There Are No Facts: Excerpt from Max Blumenthal’s ‘Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel’

Before

And after

Until 2006, the JNF (Jewish National Fund) omitted the history of the Palestinian villages from the explanatory signs it posted around the park, instead presenting details of life in the Second Temple, Hellenic, and Roman periods, adhering to a strictly Euro-centric narrative. When Zochrot, an Israeli non-profit dedicated to preserving the memory of the Nakba, petitioned the Supreme Court to amend the signs to include the history of Arab habitation, the JNF first attempted to deflect all responsibility onto the Israeli government before it finally conceded to the demand. But almost as soon as the revised signs were posted, one mysteriously disappeared, while vandals meticulously blacked out the section mentioning Palestinian villages on another.

Syrian rebels accused of massacring civilians

Armed group committed war crime in August by killing at least 190 Alawite villagers in Latakia, Human Rights Watch says.
Syrian rebels allied with Sunni Muslim fighters killed at least 190 civilians and abducted more than 200 during an offensive against pro-government villages, an international human rights group has said.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the August 4 killings as a "war crime", and said the attacks against unarmed civilians in more than a dozen villages in the coastal province of Latakia were systematic.
In a 105-page report based on a visit to the area a month later, HRW said the attacks could even amount to a crime against humanity.
 Witnesses said rebels went house to house, in some cases executing entire families and in other cases killing men and taking women and children hostages.
 

GOP now the most unpopular political party ever measured by Gallup

The Republican Party has recorded the lowest favorability rating for a political party ever measured by Gallup.
The polling company found the GOP’s favorability rating had dropped 10 percent, from 38 percent last month to 28 percent last week, in the wake of the government shutdown over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Israel demolishes his home then orders him out of cave he settled in

 

Palestinian Khalid Al Zeer sits with his children inside a cave in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Al Zeer said the family moved into a cave after their home was demolished by Israeli authorities.

Ramallah: A Palestinian man has been ordered to suspend all restoration work in the cave to which he and family had moved after the Israeli military bulldozers razed his house in the Silwan neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem.

The order was made against Khalid Al Zeer by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court on Tuesday. Al Zeer has vowed to carry on the work in his cave no matter what the cost in order to provide his family with a place to live.
Read more

The Gulf’s Gas Conspiracy Against Lebanon

 
Lebanon may be edging closer to extracting the large gas reserves located in its territorial waters in the Mediterranean, but there are forces working diligently to make sure that doesn’t happen.
To many, it appears as if Lebanon is merely one or two legal steps away from becoming a gas producer, but they may find getting there nearly impossible, given the regional forces arrayed against it. These forces aim to either dominate the country or tip it over the edge, as some government sources describe the attempts to prevent Lebanon from exploiting its gas.
Read more

Qatar denies labor group inspectors access to World Cup sites

 A delegation from an international labor federation inspecting the situation of migrant workers in the 2022 football World Cup host country, was denied access Wednesday to a construction site in Qatar.
"I can't allow you to visit this site without prior coordination," an official at the site told the delegation when they stopped for a "surprise visit."

Syria: ISIS (Islamic State Iraq and Syria) Orphans al-Nusra Front, Cutting Its Funding

Opposition fighters open fire during fighting in the Salaheddin district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on 9 October 2013. (Photo: AFP - Karam al-Masri)

The conflict between jihadis in Syria is not over. Although the differences have not led to internal armed conflict, the financial impact has hit al-Nusra Front, whose funding was cut off recently by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Attempts at reconciliation have failed, and the ISIS emir rejects arbitration.

Read more

Al-Qaeda’s New Orders: Avoid Killing Christians and Shia (Not too soon!)

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a new statement, considered to be orders for the coming phase. The emir of the international organization changed his old tone, and called to avoid killing Shia, Christians, Hindus, and Sufis in the context of "warding off sin," in order to "focus on striking the American spearhead."

Rabbis Said to Use Torture, for Fee, to Force Divorce

Joseph Goldstein- The New York Times
 The two rabbis offered an unusual service to Jewish women who could not get their husbands to agree to a divorce, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For a fee, they would convene a rabbinical court and authorize the use of violence to get a recalcitrant husband to agree to a divorce, the F.B.I. said.

McDonald’s worker arrested after telling company president she can’t afford shoes

A woman who has been employed by the McDonald’s Corporation for over 10 years says she was arrested last week after she confronted the company president at a meeting and told him she couldn’t afford to buy shoes or food for her children.

 “It’s really hard for me to feed my two kids and struggle day to day,” she shouted as Stratton was speaking. “Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 when I’ve worked for McDonald’s for ten years?”

Read more

Plans for memorial to Palestinian refugees displayed in Scotland

Sarah Irving- The Electronic Intifada- Edinburgh 10 October 2013

Omar Mohammad imagines a Nakba museum where Palestinian refugees’ voices can be heard.

 

As he prepared for the opening of his exhibition Al-Nakba Memorial: Palestinian Memories of Displacement, architect Omar Mohammad had to ask for extra room from the University of Edinburgh. The walls were filled up with two-dimensional representations of his vision of a vast monument, while all available table space was covered by scale models depicting buildings and landscapes.
For Mohammad, this is far from a theoretical project. The son of refugees from the village of Jahula in the Galilee region of historic Palestine, he grew up in Damascus.
Read more

Since 1967, Israel has bulldozed Palestinian olive trees equivalent to 33 Central Parks.

 Visualizing Palestine released this new infographic today, highlighting the issue of Israeli destruction of Palestinian agricultural land. The group said in a press release:

This week marked the start of the annual Palestinian olive harvest, an ancient tradition on which 80,000 families still rely for their livelihoods. Yet these families face growing economic hardship due to Israeli land confiscations, access restrictions, settler attacks, and not least the widespread uprooting, destruction and theft of the trees themselves. The infographic “Uprooted” focuses on the staggering fact that Israeli authorities have uprooted over 800,000 Palestinian olive trees since 1967, the equivalent to razing all of the 24,000 trees in New York’s central park 33 times.

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Israeli Army 3rd in the world? No where near. 13th according to this most comprehensive assessment of world's military powers

Countries ranked by military strength 2013. Our full ranked list puts the military powers of the world into full perspective.

1-USA
2-Russia
3-China
4-India
5- United Kingdom
6-France
7-Germany
8-South Korea
9-Italy
10-Brazil
11-Turkey
12-Pakistan
13-Israel
14-Egypt
15-Indonesia
16-Iran
Source

In the New York Times: Genes Suggest European Women at Root of Ashkenazi Family Tree

"A new genetic analysis has now filled in another piece of the origins puzzle, pointing to European women as the principal female founders, and to the Jewish community of the early Roman empire as the possible source of the Ashkenazi ancestors.

The finding establishes that the women who founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Europe were not from the Near East, as previously supposed, and reinforces the idea that many Jewish communities outside Israel were founded by single men who married and converted local women."

Read more

Squabbling over religion

Nour Youssef (The Arabist)
 Before Jan 25, mosques had been hunting grounds for the MB. In the post-Jan 25 days, mosques evolved to become a place where they can meet, organize, mobilize, campaign, and more recently, treat fallen followers, count bodies and hide leaders. They also become the scene of political squabbles. At the time of the controversial Islamist-backed constitution, there were dueling campaigns to 1) challenge imams who used their sermons to support Morsi/the constitution (نزله من المنبار, "Get him down off the minbar") or 2) physically restrain worshippers who challenged the imam (ربته في العمود, "Tie him to a column"). The last thing the Brothers needed, after the eventful summer they've had, was to have their comfort zone fall back under government control and, now, the perked ears of pro-military residents, who would report an imam faster than he could compare what soldiers did to Muslims protesters in Raba’a al-Adaweya to what they haven’t done to the Jewish soldiers in Israel.

Saudis Fund New Rebel Force to Fight Own War on Assad

October 08, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "UPI" - - BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia, exasperated with U.S. vacillation related to Syria's chemical arsenal and now its effort to reconcile with Iran, Riyadh's foremost adversary, is forging a new alliance of Islamist rebels in Syria under a pro-Saudi warlord to supersede the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.
  Riyadh also wants to foment an Iraq-style "Sunni Awakening" to unite Syria's majority sect to topple the minority Damascus regime of President Bashar Assad.

Middle East analyst Michael Weiss, writing in the Beirut Web portal Now Lebanon, observed Riyadh has "taken substantive measures to circumvent Washington altogether on Syria by activating a cadre of new clients in the form of a hard-line Salafist rebels who are now united under the umbrella of the army of Islam. 
--------------------------
Beautiful! Enlightment and Democracy will be brought to Syria by the Kingdom of Darkness!..Aren't you excited? I'm excited! Here...Tfoooh!

Anti-zionist Higgs-boson scientist wins Nobel prize in physics!

The Nobel committee decided Englert and Higgs (right) should jointly take the accolade for the boson, discovered at Cern in 2012.

In 2004, Peter Higgs was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics but he refused to travel to Jerusalem to receive his prize as a protest against Israel's actions in Palestine.

World Bank report: Palestinians Access to Area C Key to Economic Recovery and Sustainable Growth

The World Bank released today its report Area C and the future of the Palestinian economy examining the economic benefits of lifting the restrictions on movement and access to Palestinian investment and economic activity in Area C.

Quote of the day by the now defunct spiritual leader of the Israeli state

 
Chief Rabbi Ovadia Sofer (or is it Sulfur?)
 
"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world -- only to serve the people of Israel."
“ Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.”
“In Israel, death has no dominion over them... With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money."

Chief rabbi for genocide Ovadia Yosef defunct

May he boil in his excremental juices in the hell he believes in.
Even ultra Zionist Jeffrey Goldberg who reserves great admiration to whom he calls the Israeli Ayatollah still has very nasty things to say about him:
In the manner of the crudest fundamentalists everywhere, Yosef blamed misfortune and death on apostasy, irreligiosity and homosexuality (gay people, in his eyes, were "completely evil"). About Israeli soldiers who fell in battle, Yosef once said, "Is it any wonder if, heaven forbid, soldiers are killed in a war? They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder." Even more famously, he blamed the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust on the spiritual deficiencies of their ancestors.
In 2005, he argued that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for the Gaza withdrawal and for the alleged godlessness of the black residents of New Orleans. "There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn't enough Torah study," he said. "Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God." He went on to argue -- if that's the word for it -- that the deaths were also punishment directed at President George W. Bush for pressuring Sharon to remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. "It was God's retribution," he said. "God does not short-change anyone."
Yosef's excoriations of Israeli politicians were legendary. In the last election, Yosef said this about the leadership of the right-wing Jewish Home party: "Those are religious people? They come to uproot the Torah. Those who elect them deny the Torah, this is the Jewish Home? This is the Jewish Home of the gentiles."
The most devastating insult Yosef could muster against a Jew was to label him a gentile. He held gentiles in general contempt. "Goyim were born only to serve us," he said in a 2010 sermon. "Without that, they have no place in the world -- only to serve the people of Israel."
Of Muslims, he said, "They're stupid. Their religion is as ugly as they are." His hatred of Palestinians was obvious. Speaking of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his aides, Yosef said, "All these evil people should perish from this world. God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."

Chilling display of racism: Israeli crowd cheers as Africans called "slaves"

The above video, which I shot at the rally, gives the viewer a court-side seat to the one of the most frightening displays of ultra-nationalism to come out of Israel in recent years. The rally’s master of ceremonies characterizes all Africans as slaves, and the crowd cheers him on.
Michael Ben-Ari, a former member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, calls for martial law to prevent “ten million Chinese, five million Indians and twenty million Africans” from entering the country and turning Israel from a “Jewish state” to a “multi-national state.” Little children chant: “The people demand the expulsion of the Sudanese!” to the delight of their adult guardians.

Elie Wiesel claims he doesn’t ‘know anything’ about Operation Cast Lead

Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss)
On September 29, Wiesel appeared alongside Sheldon Adelson, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Shmuley Boteach to talk genocide and about how the “strong” can protect the “weak” in the context of the chemical weapons attack in Syria in August. “Israel is part of our lives. It is truly part of mine,” Wiesel said on stage.
At the conclusion of the bizarre event, Max Blumenthal and I asked the world’s most famous Holocaust survivor an obvious, though unasked, question: who would protect the people of Gaza from Israel?
His first answer (minute 6:20 in the video above) was that “all human beings should be protected everywhere.” When I pressed him about the 300 children killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead and whether he supported the assault, his response was: “I don’t know anything about it.” Blumenthal and I each tried one more time, and Wiesel again said he didn’t know anything about Cast Lead.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Political Extremists Think They Are Right And You Are Wrong

Extreme attitudes are usually accompanied by a sense that those beliefs are the only "correct" ones.
The study, which implicated extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, analyzed the extent to which being extremely conservative or extremely liberal correlated with feelings of belief superiority. Belief superiority doesn't just mean you think your opinions are correct, it means also believing it's the only valid opinion, and that all other opinions or attitudes are inferior to yours. "They don't just take a side, they actually believe that everyone who disagrees with that view must be wrong," lead author Kaitlyn Toner explained.

Rich People Just Care Less

Daniel Goleman-The New York Times
Turning a blind eye. Giving someone the cold shoulder. Looking down on people. Seeing right through them.
These metaphors for condescending or dismissive behavior are more than just descriptive. They suggest, to a surprisingly accurate extent, the social distance between those with greater power and those with less — a distance that goes beyond the realm of interpersonal interactions and may exacerbate the soaring inequality in the United States.

Violinist Nigel Kennedy Joins Young Palestinian Musicians for an Exotic Version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

On August 8, the flamboyant British violinist Nigel Kennedy and members of his Poland-based Orchestra of Life joined with the Palestine Strings ensemble at the Royal Albert Hall in London for a very unorthodox performance of the Baroque classic for a BBC Proms broadcast. With musicians drawn mostly from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Palestine Strings is an orchestra of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, a school founded in the Israeli-occupied territories in 1993 and named in 2004 for Said, the influential Palestinian-born writer, theorist and music aficionado who died the previous year.

Settlers destroy 48 young olive trees in South Hebron Hills

 International Solidarity Movement. Qawawis, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday morning, 3rd October, Palestinians discovered 48 olive trees destroyed alongside bypass road 317 near the South Hebron Hills area village of Qawawis.
The destroyed olive trees (Photo by Operation Dove).
The olive tree grove belongs to Ali Shetat from Qawawis and had been planted six years ago. At 10 am yesterday morning the owners, several internationals and B’tselem staff members gathered near the destroyed trees, waiting for the police.

Settlers steal olives from 110+ trees in Abu Huwar

Some trees were left completely destroyed

On the 5th of October, local farmers discovered that the olives from more than one hundred trees had been stolen, and that another ten trees had been damaged or destroyed. Abu Huwar farm, belonging to Yasser Fuqaha, Sidqi Fukaha, Mustafa Fuqaha and other farmers from the Meri family.

Israel worshippers celebrate Ruwanda's genocider in chief.

Right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Elie Wiesel celebrate Rwandan strongman at NYC panel. When an attendant tried to speak out about Rwandan genocide, he was choked by security and dragged from the event.

The media’s double standard on child victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Musab al-Sarahneh (photo:Ma’an Images)

(Mondoweiss)

This post is about 2 children, each violently attacked recently and each victims of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Above is a photo of 6-year-old Musab al-Sarahneh. He was shot in the eye by Israeli forces who opened fired in a refugee camp south of Hebron last week. He lost his right eye. It was reported by Ma’an News on Thursday and picked up by The Palestinian Chronicle and a site called USMessageBoard. According to the family the attack occurred while the boy was a passenger in the family’s car returning from a visit to his uncle’s house.

Quote of the week

"The one state solution is the (Palestinian) generous offer."
Remi Kanazi

BBC admits wrongdoing in presenting pro-Israeli commentator as neutral expert

Amena Saleem (Electronic Intifada)

 The BBC has admitted it breached its own editorial guidelines in presenting a pro-Israeli commentator as an independent analyst during Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012.

Over the course of just two days, the strongly Zionist Jonathan Sacerdoti made four separate appearances on the BBC’s rolling news channel, BBC News 24, to give his assessment of the events leading up to Israel’s assault.

New Leonardo da Vinci painting 'discovered'

 
  A Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress, the painting which has been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Photograph: Christie's 
 Art experts believe a new portrait by Leonardo da Vinci may have been discovered thanks to a 500-year-old fingerprint.
 The small picture of a young woman in profile was previously believed to be a German work from the early 19th century and has changed hands in recent years for around £12,000.
But a growing number of leading Leonardo scholars agree the work is almost certainly by the Renaissance figurehead because it appears to have his fingerprint on it. Carbon dating and infrared analysis of Leonardo's techniques back up the theory.
(Thanks vza)

The canonization of ruthless exploitation

For those who want to study how US history is manufactured, take a look at the hagiographies coming out in film & books about Steve Jobs (notably the film “Jobs” & the biography “Steve Jobs,” by Walter Isaacson). Then you’ll understand how “robber barons” became the builders of the US & working people got deleted from the narrative. It’s a substantial intellectual feat that has left US history one of the most bereft subjects in the curriculum & American ignorance of US history the butt of international ridicule.

They’re off & running now to canonize Jobs, using pretty-boy Ashton Kutcher to install the halo in the film “Jobs.” Prominent reviewers of the film from the computer industry call Jobs “one of the most significant figures of the last century,” “the ultimate icon of inventiveness,”  “a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection & ferocious drive revolutionized six industries.”

One reviewer complained that neither the film nor the biography properly honored the spirituality of Jobs. After all, at Jobs memorial service each guest was given “Autobiography of a Yogi” at Job’s request. (Mother of God, you can’t make this stuff up!) The reviewer was miffed because the Apple product line reflects Job’s stature as “a true prophet & visionary & spirit of innovation” & this was not depicted in the film. They probably miss him because one of the only boasts left for capitalism is its creativity & Jobs seemed to be a technological exemplar of that. Now what’s left? Monsanto?

Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak has a different take on the film since he has a less glorified view of Jobs. Wozniak was in fact invited to consult on “Jobs” but declined  saying he was “abhorred” by the script. (He is consulting on another forthcoming film about Jobs.) Wozniak’s chief complaint is that Jobs took all the credit & most of the profits for other people’s work. While he was in that downward facing dog yoga position he wasn’t meditating; he was scheming how to rip other people like Wozniak off. That can create some bad feelings not reflected in “Jobs.”

After all the films & biographies & articles, only two words remain to write Job’s obituary & put the last nail in his coffin: child labor. Actually on second thought several damnations remain: military-style working conditions requiring excessive overtime; hazardous conditions & exposure to toxic materials like aluminum dust; standing so long on cement floors that legs swelled & workers could hardly walk after a 24-hour shift; living together in crowded dorms; suicide nets installed around factories to prevent workers dying in suicide leaps; factory executive comparing management of workers to management of zoo animals.

(Photo is of protestors outside an Apple store in Hong Kong demonstrating oppressive working conditions at Taiwan’s Foxconn which manufactures Apple products. By AFP)

INSIGHT-Saudi Arabia boosts Salafist rivals to al Qaeda in Syria

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Alarmed by the rise of al Qaeda in Syria, Saudi Arabia is trying to strengthen rival Islamists with ties to Riyadh and this week helped engineer a consolidation of rebel groups around Damascus under a Saudi-backed leader.
That might bolster the opposition militarily as President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been pushing back, but it also underlines al Qaeda's expansion in Syria - and the proliferation of splits among Assad's enemies, just as world powers are trying to corral them into talks with his government.

Weighing in on Miley Cyrus & Sinead O'Connor

Media misrepresentations of 1970s feminism is worth a few books, one of which would have to address how Third Wave feminism (an intellectual current among elite women) rewrote the history of the earlier social movement based on those media slanders. One of the charges is that 1970s feminists were sex-negative. To make this kind of accusation, one would have to be completely ignorant of the women’s movement & of the entire political context of the 1960s & 1970s--of the fight for birth control, of the sexual revolution, of feminism’s exposure of pedophilia, of the movement’s campaigns & clinics to educate women about sexuality & reproductive health.

One can well understand why the media would vilify the movement about sexuality; what is not understandable is why women who identify with feminism would accept those lies, thereby exposing their intellectual laziness & lack of scholarship. 1970s feminism opposed & exposed the commodification of female sexuality by attempting to free it from the dichotomous straightjacket of “Madonna vs. whore” which is a psychological imperative of misogyny & of the commercial traffic in women’s sexuality.

Media of course is the servant of commerce--which by no means intended to abandon its advertising policy of “sex sells.” It’s no coincidence at all that the media began peddling a view of feminists as blue-nosed prudes; earlier they portrayed feminists as man-hating lesbians & spinsters too ugly to get a man. And it’s no coincidence that the entertainment industry began peddling sexual exhibitionism as female empowerment. It was a counteroffensive against feminism--& performers like Madonna made their fortunes cashing in on it.

Raunch & sexual exhibitionism are not sex-positive & they are certainly not empowering. Nor are they intended to be. They are intended to legitimize the Madonna vs. whore dichotomy. Which is why the entertainment industry continues to create such performers from second-rate talents with first-rate ambitions & the media continues to act as outraged Presbyterians.

The latest in this sexual charade is Miley Cyrus--where those who consider her performance vulgar & puerile (appealing to naughty little boys) rather than orgasmic & erotic are accused of slut shaming. What’s not to be ashamed of? Other performers like Sinead O’Connor were offered the same blandishments of notoriety & fortune to bump & grind & they declined--preferring to trade on their talent.

The media vilified O’Connor after her 1992 Saturday Night Live (SNL) performance (where she tore up a photo of the pope to protest the Vatican’s criminal collusion in child sexual abuse). SNL disgraced itself in apologies to the pope. Madonna, who had already publicly criticized O’Connor’s lack of commercial sexuality, went after her with a vengeance. Of course, Madonna had made her deal with the devil to become the standard-bearer of smut peddling for notoriety, the role model for performers like Cyrus. (While Madonna excoriated O’Connor she was also promoting her pornographic sex book.) Even the mafia’s private jester, Frank Sinatra, weighed in against O’Connor. Cynicism like this is seldom so raucous & banal. O’Connor may have been battered by the opprobrium but weathered the storm admirably.

There is a sharp exchange going on now between Cyrus & O’Connor & it’s of interest because it exposes the hypocrisy of the media & the entertainment industry & puts the ugly Madonna vs. whore dichotomy under a spotlight. Those who think this is just another case of slut shaming & that Cyrus should be defended for her choices are being manipulated. In her exchange with O’Connor, she has joined the chorus of braying jackasses who defended the Vatican after the SNL incident, insulted those with mental health problems, & shown herself to be a rather vicious young woman.

Many unfortunate souls may believe the crap portrayed by Cyrus & other such female performers is eroticism which plumbs the depths of female sexuality. Take a cold shower & you’ll get over it! Then find yourself a good sex therapist.

(Photo of O’Connor ripping up photo of Pope John Paul II on SNL, October 1992)

Texas fundamentalists want to teach Garden of Eden in science class

Salon.com
Fundamentalists on the state school board can force textbook publishers to rewrite entire portions of their texts 
Christian fundamentalists in Texas are out to destroy your child’s education again. The state is one of the biggest textbook buyers in the country, and because of this, they can force textbook publishers to rewrite entire portions of the books that will land not just in the hands of Texas children, but children around the country (the school board is currently deciding on new science textbooks). The state school board, which is stuffed with right-wing ideologues who cheerfully reject any science they feel is in conflict with fundamentalist Christianity, are once again trying to use that power to try to teach your kid their religion in the science classroom.
Read more

How Druze bested the Jews

How did a Druze school in northern Israel go from bottom to the top of the class in the span of a decade? The blood, sweat and tears that made Beit Jann High School the best in the whole of Israel.

Haaretz: Drafting the blueprint for Palestinian refugees' right of return

A conference this week at the Eretz Israel Museum, of all places, showed that plans are being made for Palestinians to rebuild and move into villages abandoned in 1948.
 
Salameh Heibi at the conference this week. "here I am. I live five minutes from Maghar and I'm a refugee. Someone else lives in your place and you're a refugee."
For two days, participants in the international conference of the Zochrot organization, which took place this week at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, discussed how to promote the return of the Palestinian refugees, how to plan their villages that are to be rebuilt, and whether their houses will be similar to those that were destroyed.  

Sudan Speaks..Website with daily updates about events in Sudan

"DIRECTLY from the streets of Sudan. Brought to you in English. Updates happen frequently as information changes and we do our best to make sure information is accurate and confirmed"

HAARETZ: Australian Muslims oppose pro-Israel candidate

Haaretz    -     4 October 2013
  “Paul Howes has had a repeated pattern of blind bias toward Israel”

The Grand Mufti of Australia’s Islamic community has been embroiled in a political scandal after threatening to withdraw his community’s support for the Labor Party over a candidate who has a “blind bias for Israel.”
In a leaked email published last week by Fairfax Media, Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, who lauded Gaza as “the land of Jihad” during a visit in December 2012, said if Paul Howes’s bid for Australia’s upper house was successful he would encourage withdrawing support for Labor in the Islamic strongholds in western Sydney.
Howes, the national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, has been a vocal opponent of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign against Israel, branding it as “an attempt to demonize Israel."
 He withdrew from the contest last week amid contested claims it was linked to the leaked email. Howes was tipped to replace Bob Carr, who as foreign minister in the previous Labor government rankled Jewish leaders by repeatedly labeling all Israeli settlements “illegal.”
Read more

And BDS will bear fruit

Boycott of Jaffa oranges (Photo: Action pour la paix)

Thirty-five years after Israeli confiscation, a Palestinian village returns to its land

Allison Deger (Mondoweiss) on October 4, 2013 

 

Palestinian firemen from the village of Burqa near Nablus plant an olive tree sapling on land restored after a 35-year Israeli confiscation. (Photo: Allison Deger)

Decades ago the West Bank hamlet of Burqa lost part of its agricultural grounds when it was confiscated for an Israeli army post, and then later converted into the settlement of Homesh. But thirty-five years later, in a first in the West Bank, Israel’s high court has restored the land back to the original Palestinian owners. Above, Palestinians from Burqa plant an olive tree sapling on their land.
Read more

Waiting in Gaza, where nothing makes sense

Yousef M. Aljamal

The Electronic Intifada 4 October 2013

The scene at Rafah crossing on 28 September.
(Eyad Al Baba / APA images)

 Hundreds of travelers — mostly students and medical patients — are waiting at the passengers’ hall at the Palestinian side of border. All of them are holding their Palestinian Authority travel documents, looking at the officer who calls the names of people who are supposed to travel the next day.
People who have the good fortune to hear their names are congratulated by fellow passengers. Dozens edge closer to the counter where the officer stands, thinking that this might help them.

MJ Rosenberg: How AIPAC Lost Its Grip

MJ Rosenberg
"I have always believed that, at some point, the Israeli prime minister and his lobby would lose their grip on U.S. Middle East policy. At least I’ve believed that since 1982 when Tom Dine, AIPAC’s most successful executive director, explained how it would happen.

It was during my four year stint at AIPAC that I asked Dine if a president of the United States could take a position opposed by the lobby, in a case where U.S. national security interests were clearly at stake, and prevail.

Dine responded that although he hoped that day wouldn’t come, he did not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn’t want to do given the power of AIPAC and “our friends in Congress.” In other words, as long as politicians need AIPAC-directed campaign funds, it wouldn’t happen"

Lies across the Americas

In his 1999 book, “Lies Across America,” James Loewen (who also wrote “Lies My Teacher Told Me”) discusses the many racist US monuments built & maintained by those who still can’t accept the Confederate Slaveocracy lost the Civil War & who attempt with monuments to glorify slavery & discredit Black Reconstruction. There are also dozens of monuments in many states not just demeaning to Native Americans but glorifying the genocide & conquest by Europeans. One of these monstrosities sits at the entrance of the NYC Museum of Natural History; it is of the colonialist Teddy Roosevelt on horseback flanked by an African & a Native American on foot. It is frequently protested by Native American groups, especially around Thanksgiving, the festival of colonial genocide smothered in sentimentality.

The question of course is what to do with these ugly-assed things when humanity has finally destroyed the scourge of racism & exploitation. Some may argue to maintain them as an object lesson of history; others will want them destroyed. You don’t have to be a barbarian to side with the latter view since most of them are as ugly as their inspiration. It wouldn’t be like burning the ancient library at Alexandria. But that’s a decision future generations will make.

There’s presently no catalog of this type of monument in the rest of the Americas but we can be sure they exist aplenty. One such monstrosity sits in a park in Sao Paulo, Brazil--the massive & grotesque Monumento às Bandeiras (completed in 1953), built to honor the 16th century Bandeirantes, a Portuguese mafia of slave hunters who captured & forced native peoples into slavery & later expanded their mission to hunting for gold, silver, & diamond mines & forcing the native peoples into slaving in the mines.

On Tuesday, October 1st, Indigenous people from several tribes in Brazil began a weeklong campaign against a proposed constitutional change that would end the demarcation of their ancestral lands & open them up to foreign agribusiness enterprises like Monsanto (which the media euphemistically refers to as “farmers”). In Brasilia, hundreds of protestors set up camp in front of the Brazilian Congress, danced war dances & brandished bows, arrows, & spears before attempting to invade the Congress; tribes across the country blocked highways, jammed traffic, & occupied government offices. Yesterday in Sao Paulo, they went after the Bandeiras monument with red paint symbolizing the sacrifice of their ancestors. It can be said with some certainty that in the future they will lobby strongly to have such monuments deconstructed in no uncertain terms. This photo of the defacement will confirm the judgement that these monuments are not just objectionable eyesores & a blight on the landscape but irredeemably racist & of no historic value whatsoever.

In the fight against agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, there are allies on every continent including thousands of dispossessed farmers & Indigenous tribes. Solidarity with their struggles is not an option but a necessity.

(Photo by Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)

Israeli Minister of Defence proposed using atomic bomb in 1973 war

 Former Minister of Defence Moshe Dayan made proposal to see what would happen if an atomic bomb were to be used against Egypt and Syria. Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper has published leaked information about Israeli discussions regarding the potential regional reaction if Israel were to attack Damascus and Cairo with an atomic bomb on the eve of the October 1973 war. -
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NSA director admits to misleading public on terror plots

The administration has been amping up stats about foiled plots to bolster support for mass surveillance

 

Gen. Keith B. Alexander (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

In so many words, NSA director Keith Alexander admitted Wednesday that the Obama administration had issued misleading information about terror plots and their foiling to bolster support for the government’s vast surveillance apparatus.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy pushed Alexander to admit that plot numbers had been fudged in a revealing interchange:
“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots,” said Leahy. The Vermont Democrat then asked the NSA chief to admit that only 13 out of a previously cited 54 cases of foiled plots were genuinely the fruits of the government’s vast dragnet surveillance systems:
“These weren’t all plots, and they weren’t all foiled,” Leahy said, asking Alexander, “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”
“Yes,” replied Alexander.
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In solidarity with those commemorating the Tlatelolco massacre

This image from the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City truly is one of the most glorious political moments in sports history. The three athletes here--Tommy Smith & John Carlos from the US & Peter Norman from Australia--embodied in this defiant gesture the very best of rebellion & the human spirit--fearlessness before power & the willingness to throw athletic glory & a comfortable life aside for political commitments. All three men remained true to that defiance & though their athletic careers took a hit, their defiance continues to inspire. Dave Zirin, the political sports writer has written a book & many articles describing the courage of these men & the contributions they continued to make after the games.

This picture never fails to stir & should be viewed just to keep us all on the path of justice. Today it is to express solidarity with the protests in Mexico City commemorating the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, 1968, just 10 days before the Olympic games. Getting justice for the victims is international.

(Photo by AP photographer)

Commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre of Mexican students

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Mexico City to mark the 45th anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, 1968 when troops opened fire on student protestors & bystanders just days before the opening of the summer Olympics. With unspeakable temerity the government blamed the massacre on students, claiming they opened fire first. This was dutifully echoed in the media which denounced the “criminal provocation” of protestors. It was also echoed by most prominent Mexican intellectuals & politicians, with the exception of Octavio Paz & Carlos Fuentes. It’s now known a special military unit called the Brigada Olympica, armed & trained by the US Pentagon for Olympic security, opened fire on unarmed protestors.

The exact death toll remains unknown because the government will only officially acknowledge 25 deaths. But eyewitnesses describe seeing hundreds of bodies being trucked away from the scene. Human rights activists claim as many as 350 were killed; thousands were beaten, jailed, & many were disappeared. No one has ever been prosecuted or jailed for the massacre.

Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympics Committee, would not let a massacre stand in the way of the games. This is the same unsavory creep who wouldn’t let fascism interfere with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It was in these 1968 Mexican games that Black US athletes Tommie Smith & John Carlos, members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, gave the Black power salute during the Star Spangled Banner--which has to be one of the most glorious political moments in sports history. Brundage immediately suspended Smith & Carlos & evicted them from the Olympic village. Their courage & defiance continue to inspire.

This is a photo from yesterday’s commemoration to demand justicia for those murdered, tortured, & disappeared. We are glad to see the paint bomb has come to Mexico but regret it represents the blood of hundreds of young victims. Our fullest solidarity with our brothers & sisters in their pursuit of justice.

(Photo by Bernardo Montoya/Reuters)

What else from the Kingdom of Darkness?

Saudi Arabia sentences four to prison, lashes for dancing "naked"
A Saudi court has sentenced four men to up to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for dancing "naked" in public, media reported on Thursday.
In a video posted on YouTube, several men appear dancing atop a vehicle in the ultra-conservative province of Qassim. None seemed naked.
The court in Buraydah, Qassim's provincial capital, sentenced one defendant to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes, and a $13,333 fine, Gulf News reported.

Syrian rebel groups call on al-Qaeda faction to withdraw from Azaz

 Rebel fighters gather in the Salaheddin district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 23, 2013. (Photo: AFP - Salah al-Ashkar)

Six of the most powerful rebel factions in Syria issued a joint statement on Thursday telling an al-Qaeda front group to withdraw from the northern town of Azaz bordering Turkey.
In a separate statement, rebels in central Syria also called on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to leave Homs province.
The statements came amid fresh clashes between ISIL militants and the mainstream rebel Northern Storm brigade in Azaz.
Hours before the statement by the six rebel groups was made public, hundreds of ISIL fighters were advancing towards the border post with Turkey near Azaz.
Major rebel groups Ahrar al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid and Jaysh al-Islam all signed the statement urging "our brothers in ISIL to withdraw their troops and vehicles to their main headquarters immediately".

Ethnic Cleansing by Bureaucracy: Israel’s policy of destroying Palestinian homes

"Underpinning most home demolitions is Israel’s strategic goal of limiting the non-Jewish Palestinian population, or removing it altogether, from areas of the occupied territories and Israel proper. In particular, Israel wants to cement its hold over occupied East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, and to “Judaize” East Jerusalem and areas such as the Negev desert in southern Israel. Other bureaucratic tools used to achieve this goal include: the revocation of residency rights for Palestinians in East Jerusalem; evictions of Palestinians from their homes and land; and severe restrictions on the ability of non-Jewish citizens to own and rent land in Israel, and of Palestinians to build in the 60% of the West Bank under complete Israeli control according to the terms of the Oslo Accords. "

Syrian FM: Syria formally confirms mission to restore 'Israeli-occupied' Golan Heights

Moualem: Israel "handicapping" possibility of a WMDs-free zone by not signing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem addresses the UN in New York September 30, 2013. Photo: REUTERS

Syria is determined to restore the Israeli Golan Heights to Syrian rule, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday in a speech to the UN General Assembly.
"The Syrian Arab Republic confirm their mission to restore the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to Syrian rule and formally rejects all measures taken by Israel to change the geopolitical landscape of the Golan Heights," al-Moualem said.

Ralph Nader: Congressional “Mad Dogs” Render the Powerful Powerless

by RALPH NADER SHUTDOWN – blared the Washington Post headline. None of the powers-that-be could stop a small faction of Republicans in the House of Representatives from shutting down many federal government operations starting on October 1. Suddenly the powerful Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce are powerless, along with two hundred corporate trade associations, who see Uncle Sam as their big customer. Suddenly, the Republican dominated National Governors Association, together with Mitt Romney, the Party’s presidential nominee in 2013, are powerless. Also powerless so far are the allegedly sovereign people, who want uninterrupted safety inspections, enforcement of labor and environmental laws, children’s nutrition and educational programs (like Head Start), student loan processing, veterans benefits, detection of epidemics, access to national parks, and inspections of nuclear power plants.

BISHARA: The man who sold the world – Dr. Erekat is back

by Hakim Bishara     -     +972 Mag     -      2 October 2013
There was a time, back in the 1990s, when inveterate Palestinian negotiator Dr. Saeb Erekat was on top of his game. Confident, eloquent and dolled up with an elegant pair of tortoise architect glasses, the capable young diplomat was a rising star. Together with colleagues such as Hanan Ashrawi, Sari Nusseibeh and the more proactive Marwan Barghuti, he emerged out of exile and anonymity as part of the next generation of PLO leaders. In their prime, they brought finesse and sophistication to the cause, while an aging and tragic Yasser Arafat wobbled with pathos between the heroic and the pathetic. Today, 20 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, that avant-garde group is a lineup of political corpses. Some are forgotten, some are locked behind bars and others still roam the chambers and corridors trying to save what little is left. Such is the case of the unrelenting Dr. Erekat.

In rare case, Palestinians reclaim bit of settlement land

BURKA, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian farmers on Thursday reclaimed lands they had lost decades earlier to an Israeli settlement, celebrating a rare legal victory their lawyer said illustrates that Israel's settlement enterprise is reversible. In the 1970s, Israel had seized several hundred acres from residents of the West Bank village of Burka to build the Israeli settlement of Homesh. The settlement, along with three others in the West Bank, was razed in 2005, in connection with Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip at the time.

A Palestinian boy shot for drinking soda

Atta Sabbah, 13, is paralyzed after an Israeli soldier shot him in the spine. (Dina Elmuti)

Dina Elmuti

The Electronic Intifada

Against the backdrop of concrete barriers, illegal settlements and the constant presence of violent Israeli soldiers, Palestinian children are introduced to catastrophe early on.
They quickly become familiar with moments that divide life into the times before and after trauma. The two have very little in common. Where once there was a sense of calm, there is now an overwhelming sense of shock and disorientation.
Violent experiences replay in their minds over and over. The stress that trauma inflicts on the body and mind corrodes attachments to other people.
Every place, sound and scent leaves an imprint inscribed in memory like irreversible negatives from cameras. Everything in their surroundings becomes imbued with terror. It’s an assassination of innocence.

FALK: Israel’s politics of deflection – theory and practice

 
by Richard Falk     -     The Palestine Chronicle 

General Observations
During my period as the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine on behalf of the Human Rights Council I have been struck by the persistent efforts of Israel and its strong civil society adjuncts to divert attention from the substance of Palestinian grievances or the consideration of the respective rights of Israel and Palestine under international law. I have also observed that many, but by no means all of those who represent the Palestinians seem strangely reluctant to focus on substance or to take full advantage of opportunities to use UN mechanisms to challenge Israel on the terrain of international law and morality.
This Palestinian reluctance is more baffling than are the Israeli diversionary tactics. It seems clear that international law supports Palestinian claims on the major issues in contention: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, resources (water, land), statehood, and human rights. Then why not insist on resolving the conflict by reference to international law with such modifications as seem mutually beneficial? Of course, those representing the Palestinians in international venues are aware of these opportunities, and are acting on the basis of considerations that in their view deserve priority. It is disturbing that this passivity on the Palestinian side persists year after year, decade after decade. There are partial exceptions: support for recourse to the International Court of Justice to contest the construction of the separation wall, encouragement of the establishment of the Goldstone Fact-finding Inquiry investigating Israeli crimes after the 2008-09 attacks on Gaza, and complaints about settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem. But even here, Palestinian officialdom will not push hard to have these symbolic victories implemented in ways that alter the behavioral realities on the ground, and maybe even if they did do their best, nothing would change.

The garden of Bilin, West Bank

In a world of so much suffering we need often pause to acknowledge & honor what it is about human beings that is so glorious--despite what seems evidence to the contrary. This photo is from the West Bank Palestinian village of Bilin (near Ramallah) featured in the Oscar-nominated film “Five Broken Cameras. Bilin is a flashpoint & symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli policies & occupation by its weekly protests against the apartheid barrier wall (which Zionists refer to as a “fence”) which cuts through Palestinian lands--amounting to an expropriation.

During the weekly protests, Israeli soldiers fire tear gas canisters, stun grenades, rubber bullets, & live ammo against Palestinian rock throwers. In 2009, a 29-year-old Palestinian protestor, Bassem Abu Rahmeh, died when struck in the chest by a tear gas canister; his 36-year-old, sister Jawaher, died nearly two years later from inhaling Israeli tear gas.

Over the years, residents of Bilin have gathered the spent tear gas canisters & planted flowers in them in a garden to commemorate those who have died & according to village resident, Mohammed Khatib, to show that life can spring from death. In this photo, a resident tends to the plants. If Palestinians on the front lines of such a barbarous conflict & in the face of wrenching loss can sustain such hope after 65 years, who are we to disagree?

Support peace & justice in Palestine by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729), supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, & demanding “No US aid to Israel.”

(Photo by Majdi Mohammed/AP)

Romanticizing ethnic cleansing

This 1907 photo by Roland W. Reed is identified as an Ojibway or Chippewa Indian girl & it’s interesting for many reasons. This is another instance of that peculiar racist & colonial phenomenon where the oppressed are renamed by the conquerers. We are told Ojibway (in Minnesota) & Chippewa (in Canada) are anglicized versions of what the tribe called themselves, which is Anishinaabeg. Why not just call them by their proper name? This renaming must be part of the process of stripping people of their identity & of demeaning them. That’s why reclaiming their own names is part of the struggle of the oppressed.

There are volumes of these kinds of photos taken at the dawn of the 20th century after decades of savage wars & the decisive defeat of Plains Indian tribes (west of the Mississippi) which corralled them on to barren reservations. After the end of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln initiated a campaign against the Plains tribes & sent the US Army led by former Northern Yankee generals like George Custer (not Confederate generals) to wage war on them. That history is not taught in US schools; what most kids know about Native American history is the racist caricature of cowboy movies & sentimental Thanksgiving mythology. Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s there is plenty of valuable scholarship about Indian history & the Indian wars of extermination which began with the arrival of the Pilgrims. (Unfortunately, there’s plenty of schlock history too.) But in US schools, Native American history is still not taught.

What’s important about the immense catalog of thousands of photos taken of Native Americans at this time is that the photographers were commissioned & financed by figures like J.P. Morgan who in the spirit of anthropology wanted to document Native Americans before the ethnic cleansing was complete & they were extinct. Although portrayed with great dignity, this was how the photographers idealistically posed & imagined the “noble savage” & not how they found them living in squalor on reservations after decades of massacres, genocides, & barbaric wars. They were people still reeling from the savageries of genocide. These photos are now mostly consigned to coffee table books & National Geographic exhibits.

Although US school kids still do not study Native American history, Nazis & Zionists are among those who have studied US methods of ethnic cleansing developed in a few hundred years of Indian wars. An essential part of social transformation in this country is studying & reclaiming that history--not to wallow in guilt about what cannot be changed but to understand what was, what is, & what must be changed. The Dutch philosopher, Spinoza, said we study the past neither to laugh nor to cry but to understand. And of course the only point of understanding is to imagine & create a better world suitable for all peoples to live together as brothers & sisters.

(Photo by Roland W. Reed)

Best Tweet On Netanyahu’s Insane Performance at UN

Foreign extremists dominate Syria fight

AP - Rebels from an al-Qaeda-affiliated group sit on a truck full of ammunition at Taftanaz air base, which was captured by the rebels, in Idlib province in northern Syria.

BEIRUT — Foreign fighters from across the Arab world and beyond are playing an increasingly dominant role in the battle for control of Syria, which has emerged as an even more powerful magnet for jihadi volunteers than Iraq and Afghanistan were in the last decade.
The number of Syrians battling to overthrow the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad outstrips by a large margin the thousands of Arabs and other non-Syrian Muslims who have streamed into Syria over the past two years to join in the fight.
 But the flow of jihadi volunteers has accelerated, and non-Syrians have begun taking the lead in a variety of roles as the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempts to assert control over large areas of the rebel-held north.
Foreign fighters man checkpoints, serve as commanders on the battlefield and have become the de facto rulers of towns and cities in areas under rebel control, giving them a visible and much-feared presence across large swaths of territory, according to Syrians living in the north as well as analysts.
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Loathsome crackpots!

Why do many Christians believe Jesus will appear after Jews rebuild the temple? 

Members of the Eagles’ Wings global missional community in Jerusalem, Sukkot, 2011. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum

 

" These are the same Zionist evangelicals who oppose any peace agreement in which Israel will cede parts of the homeland, and who customarily make donations to various right-wing associations in Israel. For them, Israeli sovereignty over the Holy Land is fraught with redemptive meaning. Only the continuing and eternal covenant between the Jewish people and its God in heaven can lend a messianic significance to its deeds on earth."

Akiva Eldar on Max Blumenthal's book "Goliath": Introducing American Jews to the real Israel

 
No Longer David: The State of Israel As Goliath

By Akiva Eldar for Al-Monitor Israel Pulse
September 25, 2013

Whenever you speak with an American Jew about Israel, you always end up at the same point. The conversation starts with Israel, but rarely ends there. It almost always ends with “them.” So begins “The American Jewish Cocoon,” a lengthy article by Peter Beinart published Sept. 4 in The New York Review of Books. [Reposted by JfJfP as How Americans defend themselves from knowing about Palestinians, Sept. 3rd, 2013.]
“Them,” of course, refers to the Palestinians. “They” are that same monolithic entity, faceless and devoid of a clear identity, that provides the wranglers with the ultimate response to any criticism of Israel: “They” teach their children to hate and kill; “they” don’t accept Israel’s right to exist; and why don’t “they” criticize their own society as Israelis criticize their own?
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A Northern Ireland solution for Palestine?

Ali Abunimah (Electronic Intifada)
Israeli academic Neve Gordon was the target of a forceful backlash from peers and Israel lobby groups like J Street four years ago when he endorsed the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel – albeit as a last-ditch effort to save the “two-state solution.”
Now, using this week’s conference of the Israel lobby group J Street as a hook, Gordon has come back with an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times concluding that the two-state solution is essentially finished.
Gordon proposes a sort of hybrid one-state solution modeled on the 1998 Belfast Agreement (also known as the “Good Friday agreement”) in Northern Ireland.
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Forced labor in Qatar

Qatar is ranked the richest country in the world (based on income per capita) with an economy based entirely on petroleum & natural gas exports. While it has the juridical stature of a nation-state it is indistinguishable from a feudal fiefdom, complete with absolute monarchy. There are no elections, no parliament, & in its one redeeming feature, no politicians. As the monstrous progeny of British colonialism after the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, it is allowed “independence” for docile service to the new empire of barbarism & plunder known as neoliberalism.

In obsequious service to colonialism, Qatar hosts an air base which is the hub for all US-NATO air operations in the Gulf. It played a significant military role in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (including providing tanks), served as the US Central Command headquarters in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, allows the US-NATO to use an air base to send supplies to Iraq & Afghanistan, joined NATO operations in Libya, was a bankroller of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, & is a major arms provider for rebel groups in the Syrian civil war.

Qatar consciously cultivates a progressive image & has hosted several conferences for academics, religious, & political figures to discuss democracy, media & information technology, & free trade issues. But you can go to jail for calling the king a bad name. It pretends to broker peace between rival factions across the globe as in Afghanistan & Darfur. You can see how well that’s working (especially since the US wasn't included). It bankrolls Al Jazeera but censors national media. It pompously holds a seat on the UN Human Rights Council but has formulated human rights & labor laws that exclude women & immigrant workers. It has no mandated minimum wage so it can use forced & trafficked labor without impediment.

The number of Qatar citizens is 250,000 people out of a population of 1,900,000 people. The 250,000 of course includes seniors, children, disabled, & feudal freeloaders. The fief doesn’t have any working class (or serfs) so 94% of the workforce that make it the richest country in the world are migrant workers from other Arab countries, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, & the Philippines.

FIFA has selected Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. Qatar’s winning bid included commitments to build nine stadiums, a new airport, metro & rail systems, new roads, a causeway connecting Qatar to Bahrain, 54 team camps, & 55,000 new hotel rooms at an estimated cost of $100 billion USD. They will have to recruit an estimated 1.5 million more foreign workers to construct this infrastructure.

Migrant workers on the FIFA projects report extensive labor abuse including forced labor, indentured servitude, human trafficking, late or unpaid wages, physical assault & coercion, confiscated passports & failure to provide work permits which thereby reduce workers to illegal status & make it impossible for them to leave, overcrowded, filthy, & squalid labor camps, no access to potable water in desert heat, dangerous work conditions, & a high death rate due to dehydration & malnutrition. Autopsies on the deceased (most of them very young men) are often not conducted but are routinely attributed to heart failure. Embassies report that thousands of workers are complaining to them of these abuses & hundreds of foreign workers are dying at the rate of 600 a year from the harsh work & living conditions. The Nepalese ambassador to Qatar called the emirate an “open jail.”

And FIFA? They’ve already been exposed in Brazil for their flagrant disregard of human rights & are still doing damage control there. Their representative claims FIFA is “absolutely appalled & disturbed” at labor abuse in Qatar & they promise to hold all contractors working on construction in Qatar to a code of conduct. No one should be so credulous as to hold their breath on promises coming out of FIFA. The World Cup is a playground for the ruling elite to gather; they don’t run their parties any more humanely than they do their plunder--& in fact the two have become indistinguishable.

In this photo, Dalli Kahtri & her husband, Lil Man from Nepal hold photos of their sons who both died working as migrant workers, one in Malaysia & the other in Qatar. Their younger son (in the photo held by Kahtri) died in Qatar from a heart attack at the age of 20. They want answers, they want accountability. They don’t want FIFA’s phony outrage

Support immigrant rights! Support labor rights for immigrants!

(Photo by Peter Pattison/Guardian UK)