The Angry Arabs' comments section

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Iraq foots the bill for its own destruction

By Murtaza Hussain

When considering the premise of reparation being paid for the Iraq War it would be natural to assume that the party to whom such payments would be made would be the Iraqi civilian population, the ordinary people who suffered the brunt of the devastation from the fighting. Fought on the false pretence of capturing Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the war resulted in massive indiscriminate suffering for Iraqi civilians which continues to this day. Estimates of the number of dead and wounded range from the hundreds of thousands into the millions, and additional millions of refugees remain been forcibly separated from their homes, livelihoods and families. Billions of dollars in reparations are indeed being paid for the Iraq War, but not to Iraqis who lost loved ones or property as a result of the conflict, and who, despite their nation’s oil wealth, are still suffering the effects of an utterly destroyed economy. "Reparations payments" are being made by Iraq to Americans and others for the suffering which those parties experienced as a result of the past two decades of conflict with Iraq.

A banker, ardent supporter of Israel visits occupied Palestine and discovers the horror..

Apartheid On Steroids
Stephen Robert-The Nation
"What I witnessed in the West Bank—home to about 2.5 million Palestinians and 400,000 Israeli settlers—exceeded my worst expectations. While the world’s statesmen have dithered, Israel has created a system of apartheid on steroids, a horrifying prison with concrete walls as high as twenty-six feet, topped with body-ravaging coils of razor wire. Spaced along these walls are imposing guard towers that harbor bunkers from which trespassers can be shot by Israeli soldiers. From this physical segregation—one land for Israelis; another, unequal land for Palestinians—flows a torrent of misery, violence and human rights abuses. The West Bank suffers from acute shortages of water, housing, jobs and healthcare. Palestinian children are separated from their parents, denied access to hospitals and stoned and beaten by Jewish settlers. Human rights sanctioned by international law, including the right to health, the prohibition on transferring populations into occupied territories and equal treatment before the law are routinely violated."
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In 1950, Uri Avnery offered first Israeli corroboration of ‘the Palestinian narrative’

Ira Glunts
"In the preface to the English volume, Avnery states that he wrote The Other Side of the Coin because he was disappointed that most understood his first book to be a glorification of the 1948 War. He stated that he wanted to also show the “dark side of the war.” Avnery felt that “since the war was over [he] could [now] write the whole truth.

The Other Side of the Coin contains a surprisingly stark and shocking view of what happened when the Samson’s Foxes (the author’s unit) invaded a series of Arab villages in what is currently southern Israel. In this book, Avnery portrays the Jewish army’s looting, raping, and killing of prisoners and civilians as commonplace and widely accepted occurrences among the Jewish fighters.

The following segment is Avnery’s depiction of the execution of an 80-year-old woman who had remained in the village of Daba after everyone else had fled. This memoir may be the first published Israeli corroboration of what many euphemistically call the Palestinian narrative.

"At the next crossroads we noticed that the second jeep, with Nachshe, Tarzan and Jamus, was no longer following us. With difficulty we turned back. The second jeep was standing by the old woman’s house. Nachshe stood in front of her waving his pistol.

“Hat Masari! Hat Masari! Fi, Fi!” [trans. Hand over the money!] he shouted. Like all of us, he believed that every Arab must have a treasure buried somewhere.

“Ma feesh, y khawaja!” [I have nothing, sir.] moaned the old woman in a whiny voice.

“Fi! Fi!” Nachshe shouted angrily and fired four bullets into the old woman. The shots threw her body upwards, as if she was jumping, then she fell dead into the same position we had first seen her in—leaning against the door frame.

Now Nachshe felt ashamed and didn’t want to be reminded of what he had done. It’s always like that with him. He can’t simply kill for pleasure and then feel like a hero the way Kebab can. Whenever he has killed a Fellah or a prisoner, he tries to forget about it and gets annoyed if you remind him.

Kebab won’t leave him alone. Nachshe is a member of the “intelligentsia” and has a big office. Kebab finds this murder reassuring. Because if a person like Nachshe is allowed to kill Fellaheen, then he himself, who is just an unskilled worker, can also be counted as a respectable person.

Actually you can’t hold it against Nachshe. It is not his fault. Homicidal urges come on him like an illness. He can’t do anything about it. Besides that he is a nice fellow. He would never abandon a wounded comrade in the field. At Position 125, did he not get out of his jeep at the worst moment and right between the Egyptian positions, in order to recover Nino’s body? I am not so sure about Kebab. I wouldn’t be very keen to find myself on patrol behind enemy lines with him.

“What’s the matter?” Kebab asks. “Are you ashamed that you finished off this stinking Arab woman?”

“That’s enough! Don’t you spend your whole day dreaming of Arab women?” Tarzan says in support of Nachshe.

“What has it got to do with you?” Kebab turns on him. “You are not brave enough to finish off just one Arab!” The truth, of course, is that Tarzan cannot kill an Arab, except in battle. Despite his enormous physical power he has a gentle soul, which he finds very embarrassing."

Stephen M. Walt-Foreign Policy

Just when you think your contempt for Congress could not get any higher, our elected representatives manage to do something to ratchet it up another notch. After congressional shenanigans helped spark a major market sell-off and sparked fears of a double-dip recession, you'd think every single one of them would be heading back to their districts to figure out what their constituents wanted and to try to explain how they were going to help make things better. Or maybe a few of them would even spend the recess taking a crash course in macroeconomics and public finance, so that they could start exercising their public duties more responsibly.

But what did 81 of them decide to do instead? You guessed it: they are off on junkets to Israel, paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, an AIPAC spinoff that has been funding such trips for years. That's right: during the August recess nearly a fifth of the U.S. Congress will visit a single country whose entire population is less than that of New York City.
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But Mr. Walt!! They've been paid for! It's time to deliver!!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Jewish Nazi settlers forced their way into Palestinian homes in Al-Khalil and expelled their inhabitants out at dawn!

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Jewish settlers forced their way into Palestinian homes in the Old City of Al-Khalil and expelled their inhabitants out at dawn Thursday, eyewitnesses said.

They said that the settlers used digging tools to force their way into those homes overlooking the settlement outposts in the city.

The Old City in Al-Khalil has always been coveted by the Jewish settlers, who, backed by the Israeli occupation forces, use arms to expel the Palestinian indigenous inhabitants and seize their homes.

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Fanatic Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian homes in the old city in al-Khalil on Wednesday evening for the second time in two days. The attacks take place when families gather at sunset to break their fast (Iftar).

Settlers from the Yeshai settlement built on confiscated Palestinian land at the centre of the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil attacked Palestinian homes in Tal al-Rumaida and Jabal al-Rahma throwing stones at the homes and terrorising Palestinian families living there.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Samer Allawi, who is detained by the Israeli occupation authorities said that the Israeli intelligence tried to recruit him but he refused and that he was threatened with being accused of something serious.

Allawi, a Palestinian journalist who works as al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Afghanistan, was visited by the lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society in Betah Tekva detention centre where he is being detained.

No friend of Israel – Archbishop Desmond Tutu Photo: AFP

"Special: Archbishop Tutu leads vile, racist campaign against Israel and Jewish people" (no less!)
"However, the Archbishop’s iconic voice has also found another cause no less popular: The global campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. Tutu just promoted an appeal to the US pension fund of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association for cutting the partnership with Israeli companies. He also helped the Australian Marrickville Council approve a boycott of Israel's goods"
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So basically, as he denounces what he sees as apartheid policies in occupied Palestine then he must be, oh no not an anti-Semite, too abused, an empty shell, but that "he hates the Jewish people"!! Oh, the awful villain!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Congressman: US ready to veto recognition bid

JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 10 Aug -- US representative Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that the Obama administration would use its veto at the UN Security Council if Palestinians move forward with a bid for recognition in September. Hoyer, the Democratic Whip of the House of Representatives, is in the region leading a congressional delegation sponsored by a pro-Israel lobby group, the AIPAC-backed America-Israel Education Foundation.
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Britain denies entry to Israeli rabbi who advocated killing of non-Jews

U.K. Border Agency sends Rabbi Yosef Elitzur letter signed by the home secretary, informing him that he could not enter Britain for the next three years.

The U.K. Border Agency is prohibiting fundamentalist Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, co-author of the controversial book "The King's Torah" ("Torat Hamelech" ), from entering Britain, the Jewish Voice website reported on Wednesday.

Elitzur received a letter last month from the U.K. Border Agency, signed by the home secretary, informing him that he could not enter Britain for the next three years.

Photo Gallery: Obama Struggles to Succeed

As America's first black president, Barack Obama electrified an entire nation. But now that the nation is in crisis, he seems unable to connect with the people. He wanted to change America and restore its reputation in the world. But now his opponents are dictating the country's political course.
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Tariq Ali on riots in England: Why here and now?; Neoliberalism’s chickens coming home to roost

By Tariq Ali, London

August 9, 2011 -- Why is it that the same areas always erupt first, whatever the cause? Pure accident? Might it have something to do with race and class and institutionalised poverty and the sheer grimness of everyday life?

The ruling Conservative Party-Liberal Democrats (Con-Dem) coalition politicians (including new New Labour, who might well sign up to a national government if the recession continues apace) with their petrified ideologies can’t say that because all three parties are equally responsible for the crisis.

They made the mess.

They privilege the wealthy. They let it be known that judges and magistrates should set an example by giving punitive sentences to protesters found with peashooters.

NATO Kills 85 Civilians In Libya

Nato air strikes killed 85 villagers near the city of Zliten in western Libya, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.

By AFP

Zliten: Nato air strikes killed 85 villagers near the city of Zliten in western Libya, a government spokesman said on Tuesday, in what he branded a "massacre" of civilians.

The village of Majer, 10km south of Zliten, was attacked late on Monday to "allow rebel fighters to enter" the government-held city from the south, Mussa Ibrahim told reporters on a guided visit.

"After the first three bombs dropped at around 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Monday, many residents of the area ran to the bombed houses to try to save their loved ones. Three more bombs struck," he said.

Thirty-three children, 32 women and 20 men from 12 families were killed in the "massacre," said Mussa.
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The situation in Syria: a first hand account

Emeritus Professor Brian Stoddart, former Vice-Chancellor at La Trobe University, returned recently from an extended assignment working with universities in Syria.

Below is his account of his time in a country now racked by anti-government protests and simmering sectarian tension.

If discontent has now morphed into full blown sectarian strife, then Syria and the region really are in trouble. Some writers even suggest this might create a situation like that which wrecked Lebanon earlier. If that becomes even remotely so, it will have catastrophic and destabilising results for the region as well as for Syria itself.

Syria’s growing army of young, media-savvy activists

Since protests erupted in March, it has been young Syrian activists, at home and abroad, making up for the vacuum of traditional reporting in their stricken country. They risk their lives daily with humility, courage and determination.

By Perrine MOUTERDE (text)

Amer al-Sadeq has moved house three times over the last four months. The 27-year-old Syrian activist stays online late into the night – every night – in his job as spokesman for the online group Union of Coordinators of the Syrian Revolution (UCSR).

BBC interview with Darcus How, a West Indian veteran and Writer.

Darcus Howe: "I don't call it rioting, I call it an insurrection...of the masses of the people. It is happening in Syria, it is happening in Clapham, it's happening in Liverpool, it's happening in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad, and that is the nature of the historical moment."

French company Veolia targeted by boycott campaign announces losses

BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 8 Aug -- A French multinational company at the center of a global boycott campaign announced major financial losses on Thursday, a statement from Palestinian civil society groups said Monday. "Veolia is paying the price for its involvement in Israel’s policies of occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people," said Jamal Jumaa, coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign.
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Top Israeli archaeologists contest Jewish ties to Jerusalem

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 8 Aug -- Top Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein has denied the existence of Jewish roots in the city of Jerusalem, contrary to Israel’s claims that have prompted continued Judaization of the city. Finkelstein, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said Jewish archaeologists have failed to unearth historic sites to support some of the stories in the Torah. Among those stories are the Jewish Exodus, the forty-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and Joshua’s victory over the Canaanites. He also said there was no archaeological evidence that concludes that the alleged Temple of Solomon ever existed.
For his part, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University Raphael Greenberg said that the Israelis should have found something after digging for six weeks in the City of David in East Jerusalem’s Silwan district, but have found nothing in two years of continuous excavations.
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Monday, August 8, 2011

London riots. Aljazeera photos

Riots in London have continued for a third night and they spread to new areas of the city and to other cities in what is seen as Britain's worst violence in decades. The rioting began on Saturday after hundreds of people held a protest over the killing of 29-year-old Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham, north London.