The deal to release hunger striker Khader Adnan came about because he had embarrassed Israeli authorities, because of international attention, and because of Palestinian demonstrations in solidarity (as experts from the Institute for Middle East Understanding explained yesterday).
Last week in Palestine I went to one of those demonstrations, outside Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank. It was chaotic. Soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets, ambulances flew up to the front lines and back to pick up young people stunned by rubber bullets, young women led thrilling chants, and young men threw rocks and burned tires.
The video I made above of an interview with Doraed Hassona, 21, a student at Bir Zeit University, is probably the most important piece I will bring back from Israel and Palestine this visit. As I'm sure you will agree, this young man is the very best that comes out of his society-- or any other society. He is polite, genuine, and highly articulate. His face is filled with sweetness.
Having just heard women leading a chant that repeatedly called for "Thawra," I asked Hassona what this word means, and he explains that it is revolution. We are "sick of Israeli policies" and sick of occupation, he says, and want revolutionary change.
Why would a young man of such promise endorse revolution? Be sure to go to minute 5 when I ask Hassona, who is from Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, if he has ever been to the sea, nine miles away.
Then watch his face as I ask him if any of his brothers and sisters have ever been to the sea, or to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
This post is not an endorsement of revolution. I am for a peaceful transition in Israel and Palestine. But this video is important because Hassona is only reflecting widespread desperation among Palestinians. Everywhere I went I met people who had hoped that the peace process would produce a normal society for them. And all the peace process has done is to extend and prolong frightening and insulting conditions (of apartheid and ethnic cleansing that I will document in days to come). It is no wonder that even Sari Nusseibeh has declared that the two-state solution is a fantasy.
Look at this young man's face when he tells you he has never been to the sea or to the Al-Aqsa mosque and then recall Obama's words in Cairo three years ago--"Let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own"--and then ask yourself what we have done to fulfill that promise.
Thank you so much Phil for sharing this interview. Doraed Hassona not allowed to worship in Jerusalem or visit the beach in his own homeland!
wow.
Hillary Leverett and Michael Rubin discussed US-Iran relations here
Leverett said Iranians are always willing to negotiate; Rubin said, “But they are not capable of negotiating like Westerners because they didn’t have the Enlightenment,” and “businessmen negotiate to get to yes; Iranians negotiate to get to maybe,” and, “Iranians are willing to talk but never willing to do what we want.”
Leverett said, “That’s right, Iranians don’t want to be dominated by US hegemon.”
Palestinians have been patient but they don’t want to be dominated, either.
Israelis — like Rubin — just don’t get it.
PS. the notion that Rubin is the exemplar of Enlightenment thinking makes me wanna holler.
Re Rubin’s Enlightenment comment, I would recommend people seeing the Iranian film “A Separation” on this subject. It’s great cinema, an interesting view of contemporary Teheran, and a direct look at “negotiation” Iranian-style.
Or perhaps the director did it as agit-prop, to counter racist slander like Rubin’s.
Phil: I think the word is transliterated “thawra,” meaning revolt or revolution.
“Thawra” doesn’t only mean “revolution” but has several meanings resembling each other to a degree. Phil insinuated that he is for one but he was clear that he wasn’t endorsing a non-peaceful transition. He was surely thinking of one along the lines of a thawra-bayda, a bloodless white thawra. What type of thawra was Doraed hoping for? The thawras of Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria and Jordan were all different from each other. Doraed also mentioned the word “intifada” that means uprising, revolt, upheaval.
The many meanings of “thawra”: revolution, rebellion, revolt, uprising, insurrection, insurgence, eruption, outbtreak, outburst, flare-up, excitement, agitation, upheaval, commotion, uproar.
The important question is whether the Palestinians (in whole or in part) will surrender to despair (in violent revolution or in abject abandonment of their rights) BEFORE the world sees their situation, understands, finds its voice and honor and bravery, and stands up to the USA/Israeli bulldozer.
The world could do it. By why should they? Why not work on some other (insoluble?) problem, such as climate change? Or go to the beach, instead? Why work at any problem? Isn’t merely earning a living (or getting rich) a sufficient occupation? Who needs a Palestinian occupation?
I think I am getting quite close.
“This post is not an endorsement of revolution. I am for a peaceful transition in Israel and Palestine.” well good for you, but you dont own our right to resist, and the violence is courtesy the oppressor. so the nature of the thawra is up to the criminal oppressor,
“But this video is important because Hassona is only reflecting widespread desperation among Palestinians.” well no they are not desperate they are resolute, they are in the right and they dont need anyones endorsement, we are glad that you at least are able to tolerate the status quo, until peaceful change is effected, how is that going to work, oh yes Palestinians could ask for almost nothing, el hakawati had a great play in the 90′s about the end of the criminal oppression of zionism.
“Everywhere I went I met people who had hoped that the peace process would produce a normal society for them.” i seriously doubt it but they certainly know better now.
is self centered condescension a cherished cultural trait of the galut. you and your ilk will not save us and the astonishing lengths Palestinians have gone too to make space for peace have been rebuffed, i’d check with the colonizers about their commitment to peacefully continue the savage oppression of the revolutionaries. Fetishization of Palestinian resistant “violence” is deeply dishonest.
Lan ya murra, or something like that.
Translation: “it ain’t gonna happen.”
Gamal, you understand: Phil cannot look at Israel and Zionism, and see what it is.
ever since the curse of slater this site has become a little unintentionally funny, maybe its a ziocaine contact high, its very sticky you know
its not that Palestinian lives alone are cheap, so are their rights, everyone wants to give some of them away, and attenuate their humanity, we all hope for the peaceful application of all relevant laws as we sleep walk into what is going to be a really major crisis,
in greece democracy is suspended and the country’s elite is petulantly agreeing to rape, “we have its consent jim but its not democratic consent”, soon its going to be Gaza everywhere, why do governments suspend habeus corpus and arrogate rights to themselves to act against citizens and others with all sorts of penal and lethal mechanisms, clearly we can’t have any democracy while we are protecting and exporting democracy, probs nothing to worry about, when they say indefinite detention or death, they dont mean you, can you see any raging muslim insurrection in your county, no ! i’d worry then, but just think when you peacefully resist that hellfire, and no one be able to criticize your violence, you will have generated one gandhi of virtuous peace as your organs evaporate into mist, morally you will be the victor .
those carrying the burdens of superior intellect and pedigree can put them down at any old way station, its all one love you know.
Sa7. Thank you.
Thank G-d for Mooser. He’s still here. I was at the point of despair.
Good for you. We need more Palestinian voices on this blog (if nothing else, to replace the ones that have been driven away so far). I used to have an article from Dissident Voices by an Israeli academic who pointed out how condescending and covertly racist even “liberal Zionists” are who claim to be anti-Occupation. Unfortunately those are exactly the sort of people who Phil grants privileged access to speak on this blog.
Keep making comments here, we need input from people like you.
Gamal: “Galuts” like Phil are your friends! You’re using the same term of contempt that the settlers of Yehuda and Shomron use for self-hating Jews in comfy apartments in New York and London. Is that how you really feel about activists like Phil??? Self-centered condescension is a perpetual enemy, never to be defeated. It’s built into our natures. Please accept our perpetual apologies. But the real foe–yours, Phil’s, mine (I’m what you might call a self-hating Jew-in-law)–is Zionism (sorry, Phil, if you’re not there yet, but I think you are). Not Jews, not Israelis, not even Zionists, but ZionISM. That’s a vulnerable foe. Maybe I’ve come to despise Zionism unconscionably slowly and for a different mix of reasons from yours, including an arguably clannish concern for Jews and Judaism. That’s not inconsistent with being on the same side. Indeed, I largely agree with your comments about violent resistance (and so do other “galuts” such as Max Ajl of Jewbonics), about steadfastness (“existence is resistence”), about the pathetic futility of further “concessions” to Zionism.
I shall direct you to Mooser’s rather erudite comment:
Sorry Chaos, I don’t get it. I’m not being belligerent, I just don’t understand what you’re (apparently) flagging as unprincipled. All the best.
sorry didnt know it was a term of contempt, seriously i rather like the word. i am in fact a rootless cosmopolitan myself, but then i was attacked physically for using the word half-caste to describe myself, i seem to miss the meetings where offensive epiphets are defined.
peace is not the responsibility of those being aggressed, i am amazed that zionists, in their overweening arrogance do not perceive the profound dangers threatening the US jewish and non-jewish “progressive” community.
no insult intended, i dont speak any language fluently anymore and am a bit freaked having engaged in a formal government sponsored integration project here which turned out to be a platform for the propagation of some serious BS about muslims, whom i was taken to represent, and then silenced by a hysterical priest, when i tried to engage with it.
we all want peace, happiness and prosperity, even for zionists, but we as subjects, i am not Palestinian my father came from sharkiya prov egypt which some zionists claim (they can have it) and we cant keep the peace, or survive much more “angst” about our “violence”. we are already at peace, we just cant defend ourselves and you are going to realise sooner rather than later how this world has changed, and i really mean it is one love, i love all of my sacred bretheren and sisteren, there is great wisdom in the ghettos of the west, i reckon you would all do well to learn from the meanest and poorest in your midst, the despised are guardians of the greatest treasures of the human spirit.
so galut is an insult ok got it sorry. but lets be clear people like me have no friends and are able to sustain our little lives under conditions of insecurity and anathematization, because we have to be strong to hold our place anyway, the zionist project is going to exact an enormous price from the jewish community you genuinely have my sympathy, but we in the east, as i say, can not ensure peace or peaceful transformation, its going to be bloody, it is already, its just that no one fully human or important has yet been inconvenienced, i once wrote that America is suffering from “the necrosis of always winning” the cure is on its way. bon sante.
Re: “… its going to be bloody, it is already, its just that no one fully human or important has yet been inconvenienced, i once wrote that America is suffering from “the necrosis of always winning” the cure is on its way. bon sante.”
gamal, yes. I can assure you, nobody influential here in America, will see it coming. The combination of indifference, half-baked ideologies, short-term thinking masked as strategy, or even tactics, and political opportunism, plus a giant dose of narrowly-focused narcissism, will find its reward big time.
Gamal, as Walid says.
Indeed, Phil lives in the comfort of the privileged American Jew. He knows that a majority of his co-tribalists are guilty as sin in enabling the horrors of ethnic cleansing and indeed, there are many, possibly a majority of American Jews who honestly don’t care very much about Arab lives. People like Slater say they care, but when you read him it is obvious that his statements of caring for Palestinians ring somewhat hollow. What he does care about are his fellow “Jews”, including many of the truly evil ones found in both the US and Israel. And they ain’t all neocons either. Some of them call themselves “progressives”. Others join gangs with names like “Team Shalom”, meaning peace to the jews – at whoever’s expense it can be had.
I honestly don’t think Phil, as morally advanced and brave as he is, can bring himself to accept how deeply corrupt the spirits of the majority of self-identified Jews in this country is. Not just the abstract “establishment”, but individuals – 100′s of thousands of them – young, middle aged and old. Rich and not so rich.. Many of whom are found in Florida and LA – not on the rarefied intellectualized east Coast. It is not just a “phenomenon”, but actual people, somebody’s husband, sister, grandparent and uncle, and they deliberately turn away from the horrific evil perpetrated in their name. In their silence and deliberate ignorance they are complicit up to their neck. To accept this is very difficult, because it’s that much harder to hang onto hope.
It’s not only that zionism is intertwined with racism of the deepest, most incorrigible kind. It’s that it is a virulent disease that robs its victims of rationality, uprightness and character. It saps the spirit and makes people small, petty and thin skinned. And most unfortunately this malady is curable only if caught on time, and even then, the scars never completely heal.
Danaa, maybe it’s being done unwittingly, but the pointing of the finger at the evils of Zionists and settlers rather than on Israelis is serving only to normalize what the rest of Israelis are doing. There aren’t many distinctions between Israelis and Zionists on issues of land and water thefts. They’re all guilty.
Danaa,
I’ve read and enjoyed your comments for some time; this one is particularly accurate and goes straight to the heart of the matter. Please continue commenting.
Frankie P
“Indeed, Phil lives in the comfort of the privileged American Jew. … I honestly don’t think Phil, as morally advanced and brave as he is, can bring himself to accept how deeply corrupt the spirits of the majority of self-identified Jews in this country is.”
I wouldn’t indict Phil on this count. It is probably true that he lives “in the comfort of the privileged American Jew,” but he does more to examine the nature of Jewishness, the relationship of Jews to the non-Jewish world, and the relationship of Jews (in both America and Israel) to the Palestinians, whom Israel has so viciously dispossessed, than any other (major) Jewish commentator I can think of.
Does he have his own biases? In other words, is he human? Obviously, yes. Are there any other criticisms of him I can think of? Of course, but they aren’t relevant to this discussion.
We have seen many protests and heard the pleas and desperation of Palestinians for decades. One could build a library/museum solely on the comments and struggles of ordinary Palestinians and to what end if we do not involve ourselves in the Palestinian revolution in some way, not talking about BDS but carrying it out, organizing world-wide protests, weekly, monthly like Palestinians are doing and letter/email protests flooding government representatives involved in foreign policy, and those who represent our communities on a federal level.
“This post is not an endorsement of revolution. I am for a peaceful transition in Israel and Palestine.”
We all dream of PEACEFUL transition, but we live in a world of DOUBLE-STANDARDS and OVERWHELMING HYPOCRISY. Look at what’s happening in Bahrain: those people are demonstrating peacefully and, they’re being attacked, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and killed by their government representing, a privileged minority armed and abetted by the U.S., and are getting ZERO recognition! Palestinians are demonstrating peacefully, attacked, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and killed by AN ILLEGAL OCCUPIER, STEALING THEIR LAND and ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THEM, armed and abetted by the U.S..
Libyans and Syrians took up arms and through VIOLENCE have garnered the recognition and assistance of NATO, ISRAEL AND THE GCC!!
If anyone has the RIGHT TO REVOLUTION after so many years of persecution watching their land being usurped by FOREIGN ZIONISTS it’s PALESTINIANS!! Palestinians more than anyone else deserve the right to defend themselves by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE because the world has pushed them aside. They have been stripped of EVERYTHING even their right to SELF-DEFENSE!
So in a perfect world I too would say I am for “peaceful transition in Israel and Palestine”. But this is hardly a perfect world! WHY SHOULD PALESTINIANS (AND BAHRAINIS) BE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD???
We must stop legitimizing Israel and get cracking on taking this fight to governments, businesses, universities and the street here! There is NO Israel without Palestinian rights!!!!
Yes, kalithea, we kids all want a peaceful playground, so god forbid any of us entertain a plan to end the violence by somehow attacking the big playground bully and his thug gang who’ve terrorized us so long now we really feel like we have nothing now to lose except the fear we awake with each day.
“Libyans and Syrians took up arms and through VIOLENCE have garnered the recognition and assistance of NATO, ISRAEL AND THE GCC!!”
The view is different from my angle, kalithea. Libyans and Syrians had been going around in circles and making up stories about Gadaffi strafing civilians and the Syrian regime capturing lesbians when NATO, Israel and the GCC convinced them that they had a valid cause and needed the assistance.
We ourselves have a “thawra” to fight right here and now. None of our other demands will be met unless we can first come to grips with our fight against the corporatist Wall Street machine.
I don’t know if desperation is the correct word for this. Based on Doraed’s demeanor, and that of many of the Palestinians whom I met in the West Bank, it’s not necessarily desperation. To me, it speaks of a moral rectitude and moral clarity that is undeniable. The occupation and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is so abhorrent, resistance is the clear, unshakable, and moral aspect of Palestinian life. As Doraed said, it’s not about the political or religious affiliation of an individual undertaking resistance. Rather, its the acts of resistance.
Also, using the word desperation doesn’t give justice to the Palestinian demand of dignity and equality. Doraed was so dignified in this video. He speaks with such moral clarity, such righteousness.
There is no rebuttle to Doraed. There is no rebuttle to Khader. The Israel hasbarists can’t refute their claims. It makes the revolution that grants Palestinians justice and equality feel not only inevitable, but forthcoming.
It is so humbling to know Palestine and Palestinians. Truly amazing place and inspiring people, I wish I could find words to do them justice. And what is being done to them defies any words in my vocabulary.
It is very telling and symbolic that this report is filmed at the near spot where two IDF reservist soldiers, got lost in 2000, were detained by the PA police , brought into the custody and killed by the mob. Their names were Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami.
link to en.wikipedia.org
And after that one-state solution seems plausible to you, Phil? How is the weather in the Wonderland you’ve been living?
Two-states- that is the minimal requirement for some peace there, and not another bloodshed.
“…where two IDF…”
Wait, I’m confused. You people occupy them for 40 years, stifle their dreams, kill their children in cold blood, mercilessly wage war against them in their own country, and you expect us to care that two of the perpetrators were executed without the due process? You steadfastly refuse to give to the Palestinians — whose land you’ve invaded and are now stealing — due process, but you expect it from them with regard to your criminals? I mean, they should have been tried them and found them guilty of their crimes before given the Eichmann treatment, but am I really supposed to cry because a trial wasn’t held?
I suppose you personally would not shed a tear for the two reservist truck drivers. After all every IDF soldier is a murderer for you. Thankfully a vast majority of the civilized people were and stil are shocked and disgusted by that bare handed murder. It is about trust- and neither I nor anybody else I know do not trust Palestinians. In order to build one no revolution is required but something boring like economy, healthcare and education. All lacking in modern Palestine
“All lacking in modern Palestine”…because of the PRISON conditions the people are forced to live under daily, 24/7, 365 (366 ) days of the year.
I know of so many Palestinian civilians killed, way before those lost IDF drivers were killed (by a mob). And many were killed by the Israeli state ITSELF, though some were killed by Israeli “civilian” terrorists. Eff off on your select “poor IDF” BS.
I don’t think a single state is in the cards, but that is due to a nuclear armed, racist, and demography OBSESSED Zionist Israel. Don’t effing pawn off the reason why a 1SS seems unlikely on the fact that Palestinians have resisted, at times with violence and even terrorism.
The peaceful one state solution was ALWAYS there, but as you KNOW, ZIONISTS insisted on a Jewish state, and more land than they got from an already biased BS partition plan out of Europe. Now I would prefer a 1SS, but Zionism is the reason a peaceful 1SS is not possible, and also why we likely will not see a 1SS. Oddly, they are also preventing a 2SS, so it seems like a Masada death cult to me lately.
Blame the victim, per the usual Zionist line… Sadly I bet you believe your own warped decontextualized “poor me” “narrative”.
Eff narratives, and look at the facts and the population flows. Look at the human rights each group has, or does not. Count up the bodies. Count up the dead unarmed civilians. Add up the land mass each resides on. Total the refugees. The you might start to realize this is the pure abuse of power, and one side has been flexing their muscles since 1947 and even long before that.
Two IDF soldiers were killed when driving on occupied land, that their government was VIOLENTLY and ILLEGALLY COLONIZING. You got it, and despite having IDF in my extended family, I would not shed a tear. I would shed a tear if I *knew* them, but I would also note that they made a big moral and personal mistake in not being refusniks….
“… After all every IDF soldier is a murderer for you.”
It’s not just the soldiers, dimadok, but almost every Israeli living off the fruits of stolen land, stolen water and stolen lives.
dim,
Here in the USA, the laws allow you to shoot an intruder on your property. NO ONE feels sorry for the slain criminal.
Wake up – there is NO one state solution, or two state solution. There is only a steadily approaching big bad war. And we’ll see then who’s made of what.
I’m sure you’ve got your second passport right and ready.
Every IDF soldier is a willing participant in crimes against humanity. To be fair, I would much rather see them get justice before credible courts — something these goons deprive Palestinians of pretty much continuously.
Bare handed murder doesn’t shock you, dimadok, when it happens to Palestinian school children. So drop the act.
“Thankfully a vast majority of the civilized people were and stil are shocked and disgusted by that bare handed murder.”
Its not like they were shooting children for sport, like Israeli soldiers are known to have done. I have to wonder at all the “civilized” people who are shocked and disgusted by the killing of two soldiers by a mob, but not by bulldozing innocent people alive in their homes, like Israelis do. I guess if you civilized Israelis (or Americans) people regard other people as savages or otherwise subhuman, its reasonable to kill or exterminate them at will.
Walid, and American Jewish and Christian Zionists are accomplices to Israel, the murderer, and most of the rest of us Americans are complicit. Perhaps, the analogy is to statutory felony murder, wherein 3 guys, A,B & C plan to rob a store (the felony), and only A has a gun, and it’s agreed he will merely brandish it, it won’t even be loaded–but when the crime takes place the guy with the gun shoots the counter girl. B, who only stood by the store door as lookout, and to create a support presence, and C, who sat in the car with the engine running, are found equally guilty of murder as A, who pulled the trigger.
“… American Jewish and Christian Zionists are accomplices to Israel, the murderer, and most of the rest of us Americans are complicit.”
I’m guessing that it’s because American Jews are constantly made to feel guilty by Israelisl the Christian Zionists are happy to have Israel empty the land of non-Jews to pave the way for you kow what.
“I suppose you personally would not shed a tear for the two reservist truck drivers. After all every IDF soldier is a murderer for you.”
Well, if just being part of the machine where evil is done is good enough to convict someone like Demjanjuk, why should it be different for IDF goons??
Also dimadok….
That was at the height of the VERY bloody 2nd intifada- with Palestinian civilians dropping like flies. You might want to note that Jews and Israelis go to area A, Palestinian controlled areas, DAILY (“illegally” for the Israelis, under Israeli laws). Look into the AIC cafe in Beit Sahour. Also, Jews visit and even reside all over the West Bank, in area A (I did myself, but only with a Jewish father; but I was always touring around with and meeting “real” Jews).
Also, settlers share roads ALL OVER the West Bank with Palestinians, 24/7. Of course in Hebron the settlers do try to run down Palestinians quite often…. Hmmm…
It is the Zionist in you, and the Zionist in GENERAL, that makes a peaceful 1SS impossible. Figure out reality, and the whole chicken/egg thing.
Palestinian lives mean NOTHING to racists like dimadok. Only Jewish lives matter to Israelis.
Hey, Phil, I’m all for active listening, but in future how about waiting until your interviewee completes his/her answer before you agree? All those “Yes”-es are pretty distracting!
Good advice Henry. Phil needs to work on his interviewing technique. I found the yes’s overly aggressive, there was a driving quality to the tone.
I agree, Norr and ToivoS, but maybe Phil felt like he would only be able to detain the young man briefly, so he kept prompting him to move to next question by assuring him, each time the young man answered, his answer was understood, so indirectly setting up the next question, all towards getting as big a picture as possible on video (with the young man as representative of his people)–after all, it was a street interview, and apparently spontaneously arranged….
there are no words to express what i feel.
“I am for a peaceful transition in Israel and Palestine.”
Get over it because your just 10 days too late and there is no “Rosy Scenario”? Haven’t you been listening to Likud? What’s left really for the Palestinians and us, other than serious resistance or capitulation? Both paths could end up in the same place. Pick a number.
Intelligence Online is reporting a major shift of Israeli forces from Georgia and Turkey to Azerbaijan with weapons transfers as bribes. It’s all aimed at Iran and Russia. Perhaps the Russians will get very nervous? I would be . I think this thing is about to get a lot bigger than any of us imagine. Perhaps, we’re about to witness the public emergence of the eighth new major Superpower of 5 million people, no less.
Hej!
a major shift of Israeli forces from Georgia and Turkey to Azerbaijan with weapons transfers as bribes. It’s all aimed at Iran and Russia.
what israeli forces in turkey? sounds more like a preparation for an attack on syria. they will take down syria first.
Thank you Phil for doing some excellent reporting from that media blind spot called Palestine.
But it might happen, whether you endorse it or not. Relinquishing some control over the course of events and the narrative of what is acceptable or unacceptable is difficult, but it’s essential. In any popular uprising there is going to be what we would call “violence” on the part of those resisting, who are facing much the much greater violence and control of the state apparatus – it doesn’t make it illegitimate. If we’re going to advocate for a peaceful uprising, we should first take aim at dismantling or weakening the forces at the top who consistently, through their much greater power, resist change and make such a peaceful transformation to a better society impossible in the first place.
Some thoughts on violence/non-violence, and controlling the debate :
Concerning the Violent Peace-Police :
link to nplusonemag.com
Two Kinds of Non-Violence :
link to electronicintifada.net
Who Is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation? :
link to mrzine.monthlyreview.org
So, What Exactly Are We Talking About? Some Preliminary Observations :
link to powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
You’re absolutely right, LRB. I have a feeling that Phil was being more cautious than frank.
in libya..
Totally agree.
There are good reasons too to be cautious of creeping violence during uprisings, as it is sometimes hijacked by the more ruthless elements, which are not necessarily representative of most of the population.
Nobody is saying “be violent”, or “categorically reject violence”, but just to see it in its proper context and to understand exactly what it is and why it’s there.
“Intelligence Online is reporting a major shift of Israeli forces from Georgia and Turkey to Azerbaijan with weapons transfers as bribes.”
Numbers may be off, but there has to be something burning behind all that smoke being spewed at RT, AlBawaba, Debka etc; the rumbles in and with Syria and Iran are turning into old fashioned ones between the US and Russia:
link to rt.com
hey walid, just saw this…thanks for the link. “Thousands of gunmen preparing to enter Syria?” doesn’t surprise me. watch for a severe zionist escalation in violence against palestinians and settlement expansion. goi use the distraction of war to ethnically cleanse and expand. at least they did after 9/11. that worked out rather swimmingly for the ethnic cleansers of palestine. making lemons out of lemonade and all that..
the gandhian response to ethnic cleansing is starvation because palestinians are caged and it is not acceptable for caged people use weapons (even rocks). this is the future of humanity. the caged and their violators, who we are to perceive as eternal victims. or something. the oppressors with weapons are victims, of racism. makes perfect sense if the media feeds the masses the right ingredients. the fourth estate is ……
Annie, so many rumours and so much propaganda flying back and forth from all sides, it has made it impossible to distinguish facts from bogus stories. This week there were stories of 5000 ex-blackwater guys training Libyans and Iraqis inside Jordan for fighting in Syria and 750 tons of Israeli military supplies shipped to Jordan for use in Syria. The numbers are surely super inflated but no one can say if it’s true and no one can say it’s not but thinking on how the UAE has contracted with Erik Prince to constitute an army of mercenaries for the UAE and how Israel has free use of America’s stockpile of 3000 tons of arms at Ashdod, it makes you wonder.
link to nytimes.com
Let’s have a revolution here and save Palestine the trouble.
His face is filled with sweetness.
i saw dignity sumud honor
Me too, Annie. I don’t know what “sweetness” means as it was used. Maybe a way to try to say, the interviewee is so young, yet he’s not revealing any juvenile hate, but, e.g., simply answering he has never been able to walk the beach so near? And that’s precisely, he knows, because he was born a Palestinian.
wow dr. bruce cockburn, wow! so not all canadians are etiolated and bland, another prejudice bits the dust…
“if i had a rocket launcher”
Lyrics:
Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher…I’d make somebody pay
I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states
And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would retaliate
On the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation — or some less humane fate
Cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would not hesitate
I want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher…Some son of a b###h would die
link to youtube.com
but it aint just if you dont win eh!
and
Lyrics:
padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor
who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament–
the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
idolatry of ideology
north south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it’s just spend a buck to make a buck
you don’t give a flying ####
about the people in misery
IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there’s one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
see the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
see the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution.
wow someone should drop dr cockburn a line apparently he has some idea why people are calling for a revolution, there isnt any peace anywhere to disturb, 800 militayr bases, and still one ponders what and who is the source of violence, yes i know its the unarmed, dangerous bastards.
link to youtube.com
“… so not all canadians are etiolated and bland”
You’ve been hanging around the wrong crowd, gamal.