Mondoweiss |
- 'Exodus' was published in 1958
- I'm sorry, you can say anything you please but Walt & Mearsheimer nailed it, this is about the Israel lobby
- A window into the rightwing American mind re Israel/Palestine
- Breaking the Silence publishes shocking testimonies from women who served Occupation
- trying to get Washington's head around… 'basic human rights'
| 'Exodus' was published in 1958 Posted: 30 Jan 2010 08:08 AM PST Forces in Israeli society are trying to save that society. I am sure they are trying to preserve the Jewish state, but the least we could do is give them some airtime in the U.S., so that Americans and yes American Jews open one eye. This is from Ynet; I have no idea why "the researcher" is not named:
Note that Israel is barring the teaching of the Nakba in Israeli schools. Note that 10 years from now this will be in the New York Times. Or maybe 20– when they open the Nakba museum on the mall and Spielberg puts out the blockbuster, "Passover 1948" about the destruction of Jaffa, when the Irgun and the Haganah pushed nearly 70,000 Palestinians out of a city promised to them under Partition, and many of those Palestinians were forced into the sea. And remember: Exodus by Leon Uris was published in the U.S. in 1958, just as they were destroying these books. Related posts:
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| Posted: 30 Jan 2010 07:32 AM PST Robert Fisk, in the Independent:
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| A window into the rightwing American mind re Israel/Palestine Posted: 29 Jan 2010 04:43 PM PST This is kind of amazing. You've seen the story about James O'Keefe, the 24-year-old young Republican prankster who got pinched trying to tamper with Mary Landrieu's phone system, right? So here's the first issue of the alternative conservative paper he started when he was at Rutgers back in '04. It includes a parody of the New York Times, from an aggrieved right-winger' "For info on 26 Israeli children killed, please turn to A26." So the joke is that the liberal, America-hating New York Times sides with Palestinian terrorists. There are a million ways to respond to this. I don't even know where to start. They obviously don't know the basics of the I/P conflict nor have they ever apparently looked at the NYT's coverage of it. To me, it just underscores the kind of reflexive, emotion-driven ignorance we're up against. How do you get all of the O'Keefes out there – and there are millions of them — to actually think about this? I don't think I'm putting my finger on quite what it is. Maybe racism is the best description. Related posts:
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| Breaking the Silence publishes shocking testimonies from women who served Occupation Posted: 29 Jan 2010 04:45 PM PST There's a new and shocking booklet of testimonies out from Breaking the Silence, this one from anonymous female soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories and routinely abused the "Arabs" or "illegal aliens." Because they could, or needed to. Ynet has published many of the testimonies, and they're horrifying/nightmar What did you do mom when this was happening? Well honey we didn't know anything about it. But that guy in the play says it was all over the internet, on Ynet, and Promised Land– Well I know, but you know, well, there was a lot of anti-Semitism then, and Israel-bashing. And your father and I– well, we used to read– [Mom breaks down] What, mom, what did you used to read? The New York Times–. Totally inappropriate. Sorry. A few excerpts. [1] A female Seam Line Border Guard spoke of the chase after illegal aliens: "In half an hour you can catch 30 people without any effort." Then comes the question of what should be done with those who were caught – including women, children, and elderly. "They would have them stand, and there's the well-known Border Guard song (in Arabic): 'One hummus, one bean, I love the Border Guard' – they would make them sing this. Sing, and jump. Just like they do with recruits… The same thing only much worse. And if one of them would laugh, or if they would decide someone was laughing, they would punch him. Why did you laugh? Smack… It could go on for hours, depending on how bored they are. A shift is eight hours long, the times must be passed somehow."…
[2] Was there also abuse of women? "Yes" [a different] soldier replied. "Slaps, that kind of thing. Mainly slaps." From men? "Also. From whoever. It was mainly the female combat soldiers who beat people. There were two who really liked to beat people up. But also men, they had no problem slapping a woman around. If she screamed, they'd say, 'Shut it,' with another slap. A routine of violence. There were also those who didn't take part, but everyone knew it happened." [3] A female Border Guard officer in Jenin spoke of an incident in which a nine-year-old Palestinian, who tried to climb the fence, failed, and fled – was shot to death: "They fired… when he was already in the territories and posed no danger. The hit was in the abdomen area, they claimed he was on a bicycle and so they were unable to hit him in the legs." But the soldier was most bewildered by what happened next between the four soldiers present: "They immediately got their stories straight… An investigation was carried out, at first they said it was an unjustified killing… In the end they claimed that he was checking out escape routes for terrorists or something… and they closed the case."… [4] They really just started to laugh at me. The commander looks at me and tells me, 'What? Are you going to let that slide? Look how he's laughing at you'. "And you, as someone who has to salvage your self-respect… I told them to sit down and I told him to come…I told him to come close, I really approached him, as if I was about to kiss him. I told him, 'Come, come, what are you afraid of? Come to me!' And I hit him in the balls. I told him, 'Why aren't you laughing?' He was in shock, and then he realized that… not to laugh. It shouldn't reach such a situation." You hit him with your knee? "I hit him in the balls. I took my foot, with my military shoe, and hit him in the balls. I don't know if you've ever been hit in the balls, but it looks like it hurts. He stopped laughing in my face because it hurt him. We then took him to a police station and I said to myself, 'Wow, I'm really going to get in trouble now.' He could complain about me and I could receive a complaint at the Military police's criminal investigation division. "He didn't say a word. I was afraid and I said. I was afraid about myself, not about him. But he didn't say a word. 'What should I say, that a girl hit me?' And he could have said, but thank God, three years later I didn't get anything and no one knows about it." What did it feel like that moment? "Power, strength that I should not have achieved this way. But I didn't brag about it. That's why I did it that way, one on one. I told them to sit on the side, I saw that he wasn't looking. I said to myself that it doesn't make sense that as a girl who gives above and beyond and is worth more than some boys – they should laugh at me like that because I am a girl. Because you think I can't do it…"Today, when you look at it three years later, would you have done things differently? "I would change the system. It's seriously defective."Noam Sheizaf writes: [T]o me this set of testimonies is even more important than the one Breaking the Silence published regarding operation Cast Lead in Gaza – or at least just as important – because it reveals something of the real nature of the occupation that many people don't get. Israel's occupation is not the most murderous regime today, certainly not in history. It's the daily pressure on the entire population and the humiliations all Palestinians go through that's unprecedented, at least today. We are talking about millions of civilians, in roadblocks, on the streets and even in their houses, at the hands 18 years old kids, with no one to appeal to and no law to guard them – and that's before the settlers come into the picture. In this reality, and with a popular uprising against the occupation in the background, acts like those described in the Breaking the Silence report are almost inevitable. Related posts:
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| trying to get Washington's head around… 'basic human rights' Posted: 29 Jan 2010 03:10 PM PST MJ Rosenberg gets read inside the Beltway, and inside the lobby, too, and in this column on the end of negotiations for the 2-state-solution, he seems to be preparing power types for the one-state solution. An important signal to the forces of rejection in Washington. Note the radical principles that Rosenberg invokes: "basic human rights." The question here is whether American Jews (the only game in town, in my view) will marry Netanyahu's institutionalized dont-worry-be-
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New Release: Debating The Holocaust by Thomas Dalton
Nothing highlights President Barack Obama's abject surrender to Gen. David Petraeus on the "way forward" in Afghanistan more than two cables U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent to Washington on Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, the texts of which were released by the New York Times. No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of good counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right. Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain. 
A collection of speeches by Benito Mussolini has become an unlikely and controversial hit on the internet. The speeches, the last of which was delivered in 1938 when Italy introduced laws which discriminated against Jews, are the second-most downloaded application on the Italian version of Apple's iTunes website. ... Since the application was launched on Jan 21, it has been downloaded about 1,000 times a day. "The first day it was downloaded only 55 times, the second day more than 600 and from the third day I had on average 1,000 downloads a day," Mr Marino said. 
A heated exchange between two Jewish scholars on the legacy of the Holocaust today. It its memory being abused? Does Israel use "the Holocaust" as a political weapon? Norman Finkelstein, Jewish scholar and author of The Holocaust Industry, says that Israel and its defenders have used "the Holocaust" as a "shakedown racket" and a tool of "blackmail" in extorting money, for example from Swiss banks. Israel Charny, director of Israel's Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, responds with pious evasions and attacks Finkelstein's style and character. Runtime: 25:47 mins. 
Malaysia's former prime minister accused America's "Jewish lobby" of preventing President Obama from ending the war in Afghanistan. Local Malaysian media reported that Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled the Muslim nation between 1981 and 2003, ... went on to say that Jews "had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom. Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world," he said.
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a violation of international law, an independent inquiry in the Netherlands has found. In a damning series of findings on the decision of the Dutch government to support Tony Blair and George Bush in the strategy of regime change in Iraq, the inquiry found the action had "no basis in international law." The 551-page report, published today [Jan. 12] and chaired by former Dutch supreme court judge Willibrord Davids, said UN resolutions in the 1990s prior to the outbreak of war gave no authority to the invasion. "The Dutch government lent its political support to a war whose purpose was not consistent with Dutch government policy. The military action had no sound mandate in international law," it said. 
Anyone who was hoping the administration would bring a modest downsizing of the nation's defense establishment and global military role has to be feeling like Bernard Madoff's investors. Escalation is underway in Afghanistan, the Army is expanding and the Pentagon is on the all-you-can-
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was illegal, a former top British government lawyer told a public inquiry into the war Tuesday, three days before ex-prime minister Tony Blair appears. "I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law," Michael Wood, chief legal advisor to the Foreign Office between 1999 and 2006, told the Chilcot inquiry in London. "In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorised by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law." Wood said he told ministers of his concerns but was brushed aside ... 
If it happened in any other country, we'd be crying 'anti-Semitism!' but it's happening in the first Hebrew city in broad daylight. And yes, there are customers / ... Then I see medals, coins, banknotes and letters - all authentic, all from the time of the Third Reich, and all displayed in broad daylight in the first Hebrew city, on sale in exchange for Israeli currency. ... Hitler has yet to become a cultural icon - a situation soon to change, judging by the stalls at Tel Aviv's flea market. 
A documentary look, with memorable images, at television in Third Reich Germany, which was a world leader in television technology and broadcasting. Runtime: 54:44 mins. 
.. .. How much of Jewish achievement reflects the fact that Jews look out for one another? When I had to get a partner on this website to keep it going, I was most comfortable getting another Jew. Years ago when I was at the Harvard Crimson newspaper, my Irish-Catholic friend Mary Ridge informed me that it was a "Jewish club"- we selected for our own kind; and the Crimson produced a lot of professional journalism talent. I have gotten most of my journalism work from Jewish bosses. Jews have kinship networks as strong as other people's, maybe more strong .. .. So I think some of the amazing record of Jewish achievement reflects discrimination; and Jews are powerful enough in this society that we ought to be conscious of that. 
A retired Polish bishop accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for propaganda purposes in remarks that appeared Monday on a Rome-based traditionalist Roman Catholic website ... "The Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention," said the former spokesman of Poland's Bishops Conference. The Shoah is "used as a propaganda weapon and to obtain advantages that are often unjustified," he charged. Pieronek, who was a friend of the late Polish pope John Paul II, added: "You could speak just as forcefully and establish a day of remembrance for the many victims of communism, persecuted Catholics and Christians and so on." Accusing Jews of "intolerable arrogance," he said they "enjoy good press because they are supported by powerful financial means, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States." 
The [Israel] government has dedicated today's meeting to the memory of the six million Jews starved, tortured and massacred in the Holocaust. This Wednesday, the United Nations and at least 20 countries will mark International Holocaust Day. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, said, "I hope the United Nations will remember what happened when the Jews did not have a state - and the privilege and obligation of the international community to defend the Jewish State's existence." 
Tony Blair [then British prime minister] was warned two months before the invasion of Iraq it would be illegal to go to war without United Nations' authority, the inquiry into the conflict heard today ... The inquiry heard how Mr Straw rejected the advice of his senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office, Sir Michael Wood, that an invasion without a UN Security Council resolution specifically authorising military action would be a "crime of aggression". Sir Michael's deputy Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned in protest on the eve of the invasion in March 2003, described the Government's treatment of the legal advice as "lamentable". 
A [British] Foreign Office lawyer who resigned in protest at the Iraq war said the way ministers weighed up the legal case for the invasion was "lamentable". Elizabeth Wilmshurst told the Iraq inquiry she thought the war was unlawful without express UN backing. And she said it was "extraordinary" that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had only been asked for his opinion days before British troops went in. Ministers argue that existing UN resolutions justified the use of force. The testimony of Ms Wilmshurst and her then boss Sir Michael Wood made it clear that the legal team at the Foreign Office believed that the war was illegal under international law. 
China has said its economy expanded by 8.7 percent in 2009, exceeding even the government's own initial expectations. The pace of change increased as the year went on, with growth in the final quarter of 2009 increasing by 10.7 percent from the same period a year earlier. China is now on course to overtake Japan and become the world's second-biggest economy. 