New this week on peacepalestine

["mary" <humdrum2 at libero.it>]

New on http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/

· Gilad Atzmon Interview - It Ain't Necessarily So – America, Israel and Palestine; identity and identification; culture and Kulture; racism and ethical thought; spiritual awareness and Madonna’s ass. Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-born jazzman who has chosen the path of self-imposed exile in England has an idea on all of it. Just don’t ask him to disclose his Mojo list to you. http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/gilad-atzmon-interview-it-aint.html

· Comments on why Israeli Left did not demonstrate in favour of Gaza disengagement – Ada Ravon writes, “Everyone who has eyes and who sees objectively and independently and precisely, sees that Sharon and his friends have no real intention of reaching an agreement or even the beginning of one with the Palestinians. Today they are the happiest of people: both the Right and the Centre of the map are playing the game and helping Sharon the “go-getter” to realize the annexation of lands in the West Bank, inhabited by Palestinians unable to defend their rights or their existence”

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/comments-why-israeli-left-did-not.html

· Powell gets ADL Award – The ADL says, “"Colin Powell is one of those Americans for whom we reserve a special place in our history and hearts. We call them heroes," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "From his leadership through the Gulf War, to the determination he exhibited as our nation's top diplomat at a time when confronted with terrorism and war, Colin Powell always approached his role with great courage and intelligence. We owe him our respect and gratitude for his years of public service, for his integrity, and for his commitment to spreading the ideals of democracy and freedom around the world.”

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/powell-gets-adl-award.html

· John Rose - We need a Post-Zionist leap of faith “Are not the Jewish communities in Western Europe and America models of an enlightened assimilation where we can express our Jewish identities, as well as feeling at home in the lands of our birth? The dispossession of the Palestinians reinforces this argument. How can we justify the right to Israeli citizenship when the Palestinians have no country?”

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/john-rose-we-need-post-zionist-leap-of.html

· Ariella Atzmon - Facing Democracy “Liberal democracy protects itself by establishing a consensual environment where citizens are totally dependent on the professionals’ analytical reports. Therefore, the more people are tied to the apron strings of the pundits’ expertise, the more they fail to interpret political, social, and economic revisions by themselves. The gloomy conclusion is that liberal democracy has failed to keep the promise of emancipation. The narrative of emancipation from ignorance and servitude through knowledge and egalitarianism turns into a reckless commitment, to keep in harmony with the democratic rule as an aim in itself.”

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/ariella-atzmon-facing-democracy.html

· Palestinian prisoner denied medical aid Family of detainee Ahmad Lutfi Dharagma, 31, who was sentenced to 15 consecutive years, said that he is suffering of critical health conditions in Galboa detention, after prison authorities rejected to provide him with the needed medical attention in spite of efforts conducted by humanitarian organizations and Arab members of Knesset.

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/04/palestinian-prisoner-denied-medical.html

· On the road to nowhere - Sgrena's car on road prepared for Negroponte Naomi Klein, “It was a secured road reserved for top Embassy officials, like obviously like Negroponte. But one thing that's very clear is that if she is on this road, and the way she explains it, she had to go through a U.S. checkpoint in order to get into the Green Zone. You can only access this road through the Green Zone. It's very, very difficult to get into the Green Zone. When I tried to get into the Green Zone, I had to go through six checkpoints -- six different passport checks. So, the idea that the American military didn't know that they were on the road, that they -- that didn't know about their presence is impossible, if she was, in fact, on a road that emerged out of the Green Zone. And I think that the idea that there was a mobile checkpoint set up for Negroponte obviously supports this claim very strongly.

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/03/on-road-to-nowhere-sgrenas-car-on-road.html

· The trouble with Zionism - Joel Kovel “I agree we have to get beyond the name-calling and the denial, both of which are driven by the bad conscience. One important dimension is the denial that Palestinians may have a legitimate grievance. Because a bad conscience can’t take responsibility, the person afflicted with it can’t think of themselves as being wrong; this just stirs up intolerable feelings of guilt. Now if you admit that the Palestinians have a legitimate grievance, then of course, you have to think that maybe you are wrong, and might have to take responsibility or even change. The bad conscience keeps that kind of thought out of awareness, by attacking the critic, and at the same time, by reducing the moral value of Palestinians and their cause. Then the only things one can think about are is that the Palestinians are simply motivated by blind hatred, or are congenital terrorists, or being Arabs, are shaped by Islam to hate the West. This takes the whole situation out of history and makes it impossible to look at what has really happened, namely there has been violent expropriation, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Everything is simply put on the level that all these Palestinians hate us. At times the denial has extended to the claim that the Palestinians don’t exist as a people.”

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/03/trouble-with-zionism-joel-kovel.html

· Thirteen years of sanctions - the aftermath  “Jassim, if you can write like this at thirteen, think what you will do at twenty.” I asked him if I could incorporate his poem in articles from that visit and said I would send them back to him, so he would see it in print. Some weeks later, I did just that and sent cuttings back to him with a friend and imagined him glowing again. He had fought and fought, but lost his battle just before my friend arrived. He never saw his poem in print and became just another statistic in the “collateral damage” of sanctions by the most inhuman regime ever overseen by the United Nations, which arguably condemned the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child - the most widely signed convention in history - to the dust, to the mass of graves of Iraq's children, resulting from the embargo years.

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/03/thirteen-years-of-sanctions-aftermath.html