The Angry Arabs' comments section: October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Bradley Burston: Lieberman is Kahane. And even the right senses it

Lieberman will stop at nothing. He will use the rostrum of the UN General Assembly to undermine his own PM, mount a campaign speech for domestic consumption, and lend credence to those who condemn Israelis for unwillingness to make peace.

Is anyone on the mainstream Jewish right – anyone at all – willing to speak in defense of Avigdor Lieberman, the bully in the china shop of Israel's relationship with its Arab minority?

In particular, is anyone on the mainstream right prepared to step up and support his fascism bandwagon's snorting, noxious draft horse – the loyalty oath initiative?

Not the Zionist Organization of America. Normally a hair-trigger media machine, the hard-right ZOA has been uncharacteristically silent on Lieberman's showcase bill.

Haaretz: South Africa is already here

The government is trying to build a protected autonomy for the Jewish majority and a stunted autonomy for the Arab minority.

How could the Israeli public allow a few dozen racists go down into the lion's den of Umm al-Fahm on their own? Do Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir represent only themselves or just the fringes of the extreme right? After all, thousands of Israeli citizens agreed when they heard the thugs' explanations of the reasons for their march.
Hundreds of thousands in Israel are pleased with the Citizenship Law, glad that the bill will, when it passes - and it will pass - allow discrimination against Arabs who will want to buy a home in a Jewish community, and the majority of the public considers MK Hanin Zuabi a traitor.
Where were all these people while the fascists marched through Umm al-Fahm? Suddenly they are not comfortable being seen with those who reflect precisely the zeitgeist?

25 Vintage Ads That Would Be Banned Today

1. The Harder A Wife Works, The Cuter She Looks!

2. Men Ask “Is She Pretty?” Not “Is She Clever?”

3. Doesn’t Your Mama Wash You With Fairy Soap?

4. Use “Chlorinol” And Be Like De White Nigger

5. Cocaine Toothache Drops

6. Keep Her Where She Belongs…

7. Cochon Prodigue

8. Show Her It’s A Man’s World

9. That’s What Wives Are For!

10. Youngest Customers In The Business

11. Start Cola Earlier!

(update: this ad is fake. Thanks Amy K.!)

12. Don’t Worry Darling, You Didn’t Burn The Beer!

13. Men Are Better Than Women!

14. If Your Husband Ever Finds Out..

15. More Doctors Smoke Camels

16. More Doctors Smoke Camels #2

17. Blow In Her Face

18. Begin Early.Shave Yourself

19. It’s Nice To Have A Girl Around The House

20. Because Innocence Is Sexier Than You Think

21. MOPC

Update: @Thomas: морс (or mors) is actually a non-alcoholic juice, pretty close to cranberry juice

22. Smoking Santa

23. Merry Christmas For Every Smoker!

24. StayDry Panties!

25. Is It Always Illegal To Kill A Woman?

+26. SEGA: The More You Play The Harder It Gets

You sit there, eyes glued to the writhing, arcade-quality graphics, pulling and squeezing your knob…

Now you can play with yourself for hours with SEGA’s hand held, full colour games system…

Israeli colonists, naturally racist, burn 103 years old church in Jerusalem

A hundred year old church was burned Friday by right-wing Israeli settlers, who broke a number of windows of the church and hurled Molotov cocktails inside.

The damage to the church was substantial, with burn damage throughout the first floor of the building.

The church was built in Jerusalem in 1897, and housed the Palestinian Bible College until 1947, when parishioners were pushed out by Jewish armed gangs during the violence accompanying the creation of the state of Israel.

Christians make up 2% of the population of both Israel and the Palestinian Territories – the number used to be around 15%, but many Christians from the Holy Land have emigrated due to the harsh conditions of the Israeli occupation, and discrimination against them by the Israeli state.
This is not the first time that Israeli right-wingers have destroyed churches and church property – a number of Chrisitan churches were destroyed during the second initfada (uprising) that began in 2000, and many more were destroyed by Israeli forces during the 1948 and 67 wars.
Read more

Friday, October 29, 2010

BDS: Caterpillar Halts (for now) Sale of Bulldozers to Israel

Alex Kane

For years, Palestine solidarity activists have been pressuring Caterpillar, a company that manufactures construction equipment, to stop the sale of their bulldozers to Israel, as they are used to violate international law by destroying Palestinian homes. An Israeli soldier driving a Caterpillar bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza ran over Rachel Corrie, the young American activist with the International Solidarity Movement, and crushed her to death when she was attempting to stop the destruction of a Palestinian home.

Now, activists have won a minor victory: Israeli press reports indicate that Caterpillar has stopped the sale of equipment to Israel for the duration of an ongoing civil lawsuit against the Israeli government brought by the Corrie family over Rachel’s death.

OECD and Israel's "tourist" colonization of Syria's Golan

Charlotte Silver, The Electronic Intifada, 25 October 2010

Israeli tourists visit an abandoned army post from the
1967 war in the occupied Golan Heights. (Moti Milrod/MaanImages)

On 20 and 21 October, the 86th session of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) tourism committee was held in Jerusalem. Leading up to the conference, there was conjecture on how the member countries in attendance would handle Israel's tourism policies regarding the occupied territories: the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights.

The Palestine Liberation Organization called on countries to boycott the meeting, saying that it served to condone Israel's illegal annexation of Jerusalem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee also called on the OECD to relocate the conference.
Read more

Israel, the thieving state, angry over UNESCO description of West Bank holy site

Israel angrily condemned Friday a series of decisions by UNESCO regarding historic sites in the occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem, saying they were politically biased moves, dpa reported.

The board of the UN's cultural organization, in its biannual session which ended last week, adopted five proposals initiated by Arab member states regarding sites which are considered holy to both Jews and Muslims.
Read more

Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah to receive prestigious award from PEN USA

Palestinian-American physician and poet Fady Joudah will be honored with the prestigious PEN USA 2010 Literary Award for his translation of iconic Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish's work If I Were Another. The award, which has been presented to writers such as Woody Allen and Ray Bradbury, has honored exceptional work by authors in 10 different genres for the last 20 years. Joudah, who has also translated Darwish's The Butterfly's Burden in 2006, is the author of his own collection of poetry entitled The Earth in the Attic. Joudah also won the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 for The Earth in the Attic.

Medea Benjamin: Dear Jon (Stewart), Sane People Protest Crazy Wars

It's too bad that Jon Stewart is putting anti-war activists, Tea Partiers and black bloc anarchists in the same bag. And it's sad that he's telling his audience, many of whom are young progressive thinkers, that activism is crazy.
Read more- huffingtonpost

War Should Be an Election Issue, Amy Goodman

The WikiLeaks release, dubbed “The Iraq War Logs,” has been topping the headlines in Europe. But in the U.S., it barely warranted a mention on the agenda-setting Sunday talk shows.
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184 US Attacks Have killed 1,863 People In Pakistan Since June 04 , mostly civilians

Statistics show a total of 53 drone attacks were carried out in Pakistan by the unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) of US during the last year killing 709 people, mostly innocent tribesmen including women and children.
Read more

No Russian soldiers in Afghanistan - Rogozin

We've been in Afghanistan, we didn't like it - Russia's NATO envoy
Russia's envoy to NATO on Wednesday dismissed reports that Russian troops could be sent back to Afghanistan two decades after the Soviet Union's Red Army was forced out by U.S.-backed mujahedeen.
Read more
No Russian soldiers in Afghanistan - Rogozin
In the Ambassador’s words, Moscow is not planning to supply Afghanistan with “cannon fodder” and “Russian soldiers will be where they are to be, that is on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Read more

Gorbachev: Coalition victory in Afghanistan 'impossible'

LONDON: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said it was "impossible" for coalition forces to secure victory in Afghanistan in a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday. Gorbachev, who was in charge when Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 after a war lasting nearly a decade, added that the alternative to pulling out troops was "another Vietnam"
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Report: Western Presence Fuels Yemen, Somalia Insecurity

A new report says Western security measures in Yemen and Somalia are fueling militancy because local populations see it as a form of aggression.
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America Has Sown Chaos Across The Globe: President Assad

"Is Afghanistan stable? Is Somalia stable? Did they bring stability to Lebanon in 1983?" Assad asked, referring to U.S. intervention in Lebanon's 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.
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UN assembly calls for end to US embargo on Cuba

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Tuesday for a resolution calling on the United States to end its five-decade old embargo of Cuba.
Read more

Tea Party leader defends call to oust lawmaker for being Muslim

A prominent member of the Tea Party movement is defending a statement he made about the Muslim representative of Minnesota's 5th District. On Saturday, Judson Phillips, who heads the Tea Party Nation, published a column suggesting Representative Keith Ellison is unfit to serve because he is Muslim.
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From Pakistan to Paris: How The Rest Of The World Views The Tea Party

The US elections are a big story elsewhere in the world. And the Tea Party movement has not gone unnoticed in other countries.
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Koch Brothers Funding Islamophobia, Alex Kane

The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer made waves with her piece on the Koch brothers, which described how Charles and David Koch, the owners of the multi-billion dollar Koch Industries, were “giving money to ‘educate,’ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters” in an effort to “turn their private agenda into a mass movement.” Now, more has emerged about the Koch brothers’ agenda, and it’s not just limited to advocating for “drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation.” An investigation by CounterPunch‘s Pam Martens has revealed that “a secretive libertarian nonprofit with ties to Charles Koch bankrolled what was widely perceived to be a fear mongering effort to throw the Presidential election to Senator John McCain in 2008.”
Read more

Haneen Zo'abi shot in the neck with rubber bullets

Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Hanin Zo'by, stated that she was hit by two rubber-coated bullets fired by the Israeli police during Wednesday clashes in Um Al Fahim Arab city, after the police violently attacked protesters who took off to the streets to counter a march by fundamentalist settlers.
Read more

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Hebron 13-Year Old ’Banned From Attending School’ for 5 months

He threw a rock at a settler!!

After being arrested, detained, beaten and fined by the Israeli army, Karam Daana, 13, has been placed under house arrest for five months during which he cannot attend school. His father has lost his work permit. Karam is yet to receive a trial.

Written and photographed by Charlotte Silver.

: Karam with his father Khalid.

On 28 September, the Ofer Military Court, located outside Ramallah, sentenced Karam Daana to five months house arrest at his uncle’s home and fined the family 2,000 NIS during his pre-trail hearing. During this time, Karam may not attend school or leave the parameters of this home.

The charge was throwing rocks at a settler. Children are routinely picked up on similar charges: The Defence for Children International organisation estimates that 700 children are imprisoned every year, 300 of which are prosecuted in a military court. Typical sentences are approximately three months in prison, of which one month is served during pre-trial detention.

Tariq Aziz, Saddam's former Foreign Minister, has been sentenced to death. Justice or vengeance?

Tariq Aziz: villain or victim?

The decision to deliver a death sentence to Tariq Aziz has caused a stir in the international community.

The decision passed down by Iraq's high tribunal to sentence Tariq Aziz, former foreign minister to death, has caused a stir in the international community. However, it is unlikely many, if any, will speak out against the decision [EPA]

So what really lies behind the decision by Iraq's high tribunal to pass a death sentence on Tariq Aziz, long serving Iraqi foreign minister and number two to Saddam Hussein? The decision has caused shock waves around the World, largely because the sentence has the feel of vengeance to it. The Iraqi High Tribunal took what must be a highly unusual step in effectively rescinding the earlier judgments against him. For Tariq Aziz’s twenty seven year sentence has effectively been reduced to a matter of months by his death sentence. Aziz has now been found guilty of “the persecution of Islamic parties”, whose leaders were assassinated, imprisoned or forced into exile.

Israeli MP cancels visit to Spain fearing arrest

RAMALLAH: The Israeli Knesset member Avi Dichter was forced to cancel a trip to Spain for fear of being arrested there, the daily Yediot Ahronot reported on Tuesday.

The report said that Dichter was invited by a Spanish organization called The Madrid Coalition. The organization invited Israeli and Palestinian officials to take part in a summit focusing on the peace process and the Arab initiative.

According to the report, Dichter requested to look into the possibility that he may face legal action in Spain over complaints against him for his involvement in the Salah Shihadeh assassination, which took place when Dichter was head of the Israeli internal spy agency Shin Bet and for his involvement in 2009 offensive on Gaza Strip. Dichter was minister of public security at the time.

Israeli Deputy Mayor wants to ban Arabs from living in his town, he urges the public to report real estate deals with Arabs to a special email

You do not want Arabs in Karmiel? Report to Purple Email!

Karmiel’s Deputy Mayor, Oren Milstein, does not want any Arabs in his town. Therefore he urges the public to report real estate deals with Arabs to a special email address, and his bureau assists the anti-Arab initiative. Milstein: “The email address is operated by a private person”.
Read more-Mondoweiss

Iraq War Logs Reveal Details of Dubious Apache Attacks

Photo Gallery: 9 Photos

Two Iraqis wanted to surrender, but were gunned down by an American helicopter. The Iraq war logs reveal a number of dubious attacks by Apache helicopters and raise the question of whether US pilots committed war crimes.

Read more-Spiegel

Desmond Tutu: "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is like South Africa under apartheid"

Desmond Tutu calls on South African opera company to boycott Israel

Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu has urged a South African opera company to boycott Israel, comparing its treatment of Palestinians to his own country's era of racial apartheid. The Nobel peace prize laureate said that it would be "unconscionable" for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel while millions of people living there are denied access to culture and education. However, the opera company insisted that it would go ahead with next month's tour of the American classic Porgy and Bess. Tutu's stand was condemned by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Cro-Magnon education ! Father teaches Baby how to shoot his first gun

Haaretz describes Jean-Luc Godard as "Notorious Anti-Semite"!

Will the Academy give an Oscar to a notorious anti-Semite?
Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences intends to award iconic French-Swiss filmmaker Jean Luc Godard with an honorary Oscar.

I discovered, late, that a little conversation was going on the Barghouthi poem thread..In my haste to update and provide more news/info sometimes I leave behind such interesting conversations..Sorry, won't be repeated, wallah!.

Report: Turkish intelligence severed relations with the Mossad

Turkish newspaper reports agencies stopped exchanging intelligence and conducting joint operations following Turkish government decision.
Amid the strained relations between Ankara and Jerusalem, Turkish intelligence has severed its working relations with the Mossad, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Monday.
The report stated that the two agencies, which once enjoyed tight cooperation, had stopped exchanging intelligence and conducting joint operations following a Turkish government decision on the matter.
Read more

Californian rabbi Tea Party candidate rallies with English Defense League outside Israel embassy

Rabbi Nachum Shifren is running for state senate under the Tea Party banner and is considered a long shot to represent west Los Angeles in the California senate.

An Orthodox California rabbi running for state senate under the Tea Party banner marched yesterday with a far right-wing anti-Islam group in Britain outside the Israeli Embassy.

U.S. Californian politician Rabbi Nachum Shifren at the EnglishDefence League rally, October 24, 2010.

Rabbi Nachum Shifren, an ex-lifeguard known as the surfing rabbi, is considered a long shot to represent west Los Angeles in the California senate. He has spoken at Tea Party events and says he is a member of the group.

U.S. Falls in Annual Corruption Survey

PARIS — Perceptions of corruption in the United States have worsened over the past year, knocking it out of the top 20 in global rankings released Tuesday by the watchdog group Transparency International in Berlin.

The three countries among the top and the bottom of the list remain unchanged from 2009: New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore are seen as having the world’s cleanest governments.

Somalia, Afghanistan and Myanmar are seen to have the most corrupt. Finland, Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and Norway rounded out the top 10.

The United States, which ranked 19th in 2009, fell to 22, putting it behind Canada, Barbados and Chile in the Americas, but still comfortably among the top fifth of the 178 countries in the study.

Also falling in the rankings were the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and Russia, 154.

Germany ranked 15, Britain 20, and France 25. Japan ranked 17 and China ranked 78.

Amercan citizen, Iraq war veteran, faces deportation!

Rohan Coombs joined the U.S. Marine Corps and risked his life for his country in Iraq - watching his friends die in combat.

But, after returning from duty and falling foul of the law, the 43-year-old war veteran has been told that the U.S. is not his country, and he sits locked up in an immigration detention centre facing deportation.

Jamaican-born Coombs, 43, immigrated to America legally as a child with his family..

Financial Disaster Set to Erupt Again

Ever since the financial crisis first erupted, the apparent goal of those in charge has been to try and kick each can -- er, problem -- down the road until things somehow improve or so that somebody else would get stuck with cleaning up the mess.

Of course, all they've really done is create the equivalent of a toxic waste dump, filled with little time bombs capable of wreaking widespread economic and financial havoc. Based on the following Minyanville commentary, "The Fiscal Disaster Set to Explode in December," it looks like the clock on one of them is ticking down fast:

Iraq war logs reveal 15,000 previously unlisted civilian deaths

Leaked Pentagon files contain records of more than 100,000 fatalities including 66,000 civilians

An Iraqi man cries over the body of his daughter Suad Abdullah, 14, in Falluja in April 2004 — (An Iraqi man cries over the body of his 14-year-old daughter, Suad Abdullah, at a clinic in Falluja during fighting there in April 2004. Photograph: Akram Saleh/Reuters)
Leaked Pentagon files obtained by the Guardian contain details of more than 100,000 people killed in Iraq following the US-led invasion, including more than 15,000 deaths that were previously unrecorded.
British ministers have repeatedly refused to concede the existence of any official statistics on Iraqi deaths. US General Tommy Franks claimed in 2002: "We don't do body counts."
The mass of leaked documents provides the first detailed tally by the US military of Iraqi fatalities. Troops on the ground filed secret field reports over six years of the occupation, purporting to tot up every casualty, military and civilian.
Read more-The GuardianUK

Research: Suicide bombing motivated by occupation not Islam

It's the Occupation, Stupid
Robert A. Pape
Extensive research into the causes of suicide terrorism proves Islam isn't to blame -- the root of the problem is foreign military occupations.
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Forget the Details, its all about the Land, Joharah Baker

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict may seem unbelievably complicated to most – an endless web of historical narratives, emotional claims and bitter pasts – but it all comes down to a simple premise: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is about land, plain and simple. Israel wants the rest of it and the Palestinians won't go down without a fight in trying to keep the tiny sliver that remains. All of Israel's hair-splitting in between – insistence on a Jewish state, more security at its borders, the threat of Hamas in Gaza – these are all minor details that divert attention away from its main goal, which is grabbing as much Palestinian land as possible before a final settlement is reached.
Read more

Report: Mash'al says ready to accept 2 states

TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Hamas chief Khaled Mash'al says his group is willing to accept any peace agreement achieved between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as long as it enjoys a Palestinian consensus, Israeli media reported Thursday. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, which was not online late Thursday, Mash'al reportedly predicted that the inception of a Palestinian state was not something that could happen in the foreseeable future, and urged Washington to "hear from us directly.”
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Palestinians in Europe: Abbas should be stripped of powers

Palestinians in Europe said Mahmoud Abbas should be stripped of powers over statements he made announcing plans to back down on rights of Palestinians in return for state based on 1967 borders.
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Israel prevents UN from building new schools in Gaza; 40,000 students without schools

Nearly two years after the devastating Israeli invasion of Gaza that left 1400 dead and over 30,000 families without homes, many of the schools that were destroyed in the invasion have yet to be rebuilt. Now a United Nations effort to rebuild schools in Gaza has been cut short by the Israeli military, which refuses to give the UN permission to build several schools.
Read more

settlers' faeces covering the vineyards of Beit Ummar.

Beit Ummar is just one of hundreds of villages in Palestine under constant harassment from Israeli settlers. They have suffered the loss of their land, limited access to their own water supply, rocks smashing their windows, midnight arrests, tear gas, rubber bullets, and daily Israeli military aggression. The most recent insult: settlers' feaces covering the vineyards of Beit Ummar.
Read more

Violent clashes in Bustan zone following Israeli threats to raze homes

Violent clashes broke out in Al-Bustan neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem after a large number of Israeli troops and policemen handed some citizens demolition orders issued against their homes.
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Israelis 'building 600 new homes in West Bank'

Work has begun on up to 600 new homes in West Bank settlements since Israel lifted its curb on such construction, a senior settler official said.
Read more-The Independant

Monday, October 25, 2010

US and Israel: Blinded by the right / Mark LeVine

Like the angry, self-loathing drunk unable to recognise himself in the The Who's seminal anthem "Who Are You," Americans and Israelis are reaching such depths of distrust and despair that the coarsest appeals to right wing identity politics - represented by the rise of the Tea Party and the current Netanyahu government - will ensure the perpetuation of policies that will doom both countries to an even darker future. In so doing they are moving so far from their founding ideals that it's becoming impossible to recognise them anymore.
Read more-Al Jazeera English

The shaming of America / Robert Fisk

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims. Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies.
Read more

Far-right parties oppose EU membership for Turkey (AP)

Members said Turkey has no place in Europe and that citizens should be allowed to weigh in on the matter.
Read more

Modern threat to Syria's ancient Aleppo soap industry

(Reuters) - The deep perfume of olive and laurel oil hangs in the air of old Aleppo, home to an ancient soap industry that has enjoyed a renaissance since the government lifted crippling trade bans in the last five years.

Nestled among the 2,000-year-old labyrinthine streets in courtyard houses and old hotels known as khans, are a handful of workshops that have been making the famed "Savon d'Alep", or Aleppo soap, by hand for hundreds of years.

But the guardians of the old tradition say greedy imitators who have begun marketing cheap industrial soap under the same name are threatening to undermine the brand in lucrative European export markets.

"European consumers are very discerning. They may fork several euros for a bar that has Aleppo written on it but they will not buy Syrian soap again if it doesn't make their skin nice," said Safouh al-Deiri, a Syrian businessman who has been exporting Aleppo soap to France since the 1980s.

Deiri, who lives in Lyon, said Aleppo soap had influenced the development of soap making in Marseilles during the French occupation of Syria and neighbouring Lebanon from 1920 to 1946.

New Facebook Images of IDF Abuse During Cast Lead

This Gaza mosque was trashed by Israeli attack during Operation Cast Lead. The soldier partakes of a meal amidst broken glass and other remnants of what used to be the mosque's worship chamber (Assaf Kintzer)

idf soldier defacing gaza home during cast lead

IDF soldier defaces the wall of a Gaza home with graffiti, "We'll be back shortly" during Cast Lead

On the heels of the exposure of the humiliation of Palestinian detainees by Eden Abergil and Avi Yakobov, Israeli peace activist Assaf Kintzer has a new Facebook gallery of humiliation featuring images of IDF soldiers preening for the camera in Palestinian homes during Operation Cast Lead, as if they were on their summer vacation. Not quite as explosive as anything in the Facebook and YouTube profiles of those IDF abusers, but instructive nonetheless as to the prevailing attitudes of IDF soldiers when they appropriate the homes and property of their Gazan victims.

One of the commenters on these images at Assaf’s Facebook photo gallery made an incisive comparison of this behavior to that of dogs who pee to mark their territory. This is these soldiers feeble attempt to come to terms with their surroundings. It’s gross, immature, insulting. And can there be any hope that these soldiers and all their fellow Israelis who think like them and might behave in the same way given similar circumstances can ever really come to terms with Palestinians? Imagine the obtuseness, the cultural impoverishment, the blind ignorance that produced these poses. What does it say about the society that created these people?

Soldiers re-enact dramatic moment of Cast Lead as souvenir for family, friends

idf tramples on personal bedding of gaza family

IDF squad poses for group photo while trampling on personal bedding of Gaza family

Fully-armed IDF soldier preens for camera while Gazan mother attempts to ignore the humiliation of having her kitchen invaded

IDF soldier invades the bed chamber of Gaza family and appropriates woman's personal make-up brush, preening for camera

Tikun Olam

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Vatican synod ends with criticism of Israel : There's no promised land and no chosen people!

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Israel cannot use the biblical concept of a promised land or a chosen people to justify new settlements in Jerusalem or territorial claims, a Vatican synod on the Middle East said Saturday.

NO PROMISED LAND

Asked about the passage at a news conference, Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, said:

"We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.

"The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians," he added. "The justification of Israel's occupation of the land of Palestine cannot be based on sacred scriptures."

AlterNet: Fascist America: Is This Election the Next Turn?

It's not fascism yet; but if the Tea Party manages to get its hands on the levers of power, it will be.

In August 2009, I wrote a piece titled Fascist America: Are We There Yet? that sparked much discussion on both the left and right ends of the blogosphere. In it, I argued that -- according to the best scholarship on how fascist regimes emerge -- America was on a path that was running much too close to the fail-safe point beyond which no previous democracy has ever been able to turn back from a full-on fascist state. I also noted that the then-emerging Tea Party had a lot of proto-fascist hallmarks, and that it had the potential to become a clear and present danger to the future of our democracy if it ever got enough traction to start winning elections in a big way.
Read more

Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, converts to Islam

Stranded: Lauren Booth when she arrived in Gaza on August 23

(Ma'an) -- The sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has converted to Islam after having a "holy experience" in Iran, British media reported on Sunday.

Broadcaster and journalist Lauren Booth, 43, and Cherie Blair's half sister, said she decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting a shrine of Fatima Al-Masumeh in the city of Qom, British weekly newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported.
Read more

I cannot believe this is happening..Michigan Uni. students walking out en masse from IDF talk..

University of Michigan Campus

On October 20 2010, two IDF soldiers came to the University of Michigan campus as part of a national PR campaign by Stand With Us aimed at justifying Israel's recent atrocities in the Middle East. Students, staff, and community members collectively engaged in a silent walk-out in memory and in solidarity with all of the silenced Palestinian children that were killed by the IDF during Israel's most recent offensive on the Gaza Strip who are unable to take a stand and give their account today.

Britain welcomes War Criminals

Stuart Littlewood
The UK is to become a safe haven for Israeli psychopaths while they continue their brutal military occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land, and carry on bombarding blockaded Gaza and executing or abducting anyone bringing humanitarian help. That’s the British government’s latest contribution of Middle East peace.
Read more

The Violence Debate: Teaching the Oppressed How to Fight Oppression

Ramzy Baroud
An American activist once gave me a book she wrote detailing her experiences in Palestine. The largely visual volume documented her journey of the occupied West Bank, rife with barbered wires, checkpoints, soldiers and tanks. It also highlighted how Palestinians resisted the occupation peacefully, in contrast to the prevalent media depictions linking Palestinian resistance to violence.
Read more

Ahmadinejad spurs Lebanon's Palestinians

Franklin Lamb
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad received a hero's welcome from Hezbollah during his recent visit to Lebanon. He also took time out to meet with Palestinian refugees, who have indirectly benefited from extensive Iranian aid. "He's more Palestinian than many Palestinians," was one observation. -
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Iraqi leaders not following US advice on gov't (AP)

American influence has so dwindled in Iraq over the last several months that Iraqi lawmakers and political leaders say they no longer follow Washington's advice for forming a government.
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Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing

Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.
read more

Candidate who Shot Iraqis Brags about Gun Skills

A North Carolina Republican who killed two unarmed Iraqi prisoners in 2004 is holding a fundraiser at a gun range.
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Gilad Atzmon: From Rabbi Yosef to Marx

In case the Goyim cannot find a purpose in their life, Israeli senior Sephardi Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is there to help them out. In his Saturday sermon Rabbi Yosef revealed that the sole purpose of Gentiles is to serve Jews. “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world.” The Rabbi was also kind enough to provide the Goyim with some precise tasks. “Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created.”

I guess that it is about time the friends of Israel in Western politics started to fully comprehend their role in our Judified universe -- AIPAC and the Conservatives’ Friends of Israel do indeed, have a crucial function : They are there to ‘help’ our politicians grasp why they ‘were created’.

And their role is, apparently, to ‘serve the Jews,’ as the Chief Rabbi describes it so eloquently.

But there is a further and even much more sinister meaning to Rabbi Yosef’s sermon: according to the Rabbi, the Goyim will ‘work’ hard, they will ‘plow’ and ‘reap’ while the Jew ‘sits like an effendi (master)’ and ‘eats’. In just a few words Rabbi Yossef expresses the depth of Judaic contempt towards labour.

The senior Rabbi provides us with a devastating glimpse into the Judaic alienation from these aspects of the human condition and human experience. In an unequivocal manner, Rabbi Yosef depicts a clear dichotomy: Jews are the master race and the Goyim are nothing but a work force. The Goyim are there to sweat and struggle while the Jew is ‘sitting’ and ‘eating’. I guess that Rabbi Yossef has managed, in just a few words, to portray the intrinsic relationships between Judaism and Capitalism.