Year: 2010

Concerns over Gaza blockade “ease”

Is it just me or does tony blair look like a dog being led around by Netanyahu?

AlJazeeraEnglish — 21 June 2010 — Israel has announced it will loosen its blockade on the Gaza Strip by allowing a greater variety of goods to enter the territory, which has been deprived of basic imports including medicine and construction material for more than three years.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said it will start prohibiting only items deemed as “weapons or war material” to mitigate security risks.

But specifics as to what constitutes “war material” have not been mentioned, fueling widespread fears that much needed items will remain banned from entering Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros reports from Jerusalem.

Upside Down World Cup

As the corporate-sponsored bonanza that is the football World Cup unfolds into its second week, Raj Patel looks at one of the most overlooked aspects of this year’s tournament: the ongoing struggle of tens of thousands of shack dwellers across the country. Over the past year, shack settlement leaders in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town have been chased from their homes by gangs, arrested, detained without hearing, and assaulted. As the World Cup begins, a shack dwellers’ movement known as Abahlali baseMjondolo is mounting what they call an “Upside Down World Cup” campaign to draw attention to their plight.

An AIPAC tool in progressive clothing

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson has emerged as something of a progressive hero in recent months. He also made a cameo on Democracy Now. Some of his initiatives, such as the “War Is Making You Poor” do indeed merit support. But as our friend Max Blumenthal revealed, the man moonlights as an AIPAC tool while off camera. In the US it is not uncommon for people to be progressive and extreme Zionists at the same time. They rarely get called on it (I don’t believe Bill Maher or Greg Palast have ever been). But Grayson finally had his comeuppance when he appeared on Scott Horton’s Antiwar Radio. Listen for yourself:

Reel Bad Arabs Floating Overhead

One of the sillier lines deployed to take the wind out of a cultural boycott of apartheid Israel is ‘art is above politics.’ It’s not an argument, just a line. To see how far from an argument it is, just substitute Israel with something we all agree is unacceptable. Would it have been a good idea for an artist to travel to Auschwitz while the chimneys were pumping, not to witness but to entertain the Gestapo? What about singing for Stalin during collectivisation? Or dancing for Pol Pot as he filled Cambodia’s fields with corpses? O, but those were atrocities! They were criminals! Which brings us to the nub of it. Those false liberals and mercenaries who proclaim the nobility of their ‘engagement’ with Zionist colonialism believe that Zionist crimes are ok. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the caging of the refugees, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the annexation of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem, the savage, repeated bombardments of Lebanon, the cheerleading for the destruction of Iraq – none of it matters much, because ‘art’ floats high above it.

Continue reading “Reel Bad Arabs Floating Overhead”

First ever boycott at US port in solidarity with Palestine

See:

Irish folk legend Tommy Sands joins the Sheikh Jarrah Protest

mariosavio — 19 June 2010 — Irish folk legend Tommy Sands performed in front of a crowd of hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians who came to the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem for the weekly Friday demonstration to protest against house evictions of Palestinians by Israeli courts and settlers.

After the performance, the demonstrators marched in the streets of the neighbourhood. Israeli police tried to prevent them from marching, but was unable to stop them due to the large numbers of demonstrators.

McChrystal faces ‘Iraq’ moment

Gareth Porter, one of PULSE’s 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009, discusses Afghanistan.

TheRealNews — 20 June 2010 — McChrystal confronts the specter of a collapse of United States political support for the war

The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 18.6.10

Fifteen year-old paramedic volunteer arrested by the IDF, while on duty, cuffed in discordance with regulations. ~Photograph by Gal Lugassi

Five paramedics (one of them [image to the left] a minor, the age of 15) and one member of the press- all marked with vests according to their duty, all residents of the village of Ni’lin- were arrested during the weekly demonstration. I later chanced upon the 6 at the Beit-El (settlement) police station. We managed to talk to them a bit and take some pictures before the guarding officer started yelling for the police to come and take us away. Anarchists Against the Wall Reported the following:

One of the soldiers punched the cameraman and a medic, and another threw a large rock at the a radio receiver belonging to the medics. The arrestees were taken to the Shaar Binyamin police station. Two of them were accused of assaulting the police, and four were released.

The latest report is that the remaining journalist and paramedic were both released, with no conditions.

Continue reading “The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 18.6.10”

Football on the wall in Bethlehem

AlJazeeraEnglish — June 19, 2010 — Israel’s separation apartheid wall, twice the height of the former Berlin Wall and more than 750km-long, is a much hated barrier in the Palestinian West Bank.

Now, a restaurant owner in the occupied Palestinian West Bank has come up with unique way to please World Cup fans: he has been showing every match of the tournament on a section of the wall, transforming it into a giant screen.

Continue reading “Football on the wall in Bethlehem”

An Evening with Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong is the author of the classic The History of God.

UCtelevision — 17 June 2010 — One of the world’s leading commentators on religious affairs, Karen Armstrong discusses the intersection of religion and secularism in contemporary life. She explores the ideas that Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common and their effect on world events. Series: Walter H. Capps Center Series