Thou shalt not gig in Tel Aviv

This youtube clip of Alexei Sayle trying to persuade Leonard Cohen not to entertain the racist war criminals has been around the net for a few days now.



I'm posting it because I think it's quite funny and it's another point for the BDS movement. But Alexei's a quirky chap. He likens BDS against Israel to the same against apartheid. At the same time he claims he advocates for bringing "Israel to its senses" and policies that will be for their (Israel's) benefit. But check the comments at youtube. His appeasement of Israel still isn't enough for them.

The people of Iran

I don't know what is going on in Iran. The liberal bull#*it about the supposedly pro-Western reformist Moussavi supposedly pulling an upset victory over the supposedly retrograde Ahmedinejad doesn't make much sense. But regardless of what is going on among the clerical circles and the nomenklatura, the people have seized on the moment to express their expectations and hopes. I am inspired by this picture. These people show courage facing an armed and willing to kill repressive state apparatus and they are making history. They are blessed.



Watch and practice at home!

EU says non to Israel

The EU gave a fairly significant rejection to Israel yesterday, particularly to Nethanyahu's speech where he offered a Palestinian state without borders, army, foreign policy etc. At a meeting of Foreign Ministers they rebuffed the charms of Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and refused to upgrade relations with Israel.

The upgrade, announced in June 2008 was put on hold because of the spot of bother Israel had with the natives in Gaza earlier this year. It was expected to continue when things had quietened down and the media had moved on. However, post-Obama and post-Nethanyahu, EU positions on Israel have apparently hardened. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner criticised Nethanyahu's statement saying,

"Nothing was said on the settlements ... but this stopping of the settlements is essential," said Kouchner, who in an earlier statement rejected any pre-conditions to peace negotiations.

The full report can be found here: EU postpones upgrading ties with Israel

My take on this - even if Obama isn't doing much on Israel, the fact that the US is seen as not offering unconditional support to Likud might be allowing other former friends to sneak away.

Tell her

Churchill's play struck many chords. A couple of people have come up with additional stanzas. It is an enchanting format with endless growth potential. Perhaps we should have a "7 Jewish Children" extension contest. Here would be my contribution:

Tell her Hebrew is dead. Tell her we killed her.
No. Don't tell her that.
Tell her we revived Hebrew.
Tell her we were afraid she was going to betray us.
Tell her she was growing up to be like her sister.
Tell her they were befriending her.
Tell her we covered her face with a pillow, just to hush her.
No. Don't tell her that.
Tell her it is safer to remain silent.
Tell her loose lips sink ships.
No. Don't tell her that.
Tell her she can speak English.

7 Jewish children performed in Hebrew in Tel Aviv

So now what are Engage, Howard Jacobson, Harry's Place and a whole load of other hasbaristas going to say about Caryl Churchill's play, 7 Jewish children: a play for Gaza? Here's Rachel Shabi in the Guardian website:

Seven Jewish Children, the controversial play written in response to Israel's assault on the Gaza

Strip, was performed for the first time in the Jewish state last night, with a couple of hundred people gathering to watch the Hebrew-language production in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square.

Written by Caryl Churchill during the three-week war on Gaza in January, the play caused outrage when it was first performed at London's Royal Court theatre in February. The BBC declined to broadcast a radio production of the play, which faced accusations of being one-sided and even antisemitic. The Guardian later filmed a version of the piece, which can be seen online.

Some Jewish leaders accused the Royal Court of violating a theatrical rule: that plays critical of, and entirely populated by, characters from one community are only defensible if written by a member of that community. Others championed the play as an empathetic and nuanced work. In a four-star review, the Guardian's Michael Billington wrote: "The play solves nothing, but shows theatre's power to heighten consciousness and articulate moral outrage."

The Israeli production was staged as part of a wider campaign organised by a coalition of leftwing groups against the two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"I love the way [Churchill] wrote it," said one of the cast, Sarah von Schwartze. "You can see she understands how Israelis came to be in this situation."

The new production was directed by Samieh Jabbarin, an Arab-Israeli theatre artist based in Jaffa. Jabbarin is currently under indefinite house arrest after being apprehended in protests against the far right at the Arab-Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm in February; he directed proceedings via phone and Skype.

"Churchill has achieved a beautiful artistic communication of a fundamental yet subversive truth: profound pain has no home," he said. "Pain is pain is pain. Pain is universally human."

The performance in Rabin Square featured a terror-stricken woman constantly rearranging a row of sacks around her baby's pram, in increasingly restrictive barricade formations. Around her, three actors debate, argue and advise on what to tell the child about the Holocaust, Israel, Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

"Political plays can be really superficial, but this one was serious and very significant," said Danielle Shworts, 27, from Tel Aviv. Another audience member from the city, George Borestein, 58, agreed. "I am really shocked," he said. "It was a fascinating performance and, to my great sorrow, there is a lot of truth to this play."

For many of last night's audience, the production was their first chance to engage with the play's content and to consider its meaning. "I really connected to the human message," said Esther Grabiner, a lecturer who lives near Jerusalem. "I got a lump in my throat watching – because it shows the absurdity of the situation, for both sides."

Engage and Howard Jacobson were quite insistent that the play is antisemitic and Harry's Place was moved to post a nazi propaganda film by way of a comparison with the Guardian posting a reading of the play. Ordinarily they would have done what Engage usually does when a post proves to be embarrassing, ie disappear the post. But they both did so many they can't delete them all without leaving a huge chunk missing from both blogs. So they could ignore the Tel Aviv production of the play they have declared to be antisemitic. Or of course they could declare themselves more Catholic than the Pope, in this instance , more Israeli than the Israelis, and accuse the Israelis of antisemitism. Or they could stoop even lower than usual and point out that the director of the play is an Arab and therefore one of the genocidaires mark II that tried to finish, in 1948, what Hitler started in 1941/2.

I know, they could publish a retraction and apology saying how sorry they are for making false allegations against people that criticise Israel. So what's it going to be?

New exhaustive report: Israel is practising apartheid

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released a study indicating that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The study is being posted for public debate on this website.

The interim report, which will form part of a discussion at an upcoming HSRC conference on the subject, titled Re-envisioning Israel/Palestine, on 13 and 14 June in Cape Town, serves as a document to be finalised later this year.

The HSRC commissioned an international team of scholars and practitioners of international public law from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel and the West Bank to conduct the study. The resulting 300-page draft, titled Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law, represents 15 months of research and constitutes an exhaustive review of Israel's practices in the OPT according to definitions of colonialism and apartheid provided by international law. The project was suggested originally by the January 2007 report by eminent South African jurist John Dugard, in his capacity as Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council, when he indicated that Israel practices had assumed characteristics of colonialism and apartheid.

You can download the report here:

Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid, Executive Summary [950KB] or Full Study [3.5MB]

Regarding colonialism, the team found that Israel's policy and practices violate the prohibition on colonialism which the international community developed in the 1960s in response to the great decolonisation struggles in Africa and Asia. Israel's policy is demonstrably to fragment the West Bank and annex part of it permanently to Israel, which is the hallmark of colonialism. Israel has appropriated land and water in the OPT, merged the Palestinian economy with Israel's economy, and imposed a system of domination over Palestinians to ensure their subjugation to these measures. Through these measures, Israel has denied the indigenous population the right to self-determination and indicated clear intention to assume sovereignty over portions of its land and natural resources. Permanent annexation of territory in this fashion is the hallmark of colonialism.

Regarding apartheid, the team found that Israel's laws and policies in the OPT fit the definition of apartheid in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Israeli law conveys privileges to Jewish settlers and disadvantages Palestinians in the same territory on the basis of their respective identities, which function in this case as racialised identities in the sense provided by international law. Israel's practices are corollary to five of the six 'inhuman acts' listed by the Convention. A policy of apartheid is especially indicated by Israel's demarcation of geographic ‘reserves' in the West Bank, to which Palestinian residence is confined and which Palestinians cannot leave without a permit. The system is very similar to the policy of ‘Grand Apartheid' in apartheid South Africa, in which black South Africans were confined to black homelands delineated by the South African government, while white South Africans enjoyed freedom of movement and full civil rights in the rest of the country.

The Executive Summary of the report says that the three pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT. In South Africa, the first pillar was to demarcate the population of South Africa into racial groups, and to accord superior rights, privileges and services to the white racial group. The second pillar was to segregate the population into different geographic areas, which were allocated by law to different racialgroups, and restrict passage by members of any group into the area allocated to other groups. And the third pillar was "a matrix of draconian ‘security' laws and policies that were employed to suppress any opposition to the regime and to reinforce the system of racial domination, by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination."

The Report finds that Israeli practices in the OPT exhibit the same three 'pillars' of apartheid:

The first pillar "derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews". The second pillar is reflected in "Israel's 'grand' policy to fragment the OPT [and] ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory. This policy is evidenced by Israel's extensive appropriation of Palestinian land, which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians; the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT; the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank; and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians".

The third pillar is "Israel's invocation of 'security' to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group."

The research team included scholars and international lawyers based at the HSRC, the School for Oriental and African Studies (London), the British Institute for International and Comparative Law, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Durban), the Adalah/Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and al-Haq/West Bank Affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. Consultation on the study's theory and method was provided by eminent jurists from South Africa, Israel and Europe.

The HSRC serves as the national social science council for South Africa. The Middle East Project of the HSRC is an independent two-year project to conduct analysis of Middle East politics relevant to South African foreign policy, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Government of South Africa. The analysis in this report is entirely independent of the views or foreign policy of the Government of South Africa and does not represent an official position of the HSRC. It is intended purely as a scholarly resource for the South African government and civil society and the concerned international community.

For more information or interviews, contact: mep@hsrc.ac.za or +27-21-466-7924. (Human Sciences Research Council of
South Africa (HSRC))

Von Brunn, Foxman and the political science major

You know the video that had the zionists in such a panic? I shouldn't say the zionists. Not that it's wrong to generalise about Jewish supremacists usually but not all zionists realised that it was racist at all to say "white power! f*ck the n*ggers!" Or "he's another n*gger from the town". But those that did know certainly did panic. Even David T, who believes that black men assaulting white women is to the Black identity as the chosen people concept is to the Jewish identity, realised that damage needed to be limited after:

The 3-minute video, by American journalist-filmmaker Max Blumenthal and American oleh Joseph Dana, became an overnight internet sensation. It shows a succession of U.S. Jewish visitors to Israel, most of them college-age and plainly and proudly drunk, toasting each other in a Jerusalem bar as they vie for the twin crowns of lover of Israel and loather of Obama.

"He's a Muslim for sure, and who even knows if he was born in the United States," says a young woman who identifies herself as a political science major. "We haven't even seen his birth certificate yet. Bullshit - he's not from the U.S. He's like a terrorist.

You what? He's not from the US? But you have to be born in the US in order to run for president. This is a conspiracy theory of neo-nazi white supremacist proportions. Who on earth could imagine, let alone say such stuff?

Well apparently the man now in custody on suspicion of having shot and killed 39-year-old Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard at Washington's holocaust museum, is what they call a "birther". A birther? What's a birther? Well it has all sorts of meanings but since Barak Obama was elected it means someone who believes that Obama was not born in Hawaii or anywhere else in the US.

Among the myriad of disturbing qualities of James Von Brunn, the 88-year-old man who shot and killed a security officer inside the Holocaust Museum on Wednesday, is his apparent belief that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States and therefore has no right to the presidency.

The reason it sticks out is that, even among Von Brunn's other characteristics -- including heavy streaks of anti-Semitism, disdain for the federal government, and threads of white supremacy -- being a "birther" has a modicum of political credibility.

Certainly, the vast majority of people who are skeptical of Obama's birth in the state of Hawaii tend to be harmless conspiracy theorists. And there has been no suggestion that Von Brunn's distrust of the president's citizenship solely drove him to this violent act.

"In addition to being a birther," said Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, "he also believed that Hitler didn't kill enough Jews. He had a history of anti-Semitic, hateful views."

Indeed a "birther" mindset is more a symptom of extremism than a cause.

Quite, but the political science major in the video surely has as much in common with Abraham Foxman as she does with James Von Brunn.

I should mention that I may not have run this post but earlier this evening (actually late last night now) I got the following comment from a "Von Brunn":

We need to exterminate all of the vermin Jews everywhere. Then there will be peace.

The comment came from a Limestone Networks IP so I have written to them asking if they have a policy on hate speech from their servers. I'll let you know if I get a reply.

Regarding the victim of yesterday's shooting, Daily Kos is suggesting setting up a paypal account for his family so you might want to keep checking in there.

Lieberman recognizes JSF

According to a Haaretz, Avigdor Liberman said that

"we [Israel] cannot advance successful diplomacy if we don't change the way we are viewed."

Lieberman added that Israel's public image is the most serious diplomatic problem facing the country. (Haaretz, June 6, 2009)

It is nice when successful high up people like Lieberman recognize and appreciate our daily toil (at JSF and countless better outfits). It makes us proud. Of course, we would be lying if we did not acknowledge how much easier our job is with Ivette Lieberman at the helm.

Thanks!

More child abuse by Israel

According to Ben Lynfield in today's Independent:

Two Israeli officers have testified that troops in the West Bank beat, bound and blindfolded Palestinian civilians as young as 14. The damaging disclosures by two sergeants of the Kfir Brigade include descriptions of abuses they say they witnessed during a search-and-detain operation involving hundreds of troops in Hares village on 26 March. The testimonies have been seen by The Independent and are expected to add fuel to the controversy over recent remarks by Colonel Itai Virob, commander of Kfir Brigade, in which he said violence against detained Palestinians was justified in order to accomplish missions.

Really? What are the missions?

B.D.S., the first smashing victory

The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid chalked up a first smashing victory against a large corporation. Veolia is in the process of withdrawing from the Jerusalem light rail project!

Comments Omar Barghouti:

In the first smashing and convincing victory of the global BDS movement in the field of corporate responsibility and ethical compliance, Veolia is reportedly abandoning the Jerusalem Light Rail project, an illegal project that aims at connecting Israeli colonies built on occupied Palestinian territory to the city of Jerusalem.

As the Haaretz article below (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1091186.html) admits, the BDS campaign's success in costing Veolia some $7 billion worth of contracts is the key behind this decision by the troubled company to pull out of the project.

It is worth mentioning that Le Monde has recently published an expose, revealing to French readers and, crucially, to Veolia's stock holders the fact that the company is losing a lot of money because of its complicity in a project that constitutes a major violation of international law, if not a war crime.

This great victory came as a result of years of hard, principled, meticulous and persistent work by French solidarity groups, particularly AFPS; by the growing French BDS movement which was instrumental in making Veolia lose a huge contract in Bordeaux; by Dutch activists who achieved the first success in convincing a Dutch bank to divest from Veolia and applied pressure on other banks to follow suit; by Swedish peace and justice groups, mainly connected to the Church of Sweden, particularly Diakonia, and Swedish Palestine solidarity groups who cost Veolia the heaviest, $4.5 billion contract in running the Stockholm metro; by British solidarity groups and activists, particularly affiliated with PSC, who contributed tremendously to excluding Veolia from a lucrative contract in the West Midlands; and of course by the Palestinian BDS National Committee, BNC, which partnered with all the above in the now famous Derail Veolia and Alstom campaign to pressure the company to abandon this illegal project.

The Derail Veolia and Alstom campaign, which involves activists and groups in many countries all working to pressure the two French giants to quit the JLR project, was officially launched at the Bilbao Initiative conference in the Basque city last November.

Now is the time to pressure Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Gulf states, among others, to kick Alstom out due to its complicity in this illegal project. Solidarity with Palestine means almost nothing if it cannot be translated into BDS action that can truly cost the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime dearly.

This is the time to DERAIL ALSTOM!

In Israel the law is supreme

As we all know, Israel is a state of law. Everything the state does is legal and pedantically lawful. Citizens are held to the same high standard. No this is not a joke. This is how Israel perceives itself. You must remember Tzipi Livni dismissing concerns about settlers to Bob Simons from 60 minutes with the words, "Israel is a state of law and order."

Four years ago, an AWOL Israeli soldier, Eden Natan Zada, did a Baruch Goldstein in Northern Palestinian town of Shfar'am. He rode the bus into town, then open fire, killing the driver and three passengers and wounding four more passengers. He was wrestled down by people on the bus and then killed by angry civilians some minutes after the end of the shooting. (sse Ynet, April 8, 2005).

Had he not been killed by the angry mob, we can safely assume that Natan-Zade would be walking free today, as is the Israeli custom. Julian Soufir, for example, who committed an elaborately pre-meditated murder of an East Jerusalem taxi driver is free. But this case is different. After four years of strenuous investigation, gathering 600 testimonies and interrogating 60 suspects, the Haifa district prosecutor is pressing charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault against 12 Shfar'am resident. That is because

"The prosecution believes that, despite Natan-Zada's atrocious actions, the events that led to his death seriously harmed the rule of law," (Haaretz, June 7, 2009)

No, that is because Natan-Zada was Jewish and his killers were Palestinians. Had he been a Palestinian killed by Jews, an indictment would be a coin toss, and the sentence a joke. Btslelem summarizes the legal situation thus:

when Israeli civilians attack Palestinians, the Israeli authorities employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward the perpetrators. This policy is reflected in the actions of officials in charge of law enforcement – the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the Israel Police Force (IPF) – which do not do enough to prevent harm to
the life and property of Palestinians, and to stop the violent attacks by settlers while they are taking place. All law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities demonstrate little interest in uncovering the substantial violence that Israeli civilians commit against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. (Btselem)

---

UPDATE:
At the request of a dear reader I provide some additional evidence than in Israel a Jew can kill an Arab and walk free:

Since the outbreak of the first intifada, B’Tselem has monitored the authorities’ handling of all cases in which settlers and other Israeli civilians killed Palestinians.
Between 9 December 1987 and 18 March 2001, Israeli civilians killed 119 Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Twenty-nine of them were killed in the Tomb of the Patriarchs by Baruch Goldstein, who was himself killed during the incident. Examination of the authorities’ treatment of these offenses indicates the failures and malfunctioning throughout the various stages of the law-enforcement system, from the opening of the investigation to reduction of sentences by Israel’s president.

The principal findings of B’Tselem’s monitoring are the following:

• In six homicides, the police did not even open an investigation. Two of these cases occurred during the current events.
• In 39 cases, the investigation file was closed. Fifteen files were closed by the police and 22 by the State Attorney’s Office. Two other files were closed by the military. The vast majority were closed on grounds of “offender unknown” or “lack of evidence.” Five files were closed because of lack of culpability.
• Of the 22 cases in which the defendants were convicted, six were convicted of murder. The others were convicted of lighter offenses: seven for manslaughter, seven for causing death by negligence (five of whom had initially been charged with manslaughter). Two were convicted of firing in a residential area, for possession of a weapon without a permit, and for endangering persons on a roadway.
• Four of the five persons convicted of murder had their sentence reduced, by pardon or shortening of the sentence by the President, or when the Parole Board reduced the sentence by one-third.
• The sentences of five of those convicted of manslaughter ranged from 18 months’ to four years’ imprisonment. In another case, the defendant was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, and another to six month’s public service.
• Five of the seven persons convicted of causing death by negligence were sentenced to public service. The two others were sentenced to five months’ imprisonment and to 18 months’ imprisonment, respectively.

In the other cases: nine are still unresolved and in five cases the defendants were acquitted. (Btselem, Tacit Consent)

Ben White for beginners

Always useful these beginners' books. Ben White has written Israeli apartheid: a beginner's guide and it's being launched (kind of) with a lecture by the man himself, hosted by the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, at the UK's Houses of Parliament, which is a bit of a coup.

Here's the book:



And here's a blurb from Facebook:

Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide distills the work of academics and experts into a highly readable introduction. This is the book to read if you want to understand the root of the conflict and how apartheid applies to the situation in Palestine. Ben White begins by succinctly explaining the origins of Zionist theory and colonization and details what happened in 1948 during the creation of Israel, as Palestinians were killed, driven from their homes and deprived of their land and livelihoods. White goes on to examine current examples of Israeli apartheid. Packed with information, quotations and resources, the book is rooted in the author's extensive on-the-ground experience in the region. It also includes short testimonies by Palestinians who describe how Israeli apartheid affects their daily lives. Indispensable for the Palestinian solidarity movement, Israeli Apartheid aims to inform and mobilize, and is a vital resource for anyone who wants to help work towards peace.

And here are the details of the event:

Grimond Room
Portcullis House
Houses of Parliament
Westminster
London SW1A 0AA
Date: Wed 17th Jun, 2009
Time: 6.30pm
Nearest Tube: Westminster

There you go. I might see you there.

Abunimah on Bush lite

Here's a perceptive Comment is free piece by Ali Abunimah:

Once you strip away the mujamalat – the courtesies exchanged between guest and host – the substance of President Obama's speech in Cairo indicates there is likely to be little real change in US policy. It is not necessary to divine Obama's intentions – he may be utterly sincere and I believe he is. It is his analysis and prescriptions that in most regards maintain flawed American policies intact.

Though he pledged to "speak the truth as best I can", there was much the president left out. He spoke of tension between "America and Islam" – the former a concrete specific place, the latter a vague construct subsuming peoples, practices, histories and countries more varied than similar.

I quickly skimmed the first page of comments and there was an openly anti-Jewish one quite early on:

Obama's Chief of Staff is named Rahm Israel Emmanuel.

Did you really think Obama was going to say anything different from George Bush?

Skimming down further I see an offering from a commenter calling himself Schachtman, who I have good reason to believe is actually Dr David Hirsh of Engage:

Ali Abunimah would rather dream forever of a one state solution than have an actual 2 state solution.

Oh dear, assuming that Shachtman is indeed Hirsh, this self-styled "anti-racist campaign[er] against antisemitism" has failed to notice an antisemitic comment and failed to realise that the so-called two states solution, at best, simply recasts a a racist situation. In fact, given what we now know of Gaza, if two states really does become passed off as a solution, life could get even worse for the Palestinians who would then be captives of their own, albeit imposed, leadership.

I did post a comment of my own, using the name "Ilan". I'm only posting it here because the editor of comment is free seems to take order from either David T or the Zionist Federation. In other words, it might get disappeared:

This is very strange. There is an openly antisemitic comment in this thread, as follows:

Obama's Chief of Staff is named Rahm Israel Emmanuel.

Did you really think Obama was going to say anything different from George Bush?

And yet none of the usual suspects seem to have noticed it. You see, having a Jewish name does not mean that a person automatically supports Israel. In the case of Rahm Emanuel, we know that he supports the racist war criminals of the State of Israel because he volunteered for the its army back in 1990. We also know that his father is a hardcore anti-Arab racist because his racism is a matter of public record but that has nothing to do with his Jewish name either. It does speak volumes for his upbringing though.

But I see one of the usual suspects has come here to denounce Ali Abunimah for wanting Israel/Palestine to be a state for all of its people rather than have most of the country run for the world's Jews and not for the people who actually come from there.

I think this is proof positive, that zionists tend to see antisemitism where it isn't and yet they don't see it where it is.

The same usual suspect seems not to have noticed that most of the article deals with Obama's racist/sectarian take on what Obama calls "Islam". How about if Obama was to speak of America on the one hand and Jewry or Christendom on the other? They would be the ludicrous equivalents of what he actually said. Both would be seen to be excluding Jews and Christians from America. There would be howls of hysterical protests from the usual suspects if he said that of Jews.

Still, this youtube video of Max Blumenthal interviewing young American Jews in Jerusalem suggests that Obama's dismissive take on the world of Islam is still not enough appeasement of Israel for some zionists.

Comments are still open for the rest of today.

Galilee communities: We're not racist, we just don't want Arabs

Give it to Haaretz editors for this smart headlines. What is it about? It is about Jewish settlers in the Galilee. The stupidity and sense of entitlement of these people would be amusing if it were not so deadly. Read it all.

Residents of the Misgav bloc of communities in the Galilee consider themselves to be liberal, peace-loving people who support coexistence with their Arab neighbors and even root for Bnei Sakhnin, the soccer club based in a nearby Arab town considered a prominent symbol of that community. Which is why they were shocked this week when proposals raised at local council meetings to accept only applicants who shared their Zionist principles drew negative headlines and criticism for alleged racism.

"The label upsets me," South Africa-born lawyer Michael Zetler, who founded the Misgav community of Manof in 1980 with other immigrants from what was then an apartheid state, said Thursday. "It hurt me. I am not a racist."

Although few people will say so, the panic that spurred the submission of the controversial proposals are related to the High Court of Justice's ruling two years ago that upheld the right of Ahmed and Fahina Zubeidat, an Israeli Arab couple, to buy a house in the exclusively Jewish community of Rakefet notwithstanding the local admissions committee's objection.

Since then, some residents of Jewish communal settlements in the Galilee fear that the region's substantial Arab population might seek to buy property in their communities, where the standard of living is far higher, causing Jews to move out. In some areas of the Galilee this has already taken place: Portions of the once-exclusively Jewish town of Upper Nazareth are now populated by newcomers from the nearby Arab city of Nazareth.

"I agree that there is a problem, but whether this is the right way to deal with it, I am not sure," Zetler said yesterday. "Experience will tell. But there is a problem in the Galilee and people are challenging the political right of [Jewish] communities."

Unpleasant to be called Lieberman

Residents of the Misgav bloc are not used to being accused of racism, and dismay at being compared to Jewish settlers in the West Bank. "It's unpleasant and even offensive to wake up one morning and find that you've turned into [Avigdor] Lieberman when in fact it's the other way around," Alon Mayer, another resident of Manof, said, referring to the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu chairman who proposed that Israeli Arabs be required to take an oath of loyalty to the state.

Mayer pointed out that the right-wing party headed by Lieberman garnered only 2.5 percent of the town's vote in the last Knesset elections - far below the national average. Despite feeling on the
defensive, Mayer will not apologize for supporting the demand that applicants who seek to buy property in the communal settlement should adhere to the locals' basic cultural and political beliefs.

"When we decided to move to Manof, we sought a community that chose similar basic principles to our own, such as good education for children, culture, celebrating a Jewish communal lifestyle and
protecting the environment," a woman from Manof said. "We joined this community knowing it is founded on these values."

Some Misgav bloc residents accuse Arab rights groups such as Adalah, which would rather Israel be defined as a binational state than a Jewish one and championed the Zubeidats' cause in the courts, of intentionally causing provocations. "An Arab narrative exists that proclaims 'we were not conquered, we did not desert,'" said Danny Ivri, a resident of the Misgav bloc community Yodfat. "They say 'we were manipulated in various ways, such as through military rule and suppressing our development by placing Jewish communities between our own communities."

Misgav bloc residents also fear increased tensions that could result from Arabs and Jews living in close proximity, and point at the occasional spurts of sectarian violence that break out in nearby
non-Jewish towns between Muslims, Druze and Christians. "You can't impose a demographic mix on us that will recreate the sort of friction between Muslims, Christians and Druze that exists in Maghar, Peki'in and Rameh," Mayer said, referring to cities prone to periodic unrest. "High Court justices don't understand what it's like to live in a small community which was founded with great hardships, a community which is trying to hold on to a certain way of life."

Zionism's bond of blood

A few weeks ago a ceremony was held in Yuvalim, the largest town in the Misgav bloc, which exemplified its inveterate ties to the state of Israel. The regional council unveiled a promenade in memory of slain Israel Defense Forces soldier Arbel Reich, whose father was among Yuvalim's founders.

"It was an emotional ceremony," recalled regional council head Ron Shani. "This event was part of the community's narrative, part of its spirit, just like the fact that we educate our children to serve in combat units. That's what it's like here and we're proud of that.

"A resident who wishes to join Yuvalim will have to feel comfortable at such a ceremony, and if not he can go elsewhere, where he wouldn't be offended," he said. (Haaretz, June 5 2009)

So you educate your children to serve in death squads, to bomb refugee camps and to spend three years of their lives guarding concentration camps, and that is why your prime real estate, confiscated from Palestinians, that you secured from the state in order to further limit Palestinian presence on their land, should be off limits to the victims of your racism?

Remember, these are not the rabid, ugly, religious settlers of Tapuach and Kyriat Arba. These are the enlightened people who call themselves 'the peace camp' and support 'co-existence'. They are so enlightened they even cheer for an 'Arab' soccer team! I guess 'some of my best friends are Arab' is out of fashion. Now in Vogue among racists is 'but I cheer for an Arab soccer team.'

Remember this when you advocate relying on the Israeli 'peace camp' instead of boycott.

Tagging along with all the young Jews

It was the tags on this youtube clip that struck me before I even saw the disgusting video. See them here:

israel palestine zionism racism jews jewish muslim arabs barack obama douchebags frat boys jerusalem

And here's the vid:

How does Max Blumenthal take it with that grin of his? If he answered me I'd be thrilled. I do enjoy his work.

Revisiting the chosen people

Here's a rather naive article in yesterday's Ha'aretz by Shulamit Aloni about Israel's lurch from something acceptable to something unacceptable:

Not very long ago, during Rabbi Meir Kahane's racist rantings, the late writer and journalist Amos Elon gave me a copy of a letter Lord Rothschild sent to Herzl in August 1902. In the letter, Rothschild explains why he refuses to support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. He writes that he "should view with horror the establishment of a Jewish colony pure and simple; such a colony would be Imperium Imperio; it would be a Ghetto with the prejudice of the Ghetto; it would be a small petty Jewish state, orthodox and illiberal, excluding the Gentile and the Christian."

Nevertheless, and despite phenomena like Kahane, the hope prevailed here over the years that Rothschild's harsh vision would prove false

Really? Whose hope? Maybe it was false propaganda that prevailed.

Anyway, let's read on, well skip a bit and then read on:

Most regrettably and disgracefully, everything that Lord Rothschild predicted is coming to pass in our time. In our blackest dreams and in the hardest times since the struggle to establish the state, we never imagined that those who call themselves disciples of Ze'ev Jabotinsky would impose terror and fear here using deranged racist legislation. We never imagined that they would use the destruction of the court system to try to prevent any possibility of achieving social justice and a humane attitude. This is something essential in every democratic society toward every man, woman and child, irrespective of origin, race, religion and sex.

Ok, so what's brought this undemocratic situation on?

For 42 years we have been occupying, oppressing and stealing lands that are not ours. To be free in our land do we need to become thieving Cossacks, uprooters of trees, burners of fields and harassers of women, the elderly and the very young? "We have this land, we have it," goes the song, but what should have been said is "We have the power, we have it, we have the money, we have it, and we are allowed, we are," to starve an entire population, imprison it and annihilate it using air strikes, cluster bombs and white phosphorous. Because we are the lords of the land and God has chosen us to rule. For the shame of it.

Aha, there's the bit that grabbed my attention; the chosen people bit. And I wondered, would this have the two Davids crawling out of the woodwork howling hysterical protests?

But for Aloni it's the occupation which is the villain of the piece not the zionist doctrine of chosenness. But then, what's this:

"A unique people," wrote David Ben-Gurion. Alas, for that uniqueness. Instead of a Jewish and democratic state they have delivered us a Jewish state controlled by religious fanaticism, one that maintains the purity of the race. They have delivered a democracy in the most primitive sense - not the preservation of democratic values but rule by the demos, the populace that is dictating the transformation of Israel into a totalitarian ethnocracy.

I think Ben Gurion might have said that stuff way before the occupation but let's get back to blaming the occupation then we might persuade people to confine Jewish supremacy to most of Palestine instead of all of it:

Hooray for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - they are eradicating everything we built, everything we dreamed about and everything we fought for.

No they are not. They represent the logical outcome of precisely what zionists fought for: a state that legislates for Jewish chosenness.

Israel and Egypt murder black refugees together

An Egyptian security official says border police fatally shot an African migrant trying to cross into Israel on Tuesday. The official says police first fired a warning shot into the air as the man tried to get across the barbed wire border fence at dawn. When the migrant failed to stop, he was shot dead. The dead man did not have identification papers but was believed to be African. He was shot in the head, the sources said. The sources said a second man, a 20-year-old Eritrean, was shot in the back and was in a critical condition in a hospital in el-Arish in the north of Sinai peninsula.

An Egyptian security official says border police fatally shot an African migrant trying to cross into Israel on Tuesday. A routine Egyptian border patrol spotted the two men at dawn near the border with Israel and ordered them to stop, opening fire when they did not heed the warning, the sources added. Six African women were also arrested before they were able to reach the border fence.

Dozens of Africans have been killed by Egyptian guards in the past two years trying to get to Israel in search of jobs, drawing criticism from rights groups. However, the number of migrants killed at the border has dipped since last year, when at least 28 were killed. The latest incident is the second such case this year.

The killings on the border have been a concern in the past to the United States, which has expressed worries about rights issues in Egypt. U.S. President Barack Obama visits Egypt to deliver a speech to the Muslim world on Thursday. (Haaretz, June 2, 2009)

Let's recap.

• Egyptian police have rules of opening fire that includes shooting to kill at unarmed civilians trying to cross into Israel.
• In the last year and a half, 34 people lost their life this way.
• Israel has no complaints against these rules and the loss of life that results, despite the fact that the Egyptian police is effectively acting in these shootings as subcontractor for Israel.
• From unfathomable reasons, the dead people can be easily indentified as "African." Perhaps their skin color betrayed them but we wouldn't want to mention it.
• This open season on black African migrants and refugees, "causes concern." Not condemnation, not outrage, just "concern" in Washington. E.U. officials must be deeply envious.

Abbas doing his best

to satisfy the marching orders he received from Emperor Obama last week in Washington. And his best is killing Palestinians who refuse to take orders from Washington.

Palestinians medical sources reported on Sunday at dawn that six Palestinians were killed in Qalqilia, in the northern part of the West Bank, during clashes that took place between Palestinian security forces and a group of fighters of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

Three Palestinian security officers were killed on Sunday at dawn; two of them were identified as Shaher Abu Al Tayyib, Abdul-Rahman Yassin, both were members of the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, while the third is a security officer of the National Security forces.

Also, two members of the Al Qassam Brigades were killed after barricading themselves in a building during clashes with the security forces. They were identified as Samir Yassin and Mohammad Al Samman.

The owner of the building, Abdul-Nasser Al Basha, was also killed in the clashes.

The initial clashes took place after midnight as some members of the Al Qassam Brigades reportedly opened fire at security forces surrounding a building the fighters barricaded themselves in. (IMEMC)

In a really surreal twist, Mahmoud Abbas, reading from the IDF spokesperson's boilerplate press releases during the assault on Gaza, accused the victims of his U.S. trained security forces of "storing explosives in mosques."

“The security agencies will not allow anyone to endanger or risk the lives of innocent citizens, or to store weapons and explosives in the homes of citizens or mosques,” said Abbas. (PNN)

As Mondoweiss points out, this comes directly out of Emperor Obama's orders against reconciliation with hamas:

President Obama went out of his way in their joint press conference to remark that Abbas "has been under enormous pressure to bring about some sort of unity government and to negotiate with Hamas. And I am very impressed and appreciative of President Abbas' willingness to steadfastly insist that any unity government would have to recognize the principles that have been laid by the Quartet." (Mondoweiss)

The Obama administration follows in the imperial footsteps of its predecessor: bribe, repress, and murder; and if they resist, bribe, repress and murder some more. There is no other playbook.

Biden to Lebanon: how would like to be destroyed?

In a week or so, people in Lebanon go to the polls in an important elections that pits the parties that want to carry water for Washington against Hizbullah and its allies. Naturally, the U.S. has an opinion on how the people of Lebanon should vote; and they'd better listen or else...

Following the gross disniformation attempt against Hizbullah, courtesy of Der Spiegel, U.S. Vice President Biden visited Lebanon to lay down the law. (Here below you can see Bidden standing in front of a Korea War Howitzer, but I'm told the next shipment will also include battering rams and longbows.)

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday Washington would assess its aid to Lebanon depending on who won next month's election, but denied taking sides in a vote pitching a Western-backed coalition against Hezbollah.
...
"I urge those who would think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers," Biden added in a veiled reference to Hezbollah, which opposes U.S. efforts to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict.
...
"We will evaluate the shape of our assistance program based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates," Biden declared.

Hezbollah criticized Biden's visit, which followed one by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April, as meddling in Lebanon, and denounced U.S. support for Israel. (Reuters)

So, here are the choices:

If the elections goes to the Hizbullah, Washington is going to stop sending useless weapons to the Lebanese army (useful weapons it refuses to send anyway, as they might piss Israel off. Thus antiquated tanks, which can only realistically be used against refugee camps, are O.K., but anti-aircraft defense is verboten). Probably that would be followed by increasingly nasty rhetoric, calls for economic sanctions, pressure on banks to stop dealing with Lebanon, etc. Lebanon could find itself in the same situation as Iran and Syria. Eventually there would be another Israeli invasion.

If the elections goes to the pro-U.S. parties, Washington is going to funnel a lot of money to this government on condition that it uses the money to buy useless weapons and to create a corrput network of economic dependency and clientelism that would forever bind the top 1% of Lebanese society to the U.S. udder while letting the rest of the people sink ever deeper in poverty. Lebanon will become more and more like other U.S. client states, Egypt, Mexico, etc. However, given the existence of an armed population, the more likely outcome would be another civil war.

Not a pleasant choice.

I would expect the most likely impact of Biden's words would be to add a few more votes to Hizbullah. And that's a good thing.

Trying to shake Ken Loach

There's a letter in today's Independent condemning the sheer disingenuousness of Ken Loach's detractors, one in particular, over the demand that the Edinburgh Film Festival should return money (only £300) it got from the State of Israel:

Gary Synor's article lambasting Ken Loach (Opinion, 31 May) for his participation in the campaign to persuade the Edinburgh International Film Festival to return sponsorship money from the Israeli government is a grotesque misrepresentation of the facts, and a shameful negation of the plight of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel.

Perhaps Mr Synor may choose to ignore the plight of 4.5 million people who have the misfortune to be deemed inferior by a state he describes as a "modern democracy" but, thankfully, the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, ex-US President Jimmy Carter, the STUC, and increasing millions of others do not, evidenced in the growing support for an international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against what many regard as an apartheid state.

As for Mr Synor's assertion that "Hamas is more of a direct threat to Israelis that Saddam ever was to the UK", are we expected to believe that the three-week assault on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military in January, which killed 400 women and children, utilising white phosphorus shells against civilians, UN compounds and schools – an assault the UN and the Red Cross described as a war crime – was justified by the refusal of Hamas to recognise the state responsible for the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, the expropriation of 78 per cent of their land, the building and expansion of illegal settlements on the land occupied since 1967, and the imprisonment of 1.5 million humans for daring to exercise their democratic right to vote for a government of their choice?

Mr Synor joins the ranks of those who through history have tried to justify the suffering and slaughter of subject peoples in the name of democracy and human progress.

John Wight

Edinburgh

As it happens, the article was a lot worse than suggested in this letter. See it here.