Is the spray can mightier than the sword?
July 15th, 2010 § 3 Comments
This is the question posed by photojournalist William Parry at the start of his new book Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine (Pluto Press, May 2010), in which he documents graffiti artwork on the West Bank Wall and the stories of Palestinians whose lives are affected by said monstrosity.
Below is the introduction to the book, which has been endorsed by political cartoonist Joe Sacco, among others. Parry can be contacted at againstthewall_thebook@yahoo.co.uk.
Check back early next week for a selection of images from Against the Wall.
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In December 2007, the celebrated and famously elusive British street artist, Banksy, and a London-based organisation called Pictures on Walls, relocated their annual ‘squat art concept store’ called Santa’s Ghetto from London to Bethlehem and invited 14 other international street artists to join him to work with Palestinian artists. The concept was simple: the artists would make artwork available for sale by auction to the public – but those wanting to buy an original work of art by Banksy or the others had to physically go to Bethlehem, witness Israel’s occupation and checkpoints, and bid in person. The artists also used the opportunity to utilise the Wall as a giant billboard for their own political messages with some massive, stunning images – wall spaces throughout the city were also populated with work that challenged or subverted understandings about the reality faced by Palestinians under occupation. Within a few short weeks, Santa’s Ghetto had raised over $1 million from art sales for local charities and brought Bethlehem and the Wall to the world’s attention in a way that transcended language and engaged millions who wouldn’t ordinarily take an interest in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Just as important, it sent a message to the people of Palestine: you are not alone in your struggle.
On Haiti, a must-see
July 15th, 2010 § 1 Comment
On Haiti, much of the mainstream media’s coverage was permeated with parachute journalism. While images of bloody and mangled Haitians — some dead, some alive, some women, some children — were thrust in front of audiences compelling them to donate generously, context was often absent. Fortunately, Al Jazeera was one MSM outlet that provided commendable coverage and continued to do so after Haitian suffering was no longer considered newsworthy, along with the independent Democracy Now! which continues to provide exemplary reports (check out this recent DN! piece with Sean Penn).
The clip above by Sebastian Walker is the best feature report produced by Al Jazeera on Haiti so far and needs to be watched by everyone, no matter how much they think they already know. Of particular interest is Walker’s highlighting of the NGO industry which seems to be flourishing while Haitians continue to live in misery.
Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal – Espionage, Opacity and Future
July 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
What do newly declassified documents about weapons grade uranium and dual-use technology diversions from the US reveal about the role of espionage in building Israel’s secret arsenal? Did Israel’s proposed nuclear weapons sales to apartheid South Africa signal they are still for sale if the partner and price are right? Do FBI and CIA cover-ups of investigations into Israeli nuclear espionage signal official US government approval or political acquiescence? Are Israel’s nuclear weapons of strategic benefit to the US?
In an event organized by Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP); ‘Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal – Espionage, Opacity and Future’, these questions were tackled by John J. Mearsheimer, Grant F. Smith and Sasha Polakow-Suransky, and moderated by Jeffrey Blankfort. PULSE has previously posted John Mearsheimer’s address; here is the full video of the event as well as individual speaker presentation audios over the fold.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe airs Neocon Lynching Ad
July 14th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Joe Sestak, the highest-ranking former military officer currently serving in Congress and the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania likely never imagined that he would become the first target of a public lynching campaign by a recently created neoconservative front group, the ‘Emergency Committee for Israel‘ (ECI), when he dared to act in a way which reveals his allegiance to the United States over Israel. You can find out more about Sestak’s crimes here, but more interesting is the way in which the American mainstream media has been plugging the ECI’s lynching campaign against Sestak. First CNN, now MSNBC, and we are also told that in addition to being aired on cable television, the ad against Sestak will even be played during a Phillie game.
In the clip above, Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski offer no critical analysis or commentary on the blatant way in which the ad presents Israeli interests as somehow equivalent to American interests. They also air the entire ad for free! When guest Terry McAuliffe says he has never seen a political ad as vicious as this one before, Scarborough comes to its defense, claiming that its still presenting important issues to the US public.
Pink Floyd reunites for Palestine
July 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
David Gilmour and Roger Waters on stage.
Roger Waters and David Gilmour reunite to help young Palestinian refugees at an event organized by Jemima Khan. Rolling Stone reports:
For the first time in five years, the two driving forces behind Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, reunited onstage at a benefit in England over the weekend. The unannounced team-up went down before the 200 attendees of the Hoping Foundation benefit in Oxfordshire, which raised money for young Palestinian refugees. The duo’s four-song set included Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is To Love Him” (a Floyd sound-check staple according to the blog on Gilmour’s website) and the band’s classics “Wish You Were Here,” “Comfortably Numb” and “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.”
The Saturday night set marks the first time Waters and Gilmour have shared the stage since Pink Floyd’s reunion performance at 2005′s Live 8 in London. The duo’s Hoping Foundation performance helped raise £350,000. At the benefit, Gilmour and Waters — who swapped his bass for an acoustic guitar — were joined by keyboardists Harry Waters and Jonjo Grisdale, drummer Andy Newmark, guitarist Chester Kamen and bassist Guy Pratt, who ironically replaced Waters in the Gilmour-led, Division Bell-era Pink Floyd.
Haiti: The politics of rebuilding
July 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
In the latest edition of Fault Lines, Avi Lewis travels to Port-au-Prince and to the Plateau Central to document the politics of rebuilding in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. It seems the complusion of Haiti’s former colonial masters to use the country and its people as a vast economic laboratory remains unceasing.
In the meantime, Isabel MacDonald at Huffington Post has compiled a “partial index of the West’s ‘humanitarian efforts’ in Haiti” to date:
- Amount pledged for Haiti’s reconstruction over the following 18 months at the March 31 UN conference: $5,300,000,000
- Percentage of this amount that has been paid: 1.9
- Amount of pledged U.S. bilateral search and rescue assistance to Haiti that was delivered in the wake of the earthquake: $0
This picture says a thousand (stupid) words
July 14th, 2010 § 2 Comments
North Iowa Tea Party supporters have purchased billboard advertising space to compare Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. “Radical Leaders prey on the fearful & naive” is written in large black capitalized text along the bottom followed by a warning: “Live free or die!”
Al Jazeera on-the-ground spotters battle Israeli spy rings for control of Lebanon
July 13th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Collection of real-time intelligence for Hezbollah in 2006. (Photo: Yaron Kaminsky)
In honor of the fourth anniversary of the July 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, the Associated Press has produced an article that begins:
A group of 91 Israelis wounded by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 war is suing the Arab news network Al Jazeera for $1.2 billion in a New York court for allegedly aiding the Lebanese guerrillas, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Nitzana Darshan-Leitner said the suit, which was filed Monday, claims the Qatar-based news network intentionally violated Israel’s military censorship regulations and reported the precise locations of rocket strikes in Israel in live broadcasts during the monthlong 2006 war.
The reporting enabled Hezbollah to aim its rockets more accurately at Israeli targets, the suit alleges.”
Vote Sestak!
July 13th, 2010 § 1 Comment
There presumably were not enough organizations lobbying for Israel. The neoconservatives — i.e., the Likud wing of the Israel lobby — have established a new one: the Emergency Committee for Israel. They have just smoked out their first ‘terrorist lover’: Admiral Joe Sestak. It turns out the man doesn’t put the interests of a foreign country ahead of his own. One would have thought such rogues were permanently banished from the Senate. What next: a patriot? (more here, here, here, and here).
Jerusalem is NOT ‘disputed’ territory
July 13th, 2010 § 3 Comments
by Jeremy Hammond
Here’s the Washington Post on the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, emphasis added:
Ever since the administration was blindsided by Israel’s March 9 announcement that it intends to build 1,600 housing units in a disputed area of Jerusalem, U.S. officials have pressed Israel to take actions to encourage Palestinians to attend indirect talks, including canceling the project, making concrete gestures such as a prisoner release and adding substantive rather than procedural issues to the agenda for talks. Some U.S. requests have not been made public.
“Disputed”? This description implies that Israel and the Arabs both have some kind of legal claim over Jerusalem. But the fact of the matter is that Jerusalem is not by any means “disputed”. This is simply false. It is a simple and uncontroversial point of fact under international law that Israel has no legal claim to Jerusalem, that Jerusalem is rather undisputed Palestinian territory, and that Israel’s occupation of the city is illegal, in violation of both the Fourth Geneva Convention and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Israel today controls Jerusalem because it invaded and occupied the West Bank in 1967. Subsequently, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 242, which emphasized “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, emphasized that member states have a commitment to abide by the U.N. Charter, and called for the “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied” during the June 1967 war.
In May 1968, the Security Council passed resolution 252, which declared Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem “invalid” and called upon Israel “to rescind all such measures already taken and to desist forthwith from taking any further action which tends to change the status of Jerusalem”.
