Author: Paulo

Zionist thugs vandalize bookstore in Paris

Diana Johnstone, the great leftist writer living in Paris, describes a zionist thug (either Betar or LDJ) attack on Librairie Resistances. Books and computer equipment were destroyed. It is not the first time this happens.

The nazis used to burn books…

See also attached video.

Librairie Resistances - scene of the damage; books doused with oil

Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris
Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil – that is the latest exploit of the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and get away with it.

Continue reading “Zionist thugs vandalize bookstore in Paris”

Mohammed Omer correcting the record

Mohammed Omer, the great Palestinian journalist and recipient of the Martha Gelhorn prize, sets the record straight about the torture ordeal he suffered at the hands of the Israeli Shin Beth torturers.

June 26, 2008 is a day I will never forget. For the events of that day irrevocably changed my life. That day I was detained, interrogated, strip searched, and tortured while attempting to return home from a European speaking tour, which culminated in independent American journalist Dahr Jamil and I sharing the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize in London — an award given to journalists who expose propaganda which often masks egregious human rights abuses.

Mohammed Omer receiving the Martha Gelhorn Prize together with Dahr Jamail
Mohammed Omer receiving the Martha Gelhorn Prize together with Dahr Jamail

I want to address the denials from Israel and the inaccurate reporting by a few journalists in addition to requesting state of Israel to acknowledge what it did to me, prosecute the members of the Shin Bet responsible for it and put in place procedures that protect other journalists from such treatment.

Since 2003, I’ve been the voice to the voiceless in the besieged Gaza Strip for a number of publications and news programs ranging from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to the BBC and, Morgenbladet in Norway as well as Democracy Now! These stories exposed a carefully-crafted fiction continuing control and exploitation of five-million people. Their impact, coupled with the reporting of others served to change public opinion in the United States and Europe concerning the dynamics of Israel and its occupation of Palestine .

After receiving the Martha Gellhorn prize I returned home through the Allenby Bridge Crossing in the Occupied West Bank between Jordan and Israel. It was here I was detained, interrogated, and tortured for several hours by Shin Bet and border officers. When it appeared I may be close to death an ambulance was called to transport me to a hospital. From that day my life has been a year of continued medical treatments, pain — and a search for justice.

The article can be read in its entirety here

A response to “new” politics

Politics
by Carol Ann Duffy

How it makes of your face a stone

that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,

clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue

an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand

a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh

a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs

hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice

that can throw no six. How it takes the breath

away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,

makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,

of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this –

politics – to your education education education; shouts this –

Politics! – to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your

conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.

The Israel democracy fraud

Samieh Jabarin, Um al Fahm, February 2009
Samieh Jabbarin, Um al Fahm, February 2009

Caryl Churchill’s play, Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, is due to be performed in Israel and directed by Samieh Jabbarin. Jabbarin is a Palestinian citizen of Israel political prisoner, and he will direct the play via telephone. Seldom one hears about the conditions of the Palestinians living in what is considered to be Israel. Jabbarin’s case illustrates the fraud implied by the term “Israeli democracy” or, even worse, “Jewish democracy”.

Jabbarin was imprisoned because he was demonstrating against the appointment of a notorious Jewish fascist as election observer in Um al Fahm, a Palestinian city in Israel. A petition on Jabbarin’s case demonstrates the Kafkaesque nature of what passes for “democracy” and “justice” in Israel:
Continue reading “The Israel democracy fraud”

Bibi meets Obambi

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America it became an instant success on Amazon. At least Galeano’s book well deserves to be promoted and to be read by Obama.

Benjamin Netanyahu, or “Bibi” (aka, his kindergarten name), just visited president Obama in the White House where he handed him a copy of a book by Mark Twain. Tom Segev observes:

“Mark Twain despised the Arabs and Islam in general. He thought they were ‘filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive [and] superstitious.’ That is a good reason for Israel’s prime minister to give Twain’s book as a gift to the president of the United States.”

Now, isn’t that a nice edifying reason for Bibi to push Twain’s book on Obambi?

Observation: Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (an account of his ‘pilgrimage’ to the holy land where he sees few arabs) has long been a staple of Zionist propaganda who have used it to claim that Palestine was a ‘land without a people’. It is featured in the propaganda handbook The Myths and Facts from which it was picked up by Joan Peters for her famous hoax From Time Immemorial, and from there it was borrowed by Alan Dershowitz.

Spinelessness and hypocrisy

Any colonial or imperial project requires ample doses of hypocrisy, cynicism and sadism. In times of on-going wars and dispossession these ingredients are in ample supply. Media Lens, a great media analysis project, specializes in highlighting the media’s role in peddling the hypocrisy and hiding the cynicism or sadism of the major powers and their sidekicks. The latest Media Lens release analyses the release of an abridged version of the UN Board of Inquiry report into the Israeli bombing of United Nations premises in Gaza (Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009). The spineless Ban Ki Moon was party to the suppression of most of the report and blocking further investigations. Media Lens analyzes the way this event was spun or ignored.

Beholden to the big powers: Israel, Gaza and the UN

On December 27, 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a massive assault on Gaza. 22 days later, around 1,400 Palestinians, including over 300 children, and 13 Israelis were dead; about 5,000 Palestinians were wounded. Israeli forces bombed and shelled schools, medical centres, hospitals, ambulances, United Nations buildings (including UN schools), power plants, sewage plants, roads, bridges and civilian homes. This was described in much of the press as hitting “Hamas targets” (e.g. David Gardner, ‘U.S. accused of white phosphorus against Taliban’, Daily Mail, May 11, 2009).

Earlier this month, the UN announced the results of an inquiry into attacks on its buildings and personnel in Gaza. It concluded that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were:

“involved in varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property.” (Donald Macintyre, ‘UN retreats after Israel hits out at Gaza report’, Independent, May 6, 2009)

Continue reading “Spinelessness and hypocrisy”

The war against Gaza continues; the siege is still in place

Journalists and politicians tend to refer mistakenly to the ongoing siege of Gaza as a “blockade”. The word “blockade” is a rather neutral and tepid term that doesn’t indicate that such policies can be part of warfare. On the other hand, the word “siege” clearly indicates that it is part of warfare or ethnic cleansing. The courageous Israeli journalist Amira Hass recently returned from a long stay in Gaza, and she makes it abundantly clear that the Israeli policies regarding what is allowed to enter Gaza amount to a siege. Toilet paper, shampoo, building materials, window panes… these are basic necessities of life and living, yet they are barred from entering Gaza. Most houses in Gaza today don’t have window panes; they were destroyed during the Gazan Massacre in January 2009 and they haven’t been fixed. The nature of banned products also renders the usual description of the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt as used for “smuggling” as simply absurd. The tunnels are merely “siege busting” means to enable the population to survive. Furthermore, Sam Bahour, the Palestinian businessman and writer living in Ramallah comments on Amira Hass’ article:

As a prelude to this article, I should note that dear friends in Gaza are telling me that Israeli warships along the coast of Gaza are closer than ever and can be clearly seen by the naked eye, which is not usually the case. They shell warning shots all day, really creating a renewed sense of fear that round two (or is that 1,002) of the onslaught against Gaza is about to begin any day.
No headlines does not mean no war crimes.

Continue reading “The war against Gaza continues; the siege is still in place”

Canadian gov’t bars George Galloway from entering

The Canadian government has basically latched on its foreign policy to the United States and Israel. Around the world Canada is closing down consulates and offices (the latest one is a commercial/consulate in Milan, Italy) — there is no need for these if Canada merely aims to ape the US. At the United Nations, Canada’s votes are the same as those of the United States. It used to be only the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, and Israel that voted with the US, but now Canada joins this august gang. The US tells Canada to “jump!”, the Canadian lackeys merely ask how high. The latest sordid demonstration of the Israelization of Canada is the recent declaration that Canada would bar the entry of George Galloway, the British MP who just returned from Gaza. Prof. Cook explains the significance of this.

Banning Galloway Mocks Canada’s Criminal Code

by William A. Cook

Canada’s border security officials and Jason Kenny, the immigration minister, banned George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, from Canada where he was scheduled to speak in Toronto on the 30th. “A spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said the decision … was based on a ‘number of factors’ in accordance with section 34 (1) of the country’s immigration act” (Guardian.co.uk 20 March 09). This action denies Galloway entrance as a foreign national on security grounds for one or more of six reasons including “engaging in terrorism,” and “engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada.” The CJC, the Canadian Jewish Congress, supporting the decision, noted that it should be seen as an “issue of security law, not a dispute over free speech” (27 Mar. 2009, Montreal Gazette). Indeed, other Jewish organizations like the League of Human Rights of B’nai B’rith, not only supported the action but took some credit for the banning of Galloway.

Continue reading “Canadian gov’t bars George Galloway from entering”

The Noble Man

Khalid Amayreh on British MP George Galloway.

Unlike many politicians who would rather stay on the safe side, even if that means betraying their conscience, George Galloway represents a rare breed of morally-guided politicians who are willing to call the spade a spade even in the face of danger and brutality.

The British lawmaker has displayed immense courage in speaking up against crimes and injustices inflicted by Israel, the United States and their European allies in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.

In 2003, Galloway was expelled from the Labor Party when a party body decided that the strong statements he had made in opposition to the invasion of Iraq by the US and its allies had brought the party into disrepute.

Continue reading “The Noble Man”

Egyptian Journalist jailed by Kafkaesque court

Egypt is part of the American “axis of the rightful” and is usually praised by Washington for upholding all the goodies of democracy. On 1 February 2009, Magdi Hussein, a journalist and former editor of the Al Shaab newspaper, was arrested for having crossed into Gaza. He was held up on silly charges, and then sentenced by a military tribunal to two years in jail… Obviously, Hussein’s greater crime was criticizing the Egyptian collaborationist role with Israel in the December 2008 on Gaza. Even voicing the slightest support for the Palestinians or criticism of the Mubarak dictatorship can land journalists or solidarity activists in jail. It is worth reading Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, eIntifada [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10369.shtml article]:

Egypt is part of the American “axis of the rightful” and is usually praised by Washington for upholding all the goodies of democracy. On 1 February 2009, Magdi Hussein, a journalist and former editor of the Al Shaab newspaper, was arrested for having crossed into Gaza. He was held up on silly charges, and then sentenced by a military tribunal to two years in jail… Obviously, Hussein’s greater crime was criticizing the Egyptian collaborationist role with Israel in the December 2008 on Gaza. Even voicing the slightest support for the Palestinians or criticism of the Mubarak dictatorship can land journalists or solidarity activists in jail. It is worth reading Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani’s, Electronic Intifada article:

While in the Gaza Strip, governed by Palestinian resistance faction Hamas, Hussein witnessed the destruction wrought by Israel’s recent campaign, during which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, and infrastructure demolished. Hussein visited numerous bombed-out mosques and homes, as well as the badly damaged Palestinian parliament building, Gaza’s Islamic University and the al-Shifa Hospital, teeming with critically injured civilians.

Continue reading “Egyptian Journalist jailed by Kafkaesque court”

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