Wednesday, April 2, 2008

 

Anti-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!

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:49:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: tony greenstein tonygreenstein@yahoo.com

To: alef@list.haifa.ac.il

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.

Yedidya

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.

Tony

And folks, he adds this, because I complained that what he said was Zionist information:

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.

Tony

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.

Dear Mary:

I find this unbelievable.
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.

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.

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: " 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."

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.
I trust you do not think that, I hope...

Interestingly, I see the name of Zalman Amit included below. What is his role in this?
He lives in our neighbourhood in Nova Scotia and he is a good man and a friend of ours.

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.

Ismail Zayid

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# posted by thecutter @ 10:44 |

Thursday, March 20, 2008

 

Shraga, My Karma ran over your Dogma: spoiling your smear campaign with honesty

VERY INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS! read through to the end for the whole story. More actually follow in comments, as it is a "developing story"

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 tried to close this blog, 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.

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.

In the past, readers who are familiar with this blog will know about the Public Lapidation (round one) 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 petition perhaps afraid about when the comments 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 Oren Ben-Dor, 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 of course) 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.

how to whittle that down....
how to whittle that to nothing....

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!"

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.

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"
(Shraga Elam)

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!!!

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.

But lies remain lies if that is what they are.

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:

Excuse me, I see that I've signed this petition, I received by a friend ,Guenter Schenk, whom I trusted.
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 ....
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.
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.
name

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.

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):

Shraga Elam recruits the notorious Neocon and Islamophobic Henryk M. Broder to pressure an 80 year old activist....

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:

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; "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."

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.

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....
This is the letter Hajo Meyer wrote:

To all of you who are spectators in this circus of insanity,

the text below starting with ‘dear friends’ is fully mine. I wrote it and I send it to Adib S. Kawar of Palestinesomoud. I signed the petition which you find attached. It was sent to me by my friend Guenter Schenk. There is not one word in it which I regret. When you find my name under any other text, that can only be stolen or faked.
Hajo G. Meyer

Dear friends,
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.
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.

Dr Hajo G. Meyer, Heiloo, the Netherlands

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?

Don't hold your breath!

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# posted by thecutter @ 20:53 |

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

 
from an email by Lana Habash
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.

Beneath the facts of the case lie a number of ironies:

* 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.

* Encuentro bills itself as "a space for progressive movement building" in Boston (http://www.encuentro5.org/ ).

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.
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.

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.

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:

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?

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."

* "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 http://www.jewishlabor.org/ 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."

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.

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.

* 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.

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.

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.

New England Committee to Defend Palestine http://www.onepalestine.org

On the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba
the New England Committee to Defend Palestine presents
Struggle for the Land:
Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements
An Education and Strategy Conference
Saturday, April 12 to Sunday, April 13
Location to be announced.
Boston, MA
Suggested Donation: $15

Confirmed speakers include:

Amer Jubran, Palestinian activist and former political detainee
Saja Raoof, Iraqi anti-war activist
Kali Akuno, Executive Director of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund in New Orleans and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement National Organizer
Marta Rodriguez, Puerto Rican independence activist and member of the NECDP
Ward Churchill, American Indian Movement activist and author
Dara Bayer, Palestine solidarity activist
Jihad Abdul-Mumit, former Black Liberation Army political prisoner
Nada Elia, Palestinian activist, and member of the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence national collective
Jeffrey Blankfort, anti-Zionist journalist and activist, co-plaintiff in a lawsuitagainst the ADL for spying on left organizations


as well as
Photography Exhibition from Gaza
Palestinian political artwork, and art by Brazilian Artist Carlos Latuff

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.

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.

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.
For more information and to pre-register, go to www.onepalestine.org Co-sponsored by Jericho Boston http://www.jerichoboston.org
NECDPPO Box 681East Boston, MA 02128

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# posted by thecutter @ 09:54 |

Saturday, March 15, 2008

 

Oren Ben-Dor - Freedom of Speech, Free Speech and Their Enemies

from Counterpunch
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
By OREN BEN-DOR
I have recently signed a petition 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.

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.

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".

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.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere (2000) and Thinking about Law: In Silence with Heidegger (2007) are published with Hart Publishing, Oxford. He can be reached at: okbendor@yahoo.com

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# posted by thecutter @ 22:19 |

Thursday, March 6, 2008

 

Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz

(A talk given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn’s weekend retreat) At the left, "Innocent" by Ben Heine

“They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves” (Matan Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February 2008)

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.

Liberty and Authority

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.

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’.

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought

I would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction between ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’.

Freedom of speech can be realised as one’s liberty to expresses one's own thoughts.

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.

Two available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:

a. prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment);

b. social exclusion.

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.

As much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of thought is almost impossible.

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.

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.

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.

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’.

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’.

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.

The Harm Principle

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.

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?

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.

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.

The Offence Principle and Free Speech

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:

‘One’s freedom of expression should not be interfered with unless it causes an offence to others.’

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.

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.

However, the offence principle can be criticized for setting the bar far too low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be ‘offended’ by anything.

The Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse

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.

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.

Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political Correctness

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 kosherly 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.
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.

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 Shoah 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 Shoah may mean. They would use their ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the holocaust as a critical tool of Israeli barbarism.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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# posted by thecutter @ 11:51 |

Friday, February 29, 2008

 

Try to censor peacepalestine? It's Tony wot done it.

Yes, dear friends and readers. You have been following the saga of Tony vs Gilad Atzmon and peacepalestine (or Mary Rizzo, since he seems to blur the distinction). Yes, you have signed an open letter for Tony to stop the defamation and harassment and let us continue our work of exposing Israeli crimes, Western complicity and in asking us to assume our responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and the other people oppressed by Zionism, and that includes you and me and all of us who want justice and rule of law. Rather than reflect and see that he is on the margin of the margin and no one wants him to dictate to Palestinians or activists for their rights what the discourse is supposed to be, who should be silenced and smeared and to mismanage every single campaign he works on. He is out to destroy and "target" all those who oppose him, and he doesn't care about what "the movement" says and requests.

In the past day, we have seen this blog go down. Without any warning, it simply vanished. Thinking it was a technical glitch, I had contacted Google. I thought it would be a long wait, since this company is big and has millions of sites and blogs to think about. MUCH to Google's credit, they immediately informed me that there was legal action being taken against my site and sent me court documents. Actually, it was not against my site, but as I was already aware of, Tony Greenstein is suing Gilad Atzmon, although, on his friendly sites, he tells the 18 readers that he is being himself sued!!! Tony hates Gilad more than anything. More than Zionists. (Ask yourself why...) He never touches Zionist sites, seems to think my parody of Gilad Shalit campaign is horrors, but ignores the actual campaign, which he seems to have no qualms with. He only tries to bring down one of the most widely read Palestinian blogs, many hardworking and committed pro-Palestinian groups such as Redress and DYR, as well as now deciding that the list of signatories will comprise his new battles for justice. Yes, the activists in Palestinian activism don't only get insulted and called collaborators, now they will be targeted! Great Tony, glad to see you are consistent in your abuse, going only in the direction of those who engage in total solidarity with the righteous cause of the Palestinians!

So, I saw the suit, where he gives Google an ultimatum to take my blog down because HE SAYS SO. I ask you to read the PDF. It is quite interesting!

There are several interesting contradictions between it and the content of the Claim, which I am only reprinting the first page, although Google sent it all to me. (I can't believe how good Google was in all of this, and I intend upon sending them a thank you note as well as encouraging all of us to support them when they make these decisions). Read both items carefully (clicking on them enlarges them), and you will note some very odd things. There is a serious contradiction there, and I know all of you can see it. The letter practically contradicts the allegations of the claim itself!! This should not escape the attentive eye and it makes one wonder what the claim is even supposed to be about if not just stopping Gilad Atzmon and trying to squeeze money out of him based on the hope that others are inattentive. But let's examine still more: Yes, Tony is suing Gilad and yes, Tony claims, without any evidence, just his good name (sic) that "There is no truth in these allegations but they are, nonetheless, highly defamatory. The blog itself purports to be supportive of the Palestinians but is in fact deeply anti-Semitic".

So, besides the immediate huge support from my friends and fellow activists who already had it up to their eyeballs with his games, they nevertheless dropped what they were doing and went into action in a matter of moments, and were planning other actions - thinking, as I was, that this would be a long struggle, and they were going to fight to the bitter end. We were creating new blogs, saving content from archived material, sharing stuff on computers so that we all had backups.... these are the best friends in the world, as well as the greatest activists I have ever known... During this time I wrote twice to Google asking them to actually investigate the claim by Tony. These are my letters:

Dear Sirs,
If you read the pdf you sent, it is clear that there is no suit filed against me. Nor have I received any calls to alter or to delete information from anyone.

You may be aware that you have made a judgment yourself based on the comments of a person who has been repeatedly harassing in numerous ways over the course of years a great number of activists. As a matter of fact, he has been using the terminology to smear and defame others as his political tool. There has been no evidence provided in the claim he makes in the Pdf: "The blog itself purports to be supportive of Palestinians but is in fact deeply anti-Semitic."

IN fact, the claim is not against me, but against another person, who also has not been demonstrated to be anti-Semitic, despite the claims this individual uses to smear us. Read the Pdf, and you can see for yourself what the content is, and my blog should NOT have been pulled without warning, especially since it is one of the most widely circulated and trusted blogs on the subject of Palestinian rights, Human rights, Activism and Anti-War.

As a matter of fact, my blog is in no way racist or anti-Semitic. In fact, his "evidence" is that I have in the past sought to deter others from engaging in smear campaigns and rather do political work. This to him, especially when he operates to smear and damage activists, is defined as racist and anti-Semitic. I am not affiliated with anti-semites or neo-Nazis and he knows this. And, as a matter of fact, the BLOG is only composed of posts I have set up. There is not a single anti-Semitic post on it, and he has never been able to find one, yet continues in the harassment.

This harassment was requested also to be stopped by a large number of anti-racist activists, including a Holocaust survivor. In addition, being of Jewish origin myself, it is a strange claim to make on his part.

If that were not enough, I was actively involved in the campaign to extradite Michael Seifert, an SS officer in the Bolzano Camp to Italy to face his punishment. As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, the official news dispatch service that furnishes all the newpapers with their content released this: http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Esteri/?id=1.0.1880767965

It is in Italian, but it is clear enough. I was a protagonist in the capture of a Nazi criminal in hiding.

It is the dispatch, including my name TWICE, once in bold text, highlighting my involvement in the discovery and bringing to justice of this Nazi. I wonder just how many friends of Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and Holocaust Deniers or Apologists have played an active part in such work. This is evidence, as if any other were needed, that this individual invents his charges and seeks to damage humanists who work for the Palestinian cause. I need to consult my blog. I ask you to reinstate it at least for my own personal use as I wish to archive all the information. My blog is very popular, and Google may not like repercussions coming from complaints from readers.

SECOND LETTER, (a few hours later)
I have requested that you reinstate the blog for my personal use (at the very least), as there has been no judgment against my blog, and you have yourselves decided to judge it, without any evidence that the person bringing legal action to another individual is justified in his claims.

I request that you examine the blog and you demonstrate where it is anti-Semitic if this is the decision you have made, as indeed you have made a decision and have passed judgment based on an arbitrary claim. I ask you to look up my own person history, or even just the dispatch linked to you from last week's Italian News Service dispatch Adnkronos, which supplies all the Italian media with their news feed, and you will see that I am a well-known activist and have an excellent track record FIGHTING hate crimes, and not supporting them.

I further request that since the material on the blog is intellectual property and contains not simply words, but the writing of many individuals as compiled by myself, almost all of these persons, if not the entirety, involved for many years in Human rights activism, and well-known persons, have been insulted and smeared as well by having their content removed from your server, and therefore, the net, and for this reason, out of respect for them, who work using their own names, I also that you identify yourselves also by name - not Blogger Team - so that I am allowed to know which human beings have made this decision.

I may not need to remind you that on the Social Rank rating (the currently most popular one for blogs) my blog is always among the top 3 Palestinian blogs. It has extensive readership, and its absence from your server is not going unnoticed.
Awaiting your quick reply
Mary Rizzo

THIS IS BLOGGER'S REPLY

From: "Blogger Help"
To: "mary rizzo" Cc: "mary rizzo" Subject: Re: [#246323120] [Spam?] Blog termporarily suspended due to lawsuit

Hello Mary,
After reviewing your blog and the suit filed against Mr. Atzmon, and the Claimant's alleged claim against you or your blog is unclear, we have reinstated your blog. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary suspension has caused you and your readers.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Justice will prevail! Thanks Google, Thanks Blogger, and thanks to all the wonderful people who believed that we have to fight the Zionists, no matter what they call themselves. Tony says all the time... if it quacks like a duck....

There Will Always Be A Palestine!!

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# posted by thecutter @ 09:52 |

Thursday, February 28, 2008

 

Peacepalestine Returns!!

Yes, someone tried to shut us down. Apparently, he seems to think he can tell everyone what to do and how to think, that he is the receptacle of truth.

Blogger examined the case and they did not see anything in my blog that would be reason to close it down. I have the letter from Blogger on file, and due to some reserved and specific information, I am publishing it in an excerpted version :

Hello Mary,
After reviewing your blog ....(omissis).....we have reinstated your blog. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary suspension has caused you and your readers. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Meanwhile, I republish here the post on one of my new blogs, which I am going to keep available.
also see: http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/02/28/long-live-peacepalestine/#comment-352089

This blog takes up where peacepalestine left off (for now). And…It will go further -

Straight to the liberation of the Palestinian people so that Justice will be theirs, as well as the Peace they deserve after so much pain and hardship.

It may not be the definitive blog. I will decide how to fight the censorship forced upon me by someone who arrogantly defies the requests of many hardworking activists, Palestinians, Humanists, people from all around the world who care about the lives of the Palestinians.

Together with the blog, the person who has attacked it has brought down a gigantic slice of Palestinian activism: hundreds of links, almost all the major bloggers against Zionism and against Imperialism. He has silenced the voices of hundreds of writers, slammed the door on information about the Boycott of the Turin Book Fair, (the only blog in English covering this with immediate translations of the latest information), direct links to the Popular Committee Against the Siege in Gaza and other activist, relief and charitable works that are there only for the benefit of helping us wake up and listen to the cries of the Palestinians who have been victims of one of the worst crimes imaginable, and are treated instead as if they are the aggressors. Yes, in shutting down my blog, for personal gain of his own image, this person has probably damaged without remedy, his own “reputation” within campaign for Solidarity with Palestinians. Never has a Zionist blog been even slightly scratched, no. Apparently, they are better for the Palestinian cause than Peacepalestine.

Peacepalestine was (and is) a labour of love of just one person. I chose to do it myself, because my view is that nothing but the most radical activism, without compromising on a single right that belongs to the Palestinian people, is what it takes. I can’t ask anyone else to be responsible for my content, and my content is not tender with Israel or its supporters. My content is a true faith in the steadfastness and in the rightness of the Palestinians. Just to serve them, whatever it is they ask for to liberate themselves from their oppression.

I was able to have obtained some original documents (such as the only version of the Avrum Burg interview in its entirety in English, and many others besides), some important work by others, especially by Palestinian and Arab writers who probably don’t have as much chance of getting published as perhaps someone involved in politics or someone who represents the “peaceloving Israeli”. All of this has been decided by the censor that it is not good for others to see.

Mind, not a single Zionist blog or site has ever had even the slightest problem from this individual.

Ask yourself why.

This person has silenced the voices of 250 activists who want to hear what we say and want other people to respect our rights of free speech. Their request was not only ignored, but it was spat upon. Perhaps others will be subject to this same treatment. I don’t doubt it.

Yet, in these three years of blogging activity, I have learned one thing: a lot of other people believe in Radical Solidarity. I’m not the only one. Perhaps this blog, or another one with more features, will replace this one, and it will be built together with others who feel like I do. It may be a group blog. At any rate, we are not defeated, and I learned just how greatly my blog is loved. It’s not just “my” blog, it’s a blog of all the people who use it and love it.

A heartfelt thanks to my loving and supportive friends who are there for me right now, despite the fact that each of them has their own burdens to bear:

All my love and affection to the best friends anyone could ever hope to have, people who are so beautiful and whose hearts are made of pure gold:Gilad, Manuel, Iqbal, Steve, Annie, Laila, Haitham, Reham, Akram, Edna, Susanne, Kristoffer, Khalid, Robin, Nadia, Sumaia, Adib, Wael, Miguel, Sarah, Benedetta, Francis, Paul, Ariella, Mohammad, Khaled, Javier, Daniel, Mazin, Richard, Les, Juan, Walid, Glenn, Simon for their supportive letters and phone calls, putting things in perspective and giving me their encouragement and wisdom.

The practical help and the knowledge and advice of so many of you has gotten me through a few rough hours, and now we are ready to begin where we left off.

I love you all.

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# posted by thecutter @ 21:32 |

Saturday, February 16, 2008

 

Fact Checking on Greenstein, Mission: Impossible

My article published on AMIN (Arabic Media Internet Network) http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=44670&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3 By the way, there are many comments that have been sent, and they will be posted in a few days! Busy over here!! BUT, thanks to everyone who signed. It is greatly appreciated!!!

Fact checking on Greenstein, Mission: impossible

By: Mary Rizzo

One would think that if there were an article with my name in it, I would be more than a little interested in reading it. But, to be honest, it's been happening on a daily basis, and by one author alone, one Mr Tony Greenstein, that I can't bring myself to do anything more than give it a gliss reading, my “vanity” hasn’t gotten to extreme levels yet, and I have better things to be doing. But, considering the author, even by virtue of a skim, it is impossible not to constantly bang into a thick wall of lies so big that they quite simply jump straight out.

Not wanting to belabour anyone much longer, because 200 names, including some who have activist history spanning decades, academics, writers, bloggers, philosophers, editors, people from every continent and many religious, political, ethnic and economic backgrounds and yes... even a survivor of Holocaust, have signed their names to an open letter, http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/02/petition-for-two-activists-that-you.html calling for Tony Greenstein to stop abusing his "air time" by engaging in character assassination of two activists for Palestine, especially by use of distortion and fabrication. Rather than accept their plea, or listen to them, he has decided to increase his daily output and actually double it. So far, his echo chamber has been an obscure blog in the UK with maybe 50 readers, and one that’s been created ad hoc for it, judging by the comments, maybe it has two. It seems that it’s important for him to focus on three names he doesn’t like, but quite ignores that all the top bloggers are there. I wonder why this is? But now, Amin has published his reply to the article in question. Amin has quite a few more readers, so I believe it is essential to at least address some of the content within, given that I am called in cause. I do apologise, but I simply cannot bear to read the entire article, so I am not focusing on deconstructing the entire sandcastle that it obviously is. I will only focus on several key points that I am especially qualified to respond to.

Number 1) Greenstein writes:
"Rooij uses the adjective vile no less than four times. Ive written a vile article about him and made vile accusations of anti-Semitism against Atzmon and Rizzo [AR]."

Answer: What is so glaring here is that De Rooij does not once mention my name in the piece! How can we believe the rest of this paper the author simply is incapable of identifying who is involved? Yet, I already failed to mention that he gets the name of the author wrong as well. Last week, he said he had never heard of the chap. Strange... for a man who claims to be very active (and I have no doubt that he is, for all the time he spends on line) to never have encountered even one of the writings of Paul De Rooij. I remember widely circulating his Dictionary of the Occupation, almost every activist I know has read and greatly appreciated it. It was on Counterpunch, not some obscure UK socialist blog that mostly Zionists contribute to. Greenstein is simply doing a knee-jerk act of smear campaigning.

Number 2) Greenstein writes:
"But again, what has this to do with the Palestinians? Atzmon distributes Eisens pamphlets and now signs up to all the above nonsense. Read Gilad Atzmon Now an Open Holocaust Denier."

Answer: Calling other people's writing pamphlets can be overlooked, but then again, are they pamphlets because of their political orientation? If that is true, the very article Greenstein cites, another of his Socialist Unity smearfests, takes its information from two sources that are far from objective news sources, The Adelaide Institute, (a Holocaust Revisionist site), and Press TV, an Iranian site that seems to quite frequently print news that is inaccurate or outright disinformation, according to journalists who fact check their material. Once it had been established that Tony's sources (which make HIM a distributor of material from a Revisionist site) had actually used misquotes and disinformation, taken information from one trial and shifted it to another that had nothing to do with it, this did not cause him to wonder if his haste was not to be in some way suspect, and his opinion amended. No, he does not take any of this into account, and is still, on this date, distributing false material as if it were accurate! Another reason vile is an appropriate word to describe the attacks. And why is it vile? To quote Tony Greenstein: What has this to do with the Palestinians?

Number 3) Greenstein writes:
"Rooij describes me on the Cork PSC article as close to the anti-boycott Engage. But that is ironic since I have campaigned ceaselessly to support boycott. Unison, the second largest union in Britain voted to support boycott last summer. I spoke in favour of that position, as a Jewish member of the union, and it was passed by at least 80%. For that I am some form of racial segregationist?!! Get real Rooij."

Answer: The fact that Greenstein still circulates the lie that I am against the boycott, when he himself encouraged me to break it, is quite rich. But, let me mention another item that sticks out at me, UNISON. As a matter of fact, given that Redress, a UK site dedicated to the Palestinian cause, managed by Palestinians, had published the open letter, was cause for Tony to write this:

"Yes an excellent idea this petition. I'm so glad you included the following paragraph: We also take the opportunity to condemn the strangling siege that is being imposed over the Gaza Strip in particular and the West Bank and the rest of the Palestinian Arab people in general to complete their ethnic cleansing from their historic homeland.

It's quite important you know, pity that it was an afterthought to the 'defend Mary Rizzo and Gilad Atzmon' campaign because of course they are the people who matter most.

http://redressnewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/petition-in-support-of-pro-palestinian.html

Since it is published on redress I am asking my own union UNISON to remove all references to Redress from its sites and I will contact the TUC and SERTUC, of which I am a trades council delegate, to ask that they contact all unions and ask them to have nothing to do with Redress on their websites or any similar anti-semitic web site since it is clear that they are part of this.

Perhaps you could ask Atzmon what he means by this statement?

'I do not wish to enter the debate regarding the truth of the Holocaust'. Does he believe there is a debate about the 'truth' of the holocaust? And about whether the earth is flat?

http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/gatzmon29.htm

It seems Atzmon's lies are catching him out now that we all know that he has signed up as a holocaust denier.

It would appear that those whom the gods seek to destroy they first drive mad.

Tony Greenstein”

He proudly announces that they have done so. This is lobbying ad personam. The unions do his personal bidding, and he expects them to.

Number 4) Greenstein writes:
"Ironically, at the same time, Atzmon was denouncing the academic boycott as book burning (and here)."

Answer: This famous misrepresentation and distortion of the opinion of someone is PURE MacCarthyism. What did Gilad Atzmon say to me in the interview? Let's look (and to avoid any accusations of manipulative editing, I am quoting the response in full):

“Gilad: Boycott is a real complicated issue. For years we’ve been arguing in favour of divestment and boycott. At the time I supported any form of boycott in Israel, its products and its culture.

There are some elements in the boycott that are obviously very welcome. For instance, the fact that UK unions are standing up against Zionist evil is a major shift in the very right direction. The Boycott is certainly bad news for Israel and this is wonderful news in itself. Yesterday, I went to a reading of a play, it was actually a theatrical adaptation my latest book. The producer is Jewish, and at a certain stage when we were discussing the meaning of the play he stood up and said. You see, we had a Jewish State, it is now sixty years later, and it is a very horrible place, it is so horrible that it has now been boycotted. And this is there to make us think, where did it go wrong? This is the most positive impact of the boycott. It makes people reflect.

Yet, I have some serious reservations, which I am inclined to mention. One, I see a tremendous difference between banning an avocado and a book. I would welcome any form of financial restrictions on Israel and its supportive bodies yet, I truly believe in freedom of speech and oppose any form of Maccarthyism or intellectual censorship of any sort. Thus, interfering with academic freedom isnt exactly something I can blindly advocate. Unlike some of my best enlightened friends, I am against any form of gatekeeping or book burning. But it goes further, I actually want to hear what Israelis and Zionists have to say. I want to read their books. I want to confront their academics. If justice is on our side we should be able to confront them.

Mary: Of course, they wont stop writing or proposing their ideas, and actually, they might become more reactionary in the process.

Gilad: Actually, I do not think that they can become any more reactionary. The second point is, to impose a boycott is to employ a boycotter. When it comes to an academic boycott I would expect the inquisitor in charge to be a scholar of great esteem. This isn’t the case obviously. The reason is simple. As it naturally happens, major intellectuals are engaged in scholarship rather than in union politics, working class and proletarian activity. Seemingly, it isn’t the leading minds in British academic life and ethical thinking who are leading the Boycott. In fact it is the other way around, the boycott is led by some minor academics with very little to say about ethics and even less to say about the specific conflict. This fact is actually repeatedly exposed in televised debates. The anti-Zionist movement in Britain has yet to find the appropriate eloquent answer to the Dershowitzes of this world.

Three, when it comes to the Palestinian solidarity discourse I can identify two modes of discussion: the ethical and political. The ethical mode is obviously evoked by a natural humanist reaction to the endless flood of images of Israeli criminal activity. The political discourse, on the other hand, is pretty much autonomous and detached from the conflict. It has a lot to do with maintenance of some particular decaying old-school socialists within the fading progressive Western discourse. It has very little to do with Palestine and the transitions within the Palestinian struggle. When it comes to the current boycott we are unfortunately operating within a political mode rather than an ethical one. I say unfortunately, because Palestinian reality is neither an isolated event in history nor it is isolated in the region. Had the academics been ethically orientated, they would have to ask themselves what they, their unions and Universities have been doing to stop the ongoing slaughter in Iraq. What do they do to oppose the British Government that is engaged in crimes not different from Israel’s? What are the British academics doing now to stop the British value system from a total collapse? I am very sad and ashamed to say that as far as State terrorism is concerned Blair and Olmert are pretty much an equal match. If this isn’t enough, Brown Launch is not very promising either. Yet, British academics expect the Israelis to do something they fail to do.

However, as I said before, I am in favour of any form of restrictions on Israel, on its financial sectors, yet, by behaving politically while avoiding an ethical debate we are actually losing to the Israelis and to their lobbies.

Most importantly, if we decide to go for an academic Boycott, if we decide to burn books or to silence other peoples thoughts, then I really want to know why do we stop with Israeli academics or institutes? Shouldn’t we really ban any possible contact with any Zionists, people and institutes who openly support the idea of a racist State? As you certainly realise, unlike South Africa, Zionism, the ideological core behind Israel, is a global movement. Shouldn’t we ban as well any form of racially orientated activity? Shouldn’t we stop academic as well as smear campaigner David Hirsh and his racially orientated cohorts and then later continue with Jewish Socialists (being a racially oriented progressive group)? Where do we draw the line? I do not know the answers, instead I believe that the best way around it is to support freedom of speech categorically, whether it is David Irving, David Hirsh or even Tony Greenstein.

Mary: OK, so you fully support any kind of instrument that puts pressure and pulls the economic rug out from under Israel, but you have some reservations about the academic boycott against Israeli universities, because of the nature of the boycott being restricting academic freedom.

Gilad: I would even just call it intellectual freedom. I do love diversity. To impose a single narrative is in itself a Talmudic approach and I have to resist it. Being trained as a continental philosopher, I know very well that the proponents of the most enlightening ideas in the late 19th century and pre WWII 20th century were not exactly progressive. How to say it, Heidegger was a Nazi at least for a while and as it seems, both Levinas and Leo Strauss were courageous enough to admit that the man may be the greatest thinker of our millennium.”

I myself would add that if Tony Greenstein actually articulated an argument, rather than smear and engage strictly in character assassination, I would not have to waste so much time exposing some of his lies, and mind, I am ignoring the bulk of the others due to time constrictions. But it seems he does not produce anything but texts using character assassination, not against Zionists, but against people who denounce Zionism on a constant and daily basis, and therefore, I believe that the letter Palestinians and activists wrote is a step in the right direction. If he wants to participate in the discourse, he should, and as a matter of fact, while he is calling for us to be excluded and silenced, based on a series of smears and distortions, we are calling on him to focus on Palestinians rather than on two European Palestinian activists who are quite well-circulated. But rather than address the content in any meaningful way of the material others write and distribute, he comes out with a lie and distortion to smear the author. It is just what Dershowitz does.

Number 5) Greenstein writes:
"The one semi-sensible question Rooij asks is what in American society produces support for Zionism. But the only answer his friends provide is the Jews. Apart from ignoring the much more numerous Christians for Zionism they totally fail to even begin to answer it. Yet it is not difficult to understand why the USA projects its power in the way it does economic, military, imperial reasons oil for example. But this means having an analysis of class society and imperialism, something Atzmon and friends explicitly reject."

Answer: Now, this in itself is quite interesting. On my blog, I have dozens of articles denouncing Christian Zionists. I have never seen a single thing written or circulated on the argument by Greenstein, ever. I have, on the other hand, seen him say he is "thrilled" that Zunes "demolished Walt and Mearsheimer". You see, differently from almost all the major scholars and researchers, not to mention activists, Tony doesn't think there's a lobby. And, where does he get the idea Atzmon and his friends reject the discussion of class society and imperialism!? Again, Atzmon rejects imperialism quite often in his writing. He may not be quoting Gramsci, but his thesis is about hegemony and consensus by the super powers in order to restrict the narrative and allow the powers to maintain dominance. I myself have so many articles against imperialism on the blog alone, I can't begin to see where he finds a rejection of this concept.

Number 6) Greenstein writes:
"There are a number of errors in Rooijs article, eg. That I sent defamatory letters to the venue where Atzmon was due to speak. Not true. I sent no letters. It was an article in the local press that alerted them to the meeting. Nor was it a church hall. But it is this attention to detail that marks out Rooij as the quality journalist that he is."

Answer: No, he may not have sent defamatory letters. He merely plastered the walls with flyers. Indeed, the venue was a church. This is a letter the organiser wrote to Tony, which was published on my blog:

"The immediate reason that I withdrew from the Brighthelm, Tony, was that you had, without permission, started pasting notices on the premises opposing the meeting and this notice included a copy of the Calder article. These notices were bound to be a major embarrassment to the church. Moreover by the manner in which you acted, the manager was bound to deduce that further such behaviour was likely. Indeed you were announcing your picket. To say, therefore, that you did not put pressure on the Brighthelm is disingenuous. It is ironic that you take me to task for damaging the Palestine solidarity movement in holding this meeting when your actions do precisely that - and I, of course do not accept that the Gilad Meeting does anyway. I do not believe for a moment that you thought it unfortunate that the manager of the Centre caught you in the act of putting up these posters. Certainly he was affected by the grossly distorted view of Gilad Atzmon given in the article - that was precisely your intention. He hadn't got the time to investigate what, at your instigation I'm sure, Jean Calder had written. When he called me to discuss the matter I relieved him of any further embarrassment by withdrawing."

Cheers,
Francis

Number 7) Greenstein writes:
"Yes Sue Blackwell, who led the academic boycott is my comrade. But surprising as it may seem, I am not responsible for her web site! This is what is usually called guilt by association. McCarthyism in other words."

Answer: It is strange he says this! I am held responsible for things that I have not written, and for websites I have nothing to do with. As a matter of fact, by way of his accusations, Greenstein habitually quotes commenters from my blog posts. Not my own comments, and he attributes them to me. He also is now going through the names with a nit comb (as if my friend who has compiled and thought of the list is supposed to filter people who sign, we are in a free society, still, aren’t we? And, I wonder, has petitions he has signed had only names he knows and swears bonafides on?) This is usually called guilt by association. MacCarthyism, in other words." If the mirror fits….. Oh, not to mention, I keep getting harassed now to chop this name or that name off the list. Well, that will still leave a few hundred people who said “enough”. There are many other inaccuracies and insinuations from Tony that are not verified, as well as his opinion bandied as fact and truth. I don't care to address them now. I am sure that just this small sampling is sufficient to give an idea of who we are dealing with. And, to close, I would like to mention that the top Palestinian bloggers, well-known and respected activists and writers have signed the open letter, many with comments stating their total solidarity with Gilad and I, and stating that his campaigns were obscene and must end. In five days, 200 people have signed. In five days, I have not seen a single Palestinian, or anyone else, for that matter, come out in solidarity or defence of Tony Greenstein. He himself has to write his own harangue and defence, while spamming sites and even my own inbox with more bald-faced lies that he is unable to substantiate. These are the people and groups that have asked for him to stop it.


Adib S. Kawar, Nazareth, Palestine - Beirut, Lebanon, Activist, writer and translator
Walid Halabi, France-Italy
Arab Abdel-Hadi PMWATCH, Ansar Al-Quds. LEBANONVIEW, Free Palestine and others
Malak Abdel-Hadi, Palestinian living in Dubai
Shahira Mehrez, Egyptian living in Cairo, Egypt
Paola Pisi, Italy, http://uruknet.info/
Ismail Zayid, Canada, http://izayid.tripod.com/
Nizar Issa, London, UK , Musician
Nadia Hasan, Chile, http://palestinaresiste2.blogspot.com/
Dr Sadek Pharaon MD, Syria
Oren Ben Dor, UK
Manuel Talens, Spain, http://www.manueltalens.com/
Dima Hamdan, London, UK, Journalist
Iqbal Tamimi, Exiled Journalist Network UK, A Palestinian journalist and poet, http://palestinian.ning.com/
Samir Daoud - Akka Palestine - residence: Beirut Lebanon
Nadia Daoud - Akka Palestine - Residence: Beirut Lebanon
Hala Kawar Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut Lebanon
Wajih Freij Jerusalem, Palestine - Residence: Beirut Lebanon
Lamia Kawar Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut - Lebanon
Ibrahim Kawar Nazareth, Palestine - Residence - Beirut - Lebanon
Fausto Giudice, Zapatist Alliance for Social Liberation, France, http://azls.blogspot.com/
Ginette Hess Skandrani, Zapatist Alliance for Social Liberation, France, http://azls.blogspot.com/
Wael Al Saad, Dusseldorf-Germany. PYN Coordinator-Germany Palestinian Community Dusseldorf Board, http://www.anis-online.de/1/rooms/wael/
Dr Hajo G. Meyer, Heiloo, the Netherlands, survivor of Auschwitz, writer, physicist, lute maker
Mauro Manno, Italy , professor, writer, translator
Manuela Vittorelli, Italy, http://mirumir.blogspot.com/
Diego Traversa, Italy, writer, translator
Vicente Romano, Spain, writer
Carlos Sanchis, Spain
Nancy Harb Almendras, United States, Germany http://www.umkahlil.blogspot.com/
Zuhair Nafa, Palestine
Raja Chemayel, The Hague, Netherlands, http://frustratedarabdiary.blogspot.com/
Theodore D. Turner, Brooklyn, New York
Kristoffer Larsson, Sweden, http://altahrir.blogspot.com/
Ellen Rohlfs, Germany, German-Palestinian Society and Gush Shalom
Hergen Matussik, Germany
Benedetta Scardovi-Mounier, USA/Italy
Cristina Santos, London, UK
Rocio Anguiano, Spain
Sigge Andersson, pre-med student, Sweden
Guenter Schenk, France/Germany, Aktionsbndnis fr einen gerechten Frieden in Palstina
LanceThruster, LA, CA, USA
Mary Sparrowdancer, Tallahassee, FL, USA, http://www.sparrowdancer.com/
Birgit Jdahl, Sweden
Miguel Martinz, Florence, Italy, http://kelebek.splinder.com/
Susanne Scheidt, Al-Awda Italia
Jean-Marie Flemal, writer and translator, WPB (Workers' Party of Belgium), Charleroi, Belgium
Edna Spennato, South Africa-Brazil, Earth Heal Geoharmonic Research Project
Abdullah Husain, Palestine by birth, KSA, India by life accident
Wendy Campbell, California, USA, MarWen Media, http://www.marwenmedia.com/
Peter Brooke, UK, www.peterbrooke.org.uk
Daniel McGowan, Geneva, NY, Exec. Director, Deir Yassin Remembered, http://www.deiryassin.org/
Debbie Brown, Hacienda Heights, California USA
Kenneth Rasmusson, Sweden
Redress Information & Analysis, London, UK
Schuyler Ebbets, USA, http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/
Ragnar B. Johannessen, Norway, http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/
Annie Selden Annab, USA, http://annies-letters.blogspot.com/
Jim Leven, UK, PSC member
Javier Fernndez Retenaga, Spain
Shaukat Khawja, Toronto, Canada Profession: Engineer
Volker M., Canada
Lina Abu Baker, London, UK, Poet
Brenda Heard, UK, Friends of Lebanon, http://www.friendsoflebanon.org/
Letizia Tessicini, Orte, Italy
Simon R-Levin, Manchester, UK
Paloma Valverde, Spain, member of CEOSI
Sarah Stevens, UK
Ralph Pinner, UK
Inge Soder, Germany
Sarah Gillespie, London, UK, musician
Raja Ibrahim, Pistoia, Italy, ASSOCIAZIONE AMICIZIA ITALO - PALESTINESE, www.amiciziaitalo-palestinese.org/
Adriano Mencarelli, Roma - Italy
Diego Ianiro - Caserta, Italy, of Khalas Napoli - khalasnews.splinder.com
Francesca Longhi- Bergamo, Italia
Antonio Corraine - Aosta, Italy
Stuart Cary Welch - USA
Haitham Sabbah, Tulkarm, Palestine/Bahrain, blogger, http://sabbah.biz/
Latuff, Rio De Janiero, Brazil, Cartoonist, http://latuff.blogspot.com/
Nureddin Sabir, London, UK, Editor of Redress Information & Analysis
Steve Amsel, Jerusalem-Al Quds, blogger, http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/
Lasse Wilhelmson, Sweden
Richard Jones, Swansea, Wales, http://a-fistful-of-poetry.blogspot.com/
Einar Schlereth, Sweden, Journalist
Karaiskos Kostas, Komotini, Greece, ANTIFONITIS director, http://www26.brinkster.com/karaiskos/
Adeline Rec, N/A
Alex Tarradellas, Catalonia
Nuria lvarez, Spain
Guillermo F. Parodi, Paraguay, Universitary Professor
Dennis Zackrisson, Uppsala, Sweden
Mark Roland, Eugene Oregon, USA
Robert Wagner, Italy
Graham Derrick, West Yorkshire, UK
Gabriele Repaci, Milano, university student
Emmanuel St John, London, UK
Sami Joseph, UK
Ernesto Paramo, Mexico/UK
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Glasgow, Scotland, blogger, http://fanonite.org/
Jeffrey Blankfort, California, USA
David Baldinger, USA, Cartoonist, http://www.dbaldinger.com/
Olivia Zémor, Paris, France, cofounder CAPJPO (Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient)
Ana Cleja, France
John W. Blalock, N/A
Maryam Husain and Children, Displaced Palestinian/KSA/Italy/India currently
Emanuela Borrelli, Italy
Rachel Bridgeland, UK
Maria Ingrosso, Lecce, Italy
Riccardo Di Vito, Roma, Italia - Campo Antimperialista, http://www.antiimperialista.org/
Wilhelm Langthaler, Vienna, Austria, Anti-imperalist Camp, http://www.antiimperialista.org
Camilla Rahm, Gothenburg, Sweden
Nahida Izzat,Palestine/ Jerusalem Poetry for Palestine, http://poetryforpalestine.spaces.live.com/
Maurizio Neri, Rome, Italy, Editor Magazine of Politics and Philosophy, "Comunismo e Comunit"
Nicolas A. Sayegh - Laval, Quebec, Canada, Columnist
Asad Khan, Manchester, UK: doctor and blogger, http://chestdocinpalestine.blogspot.com/
Ali Mallah, Canadian Peace Alliance, Canadian Arab Federation, http://www.caf.ca/HomePage.aspx
Khaled Mouammar, Toronto, Canada, National President, Canadian Arab Federation, http://www.caf.ca/HomePage.aspx
Gonzalo Barona, Caceres, Espana
Nicole Hille-Priebe, Germany
Randa Farah, Canada
Felisa Sastre, Espana
Caty R., Spain
Christine Mihil Sharp - London, UK; www.Red-DesertProductions.com
Emanuela Di Piramo, Italia
Dr Raymond Deane, Dublin, Ireland
Katherine Eilbeck, Glais, Swansea, Wales
Katie Murphy, UK
Samira Rantisi, Italy
Sergio I. Moya Mena, Costa Rica, http://wiphala.org/
Paul Eisen - Director (UK) Deir Yassin Remembered
Akram Awad, Palestinian blogger in the UK, www.akramawad.com/
Daniel Alba, writer/musician, USA http://detainthis.wordpress.com
Gunvant Govindjee, South Africa
Agustin Velloso, Madrid - Spain
William Buttrey, Southern California, USA
Gilberto Jordan, Professsor de Histria, Brazil
Mireille RUMEAU, from ISM-France
Colin Pritchard, UK
kim petersen, korea, co-editor, http://www.dissidentvoice.org
Juan-Antonio Julin, Bruselas
Mahmud Said Hamad - Italy
Arlene L. Johnson, Publisher/Author http://www.truedemocracy.net
Jeff Spencer, Bristol, UK, Musician
Agostino Sanfratello, Beyrouth, Lebanon
Karin Maria Friedemann, Boston, Massachusetts,Editor, World View News Service, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
Gianfranco La Grassa, Conegliano, Italy, Economist
Mondher Sfar, Collectif de la Communaut Tunisienne en Europe, Paris, France
Mireille Delamarre http://www.planetenonviolence.org/
Ann El Khoury; Sydney, Australia, http://peoplesgeography.com/
Razan Ghazzawi, Damascus, Syria, blogger of Decentering Damascus, http://www.ya-ashrafe-nnas.blogspot.com/ member of Free Tariq Campaign
Maher Osseiran, Arab-American investigative reporter, http://www.mydemocracy.net/
Marion SOLITAIRE, Firminy, France
Hala Abou-Zaki, Paris, France
Khadidja ATTOU, Montpellier-France
Joe Fallisi, Baranzate (Milano), Italy, Tenor, http://www.nelvento.net/
Antonia Cilla Ortega, Spain
Djamal BENMERAD, Bruxelles, Journaliste, écrivain (Journalist, writer)
Abdelfattah Abu-Srour, PhD. Director of Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Center, Bethlehem - Palestine, http://alrowwad.virtualactivism.net/
Aymen JEMNI, Engineer and PhD Student - Barcelona - Spain
Chafik HBILA, doctorant en sociologie, France
Atenea Acevedo, Interpreter, translator, activist, Active member of Babels, Tlaxcala and Rebelin, Mexico City, Mexico http://mujerypalabra.com/ http://my.opera.com/mujerypalabra/blog
Sandrine Corten, Bruxelles, Bloggeuse : http://acteursdeterrain.canalblog.com/
Charles Beillard, France, http://www.enfantsdepalestine.org/
Alan 'Masher1' Reid, USA, Wake up from your Slumbers Blog, Melted238
Nadjiam Saoudi, France
Ada KRONFLI, Adhrente ; 1. Association France Palestine Solidarit, ( France), 2. Association des Palestiniens en France (France), 3. CAPJPO- EURO PALESTINE ( France)Catherine de Crombrugghe, Charleroi, Belgium Djanet Mokrani, France
Anika Persiani, Firenze, biologa, "Sumud"
Frédric Herr, Strasbourg, France, etudiant
Dr Francis Clark-Lowes, founder and organiser of Invitation to Learn, member and ex-chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and member United National Association (UK)
Sami Sabaana, Switzerland
Safia FARHAT, TUNISIE
Boualem SNAOUI, Paris France
Paul de Rooij, writer/economist, London
Sarah Marshall, N/A
Thomas Bischoff, Strasbourg, France www.thomasbischoff.fr
Saidi Nordine, Mouvement Citoyen Palestine, Bruxelles - Belgique, http://mcpalestine.canalblog.com/
William Ross, Canada
Snorre Lindquist, Architect, Sweden
Ben Heine http://www.benjaminheine.blogspot.com/
Franck Hirsbein, France http://groups.google.com/group/lesamisdelaroutedelissa
Sabina Paolini, Abruzzo, Italy
Moura Nouara, Caen (FRANCE), association Kultures
Elisa Davinca - Vienna/Austria - http://anotherworldispossiblenow.blogspot.com/ - http://refusetokill.blogspot.com/
Leonardo Mazzei, Italy, Gaza Vivrà www.gazavive.com
veronique roudil, marseille, france
Nadim Mahjoub, London, http://middleeastpanorama.blogspot.com/
Rubén Kotler - Historiador, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, De Igual A Igual http://www.deigualaigual.net/
Simone Maggiolo, Italy
Julieta Obedman, Argentina
Palestinian Refugee Portal http://palref.net/
Dr Yassar NAFA, Doctor, UK
Lydia Lauks, political communication officer, UK
Keny Arkana, Marseille - France, Collectif AASV
Omar Khamoun, New Zealand
Raymond Richa, France
Toni Solo, Nicaragua
Reham Alhelsi, Jerusalem, Palestine
David Nir, Israel
Maria Grazia Da Costa Lucca, Italy, Campo Antimperialista

this Petition is also on:Rebelion Redress, Uruknet here and here, Arab News, Friends of Lebanon
Tlaxcala, Kelebek, The People's Voice Sabbah's Blog Desert Peace Umma, Asherah's Journal, Palestine Blogs "The Gazette", Window into Palestine , Detain ThisAlterinfo (in French)Basta!


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