Wherein the menu for terrorist acts sounds a lot like the prescription for fascism. A James Pence video (1:25). H/T Miche.

Read the rest of this entry »

Annie Leonard’s simplified, straightforward 21 minute video on the true cost of our consumer products, The Story of Stuff (see dedicated website for a synopsis and more info).

Once you get used to the “gee, like, you know” teen-like tone and the preachiness about it all not being peachiness, this is a worthwhile video suitable for all ages, with a stronger second half.

Sonja Karkar is an Australian Palestinian advocate and founder of the Melbourne-based Women for Palestine. Her pieces regularly appear in the Electronic Intifada, Z-Net, Counterpunch and local mailing lists.

Another worthwhile read, I post this in honour of the memory of all the victims of that terrible episode, and all those affected by it; that is the least we in the alternative press and blogosphere can do.

As Karkar writes, citing Robert Fisk fifteen years after the massacre,

“Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila.”

Warning: the following article depicts the horror of a massacre and should be read by mature readers — details of the atrocity appear over the jump.

Highly recommended: Franklin Lamb’s Letter to Janet is a must-read if you haven’t already done so, also disseminated widely.

Sabra And Shatila

On massacres, atrocities and holocausts

by Sonja Karkar

September 16, 2007
Women for Palestine

The Massacre

It happened twenty-five years ago – 16 September 1982. A massacre so awful that people who know about it cannot forget it. The photos are gruesome reminders – charred, decapitated, indecently violated corpses, the smell of rotting flesh, still as foul to those who remember it as when they were recoiling from all those years ago. For the victims and the handful of survivors, it was a 36-hour holocaust without mercy. It was deliberate, it was planned and it was overseen. But to this day, the killers have gone unpunished.

Sabra and Shatila – two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – were the theatres for this staged slaughter. The former is no longer there and the other is a ghostly and ghastly reminder of man’s inhumanity to men, women and children - more specifically, Israel’s inhumanity, the inhumanity of the people who did Israel’s bidding and the world’s inhumanity for pretending it was of no consequence. There were international witnesses - doctors, nurses, journalists - who saw the macabre scenes and have tried to tell the world in vain ever since.

Read the rest of this entry »

Internal blatant discrimination against Israeli Arabs who make up a fifth of the population is well known and documented, as is the brutal and longest running occupation in modern times of Palestinian territories by Israel.

Racism against its “own” — olive-skinned Jews indigenous to the Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and not the politically dominant Ashkenazi Jews who originated from Europe, is less documented but endemic to Israeli society. Note that while the term Sephardi Jew originally described Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, in common usage it now denotes all non-Ashkenazi Jews.

Y-Net (2 Sept) reports that a Haredi (orthodox Jewish) Talmud Torah school has recently rejected a ‘Sephardi’ child on racial/ ethnic grounds, with the school principal branding the child’s part Sephardi heritage a ’stain’ in his genealogy.

I am posting this in part because it is under-reported in the mainstream press, and also because it so well illustrates Hannah Arendt’s observation (The Origins of Totalitaranism) that “… though tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.”

Zvi Alush writes:

Anyone who thinks that racist rules are a thing of the past is wrong, according to the mother of a four-and-a-half year old child who was rejected from a Talmud Torah school because of his grandfather’s ethnicity.

“They are alive and kicking in all their ugliness in Ashkenazi haredi educational institutions,” the mother said.

The child was denied admission to a Talmud Torah school in Beit Shemesh because of what its principal called a “stain” in his genealogy.

“Tell the child’s dear father that although he himself is completely Ashkenazi, his wife’s father is Sephardic, and we therefore cannot accept his son into our institution. We have to maintain a certain standard,” the principal said.

The child’s mother made several attempts to change the principal’s mind, to no avail.

“I begged the principal. I explained that my child is truly Ashkenazi and looks exactly like his father. Our son also speaks Yiddish, but nothing helped,” the mother said. “They explained to a friend of ours that they didn’t want to ruin their Talmud Torah with ‘damaged goods’.” Read the rest of this entry »

John Pilger’s latest film, The War on Democracy (R/T 93 minutes) is an interesting and important excursion into the Latin American hemisphere and US foreign policy towards its southern neighbours. It starts with Venezuela and includes a look at Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador and more, and addresses the politics at the human level, never shirking the grim details about torture, the US School of the Americas, and mass suffering inflicted as a result of US government policy.

One of many highlights is in the opening section that focuses on Venezuela is the interview with Chavez that begins at the 5 minute mark. We also discover that people’s constitutional rights are remarkably printed on supermarket packets to raise awareness, and that there is free health care — three vignettes just within the first 15 minutes.

Also check out Pilger’s latest article Israel: an important marker has been passed (New Statesman, 23 Aug).

UPDATED: many thanks to Jenny Tonge for kindly responding to a query about full Hansard transcript availability which has allowed me to feature more of her address. Parliamentary debate transcripts at both the House of Commons and House of Lords can be found on the Hansard link here by date and member name.

Liberal-Democrat peer Jenny Tonge spoke out for justice in Palestine in a House of Lords speech last month, predictably earning the ire of Israel-apologists (see J-Post)

Here’s an excerpt of her speech:

The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a third-world country. The statistics are there for all to see. If noble Lords do not believe me or any of the other speakers, the Select Committee for International Development in the other place produced a good report this year. I hope that noble Lords will read it. It tells of injustice—injustice to Palestinians.

The new Government talks of rebuilding the economy in Palestine and of getting the Palestinians back to work, which is very welcome. But how will they do that with road blocks, checkpoints and Bantustans divided by settler-only roads? How can an economy work in this situation?

Even education is being destroyed as children are terrorised by raids on their schools. Exams in Nablus, for example, were disrupted only last week by the IDF. An unskilled and illiterate generation will emerge, capable of very little except low-wage labour. The economy cannot be rebuilt unless Israel changes its policies.

Therefore, the problem remains—how do we persuade Israel to change? We want Israel to be a secure and prosperous state—and I say that sincerely. How can anyone in Israel believe that the present situation will give them what they want, long-term security. I am not anti-Semitic, but I am appalled by the racist, apartheid state of Israel. I use the word “apartheid” in its literal sense—it means separation—because that is what is going on.

Policies of the western countries towards Israel must change. Israel must be made to understand. We must consider trade sanctions and boycotts, if necessary, to make that country obey international law. The present situation is a disaster for Palestinians. It is a disaster for Israel. It is a disaster for the whole world. It has to change.

Thank you, Jenny Tonge. Hope you are holding up well with the usual character smears and pathetic denigration this kind of speaking truth to power elicits from the Likudnik ideologues. Of course, unlike them, Dr Tonge has actually been to Gaza and seen conditions for herself. Dr Tonge, who cites her proudest achievement in parliament since 2001 as “highlighting the plight of the Palestinians under occupation by Israel”, is a treasure.

German peace movement spurns settlement products

In other positive developments, Ha’aretz reports that Germans have protested the sale of food from West Bank settlements. Read the rest of this entry »

A mural on the apartheid wall imposed by Israel, courtesy http://bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com

Articles of interest

• Sami Awad reports on the latest non-violent actions in Bil’in in “…then they fight you, then you win…”:

As the nonviolent protests and demonstrations against the Apartheid wall continue to gain momentum and strength in the Palestinian community in general and in villages in particular we are seeing even greater violent response and threat by the Israeli army. This is not new, in villages like Bil’in, the army has for two years responded to almost every nonviolent action with appalling violence.

As I have witnessed these actions grow, I remember the famous quote by Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

• Ori Nur writes that in part as a result of its participation in illegal settlements, Heftzibah Construction, one of Israel’s largest contractors and a chief builder of West Bank settlements, is on the brink of bankruptcy - (Settlements are a risky investment, Common Ground News, 17 August 2007):

WASHINGTON - When West Bank settlers recently launched an ambitious campaign to sell homes in settlements to American Jews, Peace Now warned that investing in real estate across the Green Line was not only politically and morally wrong but also financially risky.

Little did we know that this real estate twilight zone would play a role in bringing Heftzibah Construction, one of Israel’s largest contractors and a chief builder of West Bank settlements, to the brink of bankruptcy.

Although the financial collapse of Heftzibah was due not only to its illegal building on privately owned Palestinian land, its story should serve as a red flag for anyone considering a real estate deal in a West Bank settlement. Ask the 430 fervently Orthodox families that paid Heftzibah $100,000 each for small apartments in the settlement of Modi’in-Illit. These homeowners are barred by court order from occupying their homes because Heftzibah built some of them on private Palestinian land. Read the rest of this entry »

Produced last year by Jewish Conscience, this video features a variety of Jewish voices speaking out.

Meanwhile -

Amira Hass reports that Gaza residents tell of demeaning practices by Shin Bet; and the WaPo reports that Patrick Syring, a State Dept employee, is facing charges over threats and slander against the Arab-American Institute.

If Not Now, When?

R/T 14 minues; H/T: Haitham Sabbah

A metaphysical saying has it that “while the soul slumbers, God speaks to us in numbers”. One can only hope seeing the raw magnitude of some of these numbers really will help more souls to awaken to the folly of this war and occupation.

Drawn from a variety of sources, this collection of facts-by-numbers was put together by Tom Engelhardt (Tomdispatch.com, 16 August), who also offers some cogent analysis on the use of language. I’ve added the visuals.

All-time Highs in Iraq: Escalation by the Numbers

Someday, we will undoubtedly discover that, in the term “surge” — as in the President’s “surge” plan (or “new way forward”) announced to the nation in January — was the urge to avoid the language (and experience) of the Vietnam era. As there were to be no “body bags” (or cameras to film them as the dead came home), as there were to be no “body counts” (”We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team” was the way the President put it), as there were to be no “quagmires,” nor the need to search for that “light at the end of the tunnel,” so, surely, there were to be no “escalations.”

The escalations of the Vietnam era, which left more than 500,000 American soldiers and vast bases and massive air and naval power in and around Vietnam (Laos, and Cambodia), had been thoroughly discredited. Each intensification in the delivery of troops, or simply in ever-widening bombing campaigns, led only to more misery and death for the Vietnamese and disaster for the U.S. And yet, not surprisingly, the American experience in Iraq — another attempted occupation of a foreign country and culture — has been like a heat-seeking missile heading for the still-burning American memories of Vietnam.

As historian Marilyn Young noted in early April 2003 with the invasion of Iraq barely underway: “In less then two weeks, a 30 year old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds.” By August 2003, the Bush administration, of course, expected that only perhaps 30,000 American troops would be left in Iraq, garrisoned on vast “enduring” bases in a pacified country. So, in a sense, it’s been a surge-a-thon ever since. By now, it’s beyond time to call the President’s “new way forward” by its Vietnamese equivalent. Admittedly, a “surge” does sound more comforting, less aggressive, less long-lasting, and somehow less harmful than an “escalation,” but the fact is that we are six months into the newest escalation of American power in Iraq. It has deposited all-time high numbers of troops there as well, undoubtedly, as more planes and firepower in and around that country than at any moment since the invasion of 2003. Naturally enough, other “all-time highs” of the grimmest sort follow.

This September, General David Petraeus, our escalation commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, our escalation ambassador there, will present their “progress report” to Congress. (”Progress” was another word much favored in American official pronouncements of the Vietnam era.) The very name tells you more or less what to expect. The report has already been downgraded to a “snapshot” of an ongoing set of operations, which shouldn’t be truly judged or seriously assessed until at least this November, or perhaps early 2008, or …

With that in mind, here is the second Tomdispatch “by the numbers” report on Iraq. Consider it an attempt to put the Iraqi quagmire-cum-nightmare — two classic Vietnam-era words — in perspective.

Few numbers out of Iraq can be trusted. Counting accurately amid widespread disruption, mayhem, and bloodshed, under a failing occupation, in a land essentially lacking a central government, in a U.S. media landscape still dizzy from the endless spin of the Bush administration and its military commanders is probably next to impossible. But however approximate the figures that follow, they still offer an all-too-vivid picture of what the President’s much-desired invasion let loose. No country could suffer such uprooting, destruction, death, loss, and deprivation, yet remain collectively sane.

American civilian and military officials now talk about staying in Iraq through 2008, or 2009, or into the next decade, or for undefined but lengthening periods of time. And yet Iraq (by the numbers) has devolved month by month, year by year, for four-plus years. There was never any reason to believe that the latest escalation — or any future escalation, whatever it might be called, and whether accomplished via the U.S. military or by a growing shadow army of guns-for-hire employed by private-security firms — could be capable of anything but hurrying the pace of that devolution. So imagine what Iraq-by-the-numbers will be like in 2008 or 2009, given the clear determination of the Bush administration’s “strategic thinkers” to garrison that country into the distant future.

Here, then, is escalation in Iraq by the numbers — almost all of them continue to “surge” — as of mid-August 2008:

• Number of American troops stationed in Iraq: 162,000 (plus at least several thousand government employees), an all-time high.
• Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of “private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings,” according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Brook imaginatively writes about the discovery of a new element: Capitalisium -

Capitalisium is a very volatile, dynamic, and toxic element, containing 1 positron, 1 neutron, and 1 huge electron along with boards of electrons, various vice electrons, hundreds of executive electrons, thousands of mid-level electrons, and millions of satellite electrons, and it appears to be growing over time, therefore always increasing its already heavy atomic weight. In spite of its constant growth, Capitalisium’s nucleus is clearly on the right, yet the element is remarkably self-centered.

… Capitalisium is way larger than any other element, indeed possibly larger than all others combined, and it constantly seeks to incorporate or otherwise use the other elements to power itself. Indeed, about half the world’s power is already stored up in a mere 2% of elements — which happens to be mostly Capitalisium. To accomplish this, Capitalisium seems to use a vast and complex network of proleterions and peons, overseen by bossons, greedons, scamons, and other exploitatrons, all of which are filtered through mass marketrons. This process tends to create a small albeit caustic class of free market radicals, which spread globally and are highly corrosive to Democracium (Dm).

While consuming the energy of other elements, Capitalisium produces some necessities, but also a tremendous amount of junk and waste, which often mimic the look of necessities. Capitalisium also emits massive and unsustainable quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), the major greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, which may be the market’s biggest externality. Read the rest of this entry »

These clips are from Al Jazeera a couple of weeks ago on the 27th July (H/T Norman Finkelstein), and a timely marker of the one year anniversary of Israeli government savagery in attacking Lebanon for 34 senseless days, killing 1200 Lebanese, mostly civilians. Israeli casualties were about a sixth of that and were mostly combatants.

Part One (8.34)

Part Two (13.06) here

Do petitions matter? Do they help to effect social progress? In this 2 minute video Amnesty answer with a resolute (perhaps romanticised to some) yes.

We do well to recall that Martin Luther’s 95 Theses apocryphally nailed to the church door of Wittenburg in 1517 practically launched the Reformation, and petitions and pamphlets have had an important effect in countless other events in history. Affixing our signatures to an important statement is often symbolic, but symbols can be powerful too. Signing a petition may not be a substitute for the full spectrum of actions we can take, but it can be a powerful start.

Hat-tip to Ben Heine, and like Steve, I am including a petition to Richard Silverstein’s petition on the first reading of the Israeli Knesset’s profoundly discriminatory Jewish National Fund (JNF) bill. It is encouraging to see some prominent Israelis speaking up against this possible further legislating of apartheid (see, for example, Yossi Paritzky, Our Apartheid State in Y-Net).

ADDENDUM: See also Richard Silverstein’s The ‘Right’ to Discriminate in Guardian’s CIF.

The petition reads:

We the undersigned express our profound disapproval and sorrow at the Israeli Knesset’s recent passage, on first reading, of the Jewish National Fund bill. The bill would prohibit Israel’s Arab citizens from leasing land owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and managed by the Israeli Land Authority (which administers 93% of Israel’s land). The Israel High Court had earlier ruled that the ILA cannot discriminate against Arabs in leasing such land. This new legislation is an attempt to circumvent that ruling.

We applaud the High Court for putting an end to a discriminatory practice that should never have existed within a democratic state. We also applaud the Israeli MK’s, Jewish and Arab that voted against the amendment. If Israel is to be truly democratic, all its citizens must have the right to lease land held in trust by the government of Israel. Israel must not settle for anything less.

We call upon to the Knesset to defeat the amendment when it comes up for its next reading and to embrace values of equality and tolerance for all its citizens.

If you would like to sign, click HERE

On a related note, IHT reports on a small positive development in a significant number of US evangelical leaders stepping forward to voice support for Palestinian rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Avigail Abarbanel is a psychotherapist and former Israeli resident who left Israel for Australia in 1991. In The Israeli Police State, Abarbanel writes a revealing piece on the psychologically abusive and maliciously intimidatory tactics employed by the Israeli state even for people who simply want to leave; in this case, herself. Excerpted below; read in full at The Electronic Intifada (9 July 2007):

Up until the army found out that we were leaving, my husband as a career officer and myself as the “wife of,” were treated with great respect in Israeli society and in the military. We didn’t just belong, we had an honored place. The choice of a female sergeant was meant to humiliate him (I mean no offense to females but this is the culture in the Israeli military). Whoever dreamed up this intimidation attempt wanted to show my ex that his rank and status meant little if he was choosing the “wrong” path. We were angry but mostly shocked that he could be treated like this just because we wanted to leave Israel. It’s one thing to encounter the disapproval of friends and relatives in ordinary conversations. It’s quite another to be the subject of a menacing questioning by the MP. Our decision to leave apparently placed us in a new position in society, outside that comfortable mainstream. When we finally left at the end of ‘91 we did so with a bitter taste in our mouths having seen a glimpse of an Israel we didn’t know.

Ask any Palestinian and they will tell you much worse stories — frankly, there is no comparison. Palestinians cannot help but be seen as outsiders, whether they are citizens of Israel or whether they are refugees in the Occupied Territories, whether they are children or adults, male or female. All Palestinians live under constant military and police surveillance. They experience nothing of the mythical Israeli democracy. “Israeli democracy” is something reserved only for the privileged and mostly ignorant elite, of which I was also a member, until I decided to leave. Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous.

The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything. It is arbitrary and it can happen to anyone. This is a far worse version of the two incidents I described above but the basic principles are the same.

In a regime like that you don’t have to actually do anything wrong to receive this treatment. This is because it is not only designed to catch people who break the law, it is designed to be a kind of a warning, a hinted threat. It’s there to flaunt state power, show people how small and weak they are compared with the mighty state, and offer a taste of what would happen to them if they even think to go against it. In the case of the Palestinians such tactics are also designed to make daily life unbearable in order to break their spirit and intimidate them into leaving. After all, what Israel really wants is all the land but without the people, something that so many in the West still refuse to recognize.

Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy. Mainstream Israelis live in a fictional bubble that separates them from reality. If there is a democracy there, only this select group enjoys it — just like the conformist white population in old South Africa. Supporting Israel now is the same as claiming that South Africa under apartheid was an acceptable democracy. It also means abandoning the Palestinians, just like the world abandoned black South Africans (and white dissidents) for 45 long years.

Some time-pressed recent links I found of interest rather than write-up(s) as I take some time out.

Like many people, I have experimented with social bookmarking sites (Reddit, Newsvine, Clipmarks, Delicious, Digg etc) that are very useful in collecting and organising your bookmarked links, though they do seem to be predicated upon the links being permanently live — if you also use primary news sources such as press agencies (Reuters, AP), you’ll know that often valuable articles are not archived and URL links lapse.

So a year ago, I started up a group-list, commonly used for notification and/ or as fora for discussion, simply for the purposes of archiving articles. The articles are all full-text contemporary political pieces I find valuable and/or interesting and send to the list where they can be archived and accessed anytime, anywhere, by members. My fellow members are free to add to and access articles in this shared archive. I’m going to open it up for subscription for a short time for those who may be interested in the types of issues Peoples Geography covers. As it can be a high volume list, I encourage people to choose the Daily Digest or No Email option which I myself choose (lets you access all articles online rather than receiving them individually by email online). Click here if you happen to be interested in joining.

Australia

Two issues have marked media coverage: Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s admission that the war on Iraq was, in part, about oil, and the federal government’s heavy-handed approach sending in the military to remote indigenous communities using child protection as a justification.

• ABC News (Australia), Iraq deployment linked to oil: Nelson, 5 July
• Adrian Newstead, Paternalism, Petrol and Paedophilia, HomePage Daily, nd
• Dave on Fire, Apartheid Down Under - Welfare, Not Warfare, 26 June
• Peter Robson, Indigenous communities reject Howard’s racist hypocrisy, GLW, 29 June
• The Orstrahyun, Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD/ Murdoch’s Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister’s Office, 7 July
• James Sturcke, Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister, Guardian, 5 July

Economy

• Monte Asbury, (On Kiva): I helped Grace’s business!, 4th July
• Catherine Austin Fitts, The American Tapeworm (Overcoming Tapeworm Economics)
• Mike Whitney, Another Great Depression?: The Fed’s Role in the Bear Stearns Hedge Funds Meltdown, Global Research, 1 July

Iran

• Al Alam, Iran, Iraq to Build Joint Power Plant
• IRIN, Iran, Venezuela to establish joint oil company, Payvand, 3 July

Iraq

• Pepe Escobar, Iraq, the new Israel, Asia Times, 6 July
• 24 Steps to Liberty, “Soft Partition” of Iraq!, 7 July
• David Bacon, Iraqi Oil: A Benchmark or a Giveaway? Why Iraqi oil workers oppose the much-vaunted oil law, The American Prospect, 6 July
• Sarah Baxter, Powell tried to talk Bush out of war, Sunday Times, 8 July:
  THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.

Read the rest of this entry »