Flying Protester (Photo: Ahmad Mesleh/TDN)
From a press release announcing the new website The Daily Nuisance:
Today, a new journalist collective based in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories launches its online publication, The Daily Nuisance (TDN). Employing Palestinian, Israeli, and locally-based international journalists, TDN (found at www.thedailynuisance.com) aims to add diverse and on-the-ground voices to the ongoing coverage of the region.
Emerging outside the confines of the mainstream media rat race to reproduce one dimensional images of the Middle East, TDN is an independent, and investigative eye from the ground on one of the world’s most misrepresented regions. The Daily Nuisance is a local, cross-wall news collective that will work to counteract those misrepresentations.
“Above all justice and peace needs Americans to be honestly informed. Unless and until there are, no American president will have the space to break the stranglehold of the Zionist lobby on Congress on matters relating to Israel/Palestine,” Alan Hart, prolific Middle East journalist and author, told TDN.
Renowned historian and author of A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, spoke to TDN about the need for News from the Frontier. “Given the corporate domination of the major media, and the timidity that pervades contemporary journalism, we desperately need independent media to fulfill the promise of democracy, which requires that the public be fully informed about matters which affect all of our lives,” he stressed.
Godspeed with this new organization.
This looks great!
I read the three articles posted on the columns site. I’m going to reserve judgment until I see more of what looks less like hasbara lite. It looks like another handwringing site to me so far, focusing on the helplessness and hopelessness of Jews rather than any reporting per se.
But, its early days yet. I was expecting something more along the lines of the hard hitting reporting done by Blumenthal.
So if there is no Zionist and Israel bashing its no good huh Sammy?
Don’t you have anything better to do than make personal snipes at other commenters? Seriously get a life. And that’s coming from someone like me.
It doesn’t need to be Israel bashing, so much as an opinion on the occupation. Imagine reading a holocaust awareness site with bare references to Jewish victims and mega handwringing on German lebensraum. What would be your opinion of it?
Just FYI, my response to such a site would be the same as I got when reading the first article on TDN [Addicted to the occupation], i.e. we already know you’re ill, stop the bitch and moan. This is NOT about YOU.
Fair enough Sammy :)
I knew there was a reasonable person in there somewhere. ;-)
LOL, he is stubborn. but sometimes shows his face….
It looked good to me. I expect there will be pieces on the occupation, but I also want to hear from Israeli peace advocates describing attitudes in Israel.
That is a powerful image. A beautiful one.
Yes, a very powerful, beautiful, and edgy image.
The first article on the site describes the prevailing Israeli “occupation addiction.”
They discuss anything and everything at the daily dinner table–except the occupation; “What occupation?”
Reminds me of the typical American dinner table.
The Israeli coma will continue as long as the Americans buy them their drug.
Nothing is changing. Obama’s giving them their drug.
Both countries are in a coma.
I have been looking forward to this site for a while. It is good to finally see it become a reality, and I know it will add a more realistic dimension to the tragedy taking place.
I have to say, some of the pieces could use an English proofreader.
From gazamom.com:
On extremists, moderates, and us
10/30/2009
(snip)
In any case, the panel included an impressive list of some 12 bloggers (academics, writers, and so on) including Phil Weiss of Mondoweiss, Helena cobban, Max Blumenthal, Brian Walt, Sydney Levy and so on.
I arrived a few minutes late to a packed conference hallways and overflowing room…
When I was asked to introduce myself and speak a little about Gaza, I really didn’t know what to say besides how disconnected and remote I have come to feel. “So say that” suggested Richard Silverstein “because ultimately that is what a siege and total blockade intends to achieve, what occupation does”. And so I did. My father stood silently by in the back of the room. I referred to him, to both my parents, to my family, to everyone in Gaza;
How hard it was simply to live there, and then, to leave, or return. You are always feeling like a stranger, always feeling dislocated. Now more than ever. The only thing linking me are pictures and memories. I read the news and I feel so far away.
And then the others chattered, mainly about the role of J Street, was it bad, was it good, did it have potential, the lesser of two evils…and on and on.
Half an hour in, I was silent, still wondering what I was doing there. Then Ray Hanania spoke via webcam, in the nauseating meaningless expressions that could be uttered by anyone from Ariel Sharon to Ghandi “we must isolate the extremists on both sides and reach out to the moderates in order ot achieve peace, and we all know that is based on the vision of two-states for two people’s… blahbity blahbity blah…”.
“Ray” one of the moderators confessed, “you make it so easy for Jews to speak to you”.
ok, I’d had enough. I shook my head, raised my hand and just sort of let it all out: “I’m sorry I really have to say something here. I’ve been quietly listening to what everyone has been saying for 20 minutes now- feeling confused and very much out of place, as I listen to people talking about moderates and achieving peace and …I just have to ask: What is everyone talking about? This is not real. What two states? What ‘peace’? Are we living on different planets? Has anyone seen a map of the West Bank lately? Of the settlements? Do you know what the settlements have done? what the wall looks like? Everyone is speaking about “two states”, about an independent viable palestine as if that’s real. As though it were something just within our reach. And all I can think about is Gaza. My parents. My husband, a refugee, who can’t even go back with me when I was able to go back. The West Bank. Jerusalem. This is not real anymore. I’m really not understanding what we’re doing here, and where I fit in to all of this, and what everyone is talking about.”
The conversation was way behind. Step off the tracks and take a look around, I thought.
“We can’t continue to speak like this, its an illusion people. I really also have to protest this dichotomous notion of there being extremists and moderates-who is the extremist here? Are Ray, and others, suggesting that President Abbas and the PA are the moderates? that they are the ones to reach out to? Let me let you in on a little secret: Most Palestinians don’t’ support Abbas. I certainly don’t consider him my president-his term expired in January. Where are all the other Palestinian voices? I am an observant Muslim; I also support a democratic one state solution; but I’m not Fateh or Hamas or anything else- I’m certainly pro-justice; do you consider me an extremist then? The Palestinian political spectrum is very diverse and pluralistic-its high time we recognized that and include these other voices in the conversation.” But of course, that would not be very convenient, would it.
And of course, this is all to suggest a skewed definition of “moderate” on the Israeli side-”moderates” that support a sustained occupation, expansive illegal settlements, a continuation of the siege, and so on.
Anyway I’d said my piece. There were applause and whatnot, and the conversation continued. I never did receive a response form Hanania, since based on his conversations on his radio programs, I would be considered among the “fringe”, a voice that the Palestinain leadership does not WANT to include in its conversation;
But if Jon Stewart’s valiant conversation with Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer last night is any indication, perhaps that is getting ready to change, at least as far as the US media is concerned (ok that’s a stretch, but it was a good start!)”
Thank you Citizen for posting this. Powerful words and of course right-on. Like I said, everyone has an opinion about what should happen but the Palestinians and what they want, with all their diversity of opinion, are always absent from the debate.
Yes those who keep hammering on the TSS are living in a dream and like gazamom said, have not looked at the map (West Bank map that is) recently or they see th little dots of the settlements and imagine that that’s what they truly are little insignificant specs easily removed and brushed off.
I think she should just accept that Palestinians and other non-Jews are exempt from the discussion. Occasionally, they can make some noise, but this doesn’t mean its relevant or will be the focus. Most discussions [like the one in Chicago] are going to be about Jewish ethics, Jewish values, Jewish movements, Jewish change, Jewish whatever. She should just sit in the audience while they decide what to do about people like her and then tell her what her status is going to be.
Important piece. I’m glad she spoke up.
Palestinian voices should be the focus.
If there’s a place on Mondowiess for feel-good stuff like The Daily Nuisance, surely there is room for realists like Martillo and Chris Moore.
So Martillo and Chris Moore (America First?) are in your head “realists”? Look, I bow to know one (it takes one, of course, to know one) in my anti-Zionist feelings, but I do know a stream of warmed over anti-Semitism trying desperately to latch on to the anti-Zionist cause when I see it.
You do realise that all of Martillo’s and Moore’s dire warnings of Jewish Pinky-and-the-Brain type plots require accepting, and I mean, swallowing whole like a lump of shit, the primary Zionist canard of Jewish unity and continuity, right?
But, of course, if you want to call Mr. “Judeofacism” a “realist” you go right ahead.
What a shocker! I’m an anti-Semite. Yawn!
I don’t need to speak for Martillo or Moore, as they are more than capable of doing so themselves. As far as I know, neither claim any disadain for individuals for being Jewish, and I don’t either. And each of their views are easily as viable as the typical soft Zionism that seeks Jewish solutions to Palestinian and other problems, while calling itself humanism or something similar.
Zionism isn’t the only issue that non-Jews could have with Jewish influence, whether you care to admit or not. You have exhibited your own personal bigotries and social preferences many times, so drop the holier-than-thou act.
I’ve noted that nobody ever addresses the Martillo-alleged historical facts he brings to bear on any issue he addresses on his blog (and formerly, in brief here as well from time to time). If memory serves, Phil himself implied Martillo was over his head in terms of
scholarship awareness of historical roots regarding what now presents itself as issues on this blog. Is it merely a canard, the concept of the ultimate motive for many players being their concept and interpretation of “What’s good for the Jews?” Take a look at the Jewish organizations who recently filed briefs in the Supreme court case regarding the Somalia tyrant now living here–what do Saudi Arabia and these Jewish organizations (e.g. ZOA)have in common they would be on the same side against the forces of universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals and criminals against humanity to justice? And note that they are on the opposing side when it comes to jurisdiction over old decrepid minor nazis and any muslim American who speaks out against American policy and shows any sympathy for civil rights for Americans of the muslim faith.
I always thought many comments by America First were very relevant to the issues
tackled here. I didn’t always agree with his thrust, but I never thought what he said
was not a real factor in the on-going manipulation of minds seeking to understand
and champion “the right track.”
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