recent posts on peacepalestine

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

Summary of the recent articles appearing on Peacepalestine.

http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/

· Israeli soldiers shoot at kids in Hebron schoolchildren prevented from reaching their school, shot at and arrested by the IDF. A picture from a photo essay.

· Former Israeli attorney's introduction to Beyond Chutzpah – Felicia Langer writes the introduction to the German edition of Norman Finkelstein’s latest book.

· Jeff Halper - "To Hell With..." Hamas is criticized for "not recognizing Israel" but Israel has never explicitly recognized the Palestinians' right to self-determination, and never negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas despite his government's recognition of Israel. The world and Israel ignored the Palestinians' "generous offer" to Israel which could have ended the conflict: recognition of Israel within the 1967 borders on 78 per cent of historic Palestine, in return for a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories on the remaining 22 per cent. Israel is now poised, with American support and international complicity, to reduce the Palestinians to a prison-state of five Israeli-controlled "cantons" — no freedom of movement, no water, no viable economy, no Jerusalem, and no hopeful future.

· Israel vote: the "Centre" leaders bet Polls are continuously and abruptly swinging, as if the Israeli woke up each morning with a different vote intention. Yet, notwithstanding such a restlessness (and, provided clamorous surprises when between Tuesday and Wednesday night the votes will be counted), the general opinion is that to gain the majority of votes will be Kadima, the party founded by Sharon some weeks before his fall into coma.

· Remi Kanazi - US Media Bias in covering Israel/Palestine - Why are “left wing” media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN not reporting the Palestinian side of the story? Well the simple answer is The New York Times and CNN are not liberal, nor honest. They cover injustices only when there is no risk of backlash from readers and advertisers. The media moguls are only “aware” and objective when it pays them to be. CNN and the New York Times must vet their content, so as not to be viewed as “pro-Palestinian,” in fear that advertisers will pull their ads or commercials, leading to a loss in revenue.

· Israel's vote ignores peace -the great absentee is the co-called peace process. The negotiation for a settlement of the conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians have been struggling, dripping with blood, for about sixty years.
This is what immediately leaps to the eye, by judging the electoral eve. And this is what precisely strikes: the fact that people is not speaking any longer about a peace negotiation.

· The Forbidden Land – the West Bank, one-third OFF LIMITS to Palestinians. A New map from the Haaretz Print Edition.

· Interview with hooded symbol of Abu Ghraib on imposture allegations -The truth to this is that I was not the only one who was tortured in this barbaric fashion. Almost all prisoners in the part of the prison that I was familiar with were tortured in this way. That doesn't change the fact that I was one of those who had to stand on that cardboard box, with a black hood placed over my head and electrical wires attached to my hands. As an Iraqi person who has gone through Abu Ghraib, I represent all those tormented people.

· Elimination of Racial Discrimination, on Israel A common feature of Israel for more than 50 years has been its discriminatory policies which underly intolerance and racism towards Palestinians in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and in forced exile. Such statement is not "anti-semitic propaganda", as Israel's apologists commonly claim. Independent experts reviewing Israel's peformance under international human rights treaties have regularly found that these discriminatory policies create second-class citizens, a colonial regime, and ongoing forced displacement. The BADIL report with UNRWA map.

· Italiani! Al Voto! – Italians can plot themselves on the political map. A fun game to try.

· s(Elf)-Righteous Jews (sans frontieres) This post is all the tendency of some people to express the certainty to be morally in the right, and comparing one’s rightness against the other who obviously couldn’t be right. It uses the terms and techniques of putting the other “in his place” and humiliation of the opponent in a public way, seeking to influence others that this person is bad, dangerous, a plague even.

· That's the way, Abu Mazen, you can speak now! And goes (slightly) out on a limb to blame the UK and US of collusion with Israel in the destruction of the Jericho prison and kidnapping of some prisoners, including a leader of the PFLP.

· Mazin Qumsiyeh - Lack of Voice Our Palestinian struggle was a struggle for RETURN and self-determination as enshrined in International law. We were not yearning for a"statelet" called Palestine. After all, the countries and borders in the so-called "Middle East" (a colonial designation) were colonial machinations to "divide and rule". We Palestinians were interested in having our basic human rights implemented per international law. This includes the right to return to our homes and lands (UN resolutions like UNGA 194), the rights to be treated equally regardless of religion (e.g. Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and the right to self determination (UN Charter and a number of specific UN resolutions on Palestine). Basic human rights cannot be sacrificed in a futile attempt to protect discrimination and racism. If one is really interested in a two state solution, then issues like borders and economies and rights of people to live on their land are delineated well in UN resolution 181 (unfair as it maybe by allocating only 45% to a Palestinian state).

· Gideon Levy Interview "Israeli society is in a coma." If this were said in a casual tone and in another context, we could see in this _expression_ a tasteless joke about the death agony of Ariel Sharon. But Gideon Levy, who recently granted an interview to Le Devoir, compels us in his direct fashion to tackle grave questions, not at all by weak, facile humor.

· Roger Waters in Israel, What do you think? “How can somebody who wants to be regarded a left-winger—who has fought against Berlin’s wall and in favour for borders abolition and for peace amongst the peoples—come to Israel, whilst the Wall is being built, and perform a musical show?” wonders Sliman Mansour, from the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Arts, one of the signers of the letter.

· Israel could kill more Palestinian Leaders Some days ago, by raising his voice far beyond the on average boring tone of the present political debate and by evoking the security issue, a crucial matter such as in every other Israeli canvas, the former Shin Bet’s chief, Avi Ditcher, has felt it his duty also to state: “If Haniyeh and his fellows keep up their terrorist and murder policy even while at power, they’ll end up in prison or be with Ahmed Yassin. ”
It may not be a coincidence that Mofaz and Ditcher, the latter regarded as the conceiver of “preventive killings”, are both Kadima’s candidates, the party set up by Sharon around a platform made up of further probable unilateral withdrawals, even if it is today utterly lacking “King Arik”’s charisma.

· Pro-Israel Bias in Italy is not an exaggeration, it is a program What is wrong with the message? I am against discrimination, just as I hope all the rest of us are. But, I am against the assumption that there are certain ideas of discrimination that are more important. When yesterday the national news reported on the firecrackers in Nazareth, they referred immediately to the perpetrator as simply being “mentally unstable”, and not motivated by racist intentions or seeking to ignite racial unrest, which is quite the opposite of how anti-Jewish graffiti is treated, stemming from deep seated racial hatred in their eyes, and we are made to feel scandal and shock. Following the killing of eleven people in Libya outside the Italian Consulate, instigated by a gesture on Clemente J Mimun’s PRE-RECORDED transmission, where an Italian Minster flaunted his anti-Muslim t-shirt, the authorities immediately spoke against racial hatred. Where did they go? Our President Ciampi went to the Synagogue of Rome!

· Depleted Uranium, investigative reporting -  I am in love. I thought all the real journalists were dead and buried. Well, I love a lot of journalists, really, but the investigative ones, the ones who bring us the information, the films, the really important things.... where did they go? Were they sent to the other world to the sound of a bullet going off like the wonderful and so sorely missed Ilaria Alpi? Well, right here in Italy, next to Maurizio Torrealta (great journalist) we have Sigfrido Ranucci, who will become a legend. Today, we are able to see his investigative reporting on Depleted Uranium.

· Checkpoints to make life hard, Dorothy Reports Back in September, Dorothy told us about Lina's Kidney transplant here. Today, a letter that tells us how Lina is doing, but gives us a slice of life and daily humiliation that the Palestinians must endure.

· Nahida Izzat - Why Defend God and Islam? And Why Now? It might be true that if a religious ideology actually takes state power it can lead to corruption and abuse, but that’s not unique to religious ideologies alone; It also includes secular ideologies, communist ideologies, and most obvious capitalist ideology…etc. We all remember the Soviet Union and the persecution of all religious minorities; secular France and the ill treatment of its ethnic minorities…etc. It is presumptuous to say that if a religious ideology takes state power that it will inevitably oppress and dominate with dictatorship and violence. Any leadership, regardless of ethnic or religious ideologies, can fall victim to the corrupting force of power. Why is there a need to single out religious ideologies as the factor most likely to lead to corruption and dictatorship?