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Overview
To support Israel was an
expiation, and many of us gave our hearts to the cause.
To question the wisdom of displacing the native Arabs
with foreign Jews was to play the game of the wicked
Grand Mufti. To feel sympathy with the million or so
Arabs refugees was to turn one’s back on the Six Million
who had died in Hitler’s fearful extermination pits. As
war followed war, and Israel waxed ever stronger, it was
always the Arabs’ fault and their sufferings were of
their own making.
Yet,
despite their fatal genius for putting themselves in the wrong,
the Arabs have a far more powerful case than most American
liberals care to admit. They have suffered wrongs that, under
ordinary circumstances would be considered cruel beyond belief.
In order for a Jewish state to be establish in Palestine, a
thousand year old Arab Palestine community was wiped out and
most of its residents scattered into squalid shanty towns of
hate and hopelessness. Because of the crimes of a Christian
nation in Europe, the people of the Near East had a catastrophe
visited upon them, and they have been repeatedly punished in
wars that they cannot seem to avoid precipitating.
Another Look
*
* * * *
Israel, without the United
States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously
close to extinction during the
October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the
Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over
the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came
to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the
battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor.
By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel
$2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
The intervention, which
enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC
oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western
economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the
sustained life-support system the United States has provided to
the Jewish state. Israel was
born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new
state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a
deadly embrace ever since. Washington, at the beginning of the
relationship, was able to be a moderating influence.
An incensed President
Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the
Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967,
Israeli warplanes bombed the
USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed
15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and
strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes
killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack
froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But
ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed
out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel
lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy
in the Middle East. . . .
U.S. foreign policy,
especially under the current Bush administration, has become
little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The
United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council
resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of
vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It
refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to
support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the
occupied territories. Chris
Hedges
A Declaration of Independence From Israel Truthdig
Video
from Gaza Flotilla as Israeli Navy Prepares to
Intercept Boats—4 November 2011—Two
Gaza-bound boats carrying pro-Palestinian
activists are within 50 nautical miles of their
destination, but reports are emerging that
Israeli Navy ships have intercepted the "Freedom
Waves to Gaza" flotilla. Communication with the
boats has largely been cut off. Prior to losing
contact, we received two exclusive video reports
from aboard the "Tahrir," the Canadian ship.
Speaking to Democracy Now! correspondent Jihan
Hafiz last night, passenger Ehab Lotayef said,
"We are approaching the 100-nautical-mile point
away from Gaza, which is usually the point where
Israel declares—starts the blockade . . . Will
they try to come and board us? All these
questions are now at the moment of truth. The
major preparation we did is to prepare that we
don’t want anybody to act in any violent way or
in any way that can even induce violence by the
Israelis."— Sabbah
* *
* * *
Update
The
Israel Lobby Finds a New Face Black College
Students—Seth Freed Wessler—18 January
2012—When Vincent Evans arrived as a bright-eyed
first-year at Florida A&M, the country’s largest
historically black university, he knew he wanted
to get involved in politics. So when an older
student leader approached him one afternoon
after a student government meeting to ask if he
wanted an all expenses paid trip to D.C., Evans
jumped at the opportunity. The trip, it turned
out, was sponsored by the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the country’s most
powerful pro-Israel lobbying outfit. Israel is
under growing attack from Palestinian and
international activists who call the country a
racist apartheid state.
In response,
its staunchest U.S. lobby is recruiting black
students as moral shields to make the case for
Israeli impunity. At historically black colleges and
universities (known as HBCU’s) around the country,
AIPAC is finding and developing a cadre of black
allies to declare there’s no way Israel can be
racist.— Colorlines
* *
* * *
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Report: Being Black in Israel—The
Ethiopian Jews are commonly known by the
slightly derogatory term Falasha but the
name they chose for themselves is Beta
Israel (Hebrew for The House of Israel).
They are today virtually no Ethiopian
Jews anymore in Ethiopia. Israel
organized mass migrations in the late
80’s (Operation Moses). If you want to
know more about Operation Moses read
this. Many Ethiopian Jews converted
to Christianity at the end of the 19th
century and beginning of the 20th
century. They faced discrimination and
hardship and chose to become Christians
in a predominantly Christian country to
make their lives easier. However, today
many of the descendants of these
converts feel they are still Jews and
should also have the right for aliya,
i.e., to ‘return’ to Israel. These
people are named Falash Mura and after
many discussions the Israeli government
made them eligible for migration
although with many restrictions and
limitations. More on this phenomenon
here. . . .
Blacks in Israel are also
African Hebrew Israelites
also known as Black Hebrews, who settled
in Israel in 1969. They are of black
American ancestry and were therefore not
recognized as Jews. But after decades
they have been granted permanent
residency status in 2004 and became
eligible for military service since
then. In 2006, Eddie Butler, a Black
Hebrew, was chosen by the Israeli public
to represent Israel in the Eurovision
Song Contest. They mainly live in the
Negev town of Dimona were they form a
community of 3000 people, but other
families live in other towns too.—AfroEurope |
 |
Some famous black Israeli of Ethiopian descent
are
Hagit Yaso
(singer),
Shlomo Molla
(politican) and
Abatte Barihun
(jazz musician).— AfroEurope
* *
* * *
Palestine and the United Nations—Angie
Todd—8 November 2011—Palestine is advancing in
its aspirations for international recognition as
a nation state, with its borders prior to the
Israeli war of expansion in 1967 and East
Jerusalem as its capital. In the wake of the
overwhelming vote of 65.8% in favor of
Palestinian statehood in the UN General Assembly
in September, UNESCO voted to accept it as a
full member on October 31, and applications are
underway for the nation’s acceptance within the
UN’s 16 institutions. In fact, Palestine’s
UNESCO membership also automatically extends to
the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO),
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),
and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
through these agencies’ regulations.
There was
jubilation in the hall when the vote by 173
countries of the 194 members of UNESCO was
announced: 107 in favor, 52 abstentions and 14
against. Countries voting against, apart from the
United States and Israel, included Australia,
Canada, Germany and Sweden. Votes in favor came from
nearly all of the ALBA countries, most of Latin
America and the Caribbean, the majority of African
nations, the Russian Federation, China and Vietnam,
France and Spain. Countries abstaining ranged from
Mexico, Jamaica, New Zealand, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom.
The reaction
from the United States was immediate, taking the
form of the withdrawal of $60 million in dues
scheduled to be given over to UNESCO this November.
To date the U.S. has funded 22% of UNESCO’s budget.
Canada’s similar response raises this budget
reduction to approximately 25%.
In Israel,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the rapid
escalation of 2,000 new settlement units in the
Palestinian governorates of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
They are concentrated in Har Homa, an illegal
settlement built next to Bethlehem in the southern
West Bank, and Neve Ya’akov, near Ramallah. This
move was accompanied with a withholding of taxes
payable to the Palestinian Authority. "The land on
which these settlement units are to be built is
occupied Palestinian land," affirmed Palestine’s
chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. "The money that Israel
is withholding is also Palestinian money. This theft
is happening in broad daylight and the international
community is bearing witness… This will not change
our course of action."— Granma
* *
* * *
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Israel Intercepts Gaza-Bound Flotilla;
Dozens Detained Including Democracy Now!
Correspondent
Israeli forces intercepted two
Gaza-bound boats in international waters
on Friday to prevent the boats from
breaking the naval blockade of Gaza. The
Canadian and Irish boats made up the
"Freedom Waves to Gaza" flotilla. Israel
detained the 27 activists on board, as
well as all of the journalists —
including Democracy Now! correspondent
Jihan Hafiz. According to flotilla
organizers, 21 people remain in Israeli
custody, including Hafiz. The flotilla
marked the latest failed attempt by
international activists to challenge the
Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. We speak
to journalist Lina Attalah, who was on
the Canadian boat named "Tahrir" in the
flotilla and was deported to Egypt
yesterday. She is the managing editor of
Al-Masry Al-Youm, English edition, an
independent news website. The Israeli
navy "cornered our boats from all sides
. . . We were all equally put at
gunpoint. Even before they boarded our
boat, everyone was put at gunpoint from
Israeli ships," Attalah says. "Although
we were clearly showing that we are
journalists, Jihan Hafiz, for example,
who is a Democracy Now! journalist, had
her press card out and clear, but she
was one of the first people asked to
kneel on her knees and to raise her
hands." Attalah said some passengers
were tasered.— DemocracyNow |
* *
* * *
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* * * *
Exterminate all the Brutes: Gaza 2009—Noam
Chomsky—6 June 2009—On Saturday December 27, 2008, the latest US-Israeli attack
on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned,
for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two
components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel's
2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly
advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been
done and said was pre-planned and intended.
That surely includes the timing of the
assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and
crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only
a few minutes to kill over 200 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to
the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere
to flee.
 |
The attack specifically targeted the closing
ceremony of a police academy, killing dozens of policemen. The
international law division of the Israeli army (IDF, Israeli Defense
Forces) had criticized the plans for months, but under army
pressure, its director, Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, gave the
department's approval. "Also under pressure," Ha'aretz reports, "Sharvit-Baruch
and the division also legitimized the attack on Hamas government
buildings and the relaxing of the rules of engagement, resulting in
numerous Palestinian casualties." The international law division
adopts "permissive positions" so as "to remain relevant and
influential," the article continues. Sharvit-Baruch then joined the
Law Faculty at Tel Aviv University, over protests by the director of
the university's human rights center and other faculty.
The legal division's decision was based on the army's
categorization of the police "as a resistance force in the event of
an Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip," Hebrew University Law
professor Yuval Shany observed, adding that the principle scarcely
"differentiates them from [Israeli] reservists or even from
16-year-olds who will be drafted in two years" - hence takes much of
Israel's population to be legitimate targets of terror. |
To take a different analogy, the IDF
rules of engagement justify the terrorist attack on police cadets in Lahore in
March 2009, killing at least 8, rightly condemned as "barbaric"; Pakistani elite
forces could, however, respond in this case, killing or capturing the
terrorists, an option not available to Gazans. The narrow scope of the IDF
concept of "protected civilian" is explained further by a senior figure in its
international law division: "The people who go into a house despite a warning do
not have to be taken into account in terms of injury to civilians, because they
are voluntary human shields. From the legal point of view, I do not have to show
consideration for them. In the case of people who return to their home in order
to protect it, they are taking part in the fighting."
In his retrospective analysis entitled
"Parsing Gains of Gaza War," New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited
the first day's achievement as one of the most significant of the war's gains.
Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to "go crazy," causing
vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. "The
Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day," Bronner wrote, "when
Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a
Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all
of Gaza." The tactic of "going crazy" appears to have been successful, Bronner
concluded: there are "limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain
from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas," the elected government.
Inflicting pain on civilians for political ends is another long-standing
doctrine of state terror, in fact its guiding principle. I do not, incidentally,
recall the Times retrospective "Parsing Gains of Chechnya War," though the gains
were great.
The meticulous planning also presumably
included the termination of the assault. It ended just before the inauguration,
thus minimizing the (remote) threat that President Obama might have to say some
words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes. Two weeks after the Sabbath
opening of the assault, with much of Gaza already pounded to rubble and the
death toll approaching 1000, the UN Agency UNRWA, on which most Gazans depend
for survival, announced that the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments
to Gaza, saying that the crossings were closed for the Sabbath.4 To honor the
holy day, Palestinians at the edge of survival must be denied food and medicine,
while hundreds can be slaughtered on the Sabbath by US jet bombers and
helicopters.—Chomsky
Info
*
* * * *
 |
Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don't Speak to My President That Way—By Jeffrey Goldberg—Israel depends on the U.S. for its survival, while America, I imagine, would continue to exist even if Israel ceased to exist—I would find myself feeling resentful about the way Netanyahu speaks about our President. Netanyahu had an alternative, of course: He could have said, as he got on the plane to Washington, where today— awkward!—he will be meeting with President Obama: "The President today delivered a very fine speech. His condemnation of Hamas and Iran, his question about whether the Palestinians actually seek peace; his strong language against Syria; his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; his re-assertion of the unshakeable bond between our two nations—all of this and more brought joy to my heart. There are a couple of points in the speech, having to do with borders and refugees, that I would like to clarify with the President when I see him, and I'm looking forward to a constructive dialogue on these few issues."
Of course, he didn't say this. Instead he threw something of a hissy fit. It was not appropriate, and more to the point, it was not tactically wise: |
If I'm waking up this morning feeling that the Israeli prime
minister is disrespecting the President of my country, imagine
how other Americans might be feeling. And, then, of course,
there's this: Prime Minister Netanyahu needs the support of
President Obama in order to confront the greatest danger Israel
has ever faced: the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran.—TheAtlantic
/
Anthology of Modern Palestinian Poetry
* *
* * *
|
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
By Ilan Pappe
It
is amazing, according to Pappe, how the
media had not managed to see the
similarities between the ethnic
cleansing that was happening in Bosnia
with the one that is happening in
Palestine. According to Drazen Petrovic
(pg.2-3), who has dealt with the
definition of ethnic cleansing, ethnic
cleansing is associated with
nationalism, the making of new nation
states and national struggle all of
which are the driving force within the
Zionist ideology of Israel. The
consultancy council had used the exact
same methods as the methods that were
later to be used by the Serbs in Bosnia.
In fact Pappe argues that such methods
were employed in order to establish the
state of Israel in 1948.
The
book is divided into 12 chapters with 19
illustrations in black and white, with 7
maps of Palestine and 2 tables. These
include old photographs of refugee
camps, and maps of Palestine before and
after the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
Pappe continues his writing as a
revisionist historian with the intention
of stating the bitter truth to his
Israeli contemporaries and the fact that
they have to face the truth of their
nation being built upon an ethnic
cleansing of the population of
Palestine.
One
can sense an optimistic hope in Pappe’s
writing when he talks about the few who
are in Israel who are aware of their
country’s brutal past especially 1948
and the foundation of the state upon
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.—PaLint |
 |
* * * *
*
Adolf Hitler
(20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an
Austrian-born
German politician and the leader of the
National Socialist German Workers Party (German:
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the
Nazi Party). He was
Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and
head of state (as
Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is most commonly
associated with the rise of
fascism in Europe,
World War II, and
the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of
World War I, Hitler joined the
German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became
leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 Hitler attempted a coup d'état, known as
the
Beer Hall Putsch, at the
Bürgerbräukeller
beer hall in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment,
during which time he wrote his memoir,
Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler
gained support by promoting
Pan-Germanism,
antisemitism, and
anti-communism with
charismatic
oratory and
propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933 and transformed the
Weimar Republic into the
Third Reich, a
single-party dictatorship based on the
totalitarian and
autocratic ideology of
Nazism.
|
Hitler's avowed aim was to
establish a
New Order of absolute Nazi German
hegemony in continental Europe. His foreign and domestic
policies had the goal of seizing
Lebensraum (living space) for the
Germanic people. He oversaw the rearmament of Germany and the
invasion of Poland by the
Wehrmacht in September 1939, which led to the outbreak of
World War II in Europe.
Under Hitler's direction, German
forces and their
European allies at one point occupied most of Europe and North
Africa. These gains were reversed in 1945 when the
Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's
racially motivated policies resulted in the deaths of as many as
17 million people, including an estimated six million
Jews and between 500,000 and 1,500,000
Roma targeted in
the Holocaust. In the final days of the war, during the
Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress,
Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945—less than two days later— the two
committed suicide to avoid capture by the
Red Army, and their corpses were burned.—Wikipedia |
 |
* * * *
*
End
of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.
The weakening
of the United States, economically and militarily,
is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S.
economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is
increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and
on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities.
China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If
Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market,
even in part, it would cause a free fall by the
dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the
$7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be
a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment.
The growing dependence on China has been accompanied
by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances
with many of the world’s major exporters of oil,
such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, and Venezuela. The
Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide
clash over dwindling resources. The future is
ominous. Not only do Israel’s foreign policy
objectives not coincide with American interests,
they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence
in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against
Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq
have all given an opening, where there was none
before, to America’s rivals. It is not in Israel’s
interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not
in ours. But those who have their hands on the
wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and
democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed
at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.
Chris
Hedges
A Declaration of Independence From Israel
Truthdig
*
* * * *
|
China,
Twitter
and
20-Year-Olds
vs.
the
Pyramids—by
Thomas
L.
Friedman—5
February
2011—The
Arab
world
has
100
million
young
people
today
between
the
ages
of
15
and
29,
many
of
them
males
who
do
not
have
the
education
to
get
a
good
job,
buy
an
apartment
and
get
married.
That
is
trouble.
Add
in
rising
food
prices,
and
the
diffusion
of
Twitter,
Facebook
and
texting,
which
finally
gives
them
a
voice
to
talk
back
to
their
leaders
and
directly
to
each
other,
and
you
have
a
very
powerful
change
engine.
I
have
not
been
to
Jordan
for
a
while,
but
my
ears
are
ringing
today
with
complaints
about
corruption,
frustration
with
the
king
and
queen,
and
disgust
at
the
enormous
gaps
between
rich
and
poor.
King
Abdullah,
who
sacked
his
cabinet
last
week
and
promised
real
reform
and
real
political
parties,
has
his
work
cut
out
for
him.
And
given
some
of
the
blogs
that
my
friends
here
have
shared
with
me
from
the
biggest
local
Web
site,
Ammonnews.net,
the
people
are
not
going
to
settle
for
the
same-old,
same-old.
They
say
so
directly
now,
dropping
the
old
pretense
of
signing
antigovernment
blog
posts
as
“Mohammed
living
in
Sweden.”—NYTimes
|
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Women’s Role in Holocaust May Exceed Old Notions—In
an anomalous twist on
Christopher R. Browning’s groundbreaking 1992 book,
Ordinary Men, it appears that thousands of German
women went to the eastern territories to help Germanize
them, and to provide services to the local ethnic German
populations there.
They included
nurses, teachers and welfare workers. Women ran the
storehouses of belongings taken from Jews. Local Germans
were recruited to work as interpreters. Then there were
the wives of regional officials, and their secretaries,
some from their staffs back home.
For women from
working-class families or farms in Germany, the occupied
zones offered an attractive opportunity to advance
themselves, Ms. Lower said. |
There were up to
5,000 female guards in the concentration camps, making
up about 10 percent of the personnel. Ms. Grese was
hanged at the age of 21 for war crimes committed in
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen; Ms. Koch was convicted of
participating in murders at Buchenwald.
NYTimes
*
* * * *
*
* * * *
If the war ends with
Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in
face of the mighty Israeli military machine,
it will look like
a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
Uri Avnery
After 22 days of war against
Hamas, and the deaths of more than 1,200
Palestinians and 13 Israelis [over 5,000 Gazans
injured]
Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert insisted that “we have reached all
the goals of the war, and beyond.”
NYTimes
Hamas said on Sunday it would
cease fire immediately . . . and give Israel . . . a
week to pull its troops out of the territory.
NYTimes
The overwhelming number of high
elected officials in this country fear the Israeli
lobby and tremble at the thought of being labeled as
an anti-Semite for being in the slightest bit
critical of Israel . . .—Dennis
Bernstein, Israels
attack on an entrapped population: A 21st century
war crime?
Israel has imprinted on world
consciousness a terrible image of itself. Billions
of people have seen us as a blood-dripping monster.
Uri Avnery
Mapping an Occupation--WestBank
*
* * * *
Gazans Struggle for Clean Drinking Water—At the
end of February the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
assessed that over 2,000 families needed their homes to
be rebuilt, while nearly 11,000 families required urgent
repairs to their homes. The agency said it expected the
figures to rise.
Six Palestinian Authority (PA) schools in northern Gaza
were also severely damaged, forcing nearly 5,000 school
children to relocate to other schools. The overcrowding
meant that additional double-shifts were introduced,
further burdening the 351 schools, approximately half of
which already run double-shifts.
Meanwhile, Gaza's hospitals are struggling because
equipment such as neonatal machines lack spare parts,
while some medicines are not available. Furthermore,
only half of more than 300 Gazans who wanted to travel
abroad for emergency medical treatment succeeded in
getting permits from Israel.
Malnutrition is another growing problem, and children
and pregnant women bear the brunt. UNICEF recently
provided vitamin supplements to 50,000 babies and
children under five.
The OCHA says that the 127 truckloads of daily aid
permitted in by the Israeli authorities is insufficient
to meet market needs. Prior to the blockade 475 trucks
entered daily.
Poverty and unemployment plague Gaza following Israel's
destruction of various sectors which provided
employment.
The Private Sector Coordination Council (PSCC) assesses
that 700 private sector establishments were either
completely destroyed or damaged. The damage is valued at
140 million dollars.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Palestinian
Ministry of Agriculture estimate that 180 million
dollars worth of damage was done to agricultural
infrastructure.
The fishing sector was estimated to have suffered direct
and indirect losses of 2.2 million dollars, due to
destruction of fishing boats and related materials. And
even those who are employed and earning are struggling.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Israeli restrictions on the entry of cash into Gaza has
affected the livelihoods of up to half a million Gazans,
in a population of 1.5 million. (END/2009)
IPSNews
*
* * * *
|
Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza—Israel's
military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza
repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and
injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch
said today. . . . "In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use
white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said
Fred Abrahams, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher. "It fired
white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when
its troops weren't in the area and safe smoke shells were available.
As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." He said senior
commanders should be held to account. . . . White phosphorus burns
in contact with oxygen and causes deep burns when it touches human
skin, sometimes reaching to the bone.
Guardian (25 March 2009) |
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Ariel
Sharon, Israeli PM
Making Peace in Palestine
<---Some Photo Samples of His
Work--->
May, 19, 2004 |
 |
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* * * *
* *
* * *
AALBC.com's 25 Best Selling Books
For July 1st through August
31st 2011
Fiction
#1 -
Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark
#2 -
Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree
#3 -
Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade by Zane
#4 -
Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper
#5 -
Stackin' Paper 2 Genesis' Payback by Joy King
#6 -
Thug Lovin' (Thug 4) by Wahida Clark
#7 -
When I Get Where I'm Going by Cheryl Robinson
#8 -
Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby
#9 -
The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane
Non-fiction
#1 -
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning
Marable
#2 -
Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans
#3 -
Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by
Zane
#4 -
Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny
by Hill Harper
#5 -
Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What
You're Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant
#6 -
Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey
by Marcus Garvey
#7 -
The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda
DeKnight
#8 -
The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by
Frances Cress Welsing
#9 -
The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin
Woodson
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What credibility is there in Geneva's all-white boycott?—What
do the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the
Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy and Israel have in
common? They are all either European or European-settler
states. And they
all decided to boycott this week's UN conference
against racism in Geneva – even before Monday's
incendiary speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad which triggered a further white-flight
walkout by representatives of another 23 European
states. In international forums, it's almost
unprecedented to have such an undiluted racial divide
of whites-versus-the-rest. And for that to happen in a
global meeting called to combat racial hatred doesn't
exactly augur well for future international
understanding at a time when the worst economic crisis
since the war is ramping up racism and xenophobia across
the world. . . .The dispute was mainly about Israel and
western fears that the conference would be used, like
its torrid predecessor in Durban at the height of the
Palestinian intifada in 2001, to denounce the Jewish
state and attack the west over colonialism and the slave
trade.
Guardian
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Jerusalem: The Biography
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgment Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of three thousand years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence. How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the “center of the world” and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a gripping narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women—kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores—who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. As well as the many ordinary Jerusalemites who have left their mark on the city, its cast varies from Solomon, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent to Cleopatra, Caligula and Churchill; from Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad; from the ancient world of Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Nero to the modern times of the Kaiser, Disraeli, Mark Twain, Lincoln, Rasputin, Lawrence of Arabia and Moshe Dayan. Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that many believe will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice—in heaven and on earth. |
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By Nidaa Khoury
Khoury's poetry is fired by belief in
the human and the spiritual at a time
when many of us feel unreal and often
spiritually hollow.—Yair
Huri, Ben-Gurion University
Written in water and ink, in between the
shed blood. Nidaa Khoury's poems take us
to the bosom of an ancient woman . . .
an archetype revived. The secret she
whispers is 'smaller than words.'—Karin
Karakasli, author, Turkey
Nidaa Khoury was born in Fassouta, Upper
Galilee, in 1959. Khoury is the author
of seven books published in Arabic and
several other languages, including The
Barefoot River, which appeared in Arabic
and Hebrew and The Bitter Crown,
censored in Jordan. The Palestinian poet
is studied in Israeli universities and
widely reviewed by the Arab press. The
founder of the Association of Survival,
an NGO for minorities in Israel, Khoury
has participated in over 30
international literary and human rights
conferences and festivals. Khoury is the
subject of the award-winning film, Nidaa
Through Silence. Currently a senior
lecturer at Ben-Gurion University,
Khoury's poem Portal to the Orient is
being produced by Sarab for Dance for
performance in Palestine. Book of Sins
introduces this important Middle Eastern
poet to the Caribbean and the Americas. |
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Ataturk: Lessons in Leadership
from the Greatest General of the Ottoman
Empire
by Austin Bay
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Muslim
visionary, revolutionary statesman, and
founder of the Republic of Turkey. The
West knows him best as the leading
Ottoman officer in World War I’s Battle
of Gallipoli—a defeat for the Allies,
and the Ottoman empire’s greatest
victory. Gaining fame as an exemplary
military officer, he went on to lead his
people in the Turkish War of
Independence, abolishing the Ottoman
Sultanate, emancipating women, and
adopting western dress. Deeply
influenced by the Enlightenment, Atatürk
sought to transform the empire into a
modern and secular nation-state, and
during his presidency, embarked upon a
program of impressive political,
economic, and cultural reforms.
Militarily and politically he excelled
at all levels of conflict, from the
tactical, through the operational, to
the strategic, and into the rarified
realm of grand strategy. His ability to
integrate the immediate with the
ultimate serves as an important lesson
for leaders engaged in the twenty-first
century’s great military struggles. He
became the only leader in history to
successfully turn a Muslim nation into a
Western parliamentary democracy and
secular state, leaving behind a legacy
of modernization and military and
political leadership. |
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updated 4 June 2008
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