Ressentiment

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:38:00 +0000

Who burned down the Reichstag?

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:17:00 +0000

[Source: Frank Silecchia]

Alfred Lilienthal - Israel's Flag is Not Mine - 1949

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 02:39:00 +0000

I couldn't find a copy of this anywhere but the way-back machine. I want to have it available so I can re-read it whenever I get the impulse to lump all Jews in the same category with the people who authorized the military bombing of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. At least one Jew got it right.

ISRAEL'S FLAG IS NOT MINE

By Alfred M. Lilienthal

Dear Mother:

I brought you my hurts and troubles when both they and I were little: in that same spirit I bring them to you today.

Only last year, a new white flag with single blue six-pointed star was hoisted to a mast many thousands of miles away on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This flag of Israel is the symbol of a new nationalist state, with its own government, army, foreign policy, language, national anthem and oath of allegiance.

And this new flag has brought every one of us five million American citizens of the ancient faith of Judah to a parting in the road.

Judaism, I have felt, was a religious faith which knew no national boundaries, to which a loyal citizen of any country could adhere.

By contrast, Zionism was and is a nationalist movement organized to reconstitute Jews as a nation with a separate homeland. Now that such a state exists, what am I? Am I still only an American who believes in Judaism? Or am I—as extreme Zionists and anti-Semites alike argue—a backsliding member of an Oriental tribe whose loyalty belongs to that group?

Let us start, Mother, with how I feel about this new State of Israel. I wish it well. I hope that several hundred thousand suffering displaced persons will find in it a happy home. I hope it will prosper as a center of democracy in the Middle East. But when its flag was first raised on May 14, 1948, I had no impulse to dance in the street with hysterical joy, as did so many in New York and London. For I was born and remain an American. I have no ties with, no longings for, and feel no responsibilities to Israel. And I believe that the future happiness of the Jews in America depends on their complete integration as citizens of this—our true—country.

I am sure that if we Jews as a group are persuaded to divide that love which people normally give to their native land, it can lead only to disaster.

The Irish? They are a nation and Judaism is a religion. Irishmen here have left Ireland only in recent generations. The Jews left Palestine in Roman times, and have come here from every European country.

My one and only homeland is America. I am proud of my belief in the age-old Judaic concept of one God in Heaven and one Humanity here below. But my faith does not pull me into a feeling of narrowly tribal kinship with all others who worship God in this way. Whenever I read of Americans singing the Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem, or see youth groups raising Israel's flag beside the Stars and Stripes. I am outraged. For Israel's flag and anthem are symbols of a foreign state; ,they are not mine.

The most powerful weapon which Zionism is using on Americans of Jewish faith is its outward cloak of humanitarianism. The argument runs that Israel was set up primarily as a haven for the persecuted, the homeless, so why should we be critical?

Mother, the truth is that Israel was not created primarily for displaced persons. Instead, Article 3 of its proposed constitution proclaims it to be "the national home of the Jewish people." Meaning, Mother, you and me! As early as 1917 Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, was proclaiming: "We have never based the Zionist Movement on Jewish suffering in Russia or any other land. These sufferings have never been the mainspring of Zionism."

Rabbi Abba H. Silver, a recent head of the American Zionists, declared: "We must stand foursquare on the proposition that Zionism is not an immigration or a refugee movement, but a movement to rebuild the Jewish State for the Jewish nation in the land of Israel."

And what is the attitude of Israel toward those who adhere to the faith of Judaism but are citizens of other countries? Our "nationality" they insist is Jewish, no matter under what flags we were born; and, since we are not in Israel, we live "in the Diaspora," which is to say in exile. And their plans for us?

"We must," explained Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, in his first speech after the Israeli elections, "save the remnants of Israel in the Diaspora. We must also save their possessions. Without these two things, we shall not build this country."

So the vast Zionist propaganda machine strives to cement national ties between Israel and all persons of Jewish faith. And sending money to Israel is only a small part of our supposed obligation. The deeper objectives are given by Dr. Margoshes, an executive of the American Section of the Jewish Agency, as being:

" - to Zionize world Jewry. . .to establish Zionist hegemony over the developing Jewish communities throughout the world."

Daniel Frisch, newly elected president of the American Zionists, feels that "the American Jewish community will soon arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the all-day school plus a chain of summer camps is the only solution to the problem," and that "we ought to be able to send to Israel American—bred young people who want to live as Jews minus the hyphen under the smiling skies of the reborn Israel. Our task has not ended with the birth of the Jewish State. It has but begun."

Have these misguided zealots forgotten the indignation which was aroused in America In the '30's, when the Bundists tried to tell Americans of German ancestry that they owed loyalty to Germany, and set up in America youth camps dedicated to German culture?

Today we see Zionists boasting of "Jewish" political strength, Zionist picket lines around British consulates, Zionists demonstrating against Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin when he arrives here to sign the Atlantic Pact, New York stores plastered with posters screaming "Do Not Buy British. Made Goods."

Are these people acting as Americans? Europe's recovery through the Marshall Plan is the keystone of our bipartisan foreign policy, which the Communists are trying to sabotage. Any boycott of British goods, organized or unorganized, helps this destruction. Now I know these Zionists were not consciously trying to tear down American foreign policy, but their actions were the inevitable result of living under segregation is not solely the fault of the other guy. Part of the responsibility is on our shoulders. True, the Jew is sometimes segregated by Christians. But it is also true that the Jew sometimes sets himself apart from Christians.

We have moved out of the ghetto, but sometimes scars of the long imprisonment remain. This is why many Jews even today feel at home only with other Jews. Many carry their Jewishness on their sleeves and are extremely self-conscious and sensitive to their separateness.

ALL OF THIS I understand: most of it I forgive. After all, six million Jews were wiped out by Hitler and anti-Semitism does exist, even in America. Why should each of us not be at least a little sensitive? This I think most non-Jews understand. But when anyone criticizes, however mildly, either Zionism, the State of Israel or the hysterical behavior of some groups of Jews. we have no right to shout "anti-Semitism!"

In any religion one can find a small group of fanatics who hate those of other faiths. Such fanatics are not numerous or important. It is Semitism—the constant effort of some Jews to assert themselves as Jews—and not their religion of Judaism which feeds anti-Semitism.

'No one knows better than you, Mother, that I, too. suffered humiliation from being a Jew. I have felt the arrows of discrimination. In my deep hurt I have cried out. But the discipline of two nationalisms. Were Hitler alive today, how he would laugh!

The plain fact is that we Jews are not a race and we should not let the Zionists persuade us that we are. Proof to the contrary lies in Palestine, plain for all to see. You had my letter, Mother, from my Army furlough there. I was second to none in my enthusiasm for. what my co-religionists had done—for a desert brought to bloom, for clean new cities rising out of age-old sand dunes. All of these wonders had come to pass while only a few fanatics talked of statehood. One evening I went to see a performance ,of an opera in Jerusalem. In that theater lobby you could distinguish almost at a glance the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jew from Poland, the Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jew from North Africa or Turkey, the German Jew, Jews from a score of countries all differing in dress, language, manners and mental attitudes. I had visual proof of the arguments of anthropologists. who laugh at the notion of a distinct Jewish race.

Anyone who tells me those foreign Jews are exclusively my people that I should be closer to them than to Bob McCormick, the kid on the block with whom I used to play ball: or to Nick Galbraith, who roomed next to me at Cornell; or Dave Du Vivier with whom I studied in law school—that man is talking dangerous nonsense. I have also learned, Mother, that when something. goes wrong in my relations with non-Jews. I avoid the habit of thinking that it happened just because I am a Jew. Such self-pity is comforting, but it is usually wrong and therefore dangerous.

There is today a deep split among Americans of the Jewish faith. The Zionists are the more vocal; they have more organized political power. But they do not speak for all of us, and I hope not for most. On the other side there is, for instance, the American Council for Judaism, which insists that the nationalism of Israel must be confined to the boundaries of that state. There are also countless other Jews without any affiliation who revere Judaism as a religion and scorn to degrade it into a cheap racial nationalism which competes with their Americanism.

But when we protest the right of the Zionists to speak as "American Jewry" on the question of Palestine, we are told that Jews should not be disunited, must not fight among themselves on Palestine or any other issue. And if we still speak out against what we feel is a dangerous trend, we find ourselves reviled and ostracized as traitors. Coercion, often economic, frequently silences the freethinker.

But why should Americans of Jewish faith be any more united on questions of American foreign policy than are Presbyterians, Baptists or Methodists?

Have we forgotten the words of Woodrow Wilson in 1915 when he warned all Americans: "You cannot become true Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And a man who goes among you to trade on your nationality is not worthy to live under the Stars and Stripes."

Politicians of both parties who in the last election played to "the Jewish vote"' in connection with Israel will do well to reread those words.

The answer to bigotry and anti-Semitism does not lie in fanatical Jewish nationalism. Of course the blowing-up of the King David Hotel, the hanging of the two British sergeants, the assassination of Bernadotte, the massacre of Arab women and children at Dier Yasin were all acts of tiny groups. But they have weakened the moral and spiritual stature of the world's oldest religion. Israel's terrorist Beigin and Hollywood's Ben Hecht, who encouraged such lawlessness by saying, "Every time you let go with your guns at the British betrayers of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts!" such people are doing the Jews more harm than any words which Goebbels spoke.

There was no holiday in my heart, nor in that of the late Rabbi J. L Magnes, president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who said sadly following that Hecht statement: "We had always thought that Zionism would diminish anti-Semitism in the world. We are witness to the opposite."

All too many Christians have supported Zionism because they felt that Jews, having been persecuted, should now have what they want whether it is good or bad for them. Christian leaders can help us greatly. But Christian sympathy for Jews should be measured not in terms of support for Jewish nationalism in distant Israel but in accepting us as friends, neighbors and first-class citizens of this our country. That is true liberal Christianity. And also, Mother, good Judaism, that fine old faith which you taught me as a little child.

1949 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. Pleasantville New York

Reprinted from the September, 1949 issue of The Reader's Digest.

Palestine in a Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Thanks Peace for Palestine

More Bendib

I'm moving this post to the front page to mess with Google's image search and to serve as a caveat for the Ressentiment's long absence from the cause.

Achilles sulks in his tent and he'll emerge when he's damned good and ready. In the meantime have fun with Cassandra and her friends.

Enjoy your time in the sun, Hector.

Thank you for this, Franklin

Time in a Bottle

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:51:00 +0000

You know what kind of tree it is by the fruit it bears.

Nablus - Ma'an - Israeli settlers executed an 18-year-old shepherd boy in the fields outside Aqraba, a town in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank.

Village municipal affairs representative Ghassan Douglas identified the young man as Yahya Atta Rayahin Bani Minnah. Douglas said that a gang of Israeli settlers from Itamar settlement shot the boy at least 20 times at close range.

Yahya did not return home with his sheep for the fast-breaking meal, Iftar. His family alerted the neighbors and the whole village organized a search party to look for the missing boy.

His body was found in fields between the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar and the villages of Aqraba and Awarta.

According to Douglas, eyewitnesses reported seeing a white vehicle driven by Israeli settlers stop, chase down the boy and shot him directly.

...

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

Sabra Shatila Remembrance 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Slide Show 2008 Sabra Shatila Remembrance

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Photos From 2008 Sabra Shatila Remembrance

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Donations to Support Our XO Laptop Program are Greatly Appreciated

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:48:00 +0000

The Sabra Shatila Foundation is funding the purchase and shipment of as many XO laptops as possible from the MIT One Laptop Per Child program. These unique self-powered, wind-up, internet-ready laptops cost approximately $180 per unit to manufacture, but they are offered in lots of 10,000 at a reduced rate of $100 per unit. We need public support to continue funding this project.

Transfer: Bank of Beirut, SAL, Eldorado Branch.
A/C # 1140 V 3819 0900

SWIFT: BABELBBE

Also, use our secure online PayPal link on the sidebar to make a contribution!

Sabra-Shatila Memorial Event and Laptop Distribution Programme

A Sabra-Shatila Massacre Memorial Event will begin at 10:30am on 16 September 2008. The event will commence outside the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, Lebanon, at the Kuwaiti Embassy roundabout, and will proceed in a short Memorial Walk to Martyr’s Square off Rue Sabra, at the site of the 1982 massacre. Among those commemorating the 26th anniversary will be friends and relatives of the victims, foreign delegations, local student groups, NGO’s, dignitaries, and government officials. Scheduled speakers include Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki, Minister of Education Bahia Hariri, Members of Parliament and the Diplomatic Corps, the Mayor of Ghoberi Municipality, Mr Abu Said Al-Khansaa, Mr Aarwan Abdel Al of the PLO Central Committee, and victims of the 1982 Massacre. The ceremony will also include the launch of 1000 balloons in tribute to the 3000 people killed in 1982.

Just as the release of the balloon is at once a symbol of both honour and hope, this event will also mark a move forward for the new generation of Camp residents. The Sabra-Shatila Foundation (www.sabrashatila.org) announces the distribution of specially designed educational XO laptop computers as gifts to Palestinian students living in Shatila Camp. The Foundation will present laptops with award certificates to hundreds of students.

This distribution is part of a projected 100,000 laptops to be donated in the coming months to deprived Palestinian and Lebanese students in Lebanon. It is the hope and commitment of the Sabra-Shatila Foundation that all 59 Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and all of Palestine will, in the near future, benefit from the XO Laptop educational programme now being launched in Lebanon.

Full details of the history of the XO Laptop educational programme, as well as full specifications of the laptop unit can be found at www.laptop.org. The One Laptop Per Child programme is a non-profit organization providing children in need with a tool to discover their potential for learning and becoming part of the solution to the challenges faced by their community. These benefits are being implemented here in Lebanon by the Sabra-Shatila Foundation.

The XO Laptop

This special laptop has a critical mission: the education of disadvantaged children whose living environment would seriously challenge a traditional laptop. Full specifications and the history of its design can be found at www.laptop.org. Some key characteristics are:

* Spillproof, rain-proof, dust-proof and drop-proof
* Fanless, silent and light weight (less than 2 kilos)
* Built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet and game-pad controllers
* Rugged screen that rotates into a tablet configuration
* Real-life tested in Africa, Asian and South America
* Run by a lithium ferro-phosphate battery, replaceable at only $10, and good for 2000 charges
* Low energy requirements, consuming a mere 2 watts compared with the conventional 60+ for ordinary laptops
* Non-dependant on electricity, using a pull-cord charger; one minute of pulling provides 10 minutes of power
* Colour screen with sharp definition (1200 x 9000 pixels), with option to turn off backlight so that the screen remains legible in bright sunlight
* Wireless internet connection and MESH networking capablility, allowing communication amongst laptops even with no internet, and the ability to share internet connection
* Includes a word processor, web browser, calculator, PDF textbook reader, educational games, music programs, and more

Obama's Nomination Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:53:00 +0000

How good was it?

Drum roll ....

Wait for it.

It was so good, the conservatives loved it.

Here's Pat Buchanan, who has heard them all, saying it was the best campaign speech he's ever heard.

Come on conservatives, you can admit it. Obama made you feel proud to be an American. You haven't felt like that for a long time.

Where were you in 2004?

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:57:00 +0000

John Kerry in the 2008:

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you're against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what's more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same "Rove" tactics and the same "Rove" staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

Obama Goes Negative

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Obama is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. The Obama campaign is definitely going negative with this ad below. Nervous nellies are fretting that he's not being enough like a Republican to win the election, or he's not white enough to win, or he's not omnipotent enough, doesn't wear enough lapel pins - whatever. Give the guy a break. The last guy who obtained perfection - they nailed his ass to a cross.

Prompted by Haitham Sabbah, I joined this new Vodpod thinger-macallit. It's pretty cool. I like it because it let's me screen scrap video content without fishing for the embed code with the touch of a tool bar button. That's a time saver in itself. A lot of times, I don't want to blog something but I want to be able to find it later. Just hit the Vodpod button and there you are. It's instantly added to your vid collection. I still have to tag it, which I absolutely hate to do being the disorganized slob that I am. But tags are mostly so _other_ people can find stuff. I usually don't have any trouble finding stuff that I saved.

I added a couple vids that I've enjoyed recently. Check out my Vodpod, Baby.

<end of yammer/>

Old Jeff Foxworthy bit. How can you tell if you're a Redneck? If you have seventeen cars in your front yard and none of them runs - chances are you're a Redneck.

How can you tell if you're a bad blogger? If you have seventeen blogs and you don't update any of them - then - chances are - you're a bad blogger.

Horse Play

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Via StumbleUpon

Soldiers arrest father of child who filmed soldiers shooting bound Palestinian youth

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:01:00 +0000

Follow up on Shooting Back story sent me by Homeyra.

Wednesday July 30, 2008
by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

Last week, soldiers kidnapped resident Jamal Hussein Ameera, 50, after his daughter managed to capture on film an Israeli soldiers shooting a Palestinian youth after they arrested and handcuffed him. The father was sentenced on Tuesday to one hundred days imprisonment.

The father was kidnapped by the soldiers less than a week after the story was exposed as the footage showed one of the soldiers aiming at the leg of the bound Palestinian youth and shooting him.

Ameera was kidnapped while working in his olive orchard close to an area where the Annexation Wall is being constructed.

The youth who was shot by the soldier was kidnapped by the army during a peaceful process against the Wall. The incident took place on July 7, and the youth was identified as Ashraf Abu Rahma.

Abu Rahma was cuffed by the soldier and was beaten before one of the soldiers shot him in the leg.

Israeli commander holds the unarmed demonstrator's arm while the Sergeant Major takes aim at his foot

On July 20, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) published the footage which showed a soldier firing a rubber-coated steel bullet, at extremely close range, at Abu Rahma who was cuffed and blindfolded. The act occurred about two weeks ago in the presence of several security forces, among them the battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel, who held the Palestinian’s arm while the soldier fired.

B’Tselem added that according to press reports, the Military Police have opened an investigation and arrested the soldier who fired the shot.

The group added that until the video footage was published, the army did not conduct any probe and only settled for debriefing.

B’Tselem stated that the debriefing reached the desk of the West Bank Division Israeli military commander but he failed to report it to the Military Police or the Judge Advocate General’s Office, or to take any measures against the soldier or the battalion commander.

Residents of Ni’lin stated that, the day after the incident, they saw the soldier still serving in his unit, B’Tselem reported.

The soldier in question told investigators that he was ordered by the battalion commander to shoot the bound Palestinian youth. The commander claimed that he “only ordered the soldiers to frighten the Palestinian youth”.

Good News and Bad News

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:45:00 +0000

The good news: The Reign of George W. Bush is almost over.

The bad news: The Democrats are coming

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on one of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the chamber have signaled that they do not want the committee -- let alone the full House -- to take a vote on impeachment. -- The Nation

Get ready

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:48:00 +0000

End Gestapo Tactics in Israel. Guarantee Safety of Journalists in Gaza

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:30:00 +0000

LAST DAY TO SIGN THIS IMPORTANT PETITION

July 6, 2008 at 3:12 pm (Activism, Human Rights, Israel, Mohammed Omer, Palestine, Torture)

This is a special appeal to sign the following Petition addressed to Condoleezza Rice.

It will be presented to her early tomorrow…..

Petition to End Israel's Restrictions on Freedom of Movement and the Press

To: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

We, the undersigned, condemn Israel's appalling treatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Gaza correspondent and author of the magazine's regular feature, "Gaza on the Ground." The 24-year-old Palestinian journalist was brutally assaulted by Israeli Shin Bet security officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing on his way home to Gaza on June 26. He had just received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which he shared with independent American journalist Dahr Jamail. Omer's award citation reads, "Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless." (see John Pilger's July 2 article, "From Triumph to Torture," in the Guardian.)

This is not an isolated incident, Pilger points out, but part of a terrible pattern. Israel gives its border guards and Shin Bet agents free rein to regularly harass Palestinians (as well as Palestinian Americans and American peace activists and academics) traveling to and from the occupied territories. Israel randomly abuses, searches, interrogates and humiliates travelers of every age—men and women—and frequently refuses to let them pass through Israeli-controlled borders to their homes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. We just don't hear their voices.

Israel simply doesn't want Palestinian voices to be heard abroad. Palestinians are routinely prevented from accepting invitations to speak in Europe or North America. Students with scholarships to study overseas are not permitted to leave. Israel is now preventing Palestinians from returning home, even for a visit, once they have left to work or study abroad. (Israel recently revoked Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison's travel documents, and will not renew her Jerusalem ID card. She is not allowed to return home to visit her father and mother, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.)

We, the undersigned, also urge the Israeli government to end its efforts to censor international reports from the occupied territories. The government prefers stories to be filed from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, where they are subject to censorship, and allows few, if any, international journalists to enter the West Bank and Gaza. Israel censors, harasses and even kills Palestinian journalists who are trying to report on conditions in the occupied territories.

We call on the Israeli government to protect journalists who are trying to work in the occupied territories. At least eight journalists have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since 2001, seven of them in attacks by Israel Defense Forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists research.*

We call on the Israeli government to end its harassment of travelers and journalists. When Israel targets journalists it infringes on a basic pillar of democracy, freedom of the press. Human beings, even those ruled for decades by an occupying power, have the right to leave home and return safely, without interference, and the right to freedom of speech.

Sincerely,

Please click HERE to add your name.

Israel for Dummies

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:20:00 +0000

Israel's founders didn't simply plant flags in an empty country. Instead, they coveted a state where close to a million Palestinians outnumbered Jews two to one and where Jews owned only 6% of the land. A Jewish state could not be established in this milieu. Exploiting Palestinian opposition to the United Nations partition plan, Zionist militias, and later Israeli troops, forcibly exiled about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland, or terrorized them into flight. Israeli historian Benny Morris documented twenty four massacres of unarmed Palestinian civilians in this period. —— Nakba at 60 George Bisharat

Hillary Heals the Democrats

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:25:00 +0000

The calls for reconciliation have already gone out to Obama supporters, snotty little whippersnappers, advising us that we cannot win against McCain without support from Hillary voters. But we have listened to so much race baiting and war mongering from the Clintons that it is hard not to be just a little ungracious now that Obama is clearly the nominee. Almost everyone can see it except Hillary and Bill. Yesterday in comments at The Washington Post some Hillary supporters were even calling for a Joe Lieberman style run as an independent. It might take a while in some cases for people to deal with denial.

Dana Milbank created a poignant portrait of Hillary's rally in West Virginia yesterday.

The surroundings were appropriate. For this, her bid to demonstrate her resilience in the next primary state, she chose a landmark identified with the severely wounded. Shepherd University's McMurran Hall was under construction as Shepherdstown's town hall in 1862 when the Battle of Antietam flooded the city with wounded; with no place to go, the maimed used the unfinished building as a hospital.

There were signs, too, of disarray. Security was minimal (the event had been scheduled as a solo appearance for Chelsea), Obama posters were prominent in the crowd, and the sound system, operated in part by a man wearing an Obama T-shirt, had problems. A camera riser collapsed, sending bodies, coffee and cameras flying -- and providing the press corps with a fresh metaphor.

It really was not a bad strategy to position herself as the most conservative democrat on the spectrum, considering what voters have been buying lately. Witness John Kerry - not conservative enough for the electorate. The question remains - is it the electorate or the elite that are running things? There are many forces and many vectors in political calculus, and there is never a single root cause for anything in the narratives of history.

Of all the people who are made uncomfortable by the prospect of an Obama presidency the Zionists are the ones I enjoy seeing suffer the most. American Jews take their Israel policy very personally and they are afraid that Obama might not be as easily influenced as the Clintons were. The AIPAC-o-sphere is all atwitter anticipating whether Obama will stay the course with the doomed Neoconservative agenda or whether he will be the first American president to tell Israel to get it together.

I'd like to remind my fellow citizens who are so enamored of Israel first that the country they live in here, the United States, is a real democracy, unlike Israel, which is a democracy in name only. Here we all get to have a say regardless of our race and/or religion. Jewish opinion has the same value as everyone else. It doesn't matter how many names you call people who disagree with you. The fact that all of our taxes have been collectively squandered to turn the United States into an armed camp and a police state which mimics the fear and hatred that Israel represents - that fact alone is sufficient to counter any claims of anti-Semitism that Jews might be prepared to make. This was the land of the free and the brave before Zionism and corporatism conspired to turn us all into a life support system for the military industrial complex.

Now it's time to take our country back.

I hope Obama can change the face of American foreign policy. Change is the only thing that never changes.

A Moment in May

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:39:00 +0000

My mother would have been 78 on the 8th day of May.

Happy May Day David Baldinger

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:19:00 +0000

Workers of the World Unite - David Baldinger - 2008

Thank you, David!

Haitham Sabbah

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:13:00 +0000

Haitham Sabbah is a Palestinian who was born the 2nd of April 1969 in Kuwait and has also lived in Jordan. He studied electronics and communication engineering at Birla Institute of Technology - India.

He is employed as a senior manager at Zain Bahrain - part of a leading global telecommunication company - and is a professional blogger during his personal time.

Haitham is one of the founders of the blogosphere in the Middle East and continues to be one of the most famous bloggers there. He is a well known online activist and his writing covers the Palestine/Israel conflict, Human Rights, Culture and Religious issues in the Middle East.

He has participated in several conferences and workshops related to blogging in the Middle East and his blog has received several awards over its years of existence (2000 - present). He has also participated in many blogging and Web 2.0 projects, some of which are well known references today such as Palestine Blogs Aggregator: http://PalestineBlogs.org and Global Voices Online: http://globalvoicesonline.org

You can see samples of his work at his Sabbah's Blog: http://sabbah.biz

Image and Story by Benjamin Heine

Buy American

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:09:00 +0000

Debcha Arabiya

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:08:00 +0000

Support the Palestinian Right of Return Al-Awda

Bowling with Katie

noreply@blogger.com (Servant) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:07:00 +0000

Unrulyweds sez:

Talent is no longer required for a TV career. You just need to be a stupid, rude, self-absorbed, utterly shameless psycho. Good news for a lot of people…

Which pretty much explains the state of corporate journalism in the United States. It even explains Katie Couric's meteoric ride into the sunset. After they fire her CBS has to find something for Couric to do that's worth $15 million a year until her contract runs out in 2011. They had to dig a new basement to make room for her ratings on the CBS Evening News.

Note to CBS executives: We're not as dumb as you think. We're even dumber.