Desertpeace

QUEEN OF THE HAS-BEENS TO PERFORM IN ISRAEL

March 12, 2013 at 11:35 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Editorial, Entertainment, Israel)

The Way We Were …

When I look back at the long career of Barbra Streisand, one paricular film comes to mind, The Way We Were. In the movie she plays a young American Jewish woman very much involved in the anti war Movement, as well as other Progressive causes. It created an image in my mind that this was a true picture of Barbra Streisand, definitely fond memories.

The Way We Are …

That image was shatterered today when I read she is coming to Israel to perform at the 90th birthday of Shimon Peres. Celebration of the life of a war monger. Shameful! She apparently has been to Israel a few times but chose never to perform here. Why the change of heart? Why now when a growing list of top notch performers have decided not to play for apartheid, not to play for war?

Is this how she wants to be remembered?

I hope you will all remember to add her name to the growing list of artists and performers that should be boycotted. Remember as well to let her know her actions are totally unacceptable. Here’s how….

Fan mail address:

Barbra Streisand
160 West 96th Street
New York, NY 10025

Management address:

Barbra Streisand
c/o Martin Erlichman Associates, Inc.
5670 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 2400
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Why We Boycott …

THE OSCARS FOCUS ON APARTHEID THIS YEAR

February 8, 2013 at 11:50 (Apartheid, Cinema, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

Oscar-nominated films prove Israel is an apartheid state

Eli Ungar-Sargon

The Palestinian film 5 Broken Cameras offers clear and irrefutable evidence of Israeli ethnocracy.

(Issam Rimawi / APA images)

Award season is in full swing in Los Angeles, and, for the first time in the history of the Academy Awards, two films about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in competition for best documentary feature. For those of us invested in a just resolution to the conflict, a closer reading of these films can help decipher the meaning of this extraordinary attention.

The Gatekeepers is a classical talking-heads documentary. What sets it apart from other films in this genre is the identity of the heads doing the talking: six men who have led Israel’s Shin Bet, or Internal Security Service, from the early days of the state until the present. The film is deftly structured and moves effortlessly from history, which is served up with archival footage, to strategic analysis, which is provided against the backdrop of slick computer-generated listening rooms. The heart of the film comes through in the difficult ethical questions that Israeli director Dror Moreh occasionally interjects from behind the camera.

Narrow focus

The concept of The Gatekeepers, which Moreh continues to hammer home in his many public statements, is that these six men, who have been charged with keeping Israel safe throughout the decades, all agree that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Stripmust end.

From an Israeli perspective, this is a rhetorical gambit from a member of the decimated left: “listen to these people,” Moreh seems to be pleading with his compatriots. These political nuances will be lost on the American public, but The Gatekeepers fits nicely into the bizarre cultural regression we are currently experiencing in the United States with shows like Homeland and films like Zero Dark Thirty. The aesthetic of The Gatekeepersplays to our fetishization of counterterrorism and its voyeuristic technologies.

What about the Palestinian perspective? Unfortunately, The Gatekeepers reduces the Palestinians to abstract ethical entities in ticking-time-bomb scenarios. Granted, this derives from the general conceit of a film that chooses to narrow its focus to these six men, but the outcome is that the only Palestinians we spend time thinking about are “terrorist masterminds.”

Worse, one of the chapters of the film is titled “Victory Is To See You Suffer.” This comes from the former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon who credits the statement to Jabril Rajoub of the Palestinian Authority. Incredibly, Ayalon tells us that hearing Rajoub say this is what finally forced him to empathize with the Palestinians in their struggle.

Emotional resonance

In contrast, 5 Broken Cameras, is all about the Palestinian perspective. The footage that co-director Emad Burnat shot over five years at the weekly unarmed demonstrations in his village of Bilin, has an immediacy that shatters the high production value seductions of The Gatekeepers.

Made for a fraction of the cost that it took to produce that film, 5 Broken Cameras is like a punch to the gut. There is almost no historical context provided, but Burnat’s narration achieves an emotional resonance that only a first-person account can.

The Israeli co-director Guy Davidi wisely structured the film around the lifetime of the various cameras that Burnat used to document his life, each of which were eventually broken. Burnat and Davidi’s film is political in a less overt, but more subversive way than Moreh’s. It bypasses the calcified rhetoric that so often characterizes discussions of Israel and the Palestinians and cuts straight to the heart.

Like Julia Bacha’s Budrus before it, 5 Broken Cameras confronts the viewer with a reality that would be hard to believe if you weren’t watching it with your own eyes and hearing it with your own ears.

World waking up?

So what does the nomination of these two films tell us about where our culture stands on the issue of Israel and the Palestinians? Like the recent diplomatic revolt at the UN which led to the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state, I believe this to be a sign that the world is finally waking up to the fact that something is rotten in the State of Israel. That something, however, is still being misidentified as the occupation of 1967. The truth, of course, is that the occupation is but a symptom of a rot that runs much deeper. The problem is Israeli ethnocracy.

The fact that Israel is not a state for all its citizens and never has been is the reason that a majority of the Palestinian people live in exile as refugees. It is also the reason that the Palestinian citizens of Israel continue to live as second-class citizens. The military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip persists, because were Israel to grant citizenship to the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza, it would cease to be a Jewish-majority state.

Israel’s logic is therefore motivated by a model of nationalism that is hostile to the fundamental democratic value of equality. The occupation as seen through the lens of bothThe Gatekeepers and 5 Broken Cameras offers clear and irrefutable evidence of Israeli ethnocracy. But the occupation itself is neither the cause of, nor the solution to the conflict.

Will The Gatekeepers and 5 Broken Cameras have an impact on Israeli audiences? Unfortunately, I think not. There are already indications that The Gatekeepers has been met with indifference from the Israeli public and it looks like Davidi is facing an uphill battle in getting 5 Broken Cameras to screen to Israeli youth.

Might this change if one of the films wins an Academy Award at the end of the month? I’m pessimistic. As the recent Israeli elections demonstrated, the conflict with the Palestinians is no longer an issue that most Israelis care about. But the world is watching. And these films, along with the injustice reflected in them, now have a global audience.

Eli Ungar-Sargon is a documentary filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He has been working on a documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict for the past four years. The film is now entering the final stages of post-production.

Written FOR

STEVIE WONDER SAW THE LIGHT AFTER ALL … PULLS OUT OF IDF SUPPORT CONCERT

November 29, 2012 at 09:37 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

Wonder’s representatives will claim that he did not know the nature of the group, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and that he believes such a performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN “Messenger of Peace,” according to a source who has read email exchanges between Wonder’s representatives and organizers of the event.

Stevie Wonder to pull out of IDF fundraiser

Representatives for Wonder, who performed at a 1998 gala honoring Israel’s 50th anniversary, say the performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN ‘Messenger of Peace.’

Stevie Wonder Photo by AP

Stevie Wonder is set to pull out of a performance at a fundraiser for the Israel Defense Forces, a source told JTA.

Wonder was scheduled to headline the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces annual gala in Los Angeles on Dec. 6. The event raises millions of dollars annually to support the Israeli military.

An official of Friends of the IDF, reached at its Los Angeles office, had no comment. Wonder’s agent at Creative Artists Agency did not return a request for comment.

The spokesman for the UN Secretary General also had no comment on the matter.

The United Nations does not impose restrictions on its goodwill representatives. Wonder most recently performed at a UN concert commemoratiing its 67th anniversary. Elie Wiesel, the Nobele Peace Laureate and Holocaust memoirist who is also a staunch defender of Israel is also a UN Messenger of Peace.

Wonder had come under intense social media pressure to pull out of the event. An online petition calling on him to cancel his performance had garnered more than 3,600 signatures.

The petition was launched more than a day ago on the change.org website.

“You were arrested in 1985 protesting South African Apartheid, now we ask you: please remember that apartheid is apartheid, whether it comes from White Afrikaaner settlers of South Africa or from Jewish Israelis in Israel,” the petition reads. “Desmond Tutu has recognized that Israel’s Apartheid is worse than South Africa’s — will you stand with us against apartheid and cancel your performance at the IDF fundraiser.”

A second petition, launched by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, calls on Wonder to “(p)lease continue your legacy of speaking out for the oppressed. Please be a ‘full-time lover’ of justice by standing on the right side of history and canceling your performance for the Israeli army.”

Wonder performed at a 1998 gala honoring Israel’s 50th anniversary.

Palestinian Doctor and Artist, Dr. Jazz produced the following before Stevie Wonder changed his mind …. it’s worth viewing for future musician’s blunders.

7 Comments

PEACE THROUGH MUSIC ….. DESPITE IT ALL!

April 6, 2012 at 11:42 (DesertPeace Editorial, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine, Peace)

At the beginning of the week I posted THIS which included THIS report about the tensions in the Israeli/Palestinian city of Jaffa.

Despite the joint agenda of the Israeli right as well as their government itself, there is hope in Jaffa and in Israel as a whole. The people themselves want peace, and through their activities it will be achieved.

One example of this is an organisation calling themselves the Arab-Jewish Community Centre in Jaffa. A group within is the Arab & Jewish women’s choir “Shirana”. The following was sent to me by a British Blogger and friend, Charlie Pottins, both Palestinians and Israelis enjoying the sounds of Passover, TOGETHER.

Here too we have the 99%, a group called THE PEOPLE, and we want Peace and we want it NOW!

Below is a translation of the song in the video, sung traditionally at Passover Seders.

The White House Seder last year

Translation & additional lyrics: Chava Alberstein
Arrangement and conducting: Mika Danny
Piano, Mix and Mastering: Eran RANCHO Yehoshua
Frame Drum and Musical Production: Idan ToledanoLyrics:
A little goat (2x)
My father bought for two zuzim
A little goat (2x).Then came the cat
And ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the dog
And bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the stick
And beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the fire
That burned the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the butcher
That slew the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim.

Then came the Angel of Death
And killed the butcher
That slew the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

Then came the Holy One
Blessed be G-d
And destroyed the Angel of Death
That killed the butcher
That slew the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the sticks
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the little goat
My father bought for two zuzim

On all nights, on all nights
I questioned only four
Tonight I have one more:
How much longer will the circle of horror persist
Striker and stricken, beater and beaten,
When will this madness, when will it end,
And what is different for you, what is different?
I am different this year
I used to be a lamb and a peaceful goat
Today I am a tiger and a preying coyote
I was a dove already, and a ram
Today I dont know who I am
(My father bought for 2 zuzim)
And once more, we start from the beginning

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DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY WITH APARTHEID!

March 29, 2012 at 10:27 (Apartheid, Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Editorial, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

Don’t worry, be happy with apartheid, occupation, non-nation status…

BOYCOTT THE FOLLOWING TO SHOW HIM THERE IS SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT AND NOTHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HERE!

Bobby McFerrin, the ten-time Grammy Award winning musician will be in Tel Aviv in May for the Tel Aviv White City Music Festival. McFerrin’s most famous hit is the 1980′s song Don’t Worry Be Happy and he will perform at the festival alongside some of the biggest names in Israeli music at the festival. McFerrin will give four concerts in Tel Aviv between May 1 and May 10.

PALESTINIANS ~~ THE NEW BLACKS

March 15, 2012 at 15:06 (Activism, Apartheid, Boycott Israel, Entertainment, International Solidarity, Palestine, South Africa)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

In a first ever musical collaboration between South Africa and Palestine, South African band, The Mavrix, and Palestinian Oud player, Mohammed Omar, have released a music video called “The New Black”. The song is taken from The Mavrix’ upcoming album,”Pura Vida”, due for release in June 2012.

Written and composed by Jeremy Karodia and Ayub Mayet, the song was a musical reaction to the horror of the Gaza Massacre of 2008/2009 and then subsequently inspired by the book “Mornings in Jenin”, authored by Susan Abulhawa. Mayet had penned the first lyrics in 2009 after the Massacre and the song went into musical hibernation. Having read the novel, “Mornings in Jenin”, he then re-wrote the lyrics and the song evolved into its current version.

Haidar Eid, a Gaza based BDS activist and friend of the band, heard the song in 2011 and urged the band to do a collaboration with Palestinian Oud player, Mohamed Omar. He also suggested that the band do a video highlighting the collaboration between South African and Palestinian musicians and also the similarities in the two struggles.

The song was recorded by The Mavrix in South Africa whilst Mohamed recorded the Oud in Gaza and, although never having had the opportunity to meet, the musical interplay between the musicians so far apart illustrates the empathy the musicians feel in solidarity with each other.

Produced by The Palestinian Solidarity Alliance (South Africa) and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) along with written endorsements from Haidar Eid of PACBI, Omar Barghouti of the BDS Movement, Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada and Susan Abulhawa, author of “Mornings in Jenin”, the song represents a message of support from South Africans, who having transgressed and crossed over their own oppression under apartheid, stand in solidarity with Palestinians who are currently experiencing their own oppression under Israeli apartheid.

ROTTEN RACISM AND PUNKS AGAINST APARTHEID

February 26, 2012 at 10:53 (Activism, Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

Punks Against Apartheid follows a firm tradition of anti-racism within the punk movement. This encompasses punk rockers’ early embrace of reggae, the formation of Rock Against Racism and the Two Tone movement, the music of the Clash and Bad Brains, X-Ray Spex and MDC, Subhumans and The Specials.

Never mind Johnny Rotten, real punks boycott Israel

By Alexander Billet

Johnny Rotten’s racism does not represent the core vaules of punk rock.

(Ed Vill / Wikipedia Commons)

“If Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”

These words weren’t spoken by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. They didn’t crawl from the bile of AIPAC, Newt Gingrich or some hardened, right-wing ideologue from the heart of the Israel’s illegal settlements. They came from the mouth of John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols.

Most devotees of punk rock stopped taking Lydon seriously well before he started shilling for Country Life butter. To be sure, any and all credibility he once had from his work with the Pistols, or, for that matter, later on with Public Image Ltd (PiL), flew out the window years ago.

It’s also true that the Pistols idiotically paraded around in swastikas during their early years. Still, even taken with that grain of salt, Lydon’s words are profoundly troubling. Like it or not, the former Rotten is considered a granddaddy of punk rock. It’s not far fetched to imagine someone reading his words and thinking his flagrant racism, his willful defense of an apartheid state, are somehow the punk norm. It’s for this reason that Punks Against Apartheid exists.

In the summer of 2011, Punks Against Apartheid came together as an ad hoc formation of BDS activists and punk fans (a formation that, in the interest of full-disclosure, includes this writer). The goal was initially modest: draft a letter and petition urging Jello Biafra, formerly of The Dead Kennedys, to cancel his gig in Tel Aviv with his band The Guantanamo School of Medicine.

The response was overwhelming: within four days, Punks Against Apartheid’s petition had more than 500 signatures (“Sign the petition: Tell Jello Biafra to cancel the gig in Tel Aviv,” 16 June 2011).

As pressure built and Biafra publicly reaffirmed his commitment to the show, he specifically called out Punks Against Apartheid. However, a few days after that, with the petition bearing more than a thousand signatories, Biafra canceled the gig (“Jello Biafra cancels Tel Aviv gig,” 29 June 2011).

Furthermore, many of those who had supported us were urging Punks Against Apartheid to continue as a formal network.

Now, Punks Against Apartheid has finally launched its official website:www.punksagainstapartheid.com. Of course, the group doesn’t exist in isolation. The global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions is at a crucial international turning point. With the Arab revolutions and the anti-capitalist Occupy movement in close to 100 countries inspiring a new generation of rebel musicians, there may be no better time for Punks Against Apartheid to announce its formal presence.

“Racism Ain’t Punk”

There’s more than a little romance to the idea that all of this came out fully formed somehow. On the contrary, it had to be fought for both in the concert halls and on the streets. In both the US and the UK, open white supremacists vied for support within the punk movement during these early years. In a climate of economic crisis and harsh anti-immigrant scapegoating, the angry wail of punk was initially just as liable to trail into some dangerously dark territory. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)

And just like today, there was an international dimension that was difficult to ignore. Punk groups like National Wake from Johannesburg, South Africa were shut down and prevented from playing just like Black Flag in Los Angeles — though in the former’s case it was usually due to it being an integrated band in an apartheid state. The pleas from Nazi boneheads like the UK’s National Front or the American National Socialist Party to “support white South Africa” obviously had the effect of dividing the global punk community rather than uniting it.

No surprise then that the anti-racist side also embraced the worldwide movement against South African apartheid. David Widgery, one of the founders of Rock Against Racism, recalled in his book Beating Time that South Africa was a key part of Rock Against Racism’s message. Its publication, Temporary Hoarding, featured pictures of the Soweto uprisings on its cover. The same issue made a case that, as Widgery put it “our little Hitlers had their big brothers in power in South Africa.” The Specials, with their infectious blend of ska and punk energy, were particularly moved to support the anti-apartheid movement — most famously and obviously in “Free Nelson Mandela.”

When Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, formed Artists United Against Apartheid and declared “I ain’t gonna play Sun City,” Joey Ramone and The Dead Boys’ Stiv Bators were among those who recorded the single. Countless other punk acts heeded that same call and pointedly refused invitations to perform in South Africa — including The Dead Kennedys and Public Image Ltd.

The parallels between apartheid South Africa and modern-day Israel have been laid out again and again. Areas designated “off limits” to Arabs and Palestinians, systematic denial of basic rights. Forced removals, refugee camps and checkpoints. Random raids of homes and violent repression of anything smacking of resistance. Though it’s been almost twenty years since white rule was abolished in South Africa, its ancestor is alive and well in a similar colonial settler state.

Of course, punk rock hasn’t gone anywhere either. For every sugary corporate Green Day ripoff willing to cross the Palestinian people’s international picket line (I’m looking in your direction, Simple Plan), there are untold numbers of young folks forming their own bands, their own labels and own fanzines because they believe punk stands for something. It’s these people that Punks Against Apartheid seeks to reach.

And believe it or not, despite the stubbornly persistent notion that punk remains a white boy thing, many of these punks are those most under the gun of American racism, a racism that has become more pronounced since 11 September 2001.

“Being a punk and being a Muslim-American to me go hand in hand,” says activist and writer Tanzila Ahmed. “They are both about standing up to the man. They are about believing what you believe with your whole gut and soul … It’s about being marginalized and fighting to reclaim your voice.”

Ahmed, or “Taz,” as she is known, is one of many participants in the burgeoning Taqwacore scene: Muslim punks. It’s a sub-culture that is currently taking its rightful place next to riot grrl and Afro-punk in the ever expanding horizons of a diverse punk scene.

In an interview with The Electronic Intifada, Taz also insisted that her identity as a Muslim punk is a big reason she supports BDS: “The US government is largely why Israel feels empowered to bully the way it has … It’s all about political power, and at this point of history hate speech against Muslims is the tactic and Muslim-Americans are the pawns. I absolutely believe that the lack of support for Palestine is the sacrifice politicians are making to stay in power and to win votes.”

Bigger than Jello

Thirty years ago it was open fascists emboldened by a political establishment who turned the other cheek. Now it’s white nationalists milling around the ranks of the Tea Party andthe “Stop Islamization” crowd. Back then they pointed at jobs and services “stolen” by black people and higher crime rates in the inner-city. Today they shriek about Arabs and Muslims conspiring to impose sharia law via downtown mosques.

Back then, both gutter racists and establishment politicians alike looked to South Africa as a bulwark against the invading brown hordes. Today, it’s Israel. Global empire doesn’t care about apartheid. On the contrary, without divide-and-conquer, it probably wouldn’t survive.

As always, the fight is international. Amplifying the shouts of those shoved to society’s margins doesn’t end at national borders. Perhaps that’s why the original Punks Against Apartheid petition included signatories from all over the world — London, Beirut, Chicago, Istanbul, Paris and beyond.

It’s also perhaps why a glimpse of those who have signed on to Punks Against Apartheid’s “points of unity” so far will reveal a diverse swathe: “Spirit of ‘77” originators The Angelic Upstarts, anarcho-punk architects Oi Polloi and the Oppressed, riot-folk singer Mark Gunnery, radical torch-bearers Propagandhi and more.

Of course, Punks Against Apartheid is tapping into something much bigger than any list or artists, bigger than Jello Biafra, John Lydon, or even “Elvis-fucking-Costello.” Punk rock’s legacy, twisted and contradictory though it may be, had to be fought for and can still mean something to a new generation. Ultimately, it’s about solidarity. If the world’s most marginalized are ever going to take back what’s theirs, then this is one value that has to remain at our very core. Time to show the world that punk is a lot more powerful than any divisions — real or imagined — ever could be.

Written FOR

WHAT MAKES A HERO? …. AND HOW YOU CAN HELP MAKE ONE

January 13, 2012 at 11:18 (Cinema, DesertPeace Exclusive, Entertainment, Israel)

I received an email from Yoav Shamir. He is an Israeli director/producer/cinematographer.

In part, here is what he had to say;

I hope you are well. I am writing to you because I know you appreciated my previous films such as “Checkpoint” and “Defamation”, and I need your help with my new film “10% – What makes a hero”.*

Before I proceed with what kind of help am I asking for and why -let me tell you a little bit about the film.

“10%” is my new feature length documentary- it deals with a very simple question: “What make some people do good, while most people look away? What makes some people do good even when there is a potential personal toll? Some people will refer to them as Altruistic, some will call them heroic.

Examples from recent history would be the Non Jews who saved Jews during the holocaust, even though there was a serious risk potential doing so, the white South Africans who fought Apartheid while most whites enjoyed the benefits of this racial system, those few who straggled alongside the ANC paid many times a serious personal toll.

Are there some common patterns to all the individuals mentioned above? Common traits? A Psychological blue print?

The film follows a Stanford University research that attempts to tackle this question, as it highlights Palestinian and Israeli peace activists. The head researcher is the famous Prop. Philip Zimbardo (who back in the 70′s conducted the famous “Stanford Prison Experiment”), alongside with an Israeli and a Palestinian team.*

Best to see what Yoav has to say about the film….*

To read more about Yoav Shamir and to find out how to help produce the 10%, go to THIS Website. Keep in mind that no money is coming from the big shots in Hollywood…. this is truly a people’s project for the people.

4 Comments

U S CONGRESS TO PALESTINE: STATEHOOD OR SESAME STREET….

January 8, 2012 at 07:03 (Entertainment, Hasbara, Irony, Israel, Palestine, Palestinian Statehood)

You can’t have both!

‘Young children should not be penalized’

Palestinian Sesame Street put on hold

Iconic children’s program ails because of funding freeze by US Congress as punishment for UN statehood bid

It’s quiet time on Palestinian Sesame Street.

The iconic children’s program, known as “Sharaa Simsim” in Arabic, has been put on hold for the 2012 season because of a funding freeze by the US Congress.

*Adding insult to injury….*

Even as the freeze put Palestinian Sesame Street on hold, the State Department is investing $750,000 in the Israeli version of the show, which is now filming its newest season with an emphasis on teaching children the value of fairness.

This is what the US Congress is putting a halt to….

*Promoting message of peace, tolerance

“Sharaa Simsim”, the Palestinian show, debuted in 1996 and has produced five seasons since, with long intermissions for fundraising. It has promoted a message of peace and tolerance that Israeli critics say is often missing from Palestinian airwaves.

The main characters Haneen, a red-headed orange Muppet, and the green rooster Kareem have became household names for Palestinian children.*

The full AP Report can be seen HERE

THE WAR AT HOME IN SONG … WHY WE OCCUPY

December 29, 2011 at 14:51 (Activism, Class Struggle, DesertPeace Exclusive, Entertainment, Occupy Wall Street, People's Art)

The legend of Woody Guthrie continues with the poetry and song of Joseph Bruchak. Joe is a poet and author by profession, specialising in Native American stories. He has written many children’s books dealing with Native American lore.

Yesterday, the following was reported in the New York Times regarding long overdue honours rewarded to Woody; click HERE to read the article …Bound for Local Glory at Last

Woody Guthrie, Around 1943

Also yesterday, Joseph and Jesse Bruchak posted the following on YouTube… Enjoy!

December 28th, A special day for People’s Art!

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A MUSICAL INTERLUDE (WITH APOLOGIES TO GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL)

December 27, 2011 at 09:33 (Class Struggle, Corporate Crime, Entertainment, Occupy Wall Street)

HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS

The 1% praise corporate greed…..

MAKING A FOOL OUT OF ALAN DERSHOWITZ …

December 6, 2011 at 09:53 (Adult Content, DesertPeace Editorial, Entertainment, Humour, Israel, Palestine)

Not a hard task considering the man is a total idiot to begin with ….

But, Larry David (of Seinfeld fame) took a shot at it anyways this past week with the following …

The “Palestinian Chicken” installment features Larry David caught between continuing to buy the tasty chicken at a Palestinian restaurant or eschewing it because his Jewish brethren are upset the restaurant is located next to a deli.

The comedian sent the episode to Dershowitz, who in turn mailed it abroad. ” I recently sent a copy of “Palestinian Chicken,” that Larry David gave me, to Prime Minister Netanyahu—with the suggestion that he invite Abbas over to watch it together. And maybe if they both get a good laugh, they can begin a negotiating process.” (Taken FROM)

The episode starts out with …

It continues in the restaurant itself …

Taking into account the fact that David worked very closely with Jason Alexander, a member in good standing on the fascist S H I T List, it is almost inconceivable that sending the episode to the king of hasbara shitheads was nothing more than his way of making a fool of him … and it worked

A report was sent to me after I posted this Blog, it appeared yesterday on the Electronic Intifada. It casts a different light on Alexander, one that might lead to some revisions soon on the list linked…

Photo © by Bud Korotzer (This photo was enough reason to get me to stop wearing my Brooklyn Dodger hat

)

I wear this one instead (Available at the W R H STORE)

SARAH SILVERMAN LIVE ~~ A FINE LINE BETWEEN COMEDY AND RACISM

September 20, 2011 at 11:04 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Ignorance, Israel)

America’s ‘comedy queen’ recently visited Israel. Below is a clip from a ‘comedy show’ she took part in on a local cable channel. Perhaps it’s good she refused to heed the call to Boycott Israel, how else would we find out how stupid she really is … the show she appeared on is as stupid as she is needless to say.

Interview with Sarah Silverman

8 Comments

RAPPING FROM GAZA FOR FREEDOM

July 17, 2011 at 08:12 (Activism, Entertainment, Gaza, Humanitarian Aid, International Solidarity, Palestine, Videos)

The Mystery (اللغز)

*

The song is performed by the newly created GYBO rap team and it’s dedicated to all the freedom fighters world wide, to all those who raised the palestinian flag to face zionism and specially to the passengers of the flotilla1, flotila2, flytilla, viva palestina convoys, road to hope convoy, Africa to Gaza, Asia to gaza and to our friends in the vik2gaza convoy.

GYBO TEAM

From Uruknet

4 Comments

BOB DYLAN ~~ DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S NOT ALRIGHT … IN IMAGE AND VIDEO

April 27, 2011 at 08:53 (Boycott Israel, Cartoons, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

Image by Skulz Fontaine

Hey Bob….. The following is what you seem to think is alright….. Don’t think twice, it’s NOT!

Still not convinced? Maybe this will help …

Boycott From Within

Boycott from Within is a group of Israeli citizens that supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Listen to activist Ofer Neiman discuss the Boycott from Within movement, its goals and what impact he thinks it will have on ending the Israeli occupation.

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COMING TO ISRAEL SOON: A NEW TURKISH FLOTILLA AND DURAN DURAN

April 26, 2011 at 19:45 (Activism, Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Gaza, Humanitarian Aid, International Solidarity, Palestine)

The Mavi Marmara off the coast of Istanbul in May 2010. Photo by: AP

Actually, the Flotilla is bound for Gaza, but Israel seems to think that’s a part of Israel….

Turkey: Israel shouldn’t repeat its Gaza flotilla mistake

Israel mustn’t attempt to stop a planned aid flotilla bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip, Turkey’s Foreign Minister told in an interview on Monday, adding that Turkey could do nothing to stop organizers from launching the flotilla.

Turkey said on Thursday it had received a request from Israel to help stop activists sailing to Gaza on the first anniversary of an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship, but it said the flotilla plan was not Ankara’s concern.

Full report HERE

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Here’s another group to add to your Boycott List….

HERE you can see who is and who is NOT boycotting Israel….

View to a thrill: Duran Duran announce Tel Aviv summer show

British pop icons join several veteran acts arriving in Israel, in what is slowly becoming a hot summer for Israel’s music lovers, albeit of the more nostalgic variety.

Read about it HERE

John Taylor, left, and Simon Le Bon of the band Duran Duran performing at The Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles, March 23, 2011. Photo by: AP

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BOB DYLAN JOINS FORCES WITH THE NEIGHBOURHOOD BULLY

April 14, 2011 at 08:26 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Guest Post, Irony, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine)

The Call Bob Dylan Won’t Heed:
BDS, Bullies, and Blowing Wind

By Nima Shirazi

A recent letter by the Israeli peace and justice group “Boycott From Within” (BfW) calls upon Bob Dylan to heed the Palestinian call for BDS and therefore not perform in Israel. The letter follows reports of Dylan’s 2011 summer tour, during which he will perform at Ramat Gan Stadium on June 20th.

The BfW letter hits all the right notes and speaks truth. It asks Dylan “not to perform in Israel until it respects Palestinian human rights,” explaining that “a performance in Israel, today, is a vote of support for its policies of oppression.” The letter speaks of ethnic cleansing, land theft, martial law, air strikes, and massacres. It beseeches the folk legend, who has “been part of a civil rights movement,” to stand with the oppressed against the aggressor. BfW writes that “BDS is a powerful and united civil initiative in the face of a brutal military occupation and apartheid. It’s a nonviolent alternative to a waning armed struggle and it has reaped many successes and instilled much hope, in the past six years.”

A Ha’aretz article proudly notes that the Dylan concert will be held “where Leonard Cohen and Elton John recently performed,” and is being promoted by “Marcel Avraham, the promoter who organized the Leonard Cohen and Elton John concerts – as well as the upcoming Justin Bieber concert that will be held over Passover.”

So, will Bob Dylan – the man who wrote “Masters of War” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in 1963 – heed the call? Of course not. Although Dylan would appear to be the perfect political ally, his human and civil rights bona fides have faded over time – to the point of non-existence.

In 1971, Time Magazine reported that Dylan was “returning to his Jewishness” and “getting into this ethnic Jewish thing.” A friend of his told the magazine, “He’s reading all kinds of books on Judaism, books about the Jewish resistance like the Warsaw ghetto. He took a trip to Israel last year that no one was supposed to know about and even, it is rumored, gave a large donation to the Israeli government.” The article continues:

Dylan denied giving money to Israel or to the fanatical Jewish Defense League, but he confesses great admiration for that “Never again” action group and its reckless leader Rabbi Meir Kahane. “He’s a really sincere guy,” says Bob. “He’s really put it all together.”

Yes, you read that right. Bob Dylan said Meir Kahane, who favored the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and whose racist Kach party has since been banned from Israeli politics, is “a really sincere guy” who’s “really put it all together.”

Over the past couple decades, Dylan has become a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which holds a firm Eretz Israel line regarding the ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

In 1983, twenty years after he sang, “you don’t count the dead” and “you never ask questions, when God’s on your side,” Dylan penned a song in response to the international outrage over the devastating Israeli assault on Lebanon in 1982, which took the lives of nearly 18,000 Lebanese civilians and wounded about 30,000 others. The song did not mention the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, in which between 800 and 2,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were murdered. The Israeli Kahan Commission, published in February 1983, found that Israel bore “indirect responsibility” and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon “bears personal responsibility” for the massacre.

Rather, Dylan’s song, entitled “Neighborhood Bully” and featured on his Infidels album (which incidentally also contains the songs “Man of Peace” and “License to Kill“), is a bitter and indignant defense of Israel’s actions, an exercise in Zionist mythology, eternal victimization, and bogus “right to self-defense” hasbara, that sounds like it was written collectively by Alan Dershowitz, Abe Foxman, Benjamin Netanyahu, Anthony Weiner, and Golda Meir.

Dylan sings of nameless (though obvious) “neighborhood bully,” labeled such by “his enemies” who “say he’s on their land” and have him “outnumbered about a million to one” with “no place to escape to, no place to run.” And that’s just the first verse.

The hasbara escalates as the song continues. Dylan sings of exile (“The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land”) and bigotry (“He’s always on trial for just being born”), of lonely survival and attempts at delegitization (“He’s criticized and condemned for being alive”), of the Osirak bombing, of deserts blooming. The only way to believe how thick the Zionist talking points are laid on is to listen to the whole song, or read the complete lyrics (here).

Unfortunately for the BDS community and the courageous activists of BfW, Bob Dylan will not be an ally in the fight for justice or international law. He made his choice decades ago. It is Dylan who can apparently no longer see “where the people are many and their hands are all empty, where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison, where the executioner’s face is always well hidden, where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, where black is the color, where none is the number.”

And, although Dylan once claimed that he’d “tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, and reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,” he has decided to stand with those who aggress and oppress, with those who starve and deprive, with those who surround and fly-over and bomb hospitals and deny, with those who steal land and resources, with those who reinvent and erase history, with those who criminalize memory and prioritize ethnicity and religion.

By ignoring the call to boycott and by performing in Israel this summer, Dylan is solidifying his reputation as one who – when it counted most – didn’t stand for morality and humanity. Dylan once asked, “how many years can some people exist, before they’re allowed to be free?” It seems that Dylan’s own answer to the Palestinians would be, “A while longer and don’t ask me to help.” He has become his own rhetorical character: the man who turns his head, pretending he just doesn’t see.

So, the questions remain. “How many ears must one man have, before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take ’til he knows that too many people have died?” The answers are no longer simply blowing in the wind, however. They are in discourse and education, flash mobs and rallies, sit-ins and walk-outs. The answers are international law and humanitarian justice. The answer is promoting basic morality and common decency. The answer is raising public awareness. The answer is opposing settler-colonialism, military aggression, collective punishment, air strikes and assassinations, drone attacks and white phosphorous, tear gas and torture, ethnic cleansing, diplomatic immunity, war crime impunity, ethnocentrism and supremacism, racism and discrimination, apartheid and occupation. The answer is BDS.

And, as Bob Dylan told us himself, the times they are a-changing’.

Sadly, this time around, however, it seems Dylan does need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
*****

Neighborhood Bully

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

Written FOR

Ironically, the above lyrics were written in 1983 during the slaughter at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp, this is how the zionists twisted the meaning of the song to suit their evil interests….. and now Dylan himself endorses those very interests.

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NETANYAHU BOYCOTTS JUSTIN BIEBER

April 13, 2011 at 08:01 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Irony, Israel)

Things don’t always go as planned in this tropical desert paradise we call Chelm. Superstars come and go, kiss ass and get their’s kissed back …. but what happens when some young Canadian pop star refuses to play the game?

That’s a no-no! There are rules and those rules are made by the Israeli government, not by the visitors. We asked this Bieber kid not to come here and to honour the Movement for Boycott and Divestment, he ignored our pleas. Now he is the one being boycotted … by none other than Netanyahu himself….

Netanyahu cancels Bieber date over refusal to meet kids affected by Gaza rockets

PM was scheduled to host pop star at his Jerusalem office; taking advantage of the PR situation, Netanyahu’s advisers invited group of kids from communities near Gaza border to attend.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled his date with pop sensation Justin Bieber over the singer’s refusal to meet with children living in communities affected by Gaza rocket fire, Channel Two reported on Tuesday.

The prime minister was scheduled to host the young singer at his office in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, before Bieber’s Thursday night concert.

Taking advantage of the PR opportunity presented by the meeting with Bieber, Netanyahu’s advisers invited a group of children from communities near the Gaza border to attend.

The children had disembarked from a school bus just before it was hit by a Hamas rocket last Thursday, critically wounded a teen and moderately wounding the bus driver.

Bieber reportedly refused to meet the children, which led Netanyahu to cancel the meeting.

Upon arriving in Israel on Monday, the singer was met by throngs of teen girls who mobbed his Tel Aviv hotel.

Some 200 young fans gathered at Tel Aviv’s Sheraton Hotel Monday morning, staying there for hours in the hope of catching sight of the phenom. Bieber is scheduled to give a concert in Tel Aviv on Thursday night.

“We arrived especially on a flight from Eilat,” said Yaakov Melamed, father of a 12-year old girl – one of about 200 groupies in the hotel’s lobby on Monday. “We are following him everywhere,” said Adi, 14, from Ganei Tikva. “I will go with him to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and I’ve been waiting here since eight in the morning,” she said.

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ROGER WATERS: WHY I SUPPORT THE CULTURAL BOYCOTT

March 7, 2011 at 08:24 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, International Solidarity, Israel, Palestine)

My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human rights. My position is not anti Semitic. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.

Roger Waters: My Journey to BDS

In 1980, a song I wrote, “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2,” was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by Black South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so-to-speak, on certain songs, including mine.

roger_waters

Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a West Bank festival used the song to protest Israel’s apartheid wall. They sang “We don’t need no occupation! We don’t need no racist wall!” At the time, I hadn’t seen first-hand what they were singing about.

A year later in 2006, I contracted to perform in Tel Aviv.

Palestinians from the movement advocating an academic and cultural boycott of Israel urged me to reconsider. I had already spoken out against the wall, but I was unsure whether a cultural boycott was the right way to go. The Palestinian advocates of a boycott asked that I visit the occupied Palestinian territory, to see the Wall for myself before I made up my mind. I agreed.

Under the protection of the UN I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day. The Wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli Soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world with disdainful aggression. If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers. I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from that Wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met, people whose lives are crushed daily in a multitude of ways by Israel’s occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: “We don’t need no thought control.”

Realizing at that point that my presence on a Tel Aviv stage would inadvertently legitimize the oppression I was witnessing, I canceled my gig at the football stadium in Tel Aviv and moved it to Neve Shalom an agricultural community devoted to growing chick peas and also, admirably, to cooperation between people of different faiths, where Muslim, Christian and Jew live and work side by side in harmony.

Against all expectations, it was to become the biggest music event in the short history of Israel. 60,000 fans battled traffic jams to attend. It was extraordinarily moving for me and my band, and at the end of the gig I was moved to exhort the young people gathered there to demand of their government that they attempt to make peace with their neighbors and respect the civil rights of Palestinians living in Israel.

Sadly in the intervening years, the Israeli government has made no attempt to implement legislation that would grant civil rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and The Wall has grown, inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of The West Bank.

I had learned that day in Bethlehem in 2006 something of what it means to live under occupation, imprisoned behind a Wall. It means that a Palestinian farmer must watch olive groves centuries old, uprooted. It means that a Palestinian student cannot get to school because the checkpoint is closed. It means a woman may give birth in a car, because the soldier won’t let her pass to the hospital that’s a ten minute drive away. It means a Palestinian artist cannot travel abroad to exhibit work, or to show a film in an international film festival.

For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of Israel’s illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have no means to support their families. It means that university students with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed travel.

In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.

Where governments refuse to act, people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For some that meant joining the Gaza Freedom March, for others it meant joining the humanitarian flotilla that tried to bring much needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.

For me it means declaring my intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine, but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their governments racist and colonial policies, by joining a campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights demanded in international law.

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands [occupied since 1967] and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and whites and blacks enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes — and it surely will come — when The Wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all deserve.