The Front Line

We Will Not Go Down - Michael Heart

2010-02-22T23:36:00.001+02:00

This song continues to inspire me... Michael Heart's "We Will Not Go Down" www.michaelheart.com

How Israeli's are 'Helping' Iran

2009-06-18T19:38:00.000+02:00

Everyone knows that Israel is most definitely NOT a friend of Iran in any way or form. Given the current circumstances in the country and the media coverage around Iran and Election, in our information age, it goes without say that there would be spin from either side regarding the coverage.

Case in point, from a social media perspective, is the website helpiranelection.com On the website it shows the man behind it all to be "Arik Fraimovich, friendly web-geek."

and.. here's the guy's personal website...

Notice... Israeli Military Consultant... You can't tell me this doesn't tarnish the intentions behindthe websites intent on helping the Iranian people. This also makes me question all of the media surrounding this issue. This post is not about standing behind any particular side but it is an attempt to get people to look a bit deeper and bit further than what we get force-fed over News websites and TV journalism.

WE seem to slip back into complacency a lot when we see a lot of our friends following a trend on Twitter or wherever, and quell the urge to question the nature behind the source of all the information.

It's not a great place to be when people's rights are curtailed for the benefit of the few, but the lines which are drawn are far from black and white. The shades of grey behind the so-called good intentions of some people need to be made a bit clearer. Because, unfortunately, the one's with the worst intentions know how to play the system and the shades of grey tend to spiral more toward darkness.

All I'm asking is that you question... question everything, don't blindly believe.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Israel, Websites, Support

It's Amazing What Israel gets away with

2009-03-19T12:52:00.001+02:00

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which American ally in the Middle-East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called "exporting terrorism")?

Answer: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle-East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?

Answer: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle-East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?

Answer: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle-East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which Middle-East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?

Answer: Israel

Q. Which Middle-East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque?

Answer: Israel

Q: Which country on Planet Earth has the second-most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East deliberately targeted a U..N. Refugee Camp in Qana, Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?

Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle-East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid yet is the 16th richest country in the world?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East routinely insults the American people by having its Prime Minister address the United States Congress and lecturing them like children on why they have no right to reduce foreign aid?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because "We control America"?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of "ethnic cleansing"?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armoured vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction but, instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?

Answer: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle-East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?

Answer: Israel.

Q.. Which country in the Middle-East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and refugee camps for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?

Answer: Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Oppression

Bush's Parting Gift to Israel

2008-12-22T01:05:00.002+02:00

Almost unnoticed, Israel and the White House signed a deal over the summer to station an early-warning missile radar system, staffed with US military personnel, in Israel’s Negev desert. The media here described the Joint Tactical Ground Station, which brings Israel under the US protective umbrella against missile attack, as a “parting gift” from President Bush as he prepared to leave office.

Read the full article at AdBusters

Just how bad is the Cholera Situation in Zimbabwe

2008-12-06T15:27:00.002+02:00

A reader, Abdoul, of this blog who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders in Londonh ad left comment on my previous blogpost on Blog Action Day, mentioned the deteriorating situation which they are facing in Zimbabwe with the Cholera situation.

The situation is even worse for the lack of sanitation and water. There are also concerns with the start of the rainy season and the shortage of drugs.

They are in desperate need of any help they can get, please contact him via their website which covers all their work in the area and the challenges they are facing. I feel this is really important from a humanitarian perspective, we all have a responsibility as human beings to at least contribute in some way. For anyone who is able to assist them in their endeavours, please visit their site and contact them urgently!

UN President: Israel is Apartheid. Time to boycott Israel

2008-11-30T23:49:00.000+02:00

UN Headquarters , New York, 24 November 2008

Excellencies,
Brothers and Sisters,

I am pleased to open this plenary session in which we take up the Question of Palestine. This morning, with heavy heart, we observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I joined the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, H.E. Ambassador Paul Badji, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to voice our ongoing concern for the terrible situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and express our solidarity with this long-suffering People

We heard the comprehensive report of the Chairman on the current situation of Palestinians living under occupation. As well, the Secretary-General summarized the complex initiatives that are being undertaken by the international community to move forward peace talks and the establishment of the Palestinian state.

I urged the international community to raise its voice against the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, a policy which we cannot tolerate. We demand an end to this massive abuse of human rights and call on Israel, the occupying Power, to allow humanitarian and other supplies to enter the Gaza Strip without delay.

I spoke this morning about apartheid and how Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories appear so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era, a continent away.

I believe it is very important that we in the United Nations use this term. We must not be afraid to call something what it is. It is the United Nations, after all, that passed the International Convention against the Crime of Apartheid, making clear to all the world that such practices of official discrimination must be outlawed wherever they occur.

We heard today from a representative of South African civil society. We know that all around the world, civil society organizations are working to defend Palestinian rights, and are trying to protect the Palestinian population that we, the United Nations, are failing to protect.

More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non-violent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations.

Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.

I have attended a great many meetings on the rights of the Palestinian People. I am amazed at how people continue to insist on patience while our Brothers and Sisters are being crucified.

Patience is a virtue in which I believe. But there is nothing virtuous about being patient with the suffering of others.

We must endeavour, with all our heart, to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian People.

I have great love for the Jewish People and this has been true all my life. I have never hesitated to condemn the crimes of the holocaust or any of the many abuses committed against our Jewish Brothers and Sisters.

However, their suffering does not give anyone the right to abuse others, especially those who historically have such deep and exemplary relations with the Jewish People.

Having said this, I would like to remind our Israeli Brothers and Sisters that even though they have the protective shield of the United States in the Security Council, no amount of arm twisting and intimidation will change the Security Council resolution 181, adopted 61 years ago, calling for the creation of two states.

Shamefully, there is no Palestinian state to celebrate today and the prospects are as distant as ever. All explanations notwithstanding, this central fact makes a mockery of the United Nations and gravely hurt its image and prestige. How can we continue like this?

I call upon our dear Brothers and Sisters at the decision-making level in our Host Country to end the policy that only retards justice in the Middle East.

The international community should spare no effort in assisting both Israelis and Palestinians to reach a solution that will fulfill the goal of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. The United Nations has an ongoing responsibility to resolve the question of Palestine in all its aspects and in accordance with international law. Let us be sure that this not become a permanent responsibility.

The enmity between our Palestinian and Israeli brothers and sisters is a bitter and self-perpetuating tragedy. We must find new ways to defuse this enmity, to enable both peoples to reassert their historic bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood.

I urge the international community to defuse the political deadlock that cynically perpetuates this hatred, isolation and abuse. Our solidarity must prompt concrete action to realize those elusive rights that most of us can take for granted.
Thank you.

Link to Original

Terrorism in Mumbai

2008-11-28T20:15:00.002+02:00

The situation is Mumbai is absolutely terrible. I hope everything turns out okay and justice is achieved. As usual though, I always feel the need to keep the bigger context in mind. Nothing happens without a reason, and this incident like many others could be a reaction froma avery long-term situation which has not been addressed.

Got this from Slav is My Name ... I have to agree with him.
----------------------------

I’ve been reading the CNN and New York Times reports of the atrocities that have occurred in Mumbai over the past 72 hours and although they’re vivid description, the elephant in the room is “why?”

Is this backlash for a particular Western maneuver? Perhaps a warning shot to the president-elect from Al Qaeda or a similar group that U.S. is still doing dirt in Afghanistan and Iraq?

I think so.

Update: So I just checked the front page of the New York Times and there’s a story reporting the latest about who might have committed the acts. I love this sentence high in the story:

“The only claim of responsibility came from a group that may not even exist.”

At the end at least there’s a quote from a political scientist who works for RAND and seems to know her shit.

“Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she pointed to India’s domestic problems, and long tensions between Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India’s population of 1.13 billion, and Muslims, who make up 13.4 percent.

“There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India,” Ms. Fair said. “The economic disparities are startling and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India.

“The public political face of India says, ‘Our Muslims have not been radicalized,’ she said. “But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that’s not true. India’s Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad.”

“Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda,” she said. “But this is a domestic issue. This is not India’s 9/11.”

Ehud Olmert's "The Time has come to say these things."

2008-11-25T15:09:00.001+02:00

A friend pointed me to this very interesting point of view from Ehud Olmert, given to Israel's most popular daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. (I won't post the entire article here again, but please read it)

From the article one gets a sense of the realisation he's had that war will not achieve the ends of Israel, in fact its only end will be constant insecurity. I was reminded as I came to the end of the article of and he was going through his thoughts on the 2006 war in Lebanon, of Sun Tzu's Art of War and his advice that the best way to win is without going to war in the first place.

It's unfortunate that with all of the knowledge we have that the human race will still fall into the same traps and realise the same things over and over again, even though these lessons will have been learnt already through the countless experiences throughout the ages.

In summary what I got from reading his point of view is that Israel will need to move away from it's constant militarism and focus of taking land after land, hill after hill, which in the end gives Israel nothing as its insecurity remains and the general situation does not change at all.

It's very refreshing, although I do not agree with all that he says... he does make some very pertinent points which I think all of us, indeed also the Israeli government, should take heed to.

Technorati Tags:
Ehud Olmert, Israel, Opinion, Perspective, War, Peace, Palestine

Britain to take over USA - John Cleese

2008-11-17T11:41:00.002+02:00

This is something funny, but so true from one of the bastions of British Comedy, John Cleese... had me in stitches all the way through! :)))

To the Citizens of the United States of America:

In light of the strong possibility you are about to elect an elderly gentleman with a bad temper and a lady who thinks she understands foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house, as President and President-In-Waiting of the USA and thus to risk Life-As-We-Know-It for everyone else on the Planet, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Utah, which she does not fancy). She won't actually be in charge, but she'll greet foreign leaders as necessary and not put her foot in it or vomit on anyone at dinner. Your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further ele ctions. He will choose someone who does not have his or her hand in the till and has significant experience in running Big Things. You have not had one of them for almost a decade and trust me, it is a big plus.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. They have given away too much of your money already to rescue incompetent business executives and soon your American Dollars will resemble Zimbabwean Dollars in total worthlessness. There is no free lunch you know. Although we originally let you get away with secession because King George was robbing you blind, recent events demonstrate that your present leaders are doing much worse things.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether more than half of you still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. Information to the contrary will again be provided by the rest of the world and we request you read it this time and refrain from invading the wrong country ever again.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the eli mination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. But we have a lot of Monday Bank Holidays you will enjoy instead.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public .

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. All intersections will be rep laced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $9/US gallon. Get used to it. Your driving armoured cars to buy groceries is unnecessary, boorish and killing the planet.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

11. We will require that people running things, like your government, are at least moderately competent and not related by blood or bribes to those who benefit from their decisions. We know it makes you more cozy when your leaders know as little as you do, but, honestly, it is short sighted: you need doctors who know more about medicine, pilots who know more about flying and leaders who know more about leading.

12. We respectfully request you give up this notion that Politics is Entertainment, and that very complicated things can only be explained to you in less than fifteen seconds. If you wanted to have a democracy, honestly, you'd really need to have taken the time to understand things a bit more before you voted. And may I suggest the startling notion that politicians don't need to look good to do a good job? And it really is acceptable if they are a bit boring, so long as they do their homework. It's especially important if evidently you have not done yours. Poor old Al Gore. Poor old John Kerry. And by the way, are you happy now you chose a Governor for California based on his teeth?

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie McDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is hardly played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first in their country. The six out of ten of you who don't own a passport will need to get one first.

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Although this will raise your taxes, remember that the Neoconservatives will no longer be robbing you blind and so your Dollars will stop shrinking. Didn't you know that inflation and government bailouts of huge companies were really paid for by you? We must do something about your educational system. What on earth is going on over there? Are you oblivious to the crushing debt you are leaving your children? You might as well throttle them now.

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

God Save the Queen. (But at least God won't instruct your President to invade any more wrong countries.)

Letter from Barack Obama on his Muslim Heritage

2008-11-13T14:44:00.002+02:00

I found the below letter from BArack Obama very interesting reading as it does shed a light on the new President's mindset in terms of how he views people. I still have a hard time believing that he will somehow shift the current trajectory of America's blatantly imperialist policies. I guess we can only wait and see.

-------------------------------------------
There has been a lot made in the recent weeks about the Muslim history
of my family. Some of the things that have been said are true, others
are false, so I am writing this letter to clear up the
misunderstandings on this issue.

Yes, it is true that I have a name that is common amongst Kenyan
Muslims where my father came from and that my middle name is Hussein.
Barack is a name which means "blessing" and Hussein is a masculine
form of the word beauty. Since there is nothing inherently wrong with
the concept of blessings from God and the beauty He creates I fail to
see the problem with these names. Some will say wouldn't it be a
problem to have a president with a name similar to the deposed and
executed former dictator of Iraq ? My answer to this is simply no;
rather it is the strength and beauty of America that the son of an
African man with a "funny sounding" name, born under British Colonial
Rule, can now be a serious candidate for the presidency of the United
States .

My father was a Muslim and although I did not know him well the
religion of my father and his family was always something I had an
interest in. This interest became more intense when my mother married
an Indonesian Muslim man and as a small child I lived in Indonesia and
attended school alongside Muslim pupils. I saw their parents dutifully
observing the daily prayers, the mothers covered in the Muslim hijab,
the atmosphere of the school change during Ramadan, and the
festiveness of the Eid celebrations.

The man my mother was married to was not particularly religious; but
he would attend the mosque on occasion, and had copies of the Quran in
different languages in the home, and books of the sayings and life of
the Prophet Muhammad. From time to time he would quote Islamic phrases
such as "no one truly believes until he wants for his brother what he
wants for himself", "oppression is worse than slaughter", and "all
humans are equal the only difference comes from our deeds".

Growing up in Hawaii with my mother and her grandparents Islam
largely escaped my mind. My mother installed in me the values of
humanism and I did not grow-up in a home were religion was taught.

It was later while I attended college at Columbia University and
Harvard Law that I became reacquainted with Muslims as both schools
had large Muslims student populations. Some of them were my friends
and many came from countries that our nation now has hostile relations
with. The background I had from my early childhood in Indonesia
helped me get to know them and learn from them and to me Muslims are
not to be looked upon as something strange. In my experiences up until
college a Muslim was no less exotic to me than a Mormon, a Jew, or a
Jehovah's Witness.

After college I settled in my adopted hometown of Chicago and lived
on the South Side and worked as a community organizer. Chicago has
one of the largest Muslim populations in America (estimated to be
around 300,000) and Muslims make-up some of the most productive
citizens in the area. I met countless numbers of Muslims in my job as
an organizer and later on in my early political career. I ate in their
homes, played with their kids, and looked at them as friends and peers
and sought their advice.

Therefore, when the tragic terrorist attacks of 9-11 occurred I was
deeply saddened with the rest of America , and I wanted justice for
the victims of this horrific attack, but I did not blame all Muslims
or the religion of Islam. From my experience I knew the good character
of most Muslims and the value that they bring to America . Many, who
did not personally know Muslims, indicted the entire religion for the
bad actions of a few; my experience taught me that this was something
foolish and unwise.

Later I had the chance to visit the homeland of my father and meet
Muslim relatives of my including my grandmother. I found that these
were people who wanted the same things out of life as people right
here in America and worked hard, strive to make a better way for
their children, and prayed to God to grant the success.

This is what I will bring to the office of the Presidency of the
United States . I will deal with Muslims from a position of
familiarity and respect and at this time in the history of our nation
that is something sorely needed.

Barack Obama

San Francisco, California , USA"

Imagine if this was a picture of Palestinian Kids...

2008-11-06T11:38:00.002+02:00

Right... now if this was a picture of Palestinian Kids, I wouldn't be getting it in some arb email sent to a few interested users. This pic would be blasted in Newspapers under headlines screaming "TERRORIST KIDS", "BOOTCAMP FOR ALQAEDA", etc.

Can you imagine what mindset the kids in the photograph are gonna grow up with? I doubt it's gonna be "Let's live in peace and harmony with everyone." It'll be more like "Let's shoot and kill those Mofo's."

It's a sad state of affairs for the world when kids are exposed to such weapons to further the aims of the blinded and power-hungry.

Citizen Journalist Suspended for Revealing Forgery

2008-11-06T11:35:00.002+02:00

Unfortunately Karim had emailed me and told me that he was under extreme pressure, legally, to have all his posts removed and hence has requested me to remove this post. If you want to read this article, please email me and I will send it to you.

M.

Colin Powell, Ben Affleck, Campbell Brown: So what if he was?

2008-10-22T15:52:00.002+02:00

The article below was written by Rima Abdelkader originally on Arabisto.com

Colin Powell, Ben Affleck, Campbell Brown Reject Use of Arab/Muslim as Slur

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell demonstrated on Sunday that he too can be a maverick. The moderate Republican not only endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president, but also expressed his dismay with what he called an unwarranted connection with “some kind of terrorist feelings” and the Illinois senator by John McCain’s campaign. He, like CNN’s Campbell Brown and Hollywood actor Ben Affleck recently, set the record straight about Obama’s background. He is not an Arab nor a Muslim, but so what if he was?

“Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?” Powell rhetorically asked on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press (see minute 4:28). “The answer’s no, that’s not America.”

Hollywood actor Ben Affleck expressed a similar sentiment on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday (see minute 5:16).

Affleck referred back to McCain’s response to a woman at one of his rallies who said she did not trust his opponent because he was allegedly an Arab. “He’s a decent family man that I happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues,” McCain told her.

“What if somebody said to you, “I heard that he was a Jew?” and I said, “No, he is not a Jew, he’s alright?”” Affleck asked Maher’s audience, which laughed after quickly catching on to his demonstrated absurdity of the question. Affleck gave another example using Catholic.

“Arab and good person are not antithetical to one another,” Affleck emphasized, drawing applause.

“This prejudice that we have allowed to fester in this campaign, where we have allowed this idea—denying the fact that Obama who yes is not an Arab nor is he a Muslim—but, we have allowed that to turn into the acceptance of both of those things as a legitimate slur is really a problem,” he told Maher, “These are not slurs. They are categories of human being. They are not slurs of people and no one in the media stood up and said that.”

But, CNN’s Campbell Brown did so this past week on 13 October on her show. While commending McCain for correcting his supporter, Brown rhetorically asked, “So what if he was?”

“We can’t tolerate this ignorance, not in the media, not on the campaign trail. Of course he’s not an Arab. Of course he’s not a Muslim, but, honestly, it shouldn’t matter,” Campbell told her viewers.

Powell agreed before giving a poignant story of a Muslim American from New Jersey who gave up his life to serve in Iraq for America:

“I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American.”

Many American citizens, including Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, I spoke to were relieved to hear these public figures reject the use of one’s religion or background as a slur, but some were displeased with the timing of the repudiation with the election just two weeks away.

What do you think? Should there have been repudiation from the start? If so, why? If not, why not?

Thank you Colin Powell!

2008-10-22T15:43:00.002+02:00

Finally, someone (with political clout) says what needs to be said!

On yesterday's episode of Meet the Press, Colin Powell came out and endorsed Barrack Obama for president - a big deal, but no big surprise. The really noteworthy part of the show came when this former top diplomat/soldier addressed the 'smear' tactics being used against Obama. Here's what he had to say in response to questions surrounding his faith:

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?"

It's really a shame that didn't come out of Obama's mouth... it could have and it should have. Not only is it a sensible statement, but it would have been harmless in a political context. If anything, it would have helped comfort those of us who take offense to Obama's defensiveness. I've already posted about his reluctance to take the proper stand on this issue, so I'll spare you any redundancy. But clearly, Powell said what Obama has not had the courage to say (here, political expediency lies under the umbrella of cowardice). He went on to give an excellent example of why these smears are such a disgrace to the spirit of this nation, and I take my hat off to him.

So thank you Colin Powell. Thank you for saying what the American people desperately need to hear. I only wish the man you endorsed was brave enough to do so himself.

BTW, it's also worth noting Powell's comments after the interview.

"Those kinds of images, going out on Al-Jazeera, are killing us around the world, and we have got to say to the world, it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are. If you're an American, you're an American."

I can only imagine that these are the types of images he was referring to. Sadly, there are still many ignorant bigots littering this country who need to be educated and woken up. If Obama feels the need to pander to them he should be ashamed of himself.

Got this from Kabobfest

US Presidential Campaign: Using the Race Card

2008-10-09T10:40:00.001+02:00

Interesting cartoon from Bendib (I love this guy!) satirising the current political debate between the US Presidential candidates.

South Africa’s Government disbands, WTF?

2008-09-23T15:00:00.000+02:00

“What the Hell?!?” is almost every South Africans response right now as the news is coming thick and fast right now with news of 11 Ministers in Government resigning today, including Trevor Manuel (No! Don’t Go!) including 3 Deputy Ministers. This after The Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, resigned yesterday citing that she wants to allow the “new president” to choose their own deputies and “personal reasons” (Yeah, right.)

The Ministers who have left are…

Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka;
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel;
Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota;
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad;
Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils;
Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour;
Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin;
Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena;
Minister of Public Works Thoko Didiza;
Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi; and
Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

…and that’s not including the three deputy ministers: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad; Deputy Minister of Finance Jabu Moleketi; and Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Loretta Jacobus.

Following the President’s resignation, which was a blow enough to the country in terms of stability, etc. and now this… This is DEVASTATING. With no doubt, this is the biggest Political upset in South African history. No doubt, the ANC National Executive Committee is probably shitting itself after coming to the decision to chuck Mbeki out of the presidency, citing the recent case against Jacob Zuma in which the case was thrown out of court due to “political interference” (which they blamed on Mbeki)… I bet they didn’t see this coming, or maybe they did, maybe this is what they wanted.

Kgalemo Motlanthe, Zuma’s ally has already been chosen as the care-taker president since the other Deputy President had resigned, os now they have the opportunity to replace EVERYONE.

I don’t know what’s going to happen now, this cannot be good for investor confidence in the country , the Rand is most probably going to get shot to hell and there goes the 2010 Dream. Negative, I know, otherwise I’m hoping for a miracle.

Link

When Fascism Comes to America...

2008-09-17T08:31:00.001+02:00

I have to say , Bendib's cartoon above is addressing some of my concerns with the Republican Camp. Then again, the truth of the matter is that I don't think there'll be any radical change from current US Policy i.e. "Remain on top of the world by any means necessary" whether the Democrats or the Republicans win this election. It's all just fluff distracting from any real issues.

: Sarah Palin, John McCain, Republican, Election, Bendib

Zapiro Gives it to Zuma...

2008-09-09T13:48:00.001+02:00

This has got to be one of the baddest cartoons I've ever seen and I am sure that Zapiro's going to get in trouble with the protagonists in the cartoon, if he hasn't already. The thing is, even though I sort of cringe at the story unfolding in the cartoon, it rings true. The thought ( or the concept) has crossed my mind a few times about Zuma and I know the same thought has crossed the minds of many others. Zapiro, utilising his creative licence just put those thoughts into pictures.

Another reason why I'm one of Zapiro's biggest fans.

: Zuma, Zapiro, Cartoon, ANCYL, SACP, COSATU, ANC, Justince System, Rape

Israel Turns Gaza Into Prison For UConn Fulbright Scholar

2008-09-03T12:24:00.001+02:00

By ZOHAIR M. ABU SHABAN

As a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, I could not have been more proud to learn last June that I had earned a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States.

As a child, I would wonder how televisions, computers and washing machines actually worked. I took this fascination to the Islamic University of Gaza, the only Gazan university offering a degree in electrical engineering. There, I developed an ECG monitoring system that enables patients' hearts to be monitored at home through a personal computer and an Internet link. I won the university prize for distinguished projects for my innovation. I long dreamed of the other advances I might make after an education at the University of Connecticut, where I was scheduled to study this fall for a master's degree in electrical engineering.

Now, my dream has been stolen from me. I am devastated; my parents heartbroken. Though Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it still controls our borders and determines who and what enters or exits. Since a 2006 election that brought a Hamas majority to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Israel has steadily diminished access into and out of Gaza. Many Palestinians reportedly died in the past year because they could not leave to obtain medical care they desperately needed. Food, fuel and medicine are scarce. Hundreds of students like me, with scholarships to study abroad, are being arbitrarily denied the right to leave Gaza to fulfill our educational aspirations.

A few weeks ago when I went to the Erez Checkpoint between Gaza and Israel, I was told by the Israeli official that I could not leave unless I collaborated with the Israeli occupation. I refused. My conscience and my people's right to freedom and equal rights mean more to me than even the finest education.

U.S. officials came to my aid. They held special visa interviews along the Israeli-Gaza border for me and two other Fulbright scholars in a similar position. The U.S. granted my visa. Once again I could imagine taking my seat in a lecture hall in America. I packed my bags, bought souvenirs for my future friends in America and bade farewell to my family.

Then came a phone call that changed everything. My American visa had been revoked based on secret evidence provided by Israel. I cannot see the evidence and so have no opportunity to contest it.

What carrot did an Israeli security official dangle before another Gazan's eyes, or what torture tactics did he use to manufacture information he could use against me? However it happened, and for whatever reason, the outcome is the same. Despite my abhorrence of violence, I am being penalized.

What troubles me most, however, is not my own personal plight, but the effect this experience has had on my talented younger brother.

After watching what I have endured as an innocent and politically unaffiliated student, he has concluded that he will no longer pursue the educational dream outside of Gaza he once held. His horizons are closing.

As an older brother from a family that places deep value on education, it pains me to see his own ambitions falter, even temporarily, because of the injustice I am facing.

I wonder what hopelessness all children in Gaza suffer when they learn that Gaza's best students are confined by Israel to the cramped Gaza Strip? And how are they to succeed when this week their parents discover local stores are empty of study essentials such as pencils, pens and notebooks because of the economic blockade of our small parcel of land?

There are hundreds of Palestinian students in Gaza hoping for a miracle in the next few days so that we can pursue scholarships that may offer a once-in-a-lifetime escape from ignorance and poverty. We are determined not to be rendered a dependent people lacking advanced education.

And yet the silence of the world suggests that Israel will succeed in keeping us within the limiting confines of Gaza. Perhaps American students will think of me and my fellow Palestinian students as the academic year begins. We long for a similar opportunity.

Zohair M. Abu Shaban is a Fulbright Scholar from Gaza accepted to the University of Connecticut

Link: IMEU

Israel must rein in settler movement, protect Palestinian children

2008-09-03T12:20:00.001+02:00

Joel Gulledge /
Special to The Clarion-Ledger

I left my home in the United States to spend the summer in the West Bank, where I was attacked by Israeli settlers late last month. As a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, I went to the South Hebron Hills to help keep young Palestinian children safe from Israeli settlers intent on hurting Palestinians. Armed only with a video camera, it was my job to escort the children back and forth from school and summer camp.

On July 27, the children and I were walking home when a group of Israeli settlers assaulted us from a hilltop with fist-sized stones. Some narrowly missed my head. Focusing my video camera, I recorded an Israeli settler flinging stones at the children from his long-range slingshot. When he saw that I was filming him, he struck me in the leg with a rock. He chased me, kicked me and screamed that he was going to kill me. Wrestling the video camera from my hand, he then repeatedly struck me in the face and upper body with a stone.

After the assault, I was helped by Palestinians to reach a hospital where I was treated for my injuries.

The occupied West Bank today is like walking through a page from a different era - part Wild West, part Jim Crow - with one set of laws for Palestinians and another set for Israeli settlers.

There are now over 450,000 Israeli settlers living on land taken from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in defiance of international law. The settlers in and around Hebron are, according to Israeli journalist Ran HaCohen, "fanatic extremists even by Israeli standards. They regularly ransack Palestinian shops, cut electricity lines and water pipes, wreck cars, and attack schoolchildren."

The schoolchildren I worked with have no one to protect them. In fact, the Israeli military had refused to provide an escort for them. Consequently, volunteers from America and Europe have been accompanying the children. We take them on a longer route through the hills to bypass the Israeli settler outpost.

I spent my formative years in Mississippi. I know the stories of African-American students being denied an education and intimidated by adults who had no shame. As we trudge up the hillsides with Palestinian children, I am reminded of African-Americans having to avert their eyes and get off the sidewalk to avoid passing white people during the Jim Crow years in the American South.

Settler violence towards the children here has been a persistent problem. In 2004, the local Palestinian leadership requested assistance from international organizations. CPT responded and has been accompanying Palestinian children and documenting their interactions with Israeli settlers and soldiers ever since. As my beating demonstrates, we have become targets as well.

In 2004, five masked settlers attacked American volunteers Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown with a chain and bat. According to The Washington Post, "Lamberty suffered a broken arm and bruised knee, and Brown was hospitalized for several days with cracked ribs and a punctured lung."

The day I was attacked, the Palestinian children with me were fortunate to escape unscathed. One result of my spilt American blood is that the Israeli military is now providing these children with an escort. However, just three days after my attack, my colleagues in CPT and other international volunteers witnessed the soldiers failing to escort the children the entire designated route; settlers hiding along the way began to throw rocks at the children. And, according to a report issued in July by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, only one in 10 Israeli investigations of settler attacks on Palestinians ends with anyone being charged with a crime.

Something has gone profoundly wrong when Palestinian children must risk their lives just to get to school. It is past time for our government to pressure Israel to rein in the settler movement.

How much more powerful would it have been for Sen. Barack Obama to have said in Jerusalem - or Hebron - what he said in Berlin: "The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."

Our leaders must insist that Israel not apply one system of law in the West Bank for Israeli settlers and another for Palestinians. Colonizing another people ought to be regarded as ancient history.

Joel Gulledge volunteered this summer in the West Bank with the Christian Peacemaker Team. He grew up in Bruce.

Link: IMEU

Duality of Humanity Exhibition

2008-08-29T17:47:00.001+02:00

Obey has this cool new exhibition in the spirit of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket i.e. the peace sign with "Born to Kill" next to it.

The title of the show is the picture above called "Duality of Humanity" of a kid soldier with a flower in his hat.

Very interesting imagery and something I love... Artistic criticism and commentary, all in one. The website looks pretty cool too :)

Link
: Art, Activism, Obey

Israel almost doubles the number of houses being built in the settlements

2008-08-28T08:58:00.001+02:00

Israel has nearly doubled the number of homes under construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank this year, according to a report published today.

The report, by Peace Now, an Israeli organisation, said the housing ministry had begun work on 433 new settlement housing units between January and May this year compared with 240 in the same period last year, despite continuing negotiations with the Palestinians for a peace agreement.

The organisation said its findings were based on figures from Israel's central bureau of statistics.

It said more than 1,000 new buildings, representing 2,600 housing units, were under construction in settlements. Of these, 55% are on the eastern side of the concrete and steel barrier Israel has built in and along the West Bank.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in Israel yesterday for another round of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, again criticised the settlement activity.

Under the US road map plan - the framework for the current peace talks - Israel is to freeze all construction in the settlements. All settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law.

"I think it's no secret, and I have said it to my Israeli counterparts, that I don't think that settlement activity is helpful," Rice said. "In fact, what we need now are steps that enhance confidence between the parties, and anything that undermines confidence between the parties ought to be avoided."

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have so far failed to reach any agreement despite regular talks that began with the relaunch of the peace process in Annapolis, in the US, last November.

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, said the process would "not be affected" by settlement activity. "The role of the leaders is to try to find a way to live in peace in the future and not to let any kind of noises that relate to the situation on the ground these days to enter the negotiation room," she said.

"But at the end of the day the Israeli government's policy is not to expand settlements, not to build new settlements and not to confiscate Palestinian land."

Livni said settlement activity had "reduced in the most dramatic way", particularly east of the barrier. But the figures from Peace Now appeard to challenge that argument.

The organisation said the number of tenders issued for construction in the settlements had increased dramatically, standing at 417 housing units this year compared with 65 last year.

The number of tenders in East Jerusalem was up to 1,761 housing units from 46 last year.

The group said there appeared to be a trend to use construction to form a "territorial connection" between the more distant West Bank settlements and the larger settlement blocks. "Despite the Israeli government's renewed commitment during the Annapolis summit to freeze all settlement activity, the construction has continued and almost doubled in all of the settlements and outposts on both sides of the separation barrier," the report said.

"This construction undermines the Palestinian partners, creating facts on the ground that might prevent the possibility of a peace agreement."

Zapiro Classic: Israel's History

2008-08-04T18:05:00.001+02:00

To Destroy Al Qaeda - End the War on Terror

2008-07-30T11:04:00.001+02:00

This is very interesting...

A new Rand Corporation report comprehensively surveys the ways that
terrorist groups have been disbanded in the past: "Military force was
rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended." Instead, historic
wars on terror have been won with policing and settlements. Rand's
conclusion? To defeat Al Qaeda, we need to end the war on terror.

A
recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating
how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a
comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between
1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of
operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or
because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military
force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few
groups within this time frame achieved victory.

Terrorism’s End: Jon Taplin, How Terrorist Groups End: Rand Corporation

Via

Occupation and Co-existence

2008-07-28T15:11:00.001+02:00

Occupation and Coexistence (28 July 2008) - A report back by Janet
Love, Mondli Makhanya and Jody Kollapen at Wits University

Day: Monday 28th July 2008 (TONIGHT)
Time: 19h00
Venue: Senate House 6, Senate House, Wits University

Occupation and Coexistence (28 July 2008) - A report back by Janet
Love, Mondli Makhanya and Jody Kollapen at Wits University

"When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do
not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen
here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we
endured [under apartheid]" Mondli Makhanya reflecting on his visit to
the Holy Land.
Twenty-three South African Human Rights Leaders spent five days in the
Holy Land. Three members: Janet Love, Mondli Makhanya and Jody
Kollapen will discuss the time they spent together in the Middle East.
They will offer their insights on the problems of Israeli-Palestinian
relations and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Ways forward, both
there and in South Africa, will be suggested. An open discussion will
follow.

More about the speakers:
Janet Love-
Love is the National Director of the Legal Resources Centre, South
Africa's largest public interest law firm, with over 100 members of
staff. From 1987-1991 Love was a member of the ANC underground: she
was part of "President's Project" which included Operation Vulindlela.
In 1999 she was awarded a twenty year service medal by Umkhonto
weSizwe. Love comes form the South African Jewish community.

Mondli Makhanya-
Makhanya is the Editor of the Sunday Times. He was previously Editor
of the Mail & Guardian. A regular commentator on the BBC, SAfm, Radio
702 and television current affairs programs, he started his career in
journalism at the old Weekly Mail in 1990 where he was the paper's
Cape Town bureau chief and a business writer.

Jody Kollapen-
Jody Kollapen is the Chairperson of the South African Human Rights
Commission (SAHRC), a constitutional body set up in terms of Chapter 9
of the South African Constitution to protect and promote human rights.
He was appointed by President Mandela on the recommendation of
Parliament and reappointed for a second term by President Mbeki.

I urge everyone who can... to attend and participate in the discussion.

: Israel, Occupation, Apartheid, Human Rights

Gordon Brown in Palestine...

2008-07-21T07:14:00.001+02:00

"Settlement expansion has made peace harder to achieve. It erodes trust, it heightens Palestinian suffering, it makes the compromises Israel needs to make for peace more difficult,"
- Gordon Brown

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/20/brown.israel.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

: Gordon Brown, Palestine, Israel, Expansion, Settlements

Mandela's 90th Birthday.

2008-07-18T13:34:00.001+02:00

I think I'll just put some of my favourite quotes of Madiba for his 90th Birthday.

"Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated."

and a memo from Mandela to Thomas Friedman, a columnist at the New York Times...

MEMO
March 28, 2001

To: Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times)
From: Nelson Mandela (former President South Africa)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what's on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then:

"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

Today the world, black and white, recognise that apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of democracy.

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column "Bush's First Memo" in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.

You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established "normally" and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a "state" but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a "state" but of "separation". The valua of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead". If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called "Palestinian autonomous areas" are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.

Thomas, I'm not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I'm not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you. When you figure out what you're about, give me a call.

Happy 90th Birthday Madiba, may you live to see your ideals realised, world-wide. South Africa was just the first step.

: Nelson Mandela, Palestine, Israel, 90th Birthday, Memo, Thomas Friedman

The most powerful weapon against the occupation?

2008-07-16T11:20:00.001+02:00

Jonathan Berger posted the following on Thought Leader and his sentiments really hit home. The violence on both sides are not achieving anything. Please read on...

Last week I cried – in public – for the first time in a long time. Years of working in the field of HIV/Aids and access to healthcare have made me tough, perhaps even cold. But as Robi, Ali and Rami recounted their stories of loss, the tears flowed. I wasn’t alone.

Robi Damelin is a beautiful woman. She emigrated from South Africa to Israel many years ago and today runs the public relations work of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, an organisation of “bereaved Palestinians and Israelis … [that] promotes reconciliation as an alternative to hatred and revenge.”

In March 2002, Robi’s son David was one of ten soldiers and civilians killed when a Palestinian sniper opened fire on a checkpoint north of the Ofra settlement in the occupied West Bank. He was only 28. At the time he was called up for reserve duty, David was studying for a post-graduate degree in the philosophy of education. A member of the peace movement, he did not want to serve in the occupied territories.

According to the well-respected Israeli human rights organisation Peace Now, much of Ofra is built on private Palestinian land. Established in 1975 as the first settlement in the northern part of the West Bank, it is home to a few thousand religious settlers. At the time of David’s death, it was home to just over 2 000 people.

Ali Abu Awwad’s brother Yousef was also killed at a checkpoint during the second intifadah. At the time, Ali was in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after having been shot in the leg by a settler. His brother’s death – at the hand of an Israeli soldier – took place at the entrance to their village of Beit Ummar. Home to about 12 000 residents, the village is on the main road between Bethlehem and Hebron, not far from the settlement of Gush Etzion.

Rami Elchanan’s daughter Smadar was only 14 years old when she was killed by two Palestinian suicide bombers in downtown Jerusalem. It was the first day of the new school year in September 1997, not long before the holy day of Yom Kippur. Smadar and two of her friends had been shopping for schoolbooks. All three died. Two other civilians also lost their lives that day.

When I listened to Robi, Ali and Rami last week, the true horror of the conflict hit home – a seemingly endless cycle of violence that is fuelled by the occupation and its settlements. For them, the political had become the personal.

Rami, whose father survived Auschwitz, believes there is no way other than reconciliation – “because the other way leads nowhere”. “It is not our destiny to kill each other in this Holy Land”, he explained, recognising that it is not about “whose pain is bigger.” Instead, it is about active citizenship and accepting responsibility to change the way each side sees the other. For this gentle man, “standing aside is a crime”.

Robi, who insisted that her organisation is “not about flowers and rainbows and bad poetry”, recognised the impact of occupation on the occupier and the occupied. It’s “destroying the moral fibre of my country”, she explained, as she too spoke about the need for and the possibility of a reconciliation process.

For Ali, whose eyes seemed to glisten with tears, resistance to the occupation is not about “trying to normalise a situation that is not normal.” For him, “non-violent resistance is the most powerful weapon against the occupation.” And perhaps a reconciliation process grounded in justice – and not revenge – is the most powerful form of resistance of all.

: Palestine, Israel, Occupation, Justice, Peace, Occupation

Open Letter Concerning Anwar Ebrahim

2008-07-15T09:36:00.001+02:00

Over 40 leading Muslim religious scholars, leaders and activitists
from around the world sign an open letter urging the Malaysian government to protect the civil liberties of the former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim. Click to read the Open Letter

: Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Open Letter

John McCain Spin...

2008-07-07T09:30:00.001+02:00

Classic Bendib Cartoon...

: Bendib, John McCain, War Criminal, War Hero, US Elections 08

FUCK YOU CNN

2008-07-02T16:40:00.001+02:00

Got this from the Ninja's and I fully Agree...

and so I will echo them...

seriously, CNN, fuck you.

yours sincerely,

M.
: Fuck you CNN

Zionist-Nazi Medal II

2008-07-01T17:51:00.001+02:00

Jews sans frontieres got this interesting find up recently....

Look what Lenni Brenner found:

I already posted on the first find of the silver or silver plated medal and the fact that I don't really like that expression "zionazi" but that was the name of the first file I got on this.

Anyway, during discussions about the medal there was puzzlement at the use of the term "nazi" by a, erm, nazi to describe himself. Well here's Lenni Brenner to explain:

There is no doubt about the medal's authenticity, But Zionist fanatics deny the reality of both the medal and Nazi patronage of Zionism. One such fool insists that "Wikipedia says German National Socialists never referred to themselves as 'Nazis' because it was a pejorative term coined by Hitler's opponents. If this is true, why does the inscription on that medal read 'EIN NAZI FAHRT NACH
PALASTINA' ("A NAZI TRAVELS TO PALESTINE")?"

Except that Ein Nazi farht nach Palestina is also the title of the 1st of von
Mildenstein's articles, in the 9/27/34 Angriff. Whatever the 'National Socialists thought about 'Nazi,' they used it. Anyone doubting this can get a photocopy of his German article from me.

I think I'll email him for a scan right now.

: Nazi, zionist, Zionism, coin, Zionazi coin, Zionazi, Ein Nazi Fahrt Nach Palastina

Dissecting Consumer Culture: The "American Dream" Documentary

2008-07-01T16:57:00.001+02:00

Adrants points us to a new documentary currently being by filmmaker Joel Christian McEwan called American Dream which will examine America's obsession with instant-gratification and material possessions as well as the corporate force which feeds and profits from that obsession. Featuring Danny Glover, Ed Begley Jr., Jean Kilbourne, Howard Zinn and many others, American Dream will try to make sense America's consumer culture, it's causes and its effects.

What is interesting is that the filmmakers have approached Adrants in order to secure material for the film. Adrants are looking for:

-Funny, ridiculous advertisements
-Lewd, suggestive ads/commercials
-Ads/Commercials that make you want to buy something
-Ads/Commercials that you dislike and want to see removed

So for anyone with a few ideas or examples... head over to Adrants and help the guys out. You can mail your submissions to americandream@adrants.com

: Adrants, American Dream, Documentary, Joel Christian McEwan

So Who is this Madiba Chap? eh?

2008-06-27T16:16:00.001+02:00

What can I say... the man is an inspiration to millions, but what I’d like to highlight about his life is a fact which he mentioned himself…"I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances." He was just a man… just like any one of us, but what made him great was his purpose and his dedication which he stuck by and fought for till he achieved it. That’s what catapulted him out of the ordinary, doing the things which others shied away from or were to fearful to carry out.

In the face of death, detention and exile he persisted. We all need to learn from his lesson that the greatest obstacle can be overcome by simple, truthful ideals.

Happy 90th Birthday! I'll catch the Hyde Park dedication concert on TV tonight.
: Madiba, 90th Birthday, Hyde Park, Lesson

Tactics That Ended Apartheid in South Africa Can End It in Israel

2008-06-26T17:02:00.001+02:00

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness. What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably?

And what good is speaking out about Israel's occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu are condemned for their criticism of Israeli policies?

This month in San Jose, average Americans will have the opportunity to take a stand for peace and justice in the Middle East. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A.'s General Assembly began Saturday and runs through Sunday at the San Jose Convention Center. At the meeting, which takes place once every two years, delegates will make policy decisions for the 2.3 million-member denomination.

They will consider corporate engagement, up to divestment, with companies that profit from the obstacles to a just peace in Israel and Palestine. The church is considering approaches to Caterpillar, ITT Industries, Motorola and United Technologies.

The TransAfrica Forum, an organization which I was honored to head, played a leading role in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. Corporate engagement was one of the most powerful tools in our non-violent arsenal. It was the right moral decision then and it is the right moral decision now. Just as it worked in South Africa, it can work in Palestine and Israel.

Yet Presbyterian delegates are being pressured to vote against similar measures. Some say the tactic unfairly singles out Israel for condemnation. But it is not the country we condemn; it's a system of segregation and inequality.

The Israeli government has established in the Occupied Palestinian Territories a regime of systematic discrimination. It maintains two systems of laws, and a person's rights are based on national origin. Palestinian land is confiscated to build Israeli-only settlements and roads. Palestinians wait hours in line at more than 500 Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, while Jewish settlers speed by on modern, well-lit highways.

As Carter, and many Israelis have said, as long as this dual system exists, any peace agreement between Israel and Palestine will be impossible. Palestinians compare Israeli policies to those of apartheid in South Africa. Former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair wrote in 2002, "In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That regime exists to this day."

South Africans who led the fight against apartheid, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United Nations envoy John Dugard, make similar comparisons.

To the detriment of both Israelis and Palestinians, we provide financial and diplomatic support to maintain these separate and unequal policies. Israel is the No. 1 recipient of U.S. foreign aid: roughly $2.5 billion last year alone. Our government has cast more than 40 vetoes in the United Nations Security Council to shield Israel from international condemnation.

Divestment from companies that benefit from the occupation is an opportunity for American citizens to do what our government leaders have refused to do: say that our money will not fund human rights abuses any longer.

With humbleness, with love, with compassion for Palestinians and Israelis, I believe in the possibility that both can live as neighbors with security, dignity and respect. As it did in South Africa, corporate engagement, including divestment, can help make that possibility a reality.

BILL FLETCHER JR. is executive editor of www.blackcommentator.com and former president of the TransAfrica Forum, which led the U.S. movement to overthrow apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

: South Africa, Apartheid, Israel, Tactics

Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria

2008-06-23T16:06:00.004+02:00

Just caught this post at The Guardian...

Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria

I had no idea how deep The Apartheid Government's ties were with Israel. I am so digusted by this, and even more disgusted by the pro-zionists who comment on my blog trying to justify Israel's action and disguise their intent. All this is in plain view.

I honestly believe that this Occupation will end and Israel will end in one way or another. Bullshit cannot last forever, truth will always prevail and Israel will always be remembered as the murderers... the oppressors, the ones who had the power and wielded it with blatant inhumanity.

South Africa's prime minister John Vorster (second from right) is feted by Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (right) and Menachem Begin (left) and Moshe Dayan during his 1976 visit to Jerusalem. Photograph: Sa'ar Ya'acov

"If we don't kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings."

and from a comment on a previous post...

As a white South African Broadcasting Corporation editorial put it: Israel and South Africa were “the only two Western nations to have established themselves in a predominantly nonwhite part of the world.” And what that meant to the whites who set up their nations on land that was historically the homeland of other people, was the subjugation of Black people in South Africa and Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.

As the Jewish philosopher and cultural Zionist, Martin Buber, wrote to Prime Minister David Ben Gurion in 1949: “We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation and expansion, we as Jews have caused what we historically have suffered: a refugee population in Diaspora.”

David Ben Gurion acknowledged that what Martin Buber said was true, and wrote back to him: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel....we have taken their country....There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept us?”

Former South African President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Israel was like apartheid South Africa. That kind of truth-telling was bitterly resented by the powers-that-be in the United States, who were just as committed to continued White domination in Israel and Africa, as they were committed to maintaining the racial status quo in the United States.

Another Example...

"I see many similarities in the oppression of Blacks in South Africa and of Palestinians." Dennis Goldberg, a Jewish South African sentenced to life imprisonment for "conspiring to overthrow the apartheid regime," is released through the intercession of Israeli officials, states on arrival in Israel, March 1985. He called for a total economic boycott of South Africa, singling out Israel as a major ally of the apartheid regime. Pledging never to stay in Israel, Goldberg moved to London.

and another...

"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa." Archbishop Desmond Tuto, observes during Christmas visit to Jerusalem, December 25, 1989. From Israeli daily Ha'aretz, cited in Palestine Perspectives, January/February 1990.

Real Hip-Hop: Immortal Technique's "The 3rd World"

2008-06-18T11:53:00.000+02:00

Immortal Technique just released his new album and it's available for Pre-order from CDUniverse.com.

This CD's was supposed to have been released like in June 2007 under the title "The Middle Passage" I guess he title has since changed. I've been waiting for this one for ages, Immortal techniques lyrics are the most hard-core I've ever heard and he does it with passion and style. Definitely a wake up call to the blinged-out , instant self-gratification generation which commercial hip-hop culture has spawned. This is REAL Hip-Hop.

He has since also released 3 mp3's to give you a taste.. and here they are...
1) "The 3rd World"
2) "The Payback"
3) "Reverse Pimpology"

Enjoy!
: Immortal Tehcnique, 3rd World, New Album, The Middle Passage, MP3

Thoughts on Youth Day...

2008-06-16T15:06:00.002+02:00

It seems unreal how far South Africa has come since the beginning of the fall of apartheid, that infamous day, June 16th, 1976. This day always serves to make me realise how important it is for us, as human beings and as South Africans, to remember our vibrant past with all its struggle and adversity as well as our progression and success. We cannot allow the same oppression to exist anywhere, let alone our own country.

The xenophobic attacks were a shameful reminder of how close can come to reverting to the worst of ourselves. The thin line between Love and Hate. I understand there were many factors around these attacks but the fact remains, we had intolerance and discrimination vividly emblazoned on the screen around the world. How far a cry is it from the days when we seen the pictures of Hector Pietersen being carried away dead during the June 16th, 1976 uprising... and not forgetting the sacrifice of other youth across the world, Mohammed Al Dura in Palestine being shot while his father tried to protect him; or Victor Hugo Daza in Cochabamba, Bolivia who was killed by the military in protests against Bechtel trying to privatise Bolivia's sources of water.

We need to also be aware of oppression around the world and either fight against it physically or by some action or at least to speak out against it. We owe it to ourselves as human beings and South Africans to do this at least. China's oppression of Tibet and support of oppressive regimes in Africa, the conflict in Sudan, The oppression of the Palestinian people on a daily basis, the Middle East, etc. We can not sit back and idly nod as we read about these things in news papers and through our RSS feeds. We need to do something, say something.

We are all too aware of chaos theory and how little things affect greater outcomes and events. We could be that little change.

Let's hope for a greater world... and one in which we have played our part.

Peace.

Israeli Settlers Beat Up Palestinian Woman

2008-06-13T15:52:00.000+02:00

Watch this. One cannot help being reminded of the Klan here. As far as the colonists are concerned, this Palestinian woman overstepped the line merely by herding her sheep too near to their 'settlement' - thus refusing to accept that her land should be illegally annexed. And so they sent out a punishment squad, in masks, with sticks, and they beat her and her husband and her nephew.
Copyleft of Lenin's Tomb

The BBC has obtained footage of Palestinians being attacked close to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank by a group of masked men wielding baseball bats.

The footage was shot on a camera that was provided by an Israeli human rights group to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks.

Tim Franks reports.

: Israel, Oppression, Settlers, Baseball Bats, Inhumane, Occupation

The AIPAC Conference: No Arena For Debate

2008-06-11T18:15:00.002+02:00

AlJazeera has this very interesting snippet from their broadcast up on Youtube which covers the journalist, Clayton Swisher as he covers the AIPAC conference. Notice from the video how regulated and stifling the entire conference is from the point of view of asking a question and getting an answer... basically, you're not allowed to ask questions, almost like in Israel. Hence, I think Clayton's round up at the end is appropriate... "...more of a staged Press Conference than an arena for learning and debate."

: AIPAC, Aljazeera, Clayton Swisher

Poster for Oliver Stone's "W"

2008-06-11T17:59:00.001+02:00

I just love the typography of this poster, and it's sucha drastic move from traditional movie posters, I love it. The movie itself is going to be a killer. I can't wait to see this one. Apparently Oliver Stone went all out in making it an extremely powerful satirical look at the Bush Administration.

Link: Screenhead, WIT
: GW Bush, Oliver Stone, Movie Poster

Sami Al Hajj's Return to Doha

2008-06-01T11:26:00.001+02:00

Youtube video of Sami Al Hajj's return to Doha, Finally. After so many years of torture at the hands of his American captors with no charge, no trial he is finally back and serves as a reminder to us all of the terrible world we live in where we condone such horrible acts as this. He is a living survivor of one of the greatest crimes against humanity... denying the rights of so many for profit and resources.

: Sami Al Hajj, Aljazeera, Al Jazeera, Youtube video, Doha, Qatar

Israel's Academic Boycott

2008-05-30T17:46:00.001+02:00

The International Herald Tribune reports that Fulbright grants that would enable Palestinians from Gaza to study in the US are being withheld because they might go to waste if Israel doesn't let its hostages go. I think that's the gist:

GAZA: The State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted permission for the students to leave Gaza.

Israel's restriction is in keeping with its policy of isolating this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas.

The United States consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been "redirected" because of concern that if the students were forced to remain in Gaza the grant money would go to waste. A letter was sent by e-mail to the students Thursday telling them of the cancellation.

Abdulrahman Abdullah, one of the seven Gazans who received the letter, was in shock.

"If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society," he said. "I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?"

Might it be that Israel isn't serious about the so called two state solution?

Link

Technorati Tags: Israel, Academic, Boycott, Gaza, Palestinians, Study, USA

Marketing Lesson: Xenophobia and the South African Government.

2008-05-28T16:26:00.001+02:00

Don't just TALK! Take ACTION! One thing marketers know through and through is that when you promise and you don't deliver, your sales go to hell and you lose your job. Before any advertising goes on TV, Radio, Print or spread virally across social Media we have to make sure the product delivers what we claim to promise on every level. If this wasn't such an important step, the Advertising Standards Authority would be out of a job.

Also, it makes perfect sense on a human level. People want to get what they are promised and what they spend their taxes on. We don't spend our money so that we can hear nice things that make us feel all warm and gooey for our country. We want to see the leaders we voted for actually doing the work to make our country the best in the world and live up to the claim of "a better life for all".

The current xenophobia crisis has shown the ugly insides of the government in power. All they are doing is talking, if they were working, really working for change... none of this would have happened.

So... the marketing lesson from all this as I had mentioned in the beginning... Deliver what you promise, or you'll be in deep kak if you don't.

Technorati Tags: South Africa, Xenophobia, Marketing

Xenophobia in South Africa, How Could This Happen?

2008-05-26T14:34:00.001+02:00

Residents at the Ramaphosa informal settlement try to salvage building material before the blaze overtakes them on May 20.- Paul Botes, M&G

This xenophobia problem is getting way out of hand. What the mainstream media has failed to give significant coverage to though, the climate of fear which is being created across the country. This is not only facilitated by the violence which is spreading from province to province and town to town. Just this weekend, one of my friends whose family is originally from Malawi couldn’t leave his house because his dad was getting death threats over the phone.

This aspect is very scary, so many expats from other countries who I work with and deal with on a daily basis are now forced to keep low profiles so that people won’t hurt them or their families. It’s even gone to the point where these “Xenophobics” are using the Zulu language to distinguish whether a person is a foreigner or not. Many South African citizens are now being attacked because they don’t speak Zulu and hence are regarded as immigrants.

Various churches, mosques and other religious institutions are getting involved in order to help the immigrants who are fearing for their lives as various attacks occur around the country. For anyone reading this, please go and help out… apart from helping these people in need we need to spread education about this issue and stop all of this nonsense. This is South Africa! Why are we killing and destroying people’s lives? Is this what was fought for, for decades, and now in such a short time we’ve forgotten our own heritage?

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. – Nelson Mandela

Technorati Tags: South Africa, Xenophobia, Violence

On the Xenophobia Attacks in South Africa

2008-05-22T15:09:00.001+02:00

It's absolutely heart-breaking to see South Africans behave in such a way given our past. I would write more on this from a personal perspective as I too, on many occasions have been treated as an outsider, so the pain runs deep when I see how far the hatred has taken humanity in a country known for it's penchant to overcome oppression.

I read the following letter which was written to MIO, and it struck a chord.... I relay it to you here...

"Letter written by Tebogo Rameetse"

Inner-city Johannesburg sounds like a scene out of a high-budget Hollywood action movie with high-profile stars. Sirens pour relentlessly through office windows in into otherwise morbid working environments as an almost surreal reminder that this is no high-budget Hollywood production. A reminder of just how base human hatred for other human beings can stoop. And this is merely an echo of a carnage that has now taken a large of portion of the country by storm.

On the evening of the 12th Monday, May 2008, a man was shot and another injured when violence flared up in Alexandra, only barely alerting the police that this may be the beginning of a bloodbath. By the end of the week, a full-on discriminatory witch-hunt was obviously in motion, spreading outside of Alexandra to other informal settlements such as Diepsloot. By Saturday night, the attacks had crept into inner-city Johannesburg, Jeppestown, where mobs reputedly terrorised the resident immigrant and set a car on fire to add gravity to their point.

Merely a week later, new reports of suspected xenophobic attacks have spread like wildfire to provinces such as KZN, the Western Cape and possibly Limpopo, inhumanely claiming over a hundred lives. People have been set on fire, tortured, stabbed and shot in the most disgusting display of human intolerance that South Africa has seen in its 14 years of democracy.

While the rest of the international community stands around anxiously hoping for the situation to take a turn, the majority of South Africans feel that our very own government is not doing all that is within their power to remedy the situation.

“We are sorry. Please forgive us. It is not South African to do this. South Africans are not like this,” pleaded Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, in a stance that was perhaps the most reflective of the majority of the South African community, as she offered an impassioned apology to foreigners who had been subjected to xenophobic acts of barbarism.

Her statement was double-sided in a sense that not only did it call for understanding from the victims of the gross violations to basic human right displayed in the past week, but also subtly reminded South Africans of a time not so long ago, when many of our today heroes were welcomed into neighbouring countries for refuge from political persecution during the apartheid years.

Many of the foreigners we find in South Africa today have had to brave the very worst of conditions, some walking from as far as Somalia and as close as Zimbabwe, seeking refuge from wars, poverty, economic exploitation and political oppression. How different is that from our very own plight from yesteryears? While our today champions were given food, shelter, education and employment opportunities, we reward this with a massacre?

The spirit of ubuntu seems to be something that we South Africans only mention when we feel like the victims. Like some sort of a secret magic chant… A mantra that’s supposed to give us the upperhand and make everything OK. And when it’s been used once, it cannot be used again and therefore it can be discarded because we are now on top anyway. We suddenly forget what it means because we don’t want to be strapped to the obligations it poses.

The reality is people are dying. Human lives are being threatened. Is there any justification for this? Could employment opportunities ever be justification enough? Is an RDP house really worth a human life?

The last time I checked, Africa was for the Africans. Regardless of the colour of their skin or the country of their origin. Africa is for Africans who have planted their roots here.

We cannot find fault with authorities. They have denounced these actions and labelled them as backward and barbaric. We cannot find fault with the foreigners. They are merely looking for a way to preserve their own lives. We as a society may be to blame. Over the years we have been instrumental in perpetuating an “us” and “them mentality and it needs to stop. Regardless of what excuses we can offer up to make OK, this time it’s not OK.

A few days ago, some of the country’s top musicians and actors, fronted by DJ Sbu of Yfm gathered in Rosebank and marched in protest to the spate of the attacks in Wattville. Tumisho Masha of Top Billing was quoted as saying, “South Africans are not the kind of people who should stand by and watch criminals behave in this unacceptable manner.”

The sentiment seems to be the same:

South Africans are not like this. Africans are not like this.

Technorati Tags: Xenophobia, Attacks , South Africa

Documentary Recommendation: Occupation 101

2008-05-21T15:02:00.001+02:00

A Documentary I watched recently which puts my exact view into perspective, especially regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Please go and check out Occupation 101.

In summary, the main cause of all the trouble is the Occupation. There can be no two-state solution because, with the Apartheid wall and other oppressive Israeli measures, all that would mean is a Prison for the Palestinians and the wardens being the Israeli Settlers and army. Not so different to what it is now, hence it is no solution.

And before I get lambasted by the Zionists saying I'm proposing a one-state solution with all the Jewish Occupants being "wiped out", that's not what I'm saying :P An achievable, viable one-state solution will be, as I have said before, one in which everyone is allowed to live equally as human beings. Ofcourse, Israel doesn't want this because Israel will finally be a real democratic country and not a "Jewish State" for Jews only.

Get rid of the Occupation... your problems will be sorted out. Israel will never ever have peace if it carries on with it's occupation, because at the core it is unjust.

There can never be Peace without Justice.

It is very simple but most don't get it... they'll sit and debate symptoms, when the cause is in clear view.

Technorati Tags: Occupation 101, Israel, Palestine, Oppression, Occupation

Israel: History repeating itself.

2008-05-19T11:59:00.001+02:00

By Uri Blau and Tal Haran (Trans.)

From an interview with Israeli soldiers (who are identified by pseudonyms) conducted by Israeli journalist Uri Blau and printed in Kol Ha’Ir, a Jerusalem weekly, in September 2001. Translated from the Hebrew by Tal Haran.

Uri Blau: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “territories”?

Roi [nineteen, paratrooper, serving in Hebron for the past six months]: The first thing that comes to my mind is children throwing Molotov cocktails. Basically, you should shoot them in the legs and you don’t.

Tzvi [twenty, serving in the Gaza Strip]: My first memory is of security patrol. You see unbelievable things there: people sitting under the bulldozers, begging us not to demolish their houses. There’s a guy who lives in a tent where his house stood once, and now this tent is on ground that has been annexed by the settlement. But there are stories much worse than this. Real pogroms. Angry settlers coming out with sticks and pitchforks and burning down houses. Just like that.

Check the full transcript here

531 Balloons Over Frankfurt Commemorate Destroyed Palestinian Villages

2008-05-15T16:18:00.001+02:00

Five hundred and thirty one balloons were released over Frankfurt's Roemerberg today to commemorate the villages destroyed by Israel sixty years ago. Each balloon contained a paper with a village name. The paper below says Jahula from the district of Safad. One of the over five hundred Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel. Four hundred and twenty people lived there. 60 Years of Israel = 60 Years of Nakba

Link

The Old Beating Up and Shooting at Unarmed Demonstrators Libel

2008-05-15T16:15:00.001+02:00

Check it out... Democracy in action in Israel.

Link

Jews for Justice? Whoever heard of Jews for Justice?

2008-05-15T16:11:00.001+02:00

This is a post from JSF, covering a story from Al-Jazeera, which was uploaded to Youtube.

Listen carefully to the way the presenter, Mark Seddon says "Jews for Justice".

Interesting... I guess this goes against how many people view Al-Jazeera as the mouthpiece of Al Qaeda (lol). Here they have a presenter blatantly in support of Israel. Mark Seddon even considers the Neturi Karta to be non-traditional.

Well, I guess we all do have a lot to learn...

Technorati Tags: Jews for Justice, Youtube, Mark Seddon, Al Jazeera

Hey There Jameelah: Iraq Political Comment Remix

2008-05-12T15:58:00.001+02:00

Got this from my friend MJ's Blog... Brilliant adaptation and very apt if I may say so... really relevant Front Line Stuff :)

Here it is...

MJ: I really like the Great ones adaptation of that crappy Umbrella song so heres a homage to you oh knifing king

Hey There Jameelah
Sung to the Tune of Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's

Hey there Jameelah
What's it like in Baghdad City?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight I feel so shitty
Yes I do
The whole world faced its back towards you
I swear it's true
Hey there Jameelah
Don't you worry about the ordnance
and the cluster bombs are only
for your freedom I assure you
Close your eyes
the threat of WMD’s were our disguise
to capitalize
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oil I want to see
Hey there Jameelah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me, girl
Someday the U.N will step right in and
We'll have it good
We'll have the safety we knew we would
Our war is good
Hey there Jameelah
I've got so much left to do
Invade Iran, Sudan and the East
To give them democracy
Liberate them all
Even more evil dictators will fall
We'd have it all
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
A thousand miles seems pretty far
But we’ve got tanks and armoured cars
We’d just nuke you if we had no other way
The world would all be sick of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them could stop our show
Jameelah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And we’re to blame
Hey there Jameelah
You be good and don't you diss me
Two more years and Iraq will self destruct
And We'll be making history like we do
You'll know it's all cause of GW2
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Jameelah here's to you
This one's for you
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oh it's oil I want to see
Oil I want to see
Technorati Tags: Iraq, Plain White T's, Remix, Lyrics

Hillary & AIPAC

2008-05-12T15:02:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, AIPAC, Israel, Campaign Money

ROI - Return on Insecurity

2008-05-09T09:17:00.001+02:00

A study looking at the cost effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures says that much of the estimated US$65-$200 billion spent since 2001 is of little value from a purely economic point of view. Moreover, since terrorism is global, spending in one country can have the effect of simply displacing terrorist activity to another.

The authors of the study calculate that worldwide spending on homeland security has risen since 2001 by between $65 billion (if security is narrowly defined) and over $200 billion a year (if one includes the Iraq and Afghan wars). But in either case the benefits are far smaller.

Terrorism, the authors say, has a comparatively small impact on economic activity, reducing GDP in affected countries by perhaps $17 billion in 2005. So although the number of terrorist attacks has fallen, and fewer people have been injured, the imputed economic benefits are limited—just a tenth of the costs.
The Economist (UK)

Technorati Tags: TErrorism, War on Terrorism, Economics, Spending, USA

How to Design a Logo: Beijing 2008

2008-05-06T16:01:00.001+02:00

I got this on e-mail and made an animation from it. I totally support the Reporters Sans Frontieres in their boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Such an oppressive regime doesn't deserve to be given such an honour or any economic benefit.

Technorati Tags: Beijing, Olympics, 2008, Oppression, Animation, Logo

Sami Al-Hajj's Statement from Sudan

2008-05-05T13:23:00.001+02:00

This is from the Democracy Now interview with Sami al Hajj and his brother Asim.

His brother Asim had mentioned that he didn't even recognise his brother because he now looks like a man that is eighty years old.

SAMI AL-HAJ: [translated] I’m very happy to be in Sudan, but I’m very sad because of the situation of our brothers who remain in Guantanamo. Conditions in Guantanamo are very, very bad, and they get worse by the day. Our human condition, our human dignity was violated, and the American administration went beyond all human values, all moral values, all religious values. In Guantanamo, you have animals that are called iguanas, rats that are treated with more humanity. But we have people from more than fifty countries that are completely deprived of all rights and privileges, and they will not give them the rights that they give to animals.

For more than seven years, I did not get a chance to be brought before a civil court. To defend their just case and to get the freedom that we’re deprived of, they ignored every kind of law, every kind of religion. But thank God. I was lucky, because God allowed that I be released. Although I’m happy, there is part of me that is not, because my brothers remain behind, and they are in the hands of people that claim to be champions of peace and protectors of rights and freedoms.

But the true just peace does not come through military force or threats to use smart or stupid bombs or to threaten with economic sanctions. Justice comes from lifting oppression and guaranteeing rights and freedoms and respecting the will of the people and not to interfere with a country’s internal politics.

Technorati Tags: Sami Al Hajj, Democracy Now, Interview, Guantanamo Bay

Sam Al Hajj Freed From Guantanamo Bay

2008-05-02T10:05:00.000+02:00

Sami Al Hajj, the Al Jazeera Camerman has been finally freed after years of detention and torture at Guantanamo Bay.

He has been on Hunger Strike for the past 16 months protesting against being held without trial or charge since December 2001.

Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer with the Reprieve organisation has worked with Al Hajj's case since 2005 and has visited him 10 times since then , the last time just three weeks ago.

"He looks like an ill man, he has problems with his kidneys, liver, blood in his urine and there are concerns that he may have cancer."

Katznelson said that the cameraman's release was probably motivated by political concerns.

"I think this is part of a larger picture between the United States and Sudan, that they are trying to bring those countries closer together," he said.

"Sudan, one of the primary demands they made to the United States, is if you want to normalise relations with us you have to give something back, and one of the things is the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay."

Martin Mubanga, a former Gitmo detainee himself, has said that Sami had refused to be broken during his time Guantanamo Bay and his stime there had strengthened his resolve against the American Authorities due to his horrible treatment and the US's blatant tactics to gain 'dirt' on Al Jazeera.

Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's MD will bein Khartoum to welcome back Sami and has criticised the Us for the tactics they used in order to spy on Al Jazeera.

"We are concerned about the way the Americans dealt with Sami, and we are concerned about the way they could deal with others as well," he said.

"Sami will continue with Al Jazeera, he will continue as a professional person who has done great jobs during his work with Al Jazeera.

"We congratulate his family and all those who knew Sami and loved Sami and worked for this moment."

Shutup! Israel is humane, you bastards.

2008-04-28T15:00:00.001+02:00

Another example of Israel's Extreme Humanity - killing kids a and families yet again. For such a self-proclaimed advanced nation with top of the line technological advancement, they sure make a lot of mistakes. I guess no matter how great the computers are you can never under-estimate Human Greed and Evil Intentions.

btw... the headline of this post is an actual quote from some Zionist Nutcase i was trying to talk to.

Israeli fire 'kills four children in Gaza'

Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip today while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, residents and medical officials said.

The deaths in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun cast another shadow on Egyptian efforts to forge a ceasefire between Israel and militant groups and end violence threatening US-brokered Palestinian statehood talks.

"This aggression does not serve efforts being exerted to achieve calm, and it obstructs the peace process," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, referring to Israel's military activities, said in a statement carried by WAFA news agency.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, without giving details of the raid in Beit Hanoun, said Hamas Islamists controlling the Gaza Strip bore overall responsibility for casualties among non-combatants because gunmen "operated among civilians".

Medical officials and residents of Beit Hanoun, an area where militants frequently fire rockets at Israel, said an Israeli projectile smashed through the ceiling of a one-storey house where a family was having breakfast.

They said four children - siblings whose ages ranged from 1.5 to 5 years old - and their mother were killed in the house during what the Israeli military described as an operation against rocket launching crews and snipers.

"They were eating and they were hit," a neighbour said at the site.

A 17-year-old Palestinian civilian who was passing by the home was also killed in the explosion, medical workers said.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Oppression, Killers

Carter discusses Gaza Truce with Hamas

2008-04-18T17:56:00.001+02:00

AFP

Jimmy Carter met with Hamas Leaders in Cairo to discuss a truce in the Gaza Strip as well as addressed topics such as the kidnapped Israeli Gilad Shalit. Hamas had also met with Egyptian Officials and the Intelligence Chief to discuss a possible truce with Israel to re-open borders and remove enemy conditions.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jimmy Carter, Hamas, Egypt, Cairo

Why you should Boycott the Beijing Olympics

2008-04-18T17:04:00.001+02:00

The following is an excerpt from Tariq Ramadan's article: The Tibet Boycott: a question of dignity

Soon the Olympic Games will be taking place in China. Sports and politics must not be mixed, we are told, as if Chinas stance were not political! The Chinese, in fact, have adopted a policy that intertwines and confuses the two. But it is impossible to celebrate a political authority or a government, impossible to participate in sport, when an entire people is oppressed, when its existence is denied, when it is humiliated by that same government. Markets and economic interests, the forces that have already purchased such a deafening silence, can no longer justify our cautious calculations as we confront the shameful images that have come to us, for so long, from occupied Tibet.

We cannot allow ourselves to be misled by eminently political and symbolic gestures presented as purely sporting or purely cultural (is it not striking to see some of those who criticized us for promoting a boycott of Israel whose government continues to oppress the Palestinians at the Paris Salon du livre and the Turin Book Fair, using precisely the same arguments in denouncing China?). They are fooling no one. Our duty is one of coherence: no more selective criticism, no more cowardly silence; there can be no culture, no sport devoid of ethics, stripped of their dignity. Boycotting the Olympic Games, as long as the Tibetans are being crushed, is a question of human dignity and intellectual decency.

It is no longer enough to philosophize, to expostulate, in our carpeted offices, our salons, our universities, on the benefits of non-violence and the greatness of soul of its spokesmen and leaders while, though our political cowardice and our economically motivated hypocrisy, we seemingly spare no effort to drive to violence resisters who have nothing left to lose, who have already lost everything.

These words are written for the women and men of Tibet, for those who are still standing upright, for my friends in the resistance who have taken the decision to accept no longer the silence of complicity, to countenance no selective denunciations. Whatever the price to be paid.

With you, our world is less ugly, our humanity not so sad.

It is not only un-Islamic, but inhuman to sit silently and endure the situation in Tibet and China's arrogance as they push their way to quell any reference to their Oppression as they promote their precious Olympics. China is also a great contributor when it comes to arms and situation in Darfur. They are undoubtedly one of the greatest supporters of some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history. We all have to take a stand.

Technorati Tags: Tibet, China, Boycott, Tariq Ramadan

Jimmy Carter's Visit Irks Israeli's...

2008-04-18T10:40:00.001+02:00

Jimmy Carter Ruffles Feathers in Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jimmy Carter

Video of Israeli Killing Reuter Cameraman, Fadel Shana

2008-04-18T10:32:00.001+02:00

I'm too disgusted to comment, but the the transcript from Adrian Monck's blog is quoted below...

Reuters has released a video (see below) showing what appears to be the Israeli tank firing the round that - it’s claimed - killed cameraman Fadel Shana.

The first thing to note is the distance that Shana is from the tank, probably a Merkava 4 with a 105mm gun firing flechette rounds. Flechettes?

Flechettes are razor-sharp 3.75mm darts released from cannisters that explode in mid-air and spray thousands of them in an arc some 300 metres long and 90 metres wide.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) generally fires them in 105mm tank shells. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the IDF is using a modified version of US-supplied M494 105mm APERS-T rounds, acquired in the 1970s.

If my maths is right - big if, and if it was a flechette - that gives an arc with an area of nearly 13,500 square metres (the pitch at Wembley is 7,140). That is a large space for everyone to be bad in.

According to the Israeli Supreme Court:

the use of the flechette is restricted to areas [Hebrew. gizra, is closer to “sector”, implying a more closed, delineated area] in which the danger to innocent civilians is not actual, and only against those suspected of activity that endangers IDF soldiers or Israeli citizens.

Of course, Hamas regularly sends unguided Katyusha and Qassam rockets into densely populated parts of Israel (today’s listed here) in the hope of killing whoever happens to be underneath when they go off.

We hope, of course, that the IDF is more discriminate in its counter-butchery.

And hope is probably the right word if you are lobbing a couple of Wembley-sized pitch-fulls of death over a couple of kilometres.

It doesn’t exactly guarantee the surgical precision which military types (of all nationalities) like to ascribe to their work

China's Olympic Legacy

2008-04-17T18:20:00.001+02:00

With less than four months to go before the Summer Olympics, Amnesty has concluded in a new report that the current wave of repression by Chinese authorities is occuring not in spite of the Olympics, but because of the Olympics.

Technorati Tags: China, Olympics, Oppression

Bush and the Pope, Qumran Annexation and Palestinian Education.

2008-04-15T18:08:00.001+02:00

1) Bush is holding a dinner in the Pope’s honor this week. But the Pope isn’t going because of a “busy schedule.”

2) Israel Annexes Qumran?

According to the Jewish Chronicle the Israeli Government Tourist Office has been misleading people into believing that Qumran is a part of Israel and not a part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

<Read Full Story>

3) How Palestinian Children Really Learn

22 March, The Miami Herald published an article entitled "Dreaming of a peaceful Mideast." The initial reaction to such a headline is naturally one of pleased interest. Reporter Frida Ghitis praises the Israel/Palestine Centre for Research and Information for "working to create" a "culture of peace" in order to "put a stop to incitement and hatred." Carol Scheller comments for EI.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Pope, Israel, Qumran, Palestinian, Education

Reporters Without Borders Go Hardcore Against Beijing Olympics

2008-04-08T12:52:00.001+02:00

The Beijing Olympics will be in interesting case study in seeing whether the force of good PR will overcome the innate unjust practices of the Chinese government. Reporters Without Borders are disseminating the image below to remind Olympic enthusiasts how china treats activists and bloggers.

China is under pressure to open the net to journalists during the games and we even have a quote from the Vice President of the International Olympic Committee’s Coordinating commission, Kevan Gospar saying “I’m satisfied that the Chinese understand the need for this and they will do it.”

I have my reservations given that this is the same government which forced Google into obeisance. I doubt they would somehow just say… “Yeah, okay, we’ll take down the firewall and allow free criticism and democratic practice to reign.”

Whether this will actually happen, we’ll have to wait and see. As I said, it’s an interesting case study.

Buy the Reporters Sans Frontieres T-shirt against the Beijing Olympics.

Personally, I hope the protests don’t end here but continue into the Olympics till the Oppression stops.

Technorati Tags: Beijing, Olympics, Reporters Without Borders, RSF, Google, China, Protest

Banksy in Bethlehem, Palestine.

2008-04-07T10:31:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Banksy, Bethlehem, Palestine

Peace, by Caterpillar

2008-04-07T10:18:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Caterpillar, Israel, Abbas, Olmert, Peace, Peace Talks

Never Again

2008-03-12T12:12:00.001+02:00

US Elections

2008-03-12T09:20:00.001+02:00

Normality in Gaza

2008-03-05T18:22:00.001+02:00

Things are getting back to normal in Gaza after Israel decided to pause its Shoah while Condoleeza Rice visits the region and blames the Palestinians for the 125 deaths they suffered at the hands of Israel’s army this week.

By normal I mean that Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinians today. Despite easing off on its deliberate targeting of civilians, the Israeli air force continues to pound Palestinians from the air, continues to blockade the Strip, continues to deny entry to medical supplies and equipment, continues to deny entry to adequate fuel and food and water, continues to impose frequent power cuts, continues to blanket Gaza’s skies with its warplanes and blockade the coast with its warships, continues to ban the entry of pens and paper for schoolbooks, continues to ban the entry of building supplies to rebuild the homes it destroys…and on and on and on.

Also tonight, Israeli forces stormed the village of Qarara near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and surrounded the house of Yousef Al-Samiri, a member of Islamic Jihad. Al-Samiri was visiting his family when Israeli troops fired a missile at the house, killing his grand-daughter, 8 day old Amira. Al-Samiri’s body was found after a shootout near the house, apparently executed by Israeli Special Forces at close range. His son Moath, Amira’s father, was then arrested by his baby’s killers.

The body of 8 day old Amira after her name was added to the list of babies killed by Israel in Gaza this week

Just a normal day in Gaza.

Link

Technorati Tags: Gaza, Palestine

Palestine: The Real Existential Threat

2008-03-03T16:26:00.001+02:00

From Kabobfest

As Israel's butchery in Gaza continues, having left more than 100 dead in Gaza in the past 5 days, I am sickened by both reactions coming from the world's powers. On one hand, we have the condemnations by world leaders who speak of Israel's "excessive force," yet sit on their hands. Excess, after all, is not a crime in capitalist economies; it is part and parcel; more land, more money, more luxuries, more dead natives.

On the other hand, America's leaders hone in on Israel's right to defend itself. All the presidential candidates race to please pro-Israeli voters and money, and stand silent as one in three of Gaza's dead are children.

To begin with, Gaza is a densely populated, impoverished bastion of refugees -- displaced by Israel. If you read the American press and only listened to the pronouncements, you would not know this essential fact.

The people of Gaza survive because Israeli assaults are nothing new. This is just one bloodshed in a history of bloodsheds. As refugees, they know the cost of being on the wrong side of an ethno-religious nationalism dedicated to statehood by any means necessary, in negation of of the rights of the native inhabitants.

Outside observers in the West use self-defense to wash away their cognitive dissonance as the "light among nations" kills so mercilessly. The truth is that Israel must kill. If the world is to believe Israel's spin about the "existential threat" by a displaced and pauperized class of refugees, they must act accordingly. They must erase the existence of that threat -- so they kill and kill, using any pretense, such as aimless rockets, to inflict an exponentially greater act of murder.

It is not the existence of Israel that is threatened, but the existence of the Palestinians. Who is more endangered, Israel with its modern army and ruthless use of superior weaponry? Or the Palestinians, a desperate people victimized for the past centuries by foreign occupiers.

By their mere fact, the Palestinians remind Israel of its original sin -- the fact it was built on stolen land. Palestinian existence stands between the Israelis and their belonging, their normalcy. The original people are an unpleasant reminder. So now, they must be erased.

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Israel, Existential threat

Another Saudi WTF?!?

2008-02-22T21:40:00.002+02:00

The Saudi government is set to execute an illiterate woman for the crime of "witchcraft." She "confessed" to the crime after being beaten by the religious police and then fingerprinting a confession she could not read.

The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.
Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent...
When an appeal court decided she should not be executed, the law courts imposed the death sentence again, arguing that it would be in the public interest.

Link

I don't know what way of life these guys are following but it certainly isn't Islam. This is just Disgusting. Freakin' idiots. May Allah's curse be upon them, and that's coming from a Muslim.

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam' - Geert Wilders

2008-02-22T15:21:00.001+02:00

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,'

"...But he does want to create a stir. 'Islam is something we can't afford any more in the Netherlands. I want the fascist Koran banned. We need to stop the Islamisation of the Netherlands. That means no more mosques, no more Islamic schools, no more imams... Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims.'"

Okay, Let's start with the freedom of speech issue, he has a right to it, he can say whatever he wants... it's his point of view. But saying what you want and it being the truth are two very different things. Read the article for yourself first. Geert Wilders is a man addicted to TV (article says so in first line), now I cannot expect a man who gets his world view from watching TV, to be totally level-headed in terms of his judgements. I mean for him to make this 10 minute video of his the only research he did was go for a crash-course on the Quran? A book which was analysed for the last 1500 years across volumes and volumes, and he makes a judgment call on a crash-course?

Everybody know how biased the media can be, especially when it comes to TV... so a man who reads less than he watches TV will obviously have his view on things a bit off-center, tilted of course to whatever he watches; I'll take a guess that it isn't any liberal channels. I disagree with his views, obviously, but especially regarding the quote from the article I put up above ... "almost all terrorists are Muslims." Really? I wonder who put this idiot in office - here are 2 links for you to make up your own mind... Wikipedia and US State Dept. Tell me, were almost all of them Muslims?

All this is about is exactly as it says in the headline... HATE, and hate only begets hatred.

Technorati Tags: Geert Wilders, hate, Islam, Dutch

Israeli MP blames Earthquakes on Gays

2008-02-22T12:07:00.001+02:00

An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently.

I would find this funny but I guess the same thing happens with Ultra-orthodox Muslims. I remember listening to talk by Tariq Ramadan when he was down in South Africa about this very issue. How should homosexuals be treated in modern Muslim Society? Well, the answer is thesame as what I had in mind. In Islam, homosexuality is seen as a sin, hence, "hate the sin not the sinner". We have every right to say out loud we disagree with homosexuals practices... the problem comes in when people start throwing violence into the mix and complete and utter disregard for humanity.

Another point which came up is that we can work with and interact with homosexuals simply because they are human beings and being "gay"is only one aspect of who they are. There are a lot of homosexuals who do a lot of great work and we can collaborate with them on that, however we reserve the right to disagree wit ha certain aspect of their lifestyle, but we don't disregard the entire person. This is a similar case with all other people as well... we can disagree, but you don't have to disagree to the point of forcing your opinion on someone else.

Back to the topic... Blaming earthquakes on homosexuals is just ridiculous... How'd that guy get into parliament?

Technorati Tags: Israel, MP, gay, Earthquakes, Shlomo Benizri

This is what Israel Does: No More Mr. Nice Guy...

2008-02-21T17:38:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Israel

Israel is a spitting image for the old South Africa

2008-02-21T17:04:00.001+02:00

Israel is a spitting image for the old South Africa

JSF explores the uncanny similarities between South African Apartheid and the current Oppressive Israeli state.

"...That latter point has had David Aaronovitch arguing the toss over whether it's ok to call Israel an apartheid state. The crux for him isn't that Israel is a segregationist state that has ethno-religious discrimination enshrined in its laws:

Israel is not anything like South Africa, where a majority was denied all political and civic rights on the grounds of race.

But of course, the Palestinians are the majority but a majority of that majority are barred from the territory."

Technorati Tags: Palestine, South Africa, Apartheid

Palestine Update 21-02-2008

2008-02-21T10:00:00.001+02:00

Woman dies after being denied passage through Israeli checkpoint
"...restrictions on civilian movement deprive Palestinians of their basic rights, and resulted in the death of a woman. At approximately 17:00 on Thursday, 13 February, Fawzia Abd al-Fattah al-Darak (59) from Deir al-Ghosoun north of Tulkarm died when IOF prevented an ambulance from taking her to a hospital in Tulkarm. Mohammad al-Darak, her husband, informed PCHR's fieldworker that his wife started to experience severe chest pain. They called the emergency department of the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Tulkarm in order to transport her to a hospital. However, the IOF troops stationed at the checkpoint to the south of Deir al-Ghosoun prevented the ambulance from entering the village. The woman's family put her in a private taxi and tried to take her to the ambulance. However, IOF troops prevented the vehicle from passing through the checkpoint despite being informed of the woman's condition. "

London School of Economics student union votes for divestment
The London School of Economics Students' Union (LSESU) on 14 February voted overwhelmingly to call on its university and the National Union of Students (NUS) to divest from companies that provide military and commercial support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, condemning the decades of human rights abuses and systematic oppression that has occurred as a result.

YMCA headquarters attacked in Gaza City
The undersigned civil society organizations utterly condemn an attack on the YMCA headquarters in Gaza City in the early hours of the morning of 15 February 2008. Unidentified militants broke into the YMCA headquarters, planted explosive devices and subsequently completely destroyed the library. The undersigned organizations ask the dismissed government to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into this crime, which is a continuation of a number of similar attacks targeting national, cultural and civil society organizations in the Gaza Strip. This crime also represents a continuation of security chaos across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Ambulance, LSE, divestment, Israel, YMCA

Seconds in Iraq

2008-02-12T09:52:00.001+02:00

Chinese Begin to Protest Censorhip of Internet

2008-02-11T12:29:00.001+02:00

As an 18-year-old student with an interest in the Internet, Zhu Nan had been itching to say something about the country's pervasive online censorship system, widely known here as the Great Firewall.

When China's censors began blocking access to the popular photo-sharing site Flickr, Zhu felt the moment had come. Writing on his blog last year, the student, who is now a freshman at a university in this city, questioned the rationale for Internet restrictions, and in subsequent posts, began passing along tips on how to evade them.

"Officials in our country claimed that Internet censorship is done according to the law," Zhu wrote. "If so, why not let people know about this legal project, and why, instead, ban the Web sites that publicize and examine those legal policies? If you're determined to do this, you shouldn't be afraid of criticism."

Link
Rock on.

Technorati Tags: China, Protest, Censorship

Putting Gaza Back in the Cage...

2008-02-07T14:25:00.001+02:00

The all-too-brief moment of liberation for Gaza is over. The cage doors
have been slammed shut, elopers shot, and air strikes on the captive
population resumed. Israel's collective punishment having been sanctified by the Jerusalem-based Supreme Court last week (the reduction of power to Gaza begins today), and its past war crimes officially denied, the IDF can rampage through its open air prison at liberty. As often as it likes. The IDF are also looking at ways to stop anything like the breach of that wall ever happening again - bad example, you see. What if people starting doing that in the West Bank? And Egypt's coppers are back on the beat, shooting at Gazan protesters. The brief exhiliaration of crossing the border now gives way to a darker reality - the so-called "shopping spree" didn't begin to bring even a fraction of the goods that were needed.

Starvation is afoot. The FAO's last 'Food Security and Vulnerability' assessment,
which was carried out in 2006, found that only a third of all
Palestinians were food secure. The Gaza Strip is particularly
vulnerable, since it cannot produce more than 1% of the wheatflour that
makes up 80% of the basic diet. The report notes that "24% of food
insecure non-refugees are located in West Bank and 58% are located in
the Gaza Strip". (Since we tend to forget about the refugee population,
who are given no rights in the 'two state' consensus, it is worth
pointing out that they are in the worst condition when it comes to
basic nutrition). The last time a survey of Palestinian incomes was
taken, to my knowledge, was Oxfam's report
in early 2007, which found that poverty had increased by 30% over the
previous year. As they note, this is not only because international
donors suspended aid upon the election of Hamas. It is because Israel
collects Palestinian tax revenue and withholds it. The number of
Palestinians living on less than $2.10 a day doubled in 2006. And so,
with the economy subject to a blockade, with tax revenues withheld,
with aid withdrawn, and with power supplies now cut, Israel is back to
its policy of "putting the Palestinians on a diet" (as Dov Weisglass
once described it).

Copyleft of Lenin's Tomb

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Gaza, Israel, Oppression, Occupation

Umm... Jesus was born there... Duh!

2008-02-06T15:58:00.003+02:00

A new survey by Zoghby International of 15,000 US citizens and 1,000 respondents from Bethlehem, Americans have once again proven the quality of geography education in the States.

Most Americans placed Bethlehem in Israel, when it is actually under occupation in the West Bank, and cut off from Jerusalem by the Wall.

Bethlehem, a town that has probably the oldest Christian presence in the world, is at risk of losing its Christian heritage as members of the community increasingly leave due to hardships posed by occupation and the construction of the Apartheid Wall.

The two surveys show that American perceptions of the town are wildly at odds with the perceptions of those who live there.

While the Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly (78%) blame the exodus of Christians from the town on Israel’s blockade, Americans are more likely (45.9%) to blame it on Islamic politics and are reluctant (7.4%) to blame Israel.

And while four out of ten Americans believe that the wall exists for Israel’s security, more than nine out of ten Bethlehemites believe it is part of a plan by Israel to confiscate Palestinian land.

The Zogby survey shows strong support for the town in the US, where 65.5% of the population want the UN to list it as a world heritage site. Americans are also strongly in favour (80.6%) of Bethlehem retaining a strong Christian presence.

Americans are also ambivalent about the Israeli wall, with 31.5% in favour of it, with another 31.6% opposed.

But more than two-thirds of Americans believe Bethlehem is unsafe to visit, while 80% of Bethlehemites consider their town safe for visitors.

While the US survey showed that Americans are sceptical about Muslims and Christians living contentedly alongside each other – only 17% thought they lived together in peaceful coexistence – the Palestinian survey showed they do: around 90% of Christians said they had Muslim friends, and vice-versa.

The Israeli government could well be shaken by the discovery that Americans’ tolerance of the wall would be strained by the discovery that it separates communities and families, cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem, and requires the seizure of privately-owned land.

US Christians, meanwhile, are likely to be shocked by the discovery that seven out of ten Christians in Bethlehem believe Israel treats the town’s Christian heritage with brutality or indifference.

The Bethlehem poll, which was carried out by the Palestinian Centre for research and Cultural Dialogue, shows on the other hand that more than two-thirds (73.3%) of Bethlehem’s Christians believe that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage with respect. That result will surprise some who believe that the election of Hamas has strained Christian-Muslim relations in the town.

Leila Sansour, Open Bethlehem’s Chief Executive, says:

“Our US poll shows overwhelming support for Bethlehem’s Christian heritage, yet our survey of Bethlehem’s own citizens shows the city cannot retain this heritage and its Christian community while the wall remains.

“The choice is stark. Either the wall stays and Bethlehem ceases to be a Christian town. Or Bethlehem retains its Christian population – in which case the wall has to come down. The international community needs to wake up to what is happening and choose.”

For the full results of the survey, click here.

Come to think of it, hey May... there could be a whole other aspect of the marriage prospect issue in this. Actually there is, not just could be. When I meet Christian young people in the West Bank, it's not unusual for them to be like ooo do you have a brother? Or, do you want to meet my brother? I've been told that for Christian Palestinian women in the West Bank, they by far end up marrying someone with an education level that is far less than theirs, because the educated guys all left. The leftovers had to drop out of school and work. The point is that finding a mate is kind of an obsessive topic for Christian young people as their choices become increasingly constricted with the outmigration.

Link

Technorati Tags: Bethlehem, Christians, Occupation

Bethlehem: The Realest Christians You're Likely to Meet

2008-02-06T15:54:00.001+02:00

I hate to be railroaded by the very few individuals who post ignorant comments on this blog, but I feel like posting this particular link. It describes quite well interesting aspects of the historic relationship of Christians and Muslims to the area that is Bethlehem today, and the relationship of the groups to each other.

While I personally have experienced instances of ignorant comments made by Palestinian Christians about Palestinian Muslims and vice versa, my personal observation is that for the most part, feelings of enmity between the communities are dwarfed by the shared hardships faced under occupation. I highly recommend visiting Bethlehem if you are able (if you aren't Arab, and Israel will let you in, first off), to experience the place and draw your own conclusions.

The land of Palestine is inhabited by a majority of Moslems who, like the Christians and the Jews, venerate many of the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, and who also feel a special relationship with Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Prophet Jesus (or 'Isa in Arabic). Of all the Christian saints, Moslems venerate especially Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom a full sura (chapter 19) in the Koran is dedicated. Moreover, since the beginnings of Islam, Bethlehem was included in the Moslem pilgrimage route that followed the road from Jerusalem, with its Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, to Hebron, with the tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their wives Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.

The Moslem-Christian living together in Palestine indeed goes back to the beginnings of Islam. Even though there have been periods of proselytizing and, at tragic moments of history, cases of oppression and discrimination, the general picture is one of a Moslem-Christian living together in daily peace, respect and cooperation. It is common to hear Palestinians saying that it does not matter whether one is Moslem or Christian; both believe in the same God, speak the same language and share the same Arabic culture.

Link

Edward R. Murrow

2008-02-01T09:49:00.001+02:00

Edward “Ed” Roscoe Murrow
(born Egbert Roscoe Murrow)

(April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965)

“If we confuse dissent with disloyalty— if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox— if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the … confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought.”

Top US General: Let Soldiers Blog!

2008-02-01T09:44:00.001+02:00

Top US A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube. Too bad the video site is banned on military nets, and Army rules squeeze military bloggers, hard. Greg Grant notes, politely, that Caldwell's "recommendation that appears to run counter to Pentagon policy."

via Wired

Technorati Tags: Iraq, US, Blogging, Youtube

Are We At War With Iran?

2008-01-25T11:50:00.001+02:00

http://www.areweatwarwithiran.com

Bush & Co. Lied for 2 years before 9/11

2008-01-24T12:44:00.001+02:00

Seriously, apparently Bush and top administration officials have made false statements as the fabricated evidence and a pretense for invading Iraq.

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

What amazes me is that the vast majority of those journalists and journalism nonprofits knew before the war that Bush & co. were lying, they either did not have enough balls to oppose and criticize them, or they held off the anti-war stories simply because they had a pro-war agenda. Their motivations may have ranged from political loyalties to the neo-cons and Israel to their desire for busy news season. The price of a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives seemed reasonable to them.

Anti-war activists and a handful of academics spoke out against the fabrications Bush & co. pushed through the news pipeline. However, they were vilified, accused of treason and supporting terrorism, silenced and intimidated by the Bush administration with the help of the media, similar attacks were carried out on charities and institutions that criticized Bush’s McCarthyism and march to war.

The facts did not change; what we knew to be a lie prior to 2003 is what’s being documented and chronicled in those new studies. Yet the media outlets and individuals complicit in fabricating the war pretense relied on a dumb and ignorant public that is incapable of drawing parallels when those tactics are being used to invade a nation, shut down a charity, or sensor and academic, a public that seems to suffer collective amnesia when the same fabrications and tactics are employed only a few years later, and goes in a state of severe denial when the government of its “greatest country in the world” turns out to be no better than the most corrupt dictatorships whom they grown accustomed to uncritically condemning.

At this rate, it appears that it will be a few years before some media watchdogs or the academia come out to critique the immorality and lack of ethics inherent to the war pretense, even had the claimed made by Bush et al been vindicated.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Administration, Lies, 9-11, 9/11, Iraq, Invasion, Occupation, WMD

Co-worker Gang Rape by Military Contractors in Iraq

2008-01-24T09:22:00.001+02:00

Just got this from Amnesty International... It's not only Iraqi's taht are suffering at the hands of the grubby corporations who want their hands on Iraq's resources... bastards.

Imagine you're a security contractor dispatched to Iraq - a place where your greatest fear is being hit by a roadside bomb. But mere days after you arrive, you are gang raped by co-workers... and then pressured by company management to "get over it" or lose your job.

This is the story of 23-year-old American Jamie Leigh Jones, who recently recounted her personal horror in Iraq two years ago as an employee of KBR, Halliburton's former subsidiary, before a House subcommittee.

There are an estimated 180,000 private contractors working in Iraq, yet they seem to operate above the law both in Iraq and the U.S. This culture of impunity allows abuse and killings to thrive - with little recourse for the victims. Amnesty International is working to stop this - and we need your help to succeed.

It's been more than 4 years since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Even though the Army's internal reports indicated contractor involvement in the abuses and the Department of Justice (DOJ) established a "Detainee Abuse Task Force" in 2004, it has not prosecuted a single contractor for abuses in Iraq to date. When pressed for answers, DOJ has simply said these cases remain "open" and that investigations are continuing.

Through our new "Counter Terror with Justice" campaign, Amnesty is working to reverse these injustices that further denigrate our nation's reputation around the world. All companies and contractors have an obligation to respect human rights at home and abroad. And the business community as a whole has a wider responsibility - moral and legal - to use its influence to promote respect for human rights.

With the stakes growing higher every day, we must move quickly to stop these egregious abuses in the "war on terror." Please consider making a gift today to help Amnesty to:

* Pressure the Justice Department to expedite investigations and prosecute cases of clear human rights violations by contractors.
* Pressure the Senate to pass a loophole-free version of the Security Contractor Accountability Act, a bill that would ensure that private military and security contractors are not above the law. A similar bill has already passed in the House, but we need your help to keep up the momentum!
* Drive increased media and public attention to the U.S.'s illegal practices in the war on terror. Our protests on January 11th generated huge TV and print media coverage around the world!

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Gangrape, Jamie Leigh Jones, Halliburton

Is Hamas Saving More Jewish lives than Olmert?

2008-01-23T11:57:00.001+02:00

Hamas’s second in command, Mahmoud al Zahar, has saved more Jewish lives in his short tenure as Palestinian Foreign Minister, than Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. And how has he been rewarded?

Yesterday his son, Hussam al Zahar, was shot dead while defending a civilian enclave in the Palestinian territory by a roving band of Israeli troops. The young man was not connected to any terrorist action. He is simply got in the way of an Israeli bullet and now he’s dead. End of story.

18 other Palestinian men were killed in the attack which has been condemned by foreign leaders around the world. But not in the United States where such barbarity is considered laudable.

Even American stooge, Mahmoud Abbas, blasted the raid saying, “What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people. Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres.”

There are photos in Aljazeera of the elder al Zahar offering a final prayer over the corpse of his dead son. It is very sad. This is his second son to be killed by the Israelis. His eldest son was killed in a bombing raid two years ago that was aimed at him. Al Zahar still has not recovered.

As part of the democratically-elected government of the Palestinian people, al Zahar supported Hamas suspension of all suicide bombings within Israel.

How many Jewish lives have been saved by the directive?

At the same time, Israel’s vain and stupid Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert — whose public approval is a paltry 4% — is responsible for the deaths of 113 Israeli soldiers by his bloody and pointless invasion of Lebanon a year ago.

Consider the paradox: Hamas leaders are now saving more Jewish lives than Israel’s own Prime Minister. What bitter irony.

No one in the western media even has the courage to talk about the fact that Hamas was instrumental in stopping the attacks on Israeli civilians. Instead, the rationale for killing Palestinians has simply shifted to the random rocket attacks launched by Gaza militants who are beyond Hamas control. It is just an excuse to continue the sanctions which have left Palestinian women and children without sufficient food, water, medical supplies or energy. The people of Gaza are paying a heavy price for being Palestinian; for merely occupying the land which which every nation in the world has confirmed belongs to the Palestinian people. Al Zahar’s son was killed defending that land.

The Israeli raid was ordered by rejectionist Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister who sabotaged the Camp David negotiations with Yasser Arafat and then used his operatives in the US media to craft a narrative that Israel had made a “generous offer” to the Palestinian leadership. It was all rubbish. There were never even any maps, let alone any real effort to make concessions on borders, Jerusalem, air space, water, checkpoints etc. Now, Barak is back doing what he does best: inciting Palestinians so that more land can be settled. It’s a tedious and bloody cycle.

The Israeli raid was intended to send a message to Washington. Annapolis is over. The peace talks are over. The grand performance for the media is over. Now it’s back to business.

Its only been a matter of days since Bush left Israel and already the provocations have resumed. Israeli leaders must find it quite gratifying to make the President of the United States look like a laughingstock to the rest of the world. Bush is a fool, but we don’t need Israel to point it out.

A week ago Bush visited Yad Veshem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, where he said:

“I wish as many people as possible would come to this place. It is a sobering reminder that evil exists and a call that when exists we must resist it.”

Bush only cares about the suffering of Jews, not Palestinians. The policy is counterproductive and hypocritical.

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have been at war since street battles broke out in Gaza six months ago. But they are in agreement about the sudden outbreak of violence following Bush’s trip. Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu summed it up like this, “President Bush gave the green light for the new aggression and other such terrorism.”

Indeed. It appears that the operations had already been planned. As soon as Bush left Israel, the hostilities began.

Al Zahar said, “We believe that this Zionist escalation is the result of Bush’s visit and a natural result of the cover supplied by Bush to the Israeli occupation authorities to go forward in their aggression against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip. We will retaliate in the way they understand.”

115 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF since the end of the Bush’s Annapolis Peace Conference.

Here’s the video by Aljazeera of the Israeli attack on the Gaza suburb that killed al Zahar’s son. It’s nothing like the garbage produced by western media.

Link

Alan Greenspan vs. Naomi Klein: Awesome Debate

2008-01-17T10:39:00.001+02:00

In a Democracy Now! exclusive debate, former federal reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and journalist Naomi Klein square off on the Iraq war, oil, President Bush tax cuts, social security, economic populism in Latin America, corruption and crony capitalism.

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. His new memoir is “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.”
Naomi Klein, award-winning investigative journalist, the bestselling author of “No Logo” and the co-director of “The Take.” Her latest book is called “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”

------------------------------------

The debate is pretty insightful and gives a good account of the state of the world and the viewpoints governing the opposing sides.

Technorati Tags: Naomi Klein, Alan greenspan, Democracy Now, Debate

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Busted on Facebook!

2008-01-16T20:02:00.000+02:00

Do you really know your politicians???

Benhizir Bhutto's son on Facebook...

Monster's ball: Bilawal and friends in fancy dress for an Oxford University Hallowe'en event

Ladies' man: Bilawal cosies up to bisexual friends Kirini Kopcke (left) and Julia Hartley, who say they are 'engaged'

Get the Full story here...

Link via Mo Nanabhay

Palestinian Blood Diamonds

2008-01-16T19:52:00.000+02:00

Oxfam is a major "group of non-governmental organizations from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice." Adalah-NY and other New York activists have been doing great work to expose Leviev.
Correcting media reports, Oxfam says received no support from Leviev, condemns Israeli settlements

Adalah-NY Contact: justiceme@gmail.com

New York, NY, Jan 14, 2008 - Correcting earlier media reports of a relationship between Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev and Oxfam, Oxfam told the New York City human rights group Adalah-NY that "Leviev has not been a donor to Oxfam." Oxfam explained that it does not "knowingly accept funds from any business involved in any illegal activity, or operating in any illegally occupied territory, including settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories." Following reports that Leviev contributes to Oxfam in Women's Wear Daily, Lifestyles Magazine and on the news site of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, of which Leviev is the President, Adalah-NY had written to Oxfam asking the international charity to reject contributions from Leviev. There was no immediate explanation of why these publications had reported that Leviev supported Oxfam.

Adalah-NY began a boycott campaign focusing on Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev due to his companies' settlement construction in the Occupied West Bank in violation of international law, and his abuse of marginalized communities in Angola and New York City. Adalah-NY has conducted five protests over two months at Leviev's new Madison Avenue jewelry store. In December, US actress Susan Sarandon was asked to cut ties with Leviev by the West Bank villages of Bil'in and Jayyous where Leviev is building settlements, the US organization Jewish Voice for Peace, Israel's Coalition of Women for Peace, and leading Palestinian civil society organizations.

A September 5, 2007 article in Women's Wear Daily on Leviev claimed that Leviev is "a philanthropist" who is involved with "Oxfam America," among others. A December 28, 2007 article in Lifestyles Magazine about Leviev, entitled "The Benefactor" noted that Leviev's "philanthropic activities" touched US charities including "Oxfam America." The Lifestyles Magazine article, including the claim of ties to Oxfam America, was also posted on the news site of Leviev's Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS.

Following these media reports, Adalah-NY sent a January 8 open letter to Oxfam noting that Leviev had been "touting his charitable contributions to Oxfam to deflect scrutiny from his violations of international law and his role in the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories." Citing settlement construction by Leviev's companies, his company's complicity in cutting the fuel supply to the Gaza Strip, and his companies' violations in Angola and in New York City, Adalah-NY called on Oxfam "to raise your prominent voice in bringing to light Leviev's unlawful and unethical activities." (The full letter to Oxfam)

January 11 emails to Adalah-NY from Alex Renton of Oxfam Great Britain and Adrienne Smith of Oxfam America responded that: "Contrary to various citations, Lev Leviev is not a donor to Oxfam America and has never been one. To the best of our knowledge Mr. Leviev has not been a donor to Oxfam or any of its affiliates. Oxfam International is an organization of 13 national affiliates working in 100 countries, and we are checking thoroughly whether any Oxfam has had any relationship with Mr. Leviev."

"Oxfam's policies on donations, corporate and private, are clear. We don't knowingly accept funds from any business involved in any illegal activity, or operating in any illegally occupied territory, including settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Oxfam abides by international humanitarian law, and thus has a long-standing policy of opposition to such settlements." Oxfam's response was also posted on the Israeli website www.kibush.co.il and on the UK website www.bigcampaign.org.uk/.

Adalah-NY spokesperson Ethan Heitner commented, "We are unable to explain why articles praising Leviev and touting his charitable contributions, including an article on the news site of an organization he heads, claimed a link with Oxfam which Oxfam has now verified doesn't exist. We are gratified that Oxfam has reiterated its longstanding opposition to Israeli settlement construction and refusal to accept donations from businesses like Leviev's that are involved in violations of international law."

Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East.

Saudi Girls Gone Wild?

2008-01-15T10:52:00.001+02:00

Just got my hands on a very interesting article regarding the younger generation in Saudi Arabia... who live in one of the strictest social conditions implemented by any government. I remember having many a conversation regarding the dark side of the segregation of the sexes in Islam, although you can understand where it comes from... the extreme implementation of this often leads to things far worse than the rules were intended to prevent.

It also alludes to a book which I want to try to get my hands on Girls of Riyadh, of which the article says...

"...In a country where "driving while female" is illegal, as is checking
into a hospital without a male guardian's signature, a gossipy romance
can spark an explosion of political debate. That's what happened when a
Beirut publishing house first released Girls of Riyadh in
2005, by 24-year-old Rajaa Alsanea. It was initially banned in her
native Saudi Arabia, but young Saudis quickly got their hands on it
anyway. They lauded it online, while writers and columnists debated the
book's meaning and Saudi talking heads told the author she should
disown it.

In the book, an anonymous narrator details the lives
of four upper-class girlfriends, showing them flirting with boys, going
to parties, and in one case, contemplating a relationship with a member
of a different Muslim sect."

A bit too taboo? In today's times? Barriers are being broken everywhere and in the tradition of people everywhere who have a point of view forced upon them... Rebellion simmers and boils over. The article also mentions another book which details enforced lesbianism due to the extreme segregation which is being enforced.

There's a reason why the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said that the middle path is the right way and everything should be done in moderation. Extremism on any side leads to too much evil.

Viva La Revolucion!

M.

P.S. you can buy Girls of Riyadh from Exclusive Books and its available on-line.

Technorati Tags: Saudi Girls Gone Wild, Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea

Phone companies cut FBI wiretaps due to unpaid bills

2008-01-14T11:43:00.001+02:00

One FBI office had $66,000 in unpaid telephone bills.
I found this pretty funny, I knew the US Govt. was running into debt but this is ridiculous. Having the most revered intelligence agency (apart from the CIA) in the US not having the proper administrative competence to pay the bills for activities to protect their national interests is just ignorant and very damaging to their credibility. If they're missing simple things such as paying their bills, I wonder what other mistakes they are making with the more important things?

But then again, I'm sure if you ask them what the more important things are... that's a whole other debate, like "Who are the real terrorists?"

Tags: USA, FBI, Unpaid bills, Wire Taps, Useless

Quote of the week: Palestine & Israel

2007-11-07T16:54:00.001+02:00

What we end up having [in Palestine] is the most unusual
situation. The Israelis monopolize everything. They monopolize nuclear
weapons, they monopolize tanks, planes, what else ... They monopolize
the land, they monopolize the water ... what else ... They even
monopolize moral virtue ... you know, democracy and freedom of speech,
and they monopolize the capacity to write the history of our land ...
But they are not only content with this; after monopolizing all this
and colonizing us to the bones, they also monopolize victimhood! To my
knowledge, no colonizer has ever succeeded in monopolizing even
victimhood ... just our luck! We say: "Hey, you're hurting us", and
they say, "Don't you know how hurt we are? Haven't you heard of the
Holocaust!" They are suffocating us, and when we try to push them away
a little bit so we can breathe, they say, "We're being victimized. You
don't recognize we exist." How on earth can you not recognize the
existence of someone as fat as Sharon sitting on top of you suffocating
you, I don't know!

Palestinian man interviewed in Sydney, from Ghassan Hage's Against Paranoid Nationalism (2003), Chapter 8 - pg 133.

via Kabobfest

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Israel, Victimhood, Monopoly, Ghassan Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism

Censorship.

2007-11-02T12:08:00.001+02:00

"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race."
-- Charles Bradlaugh

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
-- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage."
-- Winston Churchill

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..."
-- Henry Steel Commager
"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education."
-- Alfred Whitney Griswold, Essays on Education

"[O]ne man's vulgarity is another's lyric."
-- John Marshall Harlan, Supreme Court justice, 1971

"I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
-- Lillian Hellman, subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1952

"To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."
-- Claude Adrien Helvetius, De l'Homme, Vol. I, sec. 4

"The sooner we all learn to make a decision between disapproval and censorship, the better off society will be... Censorship cannot get at the real evil, and it is an evil in itself."
-- Granville Hicks (1901-1982)

"Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice."
-- Holbrook Jackson

"Did you ever hear anyone say 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'?"
-- Joseph Henry Jackson

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. - Censure acquits the raven, but pursues the dove."
-- Decimus Junius Juvenalis (Juvenal), Satires, II. 63. Roman rhetorician and satirical poet (1st to 2nd cent. A.D.)

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?"
-- Juvenal

Rock on.

Technorati Tags: Censorship, Quotes

Empires of the Middle East - A History

2007-10-31T14:52:00.000+02:00

Link: Maps of War

Technorati Tags: Middle East, History, Empires, Maps of War

Who is Rudy Giuliani?

2007-10-18T11:21:00.001+02:00

Just who is this Rudy Giuliani?

A woman (see right)?

No.

The former mayor of New York and the leading Republican candidate in 2008?

Maybe.

A political machine in the shape of a stiff-lipped, chauvinistic hatemonger?

Kinda.

The personification of a state, namely an imperfect America?

Closer.

The personification of two states, namely an imperfect America and Israel?

Bingo.

"You know, Israel’s not perfect, and America’s not perfect, but we’re not terrorist states," Giuliani said at the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory 2008 Forum.

Tell that to the millions of displaced and injured Iraqis, Palestinians and Lebanese. The false naivete of such statements is the most utterly morally bankrupt outlook one can have. Here he negates the terror of others, those who live under attack from his imperfect self. He treats them as non-humans with no experiences worth noting.

Maureen Dowd wrote a column about Giuliani's Arab-bashing spree in an effort to round up Israel-loving support. He bragged to the crowd about removing Arafat from a concert at the Lincoln Center; and was proud to return the $10 million donation for 9/11 families from a Saudi prince (I bet many of the 9/11 rescue workers, including the ones profiled in Sicko, could use that money).

Via

Technorati Tags: Rudy Guiliani, USA, Israel, Arab-Bashing, Sicko, Bias, Ass

Coverage.

2007-10-16T11:40:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Bush, Child Health Care, War

Empire State Building to be Lit in Green for Eid, Annually

2007-10-12T09:40:00.001+02:00

The highest building in New York City, the Empire State Building, will be lit in green to mark the end of the month of Ramadan for the Muslim Holiday, Eid ul-Fitr (a celebration to break fast). Said to be an annual event, the timing of the lighting is contingent upon the sighting of the moon. The holiday is expected to begin tomorrow and end on Sunday, as is the lighting.

According to an anonymous statement in the AFP, “This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah.”

Depending on the family, Muslims in the United States celebrate the completion of Ramadan by dressing in their best clothes, congregating at local mosques for Salaat-al-Eid (holiday prayer), hosting friends and family to a large feast of food, and wishing upon others an Eid Mubarak (Happy Celebration).

Rima Abdelkader is a NY-based journalist and a graduate of Pace University in NY.

Technorati Tags: Muslims, Eid, Ramadaan, Empire State Building