Jerusalem Day

by Ruth Tenne

Jerusalem Day was declared a national  holiday by the State of Israel on the 12th May 1968 in celebration of  the “liberation” of East Jerusalem and the  unification of the city in the aftermath of the 1967  Six-Day War. The medieval Maghrabi Quarter near the Jewish Wailing  Wall was demolished soon after, and its Palestinian  inhabitants were evicted in order to make way for an open space  for Jewish worshipers  [1]. To celebrate this occasion the victorious hymn  “Jerusalem of Gold” was written in glorification of the annexation of East Jerusalem and the reclaiming of the Western Wailing Wall .

In 1980 the Israeli Knesset passed the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, confirming Jerusalem’s status as the nation’s “eternal and indivisible capital”.  UN Security Council Resolution 478 stated thereafter that the Jerusalem Law was “null and void and must be rescinded forthwith”. [2].   The Resolution instructed UN member-states to withdraw their diplomatic representation from the city – refusing to confer official status on Israel’s illegal act of annexation.

The UN position, however, did not deter Israel from its continued attempts to cleanse East Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants by the use of force and military orders.  The so-called “City of Gold”  turned into a ghettoised place with  rubble from demolished Palestinian houses, razed Palestinian neighbourhoods , desecrated Muslim graveyards, and  dispossessed homeless  families serving as testimony to Israel’s  underlying  aim of  “purifying”  the city of  its indigenous Palestinian population. According to the Head  of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – Jeff Halper –  only 11 percent of East Jerusalem land is available for Palestinian housing as result of Israel’s discriminatory policies which means  that  Jerusalemite Palestinians are virtually barred from 93 percent of the  municipality of  Jerusalem. The overall goal is to confine Palestinians to small enclaves in East Jerusalem, or to remove them from the city altogether – an action referred to by Israel as the “quiet transfer”.

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Boycott Israel? Amitav Ghosh & the Dan David Prize

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.

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More Constitutional Buffoonery…

Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights speaks candidly about the latest bad joke from Senator Joe Lieberman and Republican Scott Brown, who have co-sponsored a new bill, the Terrorist Ex-Patriation Act,  which seeks to strip Americans charged with terrorism of their U.S. citizenship.

According to Lieberman, the new bill simply ‘updates’ an existing statute that has been “on the books for seventy years”. As Lieberman sees it, “If the President can  authorize the killing of a United States citizen because he is fighting for a foreign terrorist organization…..we can also have a law that allows the U.S. government to revoke a locked-in citizenship.”

Can Obama make “peace” in the Middle East

Our dear friend Phil Weiss makes the most impressive interventions in this debate. He is also the first we have seen who knows how to handle Tim Sebastien well.

Doha Debates takes on the potential for a US brokered deal in the Middle East.

“Fair Trade Wants You!” The Neoliberal Politics of Conscious Consumption

By Kara Newhouse

“Fair trade is a hand up, not a handout.” I heard this distinction between charity and an economic exchange many times while doing anthropology research among fair trade advocates. With today marking World Fair Trade Day, it’s a good time to examine what fair trade is, and what it isn’t.

The Premise

The premise of “fair trade” is to create markets in the Global North for goods from the Global South, either through businesses that sell directly from the producers (usually handicrafts) or through third party commodity labeling.

Often when people hear about my research on this phenomenon, they ask, “So is it really fair?” This question assumes that “good/bad” labels can be accurately deployed to understand the world’s problems and remedies. The justness of fair trade on the production end of the exchange should be evaluated based on many factors, including the producers’ involvement in shaping what is considered “fair” trade. Other researchers are attempting such evaluations, and the results differ by region and product. Beyond assessing the “fairness” of this consumer movement, I am interested in the roots of fair trade’s appeal to people of the Global North. To understand that, I analyzed the marketing of fair trade goods and interviewed fair trade advocates.

Continue reading ““Fair Trade Wants You!” The Neoliberal Politics of Conscious Consumption”

Rahimullah Yusufzai on Faisal Shahzad and breaking news from the tribal region

Rahimullah Yusufzai, who is one of PULSE’s 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009, interviewed by Dori Smith of the excellent Talk Nation Radio.

Pakistan’s tribal border regions and North Waziristan are dangerous, veteran journalist and editor Rahimullah Yusufzai sheds light on regional militant groups, and local reaction to Faisal Shazhad case. Was it a conspiracy, people ask?

The family of Faisal Shazhad are shocked and wondering what happened. Faisal Shazhad’s Father is a liberal, explains Yusufzai, and the family is not particularly religious. Mysteries will surely surround this case for some time to come.

Fault Lines – Arundhati Roy

Fault Lines presenter Avi Lewis sits down for a one-on-one interview with author and activist, Arundhati Roy, one of PULSE’s 20 Top Global Thinkers of 2009.

Putting the world at risk?

Gareth Porter, one of PULSE’s 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009, on Al Jazeera’s Inside Story discussing Iran and the NPT.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has warned that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are putting the world at risk. Have the NPT conferences become a platform to settle political accounts and an opportunity to lobby against adversaries? Does the treaty help rid the world of nuclear weapons or does it advocate maintaining the status quo? And will Obama’s nuclear undertakings help patch the gaps of the NPT?

Current State of Investigative Reporting

Newspapers across the nation are in serious trouble, pummeled by the recession, by declining revenue […]and readership, and by competition from round-the-clock online resources. Speaking at a reception marking the launch of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at BU, Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an author, speaks about the current state of investigative reporting.Hosted by New England Center for Investigative Reporting on May 19, 2009.

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