Video here.
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Israel and Apartheid
Thursday, September 17, 2009
British Trade Unions Boycott Israeli Aggression
This is already being hailed by some on the Left as a historic victory for the fight for human rights and justice in Palestine. As Lenin's Tomb points out, "this is undoubtedly a result of the criminal attack on Gaza earlier this year", as well as the recent increases in settlement. Evidently, there was a motion in TUC to 'moderate' some aspects of the boycott which was decisively voted down. This is a remarkable show of global solidarity among the working class in Britain. It will no doubt have Zionists everywhere in an absolute rage. I can already imagine what they'll say: "anti-semitism", "terrorists", "hate", etc. But as global public opinion showed during the most recent atrocities in Gaza, this cycle of apologetics is losing purchase among international observers. The events of last January made it clear that it's time to deal with the situation in Gaza and the West Bank in the same way that apartheid in South Africa was dealt with: boycott, divest and sanction.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Zizek on Iraeli Expansionism
Read Zizek's article on the "quite slicing of the West Bank" in the Guardian, here.
Here's an excerpt:
When peace-loving Israeli liberals present their conflict with Palestinians in neutral, symmetrical terms – admitting that there are extremists on both sides who reject peace – one should ask a simple question: what goes on in the Middle East when nothing is happening there at the direct politico-military level (ie, when there are no tensions, attacks or negotiations)? What goes on is the slow work of taking the land from the Palestinians on the West Bank: the gradual strangling of the Palestinian economy, the parcelling up of their land, the building of new settlements, the pressure on Palestinian farmers to make them abandon their land (which goes from crop-burning and religious desecration to targeted killings) – all this supported by a Kafkaesque network of legal regulations.When you're the one with power, it's easy to make any resistance by a marginalized group appear as acts of desperate 'hatred' or 'terrorism'. I'm not denying that there is a precise definition of terrorism, nor that terrorism should be condemned. It absolutely should be condemned, and it should be called for what it is, especially when it is the Israeli state that inflicts it. But it is by portraying the status quo legal structure and arrangements of power in Israel as neutral, or mere background, that any resistance whatsoever from the Palestinians can be portrayed as 'extremism'. And what Zizek makes very clear is that many Israelis are not even content with simply maintaining an oppressive status quo; many are intent on entirely cleansing all Palestinian presence altogether. It makes little difference whether their preferred method is a slow, strangling strategy of displacement or a violent barrage of air attacks on a captive population.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Sacha Baron Cohen: Liar
From the Guardian:
"The non-profit worker from Bethlehem who was branded a terrorist by Bruno
• Christian activist plans to sue Sacha Baron Cohen
• Interview was filmed in hotel, not refugee camp
For a supposed terrorist, Ayman Abu Aita is remarkably easy to find. It takes one phone call to set up a meeting with the man described in the hit movie Brüno as a "terrorist group leader".He sits alone at a long, white table in the gardens of the Everest hotel and restaurant in Beit Jala, a mountain village near Bethlehem. This, he says, is the "secret location" where he met Brüno, played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen."
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
"Israel used boy as human shield"
UN report says Israeli Defense Forces forced an 11-year-old boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in Gaza conflict.
Absolutely horrifying.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
CBS on West Bank: Follow-up
I recently heard that CBS (and in particular, those who produced the 60 minutes segment in question) have come under fire from pro-Israel groups furious about alleged 'bias' in the program.
This is an instructive moment.
The program laid bare the realities of daily life for Palestinians (e.g. that they cannot use the huge, modern highways designated only for Jewish settlers in the West Bank, that they must go through excessive and humiliating checkpoints, etc.). Bob Simon spoke firsthand with settlers, with the potential new PM of Israel, with former Israeli officials. Between what they said and the glimpse at daily life for most Palestinians (whose homes are regularly invaded by and inhabited by IDF, for example) there was enough there to dissolve the thick layers of myth surrounding the issue as it is typically discussed in most mainstream US outlets. It is unsurprising that this would anger the most hard-line Zionists. For them, this program was likely read as a surreptitious attempt to create sympathy for a people (the Palestinians) who are, at the end of the day, terrorists/competitors for the holy soil of Israel. Thus, despite the indisputable facts presented in the program (the settler-only highways, the militant expansionism and colonial mentality of the settlers, the checkpoints, the militarization of the West Bank, etc. etc.) were 'biased' precisely insofar as the program didn't buttress each and every glance into Palestinian life with a litany of ultra-Zionist propaganda ('but Israel MUST defend itself at all costs', 'Israel's post-'67 borders are immovable', 'Small, vulnerable Israel is totally surrounded by hostile, belligerent terrorists (i.e. all of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank) who want noting more than to destroy it', etc.). This is precisely why it is so fruitless to discuss/argue about the isssue with hardened Zionists. When approaching people of this political ilk, there is a sense in which it falls on deaf ears to mention to them the realities of oppression, subordination, racism, atrocities, mass killings, bombing raids, war crimes, ghetto-ization and siege, apartheid, etc. From what I can gather, that the atrocities are occuring is intelligible but is nonetheless perpetually subordinated to jingoistic slogans, religious/messianic mandates, 'us versus them' arguments, etc.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
UN Resolution on the right of the Palestinians to Self Determination
UN Resolution on the 'right of the Palestinian people to self-determination' (document A/C.3/63/L.52*), voted on November 20th, 2008.
In favor: 175 countries
Against: Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, United States.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
More evidence in the developing case for War Crimes
Monday, January 26, 2009
MUST WATCH: CBS on the recent atrocities in Gaza, West Bank
Watch CBS Videos Online
This is far from perfect. But this is the most fair coverage of the Palestinian/Israeli question that I have ever seen from a mainstream US media outlet. (Saw the video on Lenin's Tomb).
I can't believe they said "apartheid" on CBS. This is has got to be some kind of new precedent.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
If you want some thoughtful discussion of Gaza
Visit Feministe. They've had some great, comment-driven discussions of the Gazan conflict over the past week, including discussions of the history of Israel-Palestinian conflict, anti-Semitism, and Zionism. I'm certainly learning a lot...
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Roundup on Gaza
- This article is written by an AP correspondent living in Gaza and what they have seen during the recent attacks. Very sobering.
- Watch former ambassador debates Norman Finkelstein on the Gaza attack on Democracy Now! here.
- Rashid Khalidi's recent intervention published in the NYTimes, titled "What you don't know about Gaza".
- Naomi Klein's recent piece at The Nation: Boycott, Divest, Sanction.
- London Times reports that Israel used White Phosphorus on Gaza.
- Rasmussen reports that Americans are divided over Gaza.
- Eric Ruder at SocialisWorker.org has a succinct recent piece on the attacks here.
Excellent "Lenin" post on Gaza
In general, the posts at Lenin's Tomb on Gaza recently have been sharp, informative and refreshing (to the extent that any news about Gaza can be said to be so). Here's an excerpt:
The IDF's initial justification for the attack on the Al-Fakhura school was that Hamas had used the building to fire mortars from, and its tanks had responded. Implicit in this was an admission that they had targeted the school on purpose. The tank shells, presumably shot from quite nearby, were fired by soldiers operating under orders from command centres equipped with detailed targeting intelligence. As is now known, the Israeli military had the GPS coordinates not only of this UN school but of the other UN schools that it attacked. We also know that the UN told Israeli forces that the schools were being used as refuges for those driven out of their houses by Israel. And the first thing the IDF let us know is that it was done on purpose. Their excuse was barbaric, of course. The idea that an invading force may attack a building filled with hundreds of terrorised civilians just in order to kill two of those resisting the invasion is nothing short of grotesque. But the fact that it was barbaric was part of the point: rather than bluntly condemning a war crime, you were invited to focus on whether Hamas would be so evil as to attack Israel's brave boys from within a civilian building. Because it is so frequently repeated you might be predisposed to assume that Hamas did indeed position its 'infrastructure of terror' among unsuspecting citizens but, whether you are so predisposed or not, you are already drawn into the macabre calculus of the murderer if you even get involved in that argument. You have tacitly accepted the logic in which war crimes are not merely acceptable, but actually appropriate, if the enemy really is as evil as Israel says. The usual suspects, of course, immediately embraced Israel's excuse: Israel's killing, they expostulated, merely demonstrates the ruthless, diabolical genius of Hamas. If anything, they added, the IDF was admirably restrained in its action. But it is doubtful that many others were taken in.Read the entire post here.
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