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Al Akhbar
This story is revealing. Some US soldiers decided to throw copies of the Quran over a pile of garbage and set them on fire. I know that the accounts of this incident are not consistent. We were told that Qurans were “mistakenly” tossed in a garbage dump and set on fire. The mechanics of the error have yet to be revealed to us. Some accounts claim – in justification of the act – that Qurans were being used to smuggle letters to prisoners. Would it have been difficult to search Qurans for secret messages?
Worse, the US military quickly announced that all US soldiers in the field would undergo special training in handling Qurans. Special training? One requires special training to figure out that holy books should not be tossed into a garbage dump before setting fire to them? One should require special training to figure that Muslims – like other religious groups – don’t like their holy books to be desecrated particularly by soldiers who are occupying their lands, and who have an accumulated reputation for insensitivity to Islam and Muslims? One should require special training to know that provocative acts are provocative?
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. AIPAC’s clout helps fuel a never-ending cycle of violence in the Middle East.
Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous:
1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran.
2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law.
3. AIPAC’s call for unconditional support for the Israeli government threatens our national security.
4. AIPAC undermines American support for democracy movements in the Arab world.
5. AIPAC makes the U.S. a pariah at the UN.
6. AIPAC attacks politicians who question unconditional support of Israel.
7. AIPAC attempts to silence all criticism of Israel by labeling critics as “anti-Semitic,” “de-legitimizers” or “self-hating Jews.”
8. AIPAC feeds U.S. government officials a distorted view of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
9. AIPAC lobbies for billions of U.S. taxdollars to go to Israel instead of rebuilding America.
10. Money to Israel takes funds from world’s poor. Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, but thanks to AIPAC, it gets more U.S. taxdollars than any other country.
With the publication of his courageous new book, Why America Failed (John Wiley, 2012), Morris Berman has become one of the very first well-known, left-wing writers to acknowledge that not only is the American Empire in decline, but that it is completely unfixable. In Berman’s view there will be no rabbit pulled out of the hat at the eleventh hour to save the nation, because “the hat is coming apart at the seams.”
Unlike most of the liberal pundits such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Michael Parenti, Rachel Maddow, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Amy Goodman, Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, and Paul Krugman, to mention only a few, Berman has given up on America.
According to Berman the seeds of the Empire’s destruction were sewn in the sixteenth century by the early European settlers who were, above all, into “hustling” – looking out for number one. Ever since then, “hustling, materialism, and the pursuit of personal gain without regard for its effects on others” have provided the dominant theme of the American culture. He or she who dies with the most toys wins the game. Enough never seems to be quite enough.
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The U.S. government refused to grant a visa to National Union (far right) MK Michael Ben Ari, on the basis of his membership in a "terror organization."
Ben Ari recently submitted a request to the U.S. consulate for a visa, so he could take part in two conferences held in the United States this week, one aimed at encouraging aliyah to Israel.
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By Josh Ruebner Speaking before students at Northern Virginia Community College on February 13, President Obama unveiled his 2013 budget request, in which he proposed "some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn’t normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are." These budget cuts are unavoidable, the President argued, because "the truth is we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path." In a sad commentary on the misplaced priorities of the Obama Administration, however, these "tough choices" will affect the delivery of basic services to U.S. citizens while the Israeli military hits the jackpot at taxpayer expense. |
Creating Freedom - Part 1: The Lottery of Birth (Trailer) from Creating Freedom on Vimeo.
www.creatingfreedom.info
Featuring: Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva, Steven Pinker, Tony Benn, Michael Albert, George Monbiot, Nick Davies, Daniel Dennett, Bill Fletcher, Kathleen Taylor, and Jeff Schmidt.
From birth onwards our minds are a battleground of competing forces. The outcome of this battle determines the society we create. This is a film about the cultural, educational, and commercial forces that shape our identities, often in ways that limit both our personal and political freedom.
Produced & Directed by Raoul Martinez and Joshua van Praag
Conceived, Written & Edited by Raoul Martinez
Narrated by Nicholas Woodeson
Cinematography by Joshua van Praag
Original Music by Peter Raeburn
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"Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the “religious” claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago? Only a thousand years ago the Moors lived in Spain. Would this give the Moors of today the legal and moral right to invade the Iberian Peninsula, drive out its Spanish citizens, and then set up a new Moroccan nation … where Spain used to be, as the European zionists have done to our Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine?…"
Robert Fisk
The town of Sejnane, north-west of Tunis, witnessed, briefly, the existence of an "Islamic emirate" at the end of last year when around 200 Salafists took control, turned government buildings into prisons for "sinning" – in most cases for drinking alcohol – and beat inmates. A shop selling CDs of western songs in Arabic was set on fire and a self-proclaimed Islamist "judge" announced to the owner that "if you try once more to distract Muslims from the mosque, it will be your home and all those in it who will burn".
Women began to wear the niqab, men to grow beards and wear Afghan-style clothes. The government did nothing. Was the Ennahda Party supporting the Salafists?
Attacks on cinemas began shortly afterwards, the owner of Nessma TV, Nabil Karoui, put on trial for showing Persepolis – about the reactions of a young girl growing up in the 1979 Iranian revolution – a film deemed "contrary to the values of the people". Two intellectuals were savagely beaten and 10,000 demonstrators marched through Tunis and other cities to protest at the increase of extremism.
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Pastor Chuck Kopp examines a wall spray-painted with the hateful messages “Price tag,” “we will crucify you,” “Jesus is dead” and “death to Christianity.”
“Jesus is the son of a whore,” “we will crucify you,” “Jesus is dead” and “death to Christianity” were the messages left behind by vandals who attacked the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in West Jerusalem today. The tires of several cars parked in the compound were slashed as well.
Johnny Rotten’s racism does not represent the core vaules of punk rock.
“If Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”
These words weren’t spoken by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. They didn’t crawl from the bile of AIPAC, Newt Gingrich or some hardened, right-wing ideologue from the heart of the Israel’s illegal settlements. They came from the mouth of John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols.
Most devotees of punk rock stopped taking Lydon seriously well before he started shilling for Country Life butter. To be sure, any and all credibility he once had from his work with the Pistols, or, for that matter, later on with Public Image Ltd (PiL), flew out the window years ago.
According to Haaretz, this machine is also used in Bethlehem checkpoint and I assume in many of the "privatized" checkpoints, where the state decided to outsource the managing of the checkpoint to private ‘"security" companies in order to "civilianize" the checkpoints, another failed attempt to whitewash the occupation.
If you check the pictures carefully you can see clearly a small box connected to the tubes with unknown material, which is believed to be, as International workers told Haaretz, "nausea-inducing chemicals."
When we got back to the car, there was a slight strange smell and we felt slightly dizzy, we were not sure if this is our "wild imagination" or is it something that was sprayed into the car.
I suggest to human rights organizations, to take the initiative and obtain a sample of the material being used, and examine it. I’m almost sure it will include prohibited materials, tested on Palestinians first, to be then marketed to the world as a new technology from the "successful" Israeli military industry.
After Israel informed them of its intentions to demolish their homes, members of the Hardan family, in Al Fredees village, at the Mount Carmel north of the 1948 territories, started demolishing their own homes, east of the village, in order to avoid the unreasonable and excessive penalties and fines that would be imposed on them.The so-called Construction and Planning Committee claimed that the buildings were erected without construction permits, and that the constructions will be demolished, and the family will be forced to pay up to NIS 500.000 should family members refrain from demolishing their own homes at their own expense.
