Demonstrate against Israel on June 5, 2010

Saturday 5 June • Gaza Flotilla March • End the Siege of Gaza: Freedom for Palestine Assemble Downing Street • London • 1.30pm • March to the Israeli Embassy Called by Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative, CND & Viva Palestina Has Israel's lie-master in chief Mark Regev read Mark Steels article?... Democracy Now video on the flotilla attack. Essential viewing... Eyewitness accounts of Israel's unprovoked attack on a peaceful aid flotilla... Fed up with the free rein the BBC gives Israel to justify heinous crimes? Here's how to complain...

A new flag for the pirate state

This picture is doing the rounds. I first saw it on facebook and now it appears on the Jews for Justice for Palestinians website. I might move it to our template. It doesn't just speak to Israel's behaviour but to its sheer lack of legitimacy as a state.

Those Gaza flotilla weapons in full

Here's Mark Steel in The Independent:

To strengthen their case the Israelis have released a photo of the weapons they found on board, (which amount to some knives and tools and wooden sticks) that the naive might think you'd expect to find on any ship, but the more astute will recognise as exactly what you'd carry if you were planning to defeat the Israeli army. It's an armoury smaller than you'd find in the average toolshed in a garden in Cirencester, which goes to show the Israelis had better destroy Cirencester quickly as an essential act of self-defence.

Other Independent articles:

• Patrick Cockburn: PR dangerously distorts the Israeli sense of reality
• Louise Arbour: Good may yet come of this tragedy for Gaza
• Flotilla attack: 'First the shots, then the ship was turned into a lake of blood'
• Leading article: Hamas holds the key to aid for Gaza
• Israeli mood: Support for attack is thin on the ground
• International reaction: Turkey demands that Israel be punished
• US reaction: Cracks appear in America's other special relationship
• It's up to us to lift the blockade
• Letters: Flotilla

By the way, the leading article, Hamas holds the key to aid for Gaza, argues that Israel must talk to Hamas. I thought they were sneaking in a "blame Hamas" position. It looks like Israel has blown it with just about everyone bar America and even there the Indie reckons cracks are appearing.

More on Israel's piracy

Here's an excellent editorial from the UK's Financial Times. You may have to register:

With Monday’s brazen act of piracy, Israel dealt a blow to the legitimacy of its own struggle. The killing of activists aboard the captured ships sent Israel’s way of defending its security, which it was already imperative to return within the bounds of international law, hurtling into lawlessness.

Israel claims the activists had links with extremist groups and that some attacked Israeli soldiers with knives and sticks (and in some accounts the odd light firearm). Even if true, this would not justify the illegal capture of civilian ships carryinghumanitarian aid in international waters, let alone the use of deadly force.

Outrageous as this behaviour was, the true outrage is the illegal blockade of Gaza that it enforced. Since the January 2009 Gaza war, which exposed Israel’s determination to destroy Hamas’s capabilities regardless of the cost to innocent Palestinians, Israel and Egypt have colluded to prevent the enclave’s reconstruction. According to the United Nations, three-quarters of the damage has not been repaired and 60 per cent of homes do not have enough food.

The article concludes by saying:

Israel has always known the importance of its conduct being judged legal by the world’s leading powers. Those powers – in the body of the Quartet and the UN Security Council – must now make clear it has gone too far

I often think that this or that action is the beginning of the end for Israel. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part but this time I think I might be right.

Sweden wants UEFA to pull youth squad out of soccer match against Israel

And it's all because of the slaughter on the high seas. Here's Ha'aretz:

The Swedish Soccer Association has asked UEFA that its national youth soccer team not be sent to Israel for an official match scheduled for Friday against Israel in the preliminaries of the European championship.

The request comes in the wake of the Israeli Navy's interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that turned deadly.

"As humans, we are revolted by violence and shocked by what we saw," said Lars-Ake Lagrell, the head of the Swedish Soccer Association.

The Swedish Soccer Association said it would accept whatever decision made by UEFA on the request, even if it meant sending the team to Israel to play the match as scheduled.

It'll be interesting to see what UEFA decides. I'm guessing that like the EU, it will rule in favour of the racist war criminals of the State of Israel but let's just see.

Plot sickens as the hasbara effort kicks off

The hasbara machine is running on empty but it's running all the same.

Ynet seems to be the leader with a ludicrous claim that the Israeli commandos were ambushed. I kid you not. Here's the headline: A brutal ambush at sea. Yes, they are claiming that people on boats ambushed their men in helicopters.

The Guardian is riding the two horses of being a newspaper of record whilst doing what it can for the zio war criminals. It seems to have wound down its minute by minute updates and the comments to them are closed but the bullet points to the article are now as follows:

• IDF says footage shows activists attacked troops
• Thousands protest in cities around the world
• Binyamin Netanyahu cancels White House trip
• Turkey recalls ambassador from Israel

Note how the first bullet point contains a link to a zio propaganda video but none of the other bullet points contain links at all.

The BBC is helping Israel all it can too by giving more prominence to Israeli versions of events than any others but it too has an issue with the medium of record problem.

But by and large this latest atrocity by Israel has the hasbara brigade in open panic as a glance at the comments at Harry's Place shows.

And no one is really fooled by hasbara any more. Certainly not this guy.

Demonstrate in Downing Street now!

Stop the War and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are calling people to Downing Street to call on the UK government and the EU to condemn Israel's latest atrocities and to sever all ties with the zionist entity:

Emergency Demonstration: Israelis kill 20 on aid flotilla to Gaza

PROTEST TODAY MONDAY 31 MAY 2.00PM DOWNING STREET LONDON. SPREAD THE WORD. Yet another act of Israeli barbarism as its forces storm one of the seven ships on the international flotilla taking aid to Gaza, where Israel's illegal seige is starving Palestinians of essential resources. At least 20 activists on board are reported to have been killed by Israeli forces. Please join the emergency demonstration today if you can. Publicise it as widely as possible by email, text, Facebook, Twitter etc. See videos of Israeli assault... Another video from Turkish televison... For updates see... STOP THE WAR PRESS RELEASE: Israeli terror on the high seas... JEREMY CORBYN MP: Letter to foreign secretary William Hague... PROTEST TO FOREIGN SECRETARY WILLIAM HAGUE: BY EMAIL: msu.correspondence@fco.gov.uk AND private.office@fco.gov.uk AND MSU.PublicIn@fco.gov.uk BY LETTER TO: William Hague MP, Foreign Secretary, King Charles Street, London, SW1A 2AH PROTEST TO YOUR MP: http://findyourmp.parliament.uk PROTEST TO DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER NICK CLEGG EMAIL: cleggn@parliament.uk LETTER TO: Nick Clegg MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

Zionist disinformation campaign on the flotilla attack has probably already begun

There are some wildly disparate figures regarding the number of people who have been murdered by Israeli commandos in the attack on the flotilla bound for Gaza. According to a report on the Free Gaza site, two have been confirmed killed (but in fairness that was at 6:30 am):

(Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30 am) Under darkness of night, Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep. According to the live video from the ship, two have been killed, and 31 injured. Al Jazeera has just confirmed the numbers.

The Guardian is reporting that

The Israeli military says more than 10 activists have been killed after it intercepted ships carrying aid to Gaza

This later and larger figure could well be designed to wrong foot the opposition into being accused of exaggeration.

Of course, whether the stormtroopers killed two or ten or more than ten, makes no difference to their sheer criminality and their figure could turn out to be accurate as a projection but always use reports from the racist war criminals of the State of Israel with extreme caution.

UPDATE 14:45 31/05/2010: Israel Army Radio is now reporting that the Israeli army killed 15 people.

Israel kills internationals at sea

Israel has attacked the flotilla of ships bearing aid and goodwill for the besieged people of Gaza. Reports vary as to how many have been killed. BBC says two, the Telegraph says 16 and when I started writing this the Guardian and the Independent had said nothing. The Guardian now has the attack on the flotilla as top issue on its site, typically reporting what the Israeli foreign ministry says before going on to set out what the Free Gaza Movement had to say:

More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli naval commandos boarded six aid ships in a convoy heading towards the Gaza Strip.

The fleet was carrying aid to the area, which is under a naval blockade. Israeli troops were attacked with guns, knives and clubs when they boarded the ships after having given repeated warnings, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

"During the interception of the ships, the demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs," the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

"Additionally one of the weapons used was grabbed from an IDF soldier. The demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose."

The Free Gaza movement, which is behind the flotilla, is reporting a very different version of events.

"Under darkness of night, Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck," the movement said on its website.

"They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep. According to the live video from the ship, two have been killed, and 31 injured. Al Jazeera has just confirmed the numbers.

In addition to the Israeli foreign ministry statement, zionists are already beginning to infest the comment space below the Guardian article.

Hate speech, the apartheid analogy and extreme moderation

I keep meaning to do posts and then I don't complete them. I wanted to write one about an article by Benjamin Pogrund on Israel's relations with South Africa during the apartheid era. Then I wanted to write one about how the Guardian's Comment is free appears to be using the stupid EUMC working definition of antisemitism to prevent certain perfectly reasonable criticisms of Israel whilst giving zionists a free rein to post anything they want to say in favour of their racist colony. Then I was reading an article in the Baltimore Jewish Times about how the organisers of the Toronto Gay pride bash were trying prevent a gay group from marching under the banner that dares speak the group's name and that is Queers Against Israeli Apartheid when I was reminded of the other two abortive posts.

So here's Benjamin Pogrund's article in The Tablet, a self-described "new read on Jewish life". His article is pretty much in the Labour good, Likud bad, tradition of soft hasbara but it does acknowledge that Labour governments and individuals were as culpable in Israel relationship with apartheid South Africa as Likud. In fact Pogrund likes to promote the idea that the relationship between the two colonial settler states was forced on Israel by Arab oil weapon diplomacy against black Africa together with the old chestnut of Arab genocidal intent. Something like that. See for yourselves anyway. I left a comment and watched for a few days while it was "awaiting moderation" while later comments were approved so I had another go as follows:

Mark Elf says: May. 23, 2010 at 8:36 pm

Has my comment from May. 22, 2010 at 4:04 pm been overlooked, only there have been four comments approved since I submitted the following:

Mark Elf says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. May. 21, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Israel Shahak wrote of Jews who support liberal causes whilst supporting zionism and suggested that they use the former as cover for the latter. Benjamin Pongrund is a classic example of the type.
Google “Smuts and Weizmann” and several sites appear demonstrating the strategic and ideological alliance between colonialism in South Africa and zionism in Palestine that go back to the turn of the 20th century. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2535527
Pogrund claims that post-67 it was “Arab oil wealth” that led to African states to be bullied into severing relations with Israel. How about the fact that post-67 Israel occupied a large chunk of Africa? The anti-apartheid activist, Pogrund, is stereotyping Arabs as oil rich and negating the idea that anyone might act against Israel on the principle that it is a colonial settler state based on ethnic cleansing and racist laws.
He also tries to make out that in 1973 Israel had come “close to defeat and annihilation”. Israel did suffer a defeat and had to return Sinai to Egypt as a result but annihilation? The anti-apartheid activist, Pogrund, is simply stereotyping Arabs as mindless killers without a cause.
Pogrund has a record of opposition to apartheid in South Africa so he has an undeserved credibility on Palestine but to describe some of his writing on Palestine as disingenuous would be a compliment to the man, certainly an understatement.
—-
Now please moderate it through asap because I don’t see any analytical critique of the article from an anti-zionist perspective. Thanks

Now when I go to the page, the original comment is still awaiting moderation but the second one isn't! I'm guessing that the ideologically committed moderators stop monitoring after a day or so and then anything gets through until more zealous zios complain but we shall see. The comments are still open if anyone wants to have a pop and I have left another responding to a "singling out poor Israel" comment. By the way, whilst researching the Israel/South Africa relationship I stumbled on this book by Jane Hunter called Israeli Foreign Policy: Central America and South Africa which certainly belies the idea that Israel's relations with the other apartheid state only really kicked off in the seventies. Also, I was sent this wikipedia link by a friend titled, Israel and the apartheid analogy. I haven't had time to read the whole thing but I am surprised the zionists that infest wikipedia have even allowed the title but please check out the content. And so to Comment is free. A couple of weeks ago Gilbert Achcar had this piece about how Arabs relate to the holocaust. Here's a little chunk:

Most stunning of all, on 9 January 2009, at the peak of the brutal Israeli onslaught on Gaza, inhabitants of Bi'lin, another West Bank village known for standing at the forefront of the struggle against the Israeli occupation, organised a demonstration in protest, wearing striped pyjamas similar to those of Nazi concentration camp inmates. An account by the Bil'in Popular Committee states: "Protesters also wore small yellow cutouts in the shape of Gaza with the word 'Gazan' written on them to symbolise the yellow 'Jude' stars of David worn by European Jews during World War II." The BBC briefly broadcast a glance at this astounding event: a video is still available. That the message the Palestinian demonstrators conveyed was "exaggerated" is obvious (and natural); but the point is that they were identifying with the Jewish victims of Nazism and regarding the Holocaust as the highest standard of horror, rather than denying it.

This elicited the following comment from one of the zio regulars:

I'm in complete disbelief: so you are willing to use an example of blatant antisemitism -- namely the intended equation of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza with the Nazi effort to achieve a "Final solution" -- as a proof that Holocaust denial and belittling isn't widespread in the Arab world? Whatever next? Is there no lower limit?

To which I responded:

This idea that comparing Israel to the nazis is antisemitic is completely bogus. In fact, the idea itself is antisemitic as it seeks to connect all Jews with the State of Israel.

I don't know of many comparisons of Israel to the nazis but the ones I know have come from prominent Jews and Israelis. This does not of itself preclude antisemitism but Albert Einstein compared Begin and Shamir to Hitler and Mussolini, Israel Prize winner Yeshayahu Leibowitz coined the term judeo-nazification to describe the changes in Israel following the '67 war and a former Israeli cabinet minister and holocaust survivor, the late Tommy Lapid, likened the Israeli army's demolition policy in Rafah to the nazis and of course the UK Labour zionist, Gerald Kaufman has likened Sharon et al to the nazis. Israel has an official ideology of ethno-religious supremacy, an ideologically mobilised and indoctrinated population, it is relentlessly aggressive and it underpins its ideology with a dogged belief in ancient mythology.

The only trappings of nazism that Israel lacks are the fuhrer principle and the gas chambers, but it is cutting back on liberties within the 67 boundaries and what difference does it make what method it uses in its periodic culls of those it sees as racially inferior. Comparisons of Israel to the nazis have their limitations but they are sometimes perfectly apt and certainly not essentially antisemitic.

I wrote to the "community standards" people at the Guardian to ask them why it had been deleted and I was told by a chap called James that it was hate speech on my part which, logically, means that the article itself was hate speech too but when you're dancing on strings pulled by zios the last thing you can be is consistent. But anyway, where does that lead us? Ah yes, hate speech, hate crimes, that sort of thing. In the same article as the one about Queers Against Israeli Apartheid towards the bottom there is a mini-headline - Toronto Hate Crimes Report Includes ‘Nazi,’ ‘Shikse’. Actually, there appears to be a bit of an editing error because the line isn't in bold but it is a headline and marks the start of a new article but on the same page as the QUIA (sounds like queer - clever acronym) stuff. This is further compounded by more errors that render the piece almost incoherent but it was this that reminded me of the ludicrous behaviour of the Guardian Comment is free mods. Cop this:

“Nazis” and “non-Jewish Shikse,” a pejorative for a gentile woman, are among the victims listed on the latest hate crimes report issued by Toronto Police. The report, which lists hate and bias crimes for 2009, shows an increase in “hate/bias occurrences” over the previous year from 153 to 174. Jews were the top victims, with 52 incidents, followed by LBGT (lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgenders), with 26 incidents, and blacks, 24 incidents. Mischief, usually graffiti, followed by assault and threatening, was the most common crime. The Nazi and non-Jewish Shikse, along with “police,” each were a victim in a single incident to which police responded last year.

Who on earth is being protected by this hate crime legislation? Who can't you call nazis or police? I understand and agree that shikse is a put-down for a non-Jewish woman. But see the take of the CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress:

Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, which has long pressed for stronger hate crime laws, said those laws clearly define victim groups as falling under the headings of race, creed, color, nationality, sexual orientation “and other similar factors.” Referring to Nazis and shikses, Farber said “such groups do not fall under the victims definition of a hate crime law.” It is “almost silly to take groups out of thin air and decide to make them victims,” he told JTA. “That’s not how the law works. It makes anti-hate laws look absurd.”

The Israel lobby is going to make them even more absurd so Mr Farber really can't complain.

Irish mainstream publication supports Palestine.

Phoenix magazine, the Irish equivalent of Private Eye in Britain, but far more influential, has come out in support of Palestine in their latest issue. By this I don't mean that they have issued an editorial or article in support of Palestine, they've done more. Much, much more.

To quote from the IPSC press release:

'Thursday 20th May 2010, saw the publication of a landmark document, a 16-page full colour feature entitled Goldstone Report Feature: War Crimes in Apartheid Israel. The document features contributions from many leading anti-apartheid campaigners, trade unionists, politicians, journalists and other public figures, including Kader Asmal, Col. Desmond Travers, Minister Ciaran Cuffe and Jamal Juma.

'Coming bundled with the May 20th edition of Phoenix magazine, the booklet is notable not only for the range of it's contributers, but also for the fact that it features Irish politicians from all the Dail parties calling for sanctions against Israel - chiefly the suspension of Israel from the Euro-Med Agreement.'

To explain the names first - Kadar Asmal is famous in Ireland for heading up the anti-Apartheid campaign he later returned to South Africa to become a govt. minister, Col. Travers is an Irish member of the Goldstone commission, Ciaran Cuffe is a junior minister with the Green Party, and Jamal Juma is the head of the Stop the Wall campaign in Palestine.

The supplement was produced in close co-operation with the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and it is significant. While most media in Ireland tend to say they're neutral while peddling a slightly pro-Israel line for fear of retaliation from the Israeli embassy, Phoenix has never hidden its support for Palestine. In almost every issue there is some exposee of government or other dealings with Israel.

This type of reporting has made the magazine unpopular (and widely-read) among the powerful in this country, so it was a considerable achievement to have representatives from all parties contribute to this IPSC supplement and to support some type of sanctions against Israel, however soft the sanctions. It shows that there is a level of broad cross-party support for Palestine and for sanctioning Israel for its war crimes. This helps move the debate in Ireland along from 'Should Israel be acting the way it is?' to 'What can we do to stop Israel acting the way it is?'. Kudos to Phoenix and all the contributors.

Look who's talking about who did what in the apartheid era

Here's a very perceptive article by Gary Younge in today's Guardian, print edition and on-line. The article arises out of the news of the full extent of Israel's dodgy dealings with the apartheid regime in South Africa but it goes on to lambast the sheer hypocrisy of the Israeli government and various zios around the world in trying to undermine the Goldstone report by drawing attention to Judge Goldstone's role as a senior judge under the apartheid regime:

On 5 January 2009 the Israeli army rounded up around 65 Palestinians (including 11 women and 11 children under the age of 14) in Gaza, several of whom were waving white flags. After handcuffing the men and stripping them to their underwear, the soldiers marched their captives 2km north to al-Atatra and ordered them to climb into three pits, each three metres high and surrounded by barbed wire. The prisoners were forced to sit in stress positions, leaning forward with their heads down, and prohibited from talking to one another. On their first day they were denied food and water. On the second and third, each was given a sip of water and a single olive. On the fourth day the women and children were released and the men were transferred to military barracks.

It was just one of the stories to emerge from the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict conducted by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

I never ceases to surprise the way Israel finds ever more cruel ways to keep the Palestinians on their "diet". I wonder if some zio bureaucrat counted the calories in each olive.

Anyway, Israel's isn't happy with the report:

The Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobbies concentrated their displeasure not on the substance of Goldstone's report but the essence of his identity. Branded a "self-hating Jew", he was effectively barred from his grandson's bar mitzvah after the South African Zionist Federation threatened to picket it. The prominent US constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz has described Goldstone as a "despicable human being", "an evil, evil man", "a traitor to the Jewish people" and the UN's "token court Jew".

Well we expect that sort of thing from the lobby, especially Dershowitz but here's where the article gets interesting.

Then this month came "revelations" from an Israeli newspaper that, as a judge under the apartheid regime, Goldstone sentenced black people to death. This, according to Israel's government, discredits not only Goldstone but everything he discovered about Gaza and, by association, international criticism of the occupation. "Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms," argued the Knesset Speaker, Reuven Rivlin.

"Although he was involved in clear racist activity, he had no problem writing such a report," said the chairman of the Knesset's state control committee, Yoel Hasson, who called Goldstone a hypocrite. Not to be outdone, Dershowitz (a strident advocate of torture) has now likened Goldstone to the Nazi geneticist Josef Mengele.

This crude one-downmanship in identity politics has no winners and many losers....

Let's start with the most obvious. This is a cynical ploy by the Israeli government to divert attention from the findings of the UN report. Government officials have almost said as much. A foreign ministry official described the investigation by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth as "explosive PR material". Hasson claims: "Had [the Israeli foreign ministry discovered this earlier], it would have greatly helped us in our activity against the report." But the report is about Gaza, not Goldstone. Having lost control of the message, Israel is now trying to shoot the messenger.

That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid's crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa's principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.

Ok, we're not quite at the most interesting bit yet:

But just because the Israeli government wants to change the subject doesn't mean that we have to. Goldstone's apartheid record matters. For the left to claim it doesn't, simply because he came up with a conclusion about Gaza that they agree with, would also be cynical. Appointed senior counsel in 1976, the year of the Soweto uprising, Goldstone rose through the South African judiciary during one of apartheid's most vicious periods. While in power he ordered the execution of two black South Africans and turned down the appeals of many others.

The zios have done well here. Goldstone's past is an issue. That's the interesting bit. But just because it is an issue, doesn't suddenly make it the issue.

And not only that there is yet another issue here:

Finally, there is the insidious role that Israel has attempted to play as ideological gatekeeper for acceptable political behaviour among Jews. The attempt to tarnish any criticism of Israel, regardless of its merits, as unjust is untenable; to castigate them as un-Jewish is deplorable. "What saddens me today is that any Jew who speaks out with an independent voice, especially with the conduct of the state of Israel, is regarded as a self-hating Jew," says retired South African constitutional court justice Albie Sachs, who is also Jewish. "Why should someone be made to choose between being a Jew and having a conscience?"

Israel has shot itself in the foot badly here. It was not just another trader with the apartheid regime, it was a strategic and ideological ally. Goldstone's role in the apartheid era was reprehensible but that doesn't mean that he can't write accurate and damning reports of far more reprehensible conduct. And Israel is not the ideological gatekeeper of the Jews.

Well done, Gary Younge!

Remember when the apartheid entity and the zionist entity were two separate entities?

Well of course they were so close they were members of the same nuclear family but now, according to Chris McGreal at the Guardian we have some hard evidence:

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

It's no surprise that Israel would want to deny the existence of its nuclear arsenal but hopefully this find will make it harder for Israel's allies, the US, EU, UK, etc, to deny it.

Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

Here's a letter in today's Independent on the racist stereotyping of Muslims by various state agencies in the UK:

Smears and abuse of al-Qa'ida suspects

The Pakistani students accused of a terrorist plot have been spared deportation to torture, but they have been subjected to more abuse by the British state (" 'Al-Qa'ida operative' must not be deported to Pakistan, says judge", 19 May). As a present-day star chamber, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) has again accepted racist stereotyping of Muslims as terrorist threats, based partly on secret evidence which remains unknown to the accused and their defence lawyers. This character assassination is a substitute for a criminal trial, with its guaranteed procedures for testing evidence. SIAC colludes with MI5 and the Home Office in this attack on democratic rights.

Les Levidow, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), London NW5

The real Noam Chomsky?

I was just browsing the JSF blogroll, which I don't do nearly enough, and I noticed a gripe by Anthony Lowenstein titled, Why is Chomsky now warm to Ramallah’s embrace?. I had a quick read (it's only short) and followed his link to Ali Abunimah's blog, where the co-founder of Electronic Intifada expresses what he politely calls his bafflement at Chomsky's twists and turns over Palestine over the years and the, er, weeks:

I have a great deal of admiration and respect for Noam Chomsky, one of the foremost intellectuals of our time, whose work opened my eyes on a great many issues. But like many others, I have been increasingly baffled by the many inconsistencies in his views on Palestine. A few months ago, for example, I responded to his opposition to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement on Khalil Bendib's radio program Voices from the Middle East and North Africa.

After Chomsky was outrageously barred by Israel from traveling to the occupied West Bank over the weekend, I could not help but be struck by yet another glaring contradiction.

In his 17 May interview on Democracy Now he told Amy Goodman that his planned itinerary included a meeting with Salam Fayyad, the unelected US- and Israeli-backed "prime minister" of the Ramallah Palestinian Authority imposed after the US helped overthrow the Hamas-led "national unity government" that came after the 2006 election. Chomsky told Goodman:

I was going to meet with the Prime Minister [Fayyad]. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. But his office called me here in Amman this morning, and we had a long discussion.

He is pursuing policies, which, in my view, are quite sensible, policies of essentially developing facts on the ground. It’s almost—I think it’s probably a conscious imitation of the early Zionist policies, establishing facts on the ground and hoping that the political forms that follow will be determined by them. And the policies sound to me like sensible and sound ones. The question, of course, is whether—the extent to which Israel and the United States, which is a determining factor—the extent to which they’ll permit them to be implemented. But if implemented, and if, of course, Israel and the United States would terminate their systematic effort to separate Gaza from the West Bank, which is quite illegal, if that continues, yes, it could turn into a viable Palestinian state.

Really? Chomsky the great critic of US efforts to undermine democracy and impose its clients around the world is now effusively endorsing what is in effect a US-backed puppet regime? Don't take my word for it. Here's what Chomsky said about precisely the same Ramallah Palestinian Authority whose "prime minister" he now finds so "sensible" during alecture in Boston on 21 January 2009.

So where does the real Chomsky stand?

Costello's cancellation causes consternation

I'm posting this because I think the significance of Elvis Costello's Tel Aviv concert cancellation is being missed in some quarters. Also, I just read something about it by Adam Horowitz on Mondoweiss, titled What's Hebrew for Sun City? The post links to a Forward article on the growth of the BDS campaign and where the Elvis cancellation fits in the scheme of things. It's a perceptive and informative article. It sets out who the BDSrs have contacted and tried to persuade to cancel gigs in Israel, who has cancelled and who has not:

But Costello’s action is the first open endorsement of the boycott movement by an A-list artist in protest of Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank and of its siege of Gaza. In a detailed statement, the performer argued that he could not perform in Israel because by doing so, “it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

“One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament,” Costello wrote in his statement.

There have been many cancellations of gigs proposed for Tel Aviv and many gigs have gone ahead as planned. But Costello spoke out from an A-list platform. That could be a turning point.

Islamophobia on steroids

Enough with the 9/11 conspiracy theories. We have one much better: the evil trrrsts fixing beauty pageants!!!  Or did the society of the spectacle go totally bonkers? We report, you decide.

And you thought beauty queens' infighting was fierce. No pageant managed by The Donald would be complete without its own outbreak of culture war...

This week, Lebanese-American immigrant Rima Fakih of Michigan was crowned Miss USA — maybe the first contestant of Arab or Muslim background to win...the highest decibels have been reserved for her Muslim Arab background (though the contestant herself has spoken little about religious matters, stressing that her family observes both Muslim and Christian holidays).

Daniel Pipes, who publishes a right-leaning blog on Middle Eastern affairs, pointed to a "surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants." While allowing that "they are all attractive" — Pipes, a former board member of the U.S. Institute for Peace, posted pictures of several — he said that their victories "make me suspect an odd form of affirmative action."

Pipes didn't theorize how shadowy beauty-pageant fixers might be greasing the skids for contestants — but other political bloggers were happy to advance more heated pronouncements.

"Miss Hezbollah is now Miss USA," declared conservative radio talk show host Debbie Schlussel, saying that Fakih's relatives in Lebanon had ties to the terrorist organization based there. Schlussel also said Fakih received some financial backing from onetime Hezbollah supporter Imad Hamad — or, as Schlussel put it, Fakih's "bid for the pageant was financed by an Islamic terrorist." Suggesting the pageant was "rigged," Schlussel wrote off Fakih's victory to a "politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate."

Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin saw a conspiracy afoot, too — generic rather than Muslim-specific this time. Malkin mocked Fakih as a "gaffetastic" contestant who tripped over her gown as well as over her answer to a question about birth control — exposing Fakih's ignorance, Malkin argued, about what constitutes a "controlled substance" and what the purpose of health care is. "Looks like the Miss USA pageant didn't want to risk the wrath of the open-borders mob," Malkin said. (Yahoo News)

People of the Facebook?

It appears that members of an Israeli army elite unit may have been groomed on Facebook by way of a fake id set up by Hizbullah. Here's Der Spiegel translated. The google translation is all over the place but I have a German speaking contact who has provided me with a more coherent translation of the opening paragraphs:

The beautiful Facebook girlfriend of the Elite Soldier

by Sarah Stricker, Tel Aviv

An enchanting young woman befriends Israeli military men on Facebook – and elicits secrets from them. According to a press report, 20 elite soldiers fell into the trap. The Lebanese Shiite militia, Hizbullah, is presumably behind it.

Hizbullah is supposed to have infiltrated the elite unit with a faked Facebook profile. With the photo of a pretty young woman who logged in with an Israeli name, the Shiite militia is supposed to have built up contacts with elite soldiers and elicited secret information, This was reported by the Israeli News portal http://www.mysay.co.il/.[Hebrew only]

The facebook page of Reut Zuckerman , who is lying on a sofa beaming into the camera in her profile photo went online about a year ago. The people behind the site made contact with numerous Israeli army soldiers. MySay reports that about 200 soldiers and reservists were on Zuckerman's friends list.

Zuckerman concentrated particularly on an elite unite of paratroopers. Apparently many of the men suspected that the woman was herself an Israeli soldier in a special unit. The people behind the site worked slowly to gain the confidence of the soldiers and are reported to have gained key information regarding the activities of the unit in question.

The men in the unit gave the Facebook friend names of members of the unit, jargon, secret codes, and detailed descriptions of bases . Some of the soldiers began to be suspicious only after about a year when they realized how many soldiers in the elite unit were named as her friends. The army began investigating in January....

With so many negative images of Islam and Muslims in the media it's good to see one of Islam's endearing features, the respect it accords to the people of the [face]book.

Elvis Costello cancels Israel gigs

From Elvis Costello's website:

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.

Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.

I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.

Some will regard all of this an unknowable without personal experience but if these subjects are actually too grave and complex to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite impossible to simply look the other way.

Ajami, better than the critique, worse than the praise

I finally got to see Ajami. It is a harsh and depressing film, a joint work of a Palestinian and Israeli directors Scandar Cobti and Yaron Shani, made with more than a nod to Italian neo-realism, up to the use of non-professional actors, which works very well. The story-telling is superb. The acting is minimalistic, and the low social drama, the stories of drug dealers, clandestine workers, restaurant owners and cops, never becomes melodramatic. The film depicts a claustrophobic, violent demi-monde of Palestinians living on the margins of Israeli society, a racialized criminal underworld that rings familiar in its cinematic codes replicated from a visual history that stretches from Los Olvidados to City of God. 

As an aside, all the interviews I read is with Copti, and the film is about Copti's neighborhood. I'm not saying that Shani's contribution is unimportant, but I'm also not clear about what it is. It seems to me therefore fair to speak about Ajami as a Palestinian film done with Israeli Jewish help. The most interesting aspect of the film is a gap between the director's expressed intention, to address and call attention to the discrimination and abuse that Palestinians suffer in Israel, and the film's almost apolitical tone, in which the facts of discrimination are noticed by tiny gestures that an international audience is likely to miss, such as Binji passing a police checkpoint by pretending to be a Jew from Bat-Yam, resulting in the feeling that one deals mostly with racialized stereotypes. On its face, Ajami is not a nationalist film. It casts no blame, and depicts all characters, Jews and non-Jews, with the same empathy to their pain and hopelessness. But the film also depicts what the ultimate victory of Zionism is, the remainder of Jaffa's Palestinians, fighting, not for rights, not for their culture or history or land, but for the survival of the fittest. Ajami is a Palestinian neighborhood the way Israel wanted a Palestinian neighborhood to be, if it had to be at all.

To understand the film's paradox, we need to ask from where does the director speak. The best clue is in the film. Copti casted himself in the role of Binji. Binji is a Palestinian who passes. He speaks Hebrew without an Arab accent and clubs in North Tel-Aviv with his Jewish girlfriend. Binji is not Cobti, and there is a limit to how much autobiographical details one can draw here. But the casting choice cannot be ignored. Binji wants to be what the "Jewish and Democratic" Israel promises its Arab citizens: "forget about your national identity, and just be a human being, a citizen." In a key scene, Binji decides to move in with his girilfriend. He describes the decision in universalist terms, as a matter of age: there comes a moment when a young man leaves his father's house and moves in with his girlfriend. Except there is no such universal moment. Moving in with girlfriend/boyfriend is a Jewish (or at most a Western) rite of passage in Israel, not a universal one. His mates understand that and accuse Binji of choosing to become a Jew. Binji doesn't get it. It is therefore hardly incidental that Binji, the one who passes as a Jew, the one who reminds the police about his civil rights, is the one who cannot handle the police abuse. He is the only one in the film who dies without being killed. He dies from an overdose of coke, metaphorically in a stupefied delirium of universal citizenship.

When Copti says he doesn't represent Israel at the Oscars, he is not merely making a personal statement; he is also explaining the meaning of his film. There is no position from which a Palestinian can speak as a "universal," non-national Israeli citizen. Ajami is also an apolitical meditation about the impossibility of being the kind of apolitical Palestinian that Israel demands its Palestinian citizens to be. Yet Cobti tries. The film is invested deeply in universality. It speaks a universal filmic language, and expresses a universalist sensibility to human pain, love and hopelessness. It could have been shot in Brazil with minimal alterations. It addresses the Israeli audience, not with a challenge of identity and racism, but with a message of common humanity, a hand extended in recognition, but also in hopeless knowledge that it cannot be recognized, because it comes from a place that doesn't exist, the place of the nationally unidentified "Israeli citizen". Palestinian critics hated the film. In contrast, the film was praised most by those, like Burston Bradley, who failed to understand that the hopelessness of the film is Israel's hopelessness. That is also the film's failure. If the film were a lesson in geometry, it would be a proof by reductio ad absurdum. Let's assume there is an Israeli civil society. Let there be a film about that society that criticizes Israel from that purely civic perspective. It can't be done. Israeli society does not exist. Q.E.D.