World Up for Slingshot Hip-Hop

"About" World Up says this about World Up:

About Us

Founded in 2004, World Up is a non-profit organization (501c3 pending) dedicated to educating the public about international cultures, and issues that affect the global community through Hip-Hop and its related musics. Through our ongoing events, educational programming, and our annual music festival, we are actively promoting and fostering diversity, cross-cultural understanding, and social change through Hip-Hop culture.

World Up is run by a group of volunteers who come from diverse backgrounds and cultures but share a deep love for Hip-Hop and how it is used as a tool for social and political change. We have a well established network of artists, DJ´s, MC´s, Film makers, promoters, activists, and the like around the globe.

Well they seem to be the first site to carry the press release about this documentary featuring Palestinian Hip-Hop artists:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Slingshot Hip Hop

Selected as Part of 2008 Sundance Film Festival

Groundbreaking Film by Jackie Reem Salloum

Featuring Palestinian Hip-Hop Artists to Premier at Festival

New York, NY November 29, 2007--Organizers behind the 2008 Sundance Film Festival have announce that Slingshot Hip Hop, the first feature-length film on Palestinian Hip Hop has been selected to premier as part the 2008 Festival lineup.

Highlighting the cutting edge of emerging Middle Eastern youth culture, Slingshot Hip Hop is a documentary chronicling the lives of rappers living in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel successfully using Hip Hop as a platform to make their voices heard. Armed with artists sharp lyrics and infectious rhythms, the film offers a fresh and complex window into contemporary life in Palestine and Israel. Since its inception, the film has grown from a socio-political documentary into a multi-city educational initiative and two albums. Excitement from the trailer alone has resulted in growing global buzz.

Slingshot Hip Hop is director Jackie Reem Salloum's first feature length film following 3 independently produced shorts including Planet of the Arabs, an official selection at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and a recipient of the Best Editing award at the 2005 CinemaTexas Film Festival.

Jackie Reem Salloum, the films Director stated, "It's been a massive collaborative effort to bring the story of these young men and women to the screen and we are thrilled to premier our efforts at Sundance. Slingshot Hip Hop is a reflection of the rappers themselves, a surreal collision between the Palestinian struggle and this now global, Black-American art form."

Drawing on the roots of both her immigrant family in the US and her family still in Palestine, Salloum is uniquely situated to provide a lens into the culture and struggle of the artists, while providing global audiences with a unique window into a oft overlooked society. Slingshot tells the story of these young Palestinian artists in search of hope, identity, and freedom as they use Hip Hop to express their message throughout their community and the rest of the world.
Slingshot will premier at Sundance Film Festival in January 2008.

For more information visit:
http://www.slingshothiphop.com/

And they very helpfully carry the trailer:

It might have been better to put the trailer at the top of the post. I know, I will!

The Bloscars?

Well this is an interesting turn. For a long time now all I have done is blog my blog. I mean I just do posts from here or there, approve or not the handful of comments I get and maybe even respond to some. I don't do anything in the way of promotion like I did when I began back in 2004 so it's heart warming and gratifying that I've been nominated for some kind of Bloscar. That's an Oscar for blogs (I made it up unless someone already made it up, I certainly haven't heard it before, and it's certainly clunky enough to be a genuine elfianism).

The Bloscars are being organised by Brass Crescent. There are various categories of blogs and maybe at least four entrants in each category. Frankly I only recognised two of the entrants and as, thankfully, they are in different categories, I voted for both of them, Sabbah's Blog and Rolled-Up Trousers. I didn't think it would be cricket to vote for my own blog. I didn't vote against it by voting for any of the others in the same category as mine. The only one I recognised was Juan Cole's and I got a bit bored with it after a while. Is he a bit woolly? I can't remember. Anyway, check out the Brass Crescent site. I've bookmarked it so as to check out the various entrants at my own leisure.

Closing date for voting is 14 December 2007.

Reaffirming the right to return

Here's one woman's take on the latest "peace" process.

Will peace cost me my home?

Any Mideast pact must give Palestinians the right to return home.

By Ghada Ageel

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ageel1dec01,0,7237674.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

December 1, 2007

Sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful village of Beit Daras , a few kilometers north of Gaza . They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land.

But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burning, the villagers fled. My family eventually made its way to what became the refugee camp of Khan Yunis in Gaza . We were hit hard by poverty, humiliation and disease. We became refugees, queuing for tents, food and assistance, while the state of Israel was established on the ruins of my family's property and on the ruins of hundreds of other Palestinian villages.

Some people may tire of hearing such stories from the past. "Don't cry over spilled milk" is one of the first sayings I learned in English. But for me, the line between past and present is not so easily broken. I raise this story today because it remains profoundly relevant to the Middle East peace process -- and to help convey the deep-seated fears of Palestinian refugees that we will be asked to exonerate Israel for its actions and to relinquish our right to return home.

That cannot be allowed to happen. All refugees have the right to return. This is an individual right, long recognized in international law, that cannot be negotiated away. Palestinian refugees -- and there are more than 4 million of us registered with the United Nations today -- hold this right no less than Kosovar or Rwandan or any other refugees.

Of course, I understand that the clock cannot be turned back. Most of the Palestinian villages inside what is now Israel no longer exist. And experience shows that when the rights of refugees are recognized and backed by international communities, only a small portion opt to return.

But the option should be open to us. If a refugee decides to return, he or she should not be hindered. Anything less would be unacceptable to Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are refugees. Those who choose not to return must be fairly compensated for their losses.

My fear is that in the months ahead, enormous financial and political pressure may be brought against our fractured leadership to concede the rights of refugees.

In 2000, Yasser Arafat was castigated internationally for his refusal to accept what was perversely termed a "generous offer" from then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, even though it made no provision whatsoever for the return of refugees. However, Arafat was greeted as a hero by Palestinians for his principled unwillingness to sanctify ethnic cleansing.

Seven years later, we will perhaps be confronted with another "generous offer" aiming to formalize our dispossession. Tragically, world powers have little stomach to battle Israel for what they view as bygone peccadilloes.

There are real consequences for being stateless and weak. For two years, I have been unable to return to my home in Gaza . In 2006, I was stranded in the Sinai with my two small children, unable to get through the closed border from Egypt into Gaza . It is perhaps madness to want to enter such a prison, but it is where my family and loved ones live. I eventually gave up. Last summer, I tried and failed again.

Yet my ultimate destination is not Khan Yunis but Beit Daras. It is fundamentally unjust -- even all these years later -- that the world stands by and countenances the Israeli decision to expropriate my family's land.

And it is fundamentally racist to believe that I would pose a threat to Israel if I were to move back to my family's village (which I would do if I were given the option). The notion of a Jewish state that must always retain a Jewish character -- so that people of other ethnicities can be barred from living in their ancestral homes and minorities groups are treated as second-class citizens -- is frighteningly similar to the apartheid state of South Africa , where different ethnic groups were treated unequally under law.

If black and white South Africans could resolve their differences on the basis of equality, why is it inappropriate to insist that Israelis and Palestinians do the same? Surely all modern conceptions of justice and equality must decry a system that places Jews above Palestinians.

Both peoples have suffered enormously over the last several decades. Resolution, however, will not come by the powerful dictating to the weak, but only through insistence on equality between the two peoples.

Ghada Ageel is a third-generation Palestinian refugee. She grew up in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza and teaches Middle Eastern politics at the University of Exeter in Britain .

It's still the zionism, stupid (not you Ghada).

Medic sans frontieres?

This has come to my attention indirectly via a comment from a zionist that it's antisemitic to compare Israel to nazi Germany. A later comment in the same thread pointed to this photo:



It's posted on the Chest Doc in Palestine blog together with lots of useful links.

But the point of the comment and of the post here is that if the definition of antisemitism is going to be so ludicrous as to count comparing Israel to nazi Germany as an example then they had better get used to the fact that many zionists themselves are antisemitic. I mean, I've known all along about zionist antisemitism but the more ludicrous the lengths to which the zionists go to smear their opponents, the more rope they have to hang themselves with.

First Palestinian Conference for the Boycott of Israel

Apologies for posting this so late. The Conference took place on 22nd November. Omar Barghouti circulated the report on the 28th. Now read on....

Al-Bireh, Ramallah

Summary Report

“The Campaign for the Boycott of Israel will re-vitalize popular resistance and restore dignity to the Palestinian people”

An important mile-stone in building the global BDS campaign was achieved in Ramallah on 22 November 2007. Some 300 activists, members of unions, associations and NGOs in towns, villages and refugee camps of the occupied West Bank, with monitors from the global solidarity movement in Britain, Canada, Norway, Spain and South Africa, convened for a day of discussion and debate about ways to promote all forms of boycott against Israel among Palestinian community organizations, unions, as well as political, academic and cultural institutions. Organizers and participants left the conference with a sense of accomplishment: practical recommendations are in place for building the popular Palestinian BDS campaign as a strategic form of civil resistance in the long struggle ahead against Israel's regime of apartheid over the Palestinian people.

The conference was opened by Dr. Gabi Baramki (PACBI) who reminded participants of the fact that boycott has been a tool of the Palestinian struggle since the 1920s. He stated that the power of popular boycott derived from international law and universal ethical principles, and emphasized the timeliness of a Palestinian popular boycott movement, especially now, when isolation and fragmentation are imposed more than ever on the Palestinian people, in order to bring about loss of hope, dignity and surrender. Boycott and popular struggle contributed to the liberation of India and South Africa, he stated, adding that, while it is true that the challenge for Palestinians is bigger, because South Africa never enjoyed the level of support Israel has from the United States and Europe, the Palestinian boycott campaign can be effective because of Israel’s ultimate dependence, politically, diplomatically and economically, on the West.

Representing PNGO, Dr. Allam Jarrar then summarized the need for boycott in the current political context, asserting that “The Palestinian struggle is a struggle against the systematic effort by Israel to replace one people in the country by another.” He affirmed that the conference was a historic event, “because 60 years into the Palestinian Nakba, we are beginning to revise the strategy of our struggle for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them our rights to self-determination, independence and return [for refugees]. The boycott campaign will re-vitalize popular resistance and restore dignity.” He presented several motivating factors for the BDS campaign:

it dispels the myth that negotiations with Israel are the only form of struggle that Palestinians can engage in;

as a non-violent tool, it is a form of popular resistance that can appeal to all Palestinians, in the homeland and exile, as well as to global supporters;

it is a tool for rebuilding collective struggle and unity;

it revives national culture and identity, and can give hope and inspiration to the young generation;

it challenges the current balance of power through applying sustained and effective pressure on Israel.

The first session included presentations – followed by discussion - by two guest speakers. Virginia Setshedi, from the Palestine Solidarity Committee in South Africa, reminded the audience of the fact that Apartheid is a crime against humanity, and explained that the new, post-Apartheid South African social movement understands the struggle of the Palestinian people. At the time of the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, a commitment was made to support the Palestinian struggle to isolate Apartheid Israel, she said. The social movement in South Africa, which welcomed the 2005 Palestinian civil society BDS call as an appeal by the Palestinian people to launch this joint struggle, has worked ever since on building the BDS movement in South Africa -- shaming the South African government and pressuring it to rescind normal relations with Israel, and boycotting Israeli consumer products. She emphasized the importance of solidarity to be mutual and encouraged Palestinians to express their support for the people's struggle in post-Apartheid South Africa for economic and social justice.

Prof. Haim Bresheeth, of the British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), gave a personal account of how a state visit to Israel in 1972 by the prime minister of the South African regime made him aware of the affinity between Apartheid and Israel's Zionist regime. He emphasized the need for a profound analysis not only of Zionist Israel's strengths, but also of the failures of Israel's regime, as a system that can cause massive destruction but is unable to provide solutions to Jews, to the Palestinian people, or to the people in the region.

Speakers in the second session set the agenda for the subsequent discussions in the workshops, examining how to promote boycott as a key component in the struggle by all sectors of Palestinian civil society and the criteria, programs and mechanisms needed to guide the Palestinian and global boycott campaign. Based on a review of joint Israeli-Palestinian civil society projects (“people to people” projects) in the fields of gender, youth and efforts at “building a joint historical narrative,” Dr. Islah Jad of PACBI showed how such projects have undermined Palestinian identity and struggle for freedom by giving the false impression of “balance” and of the possibility of reaching a “middle-ground” between the oppressor and the oppressed, rather than ending oppression altogether. As western donors continue to encourage such projects, she said, every Palestinian is responsible to undertake, before engagement, a close examination based on the criteria developed by the BDS campaign.

Adnan Ateyah, speaking for OPGAI, explained the criteria for the BDS campaign and emphasized the strategic character of this campaign which aims not only to end the military occupation in place since 1967, but also to challenge Israel's ideology, Zionism, and its international relations. Jamal Jum’a of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign pointed out that boycott is an effective tool in supporting Palestinian farmers and the building of a Palestinian economy of steadfastness on the land as opposed to grandiose “development projects” that effectively entrench dependency on the occupation. He stressed the need to unify the political analysis, terminology and campaigns, and to promote the BDS campaign at a national level. Opposition to normalization has to be a crucial element of the campaign, he stated, in order to strengthen Palestinian cohesion and give a signal to the people and the leadership. Globally, Jum’a added, the BDS movement has become today so widespread and diversified that it is beyond the capacity of the Zionist lobby to destroy it; only Palestinian normalization can do so.

Recommendations (from the three, parallel workshops)

There was consensus among participants that building civil resistance is a priority in the current era. Work on the Palestinian BDS Campaign should be seen in this context and lead to the formation of an inclusive Steering Committee for the Campaign.

Additional recommendations included:

1. For the local Palestinian BDS Campaign

General: Palestinian employment in Jewish settlements and Israel is to be excluded from the boycott, because it is a source of necessary income that has no current substitute.

Consumer Boycott

· Study Israeli products in the Palestinian market: What are they? Where are they distributed? How do they enter?

· Identify products which have Palestinian (or other) alternatives and mobilize for massive consumer boycotts against them;

· Mobilize pressure to prevent entry of Israeli products (e.g. put up boxes for public complaints) where local alternatives exist;

· Start dialogue with Palestinian companies about ways to support Palestinian national products and expand employment of the Palestinian work force.

Education

· Undertake a review of the Palestinian curriculum to ensure historical accuracy;

· Raise awareness and work with students at schools and universities to spread the culture of boycott;

· Request from the Ministry of Education to urge private schools to stop selling Israeli products (in the cafeterias) and not to engage in normalization projects with Israeli organizations.

Media and Public Awareness-Raising

· Pressure Palestinian media to halt all advertisement of Israeli products;

· Organize public awareness campaigns (posters, stickers, etc.) about boycott, and request support from the local media.

Mechanisms for Campaign Building and Promotion

· Form popular boycott committees in all regions and sectors in order to: build public awareness about the importance of the campaign and the criteria for boycott and anti-normalization; initiate action and build a popular culture of boycott; and develop a response to those insisting on normalization;

· Build pressure on PA officials for ending normalization with Israel (end security coordination, rescind Paris Protocol on economic cooperation, etc.);

· Express Palestinian support for struggles in the “global south” (e.g., Africa, South America, Asia), in order to build mutual support.

2. For the Campaign in the Arab World

· Seek cooperation and coordination with anti-normalization committees in the Arab world;

· Lobby for re-activation of the Arab-League boycott committee;

· Raise the profile of BDS in the mainstream Arab media;

· Encourage Arab investors to invest in the Palestinian economy;

· Promote Palestinian products in Arab countries.

3. For the International/Global Campaign

Strategy and Message

· Emphasize that the BDS campaign does not only target Israel's economy, but challenges Israel's legitimacy, being a colonial and apartheid state, as part of the international community. Therefore, efforts are needed not only to promote wide consumer boycotts, but also boycotts in the fields of academia, culture and sports;

· The Nakba-60 campaign in 2008 is a campaign for the boycott of Israel, including calling for a boycott of the “Israel at 60” celebrations.

Targets

· Select boycott targets that provide an opportunity for public education about Israel's apartheid regime.

Alliances

As work with the major (potential) allies (e.g., unions, faith-based organizations/churches, political parties) continues, give special attention to:

· Palestinian and other Arab media correspondents in the respective countries: brief them about BDS initiatives and encourage them to report them to audiences in Palestine and the Arab world;

· Support other struggles in the “global south” and struggles of marginalized communities in the “north,” and encourage links with the global BDS campaign;

Coordination

· For the time being, use existing websites (e.g. PACBI) and lists to update about and coordinate global activities and campaigns, until a centralized BDS website can take over that role;

· For the time being, the International Coordinating Network on Palestine (ICNP) serves as (symbolic, temporary) network for coordination of the global BDS campaign;

· Participants recommend a special BDS organizers conference to be held in November 2008, in order to formalize and improve the mechanism of global coordination.

The conference was convened by the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), the OPGAI-Coalition, PACBI and the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. The organizing committee expresses its special thanks to Muwatin, The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, OPGAI-Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative, BADIL Resource Center, PMRS-Palestinian Medical Relief Society, UHWC-Union of Health Work Committees, UAWC-Union of Agricultural Relief Work Committees who made this conference possible. Thanks also go to Watan TV for coverage, media dissemination, and providing volunteers who assisted with logistics.

This report was prepared by the Conference Steering Committee.

For review and endorsement of the 2005 Palestinian BDS Call, see: http://www.bds-palestine.net/

Israel most likely to use nuclear weapons: Kissinger

Here's a Ha'aretz article on Nixon's fears over a nuclear armed middle east and the hold Israel appears to have on America with regard to arms supplies from the latter to the former. This is most of the article:

"The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons," Henry Kissinger, who served as President Richard Nixon's national security adviser, warned in a July 19, 1969 memorandum.

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday released documents from the Nixon Presidential Library, according to the Times report. By law, classified documents are to be reviewed for possible release after 25 years.

The memoranda reveal the dilemmas with which the administration wrestled vis-a-vis Israel's nuclear weapons program, long considered to be a sore point in the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Moreover, it showed concern on the part of Kissinger that Israel may have systematically stolen material from the U.S. for its nuclear development.

"This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us," Kissinger wrote, "and may even have stolen from us."

"There is circumstantial evidence that some fissionable material available for Israel's weapons development was illegally obtained from the United States about 1965," Kissinger wrote, dismissing inspections as a possible solution since, "we could never cover all conceivable Israeli hiding places."

Kissinger even suggested possibly withholding the sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel as a way of compelling Jerusalem to yield on the nuclear issue, the Times said.

"Israel will not take us seriously on the nuclear issue unless they believe we are prepared to withhold something they very much need," Kissinger wrote.

"On the other hand, if we withhold the Phantoms and they make this fact public in the United States, enormous political pressure will be mounted on us," the former national security adviser wrote. "We will be in an indefensible position if we cannot state why we are withholding the planes. Yet if we explain our position publicly, we will be the ones to make Israel's possession of nuclear weapons public with all the international consequences this entails."

Ok, let's round up. Israel has nuclear weapons and may have even stolen stuff for those weapons from America. America wants to find out if this is so, so it wants to inspect Israel's facilities. It could force Israel to allow an inspection by withholding Phantom jets but this would cause "enormous political pressure." Who from? It's that non-existent Israel lobby again.

Of course this will be grist to the mill of those who support, without question, Mearsheimer and Walt's Israel lobby thesis. I prefer Finkesltein's take myself.

Speaking of libel and zionists....

We must be on a roll here. I can't quite get my head around this case (or these cases). It appears that an ultra-zionist tried to silence a critic of herself and Israel by way of a bogus libel action. Check out Tikun Olam, you might understand it all better than me. I gather a mazel tov's in order for this Richard Silverstein chap.

Murdoch funds Friends of Bir Zeit and all thanks to Aaro and Mikey

Like me, David Aaronovitch moderates the comments on his site. So if a zionist feels like libelling an anti-zionist on the Aaro-site, Aaro himself has to take responsibility, especially if the person being libelled is a lawyer like say, Tony Greenstein. I remember seeing something by this Michael Ezra chap in the comments to a ludicrous article by Aaro "about" Jewish anti-zionists and how we don't like our parents. Really, he wrote that. "Mikey" (for it is he) said something about Tony intimidating Jewish students for 30 years. Aaro obviously thought that that was a fair enough comment so he moderated it through. Well Tony wasn't having that. If you're quick you can see Aaronovitch's apology on his own Times site. If you're not so quick or you don't want to give the Times or Aaro your clicks you can see this screen grab here:



And if you click on the image you can even read what it says. And if you can't do that, here's what it actually says:

Tony Greenstein

At the beginning of July, an item was posted on my weblog which stated that Tony Greenstein had been "intimidating" or "harassing Jews’ at NUS conferences for 30 years. Tony Greenstein believed that this accused him of committing an offence of incitement to racial hatred under s.3A of the Race Relations Act 1976 and that it also implied that he is anti-Semitic.

While Tony Greenstein and I have had our differences, notably at NUS conferences, neither I nor The Times meant to suggest that he has been breaking the law for thirty years or that he is anti-Semitic. Our apologies for any embarrassment caused.

And that's not all. Apparently they're making a donation to the charity of Tony's choice which happens to be Friends of Bir Zeit Uni.

I do love a happy ending. But what about me? Aaronovitch said my dad's a zionist. Really, he said that, or something like that.

What next for Gaza?

Here's a cartoon from Latuff. It went up on one of his three blogs on 5/11/2007. He's a very good cartoonist, courageous even. I don't suppose he's very ambitious.



I mean his stuff is hardly going to turn up on the pages of the mainstream media on either side of the Atlantic.

Israelis return what they stole from Palestinians

Don't get too excited, it's only a couple of Israeli soldiers returning money and jewellery they stole from a couple of Palestinians, a woman and her son. Here's Ynet:

While searching a Palestinian woman's house in the northern West Bank village of Silat Ad-Daher, soldiers stole property but returned it when the woman complained to their officer. The woman, Ibtisam Rahal, claims that the soldiers also "swiped" an additional amount of money from her son's room. In light of the event, human rights group B'Tselem appealed to the chief military prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation.

One morning towards the end of October, an IDF force entered Rahal's house in Silat Ad-Daher, following standard protocol by gathering her family members in one room and conducting a search of the premises. "The soldiers grabbed my son Iyad and I yelled at them to let him go," Rahal said to Ynet. "When they yelled back that I should keep quiet, I noticed that some of the soldiers had entered my bedroom. I asked them to let met go in as well to take out my money and gold jewelry."

According to Rahal, the soldiers told her they were searching for weapons and not money or jewelry. She asked them three times for permission to enter the room, but they refused each time. "From the living room I saw one of the soldiers leave my bedroom holding a bag I keep my money in. My daughter and sister-in-law also saw the soldier with my bag."

At this point, Rahal began screaming and demanding her money. "The soldiers replied that they weren't thieves and one of them even tried to gag me," she said.

Officer returns property

When Rahal asked to speak with the officer in charge, one of the soldiers removed his mask and inquired as to her problem. "I told him what I had seen and he left the house for the jeep and came back with the bag containing the entire sum, around 3,000 Jordanian Dinars (over $4,500 US) and a gold necklace."

Rahal was pleased to see the amount returned, but, as she tells it, she did not see the soldiers enter the room belonging to her married son Iyad who also resides in the house. She told Ynet that the soldiers "swiped" 2,500 Dinars (about $3,500 US) from his room and took her son to be questioned. According to Rahal, it was only luck that the soldiers missed his wife's gold jewelry, hidden in another bag.

Legal Appeal

According to Palestinians, stories of soldiers stealing property while conducting house-sweeps in the territories often reach media outlets and human rights organizations, but that Rahal is lucky in that stolen property is rarely returned to its rightful owners.

You can say that again.

Shin Bet recruitment video

Ha'aretz has this short article on how a young man died of cancer alone while Shin Bit tried to recruit his father as a collaborator at the Erez crossing the father and son already had permission to cross.

Camal Abu-Taha was detained at the Erez crossing despite being granted permission to accompany his son, a cancer patient, out of Gaza.

While the Shin Bet held Abu-Taha and tried to get him to collaborate with them in getting another prisoner to talk, his son died of his illness on his own.

A fuller item appears on the new Ha'aretz.com TV on the same web page.

Keys to peace in Palestine

Here's a kind of human interest story about a Palestinians refugee family forced to flee Palestine to Lebanon in, I'm guessing, 1949. I got this from the Institute for Middle East Understanding:

AIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - The portrait of Hussein Saleh al-Me'ari holding a slim iron key and the legend "We will return" hangs on a wall with peeling paint in a tiny room at the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

His 45-year-old son, Salah, was born and later married in the camp. Salah's four children and extended family live in a few cramped rooms in the sprawling, decrepit camp which is Lebanon's largest and houses about 70,000 Palestinian refugees.

There is no immediate prospect for any of them to return to the family home in what is now Israel, even as Israelis and Palestinians prepare to meet in the United States next week for talks on a Palestinian state.

Yet Salah still keeps 18 carefully folded, yellowing pages of land documents that show his father and grandfather own 67 hectares (170 acres) of land in the small Palestinian village of Akbarah, near Safed town north of the Sea of Galilee.

Salah's grandfather and father fled along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which the state of Israel was created.

"It was winter. A rainy and bitter cold day in February. The Arab armies told them just two weeks or 15 days and we'll bring you back," Salah said nostalgically in the room where his father Hussein died in January.

Hussein's traditional Arab headdress and black cloak hang next to his portrait and a black-and-white photograph of Salah's grandfather, Saleh. Three copper coffee pots that Saleh used in Akbarah occupy the corner of the poorly furnished room.

"The 15 days have become 60 years," Salah said.

Interesting that Jewish settlers haven't taken over their homes. Why can't they return then? Ok, many of the houses have been demolished, but the land, who lives on the land now? Internal refugees. Are they so intolerant? Have they been consulted?

Anyway, the full article is available at Reuters.

Anglophobia!?

What in G-d's name is this I've just found on Sabbah's blog? The Anglosphere and everything it represents has come under attack from the Archbishop of Canterbury of all people. Look:

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”… Read on!

As it happens it's quite a remarkable article. Sabbah's blog got it from the Sunday Times who in turn got it from an interview "Muslim lifestyle magazine," Emel.

He sticks the boot into the USA a good bit:

He urged it to launch a “generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence”.

"Exploitation of defeated territories?" He's not so clever though. Territories don't have to be defeated to be exploited.

But then the Archbishop really goes and spoils it with his critique of American imperialism:

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

Ah well, stiff upper lip, what? But he does let our little chunk of the Anglosphere of a little lightly.

Hollywood to "flatter" Israel

Like it never did that before. Here's an article in the Jerusalem Post about how some agent, David Lonner, wants Hollywood to show Israel in a favourable light by way of a "trip he has organized for a distinguished delegation of film-industry elite." Now see when it all began:

Lonner, who has always felt a strong connection to Israel since he celebrated his bar-mitzva here, organized the first such trip last year, in the wake of the Second Lebanon War.

Now Israel's image certainly needed a few Hollywood style favours then.

"In the Hollywood community, there's a sense of apathy about Israel, more out of ignorance than anything else. I wanted to raise the awareness of the people I work with of what Israel really is. And in a very selfish way, there's nothing I like better than spending time in Israel," he says. "I got to bring over the greatest group of people. I wanted them to have more of a human experience than a political experience."

Funny bloke. He's Jewish, Israel has a racist law allowing him to become a citizen whilst denying that right to most non-Jewish natives and yet he feels he has to contrive a "birthright trip" (yes, he said that) in order to go there. Let's face it, most Jews, even, maybe especially, zionists, would rather live in Hollywood than Israel but read on.

Producer Nina Jacobson, who as head of Buena Vista Pictures oversaw such movies as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and The Chronicles of Narnia, called the trip, "Israel on speed," referring to the packed five-day schedule, but said that she had learned a lot and hoped to return with her children. Both she and Lonner said that they felt many of their colleagues were simply afraid to visit and they hoped they would be able to present a more flattering image of this country once they return to Los Angeles.

Did you follow the flattering link? Did you see the definition:

1. To compliment excessively and often insincerely, especially in order to win favor.
2. To please or gratify the vanity of: "What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering" (George Bernard Shaw).
3. 1. To portray favorably: a photograph that flatters its subject.
   2. To show off becomingly or advantageously.

I suppose we should commend Ms Jacobon's honesty in calling on Hollywood to be dishonest for Israel. She is saying that she wants Hollywood to tell it, not how it is, but in a way that favours Israel in terms of image.

But David Lonner wants Israeli film to get a wider audience, of course, under false pretences. Look:

Lonner is excited by "the transformation of Israeli film" and how filmmakers have focused on "the humanistic experience. That's the thrust of how Israeli filmmakers have recalibrated their craft and put Israeli cinema where it can be noticed on a more global scale."

What "humanistic experience" is to be had in a land ruled by war criminals and a segregationist ideology?

Ach, enough of this. What is there to do for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel that Hollywood hasn't already done?

Palestine protestors' press prize

I've spent over half an hour thinking up that headline and it's not even any good, I know. I'll do anything for a bit of alliteration. Anyway, what am I talking about? Well, it's this Leviev picket thing. Thirty protestors picketed the opening of the Leviev jewellery store in New York a few days ago and then repeated the effort yesterday (or maybe the day before). No big deal really except this has now made it into the mainstream press and the jewellery trade press. Here's the New York Post:

SUSAN Sarandon will cross a picket line - if there are diamonds on the other side. The actress waded through a throng of picketers to get to a cocktail party for the Leviev jewelry store launch on Madison Avenue this week. A group carrying Palestinian flags was on the sidewalk protesting the Finesse Diamond Corp., which provides gems to Leviev, and Leviev's construction of "illegal West Bank settlements." They were shouting, "You're glitz, you're glam, you're building on Palestinian land" and "Occupation is a drag, just say no to your gift bag." Our source reports that Sarandon went in and "tried not to notice the yells outside."

Now I didn't get that reference to Susan Sarandon crossing a picket line for diamonds, as if she wouldn't cross one for anything else. The coverage of the picket in the National Jeweler Network clarified that one for me:

A grand-opening celebration for the new Leviev store was held on Nov. 13, and stars including actresses Isabella Rossellini and Susan Sarandon, who is known for her political activism, attended.

Ah, now I see. She supports oppressed people as long as the oppressors aren't Israel.

The pickets and the coverage have force the Leviev company on to a hilarious defensive. Look:

Leviev President and Chief Operating Officer Thierry Chaunu said the protests have "nothing to do with his company" and referred further questions to public relations firm Edelman.

A representative from Edelman was not immediately available for comment.

In a follow up article in the same National Jeweler Network, there is more detail on the protest itself:

In a loud and eye-catching protest, about 40 people, lead by the group Adalah-NY, sung and danced outside, chanting "you sparkle, you shine, but settlements are still a crime," and "how fancy, how pretty, Leviev out of New York City."

The protest included "dancing cardboard diamonds," which told the tale of "gems of injustice."

Protestors also handed passing pedestrians gift bags containing soil from Palestine and a thank-you note that stated: "Dear valued customer, with every purchase you make from LEVIEV New York, you help Lev Leviev to seize a handful of Palestinian land in order to build more illegal Israeli settlements."

According to the group, Leviev is involved in the construction of five illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

In addition, the group claims that Leviev and New York residential real estate developer Shaya Boymelgreen are pushing lower- and middle-income residents out of New York. The group alleges that construction problems plague these developments, and that the projects utilize underpaid, non-union workers in hazardous conditions.

And from the company?

In a statement obtained on Wednesday by National Jeweler, Leviev and the LLG Companies called the protests "politically motivated."

You're zionists funding war crimes, of course the protests are politically motivated you schmocks! But there's more:

"Those who have personally attacked the group or its founder are not aware of the extensive humanitarian work of the group, including building schools, orphanages and fostering economic development in communities around the world. The LLG Companies are committed to—and have been recognized for—philanthropic work in communities in which they operate."

Who else would describe the funding, indeed the committing, of war crimes, philanthropy?

Trumped up charges?

Well well well, it seems that Scottish Palestine Solidarity has been dabbling with the ancient "you-own-a-hotel-chain" libel. Here's the SPSC report from their home page:

As part of international actions against the apartheid wall, on Sat 10 November Scottish PSC protested outside the Caledonian Hotel after reports confirmed the sale of the hotel to an Israeli consortium operating as the Caledonian Operating Company.

Well following what must have been a successful picket SPSC received a letter from lawyers acting for the World Zionist Organisation. Woops! Did I say World Zionist Organisation? It looks like I did. I mean of course The Caledonian Operating Company Limited. Anyway, the letter says:

Further to your protest over the weekend opposite the Caledonian Hilton in Edinburgh and your proposed subsequent protest, we write to you on behalf of our client The Caledonian Operating Company Limited (the "Company"), which is owner of the Caledonian Hilton Edinburgh Hotel (the "Hotel"), to inform you that the Company is incorporated in England and Wales and has no Israeli shareholders.

It goes on to say,

Your protest outside the Hotel accompanied by the type of allegations as circulated in your leaflets are incredibly damaging to the Hotel's reputation and its business. We believe that you may have engaged in this campaign under a false assumption that the Hotel was bought by an Israeli property group. There were some newspaper reports suggesting this to be the case. In fact the deal never happened and the Hotel was bought, as we say above, by our client. For the moment, we are prepared to assume that our client's business has been included in your campaign by mistake.

The letter goes on to ask SPSC to confirm that they will refrain from further protest, remove the Hotel's name from their literature and remove references to the Hotel from their website. It also mentions, threateningly in my opinion, that SPSC is responsible for what it publishes. Now pending SPSC's reply, the Company "will reserve their rights under the law and will refrain from taking any legal action" and looks "forward to hearing from" SPSC "as a matter of urgency."

Well back comes SPSC with this reply:

To: Mishcon de Reya
Summit House
12 Red Lion Square
London WC1R 4QD

17 November 2007

Dear Sirs

We are in receipt of your email of 13.11.07, written on behalf of The Caledonian Operating Company Limited. We have indeed alleged to the general public, and customers at the Edinburgh Caledonian Hotel, that this city-centre hotel is Israeli-owned.

The Israeli authorities have announced that they are going to demolish Fasayil Primary School in the Jordan Valley on November 29th, a little school which many people in Edinburgh have contributed to. We see no reason why Israelis should be allowed to build a property portfolio anywhere while they are demolishing property across Palestine, indeed demolishing Palestine.

The acquisition of the Caledonian Hotel by an Israeli consortium was anticipated in the Scotsman of August 9th this year. The full completion of the sale was widely reported in the specialist hotel industry press the following day (10.08.07) and the Edinburgh Evening News confirmed the sale with a piece beginning, “The sale of one of the Capital's most prestigious hotels has been completed...[to]... a consortium of Israeli investors...”(11.08.07). Six days
later Caterer and Hotelkeeper again confirmed that the new owners were Israeli (16.08.07).

So you can see that we are surprised by your assertion that your “client The Caledonian Operating Company Limited...which is the owner of The Caledonian Hilton Edinburgh Hotel...has no Israeli shareholders.” This claim appears three months after the uncontested reports of an Israeli purchase of the hotel, and follows our first day of protest outside the Hotel.

You claim in your letter to us that labelling the hotel as Israeli-owned (“the type of allegations as circulated in your leaflets”) is “incredibly damaging to the hotel and its business.” We concede that this is so, and are, therefore, doubly perplexed as to why your client felt no inclination over a period of three months to clean up its image by responding to the string of press stories asserting such Israeli ownership.

You can see our problem. When the Israeli authorities lie so brazenly about their crimes, even about the murder of British citizens such as Tom Hurndall and James Millar, and as the image of the Israeli brand sinks so low in the eyes of the public, it is obvious that Israeli businessmen have an interest in concealing their ownership of businesses that could fall within the ambit of the growing boycott movement.

Our scepticism is reinforced by the knowledge that one of your own company’s senior partners is a Zionist fanatic, Anthony Julius, a ludicrous labeller of opponents of Israeli crimes as ‘anti-Semites’. He is an exponent of a vile political creed whose advocates planned and executed the ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine, and are spreading their apartheid system throughout all the areas they have conquered. This being so, you must expect our Campaign to view your letter with deep mistrust. Since we are committed to universal human rights, we are compelled to see your racist Senior Partner as untrustworthy, and as casting a baleful shadow on your company as a whole.

Should we hear that even one of the journalists who reported the original story admits that their reporting was inaccurate and untrue, and that they will issue the necessary corrections to the effect that The Caledonian Operating Company Limited is not Israeli-owned, we will promptly reconsider our position. In the meantime we will proceed on the basis of the information which is unchallenged in the public domain and regret that we cannot yet comply with your
demands.

Yours faithfully

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

I love the idea that for it to be known or believed that the owner of a hotel is Israeli is "incredibly damaging." I wonder if whoever wrote the letter from Mishcon de Reya ran it by Anthony Julius before sending it out.

Something rotten at Indymedia UK?

I had a bit of run in recently with an antisemitic but anonymous emailer calling themselves "Free the peeps." They accused me and several others of "working as a group" to bully Indymedia UK over the publication of an article in which Gilad Atzmon seeks to justify the holocaust. I ran a post on that. Yes I'm also sick of him but I thought, "at last! the SWP will have to ditch him now." After all, they wrongly kept Finkelstein at arms length over the Holocaust Industry and they, even worse, pulled the rug from under Lenni Brenner over Perdition in the week of holocaust memorial day. But nope. Even Lenin, who a couple of years ago personally tried, with China Mieville and James Meadway, to persuade the SWP leadership to ditch Atzmon, came here and defended the Party over its betrayal of its anti-racist principles and its Jewish and anti-racist associates and of course its lack of consistency over neo-nazi ballerinas and neo-nazi saxophonists. Or do they just favour Israelis over Brits?

Anyway, this FTP character assured those of us who s/he was emailing that the email was "off list." Well apparently it wasn't off list at all. It even found its way on to this FTP's own blog. Now the blog is very hard to follow if you're not a message board follower but this page seems to be the first. Apart from this FTP seeming to pretend that my email to him or her was something other than a response to their own antisemitic email to me, the thing that struck me most was this:

To comment you have to register. This is to prevent anonymous trolls and to encourage everyone to take responsibility for what they say, and how they say it.

This is a non-gender specific person who was named by their parents or by deed poll, Free the peeps? Or is it an anonymous troll who refuses to take responsibility for what they write, how they write and who they write to? So, curiosity aroused, I went to check out Indymedia UK to see how it's run.

This is its self description:

The Indymedia UK website provides an interactive platform for reports from the struggles for a world based on freedom, cooperation, justice and solidarity, and against environmental degradation, neoliberal exploitation, racism and patriarchy. The reports cover a wide range of issues and social movements - from neighbourhood campaigns to grassroots mobilisations, from critical analysis to direct action.

The content of the Indymedia UK website is created through a system of open publishing: anyone can upload a written, audio and video report or a picture directly to the site through an openly accessible web interface. Through this system of 'Direct Media', Indymedia erodes the dividing line between reporters and reported, between active producers and passive audience: people are enabled to speak for themselves. At bigger actions, Indymedia UK volunteers extend this participatory model by establishing 'Public Access Terminals' on the streets, and facilitating direct access to the technical equipment that enables participants to upload to the website.

And this is how this can appear as part of an article in its own right under the heading "the middle class SWP":

This sickening freak surely has more pressing worries given that his maggot freak show the swp - is about to part company with paki lover galloway.

That was an "article" about Alex Callinicos of the SWP. And how does it get there? It's an open site. 12 hours and 7 complaints after it was posted, "Free the peeps" and his or her fellow moderators decided that it was indeed racist and so they decided to "hide" it. And what does "hide" it mean. It means giving it a grey background with the word "HIDDEN" shot through it. In other words, hidden means....not hidden at all and our clever and classless and free peeps can get back to the serious matter of deciding whether or not justifying the holocaust a la Atzmon is racist or not.

Meanwhile, on a fairly similar site, the Peoples Voice, Tony Greenstein responds to one of the antisemitic Atzmonettes.

Anyway, as I said, there is something rotten at Indymedia UK that I think has to do with their open site policy and lack of political coherence together with the fact that racists of various stripes are masquerading as leftists or disclaiming their racism with those infamous words "I am not a racist but..." That and the sheer incompetence of the Indymedia UK moderators that has one of them anonymously harassing correspondents (and, in my case, non-correspondents) while the rest try to decide whether or not justifying the holocaust is racist and taking twelve hours through six complaints, to discuss the description of George Galloway as a "paki lover" before highlighting it in grey. And they are cyber-Britain's hope for the revolution. Something is rotten at Indymedia UK.

A man of wealth and taste?

Here's a nice portrait of that Leviev guy, star of the earlier post, Diamonds are for yesha:



The painter is Michael Khundiashvili and he seems to specialise in rather flattering kitsch for wealthy or powerful clientele though, from his site, he does do some biblical stuff. In this Leviev portrait he seems to have combined the two.

Diamonds are for yesha

Lev Leviev, one of Israel's leading personal funders of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank, got quite a shock the other night at the opening of his Madison Avenue store in New York City. In addition to the invited glitterati, Palestine solidarity activists also turned out in force to give Leviev the kind of exposure he can't have wanted. Here's New York's indymedia on the story:

Over 100 well-dressed, well-heeled New Yorkers attending the invitation-only opening of diamond mogul Lev Leviev’s Madison Avenue jewelry store this evening appeared stunned and aghast to find their evening derailed by a noisy protest against Leviev’s construction of illegal West Bank settlements. Gala attendees set down their champagne glasses and gathered by windows to view the signs and Palestinian flags, and hear protesters’ chants.

30 New York City human rights activists chanted, “You’re glitz, you’re glam, you're stealing Palestinian land.”, and “All your diamonds cannot hide, your support for Apartheid.” Protesters called on New York City’s upscale residents to boycott Leviev’s diamonds. Disconcerted attendees hastily exited to their limousines to loud chants of, “Occupation is a drag, just say no to your gift bag.”


Lev Leviev is one of Israel’s richest men. He built his enormous fortune trading in diamonds with Apartheid-era South Africa. His company now buys diamonds from the repressive Angolan government. Leviev uses profits from diamond sales to fuel the conflict in Palestine and Israel by funding the construction of suburban developments for Israeli settlers on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for Middle East peace, and threatening farmers' ability to survive and remain in their homes. Leviev’s diamonds are “conflict diamonds” in a broad sense of the term, funding repression in Angola and violations of international law in Palestine.



Leviev and his former US partner Shaya Boymlegreen have also angered New Yorkers with their abusive local developments schemes. Leviev has invested $1 billion in real estate in New York City over the last year. In New York City, Leviev and Boymelgreen have employed underpaid, non-union workers in hazardous conditions and violated housing codes to construct luxury apartments that displace low-income and moderate-income residents in Brooklyn, provoking local branches of the Laborer's International Union and ACORN to launch a campaign against these abuses (www.shayaiscoming.org). Brooklynites remain concerned that Leviev and Boymelgreen are key developers in the planned Gowanus Village project.

Leviev’s real estate empire in Israel is building homes for Israelis in the West Bank settlements of Mattityahu East and Zufim, according to Gadi Algazi in the August, 2006 Le Monde Diplomatique, and in Maale Adumim and Har Homa, according to The Jerusalem Post. He has also built homes in the settlement of Ariel. All the settlements in which Leviev has built homes seize vital Palestinian water and agricultural resources and carve the West Bank into disconnected Bantustans, destroying hopes for a viable Palestinian state. All Israeli settlements built in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violate international law.

This story has also been picked up by Jewish media in America such as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Forward.

Forward had this to say in its article with regard to the protest and an Chabad event attended by Leviev:

A source close to Leviev said that the protesters were scapegoating the diamond merchant simply because he is an Israeli citizen. The controversies went unmentioned at the Chabad event — and they were also omitted from a lengthy recent story about Leviev in The New York Times Magazine.

All the news they see fit to print.

"Israeli" Arabs?

Here's a curious editorial in Ha'aretz. It's about an invitation by the State of Israel to Israel's Arabs to volunteer for service in its war criminal army. I'm assuming this is a recent development because of how the editorial is introduced:

Opposition to young Arabs volunteering for national service unfortunately unites all Arab MKs. An Arab rap group has composed a song protesting the possibility, rallies have been held, signs have been posted, and MK Jamal Zahalka has said he will consider anyone who volunteers a "leper." One can understand the refusal to cooperate with an establishment that has discriminated against Arabs since the inception of the state. But those who sincerely want to promote equality between Jewish and Arab citizens cannot support such an isolationist attitude.

I think it will take a little bit more than inviting Israel's Arabs to kill their Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem compatriots to establish racial equality among the various people of Israel. Here are some examples, in the same editorial, of the state racism that needs to be overcome:

It is difficult to be an Arab in a state that earmarks Jewish National Fund land only for Jews, where residential communities deny Arabs the right to join them, where the Knesset legislates a citizenship law that prevents family unification between Israeli Arabs and their Palestinian spouses.

It then makes a very curious suggestion:

But all who value equality must demand more Israelization of the Arabs.

By having them join an army that routinely kills Arab children? Still, read the whole thing. I must have missed something.