Palestinian economy isn’t recovering thanks to Israel, but in spite of it

Haaretz
4 August 2009
Although the Shin Bet security services and the Israel Defense Forces agreed to ease pressure on the population, most of the internal checkpoints that Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered removed at the request of U.S. President Barack Obama administration, had already been slated for removal by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in response to pressure from former U.S. president George W. Bush.

Hamas: We Recognize Israel Within the 1967 Borders

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Hamas’ leader in exile Khaled Meshaal announced unambiguously the group’s recognition of Israel along the 1967 borders of international consensus, and promises not to impede negotiations for a final settlement.
---------------
Israel isn't going to like this a single bit! They thrive and prosper propagating the idea that Hamas wants to kill all the Jews!!

The face of Evil!

If evil could be described with words a picture will always describe it better...A settler's face( one of those who quickly moved into the house from which Palestinians were kicked out!)! click on the image to enlarge and enjoy!
Actually this is how I imagine the despicable human waste genocidal settler Yishai Kohen..

"Open Veins of Latin America"

Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
A book by Eduardo Galeano
A brief review here:
Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.
------------
It's the famous book that Chavez offered to President Obama...

TOWARD AN OPEN TOMB: The Crisis of Israeli Society

A book by Michel Warschawski

A brief review here:
Since the breakdown of the Oslo peace process in 2000 and the beginning of the second Intifada, conflict has escalated in Israel/Palestine and come to seem irreversible. The overwhelming power of the Israeli military has been unleashed against a largely defenseless population in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, driving Palestinians to despair and to desperate measures of retaliation. Michel Warschawski, has for many decades been active in building alliances of Jews and Palestinians to oppose the Israeli occupation. In this book, however, he focuses especially on the effects of the occupation on the occupiers—that is, on Israeli society—rather than its victims.

A review of Jean Bricmont's new book "HUMANITARIAN IMPERIALISM"

Using Human Rights to Sell War

Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a justification for intervention by the world's leading economic and military powers—above all, the United States—in countries that are vulnerable to their attacks. The criteria for such intervention have become more arbitrary and self-serving, and their form more destructive, from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the large parts of the left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention-discovering new “Hitlers” as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement on the model of Munich in 1938.

Noam Chomsky: "Come Over and Help Us": A History of R2P (The responsibility to protect)

Noam Chomsky address to the United Nations General Assembly Thematic Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, the United Nations, New York, 23 July 2009

"Throughout history, there have been a few principles of international affairs that apply quite generally. One is the maxim of Thucydides that the strong do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must. A corollary is what Ian Brownlie calls "the hegemonial approach to law-making": the voice of the powerful sets precedents."

Israelis Caught for Laundering US Tax Monies

(IsraelNN.com) Israeli police arrested seven Israeli and American citizens Monday on suspicion that they laundered tens of millions of dollars in U.S. tax dollars to Israeli bank accounts.

A "New Scientist" article : "Falling out of love with market myths"

They sold us a myth and we believed it, so let's not make the same mistake again (Image: Rex Features)

MY STORY starts with a theory that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher sold us. It is called "supply-side economics", and it claims that economic growth depends, first, on the rich (not the poor) being rewarded with tax cuts; and second, on markets being freed from regulation........

This is not the only false theory around. While bankers were busy promoting models of market success, research-based enterprises were equally hard at work promoting their own false model of "market failure" to justify government subsidies for their endeavours. They are, in my book, as culpable as the bankers. Let me explain why.

Former employees of Blackwater say its owner, Eric Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

A new start for Fatah?

Once-dominant in Palestinian politics, Fatah is now struggling to regroup in a long-delayed conference to be held inside the Palestinian territories. Can the movement make a new start?

Congratulations Yasmin

I received this email from Yasmin:
"Yasmin successfully obtained a position as legal advisor for an NGO in Cairo representing refugees. It is a highly respected, well known NGO."
-------------
I'm extremely pleased to hear this Yasmin...Please keep us informed...

Israel condemned over evictions

The US has led international condemnation of Israel after it evicted nine Palestinian families living in two houses in occupied East Jerusalem.
BBC News
----------
Condemnations are nice for sure but can you shove them where they belong? Thank you!

My husband and I were discussing this review and the question came up: why are Muslim immigrants in Europe so much more militant than Muslim immigrants here? There is racism and hostility towards them in both places. My husband said that Europe has a much stronger welfare system and that many immigrants get support from that but that here, they tend to work (often owning small businesses) and therefore must assimilate into society to make in order to succeed. What does everyone think? I noticed that in the articles, the immigrants in Europe were called guests (even if second or third generation), whereas here, they are called Americans. We have so many other immigrants here, not predominantly Muslim, as in Europe. I think that has something to do with it also. Do we have a more benevolent view towards immigrants here? That they are nobly working hard towards the American dream and all that? Living in NYC, which is largely immigrants, I may not have the most accurate pulse of the nation's views. The US has always encouraged (or taught in schools) assimilation, perhaps that's part of it as well.

Qaeda tells Obama conditional truce offer stands

The "fair offers" bin Laden had made to the United States and European nations were meant "for them to stop their aggression against Muslims and start a relationship that is based on interests instead of oppression and looting,"

As blockade bites deep, more Gaza children must work

Sadly, Jihad and Zaher are not alone. Children can be seen on Gaza City's other street corners, selling in front of stores or to passing cars. Other children sell tea, coffee or tissues at the Jundi al-Majhoul public garden in the al-Rimal district. All of them work to help their families.
-----------
Why don't they just give up? Tsk, tsk...

Using the UN to undermine Palestinian rights

Yet Solana clearly angered Israel by daring to make such a proposal. Israel is not used to being surprised, and normally the big powers consult it before making any major statements about the Middle East situation. This time it seems Solana did not seek the proper Israeli permission. Yet the Israeli anger itself seemed to give added credence to the idea that Solana must have said something significant.

Palestinians in Israel forced to study Zionist anthem

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 28 July 2009

Amnesty urged to reject "tainted" funds from Leonard Cohen concert

Night invasions in Bilin

Over the last few weeks, the residents of Bilin have been subjected to constant night raids by the Israeli military, in retaliation to their weekly nonviolent demonstrations
------------
Let's be fair here!! They didn't behead anyone! They just wanted to crush them, annihilate them, take their lands, their farms, their livelihoods and their WHOLE country!! We don't behead like the backward animals that you are! We're far more humane here!

Why Obama's peace process is still going nowhere

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 30 July 2009

Bolivia bans all circus animals - New law defines use of animals in circus an act of cruelty.

This is the first law of its kind anywhere in the world

An Indian court issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of the former head of the American chemical company responsible for the death of 10000

Have mercy...He didn't behead anyone (sarcasm, just in case!)!!

Former Iranian president Khatami has denounced the trial of around 100 people accused of rioting in the wake of the country's disputed elections

A gunman sprayed automatic fire at an Israeli club for gay teenagers on Saturday, killing two people and wounding at least eight

True, he didn't behead anyone, he just blew their heads off with a machine gun!!Much nicer!

US troops now a 'coalition of one' in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The war in Iraq was truly an American-only effort Saturday after Britain and Australia, the last of its international partners, pulled out.

Palestinian homes for sale

Israel evicts Palestinian families who've been living in their East Jerusalem home since 1956 to build a hotel.

Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera's correspondent in East Jerusalem, said: "According to the Hanoun family, the members that I have spoken to, at about 6am as they were sleeping inside the house, Israeli police officers broke in and we can see the shattered glass all over the floor outside.

Map of most(and least) religious countries in the world

Note that the country which has occupied and gulped most of another country in the name of a frigging god of the Old Testament is rated just average.

"I saw a bumper sticker today that said "When religion ruled the world, they called it the Dark Ages"

Imagine If All Atheists Left America

--------------
It's a mistake to include Englishmen Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins..

Wisconsin man who prayed for his 11-year-old daughter instead of seeking medical care was found guilty Saturday of second-degree reckless homicide.

Man did not take child to hospital even though she couldn't walk, talk, eat.
---------------
To his "credit" though, he didn't behead anyone (sarcasm, just in case!)..

The big lie of Afghanistan

By Malalai Joya

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

I wonder if I had been born in her place, that I would be as brave as Joya.

This is a big deal

Imagine, for a moment, how it might sound to turn on the news one day and hear that the head of the A.C.L.U. had vanished from his home in the predawn hours. Or, think how America might be different today if a pesky young Thurgood Marshall had been silenced using an obscure tax rule and kept out of the courts.

At around 5 A.M. on Wednesday, Chinese authorities visited the home of Xu Zhiyong, a prominent legal scholar and elected legislator in Beijing, and led him away. He has not been heard from again. Unless something changes, he is likely to stay away for a long time, with or without formal charges. Anyone with an interest in China, its economy, its place in the world, or the kind of future it will fashion, please take note: This is a big deal.

Of course As'ad would never post anything like this. Can anyone tell me why, on the left, supporting freedom for Tibet is not as cool as supporting freedom for Palestine?

The Big Question, with Stephen Hawking : A documentary

Series in which prominent scientists discuss how the latest theories shed light on questions that have baffled mankind for millennia. Physicist Stephen Hawking kicks off with an analysis of current thinking on the origin of the universe, revealing how the 'big bang' came to be accepted as the most likely explanation.

And while we're at it

A conversation with Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Martin Rees and Lisa Randal

A conversation with Martin Rees, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge about Stephen Hawking and his work. A conversation with Dr. Stephen Hawking & Lucy Hawking. They discuss their book George's Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure story about two children who find a sort of computer portal through which they can slip into the solar system and beyond.

Testing times for Wikipedia after doctor posts secrets of the Rorschach inkblots

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has become embroiled in a bitter row with psychologists after a Canadian doctor posted answers to controversial tests on the site.

Who's responsible for the Arab world?

A UN report has reignited the controversy over who is to blame for the sorry state of the Arab world: Arabs or the west?

First, the good news. Arab countries have the lowest levels of malnutrition and hunger in the developing world, have made "striking progress" in extending the lives of their citizens, abject poverty is comparatively low and, surprisingly (for me at least), levels of income inequality are moderate across most of the region. These are some of the few silver linings contained in the latest disillusioning and disturbing Arab Human Development Report.

U.S. troops accused of damaging Babylon's ancient wonder

The U.S. military did major damage to the site of one of the wonders of the ancient world while converting it into a base, the United Nations said in a new report.

The site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was converted into Camp Alpha shortly after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

War and Lies - Governments Lie, We Die

A look at the lies and propaganda used to start and maintain wars. From WWI up to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, soldiers have been duped into believing they are fighting for a "good" cause. Yet, as the wars have all been based on lies, all soldiers who have died have died needlessly. And of the ones who return, many are seriously ill from exposure to chemical and biological hazards, on top of being injected with multiple experimental and dangerous vaccines - the military are used as guinea pigs then kicked to the kerb by their government who then lie and coverup the issue.

North Jersey: epicenter of 'Kosher Nostra' and Mossad activity

The recent rolling up of a Syrian Jewish criminal syndicate that was involved in buying off local elected and appointed government officials in north Jersey is but one in a long series of law enforcement operations directed, sometimes unsuccessfully due to the immense power of the Israel Lobby in the United States, against Jewish criminal networks in the New Jersey-New York region. These criminal networks also have one important thing in common: close connections to Israeli politicians and businessmen.

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire

And Ten Steps to Take to Do So

by Chalmers Johnson

However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Speaks from Nicaraguan Border on Who’s Behind the Coup,

With Amy Goodman (Democracy Now)
“I think the United States is going to lose a great deal of influence in Latin America if it does not turn the coup d’état around,” Zeleya says. “It will not be able to put forth its idea about democracy. It won’t be credible before anyone.”

Naomi Klein:What might the world look like if the bailout works? Like Sarah Palin

The US bailout is a robbery in progress, the greatest heist in monetary history. But consider for a moment: what if it actually works, what if the financial sector is saved and the economy returns to the course it was on before the crisis struck? Is that what we want? And what would that world look like?

Gaza children shatter world record

It was an unlikely place to shatter a world record, but the beaches of the Gaza Strip were the venue for thousands of Palestinian children who flew the largest number of kites simultaneously from the same place.

Did the PLO die in Lebanon?

Al Jazeera's six-part series on the history of the PLO tells the turbulent story of the Palestinian struggle for a national home.

In the following account, Spencer Osberg looks at the role the PLO played in the Lebanese Civil War and how the events of those years shaped the Palestinian resistance movement.

UN: Sharp rise in Afghan deaths

The civilian death toll in Afghanistan has risen by 24 per cent this year, the United Nations has said.

In a new report released on Friday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) blamed bombings by the Taliban and air raids by international forces for the majority of the killings.

Israel admits white phosphorus use

"The admission came in a 163-page document published by the Israeli foreign ministry on Thursday ahead of a UN report next week.
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli army had initially denied using white phosphorus, a chemical agent that causes severe burns."

Israel to allow cement into Gaza. (Thanks Israel, now can you be kind enough to let the Gaza people have some food?)

Israel has authorised a one-off shipment of hundreds of tonnes of cement and building materials to the heavily embargoed Gaza Strip.
It is the first official transfer of such goods since Israel's operation early this year in the coastal enclave.

Many Gazan buildings damaged during the offensive have not been rebuilt because of a shortage of building materials.
----------
It's a "one-off shipment"!! Is that not nice?

One of their "mischievous acts" was to test how long a Palestinian who was being choked could survive without breathing.

Something bad is happening to us

Haaretz

"Three years ago, the CBS television network broadcast photos of American soldiers abusing prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The horrifying pictures led to the trials of eight soldiers, dismissals and a storm of outrage in America. At the trial of one prison guard, who was sentenced to eight years in jail, a psychologist gave his evaluation: that the man was an entirely ordinary person, without any particular violent tendencies, who served as a guard for many years in civilian life but never behaved sadistically toward American prisoners. The situation of occupier and occupied, as opposed to that of citizen versus citizen, causes ordinary people to become violent and lose restraint. At Abu Ghraib, the trial found, there was institutionalized contempt at every level. The prison guards understood that "this is the way to behave here."

10,000 Uighurs disappeared during unrest in China, exiled leader claims

Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, today claimed that almost 10,000 Uighurs had "disappeared" during ethnic unrest in China's north-western region of Xinjiang earlier this month and called on the international community to launch an inquiry.

Speaking during a controversial visit to Japan, Kadeer said Chinese authorities had used undercover "snatch squads" to target Uighurs during clashes between Uighur and Han Chinese in the city of Urumqi on 5 July.

Censored or Vandalized? Nude Angel Covered Up at French Cathedral

Three fervent Catholics were arrested early Sunday morning for defacing works of art displayed on the Cathedral of Montauban in southwestern France. Footage from surveillance cameras shows a man and two women armed with a brush, glue, and newspaper covering over a large-scale drawing of a nude female angel (pictured right) by contemporary artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest.

Bribery and fraud at heart of defense contracting work in Iraq and Afghanistan

WMR has learned from a knowledgeable contractor who served in Iraq and Afghanistan that a number of large U.S. defense contractors have been involved in questionable deals to land major contracts in countries that made up the "Coalition of the Willing" that invaded and occupied Iraq.

Israel Plays Key Role in N.J. Corruption Case, But Holds Off on Own Probe

Tel Aviv, Israel — Israel plays a prominent role in the charges of money laundering and human organ black marketing that have swept five rabbis into a New Jersey federal corruption investigation.

Among other things, Israeli banks were allegedly key transit points for the money laundering operation, which also involved charities closely linked to Israel’s Shas party, a powerful Sephardic political faction that is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. The rabbis accused of laundering money were allegedly told that it came from sales of knockoff products labeled as legitimate brands and from other illicit activities.

Suicide 'epidemic' among Japan's elderly

With its population ageing faster than any other country, Japan is faced with a dramatic rise in the number of suicidal and depressed elderly.
"We do not want to be a burden on our families. We have been through a lot, and we are not afraid of death."

Beautiful presentation of photographs of Palestine. Really worth seeing if you have never been.

Rabbi Ovadia describes US president as "a slave" ruling the world

"Rabbi Ovadia Yosef , spiritual head of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party which forms part of Israel’s ruling coalition, criticized US president Barack Obama on Saturday describing him as "a slave" who rules the world and who wants to control Israeli policy when it comes to building in occupied Jerusalem. In his weekly sermon, Yosef protested that "American insidiousness tells us to build here and not to build there as though we were slaves working for them" then he adds that "We live in a time when slaves are governing us and are trying to control us" refusing the US administration request to stop illegal settlement building on Palestinian occupied territories."

Some things never change

My grandfather wrote this in 1935: "181 millionaires were made while the vets were being blown to bits defending their profits." and this: "26 millionaires were made last year. 16 million haven't enough food, clothing or shelter to maintain a decent standard of living."

"The best place one could be on Earth" Alice Walker

Last March, poet, novelist and feminist Alice Walker joined a delegation organized by Code Pink, to travel to the Gaza Strip just weeks after the 22-day Israeli bombardment and invasion. Walker, globally acclaimed for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, had also traveled to Rwanda, Eastern Congo and other places where she witnessed cruel and barbaric behavior that left her speechless. In an essay on her blog entitled "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel," Walker recounts the stories of the people she met, and offers a lyrical analysis that ties their oppression and struggles to what she and her community experienced growing up in the violence and fear of the segregated American South. The excerpt below begins with her arrival in Gaza after a long overland journey through Egypt.

Coming "home" to Gaza

Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming. There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the Bantustan. To the "rez." To the "colored section." In some ways it is surprisingly comforting. Because consciousness is comforting. Everyone you see has an awareness of struggle, of resistance, just as you do. The man driving the donkey cart. The woman selling vegetables. The young person arranging rugs on the sidewalk or flowers in a vase. When I lived in segregated Eatonton, Georgia I used to breathe normally only in my own neighborhood, only in the black section of town. Everywhere else was too dangerous. A friend was beaten and thrown in prison for helping a white girl, in broad daylight, fix her bicycle chain.

Book review: "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide"

Raymond Deane, The Electronic Intifada, 27 July 2009

In a burst of uncharacteristic honesty, the then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert asserted in 2007 that "[m]ore and more Palestinians ... want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one ... That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle - and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state."

The apartheid paradigm here fearfully evoked by Olmert has crept slowly but surely into mainstream political discourse on the Palestine issue, but is still avoided by many who are otherwise supportive of the Palestinian cause.

Lies and Israel's war crimes

Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, 28 July 2009
This month marked six months since the "official" conclusion to Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, "Operation Cast Lead." From 27 December to 18 January, the might of the one of the world's strongest militaries laid waste to a densely-packed territory of 1.4 million Palestinians without an escape route.

The parallel propaganda battle fought by Israel's official and unofficial apologists continued after the ceasefire, in a desperate struggle to combat the repeated reports by human rights groups of breaches of international law. This article will look at some of the strategies of this campaign of disinformation, confusion, and lies -- and the reality of Israel's war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Very early on in Operation Cast Lead, the scale of Israel's attack became apparent. In just the first six days the Israeli Air Force carried out more than 500 sorties against targets in the Gaza Strip. That amounted to an attack from the air roughly every 18 minutes -- not counting hundreds of helicopter attacks, tank and navy shelling, and infantry raids. All of this on a territory similar in size to the US city of Seattle.

They care

The Angry Arab

"The Victims of Iranian Censorship (VOICE) Act was introduced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Robert Casey (D-PA) as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. Among the key features of the VOICE Act:" (thanks Navid)

The best puppet your money can buy

From the Angry Arab
"The prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, says an Iraqi officer was wrong to order American soldiers detained after they killed three Iraqis while going after insurgents. In an interview published Sunday in The Washington Post, al-Maliki said the Iraqi officer was "out of line" and "did not understand the agreement" that governs the U.S. military since the withdrawal last month of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities. Al-Maliki said he called Baghdad and "made clear that they understand that this demand of handing over the people who killed the Iraqis is wrong."" Don't be surprised if Maliki awarded the offending US soldiers the highest Iraqi medals for bravery.

Executives Receive One-Third of All Pay in the U.S.

Between 1979 and 2006, the inflation-adjusted after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households increased by 256 percent.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data, more than one-third of all pay in the U.S. now goes to executives and other highly-paid employees:
------------------
Makes me think! I should be paid to do what I'm doing here on the blog! Peanuts will do just fine, thanks!

Queen Rania describes Hell on Earth

-------------
Well, true your Majesty..Now what is his somewhat big, fat Majesty your hubby doing about it?

Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression

By Chris Hedges

Anthony Vasquez, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, worked at FedEx Kinkos for about two years. His store’s slogan was: “Yes we can.”

“It meant that if a customer asked us to do a job for them, no matter what it was, we were to say ‘Yes we can!’ ” he said.

Posters of the slogan were posted on telephones and in the backroom. Corporate auditors enforced the slogan by “Yes we can” call audits. Employees would be punished as a group for failures, and individuals could be fired. Other slogans at the Santa Cruz, Calif., FedEx Kinkos included “Winning by engaging the hearts and minds of every team member” and “I promise to make every FedEx experience outstanding.”

Settlers annex 40 Dunams of Palestinian lands/Settlers take over a Palestinian owned house in East Jerusalem

A group of Israeli settlers attacked and took over on Sunday afternoon a Palestinian owned house in East Jerusalem, while police provided them with protection and kidnapped 12 activists who tried to stop the attack.
AND:

SETTLERS ANNEX 40 DUNAMS OF PALESTINIAN LANDS IN NABLUS

Dozens of armed extremist Israeli settlers, enjoying Israeli army protection, illegally annexed on Friday morning 40 Dunams of Palestinian lands south of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Abu Sharif: Israeli Mosad poisoned Arafat through his medications

The Al Dostour Jordanian newspaper reported that Bassam Abu Sharif, the former advisor of the late Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, revealed new information regarding the assassination of Arafat.

Abu Sharif said that Arafat was poisoned by Israel, without any help from any Palestinian party, and slammed the statements of Farouq Qaddoumi, who claimed that the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, was involved in the death of Arafat.

Israel asks Holland to stop funding Breaking the Silence

Israeli group “Breaking The Silence” issued a report accusing Israel’s Foreign Ministry of endangering democracy after Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published a report stating that the ministry had asked Holland to freeze funds to the group.

Bendib

Review in the New York Times

From the Angry Arab:

"The reviewer says this about a book that vomits an ideology of hostility against Muslim immigrants: "Bawer is unquestionably correct, and that fact is quite simply ­terrifying."

Khumayni versus Sadat

Here, Thomas Friedman does what he does best: offers a silly and very unintelligent cliche about the Middle East, typically reduced to his redundant dualities expressed in English of 8th graders. "Sadat argued that the future should bury the past and that Arabs and Muslims should build their future based on peace with Israel, integration with the West and embracing modernity. Khomeini argued that the past should bury the future and that Persians and Muslims should build their future on hostility to Israel, isolation from the West and subordinating modernity to a puritanical Islam." But here is the problem: what if you are an Arab or an Iranian who cares about democracy and human rights? Both Khumayni and Sadat were enemies of human rights and democracy. And Friedman does not know that Sadat unleashed the Muslim fundamentalists, just as Khumayni did.
From the Angry Arab

Racism Today

Amy Goodman
"W.E.B. Du Bois' classic 1903 work "The Souls of Black Folk" opens with "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." Du Bois helped form the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., who directs Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, knows much about the color line -- not only from his life's work, but from life experience, including last week, when he was arrested in his own home.
Gates' lawyer, Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree, said in a statement that the arrest occurred as Gates returned from the airport:"
Zcommunication

The Machine in Our Heads

Glenn Parton

"The solution to the global environmental crisis we face today depends far less on the dissemination of new information than it does on the re-emergence into consciousness of old ideas. Primitive ideas or tribal ideas, kinship, solidarity, community, direct democracy, diversity, harmony with nature provide the framework or foundation of any rational or sane society. Today, these primal ideas, gifts of our ancestral heritage, are blocked from entering consciousness. The vast majority of modern people cannot see the basic truths that our ancient ancestors knew and that we must know again, about living within the balance of nature. We are lost in endless political debates, scientific research, and compromises because what is self-evident to the primitive mind has been forgotten."

The Good Society

By Paul Brodie
Any society is a whole of inter-related parts. We can usefully theorize these parts as an economic sphere, a kinship sphere, a political sphere and a community/culture sphere. Envisioning The Good Society is therefore the task of envisioning a set of desirable, liberatory and workable institutions in each of these spheres that create conditions amenable to the fullest satisfaction and development of diverse human potentials. Abstaining from proposing alternatives is only to guarantee that dominant and oppressive relations continue - precisely for want of structural alternatives.
Zcommunication

Capitalism's ecological footprint condemns South to poverty

The expansion of capitalism is destroying the planet and placing the future of people in the South in jeopardy, writes Samir Amin in this week’s edition of Pambazuka News. Consumption levels in Europe, North America and Japan are four times higher than the per capita global average, a figure which already outstrips the earth’s ecological carrying capacity. If this pattern continues, says Amin, its logical conclusion is ‘either the actual genocide of the peoples of the South – as "over-population" – or at least keeping them in ever increasing poverty.

Aid dependence and the MDG(Meeting the Millennium Development Goals)

The present focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has reignited the debate on the need for more aid to developing countries to help them meet the MDGs by 2015. However, this has inevitably rekindled the parallel debate as to whether more aid is really the answer. Will extra money simply shore up inefficient governments and feed government corruption? One response to this is to say we must bypass government and make money available directly to NGOs and other organizations. At the same time, others claim that what is needed is not more aid, but a fundamental transformation of international power relationships, especially reform of international trade and finance rules to allow African and other developing countries to sell their goods and services at a fair price.

Joe Glenton - Serving Soldier refusing to return to Afghanistan London July 23 2009

Serving soldier Joe Glenton speaks about why he thinks the war in Afghanistan is wrong and why he's not going back.

Gaza artist, survivor finds power in paint

Palestinian artist Ziad Deeb next to an image that he made of his family members killed during Israel's attacks on Gaza last winter.

From the entrance of the house, one can observe the whole tragedy. On 6 January 2009, an Israeli artillery shell landed in the front yard of the Deeb family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip. A large, wide hole in the ground and two missing walls are all that remain. Sitting in his wheelchair in the corner, Ziad, 22, is the last survivor of the Deeb family. He lost both legs during the attack, and 10 relatives were killed including his father, grandmother, brothers, nieces and nephews.

Leftist Israeli intellectuals demand new Gaza war probe

The Angry Arab's comment:
Amos Oz and the rest of the gang of Zionist hypocrisy
A group of Israeli leftist poseurs are now claiming to demand an investigation into "allegations" of war crimes in the Israeli assault on Gaza. It is sufficient to read the name of Amos Oz to smell hypocrisy. Here is a man who always want to have it both ways: he always, ALWAYS, supports every Israeli murder, assault, invasion, war, occupation, but then pretend to oppose "certain excesses" when a large number of people are killed. If there is a personification of the rottenness of Zionism, it is Amos Oz.

Israeli officer promotes war crimes at Harvard

On 9 July Harvard University's Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) invited Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, former Israeli military legal adviser, to their online Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum. The stated aim was to bring "objective" discussion to the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, or what the forum organizers called "combat in civilian population centers and the failure of fighters to distinguish themselves from the civilian population.
Electronic Intifada

Ousted Honduran president says to return home this weekend

·Zelaya said on Thursday he will enter Honduran territory on Saturday or Sunday.
·"We will go slow, inviting Hondurans to join in to form a strong contingent," said Zelaya.
·"I am not afraid, and I am aware of the threats that once I arrive I will be shot dead," he said.

Two Gaza brothers celebrate wedding on family's debris

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip, July 22 (Xinhua) -- In a bid to challenge the hard economic and social conditions, a Palestinian family on Wednesday night celebrated its two sons' wedding on the debris of their destroyed home in northern Gaza Strip.

The multi-storey construction of the al-Za'anin family in the town of Beit Hanoun was destroyed in an Israeli air raid during a 22-day Israeli military offensive that ended on Jan. 18. Thousands of houses were destroyed, and tens of thousands became homeless.

Iran: Tweets, lies and videotape

"Below, a compilation of rumors and falsehoods—cross-checked as exhaustively as time and resources allowed—that expanded the cloud of disinformation during the post-election protests in Iran. You don’t just kill the truth when you report or forward unsubstantiated, unverified, unconfirmed and dangerously overblown rumors on a green-tinted avatar: you put protesters’ lives in danger and jeopardize their efforts."

Vanunu's Message to Hillary Clinton re: The Apartheid Wall

Just weeks after his FREEDOM OF SPEECH TRIAL began the whistle blower of Israel's underground WMD Facility sent this message to Senator Clinton and USA Christians re: The Apartheid Wall and The Bombs. Excerpted from "30 Minutes with Vanunu" freely streaming @ WeAreWideAwake

Pink Floyd - Time (rare)

-----------
Pink Floyd live in 1972. "One of the best guitar solo I´ve ever heard" says the caption. Judge for yourself.

Fight Facebook

Facebook has recently agreed to change their position and take a position on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. They agreed to the request of a group of Israeli right-wingers to be able to select Israel as an option for those who live in the West Bank Jewish Colonies. Haaretz daily newspaper quoted Brandee Barker, Facebook''s director of communications, saying, " ''Facebook users in the Israeli West Bank settlements of Maale Adumim, Beitar Illit, and Ariel can now choose between Israel and Palestine,'' Barker said last week in an email to Reuters. We also offer Hebron in both Israel and Palestine," Barker said, referring to the major West Bank city which is home to about 150,000 Palestinians and some 400 Israelis."

Fight For Palestine/Voices for Palestine
-----------
We should all sign this petition. One has the option of not having his name displayed.

A surprising award from politically-correct Germany to a wonderful human being

"GERMANY BESTOWS HIGHEST HONOR ON FANATICAL ISRAEL HATER

07.19.2009 | San Francisco Sentinal
BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

BERLIN - Horst Köhler, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, issued on Thursday the ‘Federal Cross of Merit, first class,’ the most prestigious award in Germany, to Israeli attorney Felicia Langer, a vociferous critic of Israel, who lives in the city of Tübingen in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg.

Langer frequently compares Israel with apartheid in South Africa, and praised the anti-Semitic speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva at the Durban II UN conference on racism. When asked about the award and her comparison between Israel and South African apartheid, she told the Jerusalem Post that the Federal Cross of Merit is a “recognition of my work,” and “what Israel is practicing in the occupied territories is apartheid.”
(Thanks DancingOpossum)

Israelis don't pay price for injustice of occupation

07.19.2009 | Haaretz
By Gideon Levy

Really, who needs all this? The U.S. president is devoting a considerable amount of his precious time and goodwill trying to be persuasive about the need to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Europeans are ready to act, half the world is waiting, but let’s admit the truth: Why all the commotion about us? The settlers might scream and block highway intersections. The Israel Defense Forces would become less important and the news could actually become boring. The vineyard in the Golan Heights is liable to close, as might the boutique winery in the settlement of Ofra.

'Jerusalem-born boy's passport can't say Israel'

07.19.2009 | Jerusalem Post
NEW YORK - Parents of a Jerusalem-born American boy who want “Israel” listed as their son’s country of birth on his passport have been dealt another blow with the dismissal of their case by a US court of appeals.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, on July 10 upheld a lower court’s decision that the courts lack jurisdiction in the matter because foreign policy - including the recognition of foreign governments - belongs exclusively in the domain of the executive branch. According to the State Department, US passports for those born in Jerusalem do not list a country because doing so would interfere with and pre-judge Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Israel leaves the inhabitants of the West bank thirsty

19.07.2009 | Rabbis For Human Rights

Join us in a protest against the water shortages caused by the occupation

Dry water taps – no water for drinking or bathing, many months during the summer heat. Since March this is the situation of many families in the villages Qarawat Bani Zayed, Kufr ‘Ein, Ramani & Nabi Salah, 15,000 people. In the same time, these Palestinian villagers can see beyond the settlements’ fences a different situation. They see green lawns and sprinklers irrigating the whole day. A similar situation exsists in many other parts of the West Bank.

New era as British hostility reaches crescendo

07.20.2009 | Jerusalem Post
By ROBIN SHEPHERD

It has been a terrible month for Israel’s reputation in Great Britain. The government has announced a partial arms embargo in protest of Operation Cast Lead. The Charity War on Want has held a launch event for a new book entitled Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide. The Guardian has featured commentaries promoting the apartheid analogy as well as accusing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of using Nazi language to defend settlement policy. The BBC and other media outlets have given massive coverage to the recent Breaking the Silence report slamming the IDF for committing “war crimes.” Barely a day goes by without a new front being opened against the Jewish state. Ismail Haniyeh, right, hands…

The UNSC's responsibility for Middle East peace

07.22.2009 | Haaretz
By Henry Siegman

The international community may finally be beginning to register the utter futility of decades-long expectations that an Israeli government would agree to a fair and workable peace agreement, one that would end the four-decade subjugation and denial of the Palestinian people’s national and individual rights.

One hopes that is the significance of the proposal by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who suggested that the UN Security Council assume responsibility for establishing a Palestinian state by a certain deadline if the parties have not reached an agreement. The Security Council would then set the borders of Israel and a new Palestinian state, and formulate parameters to resolve the other permanent status issues - Jerusalem, refugees and security.

On Simon Wiesenthal: The head Nazi-hunter’s trail of lies

Times online

Simon Wiesenthal, famed for his pursuit of justice, caught fewer war criminals than he claimed and fabricated much of his own Holocaust story:

Since the early 1960s Simon Wiesenthal’s name has become synonymous with Nazi hunting. His standing is that of a secular saint. Nominated four times for the Nobel peace prize, the recipient of a British honorary knighthood, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the French Légion d’honneur and at least 53 other distinctions, he was often credited with some 1,100 Nazi “scalps”. He is remembered, above all, for his efforts to track down Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious war criminals.
-----------
The Angry Arab's comment:
"Not in the US press: the lies of Simon Wiesenthal
The lies of Simon Wisenthal: (but his staunch and unconditional support for Israeli wars and aggression, make his lies acceptable in the US press). Centers are named after him in the US. (thanks Shakib)"

Twitterers Paid To Spread Israeli Propaganda

By Jonathan Cook

21 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org
"In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said. “They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”
-----------
A nation founded on deception and deceit!

The Dawkins dogma

"THE notion of the "selfish gene" is the most successful scientific metaphor of the past 30 years, followed not far behind by "the extended phenotype". Both were coined by Richard Dawkins and are, as it happens, the titles of his first popular science books."

"For reasons to do with how science is communicated, a human love of simple narratives, and Dawkins' energetic advocacy of these metaphors, the public has been left with a view of evolution and Darwinism which does not truly reflect thinking among evolutionary biologists. This view also perpetuates the existence of "opposing camps" when there is no need. Worse, it skews popular notions of Darwinism. This is why these metaphors are so important: metaphors stretch to the heart of "what science is for" and to the kind of answers it can provide."
New Scietist

Window on the body: CT scans become art

Radiologist Kai-hung Fung makes beautiful and informative art from the CT (computed tomography) scans of his patients, digitally manipulating them to look more appealing. His image of the inside of our sinuses won the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. See this and some of his more recent works in our gallery.
New Scientist

Netanyahu rejects US demand to stop settlements in Jerusalem

Ramallah, July 19, 2009, (Ramattan)- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Sunday an American demand to stop construction in the occupied East Jerusalem.
"Our sovereignty in Jerusalem is indisputable," Netanyahu said during the weekly cabinet meeting, "We can't agree to such a demand in East Jerusalem."
The U.S. State Department summoned the Ambassador of Israeli in Washington Michael Oren over the weekend, and told him that building housing units in East Jerusalem should be halted, Israel Radio and Army Radio reported.

Israel arrested 12,000 Palestinian women since 1967

Ramallah, July 18, 2009, (Ramattan)- Palestinian local report Saturday revealed that the Israeli Occupation Forces arrested 12,000 Palestinian women since the occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory in 1967.

Kooky conspiracy theories

Some Middle East media are falling victims to kooky conspiracy theories regarding the landing on the moon. They are confused: yes, Richard Nixon discussed the possibility of faking a moon landing but that was before the actual landing on the moon.
(The Angry Arab)

China’s Porcelain Empire

Remember when China was supposed to be the next up-and-coming superpower? With a fifth of the world’s population, a totalitarian regime seemingly secure, and a well-earned reputation as a rising industrial powerhouse, "Red" China has long been one of the War Party’s favorite bogeymen. When all else failed, in the post-cold war world, and the supply of potential enemies seemed exhausted, they just hauled out the Chinese scarecrow to scare the doves away.
Antiwar.com