Israel’s ‘Right To Exist’? The UN Legitimacy Myth

4 November, 2009 — Ann

Alan Hart does well to provide this historical corrective, excerpted from ‘Israel’s Right to Exist?‘

latuff-the-palestinian-right-to-exist.jpgAccording to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.

  • In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
  • Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.

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Moustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer on The Daily Show

29 October, 2009 — Ann

The full extended interview in two parts: its pretty light fare but a small yet significant development for US television. Anna Baltzer and Mustafa Barghouti both spoke well and pitched their messages perfectly. A few zionists in the audience had predictable responses, but the two or three disruptive petulant hasbarats were shown the door and far more in the audience were audibly supportive.  (Jon Stewart’s own corporate liberal hasbara was more irksome: for heaven’s sake, stop repeating the ‘wipe off the map’ canard and implying an equivalence between the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and Middle East Jews, amongst other things).

Part One (08:27)

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A Museum of Intolerance in Jerusalem

15 October, 2009 — Ann

Museum_of_Tolerance_JerusalemAn excellent address by Saree Makdisi who was in Australia recently as the 2009 recipient of the Adelaide-based Edward Said Memorial Lecture (there is also a US-based Edward Said Memorial lecture series). The second half of this 60 minute address is particularly worthwhile. The introduction by journalist Antony Loewenstein is brief but if you’d like to skip ahead, move the cursor on the audio bar to about the six minute mark.

Makdisi’s presentation is on the construction of architect’s Frank Gehry’s Museum of ‘Tolerance’ in Jerusalem and he notably talks about the kind of politics of double erasure its construction entails. On another level, it is also symptomatic and representative of the whole programme of israeli apartheid.

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Everything is OK

4 October, 2009 — Ann

A montage — thanks Dave. “Do you have permission to be here?” Funny and wonderfully subversive. Crossposted at PULSE.

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Posted in Civil liberties, Culture Jammers, Humor, Humour, Terror-blather, Video. 2 Comments »

Colonialist Cuisine. Warning: Does Not Freeze Well

10 September, 2009 — Ann

… and is liable to cause mass food poisoning and diplomatic indigestion. Khalil Bendib masterfully captures the utter fraud about the precondition of freezing illegal Israeli Jew-only outposts, an internationally recognized imperative that is being blatantly ignored by Israel in negotiations. Contra both to international law and the full weight of international community policy that sees them as a critical impediment to a just resolution, the hafrada regime continues to thumb its nose and build illegal housing on Palestinian land.

Here’s an idea for Mr Mitchell: tie the evacuation of existing post 1967 outposts to the threat of withdrawing hefty US annual aid to Israel. The US has leverage with the apartheid state that it could start using were it not for the undue influence of the Lobby.
Bendib_9-6-Colonial-Cuisine

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The Matrix of Control: from Israel to the World

8 September, 2009 — Ann

CCTV manAn interesting interview with the international coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) Jimmy Johnson speaking about the extension of Israel’s matrix of control internationally, from Palestine outward. This constitutes another reason why the liberation of Palestine is an international struggle, important both in its own right and because the orwellian-titled ‘pacification industry’ boomerangs back to affect us all, from the erosion of civil rights to increased surveillance. As others like Naomi Klein have also noted, the experimental weapons and mechanisms of domination that Israel uses against the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are being exported around the world. Interview run time is 26 minutes (hat tip to AFP).

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Scenes from the US healthcare debate

16 August, 2009 — peoplesgeography.com

bagley

Thanks Ressentiment

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Israeli policy as evil stupidity: Yeshayahu Leibowitz quotables

16 August, 2009 — Ann

Yeshayahu Leibowitz class

Cited in a recent Ha’aretz piece about the decline of the israeli left, the late academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz is described as remarking that he is not sure whether Israel’s policies since 1967 are evil stupidity or stupidly evil. In another, verbatim citation, Leibowitz is quoted as having said, more resolutely, in 1990: “Everything Israel has done, and I emphasize everything, in the past 23 years is either evil stupidity or stupidly evil.“

Along with a number of other academics such as Ilan Pappe and Neve Gordon, journalists such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, and other critics of conscience such as David Grossman, it is good to see instances of intellectuals fulfilling their proper role of speaking up. In Liebowitz’s case, he is not as well known outside Israel. In 1969 he reportedly began describing the “inevitable Nazification” of Israeli society. Further, by the time of the (first major, 1982) Lebanon War, he became known for using the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Israeli army. He also called for soldiers to refuse to serve in the IOF.

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Music, The New York Times and the politics of a Palestinian state

15 July, 2009 — Belén Fernández
An Israeli leaflet dropped on Lebanon in 2006 depicts Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a snake being charmed by the Syrian and Iranian presidents, and the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. (Zena)

An Israeli leaflet dropped on Lebanon in 2006 depicts Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a snake being charmed by the Syrian and Iranian presidents, and the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. (Zena)

Belén Fernández, The Electronic Intifada, 14 July 2009

On 31 May and 1 June of this year, two articles by culture reporter Daniel J. Wakin appeared on the The New York Times website: “Minuets, Sonatas and Politics in the West Bank,” and “Amid West Bank’s Turmoil, the Pull of Strings.” It is clear before we even begin reading that we are going to be indebted to Wakin for providing us with a romantic filter through which to view an otherwise sobering subject, just as we might be indebted to someone for writing about the athletic pursuits of disabled persons or about clandestine wine tasting groups under the Taliban.

The heroine of the first article is 16-year-old Dalia Moukarker from Beit Jala near Bethlehem, whom Wakin describes as “one of a new generation of Palestinians who have been swept up in a rising tide of interest in Western classical music in the last several years here in the Palestinian territories, but especially the West Bank.” Wakin does not explain why Gaza has been behind the “rising tide,” although it may have something to do with the ban on importing musical instruments.

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15th anniversary of AMIA bombing to be observed Friday, barring interference by IranAir

14 July, 2009 — Belén Fernández
Ubiquitous poster in Buenos Aires honoring AMIA bombing (Photo by Linda Fernández)

Ubiquitous poster in Buenos Aires honoring AMIA bombing (Photo by Linda Fernández)

Walking down Avenida Figueroa Alcorta in Buenos Aires the other day, I came across a succession of posters advertising “la penetración iraní en América latina” and featuring Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clasping hands. When I then came across the Iranian embassy and a monument in a park labeled “Plaza Irán,” as well, I became momentarily convinced that the posters might have a point.

Some confusion arose from the date on the monument, May 12, 1965, which placed its origins in an archaeological period of penetración estadounidense in Iran. Things slowly began to make more sense, however, as I continued walking and noted that the Chávez-Ahmadinejad posters were interspersed with posters featuring an unoccupied bed with white sheets and the proclamation: “85 ‘HASTA LUEGO’ CONVERTIDOS EN ‘HASTA SIEMPRE” [“85 goodbyes to be remembered forever”], which I first assumed was a tribute to Argentine swine flu fatalities.

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