As previously flagged, you can now witness the vile Israeli act of ethnic cleansing of the village of Al Araqib, a Bedouin village of 300 that predates the zionist entity. Despite the fact that their case was still pending in court, 1500 menacing Israeli police arrived at 4:30 in the morning with bulldozers, water canons and tear gas to destroy the village’s 40 dwellings, gardens and olive groves on July 27th. Though Bedouins are technically Israeli citizens, thousands are deemed to live in unrecognised villages so the zionist entity gets out of being legally responsible for their welfare. And, as Ben White points out, on the same day an entire Bedouin village was destroyed, the following story appeared in Ha’aretz: “the government will be providing housing assistance for army officers who move to the Negev desert region, as army bases relocate from central Israel. Assistance will take the form of a two-year rent subsidy or a discount on buying land to build a home.” Neve Gordon’s account is over the fold.
Author: alannahpriestley
DAM: between bombs and beats
by Ben Schiller
We are living in Palestine. Our history, our culture, our everything is Palestinian. — Mahmoud Jreri of DAM
“I see myself as a fisherman,” says Suhell Nafar, a member of DAM, the leading Palestinian hip-hop group. “Today, I fished a few fish who didn’t know anything and now know a little thing. Maybe now when they see the TV news, they will think differently about it. Maybe they will go on the Internet and learn about it.”
Suhell was speaking at last weekend’s WOMAD music festival, minutes after DAM had given a passionate performance in front of a big crowd. “There were thousands of people at the concert screaming ‘Free Palestine’. Most of them have never heard about Palestine, and now they know something.”
Hip-hop has been one of the Palestinians’ most effective communication vehicles in recent years. While conventional messages are often drowned out, groups like DAM have been able to reach several new audiences at home and abroad, including the young. The group is not only popular among Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza, but also in their native Israel, where they have a following among some Jewish-Israelis. Since forming in 1999, they’ve toured several times in Europe and the US, appeared in the Sundance-nominated film Slingshot Hip-Hop, and received exposure in US and European media, including on CNN and in Time.
Julian Assange press conference on Afghan war logs
Vodpod videos no longer available.
On 27 July 2010, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks spoke at the Frontline Club about the impact of the documents that were released in partnership with The Guardian, the New York Times and German paper Der Spiegel which chronicle in minute detail US military operations between 2004 and late 2009. He also gave a practical demonstration of how journalists and citizens can make use of the vast amount of data available online.
Continue reading “Julian Assange press conference on Afghan war logs”
Israel destroys a whole Negev Bedouin village
UPDATED WITH NEW PRESS RELEASE
Audio of Interview with Dr. Yeela Ranaan live at the scene of the demolished village:
This alert is from JVP’s Only Democracy? blog (h/t Alfred G.)
Alert: Thousands of police evacuating and demolishing the village of El-Araqib in the Negev
Thousands of police are in the village of el-Araqib right now – beginning a mass evacuation, demolition, and erasure of this historical Bedouin village. if you have access to the media, please send them to this village as soon as possible! the village of el-Araqib is between Rahat and Beer Sheva, and in a location that the Goldberg commission deemed outside of the areas allowed for the Negev Arabs… an area designated only for Jews… the JNF (Jewish National Fund) is planting a forest on this village lands – to make sure that the Bedouin cannot live on their village lands or use them for agriculture. the villagers turned to the israeli courts, as the JNF were planting this forest at the bequest of the Israeli government, but against Israeli law… the people of el-Araqib won the court battle… but this morning it seems that the Government of Israel has started a war — of the Government against its own citizens. for more information:
Dr. Yeela Raanan, Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV). +972 54 7487005 yallylivnat@gmail.com
Continue reading “Israel destroys a whole Negev Bedouin village”
The Saga of Abdul Halim
We recently posted the introduction to photojournalist William Parry’s new book Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine, as well as a selection of images. Below please find one final excerpt from the book, detailing the struggle of a Palestinian man named Abdul Halim whose home in Nazlit Issa in the northwestern West Bank was commandeered as a base for the Israeli army while his territorial holdings were truncated by the West Bank Wall. Following the excerpt are 9 images of Abdul Halim, his home and village, and the Wall.
All photographs by William Parry.
(Click here to view an interview with Parry on Rattansi & Ridley.)
***
If you were Abdul Halim, with a wife and children dependent on you, what would you do? You’re building a large, new home for the family – your sons are nearing that age when they will marry and they will share the house and start their own families. As the house nears completion, Israeli soldiers recognise its strategic position and decide they’ll position themselves on the rooftop – and there they set up base. The commander, his soldiers and their guns say: ‘We’re going to use your rooftop whether you like it or not.’ They station themselves there for 18 months and completion of the house is postponed as it’s now effectively a military structure, replete with bullet-proof glass. Things then get even worse: the house abuts the Green Line and you receive notice that the building you have nearly completed is going to be demolished to make way for the Wall. However, the Israeli military intervenes, telling the Israeli Civil Administration folk: ‘Don’t demolish it, we’re using it.’ Civil Administration agrees to freeze the demolition order – and it remains frozen to this day.
The Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs
In one of the biggest leaks in US military history, 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the war in Afghanistan obtained by the whistleblowers’ website Wikileaks were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel. The files reveal hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops, ‘friendly fire’ deaths and shadowy special forces, painting, as the Guardian puts it, “a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan”.
Over the fold: Julian Assange on the war logs and war log links.
BP Oil Spill Threatens Bayou Tribes
by Dennis Bernstein
For unlucky residents of the Gulf States, the BP oil-spill disaster, coming up on 100 days, could take another turn for the worst if one of the storms churning up tropical waters in the Atlantic Ocean blossoms into a full-blown hurricane and heads into the Gulf of Mexico.
For several already marginalized Native tribes living on the Louisiana Coast – many of them fishermen and shrimpers – a hurricane crashing through the oil-polluted Gulf now could destroy a way of life that has survived for centuries.
Already, the tribal land among the coastal bayous is disappearing faster than anywhere on the planet, the victim of unbridled oil exploration and dam building projects of the Army Corps of Engineers dating back to the 1930s.
“For us it’s more like a hundred years of oil disasters than a hundred days,” said Chief Charles Verdin of the Pointe au Chien tribe. “And really when you look at it … it’s business as usual. The tribes being ignored, forgotten, overlooked, and forced from their land.”
Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability?
The following is a transcript of Ambassador Chas Freeman, Jr.‘s remarks, which begin around 17:00.
Why Jeff Goldberg Is Losing It
by M.J. Rosenberg
For two days, the Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg has been calling Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and other critics of Bibi Netanyahu “anti-Semites.” Nothing new about that. For Goldberg, a major AIPAC neocon, all critics of Israeli policies are anti-Semites by definition. (See this good piece on Goldberg).
But why is he obsessing about Walt so much now?
It is because, in August, Goldberg is coming out with his big Atlantic piece calling on the United States to bomb Iran so that Israel does not have to.
But Goldberg has a problem. As an American who chose to serve in the Israeli army (he was a guard at a Palestinian prison camp), he fears that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer — who accused the Likud lobby of promoting war with Iraq in their groundbreaking bestseller — will point out that Goldberg is just about the least credible advocate for war with Iran.
Israel not a democracy: Jonathan Cook interview
A worthwhile Russia Today interview with Nazareth resident, journalist and author, Jonathan Cook.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Continue reading “Israel not a democracy: Jonathan Cook interview”
P U L S E 