Poetic tribute to the children of Gaza

A lovely poetic tribute to the children of Gaza by Indian poet, Musab Iqbal:

For an unnamed girl in Gaza
_____
There is hope
Yes, there is hope

There is light
Yes, there is light

In the cornered center of the map
Pushed to wall of Mediterranean
A city still breathes.

A city still fights
All streets still prefer to walk
Bazaar still sells in the drone rains.

In the drone rain
One strong girl, still fights back
With her blue umbrella of hope.

Her umbrella of hope
Filters darkness, stops ugly waves
Under the umbrella is the spiritual space.

That spiritual space
Gives life to dead philosophers
Bless poets with composed couplets.

Those couplets are
All for her, like the Rumi’s rose
All for the wandering Shams.

Yes, there is hope
Yes, there is light
- 09 December 2012

Remembrance of Mustafa Tamimi

Every Friday, Palestinian residents of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh protest against the expansion of Halamish, the nearby Zionist settlement taken in a land grab of Palestinian lands in 1977. In 2009, the settlers fenced off a vital spring on land privately owned by Bashir Tamimi, a life-long resident of Nabi Saleh. Other residents of Nabi Saleh then began regular, weekly protests against the annexation of their farmland. From the beginning, they were committed to holding peaceful protests but were always met by Israeli soldiers using tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, & skunk bombs. Skunk bombs are a chemical weapon made of synthetic skunk liquid which smells like raw sewage. Like skunk spray, the odor is impossible to wash off. The Israeli military considers them non-lethal but their use can only be seen as racist & contemptuous of Palestinian dignity. The use of lethal weapons against unarmed Palestinians, however, is not a problem for Israeli soldiers.

Last December 11th, 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi (nephew of Bashir), a resident of Nabi Saleh protesting the land grab, died after an Israeli soldier shot him directly in the face with a tear gas canister. The canister blew off half his face & when other protestors reacted with horror, the Israeli soldiers laughed & taunted. To this day, the guilty soldier has not been charged with the murder of Mustafa. Meanwhile, Bassem Tamimi, a leader of the protests, has been arrested 12 times by Israeli soldiers & was once confined to administrative detention without trial. In March 2011, he was found guilty in an Israeli court of inciting youth to throw stones & holding a march without a permit.

Mustafa’s father, who passed away in October without seeing justice for his son, said: “Sometimes my wife & I can’t go to sleep & we stay awake the whole night crying & comforting one another. It’s not good to keep crying & mourning our son the martyr. I keep telling my wife we must be strong, this is a blessing, an honor to have a martyred son, but sometimes I feel like I don’t believe what I’m saying & my heart feels so heavy with grief.”

This post is to honor Mustafa Tamimi & all those who have given their lives in the fight for Palestinian justice. Regrettably, their names are legion. May they RIP. And may we honor them by vigilantly boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729) & demanding no US aid to Israel. (Photo credit to ActiveStills)

{It should be said that the photo of Mustafa’s face after the attack is too gruesome to post; it is best to honor him as he would prefer to be remembered.}

Associated Press tries to put “wipe Israel off the map” into Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s mouth

Electronic Intifada
After the Observer mistranslated a section from Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s speech during his historic visit to Gaza last week, to falsely insert the words “kill Jews,” a report from Josef Federman of the Associated Press (AP) includes this:

Making his first trip to the Hamas-ruled territory over the weekend, Mashaal delivered a series of speeches to throngs of supporters vowing to wipe Israel off the map.

Although Federman does not attribute the words directly to Meshaal, who did not say them, the phrase “wipe Israel off the map” is notorious and provocative since it is the phrase controversially attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and used to falsely claim that Ahmedinejad or Iran had threatened to attack Israel unprovoked to destroy it, which neither has ever done, or would do so if they had the chance.
The phrase has been used emotively by Israel and its propagandists to stir up war fever against Iran under the pretext of stopping Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. In no way can this phrase be seen as a neutral or descriptive term.
Read more

No US aid to Egypt!

This weekend, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt reversed most of the autocratic powers he allocated himself in a Nov. 22 decree--though he’s likely not making a move without consultation with Egypt’s military junta (SCAF) & the US Pentagon. He continues to defy democratic rule, however, by ramming through a Dec. 15 popular vote on a national constitution drafted by a rump constituent assembly after all liberal, feminist & human rights representatives walked out, leaving only conservative Islamists to vote. While the document contains no protections for human, democratic, women’s, or workers rights, it retains all the privileges of the military junta.

Mainstream media depicts the conflict over the draft constitution as one between Islamist & secularist forces. This is a false dichotomy & a political contrivance. The issue of separation of church & state is certainly involved but that dichotomy is by no means the heart of the problem. The proposed constitution exposes the relationship of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to the existing state institutions, particularly the military. This pernicious draft constitution keeps military prerogatives intact: a secretive budget, control over the Defense Ministry & national security decisions, & the right to try civilians in military courts. The generals can thank their lucky five-stars they’ve found a junior partner to manage political affairs & ensure military autonomy outside the purview of democratic oversight. This autonomy, of course, includes the malignant political & military relationship with the US Pentagon at the expense of the people of Egypt, Palestinians, & the other Arab uprisings.

What this document also solidifies, but without exposure, is the economic & political control of the neoliberal status quo established under Mubarak. The MB leadership includes multi-millionaire tycoons who favor neoliberal economic policies. With this proposed constitution, the domination of these tycoons & their oligarchic class is enforced at the expense of working people. So democracy will not be expanded, but diminished & economic prosperity will only adhere to the predatory class already rolling in greed & graft & dough.

It should be remembered the MB played a minor role in the ouster of Mubarak, refrained  from mobilization in the streets, collaborated with the junta, & only returned to the streets under pressure & for nefarious purpose. They hardly represent the majority of Egyptians since Morsi won by the skin of his teeth (with only a 51% majority). Morsi was the lesser of evils in an election where many feared SCAF would rig the vote in favor of General Ahmad Shafiq, the representative of counterrevolution. When SCAF later dissolved the MB-dominated parliament, Egyptians did not rise up to defend it because it didn’t represent them. It dealt in diddly-squat. Recently, MB offices around the country have been ransacked & firebombed--with no protests in their defense. Now the MB is denouncing democracy protests & inciting thugs to aid & abet riot cops in attacking & forcibly dispersing the thousands of protesters opposing Morsi’s anti-democratic maneuverings. The consequent violence has so far resulted in 8 deaths & over 700 injuries.

Morsi is calling for “dialogue” with opposition forces, by which he means sessions where  they sweet-talk or lay the law down to protest leaders. This weekend, by decree (& probably under SCAF orders) he gave the military powers to use force & arrest civilians, alongside police, until a constitution is passed (legally giving them powers akin to those of Obama’s NDAA which attempts to preempt & nullify the US Bill of Rights). SCAF issued an ominous warning on state radio & TV that can only be taken as a threat of violent repression, mass arrests, & terror: "Dialogue is the best & only way to reach consensus. The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe & that is something we will not allow." And again, “The nation as a whole will pay the price."

This is not the time for helter-skelter protests. SCAF means business & they’re backed by the full force of the US Pentagon. Since the overthrow of Mubarak nearly two years ago, there have been several attempts to form political coalitions to defend democracy. The most recent incarnation is the National Front for the Salvation of the Revolution led opportunistically by disreputable elements from the Mubarak regime like Amr Moussa & the hapless liberal, Mohamed El-Baradei. This has (quite understandably) led many activists, especially youth from anti-Morsi parties, to disassociate from the coalition. But the coalition includes over 35 organizations from the bewildering number of dozens of new parties formed after the 2011 ouster of Mubarak. Even more bewildering are their political perspectives. The groups include reactionaries & opportunists like Moussa, Nasserites, rogue tycoons, small business interests, liberals, socialists of every hue (including the stinking hues & those most discredited--keeping in mind the now defunct National Democratic Party of Mubarak was formally a member of the discredited Socialist International), but including the most visionary, democratic, & revolutionary forces (including principled socialists).

Often, out of expedience in the interests of political deception & maneuver, malignant political forces join the cause of justice. It’s Amr Moussa we’re referring to. In the interests of defending democracy against serious threat, you sometimes have to march with the devil himself without ever being hoodwinked or contaminated by such influence. This was a lesson learned most dramatically & violently in the fight against the emergence of fascism in Germany, when divided political forces allowed the forward march of fascism. In a less threatening way, this was learned in the US antiwar movement, when Democratic politicians rhetorically joined the antiwar movement.

Egyptian democracy activists have broken through barbed wire barricades around Morsi’s palace, spray-painted “Down with Morsi” on tanks, scrawled “Leave” in red letters across posters of Morsi’s face, & used the cement barricades as soapboxes.

Here a democracy, anti-Morsi protestor chants slogans on a newly erected barrier wall in front of soldiers guarding Morsi holed up inside his palace like a rat. The courage of this protestor is a wonder to behold; his courage a demand for solidarity: No US aid to Egypt!  (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

The Arab villages that were: a new Israeli guidebook

Haaretz
The guidebook offers 18 tours in various locales, including Palestinian villages that were evacuated in the late 1940s, most of which were destroyed. On the back of the book it says, "The tours lead to places that once existed, the remains of which we often encounter even if we do not know their meaning."
The book was published by Pardes Publications and Zochrot (an NGO which, according to its website, tries to explain to Jewish Israelis the significance of the Nakba, the "catastrophe" Palestinians suffered in 1948 with the creation of the state ). My tour followed the chapters on Ein Hod and Ein Hawd al-Jadida, written by Rachel Leah Jones, and the Carmel shore villages of Kafr Lam (Habonim ) and Dor/Tantura, written by Noga Kadman.

I'd visited these places before, but this time went in search of their Palestinian past - to see what remains of that past, which to me had been almost entirely transparent for decades. I looked for what could be found today of the villages that, 65 years ago, stood along the shore.
Regarding the book, let me say straightaway that its importance goes beyond the mere fact of its publication. It contains consistent, systematic historical documentation, with a clear political opinion, of a past we tend to ignore. Indeed, until this visit, I myself had missed the sheikh's tomb at Dor.
 Read more

In Honor of Titans

Palestinian women and children demonstrate on January 3, 1988 in Al-Ram in the West Bank.
(Photo: Esaias Baitel/AFP/Getty Images)

Mouin Rabbani (Mondoweiss)
In hindsight, the popular uprising that erupted in the occupied Palestinian territories on 9 December 1987 and continued for six grueling yet heroic years makes perfect sense. Scholars, analysts and activists have demonstrated how a variety of factors came together to ripen conditions for the eruption of mass protest and its development into a sustained and organized rebellion.

Sack nails it.

Sack for the Star Tribune.

Tribute to the martyrs of the Syrian uprising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNauJ8P1fDY

There is a very polarized debate about what is happening in Syria with opposing views about which side to be on. Most of us don’t have reliable or sufficient sources of information. Some support the Assad regime; some view the opposition militias, like the Free Syrian Army, as proxy armies for imperialist regimes; many argue a popular uprising against Assad was co-opted & became the current civil war, killing thousands, turning the country into rubble, & forcing millions to exile with no place to go. Much of the discussion is muddled by the predominance of libertarian conspiracy theorists, like Global Research.

Ironically, there is probably no more videotaped uprising than in Syria, with thousands of videos documenting the popular uprising against the Assad regime & the regime’s extreme violence against it. That documentation makes it irefutable there was a popular uprising as part of the so-called Arab Spring. But that uprising has been decisively crushed & has become a civil war with the unmistakable signs of proxy intervention by the US & other malignant regimes.

A poliical observer said, “The situation in Syria is extremely bad; so bad that I can only conceive of one thing that could make it worse, the intervention of imperialist powers either directly or by proxy.”  He added, “We know the Assad regime is a bloodstained Bonapartist clique & rebellion against it is amply justified, but the opposition contains disparate elements about which we know very little.” We know very little but have strong cause to be wary about who is arming them & who they're fighting for.

The Syrian poet, Ibrahim al-Kashoush, called “the bird of the Syrian revolution” led protests of millions with the chant,  “Freedom is at the door/Bashar leave leave.” In July 2011, he was kidnapped by the regime on his way to work & later found in the Assi River with his neck severed & body pumped with bullets. This is the fate of many troubadours of revolution like Victor Jara, murdered by the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1973, & many others.

The Arab uprisings are changing everything, not just in the Middle East but in global politics. They contain a mighty transformative potential which the US, Israel, & other predatory nations are working sometimes behind the scenes & sometimes openly to reverse & destroy. It appears they have succeeded for now in Libya & Syria & that is cause for bereavement because the toll in human suffering is immense & tyranny remains in place.

This post is a tribute to the thousands of victims of the Assad regime, to Ibrahim al-Kashoush, & to all the troubadours of revolution who put themselves in harm’s way to create the poetry of social transformation. Whatever our view of the Syrian uprising, most of us can stand together in demanding, “No intervention in Syria! Hands off Syria!”  (Video of Ibrahim al-Kashoush leading chants)

Why immigration is a human right

Someone asked me to elaborate on why I think immigration is a human right. I’m not a legal scholar & don’t take a juridical approach to a single issue--especially since laws are made by the dominant class in their own interests. I could go into the history of the nation-state & the formation of nationalities but that would be a bore. More current, I could go into the predatory economic & political relationships the US & other plundering nations have with plundered nations causing massive immigration. And of course, if I were arguing in a court of law, all that would be necessary. But stating my view here I can take the broader approach to the matter: immigration is a human right because human beings are all brothers & sisters, no matter where the hell we come from; because survival for yourself & those you care for is primary; because legalities don’t mean a damn thing when you need to eat & feed your loved ones. But mostly, immigration is a human right because human beings are born to care about each other & extend the hand of friendship & solidarity to all in need. That isn’t bleeding heart sentimentality; it’s become the iron law of survival for working people. When they have us warring with other needy working people, they take the heat off themselves & the predatory policies creating not just mass migration but economic devastation for all of us. When you join ranks with immigrants as brothers & sisters, you increase the possibilities of resistance & for creating a world suitable for men, women, & children to live & love in. So that’s why immigration is a human right! I leave it to the lawyers to draw up the legal brief.

This is where xenophobia leads you

This is where xenophobia leads you, along with all that anti-immigration rubbish about “illegal workers” taking our jobs. This young man, named Hassan Mekki, is a Sudanese immigrant who entered Greece to find work in Europe. Even if you only follow the war-mongering of George Clowney, you know Sudan is a war zone of economic plunder--& no place for young people to earn a living. The Greek government is imposing European Union (EU)-enforced austerity policies on its working people & needs to find a scapegoat to take the heat off themselves. The Greek government also enforces EU anti-immigration policies so Mr. Mekki is unable to move on to another European country & is a most convenient scapegoat.

Greek media uses the convenient shibboleth of xenophobia (ironically a Greek word) to blame the problems caused by the IMF/EU austerity program on immigrants. Crime, drug addiction, the spread of disease are all their fault. The government has launched a major crackdown on immigrants with hundreds of police deployed in sweeps of immigrant neighborhoods, harassing & hauling in hundreds for lacking residency papers, drug use, prostitution. Police have announced plans to convert 30 old army bases into detention centers using shipping containers for housing & in Athens just opened the first in this concentration camp program. The government also plans on detaining immigrants they deem a public health risk which is vaguely defined but would require compulsory health exams, treatment, & incarceration. The purpose is not to provide health care but to harass. Golden Dawn, a once obscure group of racist thugs with deep connections to the cops, is promoting deportation of all immigrants & engages in frequent physical assaults on immigrants.

Mr. Mekki was attacked by a group of black-shirted men on motorcycles waving the Greek flag & shouting, “Go home black” along with other racist insults; they knocked him out & disfigured him with these gashes across his back. Immigrants haven’t a damn thing to do with capitalist predation & austerity policies. Immigration is a human right.(Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

Boycott Walmart, Sears, Disney!

A Bangladeshi man stands inside the incinerated Tazreen garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh where 112 workers burned to death because of avaricious indifference to work & safety standards. Over 150 others were injured, which covers a multitude of human suffering & disfigurement. The company lost its fire safety certification in June 2012, according to a fire official. But the Bangladeshi government didn’t give a damn because Walmart, Sears, & Disney had Christmas sales to think about. Boycott Walmart, Sears, & Disney to show them there are human beings who think the endangerment & loss of human life does matter--even when they only earn chump change. (Photo by A. M. Ahad/AP)

She gets no respect

Dublin didn’t give quite the greeting we’d hoped to Hellary Clinton. Apparently St. Patrick didn’t get rid of all the snakes since an Irish group of them gave her a humanitarian award. The head of Concern Worldwide (an establishment aid group) hailed Clinton as “one of the greatest” secretaries of state in the history of the US. Most of them have been bums so that’s no enviable honorific.

Apparently our girl got all choked up in her speech in which she complained about how she’s treated as a woman official visiting male-dominated countries. There’s no doubt she’s mixing with the wrong class; you can be sure all those dictators & stooges for US colonialism she hangs with are a sorry lot--not to mention the creep she’s married to, with an unsavory record of his own. But it may not be entirely her gender at issue. Even US stooges like Karzai of Afghanistan don’t like the US & yesterday he gave NBC News an earful of his complaints against the US occupation.

Violence & misogynist oppression of women is no laughing matter at all; those of us who live in the US know that full well--& we solidarize with our sisters in every country facing the immense struggles against gender hatred. But if Hellary Clinton gave a rat’s ass about the treatment of women, she would denounce US financing of the Mexican war against immigrants that victimize women & their children; she would fight to remove immigration barriers on the US-Mexico border & around the world, where hundreds of people, including women die; she would be denouncing the Burmese government for the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims instead of feting Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence; she would denounce US backing of tyranny in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia; she would call for the withdrawal of all US troops & the cessation of Drone bombing sieges in several countries; she would cut funding to Israel which bombs Gaza, targeting children; she would join us in demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, & wherever else they are.

She tried to wax inspirational about the US being on the right side of history in the struggle for women’s justice but it all got drowned out in the sound of bombs bursting over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, & the US-made tear gas casings they’re picking up in Bahrain, Egypt, & elsewhere. You can’t put lipstick on the pig of US foreign policy & whimper when you get no respect.

Are they cooking the books on combat deaths?

Including only the combat deaths of US troops (not soldiers from other countries or civilians), these are the figures for three of the last major wars:

Vietnam             1965-1975                  58,226
Iraq                    2003-present                4,459
Afghanistan       2001-present                3,229

These figures are tentative but somewhere in the ballpark of current quoted combat deaths. When I once visited the Vietnam Monument in Washington, DC, the park ranger  had a thick telephone book with alphabetized names of those who died since the monument lists them in order of death. I was told by the ranger that only those who were injured & died in Vietnam were listed on the monument; if you were injured in Cambodia or Vietnam & died on a ship on the way to a hospital in Japan, or in that hospital in Japan, or in the US as a result of injuries incurred in the war, you are not listed on the monument.

Given the huge disparity in the reported combat deaths between these three wars (all of roughly the same duration), does anyone think the Pentagon is cooking the books on casualties? At least in a more malignant way than they do with the Vietnam Monument?

David Hope in the Canberra Times nails it

I can hear them squealing.."anti-Semitic"!

US out of Iraq

We’re coming up on the anniversary of the phony US withdrawal from Iraq last December. It’s been hard to tell what’s going on in Iraq since there is a media blackout except for reports on car bombings & alleged conflict between Sunnis & Shi’ites. The actual number of US troops remaining there was intentionally confused by all the conflicting figures thrown around between the Pentagon, Obama & Leon Panetta. Estimates range from 3,000 (file that under fat chance) to 20,000.

What is known is that the US uses mercenaries (euphemistically called contractors) from criminal enterprises like the formerly named Blackwater. They are professional thugs-for-hire recruited among former Special Forces operatives, soldiers, & retired cops. As you can imagine, these companies are secretive about their operations & don’t reveal the number of mercenaries they have deployed in any country as an adjunct to the US military; nor do they reveal the number of employed mercenaries injured or killed. This is a useful deception since it lowers the number of war casualties reported & minimizes antiwar opposition. In Afghanistan, there are 105,000 US troops & 101,000 mercenaries. During some periods of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, mercenaries have outnumbered the troops. Some sources report there are close to 10,000 mercenaries still in Iraq but for all the deception involved, it could be double that.

You can tell they’re motivated by patriotism rather than a taste for homicide & war since some locate in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying federal taxes. It’s not the kind of work you brag about although some of their relatives are too stupid to know that & want them included in Veterans Day & Memorial Day events.

What we do know about Iraq is: the country is in a shambles; Saddam Hussein was prosecuted in a kangaroo court; Paul Bremer, both George Bushs, & Dick Cheney are still running around free; US troops are still deployed there & to say the US has withdrawn from Iraq is a colossal & despicable lie to hoodwink us (since it sure as hell doesn’t fool the Iraqis) & eliminate antiwar opposition.

This is a photo from the archives of US troops doing their emancipating--pointing a rifle at a small boy--in a neighborhood of Baghdad, in November 2007. Demand the actual, immediate, & unconditional withdrawal of all US troops & mercenaries from Iraq. (Photo by Thomas Dworzak)

The high cost of US-NATO "emancipation"

Here an Afghan amputee is at a Red Cross hospital for war victims & the disabled. There are centers like this in 7 Afghan provinces. The caption doesn’t specifically say so, but most likely the man had his legs blown off by one of the 10 million landmines or unexploded ordinance in Afghanistan which are planted in urban areas, residential & commercial areas, agricultural & grazing lands, irrigation canals, & on roads. Landmines were planted by the former USSR when it occupied Afghanistan & continue to be mined by Belgium, Italy, the US & UK. According to the UN, landmines in Afghanistan have killed 200,000 civilians & made 750,000 amputees. A third of the victims are children. An estimated 6,000 civilians will lose their lives or limbs every year in the US-NATO occupation. This is emancipation, US-NATO style. Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO forces.  (Photo by Qais Usyan/AFP)

Israeli war crimes

This 12-year-old Palestinian boy named, Osama Hejazi, stands in front of the rubble of a home in Gaza City destroyed by the recent Israeli bombing siege. His own home was bombed & his father & two younger brothers were killed. Targeting civilians (there is no military in Gaza so everyone is a civilian) & bombing homes: doesn’t that warrant international condemnation & a war crimes tribunal!? Boycott all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729 & beware the kiosks at the mall) & demand “no US aid to Israel.” (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

The enforcers

These are Egyptian riot cops standing behind barbed wire fencing closing off the road leading to the presidential palace in Cairo. According to Russia Today (RT) TV, not always the most reliable new source, about 100,000 protestors marching on the presidential residence faced off against riot cops with tear gas. Apparently overwhelmed, the cops allowed protestors to approach the building which prompted President Morsi to flee. Russia Today’s correspondent, said some of the cops sought protection from the crowd & the protestors threw up a cordon around them. So much for those concrete & barbed wire barrier walls all over the city!

These cops are just young guys. They’re the ones the oligarchs put on the front line, the ones who have to do the dirty work, carry out the violence, beat up people. The ones here look scared & it must be pretty hairy facing down 100,000 people even in your spiffy outfits, with helmets & truncheons & tear gas. Jobs are hard to come by with riot cops becoming a growth industry around the world. But judging from cop protests around the world, they don’t get paid any better than the rest of us & are facing the same attacks on wages & benefits. So they need to make a choice. They can’t be brothers & sisters while they’re beating on our heads. They’re on the wrong side. This is a strong case of “you can’t have it both ways.” It’s so hard to see why they’d want to do  the dirty work for oligarchy when the pay is lousy & the work stinks. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

The Case for Cultural & Academic Boycott of Israel with intro by Ken Loach

"The world is isolated"

Netanyahu to Lieberman: "The world is isolated" ( Cartoon by Biederman for Haaretz)

"A light unto the nations"!!

East Jerusalem taken over one house at a time..

Israel isolated

Mazin Qumsiyeh
"The Israeli government arrogantly decided to continue violating International law: a) it rejected all relevant UN resolutions, b) it withheld Palestinian tax money (called stealing), c) it approved building even more colonial settlements on Palestinian lands (also called stealing), and c) it bribed and blackmailed politicians around the world (Israeli intelligence is good at getting dirt on politicians or even entrapping them) to avoid any concrete measures of punishment.  While all governments objected verbally (even the USA!), most failed to take any concrete measures against apartheid Israel for engaging in crimes against humanity.  In fact, some European countries and the US are applying pressure on Mahmoud Abbas (whose term expired two years ago) not to take actions in International fora to hold Israel accountable."

The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approves a resolution calling on Israel to quickly open its nuclear program for inspection

UN calls on Israel to open nuclear facilities
The resolution, approved Monday by a vote of 174-6 with 6 abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty "without further delay" and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting "no" were Israel, the U.S., Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. 

A change of heart and mind

"My views began to change in my late teens. On my annual trips over ( to Israel) I began to feel less and less comfortable. The notion that the place belonged to me solely because of what my religion happened to be didn’t sit quite well. In Israel I saw Palestinians and came to understand that this land had once been theirs. How was it that all this was supposed to belong to me? The separation began to seem not a good thing but a bad thing. I tried to reconcile my uneasiness with my allegiance to Israel, but many new questions arose. I tried to forget them - only I couldn’t. Some of these trips were followed by family get-togethers where a cousin of mine would challenge me on my still right-wing Zionist views. I found I had no morally or intellectually acceptable answers. College soon followed and I came to the unexpected and inevitable realizations that much of what my community had taught me about Israel was falsehood, or worse, indoctrination and my former Zionism had been predicated on this dishonesty."

Following the UN vote, the Dalu family calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel

The Dalu home is obliterated and neighbor buildings are uninhabitable, December 3, 2012.
(Photo: Tiffany Ornelas de Tool)

On November 18, 2012, the Dalu family, huddled at home, waited for the war that surrounded them to end. Like everyone else in Gaza, they had nowhere to run. At 2:30PM, without warning, an Israeli missile flattened the entire building, killing all ten occupants and two from the building adjacent. Not only was the building destroyed, but the bomb carved out a deep crater where the home had been. It took four days of searching through the rubble for rescuers to find the bodies of the ten family members and two neighbors.

Indonesian trade unionists out in force

Well isn’t this a glorious sight!? Tens of thousands of Indonesian workers marched to foreign embassies to demand better working conditions from the large number of multinational corporations operating in the country. These include mega-outfits like General Electric, General Motors, Intel, Samsung, & international finance companies like HSBC, AXA, Citibank. Indonesia (along with Thailand) is one of the two largest & fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia. Indonesian trade unions have campaigned & protested several times since July of this year over the issues of wages, working & safety conditions, outsourcing to avoid labor laws, & benefits like pensions & healthcare. Most workers termed unskilled & semi-skilled earn less than $US200 a month--in other words, chump change.

In October, more than 2 million workers from 700 companies held a one-day work stoppage at 80 industrial sites in 24 cities. Labor unions around the world will have to get beyond this one-day strike limit & shut the damn planet down until justice is served. The US labor movement is now divided into two warring factions, neither of which does much except participate in electoral idiocies. But US workers have a proud history of struggle against labor injustice. Seeing these Indonesian brothers & sisters kick ass may inspire an end to the over-long period of relative labor passivity.  (Photo from Wall Street Journal)

Barrier walls now built against democracy

One has to wonder if the rulers of this world aren’t certifiably deranged in addition to being undemocratic, dangerous, & unsuited for anything but serving detail as prison guards. During the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak, massive walls were erected around Tahrir Square to deter protestors. Those walls were used for political graffiti & didn’t seem to dampen the rebellious spirit of people out for democracy. Now, under Morsi, wooden, barbed wire, & concrete block walls have gone up all over Cairo around government buildings like the parliament, various ministries, & the US & other embassies. Of course, this also deters the conduct of commerce & urban life. Perhaps the protestors should take a page from the idiocy of tyranny & build concrete walls to close in the deranged leaders with their dangerous foreign allies. Barrier walls all over the world to keep out immigrants & impose apartheid are now used against democracy. Tear down those wretched walls! (Photo from the BBC)

The invincible women of Bahrain

The invincible spirit of the women of Bahrain: here women protestors flash the victory sign as they face a barrage of tear gas from riot cops. Protestors were marching in the town of Abu Saiba on Monday in solidarity with political prisoners. In early January, a verdict is expected in the trial of 13 democracy leaders jailed last year for political activity. Our fullest respect & solidarity with the movement in Bahrain. They have been in the streets for nearly two years & are a beacon to suffering humanity everywhere as a model of intransigence & courage. (Photo by Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images)

One land for two peoples

The formal death of the two-state solution makes a bi-national state inevitable - the best way forward for both peoples.
In the immediate aftermath of Mahmoud Abbas' symbolic victory at the UN of official recognition for the state of Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took concrete steps to ensure that such a separate and independent state would never come into existence.
With the announcement of the construction of 3,000 new settlement units in E1, the last unsettled land connecting the theoretical future Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem with the West Bank, the Israeli government has severed these territories and formally put an end to the possibility of a two-state solution to the conflict.
In the words of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, the construction in E1 is "the last nail in the coffin" of the peace process, while Daniel Seidemann of the Jerusalem-based Israeli NGO described it as "a doomsday scenario" and "the fatal heart-attack of the two-state solution".
With this announcement, it can be said that the plan for peace agreed to by both sides in the Oslo Accords; the vision of two peoples living side-by-side in two wholly separate states, has finally been extinguished by an increasingly right-wing Israeli polity in which the settler movement has gone from fringe to mainstream in a few short decades.
The question to be asked now is, "What comes next?" What is the way forward now that the status quo roadmap for the future has been overturned?
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Egypt: 100,000 Demonstrators Deliver “Final Warning,” chase President Morsi from Palace

Juan Cole
On Tuesday, another big wave of protests was held against the policies of President Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, with rallies in in the public squares of most of Egypt’s major cities. The protests were called “The Final Warning.” Many newspapers and television stations went dark, while big rallies were held in Tahrir Square (downtown Cairo) and at the residence of the president in Heliopolis. Some 100,000 demonstrators marched on the presidential residence, broke through a barbed wire barrier, and engaged in clashes with police, who initially fired tear gas and tried to repel them. Then, abruptly, according Arabic wire services, the police allowed the crowd to approach the building, prompting Morsi to flee the building. Russia Today’s correspondent, an eyewitness, said that a section of the police sought protection from the crowd, afraid of being overwhelmed, and the protesters then threw up a cordon around them.
The sight of the elected president of Egypt forced out of the presidential palace by angry demonstrators has to join other iconic images of the nearly two-year-old Egyptian revolution.
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They came in and demolished the village's mosque

 
A resident of the village of al Mufaqarah sits upon what's left of the village's mosque after it was demolished yesterday by the Israeli army.
 
On Tuesday December 4th at 6.30 am, two bulldozers together with a Border Police vehicle, 4 District Coordination Office (DCO) vehicles and 5 Israeli army vehicles arrived to the Palestinian village of al Mufaqarah, and demolished their mosque.

The mosque had already been demolished by the Israeli army one year ago, on November 24, 2011. The inhabitants of the village had just finished rebuilding their new mosque last October.

The village of al Mufaqarah is situated in Area C, under Israeli military and administrative control. All building and construction must be approved by the Israeli administration. Israel denies Palestinians the right to build on 70% of Area C, which comes out to about 44% of the West Bank, while within the remaining 30% a series of restrictions are applied which eliminate the possibility of obtaining a permit.

While Palestinian villages of Area C are suffering from the ongoing policy of demolition, in the nearby outpost of Avigail, illegal under the Israeli law itself, Israeli settlers are constructing new buildings unhindered. These illegal constructions are tolerated by the army and police, despite repeated reports from international and Israeli activists.
(Breaking the silence)

Noam Chomsky: What the American Media Won't Tell You About Israel

The savage punishment of Gaza traces back to decades ago.

December 3, 2012  |  

The Israeli air force struck a UN building during the assault on Gaza in 2008-09.
Photo Credit: ISM Palestine/Wikimedia Commons

 An old man in Gaza held a placard that read: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”

The old man’s message provides the proper context for the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from their homes in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck Palestinians over the border for years after the official cease-fire.
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Doctor says civilians were targeted by Israeli attack

Israeli-style democracy

This photo is from last March 30th; Israeli border police are pepper spraying an injured Palestinian protester outside Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem during Land Day protests. Land Day protests are held every year by Palestinians to commemorate the killing of six Arabs by the Israeli military in 1976 during protests against Israeli land confiscations in the Galilee region. The original caption to this photo said protesters threw stones at the Israeli cops who then responded with tear gas & pepper spray but most likely it was the other way around. The man in this photos was sprayed deliberately in the face & then arrested. It isn’t known if he remains in the Israeli gulag. (The photo by Ammar Awad was chosen for Reuters Best Photos of the Year 2012)

A poem of Palestinian solidarity

This wonderful poem/anthem is by Indian poet, Musab Iqbal, a supporter of the Palestinians in their struggle for justice:

Tel Aviv airport

This is Tel Aviv airport
No passport, No visa, No stamp, No reason
You stand in queue until we ask you to
You have right to return but not to homeland
You have right to speak but inside your heart
You have the right to resent but inside your covers

This is Tel Aviv airport
No dignity, No citizenship, No freedom
You have no right to privacy, no right to ask
You have no right to move, no way to pass
You have no right to dream, no bed to sleep
You have no right to buy, no drink to bring

This is Tel Aviv airport
No chants of right, No esteem to other
You wait until your time comes
You wait until your time ends
You wait until the clock dies
You wait until there is no pride

This is Tel Aviv airport
Which has thrown me out, today
Which has despised my freedom, today
I will come here again with a free flag
I will come here again with a new flight

- Musab Iqbal, 4th December 2012

Remembrance & boycott

This is to pay tribute to the garment workers who burned to death in the Tazreen Fashions Limited factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This photo of garment workers was taken last summer of a solidarity rally with the striking miners of Spain. Although there can never be justice for such a crime, may working people in Bangladesh & around the world channel their outrage into campaigns to build unions & transform the wretched ones we have now. May our brothers & sisters (including any children workers who may have died) rest in peace. And may we continue to boycott Walmart & Sears for their culpability in this crime.

The news from Buckingham Palace

In what is clearly not a slow-news day, photographers & camera crews from around the world are camped outside the hospital where KKKKaty is being treated for morning sickness. Less than one percent of women need to be hospitalized for morning sickness but maybe now she’ll be able to get some food, even if it is hospital swill. Reports say  David Cameron is giddy about the pregnancy & says the pair will make "absolutely brilliant parents." From whence he draws that conclusion, no one knows, since neither has shown any talent for anything at all & the Windsor clan has produced some very regrettable progeny. But appropriately, Snooki has offered KKKKaty pregnancy advice so our girl’s all set. It’s reported the pregnancy is being celebrated throughout Britain, the British Commonwealth & beyond. Tell us that aint so, England!

Meanwhile, the media is loaded with concern about changing the succession laws so KKKKaty & WWWWillies kid can take over the throne. They promote is as a progressive step for feudalism--so that female offspring can have equal rights with males. But more likely it’s to make damn sure HHHHairy doesn’t stand a chance of taking over. Well may you ask, taking over what!? The royal box at the horse races? But it’s the several million dollar allowance Betty & her mutant tribe get every year from the same public trough that can’t afford public education & the national health service.

We’re going to have hell to pay for the next several months as we endure every detail of her pregnancy: morning sickness, belly shots, & sentimental babble up the wazoo. It’s going to be the mother of all Hallmark moments. We’re looking to the republicans to be kill-joys & await their public comments.

Emancipation US army-style

Winter is coming to Afghanistan & night temperatures are already below freezing. Over 30,000 people displaced by the US-NATO occupation live in makeshift refugee camps around Kabul. Many of the children don’t have shoes. Simply remarkable isn’t it, when billions of dollars in so-called aid have been pledged in the shyster fraud of humanitarian aid!? This child’s feet are the result of the vaunted & damnable US-NATO occupation. Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO troops! (Photo by Carolyn Cole/LA Times)

Bhopal protests continue on 28th anniversary of disaster

Children of survivors from the Bhopal gas disaster protest outside the office of the Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi on the 28th anniversary of the disaster. The protesters demanded PM Singh intervene in the punishment of the corporations & their officials & for compensation for victims. Activists & victims of the 1984 accident have campaigned for going on 30 years against this outrageous injustice which leaves a legacy of massive environmental pollution, human sickness & disability. US-based Dow is now the owner of Union Carbide, whose neglect of safety systems to save money caused  the pesticide plant to leak a toxic gas (an ingredient in pesticides the plant produced) into the city. 25,000 people were killed, half a million were injured, & the environment & water supply contaminated--creating generations of children suffering chemically-induced illness & neurological disabilities. 

Their campaign against Dow receives little help from the Indian government since it is collusive in this criminal travesty. In June 2010, an Indian court indicted seven former managers at Union Carbide for negligence & sentenced them to two years in jail & a fine of $2,100. Despite public outrage in India, the Supreme Court there upheld corporate impunity & turned down an appeal for harsher sentences. It’s not yet clear how civil & criminal litigation against Dow will proceed since in June a US court absolved the company of all liability in the Bhopal disaster which means they are not liable for remediation or pollution-related claims. It’s not certain legal appeals are exhausted but political pressure on the courts & Dow can eventually render a just judgement. What is certain is that the survivors & activists cannot win this fight for justice on their own & the most active solidarity is required. Dow will forever stand indicted. (Photo by Manish Swarup/AP)

Two Banksy murals removed from Bethlehem wall to Miami gallery

Off the wall: Banksy murals move from West Bank to Miami

Palestinian protest paintings fail to sell on eBay, spend a season in the Hamptons and are now heading for Florida fair

By Anny Shaw. Art Market

Another version of Stop and Search can still be seen in Bethlehem

Two murals attributed to Banksy, which were originally painted in Bethlehem in 2007 and re-emerged amid controversy in an exhibition at the Keszler Gallery in the Hamptons, near New York, in August 2011, are due to go on show in Miami in December. The removal of the works, Stop and Search and Wet Dog, from the West Bank sparked fierce criticism from some in the trade, who said the murals should have been left in situ and that the galleries involved had no right to take them.

The works, together with Kissing Coppers, around 2005, salvaged from a pub wall in Brighton on the south coast of England, and Out of Bed Rat, 2002, originally painted in Los Angeles, will feature in “Banksy Out of Context” (5-9 December), an exhibition of the British street artist’s murals. The show is part of the debut edition of Context, a contemporary art fair organised by Art Miami. It is being produced in conjunction with Stephan Keszler, the owner of the eponymous gallery, and Robin Barton, the owner of London’s Bankrobber Gallery. They came under fire last year for transporting Stop and Search and Wet Dog from the West Bank to the US. According to Barton, however, they did not take the works directly from their original sites; instead, the murals had been removed around a year after they were painted and left in a stonemason’s yard in Bethlehem before Barton and Keszler bought them.
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Honoring those with disabilities

Today is the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The UN doesn’t do much for people with disabilities or for anybody else but they have these commemoration days. I want to tell the story of my brother, Paul--not to garner sympathy or pity for myself, but to generate understanding of those with learning difficulties. Paul was born in an era when “retardation” was an ignominy & families were advised to warehouse their children in state institutions. But it was the beginning of “enlightenment” when schools began to develop special needs classrooms where they dumped anyone who didn’t fit in--from those with learning problems to those with emotional problems to rebels. Paul, who was a shy child, got stuck in one of those. God knows how “disabled” he actually was! That’s where he began to think he was an oddball, an inferior, a weirdo, a victim. Things have advanced in many public schools beyond those days but children with disabilities still chart an uphill battle for respect in many places. In the state of Minnesota, they still & often serve time in isolation rooms in public schools. A penitentiary guard in Minnesota once said, “I’m not allowed to do to prisoners what elementary teachers do to my disabled child.”

My parents weren’t particularly enlightened on disability & felt shame at Paul’s difficulties. They didn’t know how to take on the school system so that Paul wasn’t made a target of ineptitude, stupidity, & prejudice. There were no disability rights movements & certainly no disability rights laws. There was nothing to guide or educate about disability--though, thank heavens, there are now.

Paul lived with me for long periods & though I understood very little about learning disability, I began to appreciate there was more prejudice than disability involved, along with  political manipulation of IQ figures to eliminate people from assistance programs. I saw how he suffered from the whip of that stupid IQ number & from a sense of inferiority. But I also saw him read the NY Times every day & discuss the news with intelligence; I heard his clever wit & subtle observations on life & politics; & his contemptuous regard for soap operas when he was stuck at home with a broken leg. And when I took him to clinic for that broken leg, he said to me, “You know, Mary, I was the only white person in that waiting room--but that’s okay. What do you call them, Hispanics or Latinos? I don’t care. They’re just human beings & they’re all the same to me.”

He was a lonely man who wanted love & sex & companionship but knew all that would most likely be denied him. The companionship he did find was usually abusive & exploitative & he spent many poignant hours describing the indignation & hurt he felt.

He took his own life in January 1997--just after a Christmas dinner where he dressed like a million bucks & looked so handsome but where everyone refused to speak to the “retarded man.” My grief at his loss isn’t relevant but my grief at the life he was denied is  relevant to this day commemorating those with disability. When he died, I lashed out at the social workers & state agencies that had so badly failed him & repeatedly insulted his intelligence & at the people who victimized him. But when all was said & done, I understood my role in not rejecting the very category of disability as stupid & prejudicial--as if that meant someone was less than or could be patronized.

I take great umbrage at the use of the “retard” word, considered an epithet by those with learning problems--& I’ve lost many friends on that account. But I think that on this day (even if meaningless in UN terms), we ought to pay tribute to those who struggle for a good life despite disability, honor those who were exhausted by the struggle for respect, & commit ourselves to the belief that all men & women are created equal, with no exceptions.

Come as you are, sister!

This graphic making the rounds of Facebook has the disclaimer: ”The veiling of the face by women was not originally an Islamic custom. Burka and niqab are originally Jewish customs. Niqab (women covering all of their faces) is not mandatory in Islam.” Who gives a rat's ass where this fashion or religious habit came from when women wearing the veil are leading revolutions in several Arab countries? Revolution is a "come as you are" affair. Show up with a veil or in a bikini! It’s all the same sister & we are on your side!

Britain, France, Sweden summon Israeli ambassadors over settlement expansion

Germany and Sweden issue condemnation over Israel's plan to build in West Bank and East Jerusalem; senior European diplomat: This time it won’t just be condemnation, there will be real action taken against Israel.
“This time it won’t just be a condemnation, there will be real action taken against Israel,” a senior European diplomat said.
Sky News confirmed that the British government was considering severe actions over the matter, quoting sources in the Foreign Office on Monday as saying: "All options are on the table," adding that there was an "appetite for action" within the bureau, and that officials may consider "revisiting" or even suspending EU trade agreements with Israel, based on human rights clauses.

Campaigning the Israeli way

James Baldwin on Palestine and Israel

"But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of Western interests.  This is what is becoming clear (I must say it was always clear to me).  The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’  and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years…The collapse of the Shah not only revealed the depth of pious Carter’s concern for ‘human rights,’ it  also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to whom Israel supplied arms.  It happened to be, to spell it out, white South Africa."
James Baldwin

IDF: Keeping "Israel" safe from little girls since 1948

For first time, Britain, France may recall ambassadors in protest at Israel's settlement construction

Moves against Israel will be made in next few days in response to Netanyahu's decision to build 3,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlement blocs, say senior European diplomats. 
Britain and France are poised to take action − possibly including the unprecedented step of recalling their ambassadors, according to senior European diplomats − in protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to move settlement construction ahead in the area known as E1, between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem. 
Read more-Haaretz

“Why should the Arabs make peace?"

“Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? …They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.”
David Ben Gurion in a letter to Nahum Goldman

Haaretz: Following UN vote on Palestine, Israel may now find itself at The Hague

"Netanyahu’s decision to build more housing units in the settlements, coming hot on the heels of the United Nations General Assembly’s declaration of Palestine as a non-member observer state, could put Israel on a collision course with the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Following the UN’s decision last Thursday, Palestine may contact the court's prosecutor once again, asking for a hearing on the crimes that are being committed in its territory. The court’s prosecutor may well rule that in light of Palestine’s recognition as a state, the court has authority to hear the case."

How Israel lost Europe's support

Following France's lead, one EU country after another changed their votes in favor of the Palestinians. 
As the hours wore on Thursday, the magnitude of the Israeli defeat in the United Nations General Assembly became continually clearer. One after another, the Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Office received reports from Israeli embassies in Europe that countries were changing their votes at the last minute and leaning toward the Palestinians. A few hours before the vote, officials in Jerusalem understood that Israel was left without any Western support except for the United States, Canada and the Czech Republic. 
Read more-Haaretz

The farce of mainstream media on Bahrain

Sometimes it’s near impossible to tell mainstream media from The Onion or from farce. Can you remember the last time you read a report on the massive struggle for democracy in Bahrain where thousands continue to protest--after nearly two years--& where thousands have been killed, injured, incarcerated, tortured; where the  repression against the democracy movement involves the excessive use of tear gas & extreme violence? The media presents the Bahrain uprising for democracy as a religious conflict between the Sunni Muslim monarchy with his minions & the Shi’ite Muslims battling in the streets. It’s a simple-minded analysis intended to rile us up against Muslims for being irrational & doctrinaire zealots. But the intransigent spirit of the Bahraini uprising remains a beacon to those under the yoke of tyranny everywhere.

Well you can count on the appropriately named, Yahoo news, to know what counts in Bahrain politics when they see it on the Reuters news feed! Kim Kardashian just visited a swank mall in Manama to promote her Millions of Milkshakes franchise. (Don’t weep yet! The story only goes downhill from here.) So apparently (or at least according to the yahoos at Yahoo & Reuters), Sunni politicians presented a motion to the parliament bad-mouthing Kardashian as a bad influence (they got that right!) & a handful of Sunni picketers took up a spot outside the mall. Yahoo continues with this farce: no less than thousands of Kardashian fans paid $1,360 a ticket to see her & “broke into hysterical screams” when she appeared. Thousands of people can fit into that mall!? Thousands of Bahrainis can afford to pay two or three months rent for one lousy ticket!? Well those fans are no fools--at least about everything! They tweeted back at the Sunni politicians to focus on political, economic, & social issues.

This photo from LA Times is of a March 2012 protest in Manama where tens of thousands of democracy protestors blocked a four-lane highway demanding reforms. These mass protests continue throughout Bahrain & are the only news worth reporting from there--not a milkshake franchise run by a celebrity!)

FEMA aid & the undocumented

Now here’s the kind of story that makes your blood boil. FEMA reports 236,000 New Yorkers have requested aid as a result of damage from Hurricane Sandy. But FEMA  has posted signs saying social security numbers are required for application since cash assistance for home repairs is only available to US citizens. According to FEMA officials, some funds are allocated for undocumented immigrants, but only those who have US born children or relatives are eligible. That means thousands & thousands of undocumented immigrants standing in the rubble of their homes & unable to fix the roof or broiler are up a creek without a paddle. Some immigrant rights groups are raising Cain about this, especially since many of the undocumented have been out of work since the hurricane. One advocate argued that as contributors to the city in a number of capacities, they should be getting help just like everyone else. Absolutely true! But if they sat on their sofas eating bonbons & watching soap operas they would be just as worthy because they are human beings & humane societies do not let people live in rubble. (Photo by Seth Wenig/AP)

Appeal to Ireland: take your reptiles back!

When St. Patrick chased the snakes from Ireland, he created no end of problems in the US since so many of them slithered over here. It was no problem when they stayed under their rocks but they morphed into bishops & politicians & there’s been hell to pay ever since. Well justice is justice & the US is sending disreputable politicians back over to Ireland. But regrettably we read in the Irish media that Hellary Clinton, Baracks Obomba, & Joe Bidet can all expect a warm welcome there, as Slick Willy has in the past. Hellary will be speaking this week in Dublin & Belfast & we certainly hope our Irish friends will make her welcome not just warm but steamy hot. Fry her ass for all the crimes she’s brokered & the lies she’s peddled in our names. As for Obomba, he’ll be at a swank resort in County Fermanagh in June 2012 for a G8 summit with a whole host of other unsavory fellows, like Cameron & Putin. Rebels in County Fermanagh will need some assistance--outside agitators, if you will--since there appears to be a coterie of collaborators holed up there who named a building in the town the Clinton Centre after Slick Willy.

They report a whole number of Irish American sycophants will be traveling to Ireland with Hellary; they’re monied people & politicians who want to get in on the show if she runs for president. You can’t trust that kind of Irishmen/women! They’re the same sort as the Irish American lass now on trial in Florida for cozying up to a lottery winner, bumping him off, & burying him in concrete. Ireland, you’ve done enough harm to this country! The offer still stands: take your reptiles back & we’ll harbor no hard feelings. (Graphic from BBC)

Haaretz: Israel's punishment

"The government's decision ( to build 3000 settlement units in E1 area) is the last nail in the coffin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan University speech in 2009. It is proof positive that this speech, in which he ostensibly accepted the principle of two states, was merely a deception. What is particularly astounding, however, is the violation of Israel's commitment to the United States not to build in E1, given that construction there would preclude the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. After America was left as virtually the last supporter of Israel's position at the United Nations, Israel is repaying it with a resounding slap in the face."

Noam Chomsky: Gaza and the UN resolution

By Noam Chomsky, Israeli Occupation Archive – 1 Dec 2012

"An old man in Gaza held a placard that reads: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”¹
The old man’s message provides the proper context for the timelines on the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza.  They are useful, but any effort to establish a “beginning” cannot help but be misleading.  The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck them over the border for years after the official cease-fire.  The persecution of Gazans took new forms when Israel conquered the Strip in 1967.  From recent Israeli scholarship we learn that the goal of the government was to drive the refugees into the Sinai, and if feasible the rest of the population too.

Expulsions from Gaza were carried out under the direct orders of General Yeshayahu Gavish, commander of the Southern Command.  Expulsions from the West Bank were far more extreme, and Israel resorted to devious means to prevent the return of those expelled, in direct violation of Security Council orders.  The reasons were made clear in internal discussion immediately after the war.  Golda Meir, later Prime Minister, informed her Labor colleagues that Israel should keep the Gaza Strip while “getting rid of its Arabs.” Defense Minister Dayan and others agreed. Prime Minister Eshkol explained that those expelled cannot be allowed to return because “We cannot increase the Arab population in Israel” – referring to the newly occupied territories, already tacitly considered part of Israel.  In accord with this conception, all of Israel’s maps were changed, expunging the Green Line (the internationally recognized borders), though publication was delayed to permit UN Ambassador Abba Eban to attain what he called “favorable impasse” at the General Assembly, by concealing Israel’s intentions.^{2"
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Charity run by banks is extravaganza

Israeli hasbara against Palestinians is absolutely & simply pernicous. But US hasbara to justify wars, torture, drone bombings, predatory capitalism has got to take the cake when it comes to propaganda. They don’t pay their PR people enough for the rubbish they come up with! They’re so slick, so suave, so damn pathetic! Chase, the mega-bank received $25 billion in bailout dough in 2008. Chase is a leading banking firm globally, with assets of $2.3 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. Now these miserable shysters & loan sharks are sponsoring the upcoming American Giving Awards being heralded all over TV.

According to Chase, since its inception in 2009, Chase Community Giving has donated over $28 million to thousands of charities like building schools in Africa, providing food & shelter to the homeless, & supporting the performing arts. Tell that to the starving children of Africa! Try to peddle that outside a Salvation Army shelter! They’ll spit in your eye! Maybe you’ll find a few kids in tutus somewhere dancing for their supper but Chase is an instrument of human misery & by no means an emancipatory agency. Especially since the annual winner is only awarded $1 million bucks. What happened to the other $24 million bucks? This is a Dick Clark kind of affair--resplendent in hundreds of millionaire celebrities urging American working people to dish out dough to millionaires. And it is all a repugnant attempt to reduce social transformation to charity & alms giving. We need to dump those celebrity shills, get rid of those damn banks with their shysters & loan sharks & create a world suitable for men & women & children to live & love in.

(Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images of December 9, 2011 American Giving Awards, LA, CA.)

A reminder: How and why the settlement enerprise is contrary to International Law. Security Council Resolution 465

SC Resolution 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980 [Adopted at 2203rd meeting - unanimously]

"Accepts the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the Commission of the Security Council (on settlements); determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Strongly deplores the continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem. Calls upon all States not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in the occupied territories; and requests the Commission to continue examining the situation relating to settlements, to investigate the reported serious depletion of natural resources, particularly water, with a view to ensuring protection of those important natural resources of the territories under occupation.

A sham called "Peace Process"

Peace process

Yousef Munayyer

This chart tells you pretty much all you really need to know about why Palestinians believe the Peace Piece Process is a farce and has served as nothing more than a cover for perpetual Israeli colonization.

In the 24 year period from 1967 (when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip) to 1991, when the Madrid Peace Conference was held beginning the "Peace Process," Israel colonized the West Bank through the illegal transfer of its citizens beyond the green line. By the end of this period, some 250,000 Israeli settlers or colonists lived beyond the Green Line. As the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the American Congress in 2011, the number of Israeli colonists beyond the Green Line reached 650,000. There is just some simple math involved from there to determine what the "Peace Process" period has meant and its clear that the only thing processed was the West Bank.... into many tiny pieces.

This is the "Peace Process" the U.S. and Israel want Palestinians to return to.

No thanks.