Showing posts with label Israeli settlements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israeli settlements. Show all posts

Saturday, September 27, 2014

News digest / Catching up on news (09.27.2014)

Here are some more stories over the past 3 weeks that I haven't had time to give their due comment. Enjoy!


"Mr President, will you tell us the truth? 8 questions we must ask Obama about secret war," By Trevor Timm, September 27, 2014. Guardian. URL:http://gu.com/p/42vj3 -- TOO BAD NEITHER PARTY WILL ASK OBAMA THESE QUESTIONS!

"Carl Bildt: Putin Must Face Mothers Of Fallen Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Conflict," By Nathan Gardels, September 26, 2014, WorldPost. URL:http://huff.to/Yiy65q -- TURNS OUT RUSSIAN MOTHERS ARE THE SCARIEST FOE PUTIN HAS FACED THUS FAR

"How ISIS Is Using Us to Get What It Wants," By Alistaire Crooke, September 25, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/1rwy45W -- AS BILL MAHER SAID, ISIS IS SELLING FEAR AND WE'RE BUYING 

"Kansas Is So Broke That It Has To Auction Off Sex Toys," By Samantha Lachman, September 25, 2014, Huffington Post. URL: http://huff.to/YefAey -- THANK GOD THIS MAD TEA PARTY EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN CONTAINED TO SPARSELY POPULATED, RURAL KANSAS!

"The fight against the Islamic State must include Iran," By Fareed Zakaria, September 25, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-fight-against-the-islamic-state-must-include-iran/2014/09/25/e6757500-44e0-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html  -- BUT WAIT, SEAN HANNITY TOLD ME THAT IRAN, HAMMAS AND ISIS ARE ALL ONE IN THE SAME, SO WHAT GIVES??...

"Walmart police shooting: 911 call to Ohio dispatcher – video," September 26, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/42vtd  -- GET READY TO SEE MORE OF THESE MISTAKEN SHOOTINGS AS OPEN CARRY AND CONCEALED CARRY BECOME MORE COMMON

"Europe's New Frozen Conflict," By Judy Dempsey, September 22, 2014, Carnegie Europe. URL: http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=56686  -- WHAT PUTIN IS DOING IN UKRAINE IS NOTHING NEW FOR RUSSIA, SADLY


"Crimean Tatar Mejlis given 24 hours to leave," By Halya Coynash, September 19, 2014, Human Rights in Ukraine. URL: http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1410985865 -- THIS IS HOW 'ANTI-FASCISTS' BEHAVE ?!

"Russia cries foul over Scottish independence vote," By Luke Harding, September 19, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xyn5  -- LOL!  I'M SURE THE UK IS WORRIED

"To Foil Russia's Food Ban, Imported Ingredients Go Incognito," By Corey Flintoff, September 19, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1qiH5cZ  -- CORRUPT RUSSIAN CUSTOMS OFFICIALS AND MOBSTERS TELL EU, 'THANKS FOR THE NEW RACKET, THE SMUGGLING BUSINESS IS GREAT!'

"Amid Scotland's refendum poll shows quarter of Americans back secession from US," September 19, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xyqb  -- TRANSLATION: 24 PERCENT OF AMERICANS PROUDLY DECLARE THEY ARE IDIOTS


"BBC journalists attacked and equipment smashed in Russia," By Tara Conlan, September 18, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xktz

"Killing Comes Naturally To Chimps, Scientists Say," By Scott Neuman, September 18, 2014, NPR. URL: http://n.pr/1wsJEyT  -- INDEED, WOMEN ARE THE PEACEMAKERS... EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE SO ANNOYING THEY MAKE YOU WANNA GO RAY RICE ON THEM (KIDDING)




"Black Lung Disease Rates Skyrocket To Highest Levels Since 1970s," By Dave Jamieson, September 15, 2014,  Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/XqpqcK  -- BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

"The Surprising Reason Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals," By Macrina Cooper-White, September 11, 2014, Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/1CVPU6G


"U.S. should not be a silent partner to Israeli settlement expansion," By Jeremy Ben-Ami, September 8, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-benami-israel-settlements-usa-20140909-story.html  -- WRITTEN BY A SELF-HATING JEW, NO DOUBT

Friday, July 25, 2014

Watch 'Jaffa: The Orange's Clockwork' (2010)

This documentary by Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan is excellent and fair-minded.  I haven't been able to find the whole thing in English yet, only this shortened version. For my francophone friends, the entire film is on YouTube with French subtitles: http://youtu.be/gxTAxIPxeGM 

The film gives the lie to a lot of myths about Palestine, Zionism and the founding of the Israeli state, foremost that Palestine was a desert wasteland, "A land crying out to the West, 'Come, save me. Come, conquer me.'"  It's especially important now to remember real history, as Israel has killed more than 800 Palestinians and injured more than 5000, many of them civilians, in occupied Gaza in revenge for the murder of three Israelis.

Director's statement

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork is a political essay unfolding the story of the invention and the visual history of the world’s wide famous citrus fruit originated in Palestine and known around the world as "Jaffa oranges". While the orange become the symbol of the Zionist enterprise and the state of Israel, for Palestinians it symbolises the lost of their homeland and its destruction. Through a careful reading of the visual representation of the brand, the film reflects on western phantasms related to the ‘Orient’ the ‘holy land’ and the State of Israel and unveils the untold story of what was ones a commune symbol and industry to Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

The oranges of Jaffa, the fruits, the orchards, the brand name and the city - that gave to the fruit its name, are the backdrop of the commune Jewish-Arab life in Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the colonial covetousness, the account of obliteration, nationalization, then repudiation in order to propose a joint historical narrative.

Watch it!

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Max Blumenthal on 'Goliath' and Israeli apartheid

This is a must-read interview with journalist Max Blumenthal whose latest book is called Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.  

Blumenthal, a Jewish American, has been labelled an anti-Semite and anti-American by the Israeli lobby for accurately describing what life is really like in Israel today.

Read on!...


By Joshua Frank
January 2, 2014 | CounterPunch

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

What 'recognizing Israel' really means

I know another place that insisted on putting one's ethnic background in one's passport: the Soviet Union. Israel is in good company.

Israel is not a free and democratic country by Western standards.


By Charlotte Silver
October 10, 2013 | Al Jazeera

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Chomsky: What's really happening in Gaza


In case anybody in America cares about what's really happening in Gaza.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....


The savage punishment of Gaza traces back to decades ago.
By Noam Chomsky
December 3, 2012 | AlterNet

Friday, October 26, 2012

Jews now a minority in Israel

I know, I know, most American's eyes glaze over when somebody mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But this is worth a look.

It reminds me of what Gary Brecher always says about war: "birthrate wins."  So Israeli Jews are now officially a minority in their own "democratic Jewish" state.  Now, Israel cannot even justify its apartheid state on the basis of a Jewish racial majority. 


Security has been a "primary justification" for Zionist policies of land expropriation and removal of Palestinians.
By Mark LeVine
October 25, 2012 | Al Jazeera

Friday, August 17, 2012

Review of: After Zionism: One State for Israel & Palestine

Yeah, come to think of it, the banal "two-state solution" is so early 20th century. Jeff Sparrow sums it up: 

The Zionist colonial project was based on expectations from a different age, taking for granted that homicidal anti-Semitism lurked ineradicably in the West, so that Jewish people would be relentlessly persecuted unless they lived under a Jewish state.

Those assumptions were wrong.

In the developed world, anti-Semitism has become an ideology of a crackpot fringe. And has Israel become a place of safety, a magnet for Jews the world over? On the contrary. Most Jews in the West have no intention of moving. Why would they? Omar Barghouti quotes former speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, about Israel: 'Few of us know any other existential reality apart from our unrelenting war with everyone, all the time and over all issues.'

By contrast, the underlying assumptions of the one-state solution are much more compatible with contemporary democratic sensibilities.

If the U.S. has a role to play in this conflict, it should be to support democracy, equal rights and inter-ethnic tolerance.  A one-state solution in a democratic, multi-ethnic Israel meets those criteria.


By Jeff Sparrow
August 16, 2012 | Overland

Wednesday, January 18, 2012