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Hi Donald, I think your advice is in general good. I now see that my initial comment provided a distraction for the regime apologists who would otherwise merrily keep on spouting their usual nonsense in the guise of 'reserving judgement' on the massacres. The problem is that when it comes to Mondoweiss and coverage of Syrian conflict there are slim pickings. I first approached the issue a number of months ago in a post, assuming there would be the same level of support for the Syrian uprising as Palestinian resistance. I got quite a shock. The kind of rhetoric I found in the comment sections to mine and Annie's infrequent posts appalled me. I am repeatedly called naïve by commenters on here. So be it. The final straw was the response to a post by Allison and her Syrian co-author. The comments I chose as a sample tho were specifically endorsing or insinuating validity of the transparent propaganda about Houla, and I asked 'How did it come to this' on Mondoweiss?
Hi Walid, I know what MoA is. I linked to it because it has translation of FAZ article that cites the nun - no coincidence that they both try to pin massacre on rebels. I have no reason to doubt Father Paolo's integrity regardless of repeated smears, so his word is good enough for me on Mother Agnes Mariam - particularly as her rhetoric is reminiscent of regime propaganda.
Annie, am bit confused now, but my apologies if I attributed wrong article to you - which might explain why you misunderstood me. Am unsure why you have taken this tone with me now - I hope we can just agree to disagree. At one point you seemed to be twisting meaning of my words. And no doubt you have the same complaint about me. I copied and pasted a thread the contents and links of which I felt illustrated point about susceptibility to stories based on regime propaganda. You just happened to on that thread. This is not personal. I hope we can keep this civil now
Hi Hostage, if I'm not mistaken the German media source FAZ quotes Mother Agnes Mariam to back up its claims. Think this is right link to translation of a German FAZ piece but on phone tiny screen so struggling with links: link to moonofalabama.org
Do not dispute findings re. HR abuses in both sides.
Thanks for making the link between this nun, and the German media report, which informed reactionary pieces peddling regime propaganda that the rebels were behind it.
See below for my link to article about the nun:
'Nun on Irish visit accused of peddling ‘regime lies’ about crisis in Syria'
My mistake for confusing nuns! I am 'dissing' the nun on the Irish tour.
I have made my point clearly enough on this thread: the sources that were linked to and quoted post-Houla massacre, on this site, such as FAIR as somehow evidence that it was perpetrated by the rebels are not credible on Syria and never where, as per Phil's and Pulse's post. Why then were they relied on so heavily, and barely challenged here? I think now I have said enough.
Btw, Taxi when I write on Palestine it is usually also 'from the comfort of my London home', in common with many other writers on the issue around the world.
About that nun:
Nun on Irish visit accused of peddling 'regime lies' about crisis in Syria
Like many foreign students and visitors I met Father Paolo at Deir Mar Musa. He is a man of integrity, unlike this nun, who is going around saying the Houla massacre was not government perpetrated - the same lies spread by media sources, which commenters here are sadly fond of linking to and quoting from liberally in order to insinuate the same thing.
Really bizarre response, Annie. You are not making any sense. You linked to an article, and urged others on the thread to read it, that explicitly said the massacre was perpetrated by the rebels. Right or wrong?
I read this an an endorsement of the sentiments of this article. If you tell me I am wrong, fine I will accept that, although it is not entirely convincing, I will admit.
I continue to believe it is shocking the extents to which some commentators - as exposed by Pulse - are going to try to throw doubt on the testimonies of the victims of the Houla massacre.
But then you deliberately misunderstood me and wrote 'the idea that you would interpret this as an endorsement of this massacre is so foreign to me it makes me question the value of continuing any communication with you on this topic.'
Now, you are 'done' with me. So much for not taking things 'personally'. A shame. This debate is important.
Not an 'endorsement of the massacre', Annie - come on! An endorsement of this analysis:
‘Responsibility for the deaths of 108 people massacred in Houla lies not with the Syrian army, but with the Syrian “rebel” forces the US is arming against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a leading German daily… The implications of this revelation go far beyond the atrocity in Houla. They undermine the rotten foundations of the US-led campaign for war with Syria’
Ok, let's stop the accusations, Annie, of 'you seem to take it very personal' :). A few further clarifications
I avoid posting on Syria because I do not consider myself an expert, as I have repeatedly asserted. I come to Mondoweiss for news & analysis on I/P, though it would be great if Mondoweiss decided to start publishing posts by those who are knowlegeable about Syria/ a range of Syrian voices. In the meantime, I want to address what I see as an alarming trend by commenters here for the sort of rhetoric best exemplified by Danaa above.
That brings me to my next point. Saying Danaa sounds deranged in the comment above is not 'referencing my hurt'. I seriously, objectively, non-personally, and without referencing-my-hurt believe the ideology espoused by Danaa is deranged. So, if you don't mind, stop suggesting I am just led by by my emotions!
Why did I copy and post some old comments on this thread? The first is a link to FAIR, and the others are similarly links to/endorsements of the insidious slur that the victims in Houla are making up their stories, and an example of the very disturbing propensity by some on the left to, as Pulse says in the same post linked to above, blame these victims: 'Despite the fact that Channel 4 had entered the town the very next day and collected on-camera testimonies from survivors, reactionary outfits like MediaLens, media watchdogs like FAIR, and some left luminaries, including our friend Tariq Ali, started blaming the victims.'
Annie, I actually find yours a relatively moderate voice on Syria compared to those around you unwittingly repeating Ba'athist regime propaganda, but are you saying that in an exchange with the aforementioned ideologues the fact you copied an posted a big chunk of text about how 'The massacre in Houla is the predictable outcome of Washington’s promotion of these reactionary forces.' is not an endorsement of this? It certainly looks like it. The article you link to states confidently: 'Responsibility for the deaths of 108 people massacred in Houla lies not with the Syrian army, but with the Syrian “rebel” forces the US is arming against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a leading German daily... The implications of this revelation go far beyond the atrocity in Houla. They undermine the rotten foundations of the US-led campaign for war with Syria' That does leave much room for doubt.
Call me naive, but I do not having doubts as to who perpetrated this massacre of innocents: Syrian government forces and militia.
Do I think you were 'fools' to be taken in by this lie about Houla? No, it is far more serious than that. Let me give an example to be found on this thread alone. Israel apologist, OlegR is delighted to find such hypocrisy, and I can't blame him/her. On Mondoweiss, we draw attention to serious human rights abuses perpetrated by the apartheid state of Israel, and the indifference or collusion of other governments, we express compassion and empathy with the victims of this brutal occupation and inhumane siege, we expose the geopolitical machinations that maintain the status quo, and entrench the occupation, etc. Then Assad turns on his own people, bombing whole cities within his own country, and people try to defend themselves, organise, and fight back. Leaving aside the fact that I have never sought to condone any HR abuses committed by the rebels, and am gravely alarmed by cynical foreign meddling, why is the outrage at this Syrian regime horror unleashed against Syrian people so muted, if not largely absent on Mondoweiss? Why does it look like the narrative of blaming the victims is encouraged here, rather than robustly challenged? (I do not speak of you personally Annie).
In the words of Sharif Nashashibi on Guardian CIF recently: Hamas opposes Assad, but some seem more interested in being anti-Israel and anti-US than standing up for human rights. And "it is misguided and offensive to view the suffering of Syrians in terms of whether or not this benefits Israel, the US or the Palestinians."
For the record, I am not an 'interventionist' either - I honestly do not know the solution.
This is not a competition as to who knows Syrian people better and I never meant to suggest that. I mention my background to explain that my opinions are not formed entirely by trawling the Internet.
Oh, as for this: 'but i do not take swipes at what i perceive as your blind spots in a condescending way', what is this then if not condescension?
"do you know the meaning or implication of ‘a Manufactured Atrocity’? it doesn’t mean, or imply it wasn’t an atrocity. you’ve set yourself up as the (only) ‘friend’ of the syrian people here as if we just do not care, because our assessment doesn’t jive with yours.. and this is not helpful." You might have ended that with 'you poor dear - so naive and emotional' just to make sure I got the point ;)
So, no this is not personal, this is political.
Annie, why is it my opinions and perspectives on Syria are 'taking it personally' and yours are, what, being 'objective'?
I have lived and studied in Damascus, have an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies, speak and read Arabic, and have worked closely with a range of Syrians - indeed I have even socialised, to my shame, with regime spokesperson Jihad Makdissi when he was at the London embassy, and yet of course I do not consider myself to be an expert, and I have never claimed to be. The fact I have cited my Syrian friends' testimonies and insights and shared their distress, as well as doing my own research, means you somehow consider my opinion somehow less credible than any other 'skeptical' commentator.
I copied and pasted that thread because it is an example of the absurd rhetoric I have found on Mondoweiss regarding Syria, and in particular the response to this massacre of civilians. To use your phrasing 'I am sorry' that you are unable to accept these eye-witness accounts of the Houla massacre. Are you waiting for verification from RT?
Danaa, are you an 'actual real Syrian' person? Would you like me to talk to you instead of the Syrian people I know? The thing is that so far you are sounding deranged, so unless you can persuade me otherwise, I'll stick to my more reliable sources.
I must now ask readers to look at the comments to this Mondoweiss post, which refers skeptically to the Syrian regime-perpetrated Houla massacre, from June 15: On Syria, Clinton spins a fast one
Here is a typical thread:
riyadh says:
June 15, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Was Houla Massacre a Manufactured Atrocity?
link to fair.org
REPLY
stevieb says:
June 16, 2012 at 10:18 am
Absolutely…how is it you don’t know by now? Or is that a rhetorical question?
Yep.
REPLY
traintosiberia says:
June 16, 2012 at 12:40 pm
MEA CULPA: BBC world news editor: Houla massacre coverage based on opposition propaganda
by Chris Marsden http://www.globalresearch.ca
Unfortunately ( intentionally ) its in his blog.Blog is not news according to the apparatus that he serves.
REPLY
Annie Robbins says:
June 16, 2012 at 1:26 pm
riyadh, from the comment section of your link:
Imperialism and the Houla massacre:
..None of these events can be understood outside the political crisis provoked by last year’s revolutionary upsurge in the Middle East. Mass protests of workers and youth forced out pro-US dictators in Egypt and Tunisia. However, the lack of a politically independent movement of the working class fighting to take power and fight for socialism gave the US and its allies time to regroup and elaborate a counter-revolutionary strategy.
The aim of the imperialist powers has been to further the colonial re-subjugation of the entire Middle East. Protests against pro-US regimes were to be crushed. As for protests in countries without close ties to Washington, like Libya or Syria, they were to be brought under the control of right-wing forces to divert protests along ethnic or sectarian lines. They would then serve as proxies in US-led civil wars—as Washington posed as a friend of the “Arab spring” because it was trying to depose Middle East regimes.
After the Saudi monarchy bloodily suppressed protests in Bahrain, the US promoted Islamist and tribal elements against Libyan Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who was toppled by NATO and Islamist-rebels in a bloody war costing some 50,000 lives. In Syria, the US relied largely on Sunni elements like the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, financed by the anti-Shiite Saudi monarchy. The massacre in Houla is the predictable outcome of Washington’s promotion of these reactionary forces.
The imperialist strategy relied on the bankruptcy of Middle Eastern bourgeois nationalist regimes and their right-wing evolution after the fall of the USSR. Deprived of a great-power defender and deeply unpopular due to their free-market reforms, they were beset with deep ethnic and sectarian divisions and vulnerable to US intervention. The Assad regime, which has carried out repeated “liberalization” policies and draws its ruling personnel from the Alawite religious minority, was particularly vulnerable…
link to wsws.org
i recommend the whole link
How did it come to this?
Some thoughts on Syria from Palestinian intellectual and the founder of the Balad Party, Azmi Bishara from last week:
"No people, anywhere in the world, would accept torture, false imprisonment, financial corruption and the muzzling of the media for generation after generation, regardless of the justification. Nor does anybody to have the right that those being persecuted remain quiet for the sake of grander concerns, without hopes for a change, all to placate commentators who seem to think that the suffering of the people is secondary to the “Central Question”, especially as all the evidence that no progress on that same “Central Question” in the first place.
Nobody has the right to just claim to have “understood” the people’s pain and the righteousness of their claims, and then ask those people to simply stay on the sidelines while the leaders undertake some reforms. No human likes being shot at and bombed, but you cannot expect that people who get shot at while protesting peacefully to take it sitting down. If you cannot compel the regime to deal peacefully with peaceful protests, then [any demands that the rebellion end] are demands that the people accept that they should be killed, that their losses for the revolution thus far have been in vain.
History will not be kind to the Syrian regime for the way it ordered soldiers to fire on peaceful protestors. Those peaceful protests had been the regime’s greatest fear, and so they worked to quell them in the cradle.
It seems inevitable that, if you are being bombed, driven from your home and your possessions looted, that you will reach out to anybody who stretches his hand out to you. Those who abandoned the revolutionaries at their time of need have no right to lecture them on who their sources of support are, especially if nobody is able to persuade the regime to carry out any kind of meaningful process of reform towards democracy, or even to hand over power gradually."
David Samel: 'Don’t you just hate it when Palestinian teenagers terrorize Israeli soldiers? After all, the IDF was in Gaza peacefully minding its own business when these kids (murderous hopeless thugs) come along with their washing machine and'
Haha
Also, am I misreading this, or did the NYT correspondent just declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel?
Re. Jerusalem Film Festival, 'Overall, 45,000 tickets were distributed for 315 screenings over 10 days (the Israeli movies filled 11,000 seats at 55 showings), and the crowd was striking for its lack of religious Jews — rare in the capital — or Arabs of any kind. ..'
Annie, you are reading and quoting from me selectively. The quotes are
1) Yes, I do ‘take it for granted’ – and from reliable sources, and experience living and studying in Syria – that, in your words, ‘the “Ba’athist regime” is the “cause” of the suffering.’ For the most part it most definitely is.
2) I have no problem with skepticism of MSM reporting on this conflict, total mistrust of meddling foreign powers, and fear of armed groups – I am with you all on this.
Yet you write 'i wonder if it could be possible for you to understand the criticisms made against these actors'
Seems like I have. Anyway, let's agree to disagree on this subject.
No, that link is to an article that exposes the characters that claim to speak for the courageous Syrians on the ground - political opportunists the lot of them, as is usually the way.
Yes, I do 'take it for granted' - and from reliable sources, and experience living and studying in Syria - that, in your words, 'the “Ba’athist regime” is the “cause” of the suffering.' For the most part it most definitely is.
Hi Annie, it was the talkbacks to your piece that inspired me to post this. I have no problem with skepticism of MSM reporting on this conflict, total mistrust of meddling foreign powers, and fear of armed groups - I am with you all on this. What concerns me is that the voices and stories of ordinary Syrian people who are defending their lives against the Ba'athist regime forces get lost in a debate by commenters whose only apparent interest in the situation is a further platform for scoring political points against Apartheid Israel and its allies (or conversely, with the Israel apologists I encounter): suddenly resistance and rebels and opposition are given inverted commas, as though this is all a US/Zionist/Saudi orchestrated conspiracy. This gives the impression of contempt for their genuine struggle.
Fyi, I just read this Amnesty report on Palestinian refugees in Syria:
Trapped – Palestinian refugees from Syria talk to Amnesty International
By Noor Al-Bazzaz, member of Amnesty International’s Syria research team
It was the shelling that finally drove Abu al-‘Izz to flee his native Syria. In the Bashabsheh transit camp in al-Ramtha he says: “I could not bear the shelling any longer, I had to leave to save my family”. We got the same response from Syrians and Palestinian refugees also fleeing the violence in Syria whom I met in Jordan.
In the past two weeks hundreds of refugees from Syria have reportedly entered Jordan daily, mostly from Dera’a governorate. Almost everyone I spoke to said they were smuggled out of Syria and delivered to Jordan’s unofficial border crossings by the Free Syrian Army.
The journey they say is long and dangerous, often paved with snipers and check points. Mothers spoke of giving their children sleeping medicine so that they do not make a noise during the journey and attract attention from security forces.
A woman tells me: “There were three hundred of us leaving that night, if my baby cried she could have caused three hundred deaths.” Holding her baby up to me, she laughed. ”Can you imagine this little one responsible for three hundred lives?”
The decision to leave Syria appeared to have been thoroughly calculated by everyone I spoke to – weighing up the risks of the journey against the probability of reaching safety in Jordan, which borders the governorate of Dera’a.
For Palestinian refugees leaving Syria, however, the risk of the journey could well be outweighing the prospect of safety and stability in Jordan, amid reports of restrictions on them at the Jordanian borders and inside the transit camps.
If so, this could be leaving many Palestinians trapped under shelling in Syria with nowhere to go.
For Syrian refugees, if they are able to secure a Jordanian national as their guarantor, they may have the opportunity to be ‘bailed out’ of the transit camps in al-Ramtha, a small town in north Jordan near the border with Syria.
But since April 2012, the guarantor system ceased to apply to Palestinian refugees coming from Syria, leaving around 140 Palestinians detained in the CyberCity camp in Jordan.
A Syrian woman ‘Laila’, who is married to a Palestinian man, tells me that while she can be bailed out, she cannot leave CyberCity camp because her daughter is considered Palestinian and, is therefore, not covered by the guarantor system.
Her husband meanwhile is being treated at a hospital in Irbid for injuries sustained during shelling in Dera’a. She tells me that in order to visit her husband, she is accompanied by police from the camp. “It is humiliating, I feel like a criminal. I am embarrassed; I tell people the police are there for my own protection.”
Like many other Syrian refugees, ‘Laila’ tells me she hopes to return to Syria if Bashar al-Assad’s government is toppled, but in the meantime she longs to live in a home with her daughter and husband.
A few hours later I see the school bus returning children back to the camp; ‘Laila’ is one of several women waiting for the bus. She embraces her daughter and they walk back to their room. The scene resembled any ordinary school run yet there was something fundamentally sombre about it.
Um Mustafa, a Jordanian woman married to a Palestinian refugee from Dera’a, shares a similar story. She tells me she is free to leave the CyberCity camp, but points to the infant in her lap and says she would have to leave her Palestinian daughter too. Restlessly, Um Mustafa tells me ‘I know this issue is political, but there must be a solution, how long can we live like this?’
While some of the Palestinians have fled from a variety of different neighbourhoods in Syria, a significant number of those in Jordan fled from the Palestinian refugee camp just north of Dera’a city. In the past several months, the camp has reportedly been targeted repeatedly by mortar rocket attacks, military raids and has been a regular site for clashes. One Palestinian man spoke emotionally about the shelling of the Quds mosque inside the camp at the end of June.
However, despite the increasing violence in Dera’a governorate, the number of Palestinians entering Jordan appears to have dropped significantly, in contrast with the increase in other refugees coming from Syria.
This is possibly a sign that Palestinians in Syria have been dissuaded by the severe restrictions imposed on the Palestinians who made it Jordan. There are also worrying reports of Palestinians being refused entry at the Jordanian border.
A Palestinian man ‘Ahmed’, born and raised in the Dera’a refugee camp, tells me ‘I feel a deep pain in my heart. Everyday I wait to hear news that one of my friends or relatives in Dera’a have been martyred’.
‘Ahmed’ entered Jordan prior to April 2012 and is now residing in Irbid; he says he knows of Palestinian families who have tried to flee Dera’a to escape intense shelling and military operations. Some, he reports, have become internally displaced in surrounding areas while others, realising they had no other choice, returned to the Dera’a camp. His own family remains trapped there.
An overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and isolation began to resonate the more we spoke to Palestinian refugees from Syria. At the end of our meeting, ‘Ahmed’ offered us his relatives’ contact details. He said, “Please, even if you cannot change anything, keep in contact with them so that at least they know that there are people watching this issue. You cannot imagine what it feels like to be alone and trapped.”
link to livewire.amnesty.org
Hi Annie, if I cited my Syrian friends I would have to cite them as anonymous sources - that is how scared they are of retribution against their families. It makes more sense for me, therefore, to cite an OpenDemocracy contributor.
Dialogue with the regime? What kind of dialogue can be held with an authoritarian, repressive regime under which Syrians have lived in fear for over four decades, and what would it achieve - more time and power to crackdown on protesters and displace thousands more civilians? Hasn't the Syrian government lost its legitimacy to be a partner in dialogue?
I don't have all the answers, and I will never claim to. I appreciate that critics of the opposition groups are not necessarily regime supporters, but the flippant, contemptuous manner in which some talkbacks on this site and others dismiss courageous resistance by ordinary Syrians is disturbing.
Rami Khouri at The Daily Star this wkend: '... the bigger story that links Syria with the other Arab uprisings and recent Middle Eastern developments is that the will and actions of indigenous Arabs, Iranians and Turks will always have a greater impact than anything done by powers abroad. The striking inability of the Americans, Russians and their assorted allies to shape events in Syria follow similar serial failures in recent decades in their attempts to promote Arab-Israeli peace, democratic transformations, economic trajectories or other such strategic issues.
Only when local people across the Middle East took matters into their own hands did conditions change, and history resume. The sentiments of ordinary people such as those in Bab al-Hawa, Midan, Deir al-Zor and Deraa are far more significant that the pronouncements of the world’s powers. The sooner we learn this lesson, the better off we will all be.'
Read more: link to dailystar.com.lb
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Annie, can we start a petition (with Code Pink?) in support of her outspokenness - Calling on other Americans in positions of influence to speak out? Would that be helpful in any way?
Israel is a fascinating case. Israel voted against the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but later signed it for a short period. In 2002, the United States and Israel, "unsigned" the Rome Statute, indicating that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, they have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the statute.
Israel states that it has "deep sympathy" with the goals of the Court. However, it has concerns that political pressure on the Court would lead it to reinterpret international law or to "invent new crimes". It cites the inclusion of "the transfer of parts of the civilian population of an occupying power into occupied territory" as a war crime as an example of this...
I have travelled a huge amount in my life, but the first and ONLY time I have ever been reduced to tears at airport security was trying to enter Israel when I was 18 years old. After treating me like a criminal and pulling out all my things from my case, they let me in because they realised I was exactly the kind of visitor they wanted: naive, ignorant of the military occupation, unaware of the apartheid and racism I would later encounter.
Please, please take this as high up and as public as you can. I greatly admire you both and am sorry for what you went through.
Bob Simon:
"Why is Tel Aviv so fun and bubbly like lego land and why is the beach so sandy, and the Israeli bikini women so tan and hot and fashionably cutting edge, and the trendy bars so cosmopolitan, and the gay, white Jewish military so amusingly camp? Because Jewish mothers try to keep their children safe from brown terrorist bombers with lots of nagging and food so they can make billion-dollar start-ups, and go to sandy, gay military play centres shielded from Muslim Hezbollah missiles. This is great, and Levy is a killjoy!
"OK, have I sucked up to the colonial, racist, criminal, manipulative bas**** Israeli lobby enough now, so that I can go back to the grown-up reporting I was hired to do?"
A society in meltdown
My comment above was addressed to another commentator (deleted) pointing out Hölderlin's line should be: 'Last von Scheitern ist'
George Steiner, in Language and Silence, considered the German language “being used to run hell, getting the habits of hell into its syntax”:
"Languages have great reserves of life. They can absorb masses of hysteria, illiteracy, and cheapness . . . But there comes a breaking point. Use a language to conceive, organize, and justify Belsen; use it to make out specifications for gas ovens; use it to dehumanize man during twelve years of calculated bestiality. Something will happen to it. . . . Something of the lies and sadism will settle in the marrow of the language. Imperceptibly at first, like the poisons of radiation sifting silently into the bone. But the cancer will begin, and the deep-set destruction. The language will no longer grow and freshen. It will no longer perform, quite as well as it used to, its two principal functions: the conveyance of humane order which we call law, and the communication of the quick of the human spirit which we call grace."
As MichaelSmith has reminded us above, Paul Celan was a poet and his language was German. He needed to write so he wrote in his language, even though it had been horribly deformed by Nazism - but not irreparably so.
You're right, thank you - my typo
Australians for Palestine has a post about the ban that was eventually overturned: link to australiansforpalestine.net
'The NSW Police have taken the organizers of the Nakba commemoration march in Sydney to the Supreme Court demanding that the rally should be moved to a different location and the march to be cancelled. The protesters have decided to assert their rights, saying that they will contest any attempt to prohibit the march.
“In the same way that 3 Israeli activists were arrested for trying to commemorate Al-Nakba, the Victorian police charged 19 BDS protesters in Melbourne, (they are now in court), now the NSW Police are showing their true colours by trying to silence free speech and political protest in support of the Palestinians.'
You can contact Prof. Plaut here
link to marvel.haifa.ac.il
I'd like to see the film. Could that ever happen - a Hollywood political drama about AIPAC?
The article quotes Dromi as saying Tom Rob Smith was 'attacked' on his Facebook page. In fact Smith, writing for Israel Hayom, is clear that the boycott campaign was 'intense' but never aggressive. Israel Hayom was launched in 2007 by the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, of whom one prominent Israeli journalist said "When it comes to his views on the Palestinian Israel conflict he is a right-wing extremist", and it is referred to by Israelis as the “Bibiton,” or Bibi’s mouthpiece. Not only did Tom Rob Smith agree to write for Sheldon Adelson's paper, but he exhibited his ignorance of the purpose and objectives of the cultural boycott of Israel. He writes in Israel Hayom:
"One of the points presented to me by those advocating a cultural boycott of Israel was that the festival explicitly states that its purpose is to bring writers together from around the world and have them share a stage with Israeli writers. Those demanding a boycott presented this as a negative when it is, surely, the only reason for any literature festival to exist. What other purpose could it serve?... I fear the magic dies as soon as we begin to draw lines around people, grouping readers into categories of those we will and won’t listen to."
No one has asked the British author not to share a stage with Israeli writers or not to interact with his readers. We have asked him to consider who provides that stage and frames that cultural exchange, and why.
She comes from a Jewish Texan family, and yet she says 'we' the Israelis. Therein lies the problem, quite apart from the odious blindness and racism of this statement:
'I cant help but notice, we’re retracting, that we’ve taken the unprecedented step of trading one soldier for thousands of Palestinians, emboldening Hamas, and undercutting Fatah.'
No matter how much I identify with Palestinians and their righteous cause, i might say 'we, the solidarity movement' but never 'we the Palestinians' as a non-Palestinian.
Hogue knows she has the 'right of return' as a Jew, and above all wants to hold on to and exercise that entitlement in a 'secure' Israel for the next generation of American Jews. That is her principal concern.
Soon to be published in English, this is from a statement, in Arabic, by the General Union of Palestinian Writers (the largest, most established union representing Palestinian writers) calling for a full boycott of the Israeli writers festival, and urging Palestinian writers not to meet with any international writer who insists on participating in the Mishkenot Sha'ananim festival, sponsored by Israeli government ministries, the Municipality of Jerusalem and settler organizations, thus violating the guidelines of the Palestinian cultural boycott of Israel.
-------------------------GUPW Statement Excerpts----------------------
"Not only are some of these writers -- violators of the boycott and dancers on Palestinian wounds ... -- participating [in the Mishkenot Sha'ananim festival] despite calls for boycott; they have even asked the director of the Festival, Uri Dromi, to arrange for them to meet with 'local' Palestinian writers in Ramallah, and to tour 'East' Jerusalem to see the Palestinians. This Orientalist tendency to get acquainted with "the locals" as objects of colonial voyeurism, and through colonial intermediaries, should be met with condemnation and strict boycott; they should have chosen between standing with the occupation or with freedom, as there is no middle ground between the two."
"The General Union of Palestinian Writers, which is commemorating the Nakba with the rest of the Palestinian people, ... highly lauds the response of international writers who boycotted, for the most part, [the Mishkenot Sha'ananim] festival, and condemns in the strongest terms the participation of writers whose names were announced by the [Israeli] festival management on its website and in media publications. The Union calls on Palestinian intellectuals and cultural workers, writers, novelists, academics and journalists, to boycott the festival, and not to meet with its participants .. who are not welcome [among us] as they have shamed themselves."
"The General Union of Palestinian Writers, as a member of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), takes this opportunity to call on free and conscientious writers of the world to respect the boycott criteria set by the BNC and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)."
This is a horror show. Gordis is not just ignorant, he is grotesque. Far more frightening than this freak is the thought that much of the audience is drinking up his racist rant without question.
I feel rather sorry for Beinart - he appeals to 'his people's' feelings of racial superiority and desire for racial exclusivity and privilege and 'right' to keep land from which Palestinians were violently driven, then pleads that they do not follow this through to its natural conclusion: apartheid, the completion of the Zionist project to ethnically cleanse Palestine and the spread of a vile, ignorant racism among the majority of Israelis and American Zionists.
Sad, pathetic.
No one stood up in her defence. No one exhibited shock at the way she was silenced and aggressively hauled out. No one applauded her.
I don't understand. Maybe I understand too well.
Medea, you're amazing. Thank you
And here is a new English translation of his entire 2010 speech:
To talk about ourselves
Nir Baram
Haokets 1 May 2012
Original Hebrew: link to haokets.org
In 1907 two of the greatest Jewish writers of the 20th century met in London. One was Yosef Haim Brenner, and the other was his friend from youth, the writer Uri Nissan Gnessin. Brenner waited for Gnessin like “a lover awaiting his heart’s desire”, and hoped that he would bring “light into the darkness of his life.”
Although the two men were close friends with similar life experiences, each one of them took his creation in a fundamentally different direction. Brenner strove for a Hebrew literature which from the distress of the individual would deal with the current conflicts that preoccupied the Jews, whereas Gnessin wrote personal, convoluted and impressionistic literature. Brenner, as the editor of the journal Hameorer, shouted in the language of “we”, whereas Gnessin whispered in the language of “I”. And the two were opposite in all aspects of their characters, as Asher Beilin, one of their close friends, put it: Brenner was “a roaring raging sea”, whereas Gnessin was “a melancholy pond that weeps in a whisper”.
Those two writers, among the most wonderful known to modern Hebrew literature, did not succeed in bridging the differences between them at that meeting in London. Nor did they pretend that it was possible. A literary, ideological and personal abyss yawned between them, and they were both too honest to cover up the differences with words of courtesy or flattery.
It could be said that the meeting ended in failure. The ill Gnessin left London and they did not see each other again.
This raises an interesting question about meetings between writers: when is such a meeting a failure? When they do not conceal their differences, when they scratch the wounds, when they express resentment, when they tell the truth, can that be called a failure?
As a young writer who has attended few literary festivals, I sometimes wonder whether the rituals of the festival, the cocktail parties, the rules of courtesy and the ceremony, the respect for the hosts, the need to entertain the audience, do not mask the differences and convert the whole event into an excessively cultivated one. Do the unwritten rules of the festival not sterilize the event of the volatile and unsettling potential of literary dialogue? Indeed Kafka claimed, in one of his best-known articles, that a book – like a literary dialogue, incidentally – should be an axe that cleaves the frozen sea within us.
And maybe today too there are too many things we do not talk about?
True, a literary festival is measured by its literary content, but is it even possible to speak just of “literature” – just of literary and aesthetic values – without touching on the social and political conditions within which that literature is written?
Having seen in the twentieth century how various regimes use “culture” and to what ends, it is no longer possible to speak of art that is not political. Creation, and it does not matter what kind, is a product of the era in which it takes place. Whether it wants to or not, it is interpreted in the spirit of the time. “We are children of the era”, wrote Szymborska, and the era is always political.
I was born and grew up in Jerusalem, and there is not one story in my family that does not begin or end in this city. But today, a few kilometres from to the east of here, we can see the separation wall that the State of Israel has built as a part of the Israelis’ clear vision to separate their state from the Arab world. This development, which speaks to the hearts of the Jews who are worried about the future of their state, reflects the paralyzing power of exclusive, introverted Jewish ethnicism, which does not even bother to pretend to protect the rights of those of different ethnic or religious backgrounds, be they Palestinians, migrant workers from Colombia or refugees from Darfur.
Under the cloak of victimhood that has indeed been sewn for us, the Jews, by history, we are witness to systematic violation of the rights of non-Jews within the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Modern Hebrew literature, in contrast to other national literatures, sprouted within a foreign geographical, social, cultural and linguistic area. It emerged mainly in Eastern Europe as well as the Arab countries, through an unending dialogue with other cultures in a multi-lingual and diverse environment. And indeed the literature that was written by writers like Mendele Mocher Sforim, Brenner, Gnessin, Bialik, Fogel and others does not descend from the peaks of European modernism.
Perhaps in the Israeli imagination it seems to us that in those days the Jews were locked up in small enclosed towns and today we are part of the big world. But to my dismay, particularly in the past decade, it is we who are enclosed behind walls; we who strive to construct surroundings for Jews only and denounce and even expel the strangers in our midst; it is we who alienate ourselves from the geopolitical region in which we live. And if the young generation of Israelis has one mission, at which we have so far failed in every sense, it is to knock down those walls.
Dear guests, I want to welcome you to the festival. It features wonderful writers who have influenced Hebrew literature in general as well as me as a writer. And I want to say to you that sometimes it seems to me that we no longer know how to talk about ourselves, and even when it seems to us that we have formulated a new idea, the familiar Jewish-Israeli story speaks from within our throats, cunningly navigating the world of our imaginations.
Maybe we need are in particular need, these days, and also at this festival, of a penetrating and honest dialogue. Maybe that sympathetic but also critical look from outside can illuminate the spaces that are concealed from our eyes. As has already been said: when you live by the sea, you gradually stop hearing the rustle of the waves.
Translated from Hebrew by George Malent
All power to you.
The counter conference campaign poster is excellent: "Since occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, we have explored diverse and exciting new ways to start wars against our neighbors. Indeed, Israel is forever optimistic about its ability to never be held accountable for its crimes under international law! "
Love it.
Israel really doesn't want any friends...except for in US congress.
The woman is a nasty, ignorant racist, yet I permit myself to feel outrage on behalf of my late Danish grandmother who lived through Nazi Germany's occupation of her homeland and left for England with her British Navy husband who had fought Nazi Germany. It was, furthermore, the Danish resistance movement, supported by ordinary Danish citizens, that undertook one of the biggest acts of resistance under Nazi occupation, evacuating about 8,000 Danish Jews to safety in Sweden.
A confession: I am reminded of the Hunger Games trilogy when watching this clip - or rather, when I am reading Suzanne Collins' futuristic dystopia written for young adults, in which the totalitarian Capitol of the fictional nation Panem, with its brutal force of 'peacekeepers', exacts revenge on the rebellious, impoverished and isolated districts from which no civilian can escape or seek help, I could not stop thinking of besieged Gaza. Laugh at me if you must ;)
The attack made the homepage of one of Denmark's biggest broadsheet-quality newspapers, Berlingske, and this is direct link to the piece: Overfaldet dansk aktivist: Har set det mange gange
This is surely another case of Israel smashing itself in the face with its own rifle
"Should the Government of Israel refuse to honor these above-referenced obligations, we will seek the full and complete implementation of international law as it pertains to the powers and responsibilities of Israel as occupying power in all of the occupied Palestinian territory."
What is he waiting for?
More images of the march here: Photos : marche à Paris en hommage aux victimes de Toulouse
"Le cortège, composé de nombreux jeunes qui brandissent drapeaux français et israéliens, se met en branle. Direction la place de la Bastille.... Après quelques mètres parcourus, le cortège stoppe net et voit plusieurs dizaines de jeunes de la Ligue de défense juive passer devant l'Union des étudiants juifs de France, qui menait jusqu'alors le cortège. La marche silencieuse se transforme alors en course bruyante et en démonstration de force de la part du mouvement extrémiste, formant un cordon en tête du défilé, coudes serrés les uns aux autres. A mi-chemin, le calme revient et les marcheurs poursuivent leur avancée vers la place de la Bastille qui porte encore les marques rouges du grand rassemblement du Front de Gauche."
Elliot, you make a valid point. However, the presence of Israeli flags at such a march and in this political climate can take on a greater significance, so it is worthy of remark. The same could be said for stars and stripes in a particular context.
The march seems to have been organised on the initiative of l'Union des étudiants juifs de France (UEJF) and, inevitably attracted a crowd of the Ligue de défense juive (LDJ). According to this write-up "Les drapeaux français côtoyaient les drapeaux israéliens", which suggests there was more than one family holding a couple of blue and white flags. (Une marche silencieuse). All that said, it does seem to have been a very dignified, moving occasion.
dimadok, this post is about political points being scored on the back of an inhuman, criminal act. I cannot even begin to comprehend the anguish of the parents of these children. What we cannot do is fall for evidently dangerous and false propaganda along the lines that 'the Jewish people will only be safe in a Jewish homeland, protected from the Muslim/Arab menace at any cost'.
Yes, at least some of these Syrian artists are known to friends here in London.
See also this recent statement from Palestinian intellectuals:
Palestinian Intellectuals to Syrian Regime: Not in Our Name!
...We have recently heard a representative of the Syrian regime at the UN Security Council use the Palestinian cause and its painful and honorable course as cover for its terrifying crimes in Syria. We say to the Syrian regime and its representatives: not in our name, not in Palestine’s name will these crimes be committed in our beloved Syria, oh killers. Do not make our just cause a mask for your inhumane crimes against our Syrian brothers and sisters. It is the Syrian people who have historically adopted our cause, and sacrificed martyrs for its sake, not your regime, of which we have painful memories. We will never forget its role in the massacre of Tel Az-Zaatar in 1976, nor in the terrible assault on the Nahr al Bared camp near Tripoli in 1983, nor the siege of the camps in Beirut in 1985, nor any of the other acts which have bitterly weakened Palestinian national unity. Do not use Palestine’s name, for it is no longer your winning card...
Miranda of British Artists for Palestine did a really professional job (so it took a little longer to put together) and the effect is very powerful, not least the dedication at the end of the video 'to the music students, musicians and orchestras of Palestine'.
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, writing in the Telegraph culture section today, has compared boycott activists to Nazi blackshirts: 'When the Israel Philharmonic played on Thursday evening, a band of around 30 thugs – none was wearing jackboots, but they should have been – launched into chanting and mock singing, disrupting the concert.... There is a chilling air to the so-called protests: an air of Weimar Germany, and the way Nazi party members broke up meetings'. The J14 protest movement, however, is acceptable to Pollard because its grievances are with Israel's economic not apartheid policies or for its ongoing occupation and colonisation of Palestinian land:
'It shouldn’t need saying that protesting against the actions of the Israeli government is not the same as being anti-Semitic. Clearly not: this month, 250,000 Israelis joined rallies against their government’s economic policies. They could hardly be driven by anti-Semitism.'
No less clear to the reader is the purpose of Pollard's inverted commas when referring to human rights norms: 'As the IPO began Webern’s Passacaglia, a dozen people unfurled a banner reading “Free Palestine” and started to sing about “Israeli apartheid” and “violations of international law and human rights”. As the orchestra played over the disruption, the hooligans were removed by security guards.'
If we can dismiss them with epithets of scorn - as worthless hooligans, racists, bleeding heart liberals - then we have no need to listen to them, just shut them down.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Did someone say 'ghettoise'?
A Torygraph tosser entitles his ignorant screed, There is something very ugly about this attempt to ghettoise Israeli musicians
Although video was removed from DfiD website and YouTube, I found it embedded on this Israel apologist site: link to jacobklamer.com
If you ignore the fact he is peddling the Quartet's line on the PA/Salam Fayyad, the mistake Alan Duncan made was to speak from the heart. A good man.
Martin Bright is the current JC editor, former New Statesman editor, and a so-called 'muscular liberal' (Israel apologist and Islamophobe, with the likes of Nick Cohen and the Harry's Place bully-boys). He has made it clear in a 25 August leader that he wants Duncan to go:
'The problem was that the language he used was straight from the lexicon of Palestinian resistance.... At last year's Conservative Party conference Mr Duncan, who is known for his pro-Palestinian views, raised eyebrows by speaking at a pro-Palestinian event hosted by the New Statesman magazine and expressing his frustration that ministers could not speak to Hamas.
Alan Duncan's position has been seriously undermined by the incident and it is uncertain whether he will be able to survive in this highly sensitive post. His ministerial colleagues and British diplomats in the region will not easily forgive him for making their already difficult jobs a whole lot harder.'
link to thejc.com
I cannot summon much sympathy for Derfner because his underlying assumptions are so repugnant. Derfner warns his reader that 'we’re hurting the Palestinians by denying them independence: It’s so bad that it’s helping drive them to try to kill us'. In his apology he writes, 'I would do whatever was necessary to stop a Palestinian, oppressed or not, from killing one of my countrymen'
'Terror' means attacks on civilians, which is illegal under international humanitarian law, and can never be justified, although in contexts of the extreme oppression of the perpetrator and his/her community, it can sometimes be understood. Palestinian civilians are daily victims of Israeli terror - in all its forms - so they know how unjustified it is, and never cease to call on the 'international community' to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. The vast majority of Palestinians try to use their rights to freedom of expression, to peaceful protest, etc, to obtain freedom from Israeli terror and these non-violent tactics are brutally crushed. They are left angry, desperate, more determined than ever, but with no interest in the spilling of Jewish, Israeli blood.
If you read this as solidarity with Palestinians, you're missing the patronising, Orientalist thrust of his argument. Palestinians are the Other and need to live apart, incapable of being one of his 'countrymen' (a country that belongs to this American only because he is a Jew) - they are prone to violence and the desire to kill Israeli Jews, so let's not provoke them - as if Palestinians are sleeping lions being prodded with a stick.
The only thing he successfully does is expose the severe political limitations - and racist assumptions - of Zionist ideology and its incompatibility with international law.
Is it that simple, Keith? It might be worth listening to this interview with Ali Ahmida, Gilbert Achcar, and David Smith on Libya, conducted as part of KPFA's Voices in the Middle East and North Africa Show:
link to jadaliyya.com
Republican Congressman Allen West who represents Florida's 22nd district tweeted, on Tuesday: "Israel day 3:Visit Yad Vashem, firmed commitment to not allow mad ideology of Islamic totalitarianism to bring forth 21st century holocaust"
In 140 characters he offers a holocaust sandwich with a filling of fanatical Islam - choke on that
link to twitter.com
If J Street is recommending a writer (Holland) that cross-posts on the insidious, profoundly Islamophobic site, Harry's Place*, which has made an art out of being an apologist for Israel's crimes through the use of pseudo-journalistic 'exposés' of any public figure sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, complete with torturous logic and based on so many false assumptions, the whole tour de force of hateful bile comes crashing to the ground under any real scrutiny, then J Street is OVER, if it ever got going.
*link to hurryupharry.org
You're right, MHughes976, and I acknowledge his influence on my thinking here: Europe embraces the silences of Aharon Appelfeld
How would this be reported if it were American Muslims joining the resistance movement in Palestine? Like this: US imam urges muslims to join Hamas for jihad
"So much for that BS about muslims in America wanting to integrate and leave the barbarism of the middle east behind."
Hamishe, hope you took the time to read the PQBDS statement in full (linked above). This is a crucial bit: "Israeli policies and occupation do not distinguish between queer and straight. All Palestinians—queer and straight— must deal with the effects of Israel’s apartheid system, illegal wall and colonial settlements, and military occupation. Furthermore, Palestinians in Gaza live under medieval and illegal siege, and the largest open-air prison in the world. Like all Palestinian citizens of Israel, queers are subject to institutionalized discrimination in all walks of life, and Palestinian refugees are denied their basic, UN-sanctioned right of return." Palestinian queers are united in ending the occupation & apartheid and fighting cultural prejudice in their own communities. Is that so hard to understand?
This has been a fascinating thread, thanks everyone. I've reflected on my response to the video and my post, and realised I made one initial error, which is that whilst I linked to the Haaretz article in final paragraph that goes into more detail about the episode, I didn't refer to the problematic sex scene, etc. Also, I should have speculated that the language and cultural assumptions were all the more shocking to me because I'm not American and in the UK I think I can say that it's a different cultural scene, and the portrayal of American-Jewish paranoia, racism, whatever you say it is, and of American Palestinians was alien and uncomfortable (other Brits may disagree!). And yes, I get it that Larry David's whole thing is to make us uncomfortable, but usually isn't it just him saying ignorant, racist and offensive things, and here 'decent bloke' Jeff leads the charge? Do Americans really think Palestinians and Arabs identify American Jews first and foremost as Jewish and as indistinguishable from Israelis and occupiers and Zionists, and hate symbols of Jewishness, like the skull-cap, and this is a fear that is being satirised here rather than propagated? Boy, things really are bad. Whichever way you look at it, it's rather nasty and disturbing and didn't make me laugh!
Maybe they didn't quite get the satire of hasbara either. This is a clip of Larry having sex with Shara: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TDIhrpf104&feature=youtu.be
In general, me too annie - I'm a big fan, but this was just off for me - maybe this joke is too American/foreign for me...
I found it distasteful, and perhaps my sense of humour failed me, but I really find something about Larry's taking this subject on (and parodying - if he is - American Jewish paranoia) in the privileged LA setting rather grotesque. But look, if most viewers see it as him exposing hasbara, great, fine!
I hope you're right, and by the way, I'm a liberal Brit prude ;)
Irony always appreciated, but in this context it really doesn't come across for me, sorry. Something about the air of privilege sticks in my throat...
Au contraire mon ami, it is the hasbara Brand Israel campaign, which will not get far by basing its entire effort on a brazen, malicious lie that Israel is a healthy, liberal democracy - enjoy reading New Discriminatory Laws and Bills in Israel by the Adalah Centre
Thanks Haytham for the insights. Do you think there is a way of verifying this information through contacts in Kfar Yasif?!
He is a fascist and a Zionist - and is clearly angry Hitler didn't get Nazism quite right, but the flippant labelling of him as a (neo-)'Nazi' enables right-wing, pro-Israel and anti-Muslim commentators to historically and politically dissociate themselves from the dangerous ideology he subscribed to...
Takk Tord - there is so much humanity, humility and grace in your account. Ta vare på
Merlot, just to be ABSOLUTELY clear, I am not accusing PACES of involvement in normalization projects at all. The reason I included this reference was to expose the way the author of 'Serious Play' in the Huffington Post juxtaposes a very selective quote from PACES with what appears to be another solution to Palestinian 'extremism', i.e., the Peres Centre for Peace, which is one of the major targets of this article.
Ok, beyond the weirdness of the sentiment (an elected government official not getting shot in a country's parliament for opposing occupation, ethnic cleansing, and discrimination is cause for celebration?!)
Brilliant. Goldberg has some peculiarly low standards for Israel - any behaviour above consistently murderous is evidence of a healthy democracy
You can also listen to the podcast of the debate here: Omar Barghouti, Jonathan Freedland, Carol Gould & Seni Seneviratne | Why Boycott Culture? link to soundcloud.com
Thanks eGuard, this is really useful. After her vile presentation, and in response to questions from the floor, she made comments that were further evidence of her extreme form of racism and historical blindness.
I'm embarrassed for the cast - what cr*p
Peace When We're Ready (which is not quite yet)
The Council for Arab-British Understanding have since brought out a statement:
Caabu has called upon the British government to urgently raise the issue of Palestinian prisoners with the Israeli authorities.
The demand comes after the UK embassy in Tel Aviv incorporated an image of Gilad Shalit into its Facebook logo, and Alistair Burt MP, Minister responsible for the Middle East, recorded a personal appeal for the release of the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza for four years.
At present however around 680 Palestinians are currently denied family visits by the Israeli government, whilst over 250 are currently held in detention without trial. Graham Bambrough, Parliamentary Officer at Caabu, said that their plight was being ignored by the UK.
“To view the actions of the British government one would assume that Gilad Shalit was the only individual in the region currently being held away from his family. Of course he should be released, but at present almost 700 Palestinians from Gaza are being denied visits by the Israeli authorities, whilst over 250 people are being held in detention without trial. These anonymous men and women are not the subject of personal video appeals by British Ministers, nor are their images incorporated into our embassy’s logo.”
Bambrough added that that the issue of child detentions was also being grossly ignored:
“Caabu urges the British government to look urgently at the issue of Palestinian child prisoners. Some 211 children are being held by Israel, the majority on spurious charges and all of them are subject to sham trials in kangaroo military courts. I hope that the British government will urgently examine their cases and speak up publically and forcefully in their defence.”
Caabu has recently taken four parliamentary delegations to visit Israel’s military courts and witness trials of minors. Some 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted by the courts each year, the majority on charges of stone throwing. Israel's actions in relation to the treatment of minors represent serious breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN Convention against Torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Ends
Notes:
Amnesty International reports that around 680 prisoners are being denied family visits – some for over three years: link to amnesty.org
DCI-Palestine report that 211 children are currently in Israeli jails. A child recently held without trial or charge, has only recently been released: link to dci-palestine.org
The British Embassy in Tel Aviv’s Facebook page: link to facebook.com
Alistair Burt calls for release of Gilad Shalit: link to youtube.com
28 June 2011
It's even more grotesque than I imagined: Shakira embraces Peres
And you can cringe at the live-action embrace here: link to jpost.com
Shmuel, I do not read Hebrew (yet), but I note that other commentators have picked up on the 'misspelling' of Palestinians: link to kibush.co.il
When writing the book review, I checked with an Israeli friend and I was told this was no longer the case for Haaretz, but this is from 2005:
"If Haaretz is asking for a fresh start, it should start with its own language, and stop immediately the use of the belittling and humiliating term they use in Hebrew for Palestine and the Palestinians. The required and correct name is `Palestine` and the adjective is `Palestinians`- written with the Hebrew `SAMECH` and `TET` and not `SIN and `TAV` – in a manner that looks and sounds of the biblical Philistines. Start using it and getting used to it, it will eventually sink in. Imagine if some newspaper were to decide in an ongoing and obsessive manner to write “fucks` (in Hebrew ZIYUNIM) instead of Zionists, or `Eis’raal` (has the Hebrew word poison in it) instead of Israel. Ha`aretz would print an editorial calling for an immediate stop to this cheap anti-Semitism."
The Guardian links to this piece: link to guardian.co.uk
The Jadaliyya article is brilliant, although whatever you say about MacMaster - a vain, Orientalist, insensitive, crazy white man who endangered lives - he put into the mouth of his fictional character, 'Amina', a critique of pinkwashing very much along the lines of 'an ardent cry to LGBT Arabs, women, progressives, and others “to refuse to allow parts of our personhood (sexuality, gender) to be mobilized at the expense of other parts of our personhood (the Palestinian, the Arab, the working class)."' as excerpted above. I don't think his professed politics are at issue here. Rather, it is the fact he was conceited and stupid enough to think he knew the lived reality of a queer woman in an Arab country to the extent he could pretend to be one, and garner support and sympathy from people all over the world. What contempt!
I'm sorry to say also that the hoaxer did not only fool westerners, although from the infamous post, "My father, the hero", it was clear to most Syrians, at least, that it was fiction.
Phil, we just published this piece at work and it might answer some of your questions: Syria: Debates on women’s bodily autonomy and sexual violence
These responses on Gay Middle East website are worth reading: From Damascus with Love: Blogging in a Totalitarian State
"You took away my voice, Mr. MacMaster, and the voices of many people who I know. To bring attention to yourself and blog; you managed to bring the LGBT movement in the Middle East years back. You single-handedly managed to bring unwanted attention from authorities to our cause and you will be responsible for any LGBT activist who might be yet another fallen angel during these critical time."
One striking aspect of Tom MacMaster's blog is 'My Blog List' in the right-hand column: Mondoweiss is third one down, which surely means MacMaster - being an opinionated kind of guy - is a regular commenter on here, but under what name I wonder...
Darkness descends and friends and family try to reassure you there is light, that they love you, and not to give up hope, but the suffering is too much. I am sorry, Louis and Pat and Ian. Matthew had a beautiful face, a brilliant intellect and seemed motivated by love and a keen sense of justice.
Yes, her piece included this now priceless sentence: "Others dismissed my citing of International PEN and its cultural-boycott-precluding efforts to free imprisoned writers as irrelevant twaddle." It certainly is.
Marc Estrin has a good piece, also on Mondoweiss, deconstructing McEwan's speech: 'Speaking half-truths to power'. Check it out, Hostage and fuster, if you haven't already
Hope to post a follow-up piece soon!
Ya Ahmed, I was hoping you would stay safe - so sorry you got badly hurt. Thank you for sharing
I'm with you, Annie, although I should definitely refrain from singing!
You can really sing, Annie! I'm impressed
That was link to Guardian; this is his FB page:
(Am apparently rubbish at html)
UPDATE: McEwan has responded in the Guardian to the BWISP letter:
There is now a debate on his official Facebook page:
Trying again!
Ian McEwan and the implications of accepting the Jerusalem prize
link to guardian.co.uk
British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWISP) has a letter in the British newspaper, The Guardian, today regarding Ian McEwan's acceptance of this prize: