It is good to see a serious, fair and interesting profile of Reverend Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers’ PBS Journal program. Moyers looks at the person and his politics, discussing Obama, history, theology, race and his faith. I found it thoughtful and inspiring—well worth your time.

See also:

• Rev Wright’s electric address to the National Press Club in Washington on Monday 28th April — transcript here, and his prior NAACP address in Detroit on the 27th April — transcript here.
• The Audacity of Hope sermon mp3
  

Also check out Monte Asbury’s posts Priest stands up to reporter on Jeremiah Wright (video clip below, with thanks to 99 and Homey) and Is Jeremiah Wright mostly right? The video clip below is also available to listen to as an mp3 (55 mins):

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part III: the CIA and the Pentagon weigh in

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“Those bastards [the Israeli military] know the rules and what the US Arms Export Control Act requires! The CBU 58’s are decades out of date! We [the US] have not even had them in our weapons inventory since we last used them in 1991 during Desert Storm. They are now complete junk and I am amazed that any of them after 35 years even detonated. By using them this time in Lebanon, Israel was illegally dropping landmines.”

–Pentagon official commenting on Israel’s use of American weapons against civilians in Lebanon during the July 2006 war (chap. II, The Price We Pay)

Ridicule of Israel’s 2006 performance by US Intelligence and Military agencies creates pressure for the White House to engage with Hezbollah

It has been a fact that, since at least 1982, perhaps the harshest and most frustrated American critics of Israel are those who work in Langley, Virginia, at CIA Headquarters and especially those across the 14th Street Bridge from the White House, on the banks of the Potomac River, who work at the Pentagon. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part II: Why the Bush administration wants to negotiate now with Hezbollah

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“These fools do not learn from their past mistakes. When they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody. Had they released them when they left Lebanon, there would not now be a ‘prisoner issue’ between Lebanon and the enemy. They opened the door for us.”
– Hassan Nasrallah, January 2004, during a welcome home ceremony for Lebanese and Arab detainees as a result of a Hezbollah-Israel swap.

Creating the proper atmosphere to do ‘business’

As discussed below, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the Bush administration is prepared to concede that Hezbollah keep its weapons. Even though it encourages its marionettes to foment this issue, and does so itself publicly, the Bush Administration knows that Hezbollah is not going to disarm until the Question of Palestine is settled to the satisfaction of the Palestinians. Yet it feels that focusing on Hezbollah’s militia is still a good pre-negotiation bargaining chip. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part I: Historical context and current posturing

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“The Bush administration parking a flotilla from its US 6th fleet off the coast of Lebanon was made necessary, it claims, to demonstrate Washington’s ‘commitment to stability in the region’. This provocation, aimed at Hezbollah and also Syria, is the equivalent of a Sicilian fish wrapped in newspaper with a white rose—left on a doorstep: “This is business. It is not personal. Here is an offer you cannot refuse“.

– Italian officer seconded to UNIFIL outside his Tebnine HQ, South Lebanon

Background to the Offer: the writing on the wall

Recent US back channel feelers to Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah’s decision makers are sometimes present, reflect US calculations that given current trends in the Middle East, Hezbollah will play a major regional role.

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the efforts to date have run tepid and less ‘qualitative’ than informal Iran-USA contacts. US diplomat Thomas Pickering has revealed that he has been a participant in secret Iran-US ‘back channel’ discussions for the past five years. The subjects discussed include Iran’s nuclear program, the broader relationship between the two and US relations with Hezbollah. Other participants include former US diplomat William Luers and MIT nuclear expert Jim Walsh. While “unofficial”, the discussions, organized by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the UN Association of the USA, are thought to be useful.

Dismissive of Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s pledge to “drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon”, serious US officials want to engage the Lebanese Resistance partly because they are concerned with Israel remaining a Jewish state in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of new book Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi? (When and How Were the Jewish People Invented?; Resling, in Hebrew) is sure to provoke some lively debate. In this interview and piece by Ofri Ilani (Shattering a ‘national mythology’, Haaretz), Sand offers a clear-eyed advocacy for the one-state solution and rallies against policies he warns will result in a ‘Kosovo in the Galilee’.

“From the perspective of Zionism,” he posits, “this country does not belong to its citizens, but rather to the Jewish people. I recognize one definition of a nation: a group of people that wants to live in sovereignty over itself. But most of the Jews in the world have no desire to live in the State of Israel, even though nothing is preventing them from doing so. Therefore, they cannot be seen as a nation.”

Significantly, Sand also reaches back into antiquity to argue that exile was a myth, and that the present-day Palestinians are far more likely the descendants of the ancient Semitic people in Judea/ Canaan than the current predominantly Khazarian-origin Ashkenazi populace to which he himself belongs. This is a fascinating read and one hopes his book will be translated and made available in English. Read the rest of this entry »

Alan Ramsey provides an interesting write-up of Wednesday’s parliamentary motion ‘commemorating’ Israel (Blinkers off for the other side of story, SMH). “The whole affair”, he writes, “carefully orchestrated, carefully bi-partisan, lasted just 15 minutes.” Significantly, dissent came not just from a split Labor Party on this issue (most notably from MP Julie Irwin, pictured right, and others who absented themselves during the motion), but also came from the Opposition ranks, with Liberal (right-of centre party in Australia) MP Sussan Ley, pictured left, the only MP to speak up for the Palestinian people in Federal Parliament in this session. The motion was carried on voices and not put to a vote. Ramsey writes:

At 11.58am on Wednesday one half of the Australian Parliament “celebrated” the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves. Labor’s Kevin Rudd, as the host, did not. He spoke for eight minutes. “Celebrate” was the word Rudd used to begin his remarks. “Congratulations” was the word he used to end them. The Liberals’ Brendan Nelson spoke for seven minutes in supporting the Prime Minister. He concluded: “Shabat shalom forever.”

Nobody else spoke. The whole affair, carefully orchestrated, carefully bi-partisan, lasted just 15 minutes. The press gallery was almost empty. Read the rest of this entry »

ADDED: Thoughtful comments from friends and response from Norman, with thanks

I have a bone to pick with Norman Finkelstein, whose scholarship and stances in the past I have expressly supported. He comes out swinging in an interview on Lebanese TV last month, and I can only agree with the first half of the interview. While no doubt the Israeli neocons who own MEMRI will latch on to and inflate statements such as ‘Israel has to suffer a defeat’, I was more bemused with his expression of singular values in “there is no alternative” to military resistance. Read the rest of this entry »

Ten minute segment from Roy’s documentary ‘We’, in which Roy’s reading of her text is set to video footage.

What really leapt out in this Guardian piece from Geoffrey Robertson is that the English Fabian Socialists, almost always looked up to by many of us in the labour movement and culturally lionised, were eugenicists who advocated the assimilation or “humane eradication” of what they saw as “lesser races”. It is surprising that George Bernard Shaw, who I otherwise quite like as a playwright and political commentator from that era, is among this group that includes Sydney and Beatrice Webb, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence and others. Even making allowances for the prevalent modes of thought of the time in which they lived, this is a revelation. As late as 1934, a British Department of Health report recommended compulsory sterilisation of the “feeble-minded’, as Robertson points out. Ironically, he adds that it was opposition from Labour MPs that quashed the recommendation, “who feared that working-class people would be the real victims of the Fabian intelligentsia.” Read the rest of this entry »

On the 13th of March, at 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST), Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivers the long awaited public apology to our indigenous Australians, and in particular the Stolen Generation as a central part of reconciliation with Australia’s past. This welcome landmark comes after his Prime Ministerial predecessor, John Howard, expressed regret but refused to say the word sorry. This simple yet powerful act means so much to indigenous Australians, traumatised by being stolen from their parents and for a whole raft of historical injustices. While there is a long way to go, with possible compensation, social indicators and federal intervention in remote central Australian Aboriginal communities still weighty issues, this is a good start.

It is fitting that the famous “If you have come to help me …” quote highlighted below is from an Australian Aboriginal woman, Lila Watson, who wishes it to be attributed collectively.

The PM tabled and subsequently delivered the following text of the apology in Parliament.

RESOURCES: Audio, video and transcript (.pdf here) of speech (just after the fold) Read the rest of this entry »

A short and succinct letter to the editor in today’s Sydney Morning Herald from Zaid Khan puts things into perspective:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Zaid Khan

What is to be done? Chances are that if you reading this, you already have a good grasp of what is happening. Also avail yourself to first hand accounts from residents in Gaza, such as Tabula Gaza, Raising Yousef–A Mother From Gaza and Dr Mona El Farra’s blog. Spread the word and discuss it with people who may not even know all this is happening or who may uncritically accept the Israeli neocon worldview propagated in some of the major media outlets. Israel is committing slow genocide and ethnic cleansing. A simple yet powerful letter like the one above can ricochet around the world.

Here are some other ways you can help: Read the rest of this entry »

Though choosing and upholding a single piece from all of last year would be too difficult from such a fertile field of good writing, I recently revisited this short article penned by author, historian and travel writer William Dalrymple in October, ‘A lesson in humility for the smug West’, one of my picks from 2007. This piece represents one of the central themes and messages of his work, that of fruitful cross-fertilisation and interdependency between ‘civilisations.’

A list of selected articles from Dalrymple is appended.

A lesson in humility for the smug West

Many of the western values we think of as superior came from the East and our blind arrogance hurts our standing in the world

William Dalrymple | The Times | 14 October 2007

About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the ruins of the Mughal capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of the 16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as philosophers, mystics and holy men of different faiths debated the merits of their different beliefs in what is the earliest known experiment in formal inter-religious dialogue.

Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well as Sufi), Hindus (followers of Shiva and Vishnu as well as Hindu atheists), Christians, Jains, Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss where they differed and how they could live together. Read the rest of this entry »

A very Happy New Year to you and yours. May 2008 be a good one for you personally and a more peaceful one for the world. We remember that these are sometimes quite politically grim times for a good slice of humanity.

Yet even in the axial Israel-Palestine conflict, most obviously a key focus here, there have been promising glimmers of action and initiatives throughout 2007. Mazin Qumsiyeh has assiduously listed many of them in his excellent mailing list newsletter (see below, after the fold, for a summary).*

More locally in Australia, John Howard was ousted both from government and from his own seat, and David Hicks has finally been released from the Guantanamo Bay gulag, and has just finished serving the remainder of his sentence in his home town. With some of the mainstream media here reporting on this atrociously, it bears remembering that there is absolutely no evidence that David Hicks actually committed any crime whatsoever. He admitted to the charge of “supporting terrorism” as the linchpin of a plea bargain, after years of effort to secure his release. Let’s hope the man is let be to recover something of his life, and all best wishes to him and his courageous father, Terry.

Some reminders of the unstoppable force of the human spirit might be a fitting last post for 2007. This Week in Peace History, published by Carl Bunin and edited by Al Frank, is an interesting and valuable compendium to which you can sign up to receive by email. It is designed to remind us that our agency counts, and to appreciate that we are indeed “part of a rich history advocating peace and social justice.” Read the rest of this entry »

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
Whose Mission is it fulfilling?

Franklin Lamb
UN Headquarters
Naquora, Lebanon

Ever since one of this student’s favorite Professors, Dr. Ruth Widmeyer, an accomplished and rare beauty still, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in Soviet Studies from Harvard nearly a half century ago, announced to our Political Science class at Portland State University that our class would be representing France at the Model United Nations Session in San Diego, Lamb was smitten: both with Professor Widmeyer and with the United Nations.

Straight out of high school, rarely having taken a step out of Clackamas County, Oregon, and never having been on an airplane or stayed in a hotel, the prospect of traveling more than 1,300 miles south to compete against the likes of Stanford and UCLA was exciting. Especially for a hayseed (city kids called us hicks in those days) whose main life achievements were a record-demolishing 6 years of perfect attendance at St. John’s Episcopal Church Sunday school and another record (at that time) at Milwaukie Union High School for a basketball free throw percentage of 89%. (I will never understand why Shaquille O’Neal can’t do better than he does at the foul line! Shaq! Habibee! Wear a blindfold for goodness sake and your percentage will surely improve!)

Responding to Professor Widmeyer’s Germanic discipline, our delegation took our work seriously. Between trips to the San Diego Zoo, the swimming pool at our El Cortez Hotel, and side trips to San Diego’s nearby sister city, Tijuana, Mexico, “to buy fresh street made Tacos”, PSU prevailed and we won the award for outstanding Model UN Delegation that year.

When we returned to Campus some of us were surprised by the reaction of the Dean of Students who graciously invited us to his office. We thought perhaps some sort of accolade might be waiting for us but all the Dean cared about was the fact that three of our delegation returned to Portland from the Model UN Session and Tijuana with gonorrhea! Read the rest of this entry »