On Chomsky, Abbas, Blair, Sabra and Shatila, Freedom Flotilla, Hebron, Settlers, Muslims, Jews and more.

[mary <humdrum2 at libero.it>]

Hope all of you are doing well. Sorry for the infrequent updates of PTT,
due to force majeur. But this week, we are returning to our regular
updating. Thanks to all of you who encouraged us during the sporadic
updates. We truly appreciate your encouragement and support. We offer a
lot of new items today, by some of our favourite contributors, hoping
they will stimulate your minds and make you do something right for
Palestine. Enjoy them and feel free to circulate, reprint with credits,
link. As always, we enjoy a good discussion so join in on the discourse
here or in Facebook discussions with Mary, Haitham and other
contributors.

Included are: 1) a new deconstruction of Noam Chomsky's stance on Israel.
It is must reading for anyone who considers him as the leader of the
Palestinian movement. At best, he's just a friendly Zionist who now and
then says the right things and makes a few good sound bites. 
2) The absolute best piece of writing on what the meaning of the
slaughter of Palestinians meant and still means. Written by one of the
most talented writers and brilliant minds around, Reham Alhelsi.
3) Kawther Salam points out the details of how Tony Blair, in his
position as the Middle East Envoy, came into enormous amounts of cash and
made some incredible business deals with the son of Mahmoud Abbas....and
how only war criminals win peace awards!
4) Dr. Boutaina Shaaban expresses how the focus on the killing of illegal
settlers in Hebron is met with condemnation by the West, but points out
the statistics in the area of Hebron to show that the all of this is to
cover over what REALLY happens in Hebron. 
5) Nima Shirazi, without any doubt THE best research-rogue-blogger has
done it again. You will be hard pressed to find anything quite so
complete in his presentation of how Israel's real problem has been
mis-represented in order to maintain the status quo while looking like
progress is being made. This paper will take you several hours to read,
and more if you check out all the references and links, but boy is it
worth your time. 
6) Ramzy Baroud, insuperable in his analysis, as ever, informs us that
the US/Muslim debate has been completely turned on its head by
pre-conceived ideas. Another great think piece!
7) Anthony Lawson tells us just how the BBC Panorama
"documentary" has been just another piece of propaganda. With
Video. 
8) Stephen Lendman has come up with an outstanding summary of how Abbas
is more than just the most useless Palestinian politician on the scene,
he's actually working for "massa". 
9) Change we can believe in? 

Jay Knott - Faithful Circle: A response to Noam Chomsky's A Fatal
Triangle
Chomsky is by no means the worst example of chutzpah in the left. He
is contradictory rather than duplicious. He exposes Jewish emotional
blackmail. He is contemptuous of professional Holocaust survivors like
Elie Wiesel. He is fearless and merciless at ridiculing the hypocrisy and
hysteria for which American Jewish organizations are notorious, who claim
that critics of the Lobby are anti-semitic. Some on the left also harrass
and slander pro-Palestinian peace activists. Since Israel is the only
beneficiary of these divisive tactics, we call them
'crypto-Zionists'.

But Chomsky's main weakness is his failure to scientifically test his
assertion that Israel is an ally of the USA. On page 3, without evidence,
he says that US policy favors "a Greater Israel that will dominate
the region in the interests of American power".

To this end, Chomsky assumes that Arab nationalism is anti-West, whereas
Jewish nationalism is pro-West. The former was allied to the Soviet
Union. But this is at root a circular argument – the US supports Israel
because it is an ally, and Israel is an ally because the US supports it.
The reason some Arab leaders temporarily turned to Russia is because they
were rejected by America, and the main reason for that is the influence
of Israel. Chomsky confuses cause and effect.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/17/jay-knott-faithful-circle-a-response-to-noam-chomskys-book-fateful-triangle/

Reham Alhelsi - 28 years later, the Sabra and Shatila
Massacre
28 years later and after some 20 years of useless “negotiations”
between those who don’t represent us and those who butcher us, I remember
Sabra and Shatila and every single massacre committed by the Zionists and
their accomplices. I remember every single child, woman and man killed
for the sake of Zionism. I remember every village, every town and every
refugee camp that was ethnically cleansed, destroyed, bulldozed or bombed
in the name of Zionism. I remember those who refused to sell their
conscience, their honour and their land; I remember those who chose
Palestine. And I remember those who shook the hands of the killers of our
people, I remember those who “acknowledged” our killers, signed
“treaties” with them and called them “our partners in peace”; I remember
those who sold Palestine. And I will never forget.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/16/reham-alhelsi-28-years-later-sabra-and-shatila-massacre/

Ramzy Baroud - Regarding US Muslims, a misguided debate
Muslims must not fall into the trap of victimhood, and start dividing
the world into good and evil, the West and Muslims, and so on. How could
one make such generalized claims and still remain critical of the notion
of a ‘clash of civilizations’? It remains that many Americans who have a
negative perception of Muslims are not motivated by ideological
convictions or religious zealotry. Most American clergy are not
Koran-burning hateful priests, and not all media pundits are Bill
O’Reilly.

There is no question that the conflict remains largely political.
Misconceptions and misperceptions, manipulated by ill-intentioned
politicians, media cohorts and substantiated by violence and war will not
be resolved overnight. However, hundreds of interfaith dialogues and
conferences will not change much as long as American armies continue to
roam Muslim countries, support Israel and back corrupt leaders. Reducing
the issue by signaling out a Muslim community in this country and then
calling on frightened and fragmented communities to ‘make more effort’ is
unfair and simply futile. 
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/16/ramzy-baroud-regarding-us-muslims-a-misguided-debate/

Kawther Salam - Tony Blair, a Medal for War Crimes
In Palestine, Blair used his position as envoy of the “Middle East
Quartet” (UN, US, EU and Russia) to help the so-called “Wataniya
projects”, which benefited his personal commercial sponsors and the group
around President Abbas as well as the biggest of all fat cats Dr.
Mohammad Mustafa who is Chairman of Wataniya Mobile, President of the
Palestine Investment Fund and who styles himself as “financial adviser”
of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The scandalous issue is that Blair, in coordination with fat cats of the
PA, sucked US and OPEC donations  which were destined for small
projects in Palestine like financing Palestinian farmers and unemployed
people, in order to finance big projects such as Wataniya. 
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/14/6889/

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban - When they shout, "We strongly
condemn..."
For negotiations to succeed, the sponsors of the process should
be convinced that the life of the Palestinians is at least equal to the
life of a criminal settler living on a land not his own in order to steal
this land and kill the people living on it. Only then, there might be
some hope of achieving peace based on justice and not on killing one
party and giving the occupying killing party everything it wants. When
Obama, Clinton and the European Union condemn killing the Palestinians
with the same strength they condemn the killing of settlers, there might
be hope of a real peace in our region.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/16/when-they-shout-we-strongly-condemn/

Nima Shirazi - The Thin Green Line - It's not just the settlements
or the occupation, stupid!
Through reading the articles and arguments of the progressive
community against BDS, one thing becomes quite clear. The commentators
feel like their grand design for a perfect Zionist future has been
hijacked and sullied by the settler movement and its government (and
foreign) backers. These forward-thinking humanitarians believe themselves
to be the

victims of a right-wing conspiracy to dash the hopes of any peace
agreement. This is absurd. These Israelis and Americans suffered no
actual injustice. Nothing has, in fact, been taken away from them, save
perhaps their own integrity. They have been oppressed by no one. Unlike
the Palestinians. And yet, the progressive discourse consistently omits
Palestinian perspectives in their appraisal of the current situation.
What do they want? Almost nowhere does the "Zionist
left" of J Street and Huffington Post discuss what the actual
victims of past and ongoing Zionist atrocities, war crimes, and ethnic
cleansing want, or what tactic they believe would be the most effective
to reach an acceptable, democratic, just, and peaceful solution in which
all parties would be afforded equal civil and human rights, the same
economic opportunities, and full political representation, as determined
by international law. Apparently, these viewpoints – the voices of the
victims and their descendants – are unimportant in the intellectual
sphere of Ha'aretz and New York Times opinion. As Gideon
Levy wrote a decade ago, "For most Israelis, the Palestinians are
almost non-existent. They're like thin air…" ('An existential
exercise,' Ha'aretz, 16 October 2000)
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/16/the-thin-green-line-its-not-just-the-settlements-or-the-occupation-stupid/

Anthony Lawson - BBC Bias, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla (with
video)
Whatever happened on the Mavi Marmara on the morning of 31 May 2010,
the BBC's Panorama team failed to give a balanced view of it in its
so-called documentary, 'Death in the Med'. Even the title sounds more
like that of a paperback mystery, rather than a serious analysis of
Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead. 
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/13/bbc-bias-the-gaza-freedom-flotilla/

Stephen Lendman - Fatah Collaborationist Israeli Ally
America and Israel were delighted with his elevation, a man seen as
"colorless, moderately corrupt, and without any clear ideas of his
own, except that he wants to please the white man," his masters in
Washington and Tel Aviv. As a result, his "authenticity is what
seems so lacking in the path cut out for" him, a stooge made
president in a managed 2005 election.

Israel controlled the process, elevating him by imprisoning leading
opposition candidate Marwan Barghouti on bogus murder charges, and
obstructing Mustafa Barghouti for "demand(ing) total and complete
reform, (ending all) form(s) of corruption, (and) mismanagement, and
(working to) consolidate the rule of law."

As a result, Israeli forces arrested him during the campaign, then
expelled him from East Jerusalem to prevent his planned campaign speech.
He was also excluded from Nablus and Gaza, harassed and intimidated in a
process rigged for Abbas, boycotted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a
field of seven candidates, Barghouti finished second, far behind his
majority. He hasn't disappointed, gets White House photo-op rewards, and
his son, a millionaire businessman, admits to "collaborat(ing) with
Israel." His father does it tacitly against his own people.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/13/fatah-collaborationist-israeli-ally/

Hijab at an Obama Rally, now REALLY?!
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/09/16/cartoon-of-the-day-176/