Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 44 (since 2010-05-26 05:10:07)

JohnAdamTurnbull

I've been interested in this conflict for more than 35 years and I'm finally becoming active and outspoken.

Website: http://johnadamturnbull.com

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  • Northwest pinkwashing events cancelled, StandWithUs’s record of queer exploitation exposed
  • Gaza scoreboard
    • JohnAdamTurnbull March 14, 2012 at 10:49 am with 2 replies

      This is the most dreadful image. A war blandly incorporated into the ritual framework of weekend sport.

      Is there any glimmer here? If Israel's war on Palestine were a sport, would there be rules? Would fans accumulate for the underdog? Would they appoint a referee? Would they soon practice the ritual and not the thing itself?

  • Israel is sucking up all the oxygen in the White House
  • Blasting Obama as 'blurred,' McConnell assures Israel lobby that bipartisan Congress will authorize 'overwhelming force' against Iran
    • JohnAdamTurnbull March 6, 2012 at 11:34 am

      Until other production methods for medical isotopes are in place, uranium enriched to 20% is the only material that permits heart and cancer treatment and hundreds of industrial and agricultural technologies. Uranium enriched to this level is produced by several countries and shipped almost everywhere in the world -- except Iran.

      So in addition to all of the other reasons why an industrial country of 74 million people would want to have domestic production, Iran has the ultimate reason: without it thousands of peope will die for lack of fairly ordinary medical procedures.

      There is hardly any doubt that Iran will also prepare to build a weapon. Almost every industrial nation is capable of buiding a nuclear weapon. That technology is not rare or exclusive and it doesn't respect borders.

      So we're left with the question, why would they bother?

      Every interaction that Iran has with the rest of the western world simply demands that they take defensive weapons seriously and make significant investments in them. In fact, only an Iranian leader who is a religious fanatic could avoid that responsibility to his people.

      The US invasion of Iraq created an enormous opportunity for Iran to expand its economic and poitical power across its borders. "Nation building" is exactly what the US government did -- but in the opposite sense. We're long past the time when we could influence this situation with raw power.

  • Half the story: What @IDFSpokesperson leaves out about Gaza
    • JohnAdamTurnbull February 20, 2012 at 12:49 pm

      Thanks for the data. Can I ask you to speculate?

      There is no military capability yet, among Gaza militants, to kill any significant number of people in Israel. Is there even an intent? Is simple harassment more valuable? Or are the militants just supporting their own morale?

  • Israeli officials say Iran's 'existential threat' is-- braindrain of 200,000 'best and brightest'
    • JohnAdamTurnbull February 3, 2012 at 2:07 pm

      News about the strictly military assessment of attacking Iran makes the idea seem colossally stupid, so I have to agree with you that the weekly threats are feints.

      But what's the counter move? Is Israel planning a "manageable" attack closer to home?

      JPost ran this strange piece last week : link to jpost.com

      Putting aside the "knocking on the roof" admission of a war crime, what's going on behind the Bomb Iran story?

  • New book Palestinians in Israel explores the contradiction of the ‘Jewish and democratic’ state
  • Cyber-attacks strike Israeli stock exchange, airline, banks
    • JohnAdamTurnbull January 17, 2012 at 12:15 pm with 2 replies

      The speculation that his is a false-flag operation can't be disproved, but it seems much less likely than the surface story. The fact that many of the attacking IPs were in Israel is due to the nature of a denial of service attack; you need a lot of unprotected computers that are geographically close to the target servers. I suppose that if you were in Saudi Arabia, you might have less to work with. In any case, the attacking bug spreads itself -- once you let it out, it will go where people allow it to go, usually to their friends' unprotected machines.

      By the way, the hacker's name is 0xOmar (with a leading zero -- not an "o"). It's kinda of a geeky pun, a reference to the "hexidecimal encoding" that most machines use to represent values.

  • Trivializing the anti-Semitism charge
    • JohnAdamTurnbull January 4, 2012 at 7:26 pm with 1 replies

      Canadian Hate Speech law, and attitudes toward hate speech, are different from the US. Here's it's not a trivial issue at all. Take a look at the webite of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.

      link to

      (Don't be impressed by the coat of arms; the committee is "Parliamentary" only in the sense that parliamentarians run it. It's otherwise unofficial. But it's a serious problem.)

      You might also want to look at link to

    • JohnAdamTurnbull January 4, 2012 at 7:19 pm

      Great story Phil -- you made my day.

  • Mossad Chief: Stop calling Iran an 'existential threat'
  • Iran airs footage of US drone intact
  • How we started 'Radio against Apartheid' in Philly
  • Israel trades $100 million in frozen PA funds for nuke-ready submarine
    • JohnAdamTurnbull December 6, 2011 at 12:29 pm

      Germany has also avoided two or three real estate bubbles because most of its wage-earners are renters. They have no interest(!) in the speculative increase of real estate prices.

  • A point for the Israel lobby theory, from Panetta
    • JohnAdamTurnbull December 5, 2011 at 11:39 am with 7 replies

      This seems more likely to me.

      Military helicopters, drones, tanks, radios, ammunition, tear gas -- all of these are either on-going expenses or are capital assets with a limited life. You can make a good buck re-supplying them as long as the buyer has an unruly population to control.

      Nukes are forever, comparatively cheap, and not useful for the day-to-day grind. There's not a lot of margin there.

  • Game changer: Hillary says Israeli restrictions on women remind her of Rosa Parks and Iran
  • Israel plans forced transfer of 27,000 Bedouins in West Bank and Jerusalem
  • Six Palestinian Freedom Riders arrested traveling on Israeli-only bus
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 15, 2011 at 12:32 pm with 2 replies

      This is a good time to recommend Mazin Qumsiyeh's new book, "Popular Resistance in Palestine", PlutoPress, 2011, (plutopressbooks.com).

      Mazin has given me an education on the popular politics of early resistance to Zionist/British colonialism. And I'm only on chapter 8.

  • Lookin' for love in all the wrong places -- Why is JDate advertising in the Gaza Strip?
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 12, 2011 at 4:48 am

      @eee You have no idea how networks are established and inter-connected, and the vast body of international law that supports the commercialization of this -- and finally, how this is affected by legal status as a state.

      Israel supplies the service because it's worth a few bucks on a very small marginal cost. And by the way, the tax due on the transaction made to place dating adds on a screen in Gaza goes to Israel.

      Radhicka's report is a wonderfully comic demonstration that Palestinians are not even recognized as a market segment let alone humans with rights.

  • What next after the latest frustrated flotilla?
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 10, 2011 at 11:02 am

      You sound a little grumpy eee. What Pam said is that organizing another flotilla may not be worth while. Yes, I think Israel may have learned how to respond to these. However, they are still in the news at least in Canada and Britain, so don't do the cost/benefit yet.

      You contention the flotilla is a waste of money is hard to support. The change in the number of news stories that recognize the justice of Palestinian self-determination is countable -- and I estimate that it tripled. If you think that an old day-ferry is a lot of money to spend on that change in tone in the news, then try buying it directly.

    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 9, 2011 at 5:55 am

      We, the imprisoned foreign nationals are the lucky ones. We at least have supporters at home and consuls who watch over us the best they can. What happens to Palestinian political prisoners and to ordinary Palestians daily is far worse--there is no pressing need for the state of Israel to prove to anyone that they are not abusing Palestinians.

      I agree with your analysis that we need to keep trying to change the behaviour of the state of Israel. But I also see more and more ordinary people becoming activists after they understand our story is not about us, but about what Israel does to ordinary Palestinians and to Palestinian political prisoners when no one is looking. There are different ways to help people make that imaginative leap.

      I have long heard the argument that the money for a ship may be better spent on BDS. I believe that every effort is valuable in a different way in that although they may overlap, there are some people whose imagination is more activated by one or the other.

      This I do know-- more ships are coming. I don't know when. There will be more smaller, cheaper ones. I am guessing that legal action will be taken to get the Tahrir returned. After that, we shall see. Freedom rules the waves. Israel waives the rules.
      But our numbers are growing.

    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 9, 2011 at 4:06 am with 1 replies

      Your view is correct, at least from where I sit in Istanbul. Israel is back to homebase on this run. Unless they actually harm one of the 21 prisoners, the news is over.

      While it's tempting, and amusing, to think of other ways that a flotilla could be organized, I think it may be more important to look at the way ordinary people change their minds about what Israeli really is. In my estimation, there are very few North Americans or Europeans who can visit the West Bank and return with any shred of respect for this Israeli government. Of course, Israel uses a variation of this technique to keep the US Congress onside -- and it seems to work.

      I wonder whether the organization of inexpensive trips to the West Bank, or perhaps tunnel-to-Gaza adventure tours, might produce more sympathy for Palestinians. The control point for Gaza, of course, is Egypt. We should be working now to find ways for them to give their permission as the Turks recently did. The control point for the West Bank is also difficult -- but many have managed to do it.

      As for bringing Palestinians out -- Yes! This should be an exchange. I think it may be possible to find institutions that have a specific interest in some aspect of life in Gaza. For example, there are unions of fishermen who would understand immediately what it means to be shot at within four miles of your shoreline. I know of a mid-western orchard farmer who become outraged at the treatment of olive farmers once he understood that settlers were destroying trees.

      It was our encounter with Palestinians accountant in Canada that got us involved. Imagine the excitement!

      Karen's few days in the spa at Givon has made her more resolute and it seems to have the same effect on other "ordinary" people.

  • Freedom Waves prisoners abused and imprisoned; 'Anonymous' hackers strike back
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 7, 2011 at 3:18 am

      Thanks Ben for this report.

      As of 10:00 local time, I am waiting for a three-minute call from Karen DeVito -- one of the five(?) women who are detained. I was told last night by Canadian Foreign Affairs that she would be allowed a call this morning.

      It's possible that the women, too, have decided not to sign.

      The five (that I'm sure of) are Kit Kittredge of Washington State, Jihan Hafiz, who should be a protected journalist (she is there for Democracy Now), Karen De Vito from Vancouver BC, and two Irish women, Mags O Brien and Zoe Lawler.

  • Obama administration approves navy warships seizing two boats carrying peace activists and letters to Gaza as necessary for Israeli 'security'
  • Threatening letter to Obama on chilling Turkey is signed by 7 Jewish House members, says Peace Now
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 6, 2011 at 3:31 pm with 2 replies

      Phil --

      Thanks for the detail.

      Can we be sure though that the need to bottle up the Black Sea is really history? The Ukraine is not faring well as a separate nation. I read other analysts who fear that the empire will return.

      I'm also sure that good relations with Turkey will permit the US exploitation of Turkey's shared boarders with Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc.

      However, this is all "interest" politics. I am impressed here in Istanbul with the genuine moral outrage that Turks feel about the attack on the Marmara; it's almost .... American.

      jat

    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 6, 2011 at 11:15 am with 4 replies

      There may always be good reasons to be suspicious of Erdogan, but let's not forget that our original motivation for buying influence in Turkey is that it can bottle up the a navy that lives in the Black Sea. Russia is not our dear friend.

      If we were to stop sales to Turkey because we suspect that Erdogan may not be a western liberal, then let's go through the whole list. We could start with Saudi Arabia. Somewhere on that list would be a country that is now holding journalists in prison because they attempted to reach a place that Israel claims not to control.

      When Turkey was a "safe" friend of the US, it was a military oligarchy. Many Turks, especially in Istanbul, thrived under this system and miss it.

  • Breaking: Gaza flotilla stopped by Israeli warships
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 4, 2011 at 10:37 am

      I wish I could be more encouraging re Turkey's commitment -- though to be sure, naval vessels need not apply.

      I believe that the US, Turkey, Israel and Canada were in conversation during the preparation of the departure in Fethiye. Robert Lovelace, also here, points out that a 12-person boat is big enough to save face and small enough not to worry any national government with a stake in the game.

      Robert added, "Let my people go!"

  • Flotilla controversy within Occupy Wall Street shows Palestine continues to be a fault line
    • JohnAdamTurnbull November 4, 2011 at 10:46 am

      Wish I could remember who said this: "It's not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's the conflict between the US and Israel on one side and the rest of the world on the other."

      Whoever it was might have added Canada to "Israelius" but I'm not sure how you would spell that.

  • Off the coast of Gaza
  • Even Fayyad forecasts struggle for equal voting rights in I/P
    • JohnAdamTurnbull October 22, 2011 at 12:08 pm

      Thanks for that link.

      You point out the degree of control that Israel exerts over anyone who is politically active and the effect that has on campaigns for power within the frame of a "West Bank" authority (government?) that purports to be independent in some degree from Israeli control. And I wonder what dangers there would be in conducting a campaign for the Knesset elections -- a campaign designed as theater. This would run counter to the PA's interests and also, obviously, to Israeli interests. Reading Lendman's article suggests it would be very dangerous.

      Walid, I'm finding this useful -- I'm catching up.

    • JohnAdamTurnbull October 21, 2011 at 9:41 pm with 4 replies

      Hi Walid -- Agreed. If the PA deserves credit at all, it might be for successful fund-raising and some short-term economic gain, but it's certainly not a democratic achievement.

      I wonder whether those young activists could operate independently if they campaigned for a vote. My feeling is that the enthusiasm for a single state is growing and that inevitably Palestinians will have to demand that right. Best to start early.

    • JohnAdamTurnbull October 21, 2011 at 1:02 pm with 6 replies

      I'm casting around here for ideas and I trust people in this crowd to say what they think.

      One of the effects of the apparent management success of the PA is that a misconception has developed among the headline readers that Palestinians living in the West Bank are in control of their territory with the exception of the Israeli settlements. In other words, that the occupation is merely a matter of "controversial settlements". For example, I've spoken with people who were surprised to hear that the border between Jordan and the WB is controlled by the IDF. These people had no idea about the Areas, the ultimate IDF control of the PA security forces, taxation, water control, check points that are internal in the WB, Israeli roads, the size of the area managed by the PA, etc. They seemed to think that the West Bank is an "almost-nation" with an Isareli settlement problem. (Gaza is a whole other issue.) I'm sure we've all had similar discussions.

      Beginning earlier this year I have been reading news and comment about the possibility of a demand for the vote. It makes me wonder whether a public campaign about the right of all Palestinians (including the diaspora) to vote in Israeli elections might now be useful.

      The right to vote is the most obvious concept in American politics and surely news about the denial of voting rights for Palestinians would raise some questions.

      I'm wondering what would happen if Palestinian activists took advantage of the next national election to collect and present ballots from any Palestinians of voting age. I wonder whether the public discussion of Knesset power, images of democratic procedure in Palestine, and finally the Israeli refusal to count the ballots, might make interesting news. This might be effective if the campaign included all the usual features of an election, including a slate of non-Israeli candidates.

      Fayyad has raised this issue in connection with the failure of two-state discussions, but I think that it's a separate issue. If you live and pay taxes in a place, that's where you vote, even if at a later time you decide to secede.

      There's a long list of problems and maybe the largest is that Palestinians who still have aspirations to a viable state will be reluctant to risk diverting attention from that goal by implicitly conferring legitimacy on the Knesset. The next problem would be the attitude of Palestinians in Gaza and the degree of freedom they might be denied by their own government. But once the current PA leadership's project has expired, there might be some enthusiasm for such a campaign.

  • The Freedom Flotilla continues - French boat Dignité Al Karama leaves Greece on way to Gaza
  • The flotilla that could
  • Why this fund drive is important for us
    • JohnAdamTurnbull July 10, 2011 at 6:20 am with 1 replies

      We've just left the Tahrir in the port of Agios Nikolaos. After fighting the Greek port authorities and Coast Guard for more than a week, the committee decided to keep the boat and regroup for the next voyage -- which may be in only a couple of months. If you are interested in the "color coverage" of the game, take a look at johnadamturnbull.com/Yeah .

      My thanks to everyone who runs this site, reads it and comments on it. It's been a great help to me in sorting out why my wife and I became involved in the cause and, when this battle is won, why we will find another injustices to fight.

      As we said our good-byes, half a dozen of the crew were booking their tickets to Ben Gurion, two had flown to Cairo, and others were preparing the boat and working group for the next round. Karen and I have begun to plan our entry in Gaza by some other means.

      I am continually amazed that people who have encountered, first-hand, the power and violence of a rogue state respond by growing in number and resolve. Telling a bully to back off is good for your soul. I recommend it.

  • 'Spirit Of Rachel Corrie' --little engine that could
    • JohnAdamTurnbull May 26, 2011 at 10:08 am

      News of Rafah border offers more insight.

    • JohnAdamTurnbull May 25, 2011 at 10:14 am

      Catching a fishing net, abandoned or in use, is nothing new there. A ship that is anything more than a yacht -- that is almost any boat not carrying owners or guests -- has to have a captain. You can be sure there was a license holder aboard.

      The really worrisome aspect of this is that the Israeli Navy didn't seem to know what was happening. The idea of a single naval vessel waking up and shooting, with apparently, no larger plan, is disconcerting.

      Why are you surprised that an Egyptian ship appeared?

  • Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Ralph Bunche's achievements didn't make Jim Crow kosher
    • JohnAdamTurnbull March 19, 2011 at 3:24 pm

      And here's my letter to Yaffe --

      Shimoni's -- how long is "temporary"?

      Canadians make up their minds about politics without much help from their politicians. Not only are Harper and Ignatieff irrelevant to the international politics of the Middle East, they are irrelevant to Canadian public opinion on the matter.

      Your survey of reaction to Israeli Apartheid Week seems to be simply an opportunity to quote Gideon Shimoni. Shimoni wishes that "apartheid" were a more complex word; that it might castigate the former South African regime while excusing Israel.

      So, Shimoni, deplores the occupation but claims it's temporary. Maybe 40 years is only temporary to him, but as Israel continues to grow toward the Jordan, permanent occupation looks more like theft -- and more like a mainstream assumption than a radical hope.

      John Turnbull

  • Inconceivable-- the MSM once reflected an Arab perspective
    • JohnAdamTurnbull December 9, 2010 at 6:14 pm with 7 replies

      I came here to cheer myself up. I just read the strangest and most offensive piece of Dershowitz nonsense on HuffingtonPost.

      It's reassuring to know that there are at least a few of you who read and think. Thanks Phil, Alan, Annie, Citizen and the others who post here. Reaching for my credit card to make a donation to the site -- yuk, it's VISA.

  • Oh, Canada: Al Jazeera investigates 'the other special relationship'
  • US position on flotilla is compromised by its love of drones
    • JohnAdamTurnbull June 12, 2010 at 2:22 pm with 1 replies

      I believe that Israel provides much of the aircraft drone technology currently in use by the US and that it also operates drones itself. (Certainly it manufacturers sea drones -- link to israelnewsagency.com

      Israel complains that Hamas fires rockets and that Israel must starve all of Gaza as a "solution" to the rocket threat. Yet there seems to be a "lesser of two evils" approach that Israel refuses to implement. Of course, I am not advocating this; I am merely wondering whether this reluctance on Israel's part to shoot more specifically at rocketeers, rather than starving almost everyone, is a good indication of its real political intention. (I am also aware of the existence of the rocket cease-fire that was broken on November 4, 2008.)

  • Obama's refusal to jettison the special relationship is an abrogation of his responsibility
    • JohnAdamTurnbull June 9, 2010 at 1:25 pm with 8 replies

      Moor makes it clear that Israel is no longer (was never?) an asset in the American attempt to foster compliant democratic politics in the Middle East. But Israel has become an asset when you are trying to win a political fight in the US.

      Israel supporters in the US often point out that, while Jewish political participation rates are admirably high, Jewish campaign contributions are a very small part of the overall campaign contribution.

      I think there's an important factor that's left out of this view and I'm interested in hearing comment from the folks on this list. I may be way behind the curve here, but it seems to me that a useful analogy to the US campaign contribution process would be two stacks of coins on a balance scale. US politics seems to divide itself almost exactly in half on any general mix of issues, so the coins stack up pretty evenly and the balance remains. However, when that last, relatively small contribution is set in place -- usually on the Democratic party side -- the balance tips. You don't need much if you vote all your contributions one way or the other. I believe that American Jews used to vote consistently for the Democrats and that this is now much less certain. Surely Obama is aware that he may lose the congressional weight he now has and may face defeat on all sorts of issues unrelated to Israel.

      I'm used to a parliamentary system in which the whole government is elected at once (there are very few executive-vs-congress grid locks) and one-issue interests are smudged out by multi-party competition. Is my analogy naive?

  • Questions Ethan Bronner could have asked
    • JohnAdamTurnbull June 5, 2010 at 7:07 pm

      Stopping a ship of that size really is very difficult to do safely. I think the three safest tools would have been daylight, overwhelming show of strength and a lot of tear gas on the bridge. That the IDF chose the method they did suggests to me that they wanted a few specific deaths.

      But it disheartens me to read how much "news" revolves around the question whether the IDF is competent or not. Clearly they are not. Can we talk about wounded children yet?

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