Seymour Hersh at Global Investigative Journalism Conference
May 18th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
On April 24 investigative journalism veteran Seymour Hersh (his achievements include breaking the My Lai Massacre and Abu Ghraib stories) gave a keynote address at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva.
Catch Four Lions
May 18th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
“Could you ever laugh at terrorism?” is the question asked by the host of a British television news channel that reported on the UK premiere of satirist Chris Morris’s first feature film, Four Lions. It’s in British theatres now and began causing a stir even before the first showing with families of the 2005 London bombings campaigning for it to be boycotted by cinemas. The film satires the case of 4 British Muslims as they plan suicide attacks.
Due at least in part to the sensitive subject matter it deals with, most people cast judgement on it before ever having seen it. In the clip I link to above, Morris himself can’t help but laugh (at 6:24) when his interviewer tells him that according to someone who hasn’t seen the film, it’s sick.
Interviewer: We’ve spoken to people today who haven’t seen the film, obviously, but they’re already saying, “it’s sick.” You know, with, their memories are very clear of 7/7.”
Morris: Did you just say that you’ve spoken to some people who haven’t seen the film and they’re saying it’s sick? Do I need to say anything else?
Bravo Elvis Costello! ‘Sometimes silence in music is better than adding to the static…’
May 18th, 2010 § 14 Comments
Elvis Costello, we salute you, for heeding the BDS call and acting upon your conscience to cancel concerts in Israel. Here’s his statement:
It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.
One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.
Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.
I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.
Elaine Hagopian Reviews Israeli Exceptionalism
May 18th, 2010 § 3 Comments
Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan, November 10, 2009). Publisher’s link.
by Elaine Hagopian
For those unfamiliar with the extraordinary evolution of Israeli exceptionalism emanating from its Zionist narrative and assuring Israel’s incredible success as a colonial settler state, M. Shahid Alam’s book is the one to read. He has recorded a compelling, uniquely comprehensive and enlightening historical analysis of the inherently destabilizing dynamic of Zionism. Of particular note are his detailed Chapters Nine and Thirteen.
In Chapter Nine, he documents the constellation of Jewish factors that came together in the 19th century which assured Zionist success: the spread of Jewish intellectuals and professionals across major cities in Europe; Jewish population growth to 16.7 million in 1939 which could root a nationalist movement; business acumen and ownership of major banks and a strong media presence; growth of interchange with other Jewish leaders contributing to a sense of community – important considering that Jews had not previously formed a sense of nation according to Alam; and as European nationalism grew, Jews were affected by the idea though they had no majority presence in any one state which could be claimed by them. Historical anti-Semitism prodded the Jewish elites toward formulation of the Zionist project even as Jews were moving out of the ghettos of a liberalized Europe. Given their distribution throughout Europe and without a territorial base of their own, the Zionist sought and captured the needed “mother” country to implement their colonial settler state in Palestine. This they found in the U.K initially and then in the U.S. with periodic support by other countries such as France.
From Prayer to Paralysis
May 17th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by Joshua Brollier
Zainullah at a Paraplegic Center near Peshawar (Photo: G. Simon Harak)
May 17, 2010, Islamabad — Through the Soviet invasion and occupation, the Afghan civil war and now the United States war and occupation, a young man named Zainullah, around 25 years of age, has seen war his whole life. But you’d never know it by his engaging smile and his relaxed countenance. Zainullah currently lives at a paraplegic center in Hayatabad, Pakistan, a suburb of Peshawar, the capital city of the North-West Frontier Province. He is originally from the Helmand province of Afghanistan, which has been one of the most intense battlegrounds during the “war on terror” launched by the United States in 2001.
Zainullah was paralyzed about nine months ago after being struck with shrapnel from a U.S. cruise missile. On the day of the attack, Zainullah was getting ready to start his prayers. He heard a bomb blast, and before he had a chance to realize that he was the target, Zainullah was laying prostrate on the ground with a piece of metal lodged in his spinal cord. Two men from his village carried him to the nearest clinic. There he was given an injection and then taken to the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) facility in Helmand. Now paralyzed from the waist down, Zainullah spent one month at the ICRC , and then decided to seek more extensive rehabilitation treatment in Pakistan.
Apartheid = Immoral Order
May 16th, 2010 § 9 Comments
Authors Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh are well known for works centered around oppression and colonialism with an anti-war stance. Tel-Aviv University is one of the prime targets of the academic boycott, for its support and part in Israel’s violent occupation over the Palestinian people. The Dan David Prize is one of those high-profile awards (very similar to the Oscar or the Nobel) which makes celebrities out of artists, academics and and scientists, and kicks perceptions and economies out of whack, for the sake of prestige, in the name bettering the world, under a very capitalist premise. But most importantly, the Dan David Prize is co-sponsored by the Tel-Aviv University (which is of course funded by the government, as it should be) and the ceremony is attended by the president of Israel.
The First BDS Direct Action in Israel
Atwood and Ghosh accepted the prize and its one million dollars, in all its bloody glory, even though they were beseeched, time and time and time again, not to support apartheid. On May 11th they spoke at a symposium, following their acceptance of the prize and we, Israeli activists of BDS, were there to make sure our stance is clear:
Can Journalism Be Saved?
May 16th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Download program audio (mp3, 48.84 Mbytes)
Reporters by the thousands are being let go; newspapers and foreign bureaus are disappearing. Why is this happening, and what impact does journalism’s crisis have on democracy? At a recent event, Robert McChesney and John Nichols addressed these questions and cited early US governmental support for journalism.
Also see by the authors:
- ‘The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers‘, The Nation, 18 March 2009
- ‘How to Save Journalism‘, The Nation, 25 January 2010
The New York Times gets lost in a minefield
May 16th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
On Friday 14 May, The New York Times‘ Public Editor Clark Hoyt published a piece called ‘Semantic Minefields’. The focus of Hoyt’s article was, in his own words, the questions Times‘ journalists “juggle” on a daily basis, “as they try to present the news in clear and evenhanded language”.
The last example given by Hoyt related to “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Here’s the background:
When Cooper wrote this month about a lunch that Obama had with Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, she said the president was trying to mend fences with American Jews upset at the administration’s stance against construction of “Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.”
Nathan Dodell of Rockville, Md., said it was “tendentious and arrogant” to use the word “settlements” four times in the article when the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has explicitly rejected it in relation to East Jerusalem. Obama has used the term himself to refer to construction in East Jerusalem, and Cooper told me, “I called them settlements because that’s the heart of the dispute between the Israelis and the United States: settlement construction in Arab East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for an eventual Palestinian state.”
But to Dodell, she was taking sides. He asked why she didn’t use a neutral term like “housing construction.”
Incredibly, there is not one mention of international law, where the illegitimacy of settlements in the Occupied West Bank – including East Jerusalem – has been repeatedly affirmed by the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice judges in their 2004 advisory opinion.
Perhaps Cooper cited international law to Hoyt – but he doesn’t say so. The closest the Public Editor gets himself is when he writes that Israel’s claim to a ‘united’ Jerusalem is “not recognized by the United States and most of the world”.
But apparently, settlement is “a charged word” and so “articles by Times reporters in Jerusalem do generally use words like ‘housing’ instead of ‘settlement’.”
We also learn about the Times’ Ethan Bronner’s opinion: basic principles of international law are discarded in favour of Bronner’s personal impressions of some of Occupied East Jerusalem having “the feeling” of settlements that other areas do not.
The Public Editor’s conclusion? The journalist in question “should have found a more neutral term”.
No wonder that Hoyt feels the need to finish with the reassurance that newspapers are about “nuance and real understanding”. Because one would be forgiven for thinking that the Times‘ approach to Palestine/Israel is about confusion and misinformation.
Video Contest Encourages People to see for Themselves
May 16th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
A poignant piece of graffiti art on the Apartheid wall by famed artist Banksy.
Even though a significant and growing number of reputable, prominent public figures have openly acknowledged (and in many cases spoken out against) Israel’s continued enforcement of Apartheid policies despite enormous pressure not to, the notion of Israel as an apartheid state is still publicized as a debatable topic by elite figures who support the current status quo. The truth is however becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, with Israel’s apartheid wall (also strategically referred to as a “separation barrier”) sticking out like a sore thumb with its blatant visual depiction of how racial segregation operates at the core of Israeli society.
Pointing out the ways in which apartheid manifests itself in Israel through visual evidence is among the most powerful means with which people can explain the reality of the situation to the uninformed. For this reason pursuits like itisapartheid.tv (a project of the excellent advocacy group stopthewall.org) are important endeavors. By encouraging people to document Israel’s apartheid policies through a short film contest, activists aren’t only providing incentives (in this case with a modest amount of prize money) for people to compile evidence, they are also inspiring people who have not previously travelled to the region to do so with a purpose: assessing the situation for themselves.
Margaret Atwood Cashes In
May 15th, 2010 § 14 Comments
By Jennifer Matsui
Children in Gaza sit next to the empty desks of fellow students whose lives were snuffed out by Israeli terror.
Novelist Margaret Atwood’s decision to travel to Tel Aviv to share a literary prize worth a million dollars has ignited a controversy in which the septuagenarian author and vice-president of the literary human rights organization PEN International has come under fire by Palestinian rights activists. Ms Atwood’s acceptance of the Dan David Prize, whose previous laureates include Al Gore and Tony Blair, is viewed by Ms Atwood’s critics as a betrayal to the ideals she supposedly represents, and an unwitting endorsement of Israel’s race exclusive policies.
The Canadian author’s insistence that refusing the blood-spattered trophy would be tantamount to “censorship” rings as false as her commitments to justice as an anti-apartheid activist, and as a writer who has made tyranny and oppression recurring themes in her novels, elevating her from fiction writer to public intellectual. “False” because “justice for some” is hardly an ethical stance with any merit, and certainly not one that will maintain her status as an “oppositional intellectual”. Sadly, this “intellectual” has made no effort to research the subject of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and its unyielding, systematic oppression of the Palestinian people (as many Jewish and Israeli scholars and activists themselves have bravely condemned). Otherwise, she would use the occasion of the invitation to denounce an increasingly murderous regime and call upon its people to support sanctions, boycotts and divestments until their government accepted the rule of International law and reversed its policy of displacement and expulsion of Arab people from their ancestral lands. Instead the once outspoken author has chosen to put monetary interests ahead of the principled moral stances she has taken in the past, in order to lay claim to a tainted prize given each year to fame-hungry “artists” looking to boost sagging sales of their product while making all the appropriate noises to the press about free speech.
