Year: 2010

Moshe Halbertal and the Goldstone Report

Jerome Slater refutes Moshe Halbertal’s attack on the Goldstone Report published in The New Republic, an Israel Lobby mouthpiece.

Judge Goldstone in Gaza

As an academic of nearly fifty years, I take seriously that the core principle and highest calling of our profession is to seek and tell the truth, as best as one can. For those who know the full historical facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of the most shocking and depressing phenomena is the extent to which many leading Israeli and American Jewish intellectuals and academicians ignore, conceal, or willfully deny them.

I am not speaking here of ordinary citizens, who might simply be unaware that many of the most cherished Israeli mythologies are historically unsustainable; rather I refer only to the media commentators, political scientists, historians, and even moral philosophers who regularly write about the conflict and whose distortions or outright falsifications cannot be explained away by ignorance.

What, then, does explain this situation? For some, their ideology is simply so impenetrable that the facts can’t get through. For others, I assume that they knowingly, or at least semi-knowingly, conceal the truth because they fear that revealing it will harm Israel. If so, they are also wrong about the consequences — over sixty years of Israeli repression of the Palestinians has done incalculable harm to Israel’s own best interests. In any case, no matter what their motives, the academics who seek to defend Israel against the most reasonable criticisms betray their calling.

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If you tolerate this…

“If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” by Manic Street Preachers. Video by friend of PULSE Lauren Booth, from her 2009 cycle ride across Occupied Palestine, from Jordan to Jerusalem, with her daughter Alex Booth. Here is life in the West Bank through a child’s eyes.

Viva Palestina faced with 2,000 riot police in the port of Al-Arish

2,000 Egyptian riot police have reportedly besieged the Viva Palestina convoy. Here is a report and and appeal from convoy leader Kevin Ovenden.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Viva Palestina for breaking the siege despite Egypt’s attempt to violently thwart their efforts.

URGENT: Viva Palestina faced with 2,000 riot police in the port of Al-Arish!

To all friends of Palestine,

Our situation is now at a crisis point! Riot has broken out in the port of Al- Arish.

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Peace Camp Man – Profile of a Zionist Pacifist

It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Peace Camp Man! (a.k.a Yaron London)

Today I was sent an op-ed, written by celebrated Israeli journalist, Yaron London, titled “The Victory of Cruelty”. In this op-ed, the man, who was apparently once known as the “peace camp man”, calls for another “disproportionate” blow to Gaza and disregard for ‘international public opinion“. The words ethics and morals aren’t mentioned once, the word law appears in regards to that wayward Islamic law (waywardness only implied, this is strictly my own syllogism). So how does it happen that Peace Camp Man stirs bloody violence and unethical criminality? I blame Zionism.

Peace Camp Man and Compassion
London seems to understand the problem and at the time of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war he had written:

Had we not driven out the Arabs who had settled in the Land of Israel, we would not have been able to build a stable country for the Jewish people, however, that’s how we created the Palestinian exile, which is the root cause of our problems.

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Chris Hedges: Empire of Illusion

Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and The Triumph of Spectacle. In it, he charts the dramatic rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues we now live in two societies: one, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world and can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth; the other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic where serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins. Also author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He writes for many publications, including Foreign Affairs, Harpers and TruthDig.

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Stephen Walt chooses five books on US-Israel relations

A few weeks back The Browser interviewed British author Ziauddin Sardar for its Five Books section. Among the books he selected on the theme of Travel in the Muslim World was one, The Road from Damascus, by PULSE editor Robin Yassin-Kassab. When Robin was in turn asked to choose his five on the theme of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, he chose among others John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and the US Foreign Policy. In its current interview The Browser turned to Stephen Walt — one of PULSE’s 20 top global thinkers for 2009 — to present his selection of the five most important books on the US-Israel relationship. In the following interview Walt presents his selection and explains why he chose these particular books.

Stephen M. Walt

So, we’re trying to understand how the US has come to identify so closely with Israel in recent decades, and your first book is The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, which you wrote along with John Mearsheimer. Why is that on the top of your list?

The only way to understand the special relationship that now exists between the United States and Israel is to understand the critical role that a number of organisations have played in actively promoting that relationship over the last 60 years. The US has supported Israel since its founding in 1948, but it did not have the same sort of special relationship for the first 20 or so years after Israel’s creation. The US backed it in certain ways, but was also willing to put lots of pressure on it in other circumstances and didn’t provide a lot of economic or military assistance until after 1967. But today the US backs Israel no matter what it does and American politicians are careful never to say anything that is very critical of Israel, even when it is acting in ways that are contrary to US interests and values. The key to understanding this ‘special relationship’ is the operation of various groups in the Israel lobby, and our book lays out in great detail how that works, and why it’s not good for the US or Israel.

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Student Activism and Change in the Real World

by SU Ahmad and Z Rahim

With just days before the UK Viva Palestina convoy is due to arrive in Gaza, we look back at the remarkable recent history of activism at King’s College London (KCL).

On 18 November 2008, the Israeli President Shimon Peres was awarded an honorary doctorate by KCL, a move which sparked outrage amongst students of the college, and saw the beginning of a student movement for its revocation.

“Why the big fuss about the Israeli President?” many asked. Shimon Peres has to his name the sale of arms to the apartheid regime in South Africa and the bombing (twice) of the UN headquarters in Qana. He has directed various Israeli invasions of Lebanon, saw through the 1985 bombing of Tunis, and continues to support Israel’s murderous policies towards the Palestinians, sharing much of the blame for why Gaza has been described as  “the largest open air prison” on the planet by major Human rights agencies, UN and Vatican officials. He is also the father of Israel’s nuclear bomb. These are but a few of the highlights of Mr. Peres’s career. Both students and several members of staff felt that by honouring someone who is essentially a war criminal, KCL had dishonoured its own good name. A college-wide petition with close to a thousand signatures calling for the revocation of the doctorate was handed to the College’s Principal Professor, Rick Trainor.

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Photo Essay of a Settler

A friend of mine started a cyber-satirical Facebook profile for ex Israeli Air Force commander and Israeli army Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz (you’re all very welcome to join). Fortunately for the anthropology dabblers among us, some people don’t recognize satire when they see it, and among Lt. General Halutz’s friends, I stumbled upon “supporters of the settlers of the Simon the Righteous [aka Sheikh Jarrah] neighborhood”. Who are these supporters of criminals and ethnic cleansers? From their Facebook group (limited by my translation):

Lately, a number of houses have been saved in the “ Simon the Righteous” neighborhood in Jerusalem, which is very upsetting to the Anarchists and anti-semites around the world that are harassing the Jewish residents and the worshippers at the Simon the Righteous tomb, thinking that this will prevent Jews from visiting the area and living around it. Here at the group we’ll update about the going ons at the site and about the struggle to return the stolen Jewish houses.

News:
In honor of the new Christian year the Muslims are brown-nosing the Christians. A big christmas tree has been stationed in front of the settlers houses which proves to us that where there is sanctity the devil grows. We’d like to remind the Christians what happened when Bethlehem was given to Palestinian terrorists: Their daughters were raped, their houses robbed, and most of them left the country.

This delightful group is very active, but rather than waste my time on translating more racist, colonialist blather, I’d like to share with you the choice photos and their labels, from the group, which give lingual and graphic insight into their warped perspective. I call it “Photo Essay of a Settler”.

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Chomsky on Empire and Ideology

Hostility and Hospitality in Contemporary World Politics

This is Chomsky at his best, highlighting the exceptionalism that characterizes US political discourse, and the ideological memes that have accompanied US imperialism with few modulations over the years. The follow-up speaker Stephen Pfohl is also very good. (thanks Doug)

Obama kills over 700 Pakistanis in 44 drone strikes in 2009

Victims of Obama's drone attacks

The Pakistani daily Dawn — a pro-US paper not known for its antiwar stance — reports that US drones killed over 700 civilians in 44 bombings since Obama took office in January 2009. Of the 44 attacks, only five succeeded in hitting their target. In other words, Obama has surpassed his predecessor’s murderous record in Pakistan. (Of course these attacks are carried out with the complicity of Pakistan’s ruling elites — as Jane Mayer reported, and as Pervez Musharraf confessed — and are cheered on by native informers such as Ahmed Rashid).

PESHAWAR: Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

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