 1996, young leaders who were born there have led Israel into the state of ‘chosenness’ (Rabin, Netanyahu, Sharon, Barak, Olmert). Whilst in their earlier years they were imbued with an intense traditional Jewish anxiety, as they grew up this was overtaken by the legacy of the 1967 ‘miracle’, an event that turned some of the ‘chosen’ ideologies into a messianic extravaganza. This fixation with absolute power exacerbated by Jewish anxiety coupled with ignorance of the 'other' leads to epidemic collective schizophrenia, both of mood and action; a severe loss of contact with reality that gives way to the use of excessive force. The recent “Second Lebanon War” was an obvious example for that matter. Israel retaliates with machine guns in response to children throwing stones, with artillery and missiles against civilian targets following a sporadic uprising, and with a total war to a minor border incident. This behaviour should not be explained by using political, materialist or sociological analytical tools. Much greater understanding could be gained by situating the conflict within a philosophical framework, which allows a better understanding of the origins of paranoia and schizophrenia.<br /><br />The Israeli Prime Minister, representing both 'David and Goliath', can talk about the vulnerability of Israel, Jewish pain and Jewish misery in one breath and about launching a massive military offensive against the whole region in the next. Such behaviour can only be explained by seeing it as a form of mental illness. The funny/sad side of it is that most Israelis do not even realise that something is going terribly wrong. Being a born master leads to the absence of a 'recognition mechanism'. Inevitably it leads toward blindness. This lack of a recognition mechanism results in a split psyche, being both 'David and Goliath' at one and the same time. It seems that neither Israel nor Israelis can any longer be partners in any meaningful dialogue.</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-59068756016504244332008-04-02T10:44:00.001+02:002008-04-02T17:22:50.670+02:00Anti-Zionist = Zionist (if you are Tony Greenstein!)To anyone confused about the meaning of Anti-Zionism in the strange world of Tony Greenstein, here is a post of his to the Israeli Alef list. Worthy of Golda Meir!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Message: 2<br />Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:49:24 -0700 (PDT)<br />From: tony greenstein </span><a href="mailto:tonygreenstein@yahoo.com"><span style="font-size:78%;">tonygreenstein@yahoo.com</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">To: </span><a href="mailto:alef@list.haifa.ac.il"><span style="font-size:78%;">alef@list.haifa.ac.il</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />After the long celebration of "The Invention of the Jewish People" (in which I take side with Prof. Sand), perhaps now is the time to investigate "the Invention of the Palestinian Peoplehood". I believe that a very short research will discover that it was invented by the British occupation authorities right after WWI. Since the Philistines were absorbed by the Judeans during the kingdom of David (according to the Biblical myth, of course), there was nothing like "a Palestinian People", until the 20th century.<br /><br />Yedidya</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">ironically Yedidya is quite right. But for the Zionists there would have been no Palestinian people. It was the British Mandate and the Zionist settlement project which created this people who would otherwise be living in Southern Syria, Arabia or whatever.<br /><br />Tony</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;color:#ff6600;">And folks, he adds this, because I complained that what he said was Zionist information:</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Maybe Mary would like to explain why it is 'Zionist propaganda'. Or does she merely want to echo Jacob that the Palestinians as a nation have existed for 3,000 years? Nations are political and historical formations and the Palestinian nation or people came into existence as a result of Zionist colonisation of Palestine. There was no specific territorial entity called Palestine within the Ottoman Empire and the people within what is now known as Palestine/Israel saw themselves as part of the Arab nation and even Syrians rather than as Palestinians. Being Palestinian is a specific historical category, it isn't something fixed for all time and the temptation to write back into history from what has transpired should be resisted.<br /> <br /> Tony</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Mary responds: Tony, you used the word People. Or have you forgotten so quickly by trying to move the mirrors around? The Palestinians were a people since the time they inhabited that land, that is, as long as humanly possible, and if you don't seem to get it, read the comment by Ismail that I left on your blog. No, I'll reprint it here so that everyone can understand how mad you are and how clearly absorbed into the Zionist narrative you are that you don't even notice that you dismiss millions of humans and their belonging. </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br />Dear Mary:<br /><br />I find this unbelievable.<br />Where is the Palestinian state, that the zionists kindly provided to us? And who was living in Palestine [the land of Canaan] since history began, and long before the Hebrew tribes came to the Land of Canaan as invaders, and were driven out by other invaders, the Romans? Palestine has been invaded by scores of foreign invaders including the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Hebrew tribes, the Romans, the Turks and the British. Invaders come and go and have no right to conquered land anymore than the Romans to England which they conquered for hundreds of years.<br /><br />There are many honourable Israelis and Jews who knew the historic facts and had the integrity to speak out. I met and knew the late Israel Shahak in 1970, when we were both invited speakers at St. Andrews University in Scotland, on the subject of Palestine and zionism. When I asked him how did he get involved in this conflict, he told me hoerrifying experiences he witnessed the Israeli forces subjecting Palestinian university students to, in Ramallah, which are horrible to relate here. He described their activites to what the Nazis did to Jews in Belsen, where he was held. He said after what he saw in Ramallah, he vowed ro fight Zionism to his dying days, and he did that. He was a man of unique honour who deserve to be acclaimed by all those who care about humanity and justice.<br /><br />As to this outrageous statement you quoted, I'll let the late Jewish Professor Maxime Rodinson, who was Professor of History at The Sorbonne University in Paris, who stated in his book Israel and the Arabs, 1968: <strong>" The Arab population of Palestine was native in all the senses of the word and their roots in Palestine can be traced back at least forty centuries."<br /></strong><br />If that statement, you quoted, truly expresses the sentiments of Tony Greenstein, then I know where I stand in relation to this controversy, that I got involved in unknowingly.<br />I trust you do not think that, I hope...<br /><br />Interestingly, I see the name of Zalman Amit included below. What is his role in this?<br />He lives in our neighbourhood in Nova Scotia and he is a good man and a friend of ours.<br /><br />Thank you, Mary. I am simply bewildered, and I will leave it that. May be, I should ask Tony Greenstein if this statement represents his views.<br /><br />Ismail Zayidthecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-51144091713749762632008-03-29T10:34:00.004+01:002008-12-11T00:11:21.702+01:00Weapons used by Israel against LebanonA continuation of the reports from the Bruxelles Tribunal on the Israeli War Against Lebanon. By Mary Rizzo<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhagR070xV6GRJHpTz34MoBjFYTB8PaxqDGw9yXdmXCRBah08TGX1Lz0-J9SKzRPmgUQaZX7cHDctjRkTYSJW5PywwRKbguucLB5rAEOPTmLlr7CTmVn9A2INYzIUmNo5YzL_NA/s1600-h/explosion+beirut.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183095765540341538" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhagR070xV6GRJHpTz34MoBjFYTB8PaxqDGw9yXdmXCRBah08TGX1Lz0-J9SKzRPmgUQaZX7cHDctjRkTYSJW5PywwRKbguucLB5rAEOPTmLlr7CTmVn9A2INYzIUmNo5YzL_NA/s320/explosion+beirut.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Three expert witnesses gave scientific testimony about the weapons that were used by Israel against Lebanon in the war that lasted 33 days, as well as the effects these armaments had on people and objects. Lebanese nuclear physicist and expert in nuclear radiation measurements, Mohammed Ali Kobeissi, Italian Geneticist Paola Manduca and British Work Psychologist and independent weapons researcher Dai Williams each presented the results of their research, complete with corroborating data. </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Dr. Kobeissi premised his testimony with these words, “I am a scientist that was part of the scientific committee to investigate the state of things after the war. I don’t play politics and I keep the committee out of the declarations, but I know what I witnessed and the results of the research and I am here, speaking in my own name and assume full responsibility for what I say. I am not under the influence of any organization to declare anything but the facts.”<br /><br />The scientist was called to measure data in various places, but one in particular, the Khaim crater, showed measurements of uranium in the bottom of the crater fourteen times higher than the measurements on the edges. One of the first things he made clear that his independent testing needed to be verified in another laboratory so that his results could be confirmed. It was the necessary to send samples out of Lebanon for testing, since no other laboratory in Lebanon had the equipment necessary to measure the data. “We had to bring samples out, using soil samples and urine samples.<br /><br />"In its turn, and upon the request of the Lebanese Government, UNEP used something that is called a “smear”, which is a collection of dust samples. These smear samples were brought by UNEP to the research laboratories of the Swiss Army and they are connected to those of the NATO. To take samples, you have to be clever, because dust can be anything. What is relevant as far as weapons go is a specific type of dust which might be uranium dust or not.<br /><br />"Because uranium is the most dense metal of them all, at certain temperatures it is able to melt everything that it is in contact with and it actually serves as a guide, transforming everything around it to dust." Kobeissi collected two kilograms of soil material from a crater at Jallahieh, which was likely to have been hit by a bomb with a Uranium head, given the damage. "Our soil samples and urine samples were sent to Harwell Laboratory in the UK for uranium measurements."<br /><br />Kobeissi had made some of his own measurements, including testing the water that collected in one of the craters, and he had gathered enough information to be quite sure that this crater was indeed caused by the use of unconventional weapons, precisely those missiles with depleted uranium heads.<br /><br />When the report by UNEP came back from Switzerland and was published, he was very shocked at the results. “I read the report and what I was reading was poetry, not science! It was very descriptive regarding the case of uranium. The numbers obtained from the smear dust were far too small, compared to the analysis and measurements I made on the soil samples.” At this moment in the testimony, the scientist shook his head and perhaps recalled the thoughts he had at the time, looking at the devastation caused by the missile, “I pity the founding fathers of America that today this country is lead by Bush. To make weapons like this and use them against civilians and their homes is something I cannot come to terms with.” Later, Dr Williams would explain with more precision what these weapons were intended to do, but for the time being, we listened to a scientific presentation that was almost like the telling of a moral fable.<br /><br />“(Bernard) Kuchner came to Lebanon after the war and it happen he was visiting the town of Khiam. To convince himself he went down with me to this crater, because in a war that is conducted in inhabited zones where people are going to hopefully return to live, dirty bombs can’t be used. There are reasons for it, it will bring damage to the land and people for who knows how long. When I told Kuchner that dirty bombs were used, he said, <em>‘Impossible!’</em> but as soon as he saw the crater with radiation and he was witnessing that, what did he say? 'Well, <em>C’est la guerre’</em>.”<br /><br />This kind of disregard for the impact of the bombs being used in southern Lebanon, and the possibility that they contained radiation, was indicative of much of the attitude of the international community when it was mentioned that these weapons were utilised. The physicist explained that a bit of uranium is present in nature anyway, but beyond a certain level, it is extremely dangerous. Uranium is used to increase the power of thermonuclear missiles. Few nations have the capacity to produce these weapons, and as a matter of fact, the largest weapons used in the war were American made. In order to extract the uranium for these weapons, a process is carried out which results in the creation of another toxic substance that is known as Depleted Uranium. “This is the dirty bomb. It is the result of the trash that comes out of making other bombs or for nuclear use and it is disposed of generally by being used in other weapons. America gives or sells this trash to others, and the others use it against their enemies.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWGw_tk0tV888ziROz__wqBPYD_yhaUu3M5SMC6N6yqyU7Umi7adzKnDZyG-6eNlzsHPe22xQQsoZZwsbQatFcxz5kTpmcFRD1ZizV_3jz0y3IK2O038fqERxuS6VyiBFm0aslA/s1600-h/fisk-in-the-independent-on-cover.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183095271619102450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHWGw_tk0tV888ziROz__wqBPYD_yhaUu3M5SMC6N6yqyU7Umi7adzKnDZyG-6eNlzsHPe22xQQsoZZwsbQatFcxz5kTpmcFRD1ZizV_3jz0y3IK2O038fqERxuS6VyiBFm0aslA/s320/fisk-in-the-independent-on-cover.jpg" border="0" /></a> The next expert witness explained the effects of the unconventional weapons. Dr Paola Manduca is a Geneticist specialised in the effects on the human body of these new weapons, and in the past had also investigated the wounds from other victims of Israeli weapons, the people of Gaza. “Weapons of this sort do not distinguish between their victims. They are aimed at an area and those who are in that area are subject to the effects, whether they are military, civilian, adults or children. In this way, since these new weapons strike indiscriminately, we can also think that they have an ideological use. They leave wounds that are different than any kind we are used to. When the body is subject to the old kind of traditional weapons, the material that harms the body has an entry place, a bullet wound, cuts and abrasions that come from objects that are in disintegration, or foreign bodies that one can identify and possibly extract. In the case of these weapons, there are simply entrance holes in the body, internal damage, but no exit wound and no presence of shrapnel either. The wounds we have here are invisible wounds that give no clear answers to what they are. They cause dramatic effects on the body, spots, burns, incapacity for muscles to react, pain and so forth, but they do not have a clear cause, there is no specific ‘entry point’ at times and the variation of types of wounds on a single individual is also great. These wounds do not indicate how they can be treated. Psychologically, this is another effective weapon against whoever might be in an area where weapons like this are used.”<br /><br />She showed us many photos of the kinds of effects by these ‘new’ weapons, which she nominated as ‘experimental’ ones. “They represent a new development in the strategy of war.” Some of them are thermobaric, which means that they explode and reach high temperatures. DIME, Dense Inert Metal weapons cause extreme and intense heat which can be localised even to certain parts of the body. She showed pictures where one side of the torso was scorched and charred, and the other was unharmed. The damage from these bombs includes alteration of the DNA and reproductive damage, in addition to the severe tissue damage and deformation as from burning. “Then there are the bombs using Depleted Uranium but not only. There are bombs with Enriched Uranium. These weapons are deadly even though the period it takes to bring about their full effects is not yet known. They are still ‘experimental’ weapons, and therefore, not permitted to be used by international rules of war.” She showed examples of the effects of cluster bombs, white phosphorus, the use of microwaves and the bombs that were responsible for the damage of the crater that Dr Kobeissi had focused much of his specific presentation on, the Bunker Buster.<br /><br />“There has been lack of institutional response to the wounds that the victims had. As if they were simply caught in the crossfire of a standard battle. But this is not what happened to them. From within their homes and in shelters they were exposed to these weapons and their wounds are inexplicable, if not by deducing that Israel had used unconventional weapons that penetrated in ways that normal weapons are incapable of doing. I saw bodies covered with black powder, a kind of dust that darkens the bodies and when tested, the skin is tested as positive for the presence of iron. While some people were being evacuated from Bint Jbeil and Tyre, they were wounded, and I examined them. It is clear that they were exposed to unconventional weapons and it was a mystery as to the precise nature of these weapons. Three of the more seriously wounded people in this attack were brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment. They spent one month in the hospital.” When asked what the clinical reports were following the admission and treatment, Dr Manduca told us that they came back with no clinical reports whatsoever. “Whether or not any serious clinical investigation took place is unknown to me or to those in Lebanon. The fact is, that one may not obtain information from Israel. Whatever secret weapon was used against these people, we will never get information from anyone in the country that used it. Doctor or not.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtHx-LQ97vnNu1peoXER88GC8DMqDMvRjwNkzSKIXDWvk0FEdkMxtq4Doeow-Wu937Hu3k2UKpvD5pGCRKsY183e3yXcFI3-k7dMtwQOaJ1mHCYpSeVbI3zbXMnQIcIL2E6QprA/s1600-h/beirut_explosion.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183095619511453458" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjtHx-LQ97vnNu1peoXER88GC8DMqDMvRjwNkzSKIXDWvk0FEdkMxtq4Doeow-Wu937Hu3k2UKpvD5pGCRKsY183e3yXcFI3-k7dMtwQOaJ1mHCYpSeVbI3zbXMnQIcIL2E6QprA/s320/beirut_explosion.jpg" border="0" /></a>The third expert witness, </span><a href="http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/favicon.ico"><span style="font-size:78%;">Dr Dai Williams</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, stated that he was only going to make statements that could be backed by evidence, and he wished to qualify any interpretation he might make as being supported by scientific and photographic evidence. All of it, however, pointed to his conclusion that Israel had indeed made use of illegal weapons in the war.<br /><br />“One has to understand what a weapon is used for. There are certain weapons used for specific purposes. In fact, weapons are developed according to the aim that is defined by the military strategy of the conflict. Arms control legislation is ten years behind technology. I have been researching uranium weapons since 1999, focusing on the aspects of health and safety, and all of these weapons, since they are not allowed by any country as legal and acceptable weapons, are all classified as ‘secret weapons’. Not only are there uranium weapons, which are guided bombs having a warhead that is considered to be a ‘magic metal’ for its destructive capacities, but there are many other kinds of secret weapons; pressure waves, vacuum bombs and a combination of the two, weapons using depleted uranium, including a one ton bomb with a US patent dating from 1947, and high temperature bombs.”<br /><br />Dr Williams described in great detail the Bunker Buster, which is a bomb that has a specific explosion pattern and devastating results. Both of these were documented by a series of photographs and by testing the soil and water in the craters which occupied the space where buildings previously stood. “There is a military reason to use a Bunker Buster. It is because the military aim is to penetrate deeply into that space. In the case of southern Lebanon, they were certain that Hezbollah was located under the buildings and that there were stocks of WMDs or missiles, or else, they wanted to kill the people who were down that low, in the most sheltered part of the buildings, which the Israeli strategists claimed were Hezbollah militants. These bombs are not ordinary bombs. In fact, they are so large that only several places have the capacity to produce them, including the US. These are guided bombs produced in the US, which travelled via the UK and arrived in Israel to be used.”<br /><br />The Bunker Buster has a particular explosion pattern which Dr Williams called a ‘blast profile’. First there is an intense explosion and fire, followed by a subsequent explosion generally creating a great amount of dust. He showed photographs where it was clear that two distinct explosions with visibly different characteristics were used on some targets. “Then there are thermobaric weapons that use heat and cause physical wounds that actually show exposure to different kinds of temperatures that are registered on a single body. There are ‘flash burns’ where one side of the body is burnt, as Dr Manduca had already said. An unknown number of different kinds of weapons were used in these 33 days of war, and the estimates range from 50 to 100 varieties of weapons. On the 11th of August I went to the Human Rights Council, because the wounds that I had seen caused me to wonder about the nature of the weapons and I asked them to investigate not only the illegal weapons, but also to investigate the use of uranium weapons such as the Spike or Hellfire Missiles. What is important in these cases is to investigate the targets and I have to say that the International forces worked very quickly to clean most of the sites. In fact, what this did was remove much of the evidence that is needed to do a proper investigation of the sites. I asked for tests to be carried out not only on depleted uranium, but also uranium. The UN Environmental commission did not take the reports into account that I had carried out on the terrain, where I had evidence of uranium far above normal levels. As a matter of fact, and this is what is so sad, the tests that were carried out used unsound methods and only one site was tested. The site was declared ‘clean’ and therefore, the case was closed as far as they were concerned.”<br /><br />Dr Williams stressed the fact that there was no doubt that Israel had used weapons containing uranium. One of the ways of measuring the material that remains after a bombardment is to measure the chemical composition of the dust. A colleague of Dr Williams, Dr Chris Busby, had suggested that the best automatic dust collecting device is an automotive filter, so a filter that was in immediate proximity of a bombardment was sent for analysis. It was from a semi-destroyed ambulance that was bombed at Khaim. “There was a small amount of low enriched uranium in it. It is unusual to have uranium in dust, and this was definitely the consequence of a bombardment with bombs containing uranium. The quantity was enough to be an absolute fingerprint, small but legally sufficient. It was present in two of the locations that I tested, in Beirut and Khaim.” 200 samples underwent Gamma testing in Geneva. “It is logical that they came up with the wrong analysis, because they used the wrong test. This is not the appropriate test to analyse the presence of depleted uranium. Mass Spectroscopy should have been used.” He also showed the results of tests analysing samples of human urine of the people who were in the vicinity of the bombing there and the concentrations of uranium were high.<br /><br />Robert Fisk published the report made by Dr Williams, and it received a very negative reaction from the UN and Israel. “There was some collaboration with the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) scientists and Achem Steiner, but so much misinformation started to circulate that the inquiry was actually forced to be stopped.” The conclusions drawn from that by Dr Williams are unequivocal: “There are still the effects of the dirty bombs that were used on Lebanese soil and there are consequences of this that unfortunately we will not know as long as we do not continue investigation. One thing is certain, new arms control discussions are needed. Weapons are being used against people without any kind of control or adequate safety measures. We don’t know all the harmful side effects that can still be triggered, and this also reflects upon a negligence of the Lebanese government in not doing anything to investigate.”<br /><br />><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrykuWPHxW-9vYUrOwITUmst0gz6P2X6yH6OMijIrF8Wt0u3pKiKCPTugUCKToivFoaVIC7XFUjxcgEfEm3KM-ilXQgAVWnDif9si6qoZg9XdkvWLdPcRxfF0WkBCP_nmUoTiM2A/s1600-h/explosion.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183095473482565378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrykuWPHxW-9vYUrOwITUmst0gz6P2X6yH6OMijIrF8Wt0u3pKiKCPTugUCKToivFoaVIC7XFUjxcgEfEm3KM-ilXQgAVWnDif9si6qoZg9XdkvWLdPcRxfF0WkBCP_nmUoTiM2A/s320/explosion.jpg" border="0" /></a>When asked for more details by the Lebanese barristers present, he mentioned that these weapons produce a fine dust that has the consistency of pepper. Since the heat is so great, most of it goes straight up, but then it gets blown by the wind very far away and it can spread. In some areas it is concentrated. “Most of the bombs used in the war were conventional ones, and the amount of unconventional weapons used in Lebanon is very small when compared to those used in Iraq or Afghanistan. But, the problem is that radiation is forever, even if in very small amounts. There was not adequate human or environmental testing done, and the damage was indiscriminate and permanent in some cases.” He suggested that there was the possibility of a variety of bombs being used, containing both enriched uranium and depleted uranium, and that perhaps the sites had themselves been cleaned or altered between various moments of testing. He also pointed to the variation in the results (between the determination that the bombs used depleted uranium or enriched uranium) as being explained in the hypothesis that </span><a href="http://www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/lebanon.htm"><span style="font-size:78%;">at least two bombs were dropped on each site.</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> He indicated that once enriched uranium is burnt, it becomes indistinguishable from uranium present in nature – but of extreme rarity – and test results can be politically charged by stating that these things are not the result of bombs, or even that the machines used to test were not properly cleaned, something quite absurd to state about a laboratory with the reputation of Harwell.<br /><br />After his talk, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr Williams. Being a psychologist, he is very concerned with the emotional or psychological impact of communication, and we spoke at length about the importance of the ‘human filter’ when listening to this kind of information. Actually, to the profane in material, the difference between a conventional and unconventional weapon is marginal, if the result is destruction. Yet, Dr Williams mentioned that there is an element that makes informing about these weapons complicated, and that is the will to inform tempered by the desire to not cause undue stress and worry. “These bombs can cause damage in the future, since they operate at a genetic level. This means we don’t know what effects there are going to be, and this can cause a level of alarm that, in the end, is psychologically just as critical. Where does one draw the line about saying the possible effects and assuring people that perhaps things are not as bad as we fear? How do we inform without creating panic? Not getting any information about the weapons leaves us in that condition. As scientists and investigators, we are not even allowed to make any genuine conclusions because we are denied the possibility of having a scientific response.”<br /><br />If this is indeed the case, the Israeli war against Lebanon had as its most damaging and pervasive weapon the psychological one of fear, fear that would remain intact for generations. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-27965109257496070212008-03-28T15:23:00.000+01:002008-03-28T15:29:05.170+01:00technical improvements underwayDue to the "improvement" of the old internet lines, my service provider has given me and my blog a holiday....<br /><br />I'll be back as soon as the wiring is done, estimates vary, but don't worry, Pepa will be back on line!<br /><br />In the meantime, will be busy working on some editorial projects, so I salute all the faithful readers and ask them to visit all the great sites on the sidebar.thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-61256449010401844752008-03-25T09:32:00.001+01:002008-12-11T00:11:22.495+01:00Khalid Amayreh - The Vatican must show goodwill toward Muslims<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9MMdC7RU7_ptWljggDQ9D4uag14RXmhtce2jK1OB3lsHFBD6wJN5n89n9OKbwaVZY2T0XVsscVLWJv7Amh9tqjdfqSbcvUWoB_Ytp0MhwIPbFdzZYFYPxdT3AbzTRzna8oxRVg/s1600-h/Viva_Israele.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181603062541518562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9MMdC7RU7_ptWljggDQ9D4uag14RXmhtce2jK1OB3lsHFBD6wJN5n89n9OKbwaVZY2T0XVsscVLWJv7Amh9tqjdfqSbcvUWoB_Ytp0MhwIPbFdzZYFYPxdT3AbzTRzna8oxRVg/s320/Viva_Israele.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">The highly-publicized conversion to Catholicism of a naturalized Italian citizen of Egyptian origin this week once again illustrates the uneasy relations between Islam and western Christianity.<br /><br />The problem, of course, doesn’t lie in the conversion itself. People after all should be free to choose their faith and way of life without coercion. The Quran itself declares that “let there be no compulsion in religion.” The way Muslims ought to relate to disbelievers is engraved in Sura (or chapter) 9 of Islam’s holy scriptures, which reads:<br /><br />Say : O ye that reject Faith!<br />I worship not that which ye worship,<br />Nor will ye worship that which I worship.<br />And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship,<br />Nor will ye worship that which I worship.<br />To you be your Way, and to me mine.<br /><br />But the problem lies in the vindictive atmosphere surrounding the conversion ceremony, including the anti-Islamic allusions and insinuations.<br /><br />Magdi Allam, who an Israel newspaper once called a “Muslim Zionist” admitted that he had always been a nominal Muslim, that he had never really practiced Islam and never prayed in his life. Yet, we have been told <em>ad nauseam</em> by a wantonly ignorant or dishonest Western media that Allam was “a prominent Muslim.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Well, the truth is that he was neither Muslim nor prominent. How could a person who praises and glorifies Israel’s genocidal crimes against his fellow human beings (Christian and Muslims alike) be a man of faith? Morality, honesty and candor are the ultimate signs of faith, characters that Allam conspicuously lacks.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">So, it is highly doubtful that a man who believes Zionism represents true righteousness and genuine civility will be a righteous individual, let alone a good Catholic.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In the context of his baptism at the hands of the Pope of the Vatican, Allam made a series of provocative lies against Islam.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The man who had written a book titled “Long Live Israel” was quoted as saying that “the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">This is a cardinal mendacity, because all religions, ideologies, and isms are by definition “conflictual.” Indeed, in order for an idea, any idea, to be un-conflictual, it has to be completely “morally neutral” between good and evil. Christianity itself was conflictual from day one.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In Matthew 10-34-39, Jesus is quoted as saying that:<br />"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In the Gospel of Thomas 16, (SV), Jesus said:<br />"Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The above shows beyond doubt that Allam doesn’t know what he is talking about </span><span style="font-size:78%;">when he faults Islam for being “historically conflictual.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As to the issue of violence, Allam is being equally ignorant of historical facts, because if a religion is to be judged solely by the behavior of its followers, then Christianity stands out as the main candidate for being the most violent religion under the sun.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Let us consider some of the following historical facts pertaining to the relationship between Christianity and violence. In the past century alone, Western “Christians” killed more than a hundred million people, mostly other Christians. In just two essentially ‘Christian' World Wars, as many as 70 million people were killed. Indeed, the numerous crusades, holocausts, pogroms, inquisitions, gulags and ethnic cleansings that the White man committed in the name of Jesus make Muslim violence and wars look utterly negligible in comparison.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In the Middle Ages, Catholics spread death, terror and havoc through Europe, Asia Minor and the Levant. The Franks not only slaughtered Muslims and Jews <em>en masse</em>, but targeted their Orthodox coreligionists, destroying and desecrating their churches, murdering their priests and raping their women.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In North America, South America and Australia the White man murdered millions in the name of Christ and Manifest Destiny.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">To be sure, Muslims, too, indulged in violence, including unjustified violence. However, stigmatizing Islam with this calumny, as if the hands of Catholics and other western Christians were clean, constitutes a pornographic deviation from historical truth and honesty.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Samuel P. Huntington is one of the West’s most prominent contemporary intellectuals. He argued that “the west won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">“Westerners,” he said, “often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">One Vatican official, Cardinal Giovanni, told an Italian newspaper following the conversion ceremony that “conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Muslims.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Well, one might give Giovanni the benefit of the doubt were it not for the purposefully high profile the Vatican gave this conversion. In the final analysis, the Vatican can’t hope for good relations with Muslims and at the same time continue to incite hatred and racism against a religion that has as many as 15 hundred million followers, including millions of Europeans and hundreds of thousands of Italians.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Millions of erstwhile Christians converted to Islam in Europe and North America in recent years. However, unlike the Vatican, the Muslim religious authorities have chosen not to turn every conversion into a trial of Christianity.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Finally, it is imperative to remember that Muslims and Christians are neighbors and compatriots all over the world. This fact alone, which is not going to disappear, necessitates that each community be sensitive to the sensibilities and feelings of the other.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Mutual respect, we are told, is the essence of religious faith.</span><br /><br />I add a comment below:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">To read excellent opinion pieces in Italian on Allam, see </span><a href="http://salamelik.blogspot.com/search/label/Magdi%20Allam"><span style="font-size:78%;">Sherif's blog</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">. To add my own commentary, I want to mention that 4 and a half years ago, Allam came to my town to promote his book on Saddam Hussein (which had as bibilographical references nothing more than Allam's own articles and pages were dedicated to the style of moustache and hair colouring of Saddam...) and one of the conclusions he came to was that the War never would really have happened if people had not protested for "peace". He said that this gave Saddam the false confidence that he could win, and that the war then became inevitable. In essence, protesters were blamed for fanning the flames of war. Also at that presentation, two Palestinians who tried to speak had the microphone taken from them before they could even finish their question. As soon as they said negative comments about Israel, the "security" force ran to them and shut them up. There were about 20 people who protested this, and we were asked to leave. The host of the event, who is a bookseller and who knows me later apologised to me for it but said that there were strict rules set by Allam and his own bodyguards that they did not want any agitators. The list of topics that would not be addressed were Palestine and Israel and when these words came out, the security staff were ordered to remove the microphones. The fact that calling most of us sitting there agitators because we protested the war is evidence of the kind of person Allam is. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-73413564434690816112008-03-23T23:05:00.002+01:002008-12-11T00:11:22.841+01:00Families of Victims of the Lebanon War Testify<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7QHAddXQawxLm_fwQL6jQynjBHyMeYuvCv98DtLbDofEGmEosuNKNCLnT2krcCzLXbSKey-TeDfbVaBAfq4Bj1TkmBTXCaHLpTGy7-25VSLjQ_QTGn-vm65ykBd04idBAMxdkA/s1600-h/witness-rocket_0306.jpg"><em><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181063653303846578" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7QHAddXQawxLm_fwQL6jQynjBHyMeYuvCv98DtLbDofEGmEosuNKNCLnT2krcCzLXbSKey-TeDfbVaBAfq4Bj1TkmBTXCaHLpTGy7-25VSLjQ_QTGn-vm65ykBd04idBAMxdkA/s320/witness-rocket_0306.jpg" border="0" /></span></em></a><em><span style="font-size:78%;"> At the left, Mr Shokr holds a piece of the US-made rocket that destroyed his house.<br /><br /></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;">At the Bruxelles Tribunal, several people represented the victims of the war. It was very interesting to note how different these people were from one another, judging by the type of presentation they wanted to share with us. Yet, at the moment of questioning by the lawyers and judges, they all came to the same conclusions about their experiences.<br /><br />The first witness was a gentleman named Mohammed Shokr. The story of his family was an incredible odyssey of seeking refuge in a moment when the family was being reunited after much time spent far from one another. His family lives in Belgium and what should have been a simple family holiday when the grandparents and aunts and uncles could spend time with the children living in Europe became a nightmare of death and total devastation. They were in the village of El Nabi Chit, near Baalbeck in the Northern area, and when the bombing started to be frequent, thought that it would be a good idea to leave and go to their house near the Beirut Airport. Belgium had already asked her citizens to leave Lebanon entirely, but this possibility, as the days passed, was growing ever more remote. When they arrived in Beirut, they were once again victims of shelling, and the decision was made to go to a Christian village where a family member lived. “We thought this would be the safest place after our other homes had been shelled.”<br /><br />Mr Shokr is a man who demonstrates a very direct kind of character. He knew that he assumed the responsibility for the safety of his extended family, and what was very sad was seeing that he realised that even the most reasonable and wise choices were turning out to be foiled by what Israel had decided to dish out. This man represented not only a <em>pater familias</em>, but by listening to his testimony, I could feel that his situation was a macroscopic example of the impossible search for refuge in a country that was targeted as a whole, with every inch of Lebanon being a potential front.<br /><br />“We were looking for shelter, but on the road we could see that there were no military targets anywhere, just things that served people were bombed. Things such as petrol stations, bridges, roads. It was like being in a trap.” And, the worst trap of them all turned out to be the home in the Christian village in the south. “All of a sudden, the sky was raining nails and rockets.” The family sought protection in the deepest part of the house, underneath the staircase, yet that too was disastrous. “We didn’t know that American bombs can go everywhere.” As a matter of fact, Mr Shokr brought fragments that he took from within the house. They were large bits of rockets and fragments of shrapnel. “This bomb was an American present signed by Israeli children and sent to our children in Lebanon.”<br /><br />It is apparent that bombs that penetrate and do not simply explode (as later in the day and the following morning we were able to witness three presentations on the weapons potential) and break apart what they are hitting. These bombs dig deeply and then erupt in their full force, and they are considered to be unconventional weapons. The meaning of this, I will explore in the articles that explain more fully the weapons used in the Israeli war against Lebanon, yet generally, they are weapons that are differentiated from those that are “recognised”. They may differ in the materials used and in the effects that are different from traditional weapons. Often their impact is unpredictable and very often they violate standard rules of war by their force that is not proportional to the type of target they are used against. When Mr Shokr was asked if they were unconventional weapons he answered with clarity and wisdom, “We are civilians. We don’t know the difference between what is conventional and what is not. If a bomb comes inside your home, you know that this is wrong. Morally, we also know that if one is capable of killing one person can kill a group of people or kill everyone.”<br /><br />He wrote a book on the destruction of Baalbek and El Nabi Chit which told of the tragedies of his hometown. He summed up the situation of his own family in this way, “We had to decide to run, and then to start running. We took the car at night, without any lights because we understood that we would be moving targets. Then we had to keep running, seeking shelter. When there is fear, you run, but you may never find the shelter, no matter where run.” </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsc05_SZZ49sJ6HTkT2Y1P78i3RvHIJcC6XOE4pQ6w8QbMD-UYjkJNEhuYzmLk6-RiOzVRxub-romfpH5MPIHv0tf9M7imhM0L05FnoDw7luMUNNHvQvVCP7cVulc5db65LA31w/s1600-h/al%2520akhrass%2520family.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5181065070643054274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsc05_SZZ49sJ6HTkT2Y1P78i3RvHIJcC6XOE4pQ6w8QbMD-UYjkJNEhuYzmLk6-RiOzVRxub-romfpH5MPIHv0tf9M7imhM0L05FnoDw7luMUNNHvQvVCP7cVulc5db65LA31w/s320/al%2520akhrass%2520family.jpg" border="0" /></a>A second witness was <a href="http://tadamon.resist.ca/index.php/?p=213">Hassan Al-Akhras</a>s, a citizen of Canada whose flight was to leave for Lebanon allowing him to join his family the day before all flights had been cancelled. This spared him his own life, but tragically, it did nothing to save the others precious to him as they were crushed under the rubble of their own home in Aytaroun, destroyed by Israeli bombs. He lost 12 family members in the war, including his father, his uncle, <a href="http://www.cjpme.ca/documents/Al-Akhrass%20Story.pdf">his cousin and his wife and four small children</a> and their grandmother. Other family members were wounded. He decided to bring photos of his loved ones in happier moments, days before their lives were taken. There were pictures of them by the sea, babies in the arms of their mother, children being cuddled by their grandparents, beautiful smiling faces that no longer exist if not in the memories of this man, and whose story he put on a DVD called “In the Line of Fire”. In the composition here, we see some of the victims. To spare older family members the grief of learning the fate of their loved ones, it was decided to not reveal the news of the deaths to those who might not be able to handle such pain. Frequent questions about the family’s whereabouts could not be kept unanswered forever, and that compounded the sense of helplessness. “My real hope is that there will be justice for them.” Looking at the innocent faces of these people, and considering the tragedy of the loss of their lives, it is the least that we should expect, and all of us owe them this much. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-24714048708797072522008-03-20T20:53:00.002+01:002008-12-11T00:11:22.928+01:00Shraga, My Karma ran over your Dogma: spoiling your smear campaign with honesty<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTxZdLub2lA0nTPjb7Pk_m0XhsceQ16oNwI8YmY3WN8nmI3FMYF9wyf6WdiMw3uNQzMR8b03PYBj66fZSKHwJH3bDd9U0Skbb_VkscYct8gTYb0WJubGSM_3pa31fxDc_vgOi4-w/s1600-h/inquisition.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179931822047168162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTxZdLub2lA0nTPjb7Pk_m0XhsceQ16oNwI8YmY3WN8nmI3FMYF9wyf6WdiMw3uNQzMR8b03PYBj66fZSKHwJH3bDd9U0Skbb_VkscYct8gTYb0WJubGSM_3pa31fxDc_vgOi4-w/s320/inquisition.bmp" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">VERY INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS! read through to the end for the whole story. More actually follow in comments, as it is a "developing story"</span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">The smear campaigners have been at it non-stop. Several hundred people thought that by asking Tony Greenstein to get to work on doing something constructive and leaving others to do the same, he might actually do so. No. In the meantime, he's decided to take Gilad to court. He </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/02/try-to-censor-peacepalestine-its-tony.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">tried to close this blog,</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> he's opened his own blog just to smear Gilad and me, he spams posts from there all over Socialist Unity and the Alef discussion list. It seems as if he has no control over this obsession. But, he isn't the only one. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Shraga Elam, a little known (but to himself, he is father of great intellectual ideas that bear the name of greater men such as Norman Finkelstein, Yeshayahu Liebowitz and even the olive growers of Palestine) activist in Zurich, has been Tony's sidekick in all of this, and he's really been working overtime to get the job done.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">In the past, readers who are familiar with this blog will know about the </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/01/gilad-atzmon-public-lapidation-round.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Public Lapidation (round one)</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> where Shraga uses Holocaust Revisionist sites to try to smear Gilad, and which were exposed as false. But this week, he's decided to help Tony to dismantle the </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/02/petition-for-two-activists-that-you.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">petition</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> perhaps afraid about when the </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/03/tony-tried-to-pull-blog-so-no-one-could.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">comments</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> that were not at all generous with Tony and with any kind of censorship and gatekeeping would appear and wanting to get it pulled before the ugly truth came out. Many valid individuals signed the petition, including scholars such as </span><a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/03/oren-ben-dor-freedom-of-speech-free.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Oren Ben-Dor</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, bloggers and activists such as Haitham Sabbah, Uruknet, Dissident Voice, and many others. Many groups for Palestinian and Human rights signed as well. Many Palestinians signed as well as writers and journalists. Take a look at the list to get an idea. Well, of course, Tony decided to pick out the names he didn't want, (for the sake of Palestinians <em>of course</em>) and decided that there were two or three that were anathema. After a lot of pressure, I took one name off, to spare the other people the stress. But, that still leaves 278 names more or less. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">how to whittle that down....</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">how to whittle that to nothing....<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">So, he went to his Buddy Shraga to do the work. "There's Gilad's and Uri Avnery's translator there, a Gush Shalom member... Oh! There's Hajo Meyer, the writer who also was a survivor of Auschwitz. THEY MUST BE REMOVED!"<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">So, Shraga decided to go to work. For days he circulated misleading emails suggesting I was a Judeophobe affiliated with Nazi sites! (Remember, he actually circulates from them, but for some reason he can't see that his pulpit is quite a few metres too low). Scaring his first two victims sufficiently, they were sure that they had not signed any Neo-Nazi or Anti-Semitic petition! In fact, they had not, they signed the petition that was in support of Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">At that point, Shraga announces on Alef and to a list of people, some of whom I don't even know, "Two faked signatures on the pro Atzmon & Rizzo petition"<br />(Shraga Elam)</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Of course, this is untrue, and I know it. I have been sent all the emails by the person collecting them for adding their name to the list. There is not a name on there that was not indicated by written request, and there are even some names who are NOT there because they told me or the two other guys who had something to do with it, "please add me to the list!" on a messenger, on the phone, in an SMS or in person and we have told them they have to do an email to the address indicated. Each name has an email evidence that it is authentic. And this is why I know that the names were not forged. When I said so, that there was no way that the signatures were forged and that he had to publicly announce this, Shraga spent all yesterday between pressuring people, insinutating that I was stubborn for not believing that he was right and that obviously someone had "taken over Hajo's email". He sent me a faked letter from Hajo's address to show stupid me how it could be done, and he knows just who did it too! That nasty band of Germans, the Broder Gang, who are looking for an excuse to ruin good activists, and with this, they had found it!!!</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />I insisted again that I knew that Hajo had signed it and not only that, he had stated on phone to another person that he had signed it and stood by that. I mentioned this, so Shraga started sending a series of ever more aggressive emails to an ever-growing list of persons, as if the gang bullying could somehow make lies turn into truth. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">But lies remain lies if that is what they are.</span></strong> </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Not only did the two people sign, but there were some interesting events arising from all of this. The woman from Gush Shalom signed (and I will now omit using her name) but asked to be removed with this letter: </span></div><br /><div><em><span style="font-size:78%;">Excuse me, I see that I've signed this petition, I received by a friend ,Guenter Schenk, whom I trusted.<br />But I have forgotten totally. I'm 80 - so it is normal that the memory in this age is not the best for things 5 weeks ago ....<br />But I see that there are persons, blocks, internetsides I don't know. Please delete my name from this petition, from all the blocks or internetsides - I don't want any trouble.<br />This is my last word in this issue - please no more emails. There will be no more an answer to it. I have to do more important things than this unpleasant disbute.<br />name</span></em></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">So, without any problem or delay, her name was promptly removed. I cannot vouch for it on the 20 or so sites it is on, but the two "official ones" this site and Tlaxcala, where I have some control over content, have accommodated the request with no questions asked. I can understand her stress and nervousness. I have to go through this with Tony and Shraga on a nearly daily basis, and it is enough to test even nerves of steel. I thanked her for her hard work and wished her well. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">But, it didn't end there. Both Gilad and I received letters of support from this person. And, to make things more strange, Shraga (rather than apologise for the whole mess) simply blames this woman for "misleading him", as if SHE is starting the mess and is the journalist! He could not tolerate her deceiving him and he actually pretends an apology from her! He also continued to spam her email box with stuff on this. Not only that, when informed of the supportive letters, he demanded we publish them. Amazing what Chutzpah. But he also writes a long and strange letterto Alef. continuing to accuse me Alef has a lot of readers, so the information got out. And this is what started to circulate on German activist lists (I am only reprinting the English section): </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:78%;">Shraga Elam recruits the notorious Neocon and Islamophobic Henryk M. Broder to pressure an 80 year old activist....</span></strong></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">If we want to know what pressure is really about and how the gatekeepers use the worst sort of scare tactics just read the following:</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Once Shraga Elam found names of two people he knows and believes he can influence on a petition **in support of Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo, he sent them a smear letter with the lovely title that Mary Rizzo is a Judeophobe, connecting her to sites she does not write for, circulate or have anything to do with and suggesting the petition they signed was in support of anti-Semitic sites. Then in order to achieve the necessary results, Elam pulls in Henryk M. Broder, the notorious ultra-Zionist neocon so NAME, an 80 year old activist translator who lives in Germany, surrenders to his demands. Here are Shraga Elam's words; <strong>"I told her (NAME) that such things might be very harmful if discovered by Broder and his fans, who are looking with a microscope for a pretext to attack peace activists. I mentioned the mean campaign led at the moment against the German journalist Ludwig Watzal by Broder and his gang, accusing him of being allegedly "Anti-Semite". She asked what she could do and I said that she can withdraw her signature."</strong> </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">For those who do not realise it yet, Elam the crypto-Zionist is acting as an ethnic campaigner and using tactics that are no different than those he is using, insinuation, misleading information and pressure to fear affiliation and claims that there will be something horrible to expect if she does not do as he thinks best (no pressure, he claims...) and actually does mount pressure on an elderly Palestinian solidarity activist. Elam is disgrace.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">And... It doesn't end there. There is indeed a conclusion to this second round of Public Lapidation. The other signatory that he has so far targeted....</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">This is the letter Hajo Meyer wrote: </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">To <strong>all of you</strong> who are spectators <strong>in this circus of insanity</strong>,<br /><br />the text below starting with ‘dear friends’ is fully mine. I wrote it and I send it to Adib S. Kawar of Palestinesomoud. <strong>I signed the petition which you find attached. </strong>It was sent to me by my friend Guenter Schenk. There is not one word in it which I regret. <strong>When you find my name under any other text, that can only be stolen or faked.</strong><br />Hajo G. Meyer<br /><br />Dear friends,<br />For me, as a survivor of 10 month of Auschwitz, one thing is clear, there is a fundamental flaw in Zionism. At least in the form in which it expresses itself in political reality. It has not accepted one of the fundamental truths of the Enlightenment: the essential and fundamental equivalence of all human beings.<br />Therefore, due to this fundamental flaw, political Zionism in its present form will eventually perish. Unfortunately, you the Palestinians will have to mobilise a lot of somoud. So far, you have been able to show that you can do it. Don’t despair, the enlightened world is with you.<br /><br />Dr Hajo G. Meyer, Heiloo, the Netherlands</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Will Tony or Shraga admit they spent two days engaged in defamation and spreading lies and false information? That their witch hunting and gatekeeping and pressure campaigns is striking out against them rather than making them any more popular or helping the cause they pretend they support?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Don't hold your breath!</span></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-6998068574187303382008-03-19T17:58:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:23.136+01:00Gilad Atzmon - The Right to Self-Determination - A Fake Exercise in UniversalismIn the picture, a visual explanation of Jewish Self-Determination<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSKtnjU8L9t68jlECxztocBXDXxwlRPfzqy6bvdO9y_OUn8RlXiorf8RDM8hWyrY74dD8iVUFZHeDXBc1k9eJGkn8UUDsNtgkM-4zoXm_pQ-C7qlmeg47mqEIUf_ohcx7u1ESrw/s1600-h/palestinianlandloss.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179509578799538754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSKtnjU8L9t68jlECxztocBXDXxwlRPfzqy6bvdO9y_OUn8RlXiorf8RDM8hWyrY74dD8iVUFZHeDXBc1k9eJGkn8UUDsNtgkM-4zoXm_pQ-C7qlmeg47mqEIUf_ohcx7u1ESrw/s400/palestinianlandloss.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power reserved for the rich, strong and privileged. Since Zionists hold the reigns on international political power through their influence in important positions as well as the military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’, any current political debate on the legitimacy of this concept would lead inevitably to a dismissal of what we have come to accept as the Palestinian right of self-determination. Yet, instead of demanding this right, which is currently impractical, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis for what it is. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.<br /><br />A Citizen of the World, A Cosmopolitan and an Atheist<br /></strong><br />Last year in a little community church in Aspen, Colorado, at the question time following my talk, a middle-aged person at the back of the room stood up, presenting himself as follows:<br /><br />“I am a citizen of the world, I am a cosmopolitan and an atheist. I would like to ask you something Mr Atzmon…”<br /><br />“Hang on,” I stopped him, “please do not be offended by me asking, but are you by any chance a Jew?”<br /><br />The person froze for a second, he couldn’t stop his face from blushing, everyone in the room turned around. Maybe they were curious enough to want to see what a 21st century self-loving cosmopolitan looks like. I, on my part, felt a bit guilty about it all, I didn’t have any intention to embarrass the man. However, it took him a few good seconds before he could get his act together.<br /><br />“Yes Gilad, I am a Jew, but how did you know?”<br /><br />“I obviously didn’t know,” I said, “I was actually guessing. You see, whenever I come across people who call themselves ‘cosmopolitans’, ‘atheists’ and a ‘citizens of the world’, they somehow always happen to be ‘Jews’ of the so-called ‘progressive’ assimilated type. I can only assume that ‘non-Jews’ tend to live in peace with whoever they happen to be. If they are born Catholic and decide to move on at a certain stage, they just dump the church behind. If they do not love their country as much as others do, they probably pack a few things and pick another country to live in. Somehow ‘non-Jews’, and this is far from being a scientific law, do not need to hide behind some vague universal banners and some artificial righteous value system. However, what was your question?”<br /><br />No question followed. The ‘cosmopolitan, atheist and citizen of the world’, couldn’t remember what his question was. I assume that following the tradition of post-emancipated Jews he was there to celebrate his right to ‘self-determination’ in public. The man was using question time to tell his Aspen neighbours and friends what a great human being he was. Unlike them, local patriotic believers and proud Americans, he was an advanced humanist, a man beyond nationhood, a godless non-patriotic subject. He was the ultimate ‘self determined’ rational product of enlightenment. He was the son of Voltaire and the French revolution.<br /><br />Self-determination is a modern Jewish political and social epidemic. The disappearance of the Ghetto and its maternal qualities led towards an identity crisis within the largely assimilated Jewish society. Seemingly, all post-emancipated Jewish political, spiritual and social schools of thought, left, right and centre were inherently concerned with issues to do with the ‘right to self-determination’. The Zionists would demand the right to national self-determination in the land of Zion. The Bund would demand national and cultural self-determination within the East European proletarian discourse. Matzpen and the ultra Israeli leftists would demand the right to self-determination for the ‘Israeli Jewish nation’ in the ‘liberated Arab East’, Anti Zionist Jews would insist upon the right to engage in an esoteric Jewish discourse within the Palestinian solidarity movement. But what does that very right to self-determination stand for? Why is it that every modern Jewish political thought is grounded on that right? Why is it that some ‘progressive’ assimilated Jews feel the need to become citizens of the world rather than just ordinary citizens of Britain or France or Russia?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Pretence of Authenticity<br /></strong><br />It should be said that though identity search and self-determination are there to convey the pretence of a final march towards an authentic redemption, the direct result of Identity politics and self-determinative affairs is the complete opposite. Those who have to self-determine who they are, are those who are far removed from any authentic realisation to start with. Those who are determined to be seen as ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘secular humanists’ are those who fail to see that human brotherhood needs neither an introduction nor a declaration. All it really takes is a genuine love for one another. Those who initiate and sign humanist manifestos are those who insist upon being seen as humanists while at the same time spreading some Zionist tribal evil around. Clearly, real genuine cosmopolitans do not have the need to declare their abstract commitment to humanism. Real citizens of the world, similarly, just live in an open world with no boundaries and borders.<br /><br />I am surrounded, for instance, by jazz musicians of all colours and ethnic origins. People who live on the road, people who sleep every night in a different continent, people who make a living out of their love of beauty. Yet, I have never seen a Jazz artist who calls himself or herself either a citizen of the world or a cosmopolitan or even a beauty merchant. I have never met a Jazz artist who adopts an air of egalitarian importance. I have never met a Jazz musician who celebrates his or her right to self-determination. The reason is simple, authentic beings do not need to self determine who they are, they just let themselves and others be.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The right to self-determination<br /></strong><br />The right to self-determination is often cited as the acknowledgment that <em>"all peoples have the right to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”</em> This very principle is often seen as a moral and legal right. It is also well embedded in the philosophy of the United Nations. The term self-determination was used in the UN Charter and has been defined in various declarations and covenants.<br /><br />Though we all tend to believe that every human is entitled to celebrate his or her symptoms, the right to self-determination is in fact significantly meaningful only within the Western liberal discourse which accepts such a right and premises it on the notion of enlightened individualism. Moreover, the right to self-determination can be celebrated only by the privileged who can mobilize enough political power or military might to make this right into a practical reality.<br />However, it must be mentioned that even within the Western liberal discourse, it is only Jews who premise their political power on the ‘right to be like others’. The reason is simple, though liberated Jews insist upon being ‘like others’, it is rather clear that others prefer actually to be ‘like themselves’. This obviously means that the Jewish demand to be like others is futile and doomed to failure.<br /><br />It must be mentioned also that within oppressed societies, the right to self-determination is often replaced with the right to rebel. For a Palestinian in the occupied territories, the right for self-determination means very little. He doesn’t need to self-determine himself as a Palestinian for the obvious reason that he knows who he is. And just in case he happens to forget, an Israeli soldier in the next roadblock would remind him. For the Palestinian, self-determination is a product of negation. It is actually the daily confrontation with the Zionist denial of the Palestinian right of self-determination. For the Palestinian, it is the right to fight against oppression, against those who starve him and expel him from his land in the name of the Jewish rather-too-concrete demand to be ‘people like other people’.<br /><br />As much, as the right to self-determination presents itself as a universal liberating political value, in many cases it is utilised as a divisive mechanism that leads towards direct abuse of others. As we happen to learn, modern Jewish demand for the right to self-determination is rather too often celebrated at the expense of others whether these are Palestinians, Arab leaders, Russian proletariats or British and American soldiers who fight the last pocket of Israeli enemies in the Middle East. As much as the right to self-determination is occasionally presented has a ‘universal value’, scrutinising the pragmatic sinister utilization of the very right within the Jewish political discourse reveals that in practical terms, it is there to serve the Jewish tribal interests while denying and even dismissing other people’s elementary rights.<br /><br /><strong>The Bund and Lenin’s Criticism</strong><br /><br />It would be right to say that the Bund and the Zionists were the first to eloquently insist upon the Jewish right to self-determination. The Bund was the General Jewish Workers' Union of East Europe. Like the Zionist movement, it was formally founded in 1897. It maintained that Jews in Russia deserved the right to cultural and national self-determination within the Soviet future revolution.<br /><br />Probably, the first to elaborate on the absurdity in Jewish demand for self-determination was Lenin in his famous attack on the Bund at the </span><a href="http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/2ndcong/index.htm#13"><span style="font-size:78%;">Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> (1903). <em>“March with us”</em> was Lenin’s reply to the Bund, rejecting their demand for a special autonomous ethnic status amongst the Russian workers. Lenin obviously spotted the tribally divisive agenda within the Bund philosophy. “We reject,” said Lenin, “<em>all </em>obligatory partitions that serve to divide us”. As much as Lenin supported “the right of nations to self-determination”, he was clearly dismissive of such a Jewish right which he correctly identified as divisive and reactionary. Lenin supported the right of oppressed nations to build their national entities, however he resisted any bigoted, narrow nationalist spirit.<br /><br />Lenin raised three main reasons against the Bund and its demand of cultural self-determination:<br /><br />First. Raising the slogan of cultural-national autonomy leads to splitting the nations apart, and therefore destroying the unity of the proletariat within them.<br /><br />Second. Lenin saw that the intermingling of nations and their amalgamation was a progressive step, while turning away from that is a step backwards. He criticized those who "cry out to heaven against assimilation."<br /><br />Third. Lenin did not regard the ‘non-territorial cultural independence’ advocated by the Bund and the other Jewish parties as advantageous, practical, or practicable.<br /><br />Lenin’s approach to the Bund is rather significant and should be reflected upon. Using his sharp political common sense, Lenin doubted the ethical and political grounds of the right of Jews to self-determination, as much as the Bund demanded that Jews should be treated as a national identity like all other nationals. Lenin’s answer was strictly simple: “Sorry guys, but you aren’t. You are not a national minority just for the reason that you are not attached to a piece of geography.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Matzpen and Wolfowitz<br /></strong><br /><em>“The solution of the national and social problems of this region can come about only through a socialist revolution in this region, which will <strong>overthrow all its existing regimes</strong> and will replace them by a political union of the region, ruled by the toilers. In this united and liberated Arab East, recognition will be granted to the right of <strong>self-determination</strong> (including the right to a separate state) of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation”</em> (Matzpen Principles </span><a href="http://www.matzpen.org/index.asp?p=principles"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.matzpen.org/index.asp?p=principles</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">)<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Seemingly, Lenin’s criticism has never been properly internalised by Jewish so-called ‘progressive’ ideologists. Abuse of others and dismissal of elementary rights has become inherent to Jewish ‘progressive’ political thinking. Reading the principle document of Matzpen, the legendary ultra leftist Israeli group may leave one perplexed.<br /><br />Already in 1962 Jewish Matzpenists had a plan to ‘liberate’ the Arab world. According to Matzpen’s principles, all you have to do is <strong><em>“overthrow all (Arab) existing regimes”</em></strong><em> so “recognition will be granted to the right of <strong>self-determination</strong> of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including (of course) <strong>the Israeli-Jewish nation</strong>.”</em><br /><br />It doesn’t take a genius to grasp that at least categorically, Matzpen’s principles are no different from Wolfowitz’s Neocon mantra. Matzpen had a plan to ‘overthrow’ all Arabs regimes in the name of ‘socialism’ so Jews can ‘self-determine’ who they are. Wolfowitz would do exactly the same in the name of ‘democracy’. If you take Matzpen’s Judeo-centric ‘progressive’ text and replace the word ‘Socialist’ with ‘Democratic’ you end up with a devastating Neocon text and it reads as follows:<br /><br /><em>“The solution of the national and social problems of this region, can come about only through a <strong>democratic</strong> revolution in this region, which will overthrow all its existing regimes and will replace them by a political union of the region …Recognition will be granted to the right of self-determination of each of the non-Arab nationalities living in the region, including the Israeli-Jewish nation.”</em><br /><br />Seemingly, both the ‘legendary’ progressive Matzpen and the reactionary despised Neocons use a similar abstract concept with some pretence of universality to rationally justify the Jewish right to self-determination and the destruction of Arab-grown regional power. Seemingly, both Neocons and Matzpen know what liberation may mean for Arabs. For the Matzpenist, to liberate Arabs is to turn them into Bolsheviks. The Neocon is actually slightly more modest, all he wants is for Arabs to drink Coca Cola in a westernised democratic society. Both Judeo-centric philosophies are doomed to failure because the notion of self-determination is overwhelmingly Euro-centric. Both philosophies are premised on an enlightened notion of rationality. Both philosophies have very little to offer to the oppressed, instead they are there to rationalise and provide the colonialist with some fake ‘universal’ legitimacy.<br /><br />Clearly, Matzpen has never had any political power, it never had any political significance since it has never been in any proximity to Arab people, not to say Arab masses. Consequently, Matzpen could never affect Arab people’s lives nor could it destroy their regimes. However, Matzpen is seen by Jewish Leftists around the world as a significant chapter in the Israeli left. It is seen as a singular moment of Israeli ethical awakening. Thus, it is actually embarrassing or even devastating to find out that the most enlightening and refined moment of Israeli-left moral awakening produced a political insight that is no different categorically to George Bush’s infamous attempt at Liberating the Iraqi people. It should be clear beyond doubt that Jewish ultra leftists (<em>a la</em> Matzpen) and Zionised Anglo-American interventionism (<em>a la</em> Neocons) are in fact two sides of the same coin or may I allow myself to say two sides of the very same <em>Shekel</em>. They are very close theoretically, ideologically and pragmatically. Both political thoughts are Judeo-centric to the bone yet, they both pretend to premise themselves on universalism and aim towards ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’. But at the end of the day they aim toward Jewish self-determination at the expense of others.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Right to be Like Others -The Zionist Logic<br /><br /></strong>The following is a collection of extracts taken from a </span><a href="http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/db942872b9eae454852560f6005a76fb/3e95fed32deb0ff185256fcb00590f86!OpenDocument"><span style="font-size:78%;">document</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> submitted to the United Nations COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS in 2005.<br /><br />It was composed by the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations (CBJO) and B'nai B'rith. It helps to grasp how Jewish organisations implement political power around the claim for self-determination.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As a point of historical departure of its statement, the CBJO chooses the ‘end of the Holocaust’ and the creation of the UN. The link is rather clear and intentional. The role of the UN is set as one that will save the Jews from any further genocidal attempts.<br /><br /></span><em><span style="font-size:78%;">“As the world marks the 60th anniversaries of the end of the Holocaust and the creation of the United Nations this year, we in the human rights community have the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundation documents of the international human rights regime. One of the most fundamental of these rights is that of self-determination. This right guarantees other human rights, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person, preservation of honor, equality under the law.”<br /><br /></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;">It can be seen that at this stage the right to self-determination is conveyed in universal terms. But do not let yourself be misled just yet. It won’t take long before the Zio-centric twist will reveal itself.<br /><br /></span><em><span style="font-size:78%;">“The events revealed sixty years ago when Allied forces entered and liberated the Nazi concentration camps could have been prevented if only the <strong>Jewish people's right to self-determination</strong> had been protected and fostered…. As the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century demonstrates, without a State of their own – the fulfillment of the right to self-determination – the Jewish people were at risk of discrimination, isolation, and ultimately, extermination.”<br /><br /></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;">Slowly but surely, we can now see the shift from the universal ethical approach to a Judeo-centric self-centred argumentation. However, it is crucial to mention that prior to the big war western and American Jews were emancipated and enjoyed rights to self-determination, yet not many Jews thought that such a right should be celebrated in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people. Moreover, thinking in retrospective terms makes it rather clear that the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’ has brought Holocaust on the Palestinian people. In other words, the Jewish right to self-determination has very limited positive impact on humanity and human reality. Something the UN Human Rights Commission better take into account.<br /><br /><em>“As we reflect on this history, we must note the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and its new manifestation – anti-Zionism. In various intellectual circles, on university campuses and in the media, the Jewish people’s <strong>basic human right to self-determination</strong> is being eroded on a daily basis through misrepresentations and false equations. These anti-Zionists portray the Jewish people’s self-determination as excluding Palestinian self-determination. Some wish to turn back the clock of history by advancing a "one-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a proposal that was rejected by the General Assembly in 1947 precisely because it would have denied the <strong>Jewish people their right of self-determination</strong>…. Anti-Zionism is a dangerous path, for it hinges on the destruction of the Jewish State. As such it runs counter to the Charter of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights….”</em><br /><br />Interestingly enough, the gifted people at the CBJO do realise that sooner or later someone is about to question the ethical validity of the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. In fact this is exactly what I myself plan to do within a page or two. Zionists are clever enough to grasp the possibility that their ‘<em>carte blanche’</em> to ruin millions of lives in the Middle East in the name of fake universal concept may expire one day.<br /><br />However, the CBJO are aiming towards an optimistic resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This is at least what they want us to believe:<br /><br /><em>“Today, we see remarkable progress in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian people have elected a government – one that has pledged to reject terrorism as a political weapon in favor of democracy and peace. This path of promoting peaceful co-existence with the Jewish people marks an important turning point from the Palestinian policy of violence. …All resolutions passed by this body under this agenda item should seek to affirm the right to self-determination for the Jewish people alongside that of other peoples…. Only then will the Commission on Human Rights be true to its founding principles. Only then will the CHR be part of the solution, instead of exacerbating the problem. Only then will this body demonstrate that it has retained the lessons that should have been learned 60 years ago, upholding and defending the <strong>basic right of the Jewish people to self-determination</strong> alongside a democratic Palestinian State.”</em><br /><br />As we can see, the CBJO is there to tell the Palestinians who they are and what they should be. i.e., democratic and secular. Wrongly enough, the right-wing CBJO is no different to the legendary ‘progressive’ Matzpen and the implications must be clear from now on. There is no left and right within modern secular Jewish politics but rather self-centric tribal orientation which produces fake images of political diversity for obvious reasons.<br /><br /><strong>One State, Two States or Just a State Of All Its Citizens</strong><br /><br />Not many Palestinians and Arab intellectuals take part in the One State/Two State debate. The reason is pretty obvious, Palestinians and Arabs do realise very well that issues to do with the future of the region are not to be determined by academic institutes or Palestinian solidarity conferences but rather on the ground. The impact of a single Qassam rocket hitting in the Western Negev is far greater than any form of intellectual conclusive discussion to do with ‘conflict resolution’. As it seems, the demand for ‘one State’, be it secular, democratic or Islamic is theoretical and rhetorical and has no implication whatsoever on the Israelis who still possess the political power and military might to maintain the Jews-only State.<br /><br />As much as the notion of self-determination has zero significance on Palestinian people, the same is so for the verbal demand for one State. At a time of starvation in Gaza and genocidal plans announced by the Israeli Government, debates regarding the future of the region seem to be a luxurious endeavour explored by the privileged.<br /><br />If anything, the debate over the one State solution is there to maintain the Israeli and Jewish hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. The reason is pretty simple, every discussion that aims at political resolution naturally takes into account the ‘Jewish right to self-determination’. This would be the case forever unless we allow ourselves to introduce a radical political and intellectual shift into the discourse. Like Lenin in 1903, we must call into question the true validity of the notion of the right to self-determination. Following Lenin, we should allow ourselves to admit the possibility that the Jewish right to self-determination is actually divisive or may even be a false call. It is there to be celebrated by the rich and colonial and the privileged at the expense of the weak and the oppressed.<br /><br />We should stand up and ask openly why exactly Jews or anyone else deserves a right to self-determination. Isn’t it true that the right to self-determination always comes at the expense of someone else? We should stand up and ask, what moral right entitles a Brooklyn Jew to self-determine oneself as a Zionist and a future occupier of Palestine? We should openly ask what exactly entitles an Israeli born Jew the right to dwell on Palestinian land at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian? Am I entitled to demand the right to self-determine myself as a NASA Astronaut, or alternatively as a heart surgeon? Would you let me fix your heart based on my false self-inflicted recognition as a heart surgeon?<br /><br />These questions are far from being easy to answer. Yet, we shouldn’t stop ourselves from raising them. Like Lenin, I tend to dismiss the Jewish legitimacy of the right to self-determination as a false divisive call. Instead, I would suggest an alternative ethical approach, which I borrowed from Ex MK Azmi Bishara (</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azmi%20Bishara"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azmi Bishara</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">), the Palestinian intellectual who had to run for his life from Israel in spite of being a Parliament member. Bishara moved beyond the one State/ two State debate or the Judeo-centric right to self-determination. He coined a brilliant political notion, namely ‘a State of all its Citizens’. Rather than a State of the Jews, Bishara suggested to make it into a State of the people who dwell in it.<br /><br />Azmi Bishara is a vigorous intellectual and a well-known critic of the Israeli State. In numerous writings and public appearances, he has maintained that the Israeli State's self-definition as ‘Jewish and democratic’ is discriminatory. Bishara calls for an Israel that would be a ‘State of all its citizens.’ Bishara has openly pointed to a direct conflict between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority over the definition of nationality in Israel. He articulates a trend among the Arab-Palestinian minority that poses a demand for socio-economic and political equality not only in formal law, but in civic citizenship and nationality. It would be right to say that Bishara’s approach is a political exercise in the Palestinian right to self-determination. Consequently, however, it didn’t take long before Bishara had to run for his life and search for a shelter out of Israel.<br /><br />As we have seen, the right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power. It is not going to be celebrated by any group but those who are already rich, strong and privileged. Zionists can boast all these qualities, as well as possessing the necessary power and military might to maintain their ‘right to self-determination’. However, given the reality on the ground, instead of demanding some rhetorical rights, we should fight for the Palestinian and Arab right to rebel against the Jewish State and against global Zionist imperialism. Instead of wasting our time on rhetorical fantasies and academic exchange, we better expose Jewish tribal politics and praxis. To support Palestine is to be courageous enough to say what we think and to admit what we see.</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-8340267461491564352008-03-18T09:54:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:23.293+01:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZf0fkO1t_h3UQ1LE6kgLh74f-jpfSbudWhon2zXoTi2yxza92SGgmOoFF1G5pXw2IeIEkyaNf42UTPmLs0k3ssaBA0bCPNyKko0vdYrLaoOCHMZ5nkPTXyMdgOvCTM8qKIT8ebw/s1600-h/apartheid.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179011422722744882" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZf0fkO1t_h3UQ1LE6kgLh74f-jpfSbudWhon2zXoTi2yxza92SGgmOoFF1G5pXw2IeIEkyaNf42UTPmLs0k3ssaBA0bCPNyKko0vdYrLaoOCHMZ5nkPTXyMdgOvCTM8qKIT8ebw/s320/apartheid.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">from an email by Lana Habash<br />Zionists walked into a well-known center for left activists in Boston this week and managed, with a single complaint, to take away an already agreed-upon meeting space for an April conference on Palestine organized by the New England Committee to Defend Palestine. Around March 9, the local branch of a national group called the Jewish Labor Committee told the director of Encuentro 5 and the landlord of the building that houses Encuentro that the New England Committee to Defend Palestine is a "hate group" and demanded that it not be allowed to hold the conference in Encuentro' threats.<br /><br />Beneath the facts of the case lie a number of ironies:<br /><br />* Attacks like this are exactly the subject of the disputed conference. The purpose of the conference, whose title is "Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements," is to expose attacks on activists as they have been carried out historically by zionist forces. Activists scheduled to speak have been involved in the Native American struggle against European genocide on the North American continent, the Black liberation struggle in the US from slavery onward, the struggle against US imperialism in Central America, the movement against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle against US imperialism and genocide in Iraq, and the struggle against US-Israeli genocide in Palestine.<br /><br />* Encuentro bills itself as "a space for progressive movement building" in Boston</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(</span></span><a href="http://www.encuentro5.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.encuentro5.org/</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> ).<br /><br />Massachusetts Global Action -- the organization that runs Encuentro--argued the need for a "tactical retreat" and offered us $400 and help finding another venue if we would consent to leave. We told them that this would undermine the meaning of our conference, their own work, and the movement as a whole. Our suggestion to Encuentro was to take this matter to the activist community -- to the people who use the space -- to tell them what was taking place and invite them to help organize a struggle to defend the integrity of our collective work.<br />Zionist organizations like the JLC have more material and political power than perhaps at any time in the past. But this power is increasingly hollow, since it must increasingly assert itself by shutting down a discussion about that power--a discussion that is growing and moving into the mainstream. The JLC did not succeed by persuading Encuentro 5, but by threatening them through the building's owners. These are clearly threats that they have the power to carry out--a fact that proves what critics of zionism are saying.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>But this also demonstrates that while they have more material power than ever before, they have less ideological support than ever before. The legitimacy of the zionist project--the passive consent given to US support for "Israel"--is collapsing. That collapse must come before the serious fight over material power--a fight that is coming.<br /><br /></strong>We are disappointed that Encuentro 5 and Mass Global Action decided that it was not strategic for them to challenge this abuse of power now. We know that the repercussions might well have been severe, and recognize that this would affect a great deal of effort and work that has gone into building their organization. We offer the following as a challenge--not so much to them, but to the movement as a whole, since finally the question is not about any of our specific, struggling organizations:<br /><br />Can we build a movement against imperialism, or against social injustice in the United States, if the limits of our discussion can be set by organizations like the JLC--organizations that are committed to ensuring that billions of dollars in US military and economic support are given yearly to one of the most militarized colonial states in the world?<br /><br />There is widespread discontent with zionist power. This discontent will not turn itself into a meaningful response until it becomes organized around specific battles. This can only take place if at some point people are willing say "it stops here."<br /><br />* "Progressives" are not progressive. The "progressives" are the Jewish Labor Committee, which calls itself "the Jewish voice in the labor movement." The JLC did not come in from the outside but actually has an office in Encuentro's own space. The Jewish Labor Committee's web site <a href="http://www.jewishlabor.org/">http://www.jewishlabor.org/</a> shows its president, Stuart Applebaum, standing proudly with war criminal Shimon Peres in February in Jerusalem. The JLC has put out a statement condemning the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against "Israel." The JLC statement asserts that Israelis, who have brutally occupied Palestine for 60 years, carrying out a program of genocide ever since, should not be seen as "victimizers."<br /><br />The progressives are UNITE-HERE, the brave union for oppressed garment and hotel workers, which acted in this fiasco as a landlord bully threatening to kick out tenants for political speech.<br /><br />The progressives are leftists who support resistance in Palestine, but not resistance that uses measures of a kind used by its enemy -- namely, armed struggle. The leadership of the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan today is Islamic. Progressives in the US support secular political movements, so they don't support the people who are actually carrying out the resistance in these countries which the US and "Israel" are busy devastating. Support for resistance by oppressed people should be given without qualification.<br /><br />* The criminal has accused his victim of the crime. The real hate groups are those who support genocide in Palestine. The Boston Jewish Labor Committee's accusation that the conference organizers are a "hate group" comes right out of the manual of the Anti-Defamation League which has gone to great pains to define political speech and action as good or bad in terms favorable to the zionist project. The ADL is a "progressive" organization -- it seems to be for the right thing, except when it comes to criticism of "Israel." Criticism of "Israel" is anti-Semitism -- that's hate speech, that's against the law. The ADL was part of a recent attack on a mosque being built in Boston. It was exposed for lobbying Congress against a bill that condemns the Armenian genocide. During the late '70's and early '80's, it spied on organizations in the U.S. that supported the struggle against white supremacist apartheid in South Africa. This do-good "no place for hate" organization is actually a front group for a racist foreign power.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The limits of political speech on the left are now being defined by the very organizations who say they're working for the good. There is no open debate. The idea is to simply prevent political speech. Why is support for a nasty racist state in occupied Palestine driving so much of US and international politics? And the question goes beyond Palestine, since these same organizations have the power to set limits on the discussion of "social justice" and racism here inside the US. This includes a history of demonizing black nationalists like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panthers as "anti-Semites." In many cases people's careers have been ruined and their reputations smeared by forces who never came out in the open. Joseph Massad, Tony Martin, Ward Churchill, and most recently Catherine Wilkerson, are examples. Ward Churchill will be among the speakers at the conference.<br /><br /></strong>The New England Committee to Defend Palestine assures all those who have been invited to and registered for the April 12 and 13 conference that we have secured another venue and will be announcing it soon. We couldn't have provided a better example of zionist interference in anti-imperialist activism than the one that just happened here. We have great speakers coming from many different movements. We hope that supporters of the struggle in Palestine, and all those who recognize the need to build a truly independent opposition to oppression inside the US, will join us for this event.<br /><br />New England Committee to Defend Palestine </span><a href="http://www.onepalestine.org/" eudora="AUTOURL"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.onepalestine.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br /><span style="color:#3333ff;">On the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba<br /></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">the New England Committee to Defend Palestine presents<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Struggle for the Land:<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">An Education and Strategy Conference<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Saturday, April 12 to Sunday, April 13<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Location to be announced.<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Boston, MA<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#3333ff;">Suggested Donation: $15</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>Confirmed speakers include:</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>Amer Jubran, Palestinian activist and former political detainee<br />Saja Raoof, Iraqi anti-war activist<br />Kali Akuno, Executive Director of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund in New Orleans and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement National Organizer<br />Marta Rodriguez, Puerto Rican independence activist and member of the NECDP<br />Ward Churchill, American Indian Movement activist and author<br />Dara Bayer, Palestine solidarity activist<br />Jihad Abdul-Mumit, former Black Liberation Army political prisoner<br />Nada Elia, Palestinian activist, and member of the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence national collective<br />Jeffrey Blankfort, anti-Zionist journalist and activist, co-plaintiff in a lawsuitagainst the ADL for spying on left organizations<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong><br />as well as<br />Photography Exhibition from Gaza<br />Palestinian political artwork, and art by Brazilian Artist Carlos Latuff<br /><br /></strong></span>This year commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba (Arabic for 'catastrophe') in Palestine. While this past January saw an escalation of the already brutal strangulation of Gaza, as well as continued colonization throughout historic Palestine, Palestinians have continued to resist in all of their historic land. In Gaza, under starvation conditions, Palestinians broke the siege by destroying the wall at Rafah crossing and continue to defend their land through armed resistance against settlers.<br /><br />In spite of a wider public awareness of the brutal policies of colonial settlement in Palestine, the "United States" continues to provide the main economic, political and military aid to the Zionist settler colony. While every major presidential candidate pledges undying support for "Israel," there is a growing public discussion about the role of Zionism in the "US" political system, and especially of its relationship to the war in Iraq.<br /><br />Zionism has played a role not only in defining "foreign policy," but also in the suppression of anti-colonial movements here-not least of all, because these movements have recognized the Palestinian struggle as part of a common global struggle against colonialism. In order to suppress the emergence of a serious pro-Palestinian bloc of oppositional power, Zionists have attacked genuine leaders and organizations, while at the same time cultivating less radical alternatives.The combination of "Israeli" political ties to imperialist policies abroad and Zionist opposition to anti-colonial liberation movements here, has led to a repressive collaboration between Zionist political organizations, "Israeli" and "US" police and intelligence forces, mercenaries, and corporations in the private "security" sector.Confronting Zionism is crucial to any movement forward against militarism and internal oppression.Bringing together representatives of several movements, our conference will focus on two themes: Zionist disruption of anti-colonial movements and land as the basis of struggle and solidarity.<br />For more information and to pre-register, go to </span><a href="http://www.onepalestine.org/" eudora="AUTOURL"><span style="font-size:78%;">www.onepalestine.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">Co-sponsored by Jericho Boston </span><a href="http://www.jerichoboston.org/" eudora="AUTOURL"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.jerichoboston.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />NECDPPO Box 681East Boston, MA 02128</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-54805092447226686682008-03-16T16:19:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:24.378+01:00Dealing with Death and Destruction: in Southern Lebanon and in Beirut<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmuuVtV5V459uc3IzGenhSRe9TEcQ7GyIkfcNpubC6hn4WXhzRzb0d5qbA8VUd2mOFCM2e4U9ci7oZl9RUWfGumZgeaIwbZpwcnDvZ-F4uZTU_XaDJiv9BoUo8o7rrpWwpNkooQA/s1600-h/salam+daher.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178360769537139138" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmuuVtV5V459uc3IzGenhSRe9TEcQ7GyIkfcNpubC6hn4WXhzRzb0d5qbA8VUd2mOFCM2e4U9ci7oZl9RUWfGumZgeaIwbZpwcnDvZ-F4uZTU_XaDJiv9BoUo8o7rrpWwpNkooQA/s320/salam+daher.jpg" border="0" /></a>Two witnesses give their testimonies at the Bruxelles Tribunal for Lebanon, Salam Daher and Dr Hayder Decmak<br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">(in the photo, Salam Daher and one of the victims of the Qana Massacre)<br /></span></em><span style="font-size:78%;">Salam Daher has been a relief worker in Southern Lebanon since 1985, practically his entire adult life. He has seen his share of misery and catastrophe, but nothing prepared him to face what the Israeli acts of war would force him to witness. Mr Daher is an attractive and rugged man who exudes a sense of humility and strength, exactly the qualities that are required for one who has to remain “grounded” in order to respond to the wounded in the best way. Himself a victim of the war, hospitalised for 55 days and still undergoing rehabilitation treatment, he is a living example of the motto of the Lebanese Red Cross, “Sacrifice without limits”. “No matter what it might bring to us,” he said, “we have to be ready to sacrifice ourselves, whatever the price.”<br /><br />In the Bruxelles Tribunal, he presented a testimony of a number of events that he was involved in. All of them show an extreme gravity in the kind of situations that the citizens and the rescue crews were dealing with. Listening to the testimony, I could not help but think of the urgency and the shock, but also of the stress of knowing that the lives of other people depend on one’s competence in extreme situations. So many of the events were things that are not considered to be acceptable even according to rules of war. One of the first events he mentioned was the killing of Layal Najib, a photojournalist murdered by Israeli bombs on the road between Siddiqine and Qana. Her vehicle was clearly marked as carrying a journalist, but this did not spare her life.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_4l4eihBSobDwoDfofMBLr9ajYYQQjZgsvKifGMYUTM75UwcQtnv9tErRelalL9Pfv6Oc8qYymc8SCBz-KLVmEFofwTvVu0UGxnJedh4_XiJo1lMPQJMHVtjdlbNUPHx7jZkH6g/s1600-h/najib.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178360481774330290" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_4l4eihBSobDwoDfofMBLr9ajYYQQjZgsvKifGMYUTM75UwcQtnv9tErRelalL9Pfv6Oc8qYymc8SCBz-KLVmEFofwTvVu0UGxnJedh4_XiJo1lMPQJMHVtjdlbNUPHx7jZkH6g/s320/najib.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4WzfjxddjG8iXH_jT38WzMGpX8g0DNNDyYesF_ASPSoVD73xhgVAgHFc-JN_qBwwpVS7FN-4LnZlRmd503BtSknMInzurGgz4x_fujrnNTCn4_LXRWU4hae2PsJBBxxPcHjNcw/s1600-h/LayalNajib1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178360357220278690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4WzfjxddjG8iXH_jT38WzMGpX8g0DNNDyYesF_ASPSoVD73xhgVAgHFc-JN_qBwwpVS7FN-4LnZlRmd503BtSknMInzurGgz4x_fujrnNTCn4_LXRWU4hae2PsJBBxxPcHjNcw/s320/LayalNajib1.jpg" border="0" /></a> </span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>In the photos, the young photojournalist, with all her life before her, and after the Israelis decided she's lived long enough.</em> </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />In another day, at the start of the war, he was attempting to ask UNIFIL to allow a group of people to leave the area and seek refuge in presumably safer zones. Mr. Daher recounts that while he was on the phone with UNIFIL authorities, asking how to proceed in rescuing those who were arriving to the Red Cross after having been the survivors of a previous attack, their convoy was bombed. He surmised that the idea behind this might be to leave no witnesses of the first attack.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlXzA9iJclak6-Te5VqsTgcIjjgnIA680HjVYELosFfz4ZbQVajKWe_DIHXwO720wJOZbT8R_CU9fO9liYiMY9bW5-bbYl0UqtmdQkWqAPgsMWSVjMuLU2lm-oqEL-B99nnYXYhQ/s1600-h/marwaheen.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178361637120532962" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlXzA9iJclak6-Te5VqsTgcIjjgnIA680HjVYELosFfz4ZbQVajKWe_DIHXwO720wJOZbT8R_CU9fO9liYiMY9bW5-bbYl0UqtmdQkWqAPgsMWSVjMuLU2lm-oqEL-B99nnYXYhQ/s320/marwaheen.jpg" border="0" /></a>On another occasion, the UN was aware that a building was going to be bombed. They hastily departed, leaving the Lebanese people to their own devices. At the </span><a href="http://tyros.leb.net/massacres/marwaheen.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Marwaheen Massacre</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, when a convoy of civilians were refused shelter by the French UN forces in the area and were subsequently bombed.<em> (In the photo, some of the vitims of the bombing from F16 fighter planes.)</em> All of this, the International Red Cross were aware of, but they themselves provided no instruments and were not allowed to intervene. They permitted one ambulance and one escort per day in specific areas. Yet, only one patient could be rescued, and the bombings always had multiple victims and seriously wounded. When an ambulance was provided, the coordination was such that a 48 hour time period passed between the moment permission was given and the moment of the rescue action.<br /><br />“There was a deliberate aim to obstruct relief actions. They wanted to oblige people in the areas of bombardment to leave, but then, Israel wanted to bring about as much damage and death as it could in order to undermine the resistance. It was deliberate. I say this because even after permission was given, and it had to be coordinated with UNIFIL and the Israeli authorities, the areas and roads were bombed.”<br /><br />One of the lawyers asked if a formal complaint was made to the ICRC. “No, we did not follow up after the war. If you complain, you get nothing. We are used to it and besides, our objective was the people, rescuing the people, and the people know it.” While it might seem odd to some that a rescue worker would give a political motivation to the events, in the situation of the Israeli war against Lebanon, the question “why?” was always in the forefront.<br /><br />“Why?” was one of the questions the world asked following the Qana massacre, where two extended families were exterminated. Mr Daher was there, and the horror of seeing civilians, especially infants, killed in such a way left an indelible sign. In fact, there are a few very strange Zionist blogs that </span><a href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/08/the_qana_conspiracy_theory.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">attempted to accuse the Qana massacre of being staged</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, and indeed, they pointed out that Mr Daher was in various rescue missions in the South, therefore, he must be some kind of propaganda tool. What seems very interesting to note, when faced with the reactions of the world public to the massacre of Qana, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dan Gillerman replied at a pro-Israel rally in New York, “To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You're damn right we are.” It is evident that Israel knew what they were doing, so why would they think others would be oblivious to it, especially those who were in the zone responding to the calls for ambulances and paramedics? Furthermore, it is not unreasonable that rescue workers go from one town to another. My husband is a volunteer for the Red Cross and they make themselves available for very considerable amounts of territory, if the need arises.<br /><br />Another witness who gave a testimony at Bruxelles was Dr. Hayder Decmak, a Beirut physician. “It was 33 days of total medical emergency,” he stated. “Five hospitals were bombed. The Israeli Air Force acted to stop the Hospitals from working. Seventy-seven percent of the people who came to be treated and should have had hospital stays could not find shelter. Israel was monitoring everything and they gave their Air Force permission to hit hospitals. But it did not stop there, as we know. Many of the patients who came to us were bombed while on the road. The Air Force had the permission, or they were ordered, to hit anything that moved.”<br /><br />When asked about the personnel to treat the wounded he replied, “We tried to do all we could, but conditions were dramatic. During the war we could not even depend on the international organisations that should have been there for us because they were never given any security cover and therefore could not move effectively enough. I must say that we saw few humanitarian workers, especially in the south and in Southern Beirut.”<br /><br />He described the dramatic situation also in other terms, “There was a constant sound of destruction, which caused great psychological stress and in many cases, permanent trauma. Part of the dramatic nature was the fact that there was no way to escape. People could flee, in theory, if they had someplace to go, people living in faraway places, but there was also the prohibition of travel and enormous damage to infrastructure, making the seeking of refuge impossible even for those who might have this as an option. Everyone was a target, to be quite clear. Even the Lebanese Red Cross was targeted. There was a particularly grave incident in the north, near the Syrian border, where many were fleeing, in which men were murdered by Israeli bombs. They were clearly targeted and killed.” One of the judges asked if they were members of the militia. “No, they were distributing bread to those on the road.”<br /><br />When asked about the aftermath, the Doctor concluded in this way, “A serious matter was the fact of not knowing the whereabouts of people’s loved ones. Everyone was aware that someone they loved, family members, could be dead, but it was also true that many found out about it only days and weeks after the fact and this prolonged and deepened the suffering. It is something that normally would destroy a society, this kind of tension, but in fact, it did the opposite. The Lebanese did not turn against one another, and in spite of the problems that our country faces, our civil society, together with the NGOs, will do what it can. Together, we take responsibility to see that there is justice for our people. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-41595108187766036332008-03-15T22:19:00.001+01:002008-12-11T00:11:24.673+01:00Oren Ben-Dor - Freedom of Speech, Free Speech and Their Enemies<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLre8OKW448jR8eMWE1Dpds7AlD8ZhiVQMxMGwfHRlMIzA2fAINHmJhgQ6PElpUzer248CgCJxtBi32GXsufOtjT6F4Zq3eqoJ80U2f8W5SCJxq5jOFUeg7OlN-FY3j1dvNjrtvw/s1600-h/leunig_gallery__550x375.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178087476473127314" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLre8OKW448jR8eMWE1Dpds7AlD8ZhiVQMxMGwfHRlMIzA2fAINHmJhgQ6PElpUzer248CgCJxtBi32GXsufOtjT6F4Zq3eqoJ80U2f8W5SCJxq5jOFUeg7OlN-FY3j1dvNjrtvw/s320/leunig_gallery__550x375.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">from </span><a href="http://counterpunch.org/bendor03152008.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Counterpunch<br /></span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon<br />By OREN BEN-DOR<br /></strong>I have recently signed a<a href="http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/02/petition-for-two-activists-that-you.html"> petition </a>that condemns the constant attempts to silence Gilad Atzmon. The same petition also objects to the constant attempts to discredit and hinder the website that hosts, among others, Gilad's views--Peacepalestine--one of the more enlightening internet platforms on Palestine.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">It would be an understatement to say that debating Gilad's voice is supremely important. No thinking person could fail to be stimulated by the deep connections Gilad makes.<br /><br />Dwelling together in the unsaid is what makes intellectuals' innermost togetherness but it does not mean that all those who respond to the unsaid can be assimilated into one another so as to form some kind of a "group".<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">All those who try to smother Gilad's endeavours, to distort his voice through vulgar associations and conventional clichés, and to utilise uncritically accepted conventional havens for thoughtlessness, do not really do justice to the intellectual game as far as Palestine is concerned. I believe this message to be the essence of this petition.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In <em>Chronicle of a Death Foretold</em>, Gabriel García Márquez narrates the story of a village in which everybody understands that a murder is about to be committed in the near future. Yet, nobody is doing anything about this forthcoming event that is chronicled to happen. Some deep causes combine to make everybody complicit in diverting, repressing, hindering, "forgetting", being "delayed", in short avoiding any possibility of stopping the chronicle from happening. This concealment thus becomes a part of that fate that eventually leads to the death of Santiago Nasar.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">García Márquez may have given us a metaphor of how fate can unfold as possibilities that are always already grounded in denial of deep self-concealing past events. He also shows how the unfolding of this fate lurks amidst intensive highly-involved chatter.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Zionism may not merely be a cause of colonial injustice in Palestine in the sense of being a misguided response to anti-Jewish racism understood as "anti-semitism". Zionism can be conceived as a symptom the non-empathetic manifestations of which are historically and existentially continuing certain facets of Jewish being and thinking. It is very important to ask whether the originary aggression of victim mentality as well as the choseness-begotten separateness existentially links the Zionist and the Jewish question. This link may well pervade the mentality of Israelis whether orthodox or not.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The anti-Zionist struggle must not encage itself in too simplistic a link between the Jewish Question with the Zionist Question--a simplistic link that in fact craves to sever the deeper ontological connection that might persist between the two questions. Such a dominant, and far too quick, paradigm that by and large dominates the anti-Zionist struggle has been that Zionism's misuse of the Holocaust is somehow an aberration of Jewish thinking. Thus portrayed, Zionism can be successfully isolated and fought against by Jews as Jews.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">It is this very denial of the existential link between the Jewish Question and the Zionist Question--a link that is suppressed by formulations such as "Jews Against Zionism" or, more broadly, by many attempts of "Jews" to become anti-Zionist - that needs to be questioned and destabilised.To be an anti-Zionist without due regard to that being and thinking that Zionism may so tragically continues, may well be to confuse symptom and cause, thus perpetuating that history that leaves the symptom--Zionism--intact. There is need to fathom the extent to which the slogan "Jews against Zionism" may be an oxymoron. Such an oxymoron may be at the heart of the denial, and protection bestowed upon the denial, of the oxymoronic nature of another notion, namely that of a "Jewish and democratic state".<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">It is the task of an intellectual to touch the untouchable and liberate thinking from its blackmailed, somewhere idle, comfort zones. I am firmly convinced that these vulgar attempts at silencing of Gilad and other courageous voices offends against supremely thoughtful, compassionate and egalitarian intellectual endeavours. This propaganda of silencing which is characterised by breeding conflict and heresy stalls a debate which is crucial for Palestine and for humanity. Intellectual reflections on actuality, historicity, causes of events--those primordial events that manifestations of violence, the Holocaust amongst them, respond to - are not to be decided by picketing, balloting and smearing.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">What is an intellectual? What is an intellectual pursuit? Intellectual pursuit is to make a connection that brings the unsaid and the unsayable into language. As such, an intellectual pursuit is not only about sharpening and clarifying but about being able to hear the unsaid, thus making a connection and near actuality in a way that may shock and surprise in its strangeness. Being an intellectual is first and foremost to hold the mirror, or rather losing oneself in the mirror.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The essence of an intellectual is free speech and therefore some reflections on free speech are in order here.For an intellectual, free speech is not a matter of choice, but a way of being, or responding, of being response-able and therefore responsible. To authentically speak rather than to be spoken by, to be active rather than passive, is to respond in speech to self-concealing actuality.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">That which needs to be brought into language by free speech is quite often that which is most difficult to say and to hear.In fact so difficult it might be that we might even venture to suggest that it is essentially impossible to respond in speech to what is. So, rather, it would be better to say that to speak is to respond to an always antecedent and mysterious call, thus essentially belatedly and distortingly--to respond to what needs to be attended to in speech. If speech is the captive of discourse, the captive of represented group identification, the captive of methodologies, the captive of a representative narrative of captive of amputating version of collective memory, the captive even in the notion of a thinking-subject, it is not yet active speech.The Saying of speech is irreducible to anything merely said and is always a response to a call by a yet always-antecedent Saying that has already called upon the speaker to respond.<br /><br />Freedom of speech is an absence of constraint on free speech. Freedom of speech is not merely associated with freedom of information but with a freedom that ensures conditions for free speech, speech that responds to what is unsaid- to something which is nameless and inexpressible.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Sometimes freedom of speech can be understood as that condition in which nobody has dominance over the means of representation. But even this is not quite, not yet, to capture the essence of free speech. Even conditions of absence of dominance of the means of representation are still not conditions that allow for freedom of speech. This is because equality of the means of representation does not by itself entail free speech. Speech happens as the dark side of representations and their means. Freedom of speech ensures the conditions for some people to ethically bring the inexpressible into language without giving up the secrets that language holds--secrets that call upon the ear and the mind.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">We need free speech in order to understand what might be the deep origin of Zionism and in order to contemplate Zionism's so-successful use of the Holocaust "memory". By simplistically condemning any free speech about the mystery of the Holocaust as "anti-Semitic" or "holocaust denial" the silencers suck all energy from our thinking, thus playing into the hand of denials and vulnerabilities, thus helping to tranquilise the mind from connectedness to primordial events.<br /><br />Moreover, it is the idle speech of those silencers which may in effect deny the significance of the Holocaust. The significance of the Holocaust, like the significance of terror and violence, is not attended to by making it dependent upon, or subservient to, this or that person or groups. The significance of the Holocaust is both nebulous and ubiquitous to humanity.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">We must not legalise the thinking about the Holocaust. We must not turn thinking about it into a moral, legal or indeed factual reflection. The horrors and murderous violence against Jews may have been a response to events that had corrupted the relationship between humans and Being long ago. Grasped thus, the Holocaust may have been severely distorted by National Socialism; by those who are said to "deny" the Holocaust by some arguments about facts; by self-righteous Jews-against-Zionism; by Zionists. All these forms of forgetfulness of the Holocaust may well be on a common matrix of denial. Indeed this denial may constitute a chronicle of another Holocaust foretold.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">My point is that the Holocaust's significance lies beyond the actions by the Nazis who actually perpetrated the violence and who justified these actions by turning this significance into a militarist object of an idea. The same claim can be made in relation Zionists and their Jewish opponents.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Thus, a simplistic anti-Zionist struggle - including such struggle's memorialisation of the Holocaust by fighting against the abuse of Holocaust memory by Zionists - may itself tragically become the most sophisticated form of Holocaust denial. It is not simply that Zionism denies the Holocaust. Those who fight Zionism may have already fallen into that very fateful chronicle that Zionism participates in.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Voltaire's words concerning the freedom of speech loom large. I urge all people with free speech as their guide to sign this petition and to help by that to respond to the actuality of the actual in Palestine, an actuality, again, which embraces all humanity and the denial of which might well have catastrophic implications for humanity.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">I believe that only through holding of the mirror might there be a faint chance to find a connective tissue to that being and thinking of Israelis. Without holding this mirror the egalitarian struggle against Zionism may well remain in distance and deafness to the self-preserving violence in the Middle East and the World.<br /></span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>Oren Ben-Dor grew up in the State of Israel. He teaches political philosophy and the philosophy of law at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK.His books</em> Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere <em>(2000) and</em> Thinking about Law: In Silence with Heidegger <em>(2007) are published with Hart Publishing, Oxford. He can be reached at: </em></span><a href="mailto:okbendor@yahoo.com"><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>okbendor@yahoo.com</em></span></a></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-33832857085285747412008-03-13T15:11:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:24.938+01:00The plight of my people, by Nadia<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGF6c7iKLHHTzR3MCydWEsnQH2VIsFXKIHcYNafTJjyGfOSUa_U_E7oYpJ_1aeVG7t0_mPmylo6JhMAVlba6N5oT7LSw1qyqEi-GXK2kqXX_Utc0Ccw-9eG_-qvx_PPjDIo3kQ9Q/s1600-h/we+are+returning.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177230415749210498" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGF6c7iKLHHTzR3MCydWEsnQH2VIsFXKIHcYNafTJjyGfOSUa_U_E7oYpJ_1aeVG7t0_mPmylo6JhMAVlba6N5oT7LSw1qyqEi-GXK2kqXX_Utc0Ccw-9eG_-qvx_PPjDIo3kQ9Q/s320/we+are+returning.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">In a land far far away, monsters roam the earth. Life is worthless and humanity is plagued with hunger. The living conditions are not suitable for animals, let alone the poor citizens of this land. But what should be expected from a land that has been taken over by monsters. The horror that this terrain has been consumed by has caused some people to flee their homes. Still, others stay steadfast, vowing never to be bullied out of their abodes, as humble as they may be. Those who left will be ever ridiculed for having abandoned their homes in a time of crisis. But the woes of their counterparts are unfathomable. The monstrosities that have flooded into the area have forced the remaining dwellers into hiding. Yet, even in hiding they are not safe.<br /><br />In the calm of the evenings, doors are smashed open and children are ripped from the bosoms of comfort. They are beaten and humiliated, after which they are kept in isolation. What do you ask is the crime they have committed; this is an easy one, they chose to stay home rather than run.<br /><br />Stay, Stay. Do not desert what will one day belong to you again. Once you leave there is no turning back. It is too great and vast outside your home. When you leave you allow the demise of divinity to take place. Lost are those who left. But to you who stay, fear not creation, fear the creator. For those who are pious know your place in his text.<br /><br />Released from captivity, these young men make their way back home. The reality of it is that their homes have been destroyed during the time spent in detainment. There is no comfort in future occupations, for that to has been taken away as well. All their property has been ruined. Life is grim. Mothers weeping for lost husbands and sons. Children crying, longing to put back together their broken homes. Young ladies refusing to produce offspring for fear of this world.<br /><br />Nevertheless, as shattered as spirits have become, they rise again and again.<br /><br />These monsters are frightening, with their mighty armor and unparalleled weaponry. The wickedness of their vengeful plight to wipe out the remainder of these persons puts them in a sphere of their own. Lack of sympathy for mankind has set such characters apart from all civilizations. Fear not, ye whom be oppressed. History has taught that all things high above the rest shall come crashing down eventually.<br /><br />Mothers withhold those tears, for they shall never be enough to salvage all that has been lost in the precious land of PALESTINE<br /><br />By Nadia Posted on </span><a href="http://palestinian.ning.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Palestinian Mothers</span></a>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-88711740645747383232008-03-10T20:21:00.003+01:002008-12-11T00:11:25.827+01:00Rania Masri on the Israeli War against Lebanon<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQaq47PKkOpBUJj6Cb0bEUIaQ9LXWKAc5N_tl6rigtVg7LyGQbRnr7_VKW85zixCwSy4i_A4wmmYW_k7JpdrrTapm04ICcmDaFCftMDXpJXsD0JbGE9Bt6EdC6pbjl4Y5mU9FhrQ/s1600-h/MASR.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176196608531128626" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQaq47PKkOpBUJj6Cb0bEUIaQ9LXWKAc5N_tl6rigtVg7LyGQbRnr7_VKW85zixCwSy4i_A4wmmYW_k7JpdrrTapm04ICcmDaFCftMDXpJXsD0JbGE9Bt6EdC6pbjl4Y5mU9FhrQ/s400/MASR.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="color:#6666cc;">“Much depends on our belief in our capabilities. Hezbollah believed they could win, and if it wasn’t so, right now we’d be speaking as representatives of Occupied Lebanon.”</span><br /><br /><a href="http://greenresistance.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Rania Masri, PhD</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> is a professor at the University of Balamand, Lebanon and member of </span><a href="http://greenline.org.lb/new/index.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Green Line Organisation</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">. She came to the Bruxelles Tribunal as expert witness for the issue “The Environmental Impact of the Israeli War on Lebanon.” Her presentation was a devastating indictment at 360°, as well as a powerful analysis on the reasoning that seemed to be behind Israel’s claimed purpose that it would “</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jul/13/israelandthepalestinians.lebanon1"><span style="font-size:78%;">turn back the clock in Lebanon back by 20 years</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">.” I was overwhelmed by the completeness of the information, which presented aspects that the media simply does not cover, but more than that, it was the Round Table presentation that fully revealed the power of this speaker.<br /><br />Professor Masri is a delicate and petite woman of doubtless elegance. Upon a casual glance, one might think that someone this beautiful was an actress. But, this is one of the cases where beauty of character is reflected in outward beauty, because the information was peppered with insightful and profound analysis that can only come from a scholar with a pure ethical sense. Her clear and powerful brand of communication was of absolute impact, and it left members of the public with a bulk of new information and with a drive to transmit this information as far as possible. She provided for the public copies of the dossier she prepared, with extensive details on the categories of her topic, as well as press releases from Greenpeace and other environmental organisations. I will try to upload the dossier on the </span><a href="http://peacepalestinedocuments.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">peacepalestine documents blog</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> in the near future.<br /><br />Prof. Masri broke the destruction down into four types, and presented the essence of this destruction as having a three-fold characteristic of violence that was intricately linked.<br /><br />The destruction can be broken down into<br />1) The Oil Spill and its consequences<br />2) Bombing of industries<br />3) Cluster Bombs<br />4) Demolition Dust from the destruction of buildings and other manmade structures<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkz2km8_27hN392slToFkGuNg6P9GuPk2MyEnnW5gOb6Wtc7fhndWnrSgfLPmWYSdLHjd58_rurTpsKcIbjAjCqy_3gsSNfVwQWR5mZ_6KifMZ3cPOy-yTaYmVWiCgjUePUn1kBQ/s1600-h/oilspill_zoom.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176197703747789138" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkz2km8_27hN392slToFkGuNg6P9GuPk2MyEnnW5gOb6Wtc7fhndWnrSgfLPmWYSdLHjd58_rurTpsKcIbjAjCqy_3gsSNfVwQWR5mZ_6KifMZ3cPOy-yTaYmVWiCgjUePUn1kBQ/s320/oilspill_zoom.jpg" border="0" /></a>In the first, she described the bombing of the coastal Jiyyeh power plant (25 km south of the capital), which took place on 13 July, when the tanks were full to capacity, as energy consumption is increased in the summer. So severe was the damage and so likely was the danger of new fires, that only after two months could the Lebanese specialists intervene. As a matter of fact, the air and sea blockade imposed by Israel prevented any response to restrict the damage in the area of and other areas affected by it. It was impossible commence early clean-up operations for months, when any time there is such an economic disaster, immediate intervention is the rule.<br /><br />The bombardment had destroyed the fuel deposits, and the destruction could be categorised into various sorts. The first was the fire itself, which raged for three days and nights, destroying the plant with the combustion of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil. Two kinds of soot came about from this, a white cloud of pulverised cement and a black rain of a different chemical nature. The soot that was in the air with “clouds that were visible and had debris that fell in flakes, like black cotton,” was also penetrating every living thing. “We breathe soot,” she declared. “The people of Lebanon were forced to breathe bio-accumulable and persistent chemical products that once inhaled, over time have been demonstrated to cause cancer.” The oil spill that was a consequence of the bombardment deposited into the Mediterranean 15,000 tons of crude oil, generating a spill measuring 150 km x 220 km, polluting the sea, the coast and the seabed causing long-term damage to the ecosystem that is impossible to quantify in its full entity with the current status of intervention. The destruction of the fauna was a consequence of this action, including the extinction of several rare species of turtles that have used this area for their reproduction since time began. Water wells were also polluted, and not in the south alone, rendering the potable water for personal and agricultural use nothing but a diseased source. The fishing industry was devastated as well by this disaster, and with it, the other major sources of income in the area, tourism, and agriculture. Priceless archaeological sites were damaged, including Byblos, one of the most antique settlements of humanity, which managed to survive other wars throughout the centuries.<br /><br />To date, the Lebanese government has not presented any compensation claims to the UN or any of its relevant agencies. In the dossier furnished by Prof. Masri we read, “(it is) as if the disaster happened on another planet and not that the real responsibility lies in the hands of the US government which prevented then all calls for cease fire and then to end the blockade worsening the impacts of the spill. Professor Richard Steiner from the University of Alaska and member of the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Commission of Environmental and Social Policy reaffirmed his conclusion that Israel intended to cause an environmental disaster as it knew exactly that the oil can only be used for the power plant and not any other activities related to war, making this attack a clear war crime.”<br /><br />Adding insult to injury, the Lebanese government has not created a National Contingency Plan to confront similar oil spills and that the areas are still so severely polluted it is as if there were no clean-up activities undertaken at all. Such would be natural, as the only resources were a measly 5 million dollars. International efforts to hold Israel liable and force compensation for their intentional damage caused to humans and the environment have so far been fruitless and donations to date are practically non-existent.<br /><br />The second category, the bombing of industries, was no less crucial to the goal of “turning Lebanon’s clock back 20 years.” Liban Lait, the factory in Balbek, (quite far from the “Blue Line”) that produces 90% of the pasteurised dairy products in the Lebanese market, was bombed to smithereens by the Israeli Air Force. Prof. Masri posed an interesting question: “Was the milk factory destroyed for a political and economic reason? It is known that it had just prior to the war won a tender to supply the UN forces in the region with their dairy products.”<br /><br />The third category of damage is considered by the expert witness as “the greatest damage of them all,” and that is Israel’s use of cluster bombs. “Seventy percent of southern Lebanon relies on agriculture as its main source of revenue. In almost the entire southern area, cluster bombs were dropped, and each day, new ones are discovered.” She stated that these unconventional weapons create a situation of turmoil that is very difficult to counter. “Farmers and those who raise livestock have a choice to make: they either decide to abandon the harvest and not put their lives at risk, or they carry out their work, knowing that these bombs are disseminated and scattered everywhere. This then is not only a problem of the loss of income and the destruction of the economy, but it has a more sinister side to it, and that is the essence of national security. People are in one way or the other forced to abandon their lands because they cannot safely carry out their work, or they are subject to a growing fear that gives them the feeling that they have no choice but to leave.”<br /><br />She mentioned a detail that was quite interesting: “The Israelis know what they dropped, but they have made a choice. They have chosen to NOT provide complete information either on the sites or the nature of the bombs they dropped. They have willingly encouraged the growing fear and the tendency of those remaining in the area to abandon their land.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NV-FqioD7A-6-9Vy9NgSzaEof9wSrOyV098MMrHKt-BTJoW2WW279V3kEq57k_BYFsFWaNVroUOcPd6Hx490fu4kDLR-dGi3itk6XPP8IzqaHIRf8ile6puCCjzRyEYjbaYDXA/s1600-h/war%2520destruction%252C%2520beirut.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176198347992883554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NV-FqioD7A-6-9Vy9NgSzaEof9wSrOyV098MMrHKt-BTJoW2WW279V3kEq57k_BYFsFWaNVroUOcPd6Hx490fu4kDLR-dGi3itk6XPP8IzqaHIRf8ile6puCCjzRyEYjbaYDXA/s320/war%2520destruction%252C%2520beirut.jpg" border="0" /></a>The fourth category of damage demonstrates “criminal negligence or deliberate destruction having consequences on the civilian population that are almost difficult for us to imagine unless we put it in a context we are more familiar with. The debris that was the consequences of the Israeli attacks upon Lebanon were four times that of the material removed from the destroyed World Trade Center.”<br /><br />The rubble provoked its own material damages, with destruction of homes, factories, bridges, roads, ports, television stations, airports and anything else built by man. But, possibly more insidious than the rubble itself was the “Demolition Dust”. It penetrated everything, and its chemical content is unknown. The dust is known to include high quantities of asbestos, lethal to human lungs. The dust remains in the atmosphere, soil and water wells, polluting everything. Not only was the dust from the bombardments themselves dispersed, but the movement of the debris and rubble polluted other areas that had not been directly involved in the bombardments.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhlae3_8ghzi_Rm_Gb3w_VZeVMfC7WWr2QXqzgo15vgN5m0_EHTkCuUm7qjssvp1Pd0vh3EJ2AfNsAxehfhC1QwWyCjoD8xeJhqtZ9rmIo_qf3OsMsfRLeAzONwEcQCdUskrR3cw/s1600-h/dust+beirut.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176198927813468530" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhlae3_8ghzi_Rm_Gb3w_VZeVMfC7WWr2QXqzgo15vgN5m0_EHTkCuUm7qjssvp1Pd0vh3EJ2AfNsAxehfhC1QwWyCjoD8xeJhqtZ9rmIo_qf3OsMsfRLeAzONwEcQCdUskrR3cw/s320/dust+beirut.jpg" border="0" /></a>Two aspects of this destruction were mentioned that were to this point something I had never considered: the problems of where to put the debris and where to get the new building materials. Prof. Masri indicated that Lebanon itself unwisely and with negligence dumped the debris into the sea, aggravating an already devastated situation. In order to rebuild, the mountains of Lebanon will see an increase in quarrying and deforestation activities, which will devastate the environment for many decades to come.<br /><br />The three-fold violence had environmental, economic and social damage as part of its devastation. The military violence was meant to bend the will of the people to capitulate to Israel. Israel attempted to place the blame for all of these things upon Hezbollah and the resistance. In this, they had wreaked havoc and a near apocalypse upon the Lebanese people, but they did not break their solidarity with one another and their support of the resistance.<br /><br />The economic violence is “a theft of people’s livelihoods. If they see no future for themselves, which is likely in the case of the south, or in the case of the industries, small and large, that were totally devastated, they are bound to feel there is no hope and they may perhaps emigrate or surrender to desperation.”<br /><br />The environmental damage does not touch Lebanon alone, but the entire region. “The Israeli war is ongoing due to the environmental aspects. This is not the first Israeli war against Lebanon, but it IS the most blatant US-Israeli war against us. I’m sad to say, it won’t be the last war either.”<br /><br />The Round Table discussion brought out qualities of the expert witness that are testimony of her extensive activist experience, and statements that struck the heart and mind. “Much depends on our belief in our capabilities. Hezbollah believed they could win, and if it wasn’t so, right now we’d be speaking as representatives of Occupied Lebanon.”<br /><br />“We as activists are placed in the defensive. We have to stop doing this. It is time we understand that we have to propose. We have to contextualise our issues and causes with other acts of solidarity. It is vital for us to make links across communities and it is time we realised something important: we actually ARE the majority. Our arguments are what most people think and consider as right if they are exposed to our arguments. The problem is that we have not been effective in framing the argument.” She then quoted Commandante Marcos about the universality of solidarity.<br /><br />The public reacted to her contribution in a mixed way. While all were very enthused, since the public was composed mainly of activists from around the world who came with the very desire to seek justice for Lebanon and the rule of law, there were some comments asking for clarification of the thoughts just expressed regarding the spirit of activism and how to concretely realise the belief paradigm. A young woman from Morocco, Miss Freser, said that she was disappointed that there were far too few young people and students at the Tribunal, while she recognises that young people should be utilised as a tool and as a weapon if necessary. “Your discourse was very inspiring, yet it may be too simplistic and removed from reality. The media is so strong, and it would take a lot of force to disregard what they tell us. We should work with the media if we can, but they don’t give us space. It is time all of us got the same message across and that is, ‘We have to wake up together’.”<br /><br />Prof. Masri responded that she felt it was indeed true that the media was very biased in favour of Israel, but part of our ineffectiveness as activists could also be that we aren’t recognising the problem in its true dimensions. We have to first create a unifying vision. “Let’s conceptualise what we want. It will happen maybe in several hundred years, but we have to know our goal.” In a humorous aside she noted, “if someone tells us it is all within reach, let me know what they are on and I’d like some of that!” She made some suggestions that were both of substance and ones of form.<br />* carry out a boycott campaign and other instruments that have short-term results where effects can be seen<br />* there has to be continuity in action<br />* find the spectrum to convince others, infiltrate the media and push the point forward<br />* create an alternative media system<br /><br />She also suggested for the victims of the Israeli war against Lebanon to carry out legal cases wherever they could. Individual legal cases for dual citizens should be brought about in every case possible. International law is built so that the rule of law takes precedence and violations will have to be accepted by the courts in the countries, even if Lebanon has not yet brought Israel to court. She hopes this day will come.<br /><br />There were other comments to Prof. Masri’s interventions from the other panel members. John Catalinotto, of the International Action Centre commented, “We have to educate people of the progressive struggle of the resistance, and as far as belief goes, we have to ACT AS IF it is possible. We have to be ready for the possibility of change. Mustafa Badr al-Din said, “The world knows that resistance in a small country can change the world. This is an important lesson. As far as not having a media of our own, that should not stop us, because we always have the chance left of talking to honest media people.”</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">This is the second of a series of reports by Mary Rizzo regarding the Bruxelles International Jury of Conscience (People's Tribunal) for Lebanon</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-29328321129182621562008-03-09T14:39:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:25.912+01:00"In Lebanon, the resistance ARE the people" Mustafa Badr al-Din<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7yVqBuY-X64WcOoQK4vmZvQc54EXI0W50eKVYbwvnXC0BmWK0rTD556EeHLF89xfiR1ApQrM0cemtQYFscbg5ZGIE-77ha9nd4PdupWmr6DwBua0KYR-sv5CzhtLFNxfXlgEJvQ/s1600-h/photo_searching_for_family_in_ruins.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175740719227494674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7yVqBuY-X64WcOoQK4vmZvQc54EXI0W50eKVYbwvnXC0BmWK0rTD556EeHLF89xfiR1ApQrM0cemtQYFscbg5ZGIE-77ha9nd4PdupWmr6DwBua0KYR-sv5CzhtLFNxfXlgEJvQ/s320/photo_searching_for_family_in_ruins.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">At the left, a man searches in the ruins of his home for his family members after an air raid in Southern Lebanon.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>First of a series of reports of the People’s Tribunal for Lebanon (Bruxelles, February 2008)</strong> Mary Rizzo, <a href="http://www.peacepalestine.org/">http://www.peacepalestine.org/</a><br /><br />Many were the testimonies that we 250 members of international civil society were able to hear. All of them brought something important that we need to share with those who were not present. I will present the various testimonies and participants’ interventions one by one. Today, I begin with a testimony by Dr. Mustafa Badr al-Din, Mayor of Nabatiya, a city in the south of Lebanon, 25 km from the “Blue Line”. This witness brought a flood of emotion to the public, not only for the content of his intervention, but for the amazing spirit he showed to us all. A physician, a man with a poetic way of communication, but most of all, a beacon for his people, Dr. Badr al-Din presented an important testimony, and the following day, in round table discussion, allowed us to understand more in depth the meaning behind what had happened to his people, his city and his land. His demeanour was one of extreme gentleness and wisdom. His words were both crushing denouncements of the evil men do to other men, but mostly, of the indomitable spirit of resistance that is inside all truly free people, free inside no matter what kind of prison or war their bodies are being held in against their will. They remain free and alive as long as we continue to carry the flame of their spirit and pass it along to others.<br /><br />Nabatiya is the capital city of a region that numbers one million citizens. It is of great administrative importance to Lebanon, as well as being a community that is mixed in religion. “This is a holy occasion,” he said, opening his testimony, as he told us that his municipality alone sacrificed 250 martyrs whose only crime was being Lebanese. Not only that, “their law, Israeli law, had stopped the arrival to us of food and medicine. We asked ourselves, ‘What do they want from us?’ ‘For how long will they continue?’ It is my responsibility as a witness to testify, and I, in the name of my people ask the world community, ‘How long do we need to say at war? How many more wars will there be? Is the international community available to hear us and respond to what we have undergone and are still undergoing? Are the Europeans able to act against genocide in our country as they are able to denounce it and act elsewhere?’ Most importantly, since we know that this war will not be the last, we have to ask what Israel’s hidden agenda is.”<br /><br />Dr. Badr al-Din, in his double task of mayor and physician, knows he has assumed a great responsibility on a personal level and by election: to care for his people on a physical and political level. “As a physician, I try to look at root causes. We have to think about why things have happened and to keep asking questions. As a mayor, I have to explain the reasons to my people, especially to the children. We know that one part of the world endorses or closes its eyes, and this is incomprehensible to our people. As a mayor, I have to help my people and I have to give them optimism.”<br /><br />The emotions that his intervention brought to the public did not cease. “We can live in peace, the people of Lebanon are quite able to do that and it is our greatest desire. But, what is happening is bigger than us and those who are putting us in this situation are attempting to do something to us; they are trying to break a human link and try to prove us wrong. They want to develop a single-confession area, divide the Muslims from the Christians and divide all the branches of these faiths into factions that fight one another. This is not the solution to Lebanon. And, I say, we must state this so that the world is aware, and I beg people to at least listen to the children.”<br /><br />Some of what happened in his city goes beyond actions of war, and is nothing if not cruelty. He told of the extensive bombing, in an area of Lebanon that is populated even more densely during the summer, as diaspora Lebanese return home to their families in the summer, longing to share the joy of reunification in their beautiful land. During this time, there was death upon death, and with the bombing of the nearby power plant, there was no electric current. It takes little to no imagination to figure out what the human consequences are for the survivors. Without electricity, there is no refrigeration, and the bodies must be buried as soon as possible, even without the survivors able to view their loved ones and for any kind of identification for those who did not have certain parameters to give them a burial with their names. Therefore, the survivors were denied the very basic right of seeing to a proper burial and normal processes of grievance.<br /><br />“The killing of our people was not all they took from us. The Israelis conducted a secret war that is ongoing. They left to us their cluster bombs, in our houses and in our fields. We are denied return to our homes, our lands are now a battlefield long after the bombs have stopped dropping. Who is going to pay for that? This is what I ask the international community. Who is going to see to reparations for our refugees? The UN should take action and a dossier to the International Red Cross has been opened, but we are still waiting for any kind of reparations.”<br /><br />He asked the worldwide conscience to take the responsibility upon themselves so that the suffering of the people of Lebanon is not in vain. When asked how the IRC reacted to the opening of a dossier, Dr. Badr al-Din, in his gentle manner, lowered his head, shook it and said slowly, “Officially, they did react. They came to see. It is important for people to see. But then it ended there. Yet, I say one thing, I do believe that if they came to see, and if others come to see, this will always be more important than piles and piles of papers.”<br /><br />He went on to identify what exactly this war had attempted to bring about. “We did not establish which type of aggression that came to strike us. We were and are simply Lebanese civilians. The fact is that we are entitled to live there, even if it is too close to the border area the Israelis covet. The purpose of the enemy is to clearly identify the border area and to force people as far back away from it as possible. But we will not leave. This is our land, and we hold on despite everything. The Israelis also tried to adopt a system of division that failed them. They tried to create social shock between the local inhabitants and the fighters of Hezbollah. Yet, much to their surprise, but not to ours, this did not happen. The Israelis failed to realise that the resistance ARE the people. We are the same. The Israelis attempted to use the principle of “Divide and Rule”. They sought to create divergence between us and the Hezbollah. They tried to accuse the resistance of being responsible for our suffering and tried to undermine the popular support. In fact, with the bombings, many people did leave, because bombs are real and death and destruction were not in the imagination. People are afraid and rightly so. But what Israel tried to do did not work. They failed because in general, it is the people who resist.”<br /><br />“The Lebanese know their struggle is a lifelong one. The Lebanese population is well aware of it. We remained together and we were victorious. We sacrificed many innocents and the children as well as the adults, but especially the children, are suffering traumas from this, and I know that they need support to relieve this great psychological burden.”<br /><br />I ask all of us to keep asking the questions that Dr. Badr al-Din posed. And, I thank him for reminding us that it is the spirit of the people who resist that we have to honour. Lebanon was not divided, and that is a testimony to the will of the Lebanese people to resist the aggressor. The price was so high, and all the innocent blood spilt calls from the grave for justice. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">see <a href="http://www.habeeb.com/lebanon.photos.18.beirut.war.destruction.html">here for many photos</a>. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-39897312831038005102008-03-09T12:27:00.001+01:002008-12-11T00:11:26.643+01:00Peoples court condemns Israel for war crimes in Lebanon<span style="font-size:78%;">This account, from </span><a href="http://www.workers.org/2008/world/lebanon_0306/index.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">Workers World</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, is an excellent summary of what i witnessed in the three days in Bruxelles. I am going to begin my own accounts of it, but in the meantime, please read this article and READ THE </span><a href="http://www.tlaxcala.es/detail_artistes.asp?lg=es&reference=131"><span style="font-size:78%;">FINAL VERDICT</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> (in English, French, Italian and Spanish).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>By John Catalinotto Brussels, Belgium</strong><br />Published Feb 28, 2008<br />A four-member jury of distinguished legal officials, after hearing and considering two days of intense, moving and precise testimony at the International Associations Center in Brussels, Belgium, on Feb. 24 found the Israeli state guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in its 2006 war on Lebanon.<br /></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCw1yEC1jNHJ8CpdA979GbYoaRb8bWJPe-horMUmfKxYScjGWiAW8r9GbW7O1SGEgnEyUR3wLjHQPv9p4T4VVRafgMXzzdpiPg_PTZJXkD_XcdHRA99txItl0NS_32ZnZD5hRBw/s1600-h/witness-rocket_0306.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175703898472866018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRCw1yEC1jNHJ8CpdA979GbYoaRb8bWJPe-horMUmfKxYScjGWiAW8r9GbW7O1SGEgnEyUR3wLjHQPv9p4T4VVRafgMXzzdpiPg_PTZJXkD_XcdHRA99txItl0NS_32ZnZD5hRBw/s320/witness-rocket_0306.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Witness holds part of U.S.-maderocket that killed some of his family.<br /></strong>WW photos: John Catalinotto </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Some 250 people filling the center stood as one to applaud as Judge Adolfo Abascal from Cuba finished reading the decision. Those in the courtroom, many from Lebanon or from the Lebanese diaspora, already knew or had heard enough to make up their minds. But a formal decision based on a body of evidence can more effectively counter reactionary imperialist propaganda in the corporate media.<br /><br />The other three judges were Judge Lilia Solano from Colombia, a professor at the National University of Bogotá; Rajindar Sachar, retired chief justice of the High Court of Delhi, India; and Professor Claudio Moffa of the University of Teramo, Italy. A fifth member of the panel, judge of the Court of Appeal Hisham Bastawisi of Egypt, was prevented from participating by the Egyptian government.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirK0cOiqwwEzhWu0bWM1T6OnEDMEbBhIn4PXPYKSXy4qYv2KtBV_x6_Ina69F3YHxe-VOcLcCgUZwFs1rnjQ85jGJCWjcp4JzUXwrAXApCQgzhJi3EY7z5MiEVLB8VQIUrdgz1DQ/s1600-h/Mayor-Mustafa_0306.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175704628617306354" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirK0cOiqwwEzhWu0bWM1T6OnEDMEbBhIn4PXPYKSXy4qYv2KtBV_x6_Ina69F3YHxe-VOcLcCgUZwFs1rnjQ85jGJCWjcp4JzUXwrAXApCQgzhJi3EY7z5MiEVLB8VQIUrdgz1DQ/s400/Mayor-Mustafa_0306.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><strong><span style="font-size:78%;">Mayor of Nabitiya, Dr. Mustfa Bader al-Din<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="font-size:78%;">The organizers counted on the media coverage of the hearing—which was broadcast throughout the Arab world and in Latin America in whole or in part—to bring a convincing statement of Israeli guilt of serious war crimes to their audiences throughout the world. In the imperialist countries it will be up to progressive media and organizations in solidarity with the liberation struggles to spread the news of the tribunal.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">There was representative support from organizations in Europe and the U.S., including present and former European Union parliamentary members Louisa Morgantini from Italy and Miguel Urbano Rodrigues from Portugal, and former MP Ángeles Maestro from Spain. Human rights, anti-war and anti-imperialist organizations sent representatives to watch, participate and report on the hearings.<br /><br />In the introductory session, leading co-coordinator Leila Ghanem (Raoul Jennar was the other) introduced Judge Solana, who presided over the judges’ panel. Solana explained the procedure for the tribunal.<br /><br />John Catalinotto of the International Action Center (IAC) in the United States, Dr. Paola Manduca of the Permanent People’s Tribunal and Prof. Jean Bricmont of the BRussells Tribunal gave political statements on the issues before the court. Catalinotto focused on U.S. complicity in the war crimes through providing the Israeli offensive with coordinated military aid and diplomatic support throughout the invasion.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Israelis expose their own crimes<br /></strong>What made the 2006 war on Lebanon different from the other U.S.-Israeli aggressions in the region was that the Israeli offensive collapsed. The Lebanese resistance—2,000 fighters led by Hezbollah but joined by other patriotic forces like the Communist Party—inflicted heavy casualties on the most powerful army in the region. Instead of wiping out the popular armed struggle, the Israelis were driven out.<br /><br />This defeat forced the Tel Aviv regime to re-examine and investigate its own war strategy. Prosecuting Attorney Dr. Issam Naaman pointed this out as he introduced the tribunal case. After the witnesses, he said, the Winograd Report by an Israeli government-appointed committee will “fill in any remaining gaps” in the case.<br /><br />That the report admits that Israel had planned the aggression months before it took place absolves the Lebanese resistance—which had been charged with provoking the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers.<br /><br />The others on the prosecution team were Dr. Hassan Jouni and Maitre Albert Farhat, also from Lebanon, and Dr. Hugo Ruiz Díaz Balbuena from Paraguay.<br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1X5vLN2S7hADMtsn-VVmo31O-2I26ctFEQ2L-eushHaMmaUlvZR4nYP7QBJYo4kN5sJpAM7wxFfArPnQ2p3ZJ8ZIvVis2OnIa1ryGo-OoL-4FBTFI5EPE6Nnbl7udXtqCKjOrcQ/s1600-h/JohnCat_0306.jpg"><span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175705732423901442" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1X5vLN2S7hADMtsn-VVmo31O-2I26ctFEQ2L-eushHaMmaUlvZR4nYP7QBJYo4kN5sJpAM7wxFfArPnQ2p3ZJ8ZIvVis2OnIa1ryGo-OoL-4FBTFI5EPE6Nnbl7udXtqCKjOrcQ/s320/JohnCat_0306.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>John Catalinotto</strong><br />Although the Lebanese successfully fought back, this did not prevent the Israeli military from inflicting horrible casualties on the Lebanese civilian population. The prosecutors introduced witnesses who gave evidence of massacres against civilian targets and the systematic destruction of towns and villages and popular housing projects south of Beirut.<br /><br />Through expert witnesses, the prosecutors also showed that Israel used prohibited weapons, such as uranium-cased bunker busters and thermobaric weapons, and those prohibited against civilians, such as cluster bombs. The Israeli military was apparently testing new weapons on the Lebanese they killed and maimed. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon were killed, the great majority of them civilians, including many children.<br /><br /><strong>First-hand testimony of war crimes</strong><br />Eyewitnesses were more than observers of the war. They had lost multiple family members, been involved in ambulance driving, been responsible for their town or village. The Lebanese organizations fought heroically, but the Israeli war machine, armed by Washington, rained death on civilians who had the misfortune of being in the south of Lebanon that summer.<br /><br />Civil defense worker Maher Saloum from Baalbek city provided a moving PowerPoint demonstration of the casualties inflicted on Lebanese children and other noncombatants. His co-workers, while clearly driving ambulances, were equally targeted by Israeli rockets. While not physically wounded, this hero had suffered what in the U.S. would be called post-traumatic stress disorder as he risked his life every day to try to save his compatriots.<br /><br />One witness held up a piece of the U.S.-made rocket that crashed into the home his family was trying to take cover in as they fled north.<br /><br />The judges asked each witness if there were any military targets, any Hezbollah fighters, in the vicinity of the bomb or rocket strikes. The answer was always, “No.”<br /><br />Dr. Ali Mustafa Bader al-Din, mayor of one of the towns in Baalbek in the south, 15 miles from the border with Israel, told of the “250 martyrs” from his district. “I’m asking the people of the world,” he said, “What do they [the Israelis] want from us and our children? We had 423 homes destroyed, but I don’t think they will beat us.<br /><br />“They tried to drive a wedge between the people and the resistance, but we remained together. The enemy attack failed. We will fight them all our lives if attacked.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Weapons, environment, economy<br /></strong>After the reports of the deaths, it may not have seemed necessary to show the use of illegal weapons, to decry the long-lasting assault on the environment or to demonstrate the damage in tens of billions of dollars to the Lebanese economy. The “legal” weapons are also murderous in the hands of an arrogant imperialist army. But in a trial, the prosecutors need to demonstrate all the crimes under discussion.<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />It was hard to look at the photos of the Lebanese people wounded or killed by either old or new weapons. But phenomena like internal bleeding without entry or exit wounds and no evidence of shrapnel, deep burning on one side of the body and none on the other, and high levels of radiation showed that Israel was testing new weapons, most of them manufactured in the United States.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Dr. Rania Masri, who had been an anti-war activist in Raleigh, N.C., for many years before moving to Beirut, gave an excellent and concise presentation of the lasting damage to the environment from the Israeli attack. The most devastating single blow was to an oil storage tank serving an electric power plant, causing an enormous spill that has destroyed the beaches and the aquatic environment all the way from the south of Lebanon to Syria.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Dr. Kamal Hamdan, a macroeconomist, apologized if his “cold view” of the economic impact detracted from the suffering of the Lebanese. He explained that besides the $2.8 billion in direct losses, 60 percent of it in housing, much of it in the popular suburbs south of Beirut, there are other even greater losses. Higher unemployment and inflation rates have impoverished a greater proportion of the Lebanese population.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Almost as an aside, Dr. Hamdan pointed out that U.S. imperialist aggression in the entire West Asian region was aimed not only at guaranteeing access to energy sources but also to give Washington the ability to intimidate both China and the U.S.’s rival imperialists in Europe and Japan by controlling the oil.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Dr. Díaz Balbuena, representing the American Association of Jurists before the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, presented the legal rules of the case, of which only a small part of the testimony has been summarized above.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Introducing the verdict, Justice Lilia Solana made sure to also inculpate the United States for its complicity in the war. The final decision was that the judges “declare the Israeli authorities in charge of the 2006 war against Lebanon guilty of the following international crimes:<br />1. war crimes</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">2. crimes against humanity</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">3. genocide.” </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Email: </span><a href="mailto:jcat@workers.org"><span style="font-size:78%;">jcat@workers.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011Email: </span><a href="mailto:ww@workers.org"><span style="font-size:78%;">ww@workers.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Subscribe </span><a href="mailto:wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net"><span style="font-size:78%;">wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Support independent news </span><a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php</span></a>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-32562403742141536982008-03-08T10:17:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:26.917+01:00Mazin Qumsiyeh - Non-violence or Non-existence<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir19HGFraUx1tdSzjn6qyq8GaXKoSerlxl3sHtie07tdJO-FYN4qH3908zvykQr-YFWTe-8IXZ18TRViE7PdZ4irb2a3E61gy0sEJT_s-H5mSq_vnUiOp6hIjHpUCZH2JxZT2tRg/s1600-h/juanito+colomba+paz.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175304921780871378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir19HGFraUx1tdSzjn6qyq8GaXKoSerlxl3sHtie07tdJO-FYN4qH3908zvykQr-YFWTe-8IXZ18TRViE7PdZ4irb2a3E61gy0sEJT_s-H5mSq_vnUiOp6hIjHpUCZH2JxZT2tRg/s320/juanito+colomba+paz.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Here we are on the road again with the very colorful Wheels of Justice bus tour. The prominent slogan on the side of the bus is the most appropriate message for this week of violence. In big letters we have "<strong>Nonviolence or Nonexistence</strong>" visible for the thousands who saw the bus in the past few days. ... We post some of our public events at </span><a href="http://justicewheels.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://justicewheels.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> and we hope you will join us or organize events for us.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">We wanted to write more about the tour with a blog of all the great things we did and saw this past week (e.g. the great questions from hundreds of students in WA and OR). However, it is worthwhile to focus on this issue of violence and existence in more detail considering the news from occupied Palestine in this weekly message and add relevant good articles. <strong><span style="color:#ff6666;">While we are never shocked by the distorted US media coverage of what is going on, we are sometimes surprised by the audacity of editors and journalists. For example, compare the coverage of the killing of 8 Israelis in occupied Jerusalem with the coverage of the killing of 126 Palestinians in Gaza in the seven days before that; including many children (four playing soccer, babies in mother's arms, etc). BTW, only Israeli papers like Haaretz explained the history of the "school" that the Israelis were killed at (a training school for terrorist Rabbis). </span></strong>It might be worthwhile to put out some quotes on the so-called "cycle of violence" between the occupier/colonizer and the occupied/colonized (and people forget this aspect, the etiology of the disease, when they focus on the symptoms/the violence):<br /><br /><em>"The curse of Gaza is as powerful as death: if the entire occupation is a tragedy, the occupation of Gaza is its essence: 360 square kilometers, some 1.5 million people, 1 million refugees, and the responsibility is all ours. From the beginning there were those who warned us of the curse, and not only Sapir; even Moshe Dayan used words of caution. It did no good. The euphoria is contagious, the war rolls on, and a wise people is a foolish one. In the Zionist enterprise's march of folly, Gaza stands out as a major milestone, a signpost of weeping. The foundation stone of our tears." </em></span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Yossi Sarid<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>"Many westerners justify Israel's actions because they believe that Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to defend itself. The truth is, so long as the government of Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and denying the people their freedom, dignity, and human as well as political rights, international law gives them the right to resist and to defend themselves. " </em></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Sabeel Ecuminical Liberation Theology Center<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">The United Nations Human Rights Council today labeled Israel’s response to recent rocket attacks from Gaza a war crime and 'collective punishment against the civilian population'</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>"As long as there is occupation and the brutality and violence it entails, we will mourn Israeli and Palestinian lives. In this context, media coverage that portrays violence as part of a short-term cycle of attack and retaliation obscures the facts, including the role the US has played, through covert action, in fomenting civil war in Gaza, as recently revealed by a groundbreaking report in Vanity Fair. As long as the United States continues to support Israel's decades-long practice of illegally appropriating land, destroying homes, and using disproportionate force--a policy which has proven to be both morally bankrupt and self-destructive for Israel--neither Palestinians nor Israelis will ever know peace." </em></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Jewish Voice For Peace</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>"The murderers [Palestinians] are the Amalek of our day, coming to remind us that Amalek has not disappeared, just changed its appearance."</em> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Settler Rabbi Ya'akov Shapira, head of the center that trained the "students" in hate at this extremist "seminar/Yeshiva" that created so many extremist colonial settlers.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">(For those who do not know what Amalek is they should read the part of the Old Testament were God gets to give the orders for the genocide of men, women and children of the Amalkites, Canaanite native inhabitants of the land to be conquered).</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>"Compared with the international silence that surrounded Israel's recent massacres of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Gaza Strip, condemnation and condolences for the victims of the shooting attack that killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem has been swift...The day before the Jerusalem attack, Amira Abu 'Aser was buried in Gaza. </em></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><em><br />She had lived just 20 days on this earth before being shot in the head by Israeli occupation forces who attacked the house of friends she and her family were visiting. Needless to say, she had not been firing rockets at Sderot when she was killed. One of the house's inhabitants was found the next day, shot dead and his head crushed by an army jeep, an apparent victim of an extrajudicial murder by Israeli forces."</em> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Ali Abunimah in the Electronic Intifada<br /><br />"</span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>We need to find a legal and legitimate way to kick those few Palestinian Arabs in east Jerusalem who make it their choice to aid and take part in terrorism back to Ramallah," </em></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Israel's "Public Security" Minister Avi Dichter<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>"We at Tikkun feel equally grieving for the people killed by vicious and immoral terrorists at the Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav (the ultra-nationalist religious center that developed the ideology which inspired religious Zionists to believe that they had a God-given right to settle and hold on to the territories without regard to the consequences for the Palestinian people already living there) as we do for the victims of Israeli terror (which in the past week killed 120 people, many of them children, many of them sitting in their homes when Israeli troops randomly fire-bombed and murdered them, as documented by the same international human rights organizations that today condemned the attack in Jerusalem by terrorists)."</em> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>“Condemning the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations, and for other purposes...”</em> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">US House Resolution 951</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Statement on Gaza Bill by Rep. Ron Paul March 5, 2008 (Paul was the only one who voted Nay!):</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">I rise in opposition to H. Res. 951. As one who is consistently against war and violence, I obviously do not support the firing of rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations. I believe it is appalling that Palestinians are firing rockets that harm innocent Israelis, just as I believe it is appalling that Israel fires missiles into Palestinian areas where children and other non-combatants are killed and injured. Unfortunately, legislation such as this is more likely to perpetuate violence in the Middle East than contribute to its abatement. It is our continued involvement and intervention – particularly when it appears to be one-sided – that reduces the incentive for opposing sides to reach a lasting peace agreement. Additionally, this bill will continue the march toward war with Iran and Syria, as it contains provocative language targeting these countries. The legislation oversimplifies the Israel/Palestine conflict and the larger unrest in the Middle East by simply pointing the finger at Iran and Syria . This is another piece in a steady series of legislation passed in the House that intensifies enmity between the United States and Iran and Syria . My colleagues will recall that we saw a similar steady stream of provocative legislation against Iraq in the years before the US attack on that country. I strongly believe that we must cease making proclamations involving conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States. We incur the wrath of those who feel slighted while doing very little to slow or stop the violence.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">(ACTION: Write and/or call to your congressman/women and ask them why they voted in support of Apartheid Israel aggression. Phone numbers for reps here </span><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> ).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">But perhaps the most poignant comment on violence in Palestine/Israel is these statements from Nurit Peled-Elhanan whose daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber:</span><a href="http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nuritpeledelhanan/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nuritpeledelhanan/</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br />(Must Read) The Day the Earth and Sky Traded Places: Gazan Holocaust By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN </span><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein03042008.htm"></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein03042008.html">http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein03042008.htm</span><span style="font-size:78%;">l</a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">An Interview with Aharon Shabtaï "Israel's most acclaimed Hebrew poet." He explains need for cultural boycott of Israel: "Israel, 'Guest Of Honour' In Paris And Turin, Does Not Deserve To Be Invited," By Silvia Cattori & Aharon Shabtaï, 26 February, 2008, Countercurrents.org. </span><a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/cattori260208.htm"><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/cattori260208.htmRacism">http://www.countercurrents.org/cattori260208.htm</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br />Racism</a> in Israel on the rise: Association for Civil Rights in Israel publishes annual report; reveals country overwhelmed by racism, restriction of personal freedoms, discrimination, especially towards Israeli-Arabs. Report not surprising, say Arab MKs, By Aviram Zino </span><a href="http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3480345,00.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3480345,00.html</span></a></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Vanity Fair: The Gaza Bombshell<br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever. READ MORE.....</span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br />Analytic Report "REVEALED: THE US PLAN TO START A PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2008 </span><a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9366.shtml"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9366.shtml</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES </span><a href="http://www.gp.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.gp.org</span></a></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, <a href="mailto:mclarty@greens.org">mclarty@greens.org</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, <a href="mailto:starlene@gp.org">starlene@gp.org</a></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Greens urge economic pressure and cutoff of all military aid to Israel as Gaza situation worsens• Demanding an end to illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, Greens urge widespread grassroots support for the Palestine BDS (Boycott,Divestment, Sanctions) Campaign• Greens blast Clinton, Obama, and McCain for uncritical support of Israel despite mounting crimes.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">WASHINGTON, DC -- Calling the Siege of Gaza an international emergency, the Green Party is urging Congress to reject President Bush's FY2009 budget request for $2.55 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel, and reiterated the call for a cut-off of all US military aid to Israel."The Siege of Gaza is an ongoing atrocity, with mounting civilian casualties, especially children, killed and maimed by Israeli Defense Forces," said Holly Hart, secretary of the Green Party of the United States and member of People for Justice in Palestine, responding to the mass killing of Palestinians during the past weekend. "Greens are demanding an end to the siege and to the occupation of Palestinian lands, to Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians, and to targeted assassinations, all of which violate international law."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Greens noted that the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces has doubled since the Annapolis peace talks sponsored by the US in November 2007. In some areas of the West Bank, home invasions by IDF since January 1 have resulted in the kidnapping and detention without charges of nearly 400 civilians, including children.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">1.5 million Gazans, mostly refugees from Israel in 1948, live in an open-air prison, unable to exit, and with electricity, fuel, and water under Israeli control.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">"Peace talks are a sham as long as Israel refuses to discuss the construction of new housing units for Jewish settlers throughout occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank," said David J. Kalbfleisch, a Green congressional candidate in Illinois' 10thdistrict <a href="http://www.electdave.org/">http://www.electdave.org/</a>.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The One Candidate Worth Our Vote: Nader the Best Antidote to American ImperialismBy KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON </span><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/christison03012008.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.counterpunch.org/christison03012008.html</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Mazin QumsiyehWheels of Justice Tour: Nonviolent education and action against war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine for justice and universal humanrights </span><a href="http://justicewheels.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://justicewheels.org</span></a><a href="http://qumsiyeh.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://qumsiyeh.org</span></a></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-29325916885213687132008-03-06T11:51:00.002+01:002008-12-11T00:11:27.206+01:00Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdHOvEOYCRzale-2_L4lL_D1giHDHJLmKCbpOKziQ31Um0OBr9iEzdWa12bQcJa6boK0Cz9guhT_N7q0UffolB4fwabwSn-EFOuYw0A08CU1IzR9ZNdwSBzzd-RFfHY4ZLorRvRQ/s1600-h/innocent,+ben+heine.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174582670195899826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdHOvEOYCRzale-2_L4lL_D1giHDHJLmKCbpOKziQ31Um0OBr9iEzdWa12bQcJa6boK0Cz9guhT_N7q0UffolB4fwabwSn-EFOuYw0A08CU1IzR9ZNdwSBzzd-RFfHY4ZLorRvRQ/s320/innocent,+ben+heine.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>(A talk given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn’s weekend retreat)</em> At the left, "Innocent" by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.flickr.com/photos/benheine/">Ben Heine</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><em>“They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves”</em> (Matan Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February 2008)</strong><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">It is clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far from being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the genocidal future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is precisely what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts that are right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in spite of an Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the Palestinians, in spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid to admit that Gaza is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a deadly one. For some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far as evil is concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and vengeance.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Liberty and Authority</strong><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">In his invaluable text On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that struggle always takes place between the competing demands of liberty and authority. In other words, freedom and hegemony are set to battle each other. However, Western egalitarian liberal ideology is there to introduce a political alternative. It is there to nourish the myth that ‘authority’ and ‘freedom’ could be seen as two sides of the same coin.<br /><br />Today, I will try to elaborate on the structural dynamic of liberal discourse and the different elements that are involved in maintaining the false image of ‘freedom’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’. I will try to argue that it is our alleged ‘freedom’ that actually stops us from thinking freely and ethically. As you may notice I said ‘false image of freedom’ because I am totally convinced that, as far as Liberal discourse is concerned, freedom is nothing more than a mere image. In practice, there is no such a thing. The image of ‘freedom’ is there to fuel and maintain our righteous self-loving discourse so we can keep sending our soldiers to kill millions in the name of ‘democracy’.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;">I would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction between ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’.<br /><br /><strong>Freedom of speech can be realised as one’s liberty to expresses one's own thoughts.</strong><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Bearing in mind that humans are expressive creatures, there is no easy policing method to guarantee the silencing of the dissident voice. Since speaking is inherent to human nature, any exercise of litigation to do with the curtailing of such an elementary right is rather complicated: You ban one’s books? One would then spread leaflets in the streets. You confiscate one’s flyers? One would then agitate over the net. You cut one’s power, confiscate one’s computer? One may start to shout one’s head off. You chop off one’s tongue? One would then nod in approval when others are repeating one’s manifesto. You are then left with no other option but chopping one’s head off, but even then, all you do is make one into a martyr.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Two available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">a. prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment);<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">b. social exclusion.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">However, it is crucial to mention that within the so-called liberal discourse, any attempt to ban an idea or a dissident voice is counter-effective, if anything it reflects badly on the liberal authority and the system. This is why liberals try to facilitate some rather sophisticated methods of censorship and thought policing that would involve very little authoritarian intervention. As we will see soon, in liberal society, censorship and thought policing is mostly self-imposed.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of thought is almost impossible.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Freedom of thought could be realised as the liberty to think, to feel, to dream, to remember, to forget, to forgive, to love and to hate.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As difficult as it may be to impose thought on others, it is almost unfeasible to stop people from seeing the truth for themselves. Yet, there are some methods to suppress and restrain intuitive thinking and ethical insight. I am obviously referring here to guilt.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Guilt, inflicted mostly via a set of axioms conveyed as ‘political correctness’, is the most effective method to keep society or any given discourse in a state of ‘self-policing’. It turns the so-called autonomous liberal subject into a subservient, self-moderated, obedient citizen. Yet, the authority is spared from making any intervention. It is the liberal subject who curtails oneself from accepting a set of fixed ideas that support the egalitarian image of freedom and ecumenical society.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">However, at this point I see the necessity to suggest that in spite of the liberal claim for peace seeking, liberal societies in general and the Anglo-American ones in particular are currently involved in crimes against humanity on a genocidal scale. Consequently, the more horrid the West is becoming, the greater is the gap between ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘freedom of speech’.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">This gap can easily evolve into a cognitive dissonance that in many cases mature into some severe form of apathy. It is said that ‘all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing’. This summarizes perfectly well the apathetic negligence of the Western masses. Not many care much about the genocide in Iraq that is committed in our name or the mass murder in Palestine that is committed with the support of our governments. Why are we apathetic? Because when we want to stand up and say what we feel, when we want to celebrate our alleged freedom and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, or Baghdad with Dresden, something inside us stops us from doing so. It is not the Government, legislation or any other form of authority, it is rather a small and highly effective self-inflicted ‘guilt microchip’ acting as policing regulator in the name of ‘political correctness’.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">I will now try to follow the historical and philosophical evolution that leads us from the liberal-egalitarian-utopia to the current ethical and intellectual self-castration disaster.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Harm Principle<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;">John Stuart Mill, the founder of modern liberal thinking, tells us that any doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone else. This is obviously the ultimate expression of liberal thinking. It ascribes absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, ethical, political, religious or theological.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Though Mill endorsed the fullest form of liberty of expression, he suggested a limitation attached to freedom set by the prevention of ‘harm to others’. It is obviously very difficult to defend freedom of speech once it leads to the invasion of the rights of others. The question to ask is therefore, “what types of speech may cause harm?” Mill distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate harm. According to Mill, only when speech causes a direct and clear violation of rights, can it be limited. But then, what kind of speech may cause such violation?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Feminists, for instance, have been maintaining that pornography degrades, endangers, and harms the lives of women. Another difficult case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech. Yet, it is debatable whether a ban of pornography or hate speech can be supported by the harm principle as articulated by Mill. One would obviously have to prove that such speech or imagery violates rights, directly and in the first instance.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Consequently, Mill’s harm principle is criticised for being too narrow as well as too broad. It is too narrow for failing to defend the right of the marginal. It is too broad because when interpreted extensively, it may lead to a potential abolishment of almost every political, religious or socially orientated speech.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Offence Principle and Free Speech<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the ‘harm principle’, it didn’t take long before an ‘offence principle’ had been called into play. The offence principle can be articulated as follows:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>‘One’s freedom of expression should not be interfered with unless it causes an offence to others.’<br /><br /></em></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The basic reasoning behind the ‘offence principle’ is trivial. It is there to defend the rights of the marginal and the weak. It is there to amend the hole created by the far-too-broad harm principle.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">The offence principle is obviously pretty effective in curtailing pornography and hate speech. As in the case of violent pornography, strictly speaking, the offence that is caused by a Nazi march through a Jewish neighbourhood cannot be avoided and must be addressed.<br /><br />However, the offence principle can be criticized for setting the bar far too low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be ‘offended’ by anything.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse</strong><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">There is no doubt that the vast utilization of the offence principle ascribes a lot of political power to some marginal lobbies in general and Jewish lobbies in particular. Counting on the premise of the ‘offence principle’, Jewish nationalist ethnic activists claim to be offended by any form of criticism of the Jewish state and Zionism. But in fact it goes further, in practice it isn’t just criticism of Zionism and Israel which we are asked to avoid. Jewish leftists insist that we must avoid any discussion having to do with the Jewish national project, Jewish identity and even Jewish history. In short, with the vast support of the offence principle, Jewish ethnic leaders both on the left and right have succeeded in demolishing the possibility of any criticism of Jewish identity and politics. Employing the offence principle, Jewish lobbies right, left and centre, have managed to practically silence any possible criticism of Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. More worryingly, Jewish leftist political activists and intellectuals outrageously demand to avoid any criticism of the Jewish Lobby in the USA and in Britain.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As we can see, the ‘offence Principle’ regulates and even serves some notorious Zionist as well as Jewish leftist political lobbies at the heart of the so-called liberal democratic West. In practice we are terrorized into submission by a group of gatekeepers who limit our freedom via an elastic dynamic operator that is there to suppress our thoughts before they mature into an ethical insight. Manipulation set by political correctness is the nourishing ground of our shattering cognitive dissonance. This is exactly where freedom of expression doesn’t agree with freedom of the thought.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political Correctness<br /><br /></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;">We tend to agree that marginal discourses should be protected by the offence principle, so the marginal subject maintains his unique voice. We obviously agree also that such an approach must be applicable to the manifold of Jewish marginal discourses (religious, nationalist, Trotskyite, etc.). Seemingly, Jewish political lobbies want far more than just that, they insist upon delegitmising any intellectual reference to current Jewish political lobbying and global Zionism. As if this is not enough, any reference to modern Jewish history is prohibited unless <em>kosherly</em> approved by a ‘Zionist’ authority. As bizarre as it may be, the Jewish Holocaust has now been intellectually set as a meta-historical event. It is an event in the past that won’t allow any historical, ideological, theological or sociological scrutiny.<br />Bearing in mind the offence principle, Jews are entitled to argue that any form of speculation regarding their past suffering is “offensive and hurtful”. Yet, one may demand some explanations. How is it that historical research that may lead to some different visions of past events that occurred six and a half decades ago offends those who live amongst us today? Clearly, it is not an easy task to suggest a rational answer to such a query.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Plainly, historical research shouldn’t cause harm or an offence to the contemporary Jew or any other human subject around. Unless of course, the Holocaust itself is utilized against the Palestinians or those who are accused as being the ‘enemies of Israel’. As we learn from Matan Vilnai recently, the Jewish State wouldn’t refrain from bringing a <em>Shoah</em> on the Palestinian people. The Israelis and their supporters do not stop themselves from putting the holocaust into rhetorical usage. Yet, the Jewish lobbies around the world would do their very best to stop the rest of us from grasping what <em>Shoah</em> may mean. They would use their ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the holocaust as a critical tool of Israeli barbarism.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">As one may predict by now, in order to censor historical research into Jewish history and a further understanding of current Israeli evil, political correctness is called into play. Political correctness is there to stop us from seeing and expressing the obvious. Political correctness is there to stop us realising that truth and historical truth in particular is an elastic notion. Yet, you may wonder what exactly political correctness is.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Political correctness, for those who failed to understand it, is basically a political stand that doesn’t allow political criticism. Political correctness is a stand that cannot be fully justified in rational, philosophical or political terms. It is implanted as a set of axioms at the heart of the liberal discourse. It operates as a self -imposed silencing regulator powered by self-inflicted guilt.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Political correctness is in fact the crudest assault on freedom of speech, freedom of thought and human liberty, yet, manipulatively, it conveys itself as the ultimate embodiment of freedom.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Hence, I would argue as forcefully as I can that political correctness is the bitterest enemy of human liberty and those who regulate those social axioms and plant them in our discourse are the gravest enemies of humanity.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">I would argue as forcefully as I can that since the Palestinians are facing Nazi-like State terrorism, the holocaust narrative and its meaning belongs to them at least as much as it belongs to the Jews or anyone else.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">I would argue as forcefully as I can that if the Palestinians are indeed the last victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them more than anyone else.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Bearing all that in mind, equating Gaza with Auschwitz is the right and only way forwards. Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is what liberation of humanity means today and in the near future. </span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-11774484900000010982008-03-05T12:53:00.001+01:002008-12-11T00:11:27.573+01:00Mamoon Alabbasi and Robert Green - Poems for the Palestinian people<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGG4Xj9nh3BxC8V0cBvUg_cdwhKCHLvl3jvDgi40E2yGIudKSKPym03LRcxGjSUcymqidbRUWaB1q5bI20ugoVfImk9svJ1q0cAV5SJb4EObmEIvfoZk_ThavHLq9wEx2GJ0KVZw/s1600-h/el+pueblo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174230895194488210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGG4Xj9nh3BxC8V0cBvUg_cdwhKCHLvl3jvDgi40E2yGIudKSKPym03LRcxGjSUcymqidbRUWaB1q5bI20ugoVfImk9svJ1q0cAV5SJb4EObmEIvfoZk_ThavHLq9wEx2GJ0KVZw/s320/el+pueblo.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Artwork by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/arctarus/">Juan Kalvellido</a></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>People of Palestine</strong><br />By Mamoon Alabbasi*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Like a slave in the American south<br />They shall be liberated<br />Even if it means another civil war</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Like a persecuted Jew<br />They shall survive the genocide<br />Even if takes another World War<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Like beloved yet betrayed Jesus<br />They shall be back<br />Even if it would be at the end of time</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Like the visionless cured by Jesus<br />They shall regain their sight<br />Even if the rest of the world remains blind</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Like resurrected flesh<br />They shall come back to life<br />Even if it would be at the end of days<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;">Like the Day of Judgement<br />They shall have justice<br />Even if it means there will be hell to raise</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">It matters not on whose side is the Divine<br />It matters not who shall inherent the heavenly kingdom<br />While on earth stop the massacre of the people of Palestine<br />Let peace and justice reign, not Lucifer's Pandemonium<br /><br />*Mamoon Alabbasi is an editor for <a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/">Middle-East-online.com</a> and can be reached at: </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="mailto:mamoon@meo.tv">mamoon@meo.tv</a></span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHTTl9QvDhBqoy9ik53k2rzYnlQkMty2U1ar6RcpYLaso6WxkaYFADuCsRJrDWFMFi8Hnw6-U3CS2wyqNdNGnkQLNBzzESLDdDHqu10RaZ1sYL69kCdXrI2H9MQLcL3fLr8BxnwA/s1600-h/paz.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174231255971741090" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHTTl9QvDhBqoy9ik53k2rzYnlQkMty2U1ar6RcpYLaso6WxkaYFADuCsRJrDWFMFi8Hnw6-U3CS2wyqNdNGnkQLNBzzESLDdDHqu10RaZ1sYL69kCdXrI2H9MQLcL3fLr8BxnwA/s320/paz.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Poem by Robert Green, former Board member of Deir Yassin Remembered and distant relative of David Ben Gurion<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>You Want to Quibble Over Whether or Not It’s Genocide?<br /></strong><br />Then let’s forget the word entirely<br />it’s a made up modern word<br />for what’s been done by tribes since before before<br />made up by Raphael Lemkin<br />1943<br />to name what was happening to us<br />which until then<br />was known as the crime of barbarity<br />now genocide<br />which I know<br />I agreed not to mention<br />but it was done to us<br />and now we’re doing it to the next guy<br />the Palestinians<br />if we are allowed that word<br />like the word ‘Jew’ or really, “<em>Juden</em>”<br />a word that was supposed to be wiped out<br />with us<br />but wasn’t<br />but our lives<br />one thousand years in Europe<br />our home<br />cleansed of us<br />and they said we were not a true people<br />“a people class” said Lenin<br />“a disease” said others<br />and now we’re doing it to the next guy<br />OK, no gas ovens<br />that we know of<br />yet<br />but poison gas aplenty<br />torture rooms<br />a special hanging called “a Palestinian hanging”<br />that now the Americans use<br />hang a human<br />by the wrists<br />tied together<br />back behind<br />till they crush their own lungs<br />over hours<br />maybe a few days<br />and die in horror<br />done so much<br />it’s called “a Palestinian hanging”<br />and steal the land<br />and wall them in<br />and starve their babies<br />beat the pregnant women in front of their children<br />their mothers<br />their husbands<br />and the land, stealing it, walling it, pissing on it,<br />wiping out the place names.<br />I can’t find my grandmother’s village<br />on a map of Belarus, what she called “White Russia.”<br />It was called “Kapulya,” “near Minsk,”<br />but it’s not there.<br />as isn’t Palestine.<br /><br />R.L. Green 2.17.2008</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-83957006521624219522008-03-03T15:10:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:27.817+01:00Children of the world, reach out to Gaza's children!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVfnLoaQ-7QBkXHq9UrdVnOis0mPMw3TwJZWKulV7maMoswM1xqowa2555wq60zAGWw_xl0-4cwlncD7-PZ7FjVz-VTTIDjmOpSUBlFiGd71aF2vghVAljClPFGm5Z1N0GFBVkQ/s1600-h/45317229_img_2647.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173521685885421474" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVfnLoaQ-7QBkXHq9UrdVnOis0mPMw3TwJZWKulV7maMoswM1xqowa2555wq60zAGWw_xl0-4cwlncD7-PZ7FjVz-VTTIDjmOpSUBlFiGd71aF2vghVAljClPFGm5Z1N0GFBVkQ/s320/45317229_img_2647.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">On the </span><a href="http://palestinian.ning.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Palestinian Mothers</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> web community (which I urge caring people to join) EshaAmeena asked if there was any way that her children and other children could write to kids in Gaza to show friendship. I asked a friend in Gaza if there was a school that could accept these letters, and he gave this address: </span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />For the children letters, you can address the letters to:</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Mr. John Ging</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Operations Manager / Gaza Field office</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Headquarters Gaza </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Gamal Abdul Nasser Street, </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Gaza City </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">HQ Gaza, PO Box 140157 </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Palestinian Authority</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Telephone: (+ 972 8) 677 7333 or (+ 972/0 8) 282 4508 (+ 1 212) 963 9571-3 </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;">(via UN satellite network) Facsimile: (+ 972 8) 677 7555)<br /><br /><strong>UNRWA manages a very large number of schools in all Palestine</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">Moreover, I can give the address of the schools where my kids are. Tarek</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>I urge all families to ask your children to send letters, drawings, little gifts and tokens of friendship so that the children in Gaza know there are many others around the world who care and want to reach out in friendship. I will ask my daughter's school to get involved, they just might, since they try to promote dialogue. It's a lovely idea from Esha, and one that would be a concrete sign that the people of the world feel for the people of Gaza. Children know what dreams of peace are, and they can share their dreams until they become REALITY!!</strong></span></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-83281763997486326052008-03-03T11:46:00.001+01:002008-12-11T00:11:28.071+01:00Khalid Amayreh - For God's Sake, dissolve the Palestinian Authority now<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkIZ8broKyhGGgyjvTfI9asQVOj9H8VLq-xpu_9seGJ3Fubbmd5UUJuy4dHyr2FpP7599mzSRxNu3HeRJg41rpUFcOLSE5dcsW9KdYKAnuX28JPI1eGWmXs6X_GXpAkS92xH6Hw/s1600-h/images_News_2008_03_03_salsabeel_300_01.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173465881375344530" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkIZ8broKyhGGgyjvTfI9asQVOj9H8VLq-xpu_9seGJ3Fubbmd5UUJuy4dHyr2FpP7599mzSRxNu3HeRJg41rpUFcOLSE5dcsW9KdYKAnuX28JPI1eGWmXs6X_GXpAkS92xH6Hw/s320/images_News_2008_03_03_salsabeel_300_01.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><em><span style="font-size:78%;">Palestinian mother carries the body of her 21-month-old girl Salasabeel killed by an Israeli missile</span></em><br /><strong>By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem</strong><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">As Zionist Jewish supremacists continue to emulate their Nazi mentors, by carrying out pornographic mass killings of stateless and helpless Palestinians, the so-called Palestinian 'national" Authority (PA) is still basking in its impotence and morbid illusions about "peace talks" with Israel.<br /><br />This is despite the present Israeli blitzkrieg in the Gaza Strip and the equally murderous policy of narrowing Palestinian horizons in the West Bank where we are told ad nauseam by a scandalously mendacious western media that "Abbas is in control."<br /><br />On Saturday, 1 March, the PA leader himself rightly called Israel's hideous crimes in Gaza "a virtual holocaust" and "Nazi-like atrocities." He has also ordered the suspension of "peace talks" with Israel until the "aggression is over."<br /><br />Well, does Abbas really think that after the aggression is over, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak and the rest of Judeo-Nazi elite would suddenly and miraculously be transformed into doves of peace?<br /><br />If he does, he is clearly more than just naïve; and if he doesn't, then why on earth is he tormenting his people with this dangerous illusion?<br /><br />The matter is crystal clear and one doesn't have to be a great political expert to realize that Israel is more interested in crushing the Palestinians to pieces and less in reaching a dignified and genuine peace with them.<br /><br />Let us judge Israel by its behavior, not by its hypocritical claims about seeking peace with the Palestinians. After all, even Adolph Hitler and his colleagues claimed to be genuine seekers of peace in Europe and the world. We all know the rest of the story.<br /><br />Hence, in the final analysis, what is important is not what Israel says, but what it does.<br /><br />And what it does shows beyond any doubt that peace is the last item on Israel's national agenda. Let us consider some of Israel's behaviors in the past few months, especially since the hapless Annapolis conference in December.<br /><br />In the West Bank, and despite the nearly total subservience of the PA to Israel, the Israeli government consistently insisted on treating the PA and its so-called "security forces" as a quisling entity, as an unrighteous Rehab who would not only inform on her people but also repress them, torture them and even kill them, all in order to demonstrate commitment to peace and receive a certificate of good conduct from imperial masters.<br /><br />A few days ago, a frustrated Palestinian officer complained to this journalist that Israel "treats us far worse than the Germans treated the Judenrat," said the young officer, referring to the Jewish councils that were appointed by the Nazi leadership to oversee the internal affairs of Jewish communities in Europe during the Second World War.<br /><br />"Whenever the Israelis come, and they do nearly every night, we are supposed to return immediately to our coops very much as chickens do at the end of the day."<br /><br />"It is like <em>beiti beiti beiti</em>," he intimated. For those who don't know, <em>beiti</em> is the word women farmers in the Palestinian countryside utter aloud to spur their chickens to return to their coops at sunset.<br /><br />Ask any Palestinian cab driver or student or worker traveling through the West Bank these days if he or she thought the overall Israeli treatment of Palestinians on the roads got better or worse since the Annapolis meeting, and they wouldn't hesitate to tell you that it was much worse than before. Again, this is despite the abject compliance of the PA and its "armed forces" with every Israeli whim and demand.<br /><br />This slave-master relationship between the PA and Israel recently forced the Palestinian minister of culture Ibrahim al Abrashi to submit his resignation to Chairman Abbas. The former minister complained about "an all-out national crisis encompassing every aspect of our life as a people."<br /><br />"The country is falling down, the national cause is falling down, the national rift is destroying the unity and future of our people. In short, what we have been building for 50 years is being destroyed before our very eyes."<br /><br />Al-Abrahsi could have said much more in his letter of resignation. He could have pointed out that Israel has actually increased its Gestapo-like roadblocks in the West Bank, that it has doubled or even tripled its theft of Palestinian land, that it is expanding Jewish colonies unabated throughout the West Bank while everyone, including Condoleezza Rice and her boss, are looking on, reiterating the same old tedious platitudes about "the need to avoid doing anything that would undermine the peace process." Unfortunately, instead of showing national responsibility by withdrawing from this disgraceful "peace process" that has a form but no substance, Abbas has chosen to live in a world of his own, an artificial world where Rice's meaningless sound-bites and manifestly false promises, along with Olmert's deceitful tactics, are more relevant than the ugly reality in the streets and alleyways of Palestine.<br /><br />Indeed, when one listens to Abbas's statements, one gets the impression that Hamas's counter-coup in Gaza 20 months ago was to blame for all Palestinian troubles from the treasonous "security coordination" with Israel to continuing Jewish settlement expansion in Jerusalem.<br /><br />Well, but then, Abbas is the leader, the perfect leader by the American standards. He is the one who the two Ehuds hope will be able to impose a "realistic" peace settlements on his people. And, of course, we all know what "realistic" means in the Israeli lexicon.<br /><br />Isn't this why Abbas's forces are being beefed up? Isn't this why Keith Dayton and Elliot Abrams and Rice are continually asking Congress to allocate more funds to strengthen Abbas?<br /><br />Like many Palestinians, I hope that the Palestinian national movement will finally take the long overdue decision to dismantle and dissolve this impotent Authority which has virtually no authority, an authority that has long become a serious liability to the truly heroic Palestinian struggle for genuine freedom and liberation from the Nazi-like Israeli occupation.<br /><br />It is an authority that allows Judeo-Nazi leaders, such as Olmert and Barak, to claim that they are murdering Palestinian children for the sake of peace, that they are killing us for our own interests...that we will have a state only after half of our people are incinerated in a "greater holocaust"!!! while the other half are transformed into slaves, or water carriers and wood hewers.<br /><br />So, for God's sake, dissolve this misshapen creature, this deformed entity, now. And don't allow Israel to use it as a pawn to annihilate our people and liquidate our just cause.</span>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-65694272969424159912008-03-02T18:10:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:28.897+01:00Adel Samara - A Global Massacre Against Gaza<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173196771609479042" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vWuNZouejJotVUEXox_khVcZq63kuhc5hzX_SmXE_o6PuddJOZLAJ0fPu8ifXmwTyWINxV3szOYtHVXSvzL0WDYCzYpBlmiNVPM15Yz4DMBdqOBprdtX_pZI2UKny_G6jgJ86Q/s320/gaza+victim.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-size:78%;">source </span><a href="http://www.kanaanonline.org/articles/01442.pdf"><span style="font-size:78%;">Kanaan Online</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> (thanks to Nadia Hasan for the forward)<br /><br /><strong>Note: I certainly need help in answering the following two questions:</strong><br /><br /><strong>· What is going on in the mind of a Palestinian infant in the last moments of his or her life when a US/Israeli rocket strikes him/her?<br /><br />· What do Israeli military leaders tell their pilot when he shows them the picture of that infant?<br /></strong><br />The debate on whether Israel will launch a large scale or “limited” aggression against Gaza is pure nonsense and meaningless. Any “limited” aggression against civilians, by an army with most recent US inventions of war machine and Zionist inhuman behavior, will kill many people.<br /><br />The most important question, however, is somewhere else: What are the reasons and who is really behind this holocaust?<br /><br />The main reason can be summarized as “No Resistance in the Era of Globalization” (NOREG). This should remind us of the fact that US neo-cons regime, western capitalist regimes, and Arab comprador regimes support and encourage Zionists to wipe out Hezbollah as the main force of resistance in this era. That is why, the war of summer 2006, was a precious gift for Arab regimes. But fortunately, the results were deeply disappointing.<br /><br />Since 2006, if one does not mention the holocaust in Iraq, Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority (PA) stand in the camp of: “No Resistance in the Era of Globalization” NOREG.<br /><br />This is an international camp. It transcends national, ethnic, religious and ideological boundaries. That is why, Arab rulers, Zionists, US neo-cons, Anglo-Saxon, French, German regimes are in one camp.<br /><br />Accordingly, the war against Gaza is a decision from a terrorist leadership of all these regimes, and the Zionists are its paw. It is the war of regimes and ruling classes that is aimed at liquidating all forms of resistance.<br /><br />Any Palestinian, Arab or Thirdworld-ist who stands on the line of resistance is a candidate for termination: Baghdad , Gaza , Lebanon , Serbia …etc are all fields for implementing this rule.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Rockets are not the Reason<br /></strong><br />Those who pretend that rockets are the reason behind the current Zionist massacre are liars. If we have to look for a reason for that massacre, it should be found in the1948 Zionist occupation of Palestine, the eviction of Palestinians from their homeland, and the Zionist insistence on terminating the Palestinian Right of Return (RoR) by all means. Three quarters of the population of Gaza are refugees who were evicted as a result of the occupation of Palestine in 1948, and who are part of a large community of Palestinian refugees amounting to 6.5 million scattered all over the globe. Why shouldn’t they resist?<br /><br />The Zionist regime, US and most of western capitalist regimes, and later many Arab regimes are hand in hand supporting the Zionist settler and criminal regime working on terminating the RoR. Oslo Accords follow the same direction albeit it is not directly written in their text.<br /><br />It is worth noting that the Zionist massacre is not only because Hamas stands for the RoR and refuses the recognition of the Zionist regime. It is well known that the Zionist massacres against the Palestinian people had never ceased since 1948, and Palestinian resistance will never stop as well.<br /><br />It should be also noted that Palestinians are the only native people who still resist the white settlers, while in other white settlements, i.e. USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the native people had been mainly terminated while some have given up the struggle.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Will there be a big war?<br /></strong><br />This form of question is a simplification of facts. Israel does not need more than this level of holocaust against civilians. It is in Israel’s interest to force Palestinians into another mass eviction than to kill all of them at once. Zionists have never changed their plans: to occupy Palestine in its entirety, but ….void of its people. That is why; they prefer Palestinians' self- ‘transfer’.<br /><br />Of course, this does not eliminate the possibility of launching a massive war against Gaza or a massive destruction as the Zionists did in Lebanon 2006[1] considering the fact that the camp of globalization in their support. It is not an exaggeration to note that the transfer of Palestinians is a real possibility now.<br /><br />One of the reasons for delaying a more extensive war is the Zionist expectation that they will lose more soldiers in a fierce face to face battle, a loss they are never ready for. For a colonial settler entity that fights for importing more settlers, losses of soldiers is of catastrophic consequences. The Zionist entity, Israel, is the only white settler regime that is still ‘buying’ new settlers, while the US white settlement is building a wall against Mexican immigrant workers who are fighting to enter the country even as slaves. During 2007, the number of settlers who left the Zionist regime exceeded the new incoming immigrants.<br /><br /><strong>Bin Laden in Gaza !</strong><br /><br />A year or so ago, the PA repeated that some al-Qaeda fighters are in Gaza. Later, the PA and some Arab rulers repeated the same lies and accused Hamas of facilitating the infiltration of al-Qaeda militant to Gaza.<br /><br />This propaganda is another war against resistance. As a matter of fact, many do not buy the story that there is a single al-Qaeda organization. I believe that the NOREG consider any militant all over Arab, Islamic and even Third world as al-Qaeda. Even if there is one single al-Qaeda, the question is: Who created it? Who started terror in the modern world history? It is the western capitalist regimes and later the comprador capitalist classes in the periphery against their own people.<br /><br />The most dangerous part of the peoples’ enemy propaganda is its ability to mix all Arab and Islamic militants in one pot[2] and show that they are the so-called al-Qaeda or the Salafi!<br /><br />Unfortunately, some Arab thinkers fall into that trap. In their criticism to Political Islam (PI), they are being lured by the hatred of the Zionist and western leftists towards Arab and Moslem resistance. Some of these writers are keen to proof to the Zionists and western leftists that they are not religious, and they are anti pan-Arabism …etc. They strive to be accepted in western leftist circles!<br /><br />One of the bad results of this subjugation is that they confirm that Arab people support Salafiyah! That is why; Zionists and many western leftists used the victory of Hamas to ‘prove’ this pretence. These Arab writers failed to explain that in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and other Arab countries, the people have to choose between PI and the comprador which betray their history, memory, present, and future.<br /><br />As long as these Arab leftist writers help the deformity of PI groups, they are, whether they mean it or not, placing socialist/Communist Arabs in the camp of imperialism. This, in fact, delays the re-emergence of an Arab radical left.<br /><br />If Hamas wants to create something, it will not create al-Qaeda; it will create other fighters for Hamas! But, since the war machine is that extensive and is declared against the Palestinian people, why would not Palestinians create many al-Qaedas?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>Israel Fights for Arab Regimes as well<br /></strong><br />This is another dimension or reason of the massacre in Gaza. We must remember that Arab regimes were and still are terrified by the Palestinian struggle. When the first Intifada erupted, the goal of Arab regimes was to keep their citizens away from its influence. When Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon, and later defeated the Zionists in 2006, Arab regimes were devastated.<br /><br />When Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006, Arab regimes were terrified again, and a global, though gradual, coup d'état started against it. The crisis reaches its peak when Hamas defeated Fateh in June 2007.<br /><br />Consider the following developments: the Zionist aggression in Gaza is a protection for Arab regimes from the expansion of this phenomenon. One should keep in mind that these regimes are ready to pay any price to avoid the provocation of their suppressed people.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong>The Two Weak Wings<br /></strong><br />Anyone who believes that the Zionists will reduce their aggression, is either naïve or cooperating with them. It is an entity that was created against the Arab Homeland especially the Palestinian people. That is why, they have no alternative but to prove and emphasize their role.<br /><br />If radical people in the region want to re-build their power and to fight for a united Arab socialist Homeland, defeat of the Zionist regime, and achieve the RoR, they must first start their battle against two local groups:<br /><br /><strong>· The ruling comprador classes in Arab Homeland;</strong><br /><br /><strong>· The various groups of local intellectuals: the westernized, renegade communists, NGOized political activists and many academicians who are tied (and financed) in one way or another, by the bloody regimes of the United Sates, many other western regimes, and even the Zionist regime.[3]</strong><br /><br />____________<br /><br />Please write to us or send your contributions to: mail@kanaanonline.org.<br />To visit Kana’an (KOL) website, please go to: </span><a href="http://www.kanaanonline.org/"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.kanaanonline.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />To subscribe to our mailing list, please send a blank e-mail message to </span><a href="mailto:english-join@kanaanonline.org"><span style="font-size:78%;">english-join@kanaanonline.org</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />[1] The arrival of the US Cole warship to the Lebanese shores is a direct threat for another destruction of that country.<br /><br />[2] That is why; the comprador regime in Morocco arrested lately some leftists with Political Islamists. It should be noted that these arrests are in fact directed against the influence of Hezbollah of Lebanon as a new current which is not a fundamentalist. It might attract leftists as well.<br /><br />[3] A very recent example of those intellectuals is the Moroccan poet Abdullatif Al-Lua’bi, who is visiting the occupied WBG now during the mass extermination of Palestinians in Gaza under occupation invited by the French Cultural Center. For those who are not familiar with the issue of normalization, any Arab who visits the occupied WBG is in fact normalizing with the Zionist occupation and recognizes the Zionist regime.</span><br /><div></div><br /><div>The Author is a Palestinian Marxist Economist living in Ramallah. </div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9157237.post-52512452026443054282008-03-02T10:25:00.000+01:002008-12-11T00:11:29.168+01:00Gaza is victim of a unilateral war! STOP ISRAEL!!!!<span style="font-size:78%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173073188220503906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZ68LjEMAM9bzCNhiPKeiX8PhqGabTodXaQIVU_836Vm9cWJVOwhibelweG4188bSNq4lY71lg2kWhCY-XLY7hVvz3MDfUENq5nl7myDYcxjOIsJdR6ZeR1_jzOBoFf-uSywY1A/s320/gaza_black_ribbon.png" border="0" />Israel is conducting a unilateral war against the population of Gaza. <strong>IT CANNOT BE TOLERATED!</strong> There is no excuse!!!! On the left, please see the Black Ribbon that </span><a href="http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/03/02/black-ribbon-for-gaza/"><span style="font-size:78%;">Sabbah's Blog</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"> has set up. Created by his friend Za3tar, it is suitable to attach to your letters, sites, anywhere you want people to see that we are in mourning and we support our beloved and cherished brothers and sisters in Gaza.</span><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">From the </span><a href="http://freegaza.ps/"><span style="font-size:78%;">PCAS</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">, we have horrible, ghastly reports. This is from last night: </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><div><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Israeli Genocides, Holocausts & Massacres: 55 Victims in 12 hours, names included</span></strong></div><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;"></span></strong><br /><div><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Anna Goldman reports from the Gaza Strip<br />PCAS: </span><a href="http://www.freegaza.ps/english"><span style="font-size:78%;">www.freegaza.ps/english</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Gaza Strip, 1st, March, 2008, (PCAS)- Since the early morning, the Israeli holocausts against Palestinians have started. About 10 of freedom fighters died but the majority was 45 victims from civilians.<br /><br />The holocaust which was declared by Matan Vilnai, Vice Israeli defence (War) minister, yesterday is being launched by today morning with confines. Diverse sorts of weapons, such as F16 and Apaches planes were used. In addition to using heavy guns, bombs, missiles and cluster bombs as well.<br /><br />Attalla Family was exposed to a 1-ton-missle fired by F16. The missile destroyed their house which was of 2 floors resulted in killing 4 members including a child.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWyUcr_nwjCTIWKPMBREyQxAOG9CCHVxYLJoVZXoTzR5gPCvFhDG5aKxVv_d0yNT9h0jr-wIFfbIqy0Otad0njWpq-DZzJI-3oSB1X7jaHfDL6JOJ35VNLZn1j28tClv0hjdRkw/s1600-h/GAZA+man+leg.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5173078153202698098" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxWyUcr_nwjCTIWKPMBREyQxAOG9CCHVxYLJoVZXoTzR5gPCvFhDG5aKxVv_d0yNT9h0jr-wIFfbIqy0Otad0njWpq-DZzJI-3oSB1X7jaHfDL6JOJ35VNLZn1j28tClv0hjdRkw/s320/GAZA+man+leg.jpg" border="0" /></a>Around 30 air raids and 50 bombs and artillery shells fired towards the Palestinian civilians. The Jabalya camp which is the position of the military holocaust is densely populated. Around 1000 thousands live in about 1 killo meter. Thus a lot of innocent victims fall quickly.<br /><br />1- Eyad Al Ashram, Male, 26<br />2- Musleh Abu Ali, Male, 17<br />3- Jakline Abu shbak, Female, 17<br />4- Eyad abu Shabk, Male, 14<br />5- Basam Muhammad Ubaid, Male, 45<br />6- Basam Ubaid, Male, 15<br />7- Hamza Al jamal, Male, 40<br />8- Abdallah Abd Rabu, Male, 4<br />9- Ibrahim Alzain, Male, 25<br />10- Mustafa Zaghloul, Male, 32<br />11- Hamada Abd Al hameed, Male, 29<br />12- Saeed Al hasheem, Male, 23<br />13- Husain Al batsh, Male, 27<br />14- Samah Zaydan Asalya, Female, 17<br />15- Salwa Zaydan Asalya, Female, 23<br />16- Tala't Dardona, Male, 29<br />17- Mustafa Abu Jalala, Male, 28<br />18- Hasan Safi, Male, 25<br />19- Abdallah Abu Shaira, Male, 18<br />20- Mutasim Abd Rabu, Male, 24<br />21- Hamada Saleh Al abad, Male, 16<br />22- Mustafa Manon, Male, 22<br />23- Muhammad Sleem, Male, 24<br />24- Muhammad Abdalrahman Shhab, Male, 23<br />25- Ali Al Kitnani, Male, 15<br />26- Tal'at Dardona, Male, 17<br />27- Sana Ghad Al abed Saleh, Female, 16<br />28- Ahmed Albatsh, Male, 16<br />29- Muslih Muhamad Muslih, Male, 17<br />30- Thabet Junied, Male<br />31- Sultan Al zain, Male<br />32- Mustafa Abu Jalala, Male<br />33- Muhammad Al atar, Male<br />34- Nael Abu Alon, Male, 20<br />35- Muhammad Abd Al mouti Sleem, Male,<br />36- Saed Dabour, Male, 28<br />37- Hamada Saed, Male<br />38- Mahmoud Rayan, Male<br />39- Jedjad Hatem Abu Hlayal, Male<br />40- Thari Abu Aubaid, Male<br />41- Tamer Weshah, Male<br />42- Ahmed Saleh Abd Al rahman, Male<br />43- Muhammad Abd Al qader Oqylan, Male<br />44- Hasan Abu Harb, Male<br />45- Abd Al rahman Atallah, Male, 60<br />46- Ibrahim Attalah, Male, 30<br />47- Sua'd Atallah<br />48- Unknown<br />49- Unknown<br />50- Unknown<br />51- Unknown<br />52- Unknown<br />53- Unknown in Khan Yonis City<br />54- Unknown in Khan Yonis City<br />Pictures available in the facebook:<br />Group 1:<br />Action4palestine<br /></span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5796102347"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5796102347</span></a></div><br /><div><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Group 2:<br />10000 Say Israel .. Stop killing Palestinians<br /></span><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9108787671" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9108787671</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Group 3:<br />Freedom for Palestine<br /></span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22920137976"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22920137976</span></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:78%;">ALSO PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD A PETITION: </span></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ceasefirenow/index.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ceasefirenow/index.html</span></a></div>thecutterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01613769254429735260noreply@blogger.com0