Capital murder
January 26th, 2010 § 3 Comments
First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev — as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty…
– Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on the vision for a “permanent solution”, 5 October 1995
Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people, a city reunified so as never again to be divided
– Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 21 May 2009
The current consensus in the international community is that East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967, is the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel’s unilateral annexation of territory to create expanded municipal boundaries for a ‘reunited’ Jerusalem was never recognised.
Over the last forty-three years, Israel has created so-called ‘facts on the ground’ in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), in defiance of international law. Since the Madrid/Oslo peace process, successive Israeli governments have continued to colonise Palestinian land at the same time as conducting negotiations.
The extent and scale of Israel’s illegal settlement project across the West Bank, as well as the road network, the Separation Wall, and other ways in which Israel maintains its rule over the OPT, has led some to believe that the creation of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state is impossible.
Perhaps one of the clearest indicators that there is no Palestinian state-in-waiting under Israel’s regime of control is East Jerusalem.
Her name was Fidaa
January 26th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Fidaa Tala Salim Heji, 17, succumbed to cancer while waiting for a travel permit to be issued by Israel so she could seek better treatment. It arrived 4 days after her death.
A little over a year ago, during Israel’s Winter assault on Gaza, I attended a Palestinian solidarity demonstration on a January weekend. The snow from the previous day had turned to rain and the Downtown streets were wet with the persistent slush that sticks to your boots and freezes your toes no matter what kind of footgear you’re wearing. The sidewalks were crowded with shoppers rushing to get from one store to the other, now slowed down by the hundreds of impassioned demonstrators chanting in unison, carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags. We were blocking the roads and the walkways, and when we started marching, traffic halted too, causing annoyance amongst everyone who was not with us – drivers, passengers and pedestrians.
I lagged behind at the end of the marching crowd as we temporarily shut down some of the city’s busiest streets and when the last of them disappeared around a corner, I hurried to a covered bus stop to clean my camera lens. Two older women were waiting there, clearly frustrated and wondering when the next bus would arrive if so much of Downtown was now inaccessible by traffic.
“What are they protesting?” asked one.
“I heard on the news that Israel is defending itself against terrorists again and these people are speaking for the Arabs.”
“The Israelis are so patient! The Arabs have been trying to destroy the Jewish people forever and whenever Jews try to defend themselves, the whole world seems to come down on them.”
The Conquest of Cool I
January 25th, 2010 § 1 Comment
When is dissent hip? This is the subject of the following discussion hosted by the excellent Your Call Radio. Participants include Douglas Haddow of Adbusters, whose article, ‘Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization‘, generated one of the longest running debates in the magazines history (the article presently records more than four thousand responses on the Adbusters website). Also participating are Dan Sinker of Punk Planet, and journalist and hip-hop historian Davey D. They discuss: What is the relationship today between pop-culture, counterculture and dissent? What is the counterculture that sells media now? And can activists reclaim the counterculture that now permeates the mainstream?
The discussion is also joined later by Ishmael Reed and Thomas Frank, author of the splendid work The Conquest of Cool. In the book Frank (who also authored the classic What’s the Matter with Kansas? and edits The Baffler) shows that the advertising industry did not just co-opt the ’60s counterculture movement, in many respects it anticipated, indeed created, it. The instant-gratification individualism and the perpetual pursuit of uniqueness were the perfect compliments to capitalism’s manufacturing of needs to fuel the consumption on which it thrives. If capitalism had built planned obsolescence into its products, the counterculture’s very idea of rebellion was premised on ’standing apart’. As soon as a new product was in the hands of more than one, it had lost its uniqueness, pushing the rebel to search for a new ticket to cool. Rebellion which seeks expression in merchandise manufactures its own needs, and the engines of capital obligingly hum along. Franks gives the example of the Volkswagen Beetle ads, which were all designed as a critique of mass culture. To own a Beetle, then, was to stand apart. And the process continues as I’ll show in this series of three posts.
COFFEE WITH HEZBOLLAH to contribute to disaster relief in Haiti
January 25th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Following is the penultimate excerpt that I will post from my book Coffee with Hezbollah prior to publication by New World Digital, Inc. on February 1, 2010. The book chronicles the post-July War hitchhiking trip that photographer Amelia Opalinska and I conducted in Lebanon in 2006. The first three excerpts can be read here, here, and here; the book’s promotional video—courtesy of Amelia, with music by Marcel Khalifé—can be viewed here.
The publishers have agreed to donate 1 dollar for every book purchased to SOIL, an NGO in Haiti which prior to the earthquake dedicated itself to such projects as installing composting toilets. Read SOIL’s mission statement here for an explanation of how these projects combat the environmental and economic degradation to which Haiti has continuously been subjected.
To view Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times video about SOIL’s pre-quake activities, click here; for examples of the group’s post-quake commitments—and analyses of the current situation in Haiti—read posts by SOIL’s Sasha Kramer here and here.
For additional information about Coffee with Hezbollah or to PRE-ORDER the book, please visit: http://belenfernandez-writings.blogspot.com/.
Many thanks,
Belén Fernández (belengarciabernal@gmail.com)
The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 22.1.2010
January 25th, 2010 § 1 Comment
The biggest protest to date in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (350 people strong). The police riot again, 22 of our friends arrested:
The Power and Necessity of Dissent
January 24th, 2010 § 1 Comment
On Jan 21st, a group of student activists at Georgetown University provided guest speaker, General Patraeus, with an unexpected welcome, successfully interrupting his address by reading out the names and ages of those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the process, they’ve reminded us of the power and necessity of dissent, which, in this case, was effectively achieved by less than a dozen remarkable students.
Middle of ocean devastated by earthquake
January 24th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Slightly further inland. (Getty Images)
A few days ago my mother received an email from a Bulgarian acquaintance in Texas—Emil—with whom she has for years been attempting to become unacquainted and whose world view appears to rest on the principle that Bulgarian immigrants to Texas should be afforded more rights than other kinds of immigrants to Texas.
Correspondence with Emil diminished following my parents’ relocation from the U.S. to Argentina, and he now only emails in times of natural disaster to ensure that they are all right; his latest concerned dispatch consisted of the following CNN report of 17 January:
“A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern coast of Argentina on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
There were no immediate reports of damages and injuries.
The 6.2 mile-deep quake hit 220 miles off the coast of Ushuaia, Argentina, at 7 a.m. ET, the geological survey said.”
Canadians Protest Against PM Stephen Harper
January 24th, 2010 § 1 Comment
On January 23rd tens of thousands of Canadians gathered all across the country to protest Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s December 30th decision to prorogue parliament, a move widely interpreted as an attempt to avoid scrutiny over a number of issues, including allegations of a Conservative party cover-up of Afghan detainee abuse. Having also prorogued parliament last winter to avoid a confidence vote that he seemed bound to lose, Harper and his recently reshuffled cabinet have been angering many Canadians since they took office in 2006.
Among Harper’s recent accomplishments is his denial of Canada’s colonial history, reacting to the importance of environmental issues with contempt, putting increasing limitations on free speech in the name of ‘security’ (see the case of George Galloway and Amy Goodman), publicly announcing that Canadians don’t care about Afghan detainee abuse, and cutting off aid to several charities in response to Zionist lobbying (see here and here). Of course, proroguing parliament is within Canadian constitutional bounds and technically results in a tax-payer funded extended vacation for parliamentarians, but while past prime ministers have traditionally prorogued after the majority of legislative work was completed, Harper has done it in the middle of the working season.
Biden Announces U.S. Decision to Appeal Blackwater Dismissal
January 23rd, 2010 § 2 Comments
In a press conference from Baghdad earlier today, Vice President Joe Biden has announced that the U.S. will appeal a district court’s decision to dismiss manslaughter charges against five Blackwater guards involved in a 2007 Baghdad shooting that killed 17 people including children.
When the court’s opinion in the case involving Blackwater was issued on December 31, 2009, Judge Ricardo Urbina premised his dismissal upon the following ‘facts’: 1) that the prosecution’s case was built upon sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity, and 2) that this action violated the guards’ constitutional rights. Based on this argument, he concluded that the prosecution’s explanations were “contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.”
What Judge Urbina’s decision confirms for us, is that contracting companies like Blackwater (now Xe) have historically been granted a ‘get out of jail free’ card due to government assurances of immunity. The devastating result of this: companies like Blackwater have been ‘allowed’ to kill, indeed to the extent that they may even confess to killing, without fear of recourse. Consequently, we see the implications of the abuse of power that Jeremy Scahill’s longstanding critique - of the administration’s failure to exercise greater government oversight over private contractors like Blackwater – is based upon.
Ken Loach on Palestine
January 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Legendary film-maker Ken Loach speaks at an event commemorating last year’s massacre in Gaza.
