Terrorism 101 is an excellent montage of recent audio and video footage from the Gaza massacre.
Month: February 2009
Academic Friends of Israel Prepare for Boycott
In an article in the Haaretz titled It’s ‘Boycott Israel’ Season Again in the UK, Ronnie Fraser reveals that Academic Friends of Israel are preparing to hamstring what he considers a popular boycott proposal through false legal claims of discrimination. There’s nothing like doing things democratically — Academic Friends of Israel seem to believe that if you can’t win the debate you should stifle it.
UCU activists are up against it; challenged by the internal academic lobby and externally by the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), a rather slick PR and media lobbying organisation, that created a group Stop the Boycott which has been effective at dominating main stream media debate on the topic.
Next month will be critical for the fight against academic boycotts of Israel in the U.K., according to the founder of Academic Friends of Israel, Ronnie Fraser. March is the month boycott proposals will be submitted to the academic organizations, making time of the essence, says Fraser – whose organization played a part in the 2007 shelving of a planned academic boycott of Israel by the University and College Union.
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Iraq’s ‘Teflon Don’
‘The New Fallujah Up Close and Still in Ruins’. Our friend Dahr Jamail, who is presently back in Iraq, files this excellent report for the indispensable TomDispatch.
Fallujah, Iraq — Driving through Fallujah, once the most rebellious Sunni city in this country, I saw little evidence of any kind of reconstruction underway. At least 70% of that city’s structures were destroyed during massive U.S. military assaults in April, and again in November 2004, and more than four years later, in the “new Iraq,” the city continues to languish.
The shells of buildings pulverized by U.S. bombs, artillery, or mortar fire back then still line Fallujah’s main street, or rather, what’s left of it. As one of the few visible signs of reconstruction in the city, that street — largely destroyed during the November 2004 siege — is slowly being torn up in order to be repaved.
An Issue Of Justice: Origins Of The Israel/Palestine Conflict
The Gaza massacre has re-ignited debate across the UK and elsewhere and prompted many people to want to learn more. For those relatively new to the conflict, I usually point them towards Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Finkelstein’s An Introduction to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Occupation 101 and this lecture, also by Norman Finkelstein, An Issue of Justice. It is one of the best lectures I’ve heard and succinctly covers the main areas of the conflict in an hour.
As an aside, I don’t agree with Norman on the Israel lobby and the Iraq war or his position on the two state solution, however I do think his argument on the two state solution is useful for demonstrating that Israel and the US prevent peace in the region.
An Issue Of Justice: MP3
Panorama – Gaza: Out of the Ruins
[see the rest of the clips after the jump]
The BBC’s Panorama program is typically loaded with Israeli Government propaganda such as saying Hamas provoked Israel, rather than Israel provoking Hamas; it also fails to provide adequate context about who broke the ceasefire and the illegal military occupation and blockading of Gaza, hardly an ‘impartial’ way to frame events.
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Motion to boycott Israel passed at University of Manchester Student Union
Latest update from the University of Manchester student occupation:
On Wednesday 11th Feb the University of Manchester Students Union passed a motion in support of the
people of Gaza, which includes a resolve to boycott Israel, in an emergency general meeting [1]. The meeting, which was attended by over 1000 students, was called in response to the crisis in Gaza. It follows a week long occupation of University of Manchester buildings by students [2]. The University of Manchester Students Union is the biggest in Western Europe, and is also the first western students union to pass a motion which includes an out and out boycott of Israel.
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Flying the Flag for Gaza
Students at University College London yesterday flew the Palestinian flag above the UCL building in solidarity with the Palestinian people (photo from Lenin’s Tomb).
Edinburgh University Student Occupation
Edinburgh University students have occupied the George Square Lecture Theatre. This is the 19th occupation (3rd in Scotland) in what has been described as a reawakening of the spirit of ’68. (Edinburgh Blog / Facebook).
Around 30 students of Edinburgh Unviersity are currently peacefully occupying George Square Lecture Theatre in protest at Israel’s actions in Gaza, and to encourage the University to accept a list of demands which were put to them in the form of a petition this morning. The petition has been signed by more than 300 students at Edinburgh University.
The demands are as follows:
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UK ZF: 2009 will be “the most active year”
The Jerusalem Post quotes Alan Aziz, the British Zionist Federation (ZF)’s chief executive, as saying 2009 will be “the most active year” for the organization.”Now, more than ever, British Jewry needs to stand up against Israel’s enemies, especially those who demonize Israel and question its right to exist,” he said.
Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy paid homage to Israel’s success during Operation Cast Lead earlier this week, saying it was incumbent on the Palestinians to draw the right conclusions from the defeat of Hamas and create a semblance of order.
Speaking at the annual dinner of the British Zionist Federation (ZF) at the Marriott, Halevy – who has previously advocated talking to Hamas – said that from a military point of view, Operation Cast Lead had been an “all-out success” and that Hamas had suffered a sustained and humiliating military defeat.
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The Boundaries of Civilization
Orientalism in a nutshell. Slavoj Žižek shows you the the actual physical dividing line between Oriental despotism and Western European enlightenment.
P U L S E 