Message From Sarah Colborne
The last 72 hours have been the most harrowing in my life. Even for an experienced campaigner like myself, nothing prepared me for the barbaric onslaught by the Israeli Army on a boat of unarmed peace activists with a cargo of humanitarian aid.
There are images from Monday’s bloody attack that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Continue reading “Sarah Colborne’s eyewitness account of the Mavi Marmara massacre”
The call for academic and cultural boycott is clearly a way to encourage civil society to play a broader political role—that is why it has the support of wide sections of Palestinian civil society. One of the most significant questions that call poses to us is simply this: How could those of us who oppose apartheid, occupation, and colonialism not support such a call?
Dear Amitav Ghosh,
We wish to express our deep disappointment in your decision to accept the Dan David prize, administered by Tel Aviv University and to be awarded by the President of Israel. As a writer whose work has dwelled consistently on histories of colonialism and displacement, your refusal to take stance on the colonial question in the case of Israel and the occupation of Palestine has provoked deep dismay, frustration, and puzzlement among readers and fans of your work around the world. Many admired your principled stand, and respected your decision not to accept the Commonwealth Writers Prize in rejection of the colonialist framework it represented.
Continue reading “Boycott Israel? Amitav Ghosh & the Dan David Prize”
by Huma Dar
The police, in the northern Italian town of Novara, fined a 26-year-old Tunisian woman for wearing a black niqab; she was going to a mosque for the Friday prayers. According to the New York Times she was fined about $650 under a regulation introduced in January 2010. Apparently, Novara — a bastion of the xenophobic Northern League — “bans clothing in public that prevents identification by the police.”
Continue reading “The Carnival at Novara and Unmasking of a Racist Regime”
Karan Johar falteringly attempts to fashion a cinematic alliance of sorts between African-Americans and South Asians — very unusual in the Bollywood context and more so for Karan Johar, himself — but fails to seize the radical politics embedded. One wishes that the spirit of this song was continuously re-thought, re-energized, re-contextualized, re-translated. A revolution that stops moving, stops “revolving,” is nothing but an aborted one.
by Huma Dar
[read Part I Part II Part III Part IV]
In an interesting twist, Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan displaces or translates (one original meaning of “translate” is to bear or carry across from one place to another) the convoluted and complex, determining context from India, with a specific genealogy, on to the US. The post-9/11 circumstances provide some unfortunate resonances, yet much of the untranslated/untranslatable context results in the particular aporias of the filmic text. Even beyond Mandira’s furious and irrational directive to Rizwan Khan, he has to go around saying his name is Khan and “he is not a terrorist” because in that originary terrain of imposed defensiveness there is not much space for a “Muslim name” (besides certain limited spheres), leave alone for “My Name is Khan, and I am an American.” This latter, more “affirmative” alternative to the “apologetic” cinematic version, is proposed by Suad Abdul-Khabeer in her excellent critique of the film.
Continue reading “The Price of Translating a Narrative and its Context (The King is Out: Part V)”
Last week, Norman Finkelstein delivered a series of lectures in Prague as part of his European speaking tour. Finkelstein was initially invited to speak at the prestigious Czech Academy of Sciences but had his invitation revoked less than 24 hours prior to his scheduled talk, allegedly at the behest of the Prime Minister’s office. A similar fate befell Finkelstein’s appearance in Munich and Berlin, where the Heinrich Boll and Rosa Luxembourg Foundations cancelled the events, following “a concerted campaign by neoconservative and pro-Israeli pressure groups, such as Honestly Concerned and BAK Shalom, known for their unconditional support of Israeli policies and the defamation of critics as anti-Semites.”
Here is Finkelstein’s lecture at Casa Gelmi in Prague, organised by the Czech pro-Palestinian group ‘Friends of Palestine’.
by Agustín Velloso
The Bad
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea’s recalcitrant leader, is a very wealthy man. He has amassed such a fortune that he could only get rid of his bank notes by burning them.
He cannot use his money to buy power – he has, after all, enjoyed that in its absolute form for the last thirty years. His eldest son wants for nothing, and his family is wallowing in plenty. Global Witness published a report entitled ‘The Secret Life of a Shopaholic: How an African dictator’s playboy son went on a multi-million dollar shopping spree in the US’.
Neither does Teodoro Obiang need money to earn a place among the world’s most powerful. He is already a welcome member of this cabal, which often treats him with affection. Welcoming him in Washington back in 2006, erstwhile secretary of state Condoleeza Rice said, ‘You are a good friend, and we welcome you’.
He has been welcomed to Beijing six times by Hu Jintao, who said to him, ‘bilateral relations between our two countries have developed through goodwill’.
Continue reading “Equatorial Guinea: The good, the bad and the ugly”
by Jeff Halper
The Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 was not merely a military assault on a primarily civilian population, impoverished and the victim of occupation and besiegement these past 42 years. It was also part of an ongoing assault on international humanitarian law by a highly coordinated team of Israeli lawyers, military officers, PR people and politicians, led by (no less) a philosopher of ethics. It is an effort coordinated as well with other governments whose political and military leaders are looking for ways to pursue “asymmetrical warfare” against peoples resisting domination and the plundering of their resources and labor without the encumbrances of human rights and current international law. It is a campaign that is making progress and had better be taken seriously by us all.
Since Ariel Sharon was indicted by a Belgian court in 2001 over his involvement in the Sabra and Chatila massacres and Israel faced accusations of war crimes in the wake of its 2002 invasion of the cities of the West Bank, with its high toll in civilian casualties (some 500 people killed, 1,500 wounded, more than 4,000 arrested), hundreds of homes demolished and the urban infrastructure utterly destroyed, Israel has adopted a bold and aggressive strategy: alter international law so that non-state actors caught in a conflict with states and deemed by the states as “non-legitimate actors” (“terrorists,” “insurgents” and “non-state actors,” as well as the civilian population that supports them) can no longer claim protection from invading armies. The urgency of this campaign has been underscored by a series of notable setbacks Israel subsequently incurred at the hands of the UN. In 2004, at the request of the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel’s construction of wall inside Palestinian territory is “contrary to international law” and must be dismantled—a ruling adopted almost unanimously by the General Assembly, with only Israel, the US, Australia and a few Pacific atolls dissenting. In 2006 the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that “a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF against Lebanese civilians and civilian objects, failing to distinguish civilians from combatants and civilian objects from military targets.” together with the harsh criticism of the UN’s Goldstone report on Gaza accusing the Israeli government and military again of targeting Palestinian civilians and causing disproportionate destruction, has made this campaign even more urgent.
Continue reading “The Second Battle of Gaza: Israel’s Undermining Of International Law”
BURLINGTON, VT- Greetings from the Green Mountain State! I want to give a shout out to those who participated in a successful night of activism. Several activists leafleted 249 people attending last night’s Israeli Ballet performance at the Flynn Theater.
The leaflet asked “Would you like some information about Don Quixote and the Israel Ballet?” — which was an accurate presentation of last night’s performance. “Israel’s ‘Golden Helmet of Mambrino’ — which makes one invisible, thus capable of all actions — is slowly turning into Don Quixote’s version of it — a upside-down shaving bowl plopped on the head — incapable of nothing but making its wearer more obvious and actionable to the world. Brand Israel will continue to call forth increasing protests as audiences realize they are being used,” said author and activist Marc Estrin.
The headline said “A Modern Don Quixote.” Estrin said almost all ballet-goers accepted it, even those glancing at the opening before continuing into the theater. There are no trash cans inside the actual theater, so he assumes most flyers made it to people’s seats for reading before the show began. Estrin said one elderly man “came all the way out again to present us with a crumpled up ball with instructions to ‘shove this up your ass,’ but the other 249 copies all made it in.”
The other highlight was one Israeli and three Vermonters unfurled a banner during the performance. Check out the YouTube Vimeo below the fold!
Some good news came out of Washington yesterday that went largely unnoticed. Ha’aretz reported 54 members of Congress sent a letter to president Barack Obama urging him to pressure Israel to end the siege on Gaza. Ha’aretz correspondent Natasha Mozgovaya writes:
The letter was the initiative of Representatives Jim McDermott from Washington and Keith Ellison from Minnesota, both of whom are Democrats. Ellison is the first American Muslim to ever win election to Congress. McDermott and Ellison wrote that they understand the threats facing Israel and the ongoing Hamas terror activities against Israeli citizens but that “this concern must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.” “We ask you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent component of your broader Middle East peace efforts,” they wrote, adding that the siege has hampered the ability of aid agencies to do their work in Gaza. The congressmen urged Obama to pressure Israel to ease the movement of people into and out of Gaza, especially students, the sick, aid workers, journalists and those with family concerns, and also to allow the import of building materials to rebuild houses. Israel has warned that such materials would be used to rebuild Hamas infrastructure and not civilian homes.
Fifty-four members of Congress urging the president to pressure Israel to treat Gazans like human beings is a positive development, albeit a VERY small one. Critics may content that the letter protects Israel’s image. I understand that. But I still think it’s encouraging.
Operation Cast Lead blew the lid off Israel’s rationale for the occupation and the congressional visits to Gaza have exposed to them what Gazans encounter on a day-to-day basis. More members of Congress need to do this.
Full text of the letter below.
Continue reading “Members of Congress sign letter urging Obama to stop the siege of Gaza”
During Israel’s assault on Gaza in December 2008, two doctors working from the frontline attempted to bring attention to the imbalance of power that exists at the heart of this conflict — an imbalance which weighs heavily towards the Israeli side. While Israeli media spokespeople used airtime to argue that Israel was only targeting Hamas militants, Dr. Mads Gilbert and Dr. Erik Fosse of the Norwegian Aid Committee attempted to bring attention to just how many women and children were being wheeled in to be treated for shrapnel and bullet wounds, and how many families they were treating all at once. They have since written a book about the event and Gilbert will be touring North America to spread their message.
The following was written by Fatemah Meghji, the national co-ordinator of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and a university student who has been organizing a nation-wide tour for Gilbert. Below her piece you will find a listing of tour dates and locations — be sure to attend an event if you can, I know I will.
by Fatemah Meghji
From Dr. Mads Gilbert & Dr. Erik Fosse’s Eyes in Gaza:
The boy with the destroyed brain did not need anaesthetic; he could no longer feel anything. The other lay in an artificial coma with intravenous anaesthetic agents to soften the pain and allow the ventilator to work without resistance from the boy’s own breathing. A large bandage covered both his eyes. He could not see anyway. He was already blind.
Where could I cry out the despair and rage I felt for all this terrible fate we saw at such close quarters? Would the heavens hear? Will the world hear? They know that this is happening, after all. The numbers tick into the West every single afternoon, to the news agencies, to the intelligence services and to the diplomatic missions of the world’s most powerful nations, who do not even make an attempt to pull in the reins and control the wildness of the Israeli war machine.
P U L S E 