Ghoshwood’s Mendacity
May 11th, 2010 § 15 Comments
"Keeping Doors Open" (Photo: Jon Elmer)
by Robin Yassin-Kassab and Claire Chambers
Novelists Amitav Ghosh and Margaret Atwood have accepted the Dan David prize at Tel Aviv University, an institution at the heart of Israel’s military-industrial complex. By doing so they have spurned Palestinian civil society’s call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on the Zionist state. Atwood has specifically ignored this wonderful open letter from the students of Gaza. The shared prize money amounts to a million dollars, of which 10 percent will be handed back to support Tel Aviv’s graduate students.
Of course it would be a mistake to expect writers to attain to higher moral standards or to to display more political intelligence than anyone else. Two things stick in the craw in this case, however. The first is that both Ghosh and Atwood have made names as ‘progressive’ and ‘postcolonial’ writers. We aren’t surprised when an openly-declared Zionist like Martin Amis visits Israel, but when writers who sell books on the basis of their opposition to oppression visit, the resultant hypocrisy is quite nauseating.
PalFest Closing Night
May 11th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The final night of the Palestine Festival of Literature saw PalFest participants including Geoff Dyer and Suheir Hammad reading moving passages that they have not written themselves to a packed room in Jerusalem. As usual, Hammad’s part near the end is particularly moving.
As protests end, what have the Red Shirts achieved?
May 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
From Flickr user ratchaprasong
Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a Thai academic, socialist, and dissident currently wanted for lèse majesté shares this analysis of the Red Shirt movement as they prepare to conclude their Bangkok protests.
Red Shirt protests in Bangkok, which started in mid-March are about to be wound up. The leaders have accepted a compromise with the military-backed Abhisit government. Elections will not be held immediately, but on 14th November. Earlier Abihist had indicated an election in February 2011 at the earliest.
It is unclear whether the blanket censorship will be lifted. One clear demand that the Red Shirt leaders are expecting is that the Red Shirt TV channel (People Channel TV) will be allowed back on air. It is unclear whether websites like Prachatai will be unblocked. Another demand is that the law be applied equally to all. The Government claims that tomorrow the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister will “surrender” to the police regarding charges of murdering citizens back on 10th April. But it is unclear whether any real charges will be filed against them.
Nothing has been said about the political prisoners, both those in jail for lese majeste and those in jail for blocking roads during the recent protest.
What have the Red Shirts achieved?
The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 04-06.05.2010
May 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
All across the protesting villages of the West Bank, the political intimidation is escalating with arrests of activists. There will be no footage from Bil’in, this week, as friend, fellow activist, B’tselem camera man and Bil’in resident, Haitham Al-Khatib was arested, yet again, while doing his job. (update 20.5.10: this week’s footage has been recovered and can be found here) Along with two fellow Bil’in residents, Al-Khatib was taken to Ofer prison, without even so much as an interrogation. The two Israeli activists and international activist were released at 20 past midnight, that night.
In Ni’lin, a bit of symbolic flag burning was quickly dispersed with chemical weapons.
Postwar Photographs of Lebanon by Amelia Opalinska
May 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Amelia Opalinska and I spent nearly two months hitchhiking around Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli assault—a trip that is the subject of my political travelogue Coffee with Hezbollah, which also features Amelia’s photographs.
Following is a series of 22 black and white photos from various corners of Lebanon, reinforcing the notion that physical destruction and aesthetic appeal are not mutually exclusive.
Click on the images below to enlarge.
Hey, Elton!
May 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Great video medley from filmmaker John Greyson, who writes: “Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect its boycott call and cancel his June 17th concert in Tel Aviv. If he does so, he’ll be joining Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently canceled their spring concerts in Israel. This video suggests six reasons why Elton should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.”
« Read the rest of this entry »
How the Israel Lobby undermines US economy
May 9th, 2010 § 1 Comment
PULSE columnist and IRMEP director Grant F. Smith on Press TV’s Autograph with Susan Modaress. Grant’s latest book is Spy Trade: how Israel’s lobby undermines America’s economy.
Chávez Takes on Little Red Riding Hood
May 9th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos.
By Ken Kelley
I was surprised during my trip to Colombia last month when my seemingly enlightened Bogotá cab driver, who had been telling me about his support for Green Party presidential candidate Antanas Mockus in the upcoming elections, suddenly shifted gears and announced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was loco.
The mental state of its leader was not the only issue the driver had with the neighboring country, and he added that money for Venezuela’s social programs came not from oil wealth but rather from proceeds Chávez received as part of an international drug smuggling ring. Among the co-conspirators in the ring, I learned, was ex-President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, ousted in a coup last summer which according to the cabbie had been justified based on the fact that Zelaya was also loco.
Jerusalem Day
May 9th, 2010 § 1 Comment
by Ruth Tenne
Jerusalem Day was declared a national holiday by the State of Israel on the 12th May 1968 in celebration of the “liberation” of East Jerusalem and the unification of the city in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. The medieval Maghrabi Quarter near the Jewish Wailing Wall was demolished soon after, and its Palestinian inhabitants were evicted in order to make way for an open space for Jewish worshipers [1]. To celebrate this occasion the victorious hymn “Jerusalem of Gold” was written in glorification of the annexation of East Jerusalem and the reclaiming of the Western Wailing Wall .
In 1980 the Israeli Knesset passed the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, confirming Jerusalem’s status as the nation’s “eternal and indivisible capital”. UN Security Council Resolution 478 stated thereafter that the Jerusalem Law was “null and void and must be rescinded forthwith”. [2]. The Resolution instructed UN member-states to withdraw their diplomatic representation from the city – refusing to confer official status on Israel’s illegal act of annexation.
The UN position, however, did not deter Israel from its continued attempts to cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants by the use of force and military orders. The so-called “City of Gold” turned into a ghettoised place with rubble from demolished Palestinian houses, razed Palestinian neighbourhoods , desecrated Muslim graveyards, and dispossessed homeless families serving as testimony to Israel’s underlying aim of “purifying” the city of its indigenous Palestinian population. According to the Head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – Jeff Halper - only 11 percent of East Jerusalem land is available for Palestinian housing as result of Israel’s discriminatory policies which means that Jerusalemite Palestinians are virtually barred from 93 percent of the municipality of Jerusalem. The overall goal is to confine Palestinians to small enclaves in East Jerusalem, or to remove them from the city altogether – an action referred to by Israel as the “quiet transfer”.
