The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 13.8.10
August 18th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Most of the reports and information taken from the websites Friends of Freedom and Justice- Bilin, Anarchists Against the Wall and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Two Palestinians violently arrested- one of them from his house- in a nonviolent demo in al-walaje that was met with stun and tear gas grenades and direct violence from the Israeli Army including rock throwing.
There Is No ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
August 17th, 2010 § 1 Comment
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the NYC proposed Cordoba House (misbranded as the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’) and the dirty truths contained within the mostly manufactured opposition to it.
Be sure to also check out Justin Elliot’s Salon article for a timeline which reveals the roots of the concentrated fear-mongering campaign that has been launched against this Muslim community center. Those who are already familiar with her will not be surprised to learn that the mind-control campaign began with the notorious Islamophobe and Zionist (who considers Barack Obama a ‘secret Muslim’ and ‘anti-semite’), Pamela Geller.
What Israel and the lobby really fear about Iran
August 17th, 2010 § 2 Comments
by M.J. Rosenberg
The internet has been burning up with responses to Jeffrey Goldberg‘s Atlantic cover story on the likelihood that either Israel or the United States will preempt development of an Iranian nuclear bomb by attacking its atomic sites.
Goldberg does not flat-out endorse bombing Iran. Rather, after numerous conversations and briefings with US and Israeli officials, he concludes that there is at least a 50-50 chance that bombs will fly in a year or so.
Goldberg himself does not take a position on whether bombing is warranted or justified. But, given the way he frames the article and his personal closeness, to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – who speaks in apocalyptic terms of the existential danger a nuclear Iran poses to Israel – it is clear that Goldberg sees no alternative to preventing an Iranian nuke, by whatever means necessary. And that includes war.
A Beautiful Gift from the BBC
August 17th, 2010 § 17 Comments
by Ken O’Keefe
If you haven’t seen it, look for BBC Panorama’s “Death in the Med” program online (Part One, Part Two), you will be treated to first class propaganda as only the BBC can deliver.
I am one of the passengers/witnesses interviewed for this program and I am very much aware of BBC’s role in justifying war and covering up Israeli crimes. I am in no way naive about this; to the contrary my motivation for the interview lay largely in the all too likely opportunity to expose the BBC. A relevant job considering the BBC’s role in the slaughter of over one million Iraqis, a direct role by virtue of the war they justified. BBC from start to present, justifying Iraq, a massive war crime and crime against humanity based entirely on lies (propagated intensely by the BBC). The British Broadcasting Corporation, synonymous with millions of orphans and refugees and countless lives destroyed in Iraq, beating the drums of war without pause, the ultimate prostitutes of propaganda.
With this understanding I solicited an agreement with the BBC producers, in return for my interview the program would include the fact that we disarmed, captured and ultimately released three Israeli commandos (after giving them medical attention no less). That was the deal, a deal I made with an audio recorder in service.
And yes the poor Israeli commandos were beaten, just as any invader in any capable persons home would be beaten. I take no issue with that fact.
But truth be told, the commandos we captured should thank us for their lives. I ask the Israelis, British and American people specifically, if your home was invaded, your family being murdered, would you be willing to disarm, completely control, and then set a murderer of your family free?
The Spirit Level
August 16th, 2010 § 1 Comment
I haven’t read The Spirit Level yet, but in his last book Ill Fares the Land, the late Tony Judt quotes from it extensively. The authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett base their work on what they call ‘evidence-based politics,’ an approach I also favour (as opposed to the theology that generally passes for analysis on the left). That the book has had an impact is confirmed by the fact that recently a host of conservative and neoconservative think-tanks (led by the raving-mad Policy Exchange) have launched a concerted campaign against it. Here is an interview with the authors in which they explain the argument of the book followed by Robert Booth’s report in the Guardian about the right-wing assault on their work.
Bestseller with cross-party support arguing that equality is better for all comes under attack from thinktanks
It was an idea that seemed to unite the political classes. Everyone from David Cameron to Labour leadership candidates Ed and David Miliband have embraced a book by a pair of low-profile North Yorkshire social scientists called The Spirit Level.
Their 274-page book, a mix of “eureka!” insights and statistical analysis, makes the arresting claim that income inequality is the root of pretty much every social ill – murder, obesity, teenage pregnancy, depression. Inequality even limits life expectancy itself, they said.
The killer line for politicians seeking to attract swing voters was that greater equality is not just better for the poor but for the middle classes and the rich too.
Lebanon in Danger of Becoming Hizbullah’s Next Terror Capital
August 16th, 2010 § 3 Comments
Collective punishment of Lebanon in 2006 deemed insufficient by the Israelis. (Photo by Amelia Opalinska)
This article was first published on the official website of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.
Shortly after the termination of the July War four years ago, I visited the south Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil—largely destroyed by Israel—and was invited into the home of a family that had only recently returned to south Lebanon after residing in the United States for a number of years.
The family’s 13-year-old daughter Maryam summarized their wartime experience, which had involved spending approximately 10 days in a basement with dozens of relatives and neighbors and attempting to reconcile themselves to the idea of impending liquidation by Israeli surgical precision. The group eventually escaped north in a caravan of vehicles, only the last of which was liquidated; Maryam nonetheless expressed her sincere hope that the U.S. media had not portrayed the full reality of the war, as she was concerned it would have been unnecessarily painful for the American public.
Book Talk with Gary Younge
August 16th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The brilliant journalist and author Gary Younge discusses his recent book, Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?, with Mark D’Arcy on Book Talk.
Irish artists pledge to boycott Israel
August 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The Irish continue to put the world to shame with their fighting spirit and devotion to justice.
From the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign:
On the afternoon of Thursday 12th August 2010, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) officially launched the historic “Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel” at a lunchtime concert in Meeting House Square in Dublin. Present at the launch were 20 of the pledge’s current 150 signatories, including musicians Damien Dempsey, Donal Lunny and Eoin Dillon (Kíla), artists Robert Ballagh and Felim Egan, playwright Jimmy Murphy and actress Neilí Conroy as well as a crowd of supporters.
Pledge Signatories (L-R): Hassan Ould Moctar (musician), Philip Donnery (musician), Jimmy Murphy (playwright), Felim Egan (painter), Renate Debrun (artist), Sami Moukkadem (musician, writer), Rhona Clarke (composer), Dave Lordan (poet), Raymond Deane (composer), Stephen Rothschild (artist), Steve Woods (film-maker), Bobby Ballagh (artist), Deirdre Murphy (dancer), Donal Lunny (musician), Damien Dempsey (singer), Trevor Knight (musician), Eoin Dillon (ceoltóir), Dearbhla Glynn (film-maker), Neilí Conroy (actor), Freda Hughes (IPSC chairperson)
Why silence over Kashmir speaks volumes
August 14th, 2010 § 8 Comments
by Pankaj Mishra
Once known for its extraordinary beauty, the valley of Kashmir now hosts the biggest, bloodiest and also the most obscure military occupation in the world. With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killings fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extra-judicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into penises.
Why then does the immense human suffering of Kashmir occupy such an imperceptible place in our moral imagination? After all, the Kashmiris demanding release from the degradations of military rule couldn’t be louder and clearer. India has contained the insurgency provoked in 1989 by its rigged elections and massacres of protestors. The hundreds of thousands of demonstrators that fill the streets of Kashmir’s cities today are overwhelmingly young, many in their teens, and armed with nothing more lethal than stones. Yet the Indian state seems determined to strangle their voices as it did of the old one. Already this summer, soldiers have shot dead more than 50 protestors, most of them teenagers.
After the Flood
August 14th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Pakistan’s flood crisis is making the spread of disease a fast increasing problem and hospitals are struggling to cope with the sheer volume of affected people. Women and children, especially newborns, are suffering the most from malnourishment. Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reports from northwest Pakistan.
Jemima Khan has a must-read piece in the Sunday Times. Here’s an excerpt:
The death toll, amounting to 1,600 people, has, Alhamdulillah (praise to God), so far been low relative to the magnitude of the disaster facing Pakistan. Mostly, though, the stories are grim. My ex-husband Imran Khan, whom I spoke to after he visited flood-hit areas in the northwest, sounded uncharacteristically defeated; more so, I thought, than even after his cancer hospital was bombed in 1996. “Pakistan could implode, Jem,” he said. “We are already on the brink of bankruptcy. The poverty and the suffering will be unimaginable. Best not to send the children this weekend. There’s too much to do.”
