Both images ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff
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Related report ….
NEW IMAGES ~~ DEMOCRACY AGAIN MURDERED IN GREECE
September 19, 2013 at 17:52 (Anti fascism, Associate Post, Cartoons, Democracy, Greece)
GELLER’S ISLAMOPHOBIA BANNED IN BRITAIN
June 30, 2013 at 08:42 (Anti fascism, Britain, Islamophobia, Israel, Palestine, zionism)
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Pamela Geller Barred From Britain for Anti-Muslim Rally on London Slaying
Controversial Blogger Planned To Speak at Far Right Protest
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By Liam Hoare
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LONDON — Pamela Geller, the controversial anti-Islam blogger and activist infamous for her staunch criticism and denigration of Islam, has been banned from entering the United Kingdom by Home Secretary Theresa May.
In a two-page letter which Geller uploaded onto her blog, Atlas Shrugs, the Home Office informed Geller that has been “excluded from the UK” on the basis that her “presence here would not be conducive to the public good.” Her previous history indicated to the Home Secretary that Geller may attempt to “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”
Below the letter in her blogpost, Geller reacted to the decision:
In a striking blow against freedom, the British government has banned us from entering the country. Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.
Geller and her co-founder of Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA), Robert Spencer, who has also been banned from entering the UK, had been due to attend and speak at a rally in Woolwich organized by the English Defense League, the far-right movement which purports to share with Geller a mutual concern over the Islamisation of Europe, on Saturday, June 29. “Today is a sad day for freedom of speech,” EDL leader Tommy Robinson stated after Geller announced her ban.
It was in Woolwich that on May 22, the soldier Lee Rigby was murdered by two assailants armed with knives and a meat cleaver. One of the suspects, Michael Adebolajo, justified the action by stating that, “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.” Since the attack, several mosques and Islamic community centers across Britain have been desecrated with graffiti, including swastikas and the letters EDL and NF. On June 23, a small explosive device was left outside a mosque in Walsall, near Birmingham.
In a statement, a Home Office spokesman said: ‘We condemn all those whose behaviors and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form.’
Under British legal provisions introduced in 2005 to combat terrorism and extremism, the Border Agency under the auspices of the Home Office has the power to either deport or deny entry to non-UK citizens who engage in “unacceptable behaviors.” This covers people who use the media or public speech to “foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs, seek to provoke others to terrorist acts, foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts, or foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”
On the basis of Geller’s work with SIOA, Jihad Watch, and Atlas Shrugs, as well as her previous public statements, the Home Secretary personally deemed that if she were to “espouse such views” in the UK, Geller “would be committing unacceptable behaviors and would therefore be behaving in a way that is not conducive to the public good.”
ISRAEL TO SHOW AMERICA WHAT FREEDOM REALLY IS
March 13, 2012 at 07:43 (Anti fascism, Boycott Israel, Israel)
English – “Today Everybody Knows: Rabbi Kahane was Right“
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However, thankfully, the United States, Canada, the European Union and even Israel itself have Kahane’s Kach Party and the Kahane Chai Party on their Terrorist Lists.
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Apparently this means nothing to Israel’s Knesset Speaker. He seems to have gotten his feathers ruffled when one of Kahane’s followers, who happens to be a member of the Israeli government was denied an entry visa to attend a conference in the United States.
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The feeble reaction of the Speaker is an indication of the contempt Israel has for the rest of the world with their “We’ll Show You” attitude …..
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In reality, a big favour is being done to support the BDS Movement by him banning a delegation of MKs from attending a women’s conference in Washington this month because the United States has denied entry to MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union). So, thank you Mr. Speaker 😉
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Read about it HERE….
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Israeli delegation cannot travel to U.S after MK Ben Ari denied entry visa
Knesset speaker banned MK delegation after National Union MK Ben Ari’s application was denied based on State Department’s prerogative to ban terrorists from U.S.
By Jonathan Lis
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Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin announced Monday he is banning a delegation of MKs from attending a women’s conference in Washington this month because the United States has denied entry to MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union)
MKs Zahava Gal-On (Meretz), Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and Einat Wilf (Atzmaut) were scheduled to take part in a four-day conference on women that begins March 25 and will be hosted by the U.S. Congress.
They were due to sit on a panel with U.S. congresswomen and to launch a collaborative project between the Knesset and Congress. Gal-On, Hotovely and Wilf were also scheduled to attend a reception at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
The U.S. refusal to grant entry to Ben Ari because of what it said are his ties to a terrorist group amounts to “an assault on the Knesset as a whole,” Rivlin said Monday. “The United States’ allegation that an MK is a terrorist is unacceptable.”
Ben Ari is a long-time follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party is outlawed in Israel and is considered a terrorist organization in the United States.
The National Union MK applied for an entry visa to the United States last month so he could participate in two conferences, one of which is aimed at promoting immigration to Israel.
The U.S. consular staff said Ben Ari’s application was denied based on the State Department’s prerogative to ban terrorists from entering the country.
ISLAM AGAINST “THE THIRD JIHAD”
February 4, 2012 at 17:57 (Activism, Anti fascism, Associate Post, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Collective Punishment, DesertPeace Exclusive, Intolerance, Islamophobia, Phobias, Photography)
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Yesterday, hundreds from New York’s Islamic community joined forces with supporters to protest against racial profiling in their neighbourhoods. The demo was specifically a protest to show outrage at a video recently shown as part of the NYPD’s ‘anti terrorism training programme’. (video can be seen at the end of this post)
Presented here is the call to their action, followed by photos of the paricipants.
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MUSLIMS AND ALLIES DEMAND
NYPD ACCOUNTABILITY
The NYPD is Watching Us, But Who is Watching the NYPD?
Join New Yorkers demanding a police department that is accountable
to the public who fund it through our tax dollars.
The Majlis Ash-Shura of Metro NY and DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving)
are co-organizing a rally with the support of other Muslim communities,
leaders and activists, and allies, in order to demand the following:
1. The resignation of Commissioner Kelly and NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne
2. Demand for independent community control of the NYPD, and a well-funded oversight mechanism with subpoena powerWHY?
The NYPD has been exposed for participating in the making of, and the showing of the bigoted, Islamophobic film, “The Third Jihad” to 1,500 police officers, and then repeatedly lying about it. The NYPD has been spying on Muslim communities in mosques, schools, businesses, colleges, and community centers in the five boroughs.
The film depicts the majority of American Muslims as supportive of violent extremism, and specifically names several prominent Muslim organizations ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America), MAS (Muslim American Society), CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), and others as examples of this. It also accuses the majority of American Muslims of secretly being part of a conspiracy to take over the U.S. government.
Commissioner Ray Kelly willingly participated in the making of the film, and while he has apologized, he has not explained why the NYPD chose to lie, on the record, about his participation for well over a year. In the meantime, Commissioner Kelly has smugly dismissed community concerns by saying he has “excellent relations” with NYC Muslim communities on the basis of only talking and meeting with those hand-picked leaders who continue to support him without regards to the experiences and feelings of people in our communities. We know that the NYPD has operated without transparency or accountability, and often with brute force, with Black, Latino, and other communities of color, and youth for decades.
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Photos © by Bud Korotzer
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The Participants…
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Led by Community Leaders…
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Joined by many elected officials…
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The video in question …. see for yourself why it’s racist…
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This is the video NYPD Chief Raymond Kelly routinely used as part of his department’s anti-terrorism training. Caving into local outraged Muslims and to a city government weakened by political correctness, Chief Kelly recently issued an apology for showing it.
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ISRAEL BREAKS ITS OWN PROPOSED LAW FORBIDDING THE COMPARISON TO NAZISM
January 20, 2012 at 10:47 (Anti fascism, Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Hasbara, Israel, Palestine, zionism)
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PARENTS AGAINST APARTHEID
January 4, 2012 at 09:06 (Activism, Anti fascism, Apartheid, Education, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine)
“I don’t want my children to be taken on apartheid roads, with a jeep in front and a jeep behind, and for them to feel that this is totally normal,” he said, referring to a military escort.
The construction of sections of a controversial segregated road network in the West Bank planned by Israel for Palestinians – leaving the main roads for exclusive use by settlers – is being financed by a US government aid agency, a map prepared by Palestinian researchers has revealed.
USAid, which funds development projects in Palestinian areas, is reported to have helped to build 114km of Israeli-proposed roads, despite a pledge from Washington six years ago that it would not assist in implementing what has been widely described by human rights groups and the Israeli media as Israel’s “apartheid road” plan.
To date the agency has paid for the construction of nearly a quarter of the segregated road network put forward by Israel in 2004, said the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ).
The roads are designed to provide alternative routes to connect Palestinian communities, often by upgrading circuitious dirt tracks or by building tunnels under existing routes.
USAID funded ‘Jews only’ settler road near the West Bank town of Beit Jala south of Bethlehem.
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Israeli parents urge minister to cancel school trips to West Bank
Petition signed by 500 parents as of Tuesday night, was started after Education Minister announced school trips would visit archaeological site of Shiloh in the West Bank.
Hundreds of parents have signed a petition over the past two days refusing to allow their children to attend school field trips over the Green Line.
The petition, signed by 500 parents as of Tuesday night, was started after Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced recently that school trips would now visit the archaeological site of Shiloh in the northern West Bank. Some months ago, Sa’ar made the controversial decision that school children would be taken to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
“Your political agenda is clear to us and it should be said in your favor that you do not bother to hide it. But your political positions are different and in fact in opposition to ours and therefore we cannot allow our sons and daughters to take a trip to Hebron, Shiloh or the rest of the sites and settlement beyond the agreed-on borders of Israel,” the petition states.
The petition was signed “Concerned Mothers and Fathers throughout the country.”
The petition also called on Sa’ar, as “education minister of all Israelis” to “direct school trips to areas that our children can visit. If you do not, our children will be excluded from an important social and educational experience.”
Jerusalemite Tamar Verta started the petition. “If we don’t inform the school administration that they must plan trips within the Green Line, we will find our children visiting Yitzhar and Havat Ma’on,” she said, referring to two Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
One parent, Ehud Inbar of Modi’in, said he did not oppose trips to Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, “but only after a Palestinian state has been established with which we have a peace treaty. Then the children can visit there the way people visit Egypt or Jordan. I oppose holding trips like this under the current situation where there are citizens ‘grade b or c’ there.”
Inbar also said he would consider changing his mind about the visit to Hebron, “if the Palestinians were at least allowed to present their side. But these trips are not innocent. They are intended to strengthen students’ relationship to places that, to me at least, it’s clear won’t remain under Israeli control.”
Rafi Getenyo, a father of two from Rishon Letzion, said he saw two problems with the trips.
“The first is security and the second is moral,” he said. “I don’t think a face of normalcy should be given to the occupation, and that is after all the intent of the organizers of these trips.”
Getenyo said he thought the children were being cynically used for political purposes.
“I don’t want my children to be taken on apartheid roads, with a jeep in front and a jeep behind, and for them to feel that this is totally normal,” he said, referring to a military escort.
Getenyo said his children understood his position, but did not always agree. He said when other parents allow their children to go “with their eyes shut to institutional reasons, that places a bulldozer of pressure on me. They feel different and they don’t like it,” he said.
NEW YORKERS MOURN THE MURDER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS
January 4, 2012 at 08:42 (Activism, Anti fascism, Associate Post, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Class Struggle, Corrupt Politics, Democracy, DesertPeace Exclusive, Photography)
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Comentary by Chippy Dee
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In response to Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve pro-democracy citizens belonging to several organizations, including Wall St. Occupiers, held a news conference on the steps of the NY Public Library on 42nd St. to state their most strenuous objections to this act which will, in actuality, negate the Bill of Rights. Then they demonstrated outside the offices of the 2 New York Senators, Schumer and Gillibrand, who both voted for the act. The group then went to Rockefeller Center with their signs and leaflets and demonstrated in the shadow of the enormous Christmas tree. This was followed by a “flash-mob” scene at Grand Central Station during rush-hour. The size of the group swelled to substantial numbers as they shouted in unison that the NDAA would allow the military to arrest US citizens on American soil and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime or having them stand trial. In essence, they will be “disappeared”. There is great concern in the Muslim community about this act but, in reality, every American is threatened by it.
5 people were arrested at Grand Central Station. Nobody knows what they will be charged with since they appeared to be doing nothing different than anyone else in the group.*
Photos © by Bud Korotzer
*On the steps of the New York Public Library
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Flash Event at Grand Central Station
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ZIONISM IS DRIVING ISRAEL TO THE SEA
October 5, 2011 at 08:36 (Anti fascism, Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Extremism, Hasbara, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, zionist harassment)
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” Desmond Tutu once wrote. This story begins with blood, but its point is the abandonment. For that is what will enable more blood to be shed in the future. And anyone who doesn’t cry out against it is a party to it.
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Photo from Reims Cathedral, France
Israel is rejected by the Lord!
She is in rags. Her crown falling from her head.
She is blind, refusing stubbornly to see the truth!
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For almost 64 years we have listened to the zionists whine about ‘the Arabs wanting to drive us to the sea’. In actuality, the exact opposite has been happening as the Palestinians themselves are the ones being driven out of their own homes and their own lands. This did not stop with the Nakba in 1948, it is happening today.
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As these evil deeds continue, Israel continues to lose friends and supporters in the international arena, including many in the Jewish diaspora itself. The ‘zionist dream’ is self destructing as the government and police turn a blind eye to what is happening. Below is a report dealing with one of the latest instances, a pogrom, that occured during the Jewish New Year … (Videos and report of the pogrom itself can be seen HERE)
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Israel Police turned a blind eye to a lynching
What happened Friday afternoon at the entrance to the settlement of Anatot was a pogrom, a lynching. Media outlets that don’t see fit to report a pogrom of this magnitude are partners in the policy, or the sins of omission, of abandonment.
By Eyal Raz *
Were you ever at a lynching? Were you ever someplace where an unbridled mob was beating you and your friends and then chasing you to beat you again? Were you ever the victim of wild violence before the blind eyes of policemen who ignored your desperate calls for help? Have you ever felt abandoned? The following story begins with with blood, but its point is the abandonment.
What happened Friday afternoon at the entrance to the settlement of Anatot was a pogrom, a lynching. There’s no other way to describe an event in which hundreds of large men are wildly beating and pursuing a nonviolent group of male and female activists for an extended period of time. There’s no way to convey to those who weren’t there the threatening sense of the approaching dark – not in words, not in pictures, not even in video.
They came to destroy, to break, perhaps even to kill. They used their hands, their fists and their teeth, along with stones, pipes and knives. They aimed for the photographers, the women, for the young and the old alike. They brought individuals down to the ground and assaulted them as they lay there, surrounded. They pounced on the hindmost of those trying to flee as they pursued their battered victims.
And all this was taking place before the very eyes of the police, who didn’t do a thing to prevent people from being hurt. It all passed, as usual, in a thunderous silence.
Those who abandoned the Palestinian family that had come to work its land that Friday afternoon were not the rioters who sent the family to the hospital. Those who allowed the mob to wreak havoc on the Ta’ayush and Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity activists who were present at the site that evening stood outside the circle of assailants. They did their bit, but they personally are just one rib of a multilayered structure.
How can one explain the blind eye turned by the policemen present at the site? How can one explain why they didn’t know, or didn’t think, that their job was to stop the pogrom?
Perhaps the fact that Anatot’s residents aren’t radicals like Baruch Marzel played a role. Anatot residents aren’t “hilltop youth” or “wild weeds.” They are ordinary Israelis, former Jerusalemites who upgraded themselves to a “quality of life” settlement – including employees of the police, who were given preferential purchasing terms there. There are even suspicions, based on testimony and evidence gathered over the last few days, that a few of the rioters were off-duty policemen themselves.
And perhaps it is the deep-rooted hatred of “Arabs” and “leftists.” Perhaps this hatred also made it easier for those on duty at the Shai District police stations, who received our calls for help, not to rush to send forces there. And even when two patrol cars did finally arrive, the policemen devoted most of their energy to informing the battered activists that an order had been issued declaring the site a closed military zone, which they were now violating.
And you should know that these are the same police stations at which the victims are supposed to file their complaints. It was, for instance, to one of them that a friend of mine was referred when he sought to repair his destroyed car. So far, he has refrained from doing so, for fear of meeting his assailants there.
Today, there is no protection for anyone who isn’t on the side of the establishment, who isn’t in the right-wing camp. And in the absence of such protection on the part of the agencies entrusted with upholding the law, responsibility passes to the media, which gives the public information.
Media outlets that don’t see fit to report a pogrom of this magnitude are partners in the policy, or the sins of omission, of abandonment. The same goes for those who term it a “confrontation,” or a “clash,” or any of those other laundered words that indicate mutuality; and for those who fail to do their job of investigating and checking the facts and make do with “reporting each side’s version of events;” and for those who opt to downplay a news story that they know full well would, under other circumstances, immediately become the lead headline.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” Desmond Tutu once wrote. This story begins with blood, but its point is the abandonment. For that is what will enable more blood to be shed in the future. And anyone who doesn’t cry out against it is a party to it.
*The writer is an activist in the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement.
IN NEW YORK CITY; IT’S ACTION AFTER ACTION…..
March 9, 2011 at 09:15 (Academic Freedom, Activism, Anti fascism, Extremism, Israel, War Crimes)
CALLS FOR JUSTICE ON CAMPUS AND IN THE COMMUNITY….
This is a CUNY/Community call for people to come out this Thursday night to Brooklyn College to protest against the racist pundit David Horowitz speaking there. Horowitz is one of the leading neo-McCarthyites who targets left-wing academics around the U.S. He has created the right-wing group Students for Academic Freedom and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is bringing him to Brooklyn College. And for anyone who’s heard …his thoughts on the Israel/Palestine conflict, needless to say there will be lots of Arab-bashing and terrorist analogy-flinging.
Details: He’s speaking at Brooklyn College Library, Tanger Auditorium (1st floor) this Thursday. The event starts at 6pm, but you need to rsvp to get inside at horowitzlecturebc@gmail.com. Make sure to get there a little after 5pm to make posters and begin talking to attendees as they arrive… we need all the support we can get!
The Adjunct Project is hosting a major event on “Academic Freedom and the New McCarthyism” on Monday, March 14th, and there couldn’t be a better time.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197803470243515
It’s people like Horowitz who are seen as the major threats to CUNY folks like Frances Fox Piven and Kris Petersen-Overton (both of whom will be speaking at our 3/14 event). No doubt Horowitz is coming to BC in connection to Kris’ reinstatement there… On Thursday, I’ll be passing out flyers to our event and talking with faculty/staff/students about why “academic freedom” can’t be vaguely touted to support such Islamophobic hate-speech that Horowitz will be presenting that night. Please consider this a place to pass out info about the March 24th city-wide rally against budget cuts, Palestinian human rights, and other relevant issues.
Reply for more details, and forward this call along to others. Let’s bring out the community to show that we don’t support Horowitz speaking at our CUNY schools!
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Other upcoming events of interest:
Call from Students for Justice in Palestine/NYU:
In response to Students for Justice in Palestine’s increasingly successful “Israeli Apartheid Week,” Zionists at NYU have put together “Israeli Peace Week.” And in a truly disgusting move, they have included – and advertised – a navy seal who was one of the first on board the Mavi Marmara. See below for part of the original email, which presents the war criminal as “an extremely unique opportunity.”
We need to send an unequivocal message that war criminals are not welcome on our campuses. Help Students for Justice in Palestine at NYU protest outside the building, and please forward this message, rsvp on facebook here, and post/invite friends.
Meet: Thursday, March 10, 6pm, outside of Silver Center (100 Washington Sq E, 10003)
The Mavi Marmara:
Eastern Mediterranean, Monday, May 31st, 2010, 4.30am: Israeli commandos, boarding from sea and air, attack the six boats of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it sails through international waters bringing humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Within minutes, nine peace activists are dead, shot by the Israelis. Scores of others are injured. The 700 people on board the ships are arrested before being transported to detention centers in Israel and then deported.
Within hours, outrage at Israel’s action echoes around the world. Spontaneous demonstrations in Europe, the United States, Turkey, and Gaza itself denounce the attack. Turkey’s prime minister describes it as a “bloody massacre” and “state terrorism.” Lebanon’s prime minister calls it “a dangerous and crazy step that will exacerbate tensions in the region.”
Original Email from “Israeli Peace Week:”
Thursday, March 10 · 6:30pm – 9:30pm · Silver 207
Aboard the Turkish Flotilla: A Firsthand Account
Don’t miss this extremely unique opportunity to hear from Amir, an IDF Navy Seal who was one of the first soldiers to board the Mavi Maramara ship during the Turkish Flotilla incident of last May.
Amir will speak about his experience at large and will also answer questions about his specific experiences last May.
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For more information, please contact info@al-awdany.org or call 718-228-8636.
Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition – NY
http://www.al-awdany.org
ARE WE FINALLY SEEING THE SUN SET OVER THE AMERICAN EMPYRE
January 29, 2011 at 12:45 (Anti fascism, Corrupt Politics, Democracy, DesertPeace Editorial, Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Oppression, Palestine)
NO….. it’s not a spelling error above, it’s the fact that a movement is underway to destroy and cremate the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The people of Tunisia set the fire and it has now spread to Egypt.
One question comes to mind, why is America afraid of Democracy? Why has the United States supported all of the undemocratic governments in this region, including the ‘only democratically elected dictatorship in the Middle East’? The unique eunuch President of the United States promised ‘change’, he obviously doesn’t have the cojones to do it himself so it is being done without him. But why can’t he support those moves?
Watching the ‘news’ on the Fox Network last night was like watching a skit on Comedy Central. It wasn’t about why events were taking place in Egypt, but the emphasis was on what it means to the price of oil (up $4.00 a barrel since the rioting broke out). Who controls those prices? It was about who was behind the ‘riots’. The report started out by saying that they were sparked by university students posting their feelings on FaceBook, calling it a ‘Web Inspired Revolution’ ….. but ending with the support of The Muslim Brotherhood, Al Quaida, Hamas and of course, the Iranian government. In other words, it’s the Boogey Man that is behind the ‘riots’. They obviously have nothing to do with the fact that the people of Egypt are sick and tired of living under a dictatorship………..
An Op-Ed in today’s Ynet states that The natural American tendency is to support individual freedoms, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association, which constitute inalienable US assets and the essence of the American nation. However, democracy at home is one thing, while democracy abroad is an entirely different matter.
In order to preserve its global hegemony, the US over the years knew how to openly endorse democratic reforms in the Arab world and other regions, yet at the same time support tyrants such as Mubarak and the Saudi and Jordanian kings – as long as they were loyal to the US and to the West, of course.
Of course they were loyal to the US …. wouldn’t you be if you were given 1.5 Billion dollars a year?
From a NewYork Times report; Addressing the nation from the White House after a day of rage across Egypt, Mr. Obama said he called Mr. Mubarak and told him “to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters” and to turn a “moment of volatility” into a “moment of promise.” Declaring that the protesters have universal rights, he said, “The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people.”
Ummm….. “continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people” ….. I always thought that the word ‘continue’ meant doing the same as was always done. WHEN has the United States government given a damn about the rights of the Egyptian people, or the Iraqi people, or the Palestinian people or for that matter, the American people themselves? As was said by President Lincoln, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”. Obviously Mr. Obama is not acquainted with that particular quote as he continues trying to fool all of the people all of the time.
A report in HaAretz states simply and to the point that Without Egypt, Israel will be left with no friends in Mideast. Very true! What it doesn’t say is that America’s only friend in the Middle East would be Israel itself.
This past week we were given a glimpse of how America views Democracy. The leaks about Palestine are but one indication of the types of regimes the Americans want to see in the Middle East, regardless of what the people want. In the last Palestinian election, it was Hamas that received the majority of the votes. This was totally unacceptable to both the Israeli and American governments. Their support for the opposition and eventual division of the Palestinian Occupied Territories has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Their continued non recognition of Hamas will surely guarantee that Palestine will not be a friend to the present administration of the United States.
Does Hamas support the moves for change in Egypt today? Of course they do. How could they be expected to support a government that has been collaborating with Israel by keeping the Gaza Strip under a siege that is literally killing the people living there. So yes, Fox News got part of their report right ….. but the reasons are good ones.
America is in a position where it can still redeem itself by implementing the changes promised by the Obama Administration. It must stop the support to the tyrants in the Middle East and shift that to support of the people. In doing so, it will in effect be supporting the people of the United States as well. As things stand today, it is their tax dollars that are keeping the tyrants in office. It is their hard earned wages that are filling up their gas tanks, leaving little left to put food on their tables. The American people will finally be set free.
The days of the American Empire are over! The sun has finally set on it. Now it is time for America to prove to the world that it can be a friend, not an enemy of the people.
YOUR CHANCE TO STOP THE FBI BEFORE THEY STOP YOU
January 24, 2011 at 18:02 (Activism, Anti fascism, Civil Liberties, Corrupt Politics, Democracy)
In a statement, activists subpoenaed to appear on January 25 said, “We have made our decisions to stand strong with the other 14 subpoenaed activists from Illinois, Minneapolis and Michigan. We WILL NOT take part in this fishing expedition. “
From The Committee To Stop FBI Repression
Protests to Challenge FBI and Grand Jury Repression of Anti-War and Solidarity Activists
Jill Dowling of The New York Committee to Stop FBI Repression said, “We are holding a demonstration at the downtown Manhattan FBI offices on Tuesday, January 25 at 4:30 p.m. in solidarity with activists standing up against the political repression aimed at human rights, international solidarity and anti-war activists. This demonstration is part of a national day of action taking place in 45 cities.”
Protest organizers called for people to gather on the Broadway side of the FBI offices at 26 Federal Plaza at 4:30 p.m. At 6:00 p.m. the protesters will march to the Justice Department’s offices at 1 St. Andrew’s Plaza on the east side of Foley Square and Centre Street, between the Federal Courthouse and the Municipal Building.
Tom Burke, National Committee to Stop FBI Repression said, “In the month of December, the FBI delivered grand jury subpoenas for January 25 to nine activists in Chicago. Six subpoenas went to members of the Arab American community; the remaining three went to Palestine solidarity activists and individuals who have travelled to Palestine. These subpoenas are related to the FBI raids on seven houses and an office in September, where subpoenas were served on 14 activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan.”
All 14 signed a letter stating they would invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and would not cooperate with the grand jury. Subsequently, the grand jury dropped the original September 24 subpoenas. In December, the Chicago grand jury, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, issued nine new subpoenas and reactivated three original subpoenas served on Minneapolis women Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sarah Martin who continue to stand strong and refuse to cooperate.
In a statement, activists subpoenaed to appear on January 25 said, “We have made our decisions to stand strong with the other 14 subpoenaed activists from Illinois, Minneapolis and Michigan. We WILL NOT take part in this fishing expedition. ”
Maureen Murphy, who was among those summoned to appear before the grand jury on January 25 added, “Despite this attempt to criminalize solidarity with the Palestinian people, we will continue to stand with them and work to end US aid to Israel.”
The activist’s principled position of non-cooperation has won them strong support among progressive people around the country and a broad range of political organizations, anti-war groups, labor unions, and civil liberty defenders. The subpoenaed face possible prison sentences simply for refusing to testify against equally innocent friends and acquaintances, should the grand jury offer them immunity from prosecution.
In the period since 9/11, the FBI and other police organizations have stepped up repression of the entire Muslim community in the United States. Police have framed and entrapped many people, regularly with the use of paid informants. The current attacks now expand the repression beyond the Muslim community to all anti-war and solidarity activists.
The FBI was recently exposed for secretly infiltrating a Minnesota political organization whose members are among those subpoenaed. Dowling, of the NY Committee, said, “It’s outrageous that the FBI sent an agent in to spy on peace activists in Minneapolis. What does that mean for people speaking out against war here in NYC? This is a real threat to our basic freedoms of speech and association.”
Local and national organizers continue to urge concerned people to contact President Obama and US Attorney Eric Holder and demand the FBI stop harassing activists, stop the grand jury proceedings, and return the possessions confiscated in the September raids.
RACISM ISN’T THE ONLY DANGER FACING ISRAEL TODAY
January 14, 2011 at 18:33 (Activism, Anti fascism, Corrupt Politics, Democracy, Free Speech, Israel)
Israel’s human rights community has been at the forefront of the struggle against this state of affairs. Much like the brave Americans who spoke out against oppression during the civil rights movement, we love our country and are concerned about what might become of it if the status quo continues.
McCarthy Comes to the Knesset
By Uri Zaki*
The danger of the Knesset’s decision to set up a McCarthy-style committee for investigating Israeli human rights organizations was aptly summed up by Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin. He warned that the inquiry would be a “show trial” and stressed in a newspaper interview: “We must stop this murky wave.” Regrettably, only two of Rivlin’s colleagues from the governing Likud party joined him in publicly opposing this sinister effort, which was approved in the Knesset by a vote of 41 to 16.
It seems inevitable that after 44 years in which one nation occupies another and deprives it of basic human and civil rights, the occupying society would also come to be affected by the occupation. Indeed, increasingly the tools of occupation — the restrictions of personal and political freedoms — are no longer confined to the territories. These methods are now being extended beyond the Green Line, which divides sovereign Israel from the occupied West Bank, and are tainting Israeli democracy. The rise of Avigdor Lieberman — whose Yisrael Beiteinu party sponsored the push for the investigative panel — and the presence in the Knesset of unabashed racists like Michael Ben-Ari, a Kahanist who represents the National Union party, is testament to how the ongoing occupation is penetrating Israeli society.
Last year, we witnessed a surge of anti-democratic, and often racist, legislation and rhetoric. Now, in the first week of 2011, the Knesset has launched a witch hunt against Israel’s human rights community. In justifying this initiative, Lieberman accused human rights organizations of supporting terrorism. Only 15 years ago, such political incitement led to the assassination of our prime minister; with his unrestrained vitriol, Lieberman has placed a target on the backs of all of us who work on behalf of human rights.
When B’Tselem was established in 1989 to monitor human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories, the organization’s founders would never have imagined that the occupation would still exist 22 years later. They would not have believed that a third generation of settlers would be born in the West Bank, enjoying the full rights of any other Israelis, while Palestinians in neighboring villages and towns continue to live under military occupation, deprived of basic rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and the right to a fair trial and due process.
Israel’s human rights community has been at the forefront of the struggle against this state of affairs. Much like the brave Americans who spoke out against oppression during the civil rights movement, we love our country and are concerned about what might become of it if the status quo continues.
Speaking in synagogues and at universities across America, I encounter American Jews who have been instructed by the representatives of established Jewish organizations to unconditionally support Israel. To this I answer that in human affairs the only place where unconditional love exists is within a family. If you were to learn that a member of your family was headed in a dangerous direction, would you simply support him or her unreservedly? Or would you try to help your loved one understand the dangerous path he or she was taking?
It is not too late. Israel is still a democracy. Only very recently we saw that our court system did not hesitate to convict a former president of rape. Our media is still free and vocal, and yes, our civil society is more determined than ever to sustain the only democracy in the Middle East. The Knesset has now put Israel’s human rights organizations on the front line of the struggle to preserve Israeli democracy. We are taking a stand, but we cannot do it alone. We need the help of all of those who care about Israel’s future.
*Uri Zaki is U.S. director of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Written FOR
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
ISRAELI VOICES OF REASON
December 9, 2010 at 13:59 (Anti fascism, Ethnic Cleansing, Extremism, From The Media, Israel, Racism)
Not every Israeli is a racist and not every rabbi is a fool….
This can be seen in the following articles from today’s Israeli press…..
‘Past experiments have taught how important and fragile the values of coexistence are,’ Holocaust memorial says in response to religious ruling signed by dozens of prominent rabbis.
Racism at the expense of Israeli citizens
Religious Services Minister Yaakov Margi must now bring disciplinary measures against the instigating rabbis as the first step in their dismissal.
Chairman of Holocaust survivors’ association condemns letter signed by rabbis, which prohibits rental, sale of property to non-Jews. ‘I remember Nazis throwing Jews out of apartments to create ghettos,’ he says
Rabbis’ ‘racist ruling’ slammed
Ban on selling homes to non-Jews under fire. Ruling gravely twists Torah, says rabbi
ONE FIRE STILL BURNING IN ISRAEL
December 9, 2010 at 08:26 (Anti fascism, Corporate Media, Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Intolerance, Israel, Racism)
The Carmel blaze had to be extinguished as quickly as possible. Now, we must turn our attention to the Jewish ghetto winds blowing through our top government and spiritual echelons. We must not go easy on the racist fire and those who started it.
Fight the fire of racism
After extinguishing Carmel blaze, we must turn our attention to racism in our midst
The Carmel blaze was barely extinguished, yet we are already seeing the flames of racism re-emerging. After we discovered that the disaster and suffering do not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews, and after both friends and rivals from among the “gentiles” came to our rescue, we could have hoped that the pyromaniacs of racism also internalized something of the lesson about the sin of arrogance, evasion of responsibility and loss shame.
We were burned and smoldered, yet the bearers of the racism torch are not letting off. Just like in a relay race, the match lit by Safed’s rabbi is now being carried by his colleagues. Some 50 municipal rabbis in Israel signed a document urging their followers not to rent apartments to Arabs, threatening the faithful with boycotts and ostracization in the name of “public sin and desecrating God’s name.”
So if the weekend’s smoke covered up the extent of the racism, and if for a moment it appeared that the identity of the dozens of casualties lying before us and the global enlistment to our cause would pour some water on the bonfire of hatred, these pyromaniacs were back to desecrating Judaism’s name and prompting public sins.
As difficult as the failures uncovered by the state comptroller’s report would be, these issues will at least be handled in retrospect. The fire exposed the recklessness that ran wild on this front, and its roots are now visible. Yet what about the other fire, the one that does not have even a basic firefighting force that could contend with it as it spreads through Israeli society?
Blind to wisdom of Talmud
The Carmel blaze also burned quite a few “maxims.” The culture of improvisation, the false sense of power, and the notion that “the whole world is against us” all went up in flames. Our helplessness was exposed, as was the need to cooperate with other nations rather than dwell alone.
The need to seek the world’s help also enabled us to experience a collective lesson in modesty. We could have expected that this scar would also produce a sense of truth in respect to the way our society is conducted and the discourse within it; that the lesson we learned about human nature would not also emerge within the racist-nationalist Jewish camp that veered off course.
The Carmel blaze had to be extinguished as quickly as possible. Now, we must turn our attention to the Jewish ghetto winds blowing through our top government and spiritual echelons. We must not go easy on the racist fire and those who started it.
Before the fire, we were presented with a poll showing that half of Israel’s Jewish citizens would refuse to live next to Arab neighbors, and that 40% would refuse any “other” neighbor, a foreigner or a sick or disabled person. We were told that two-thirds of Jews believe that Arabs should be kept out of the government and that one-third endorse prison camps for Arabs at wartime.
Indeed, we were presented with Judaism that withdraws into itself, ignorant and intoxicated with power. The kind of Judaism that is wholly blind to the wisdom of the Talmud and of Maimonides.
Also see the following editorial from today’s HaAretz…..
Racism at the expense of Israeli citizens
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO BE PROUD OF THESE YOUNG PEOPLE
November 11, 2010 at 14:06 (Activism, Anti fascism, International Solidarity, Israel)
Remember a few days ago I posted about a group of young Jews that disrupted Netanyahu’s speech in New Orleans? (Watch video at the end of this post)
Well…. they are more than just a rowdy bunch of agitators as can be seen in the following….
We can all be proud of these brave young men and women!
The Young Jewish Declaration
A vision of collective identity, purpose and values written by and for young Jews committed to justice in Israel and Palestine. It is an invitation and call to action for both our peers and our elders, launched as a counter-protest at the 2010 Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans.
I. we exist.
We exist. We are everywhere. We speak and love and dream in every language. We pray three times a day or only during the high holidays or when we feel like we really need to or not at all. We are punks and students and parents and janitors and Rabbis and freedom fighters. We are your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren. We embrace diaspora, even when it causes us a great deal of pain. We are the rubble of tangled fear, the deliverance of values. We are human. We are born perfect. We assimilate, or we do not. We are not apathetic. We know and name persecution when we see it. Occupation has constricted our throats and fattened our tongues. We are feeding each other new words. We have family, we build family, we are family. We re-negotiate. We atone. We re-draw the map every single day. We travel between worlds. This is not our birthright, it is our necessity.
II. we remember.
We remember slavery in Egypt, and we remember hiding our celebrations and ritual. We remember brave, desperate resistance. We honor a legacy of radical intellectuals and refugees. We remember the labor movement. We remember the camps. We remember when we aged too quickly. We remember that we are still young, and powerful. We remember being branded as counterrevolutionaries in one state and hunted during the red scare of another. We remember our ancestors’ suffering and our own. Our stories are older than any brutal war. We remember those who cannot afford to take time to heal. We remember how to build our homes, and our holiness, out of time and thin air, and so do not need other people’s land to do so. We remember solidarity as a means of survival and an act of affirmation, and we are proud.
III. we refuse.
We refuse to have our histories distorted or erased, or appropriated by a corporate war machine. We will not call this liberation. We refuse to knowingly oppress others, and we refuse to oppress each other. We refuse to be whitewashed. We will not carry the legacy of terror. We refuse to allow our identities to be cut, cleaned, packaged nicely, and sold back to us. We won’t be won over by free vacations and scholarship money. We won’t buy the logic that slaughter means safety. We will not quietly witness the violation of human rights in Palestine. We refuse to become the mother who did not scream when wise King Solomon resolved to split her baby in two. We are better than this. We have ancestors to honor. We have allies to honor. We have ourselves to honor.
IV. we commit.
We commit ourselves to peace. We will stand up with honest bodies, to offer honest bread. We will stand up with our words, our pens, our songs, our paintbrushes, our open hands. We commit to re-envisioning “homeland,” to make room for justice. We will stand in the way of colonization and displacement. We will take this to the courts and to the streets. We will learn. We will teach this in the schools and in our homes. We will stand with you, if you choose to stand with our allies. We will grieve the lies we’ve swallowed. We commit to equality, solidarity, and integrity. We will soothe the deepest tangles of our roots and stretch our strong arms to the sky. We demand daylight for our stories, for all stories. We seek breathing room and dignity for all people. We are committed to the struggle. We are the struggle. We will become mentors, elders, and radical listeners for the next generation. It is our sacred obligation. We will not stop. We exist. We are young Jews, and we get to decide what that means.
Young Jews Disrupt Netanyahu at Jewish General Assembly
IN A DEMOCRACY THOUGHTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FREE
November 6, 2010 at 18:25 (Anti fascism, Censorship, Corrupt Politics, Democracy, Hasbara, Israel)
| Thought Crimes
By Neve Gordon* Would Meryl Streep, Spike Lee, Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon be willing to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States and its policies in order to receive public funding for feature films that they star in, direct or produce? In Israel, the far-right Knesset member Michael Ben Ari has proposed a bill that would require entire film crews to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and to declare loyalty to its laws and symbols, as a condition for receiving public funding. It’s just one of more than ten bills to be discussed during the Knesset’s winter session that several commentators in Ha’aretz have characterised as proto-fascist. As in most democracies, all new Israeli citizens must declare loyalty to the state and its laws, but the cabinet last month decided to support (22 in favour, 8 against) an amendment to Israel’s citizenship law that would require all newly naturalised citizens to declare loyalty to the Jewish character of the state. In Britain, this would be like requiring Jews, Muslims and atheists who wish to become citizens to declare loyalty not only to the laws of the United Kingdom but also to the Church of England. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has warned that this amendment, which will soon become law, is the tip of an iceberg. Some of the bills now going through the Knesset, which have a good chance of being ratified, would make support for an alternative political ideology, such as the idea that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens, a crime. A proposed amendment to the existing anti-incitement bill, for instance, stipulates that people who deny Israel’s Jewish character will be arrested. This extension to the penal code, which has already passed its preliminary reading, incriminates a political view. Another bill lays the groundwork for turning down candidates for membership in communal settlements built on public land if they do not concur with the settlement committee’s political views or are adherents of a different religion. The point of this is to make it legal to deny Palestinian citizens of Israel access to Jewish villages. Still another bill that has already passed its first reading stipulates that institutions marking the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 will be denied public funds. This is like denying public funding to schools in the United States that wish to commemorate slavery or to memorialise the crimes perpetrated against Native Americans. Then there is a bill against people who initiate, promote, or publish material that might serve as grounds for imposing a boycott against Israel. According to this proposed law, which has also passed a preliminary reading, anyone proven guilty of supporting a boycott will be ordered to pay affected parties about $8000 without the plaintiff’s need to demonstrate any damages. Finally, eight Knesset members are proposing a bill to ban residents of East Jerusalem from operating as tour guides in the city, potentially putting hundreds out of work. The rationale behind this is that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem should not be certified guides because they do not represent Israel’s national interest well enough ‘and in an appropriate manner’. The sudden spate of these bills at this historical juncture is no coincidence. The struggle between the democratic demand that all citizens be treated equally and Zionism’s hyper-nationalist ideal seems to have been determined once and for all: Zionism’s aspiration to promote democratic values is giving way to its nationalist ethos. *Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. One can read about his book Israel’s Occupation and more
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Enjoy the following
This is a subversive song! In certain times and places, you might go to jail for singing “Die Gedanken Sind Frei“. This song says that our thoughts cannot be bound or controlled, simply because—thoughts are free!
In addition to its inspiring words, the song boasts a lively, catchy tune. Who could ask for more?
The lyrics
| Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten, sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten. Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen mit Pulver und Blei, Die Gedanken sind frei! Ich denke was ich will und was mich beglücket, Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker, Drum will ich auf immer den Sorgen absagen Ich liebe den Wein, mein Mädchen vor allen, |
Thoughts are free, who can guess them? They flee by like nocturnal shadows. No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them, with powder and lead: Thoughts are free! I think what I want, and what delights me, And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon, So I will renounce my sorrows forever, I love wine, and my girl even more, |
ALL OF ISLAM MUST UNITE FOR PALESTINE
October 17, 2010 at 09:31 (Anti fascism, Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, fascism, Hasbara, Israel, Palestine)
Of course, Muslims can always shield themselves from a prospective Israeli holocaust or genocide. But everything has a price and the price Muslims, states and peoples, would have to pay in this case is their dignity, sovereignty and freedom. In other words, Muslims, states and peoples, would have to surrender completely to the sages of Zionism and come to terms with their enslavement and servitude vis-à-vis a Nazi Israel that differs very little from the Aryan Third Reich.
SWEARING LOYALTY TO FASCISM
September 19, 2010 at 12:23 (Anti fascism, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, fascism, Hasbara, Israel)
While leftist Israelis chant, “Fascism will not pass!” at demonstrations in East Jerusalem, former Knesset member and commentator Yossi Sarid entitled a recent column, “Fascism is already here.”
Feeling the loyalty to the Jewish State of Israel
by Joseph Dana
The Israeli Knesset is debating a bill proposed by David Rotem of the extreme right Yisrael Beiteinu party that would require all Israeli citizens to swear loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” This bill is targeted at increasing pressure on the 20 percent of Israelis who are Palestinian citizens, while forcing the ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority who reject the legitimacy of any state not based on Jewish biblical law to accept Zionism. If passed in its proposed form, citizens unwilling to take the loyalty oath would be at risk of losing citizenship.
Israeli leaders committed to a classic secular political Zionist platform have always fought at all costs to guard Israel’s “Jewish character,” even while they reveal their inability to properly define exactly what it is. The loyalty oath and the push for a two-state solution are the most profound examples of the insecurity that has roiled beneath the surface in Jewish Israeli society since the state’s inception. Without a Jewish majority exhibiting clear legal and political dominance over the non-Jewish or non-Zionist minority, the Zionist movement becomes meaningless. So as the Palestinian-Israeli minority actively resists its dispossession and the ultra-Orthodox stubbornly reject the concept of a Jewish state, the Israeli establishment feels increasingly compelled to seek draconian measures to salvage its vision of Zionism.
The loyalty oath was one of the main platform issues for Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s far right Yisrael Beitenu party when it campaigned in 2009. “No citizenship without loyalty,” was among Lieberman’s most effective campaign slogans (his other slogan: “Only Lieberman speaks Arabic”), helping guide his party to an astonishing third place, with 15 of the 120 seats in Israeli Parliament. The draft bill currently debated in the Parliament would allow the Interior Ministry to strip even native Israelis of their nationality if they refused to swear allegiance to the Jewish state and “its symbols and values,” and failed to profess their willingness to perform military service. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has expressed support for Yisrael Beiteinu’s loyalty crusade.
After the proposed law failed its first reading in the Knesset due to opposition from a handful of liberal members of the ruling Likud party, Yisrael Beiteinu released the following statement: “Yisrael Beitenu will continue to act for Israel’s basis as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state and will fight against disloyalty and the negative exploitation of Israeli democracy.” In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has approved a similar bill requiring all new citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state. The measure would make attaining citizenship nearly impossible for Palestinians residing inside Israel.
The following month, we met the loyalty bill’s author, David Rotem, at his home in the illegal West Bank settlement of Efrat. A self-described “very Zionistic” politician with a hulking frame and a pronounced limp resulting from a bout of polio, Rotem described in a gravely voice his vision of Israeli democracy. “Tyranny of the majority is the heart of democracy,” he declared. “Call it what you want but democracy is the rule of the majority. And it’s not a tyranny if the majority decides against the minorities.”
Besides the loyalty oath bill, political factions ranging from far-right settler parties to opposition leader Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima Party have proposed no less than 14 pieces of legislation this year which the Association for Civil Rights in Israel defines as anti-democratic. (Rotem is the author of six of the bills). They include laws that would send citizens to jail for encouraging the rejection of Israel as a Jewish state, strip filmmakers of state funding if their work was deemed anti-Israel, and prosecute any Israeli who publishes material calling for a boycott of Israel. Other lesser-publicized bills have been introduced to block Palestinian residents of Israel from returning to confiscated land or from reuniting with family members from the West Bank or Gaza.
While leftist Israelis chant, “Fascism will not pass!” at demonstrations in East Jerusalem, former Knesset member and commentator Yossi Sarid entitled a recent column, “Fascism is already here.” Citing the swath of anti-democratic bills being debated in the Knesset, the support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet have offered for most of them, and the near total lack of opposition from the Israeli mainstream, Sarid remarked, “Israeli democracy is mainly for decoration, like a tree grown for its beauty, not to bear fruit. Few people actually use it or the rights it affords.”
Of all the anti-democratic bills recently introduced in the Knesset, Rotem’s loyalty law carries the most disturbing undertones, recalling some of the darkest periods in recent history. Well before the Nazi government initiated its campaign of genocide against Germany’s Jewish minority, its political leadership introduced the “stab-in-the-back” legend, accusing Jews in a virtual mantra of disloyalty to the German army and a general lack of patriotism. During the anticommunist furor of America’s McCarthy era, teachers and lawmakers in several states were forced to sign loyalty oaths to prove they were not “subversive,” prompting a crackdown on public servants, including a disproportionate number of Jews, who believed their constitutional rights were being violated.
In Israel, a right-wing student group called Im Tirtzu which has gained endorsements from Netanyahu and his education minister Gideon Saar has demanded a purge of all “post-Zionist and anti-Zionist” professors from the university system. To support Im Tirtzu’s campaign, a popular Israeli singer named Amir Benayoun recorded a song hectoring Israeli leftists and Arabs for “knifing” Israel in the back. It contained the following lyrics:
After they failed to kill me from the outside
You come and kill me from inside
I always charge forward with my back to you
But you sharpen the knife
An Experiment In Fascism
With a fascist mood permeating Israeli government and society, we set out into the streets of central Jerusalem to engage young revelers on the issue of loyalty. Because Israel is debating legislation claiming that it is alone the Jewish sovereign state and has the authority to speak in the name of the “Jewish people,” we thought that the opinions of supporters of Israel from the Jewish diaspora were an essential element in any discussion about the proposed loyalty bill. Given the already simmering controversy over ‘dual loyalty’ in the United States, the topic needed to be explored thoroughly and unflinchingly. Did the Zionist loyalty oath represent a fulcrum point in the ‘dual loyalty’ debate for diaspora Jews? Would diaspora Jews have any objection to taking an oath to defend the Jewish state? If so, did that put their allegiance to their country of residence in question?
Ultimately, we sought to determine the extent to which the Jewish public in Israel and abroad was ready to accept fascism in any form. To get a better sense of public opinion — an incomplete snapshot, but a sense nonetheless — we asked interview subjects if they would swear before our camera an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state. Our oath was deliberately crafted with the most provocative language possible, based almost word-for-word on the Führereid, or the oath that Wehrmacht soldiers had to swear to Adolph Hitler from 1934 to 1945.
The Wehrmacht oath read as follows:
I swear by God this holy oath, that I want to offer unconditional obedience to the Fuhrer of the German Empire and people, Adolf Hitler, the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and be prepared as a brave soldier to risk my life for this oath at any time.
And here is the oath of loyalty to the Jewish state that our interview subjects read on camera:
I swear by Hashem [the Jewish God] that I want to offer unconditional loyalty to the Jewish state of Israel, to its leaders and the commanders of its Jewish army. I am prepared as a loyal supporter of the Jewish state to risk my life for this oath at any time.
Were we suggesting that the Jewish state of Israel represented a new incarnation of Hitler’s Third Reich? Of course not. We repudiate sweeping comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany as shallow and ahistorical. Instead, we imagined our video project as a version of the “Third Wave” experiment undertaken by history teacher Ron Jones at Cubberly High School in Southern California in 1967.
Seeking to demonstrate the susceptibility of average citizens to fascism, Jones ordered his students to accept a regimen of strict discipline and community including sig heil salutes, responding to questions while standing and in three words or less, and carrying membership cards at all times. “Strength through discipline,” was the motto of the movement Jones claimed to be promoting. By the fourth day of the experiment, the students’ enthusiasm for the project had spread to other classes throughout the school. Finally, Jones ordered his students to attend a rally where a presidential candidate from their “Third Wave” movement would announce his candidacy. When the students arrived, however, Jones revealed to them that they had been subjects in an experiment about the appeal of fascism, and that they had eagerly replicated the structure of Nazi German society.
Our own experiment exposed an equally disturbing trend among the young Israelis and Jewish supporters of Israel we spoke to. In some cases, our interview subjects eagerly requested to read the loyalty oath on camera without any prompting, and added their own personal touch to it — usually they emphasized phrases like “Jewish state” and “Jewish army.” These subjects were generally new immigrants who had left their families behind in order to join the army and a brand new life in Israel. Jewish internationals (most were studying at Jerusalem-area yeshivas for the year) who took the oath defended it on the basis that Israel was a state for the Jews, and therefore did not have to comply with the regulations of normal Western democracies. Only two interviewees refused to take the oath. Though they based their refusal on the possibility that Israel might commit grave human rights crimes in the distant future, they were admittedly unable to define the nature of the abuses that would turn them against the state.
If our interviews demonstrated anything, it is that anyone in any country can fall prey to the psychological lures of fascism. Jews are no exception.
This piece and film was co-authored by Max Blumenthal and originally appeared on Alternet
‘DON’T TELL THE WORLD WHAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE’
July 24, 2010 at 10:56 (Activism, Anti fascism, Corrupt Politics, Cover Up, Freedom of The Press, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, zionist harassment)
| Slowly but surely, the ‘only Democracy in the Middle East’ is turning into the only fascist state in the Middle East. |
Israeli soldiers confronting the media at a protest in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. Credit:Mel Frykberg/IPS
Israel Gets Brutal With Media
By Mel Frykberg
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“ISRAEL IS WALKING IN THE PATH OF FASCISM”
May 22, 2010 at 00:07 (Anti fascism, Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Democracy, Deportations, Israel, Palestine, zionist harassment)
‘Walking in the path of fascism’
Israel’s denial of entry to Noam Chomsky is but the latest in a long list of attempts to silence critics of Zionist oppression and violence, writes Khalid Amayreh
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| Noam Chomsky
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Fearing that he would further expose Israel’s anti-peace stance and its oppression of the Palestinian people, the Israeli government this week barred Noam Chomsky from entering Israel-Palestine.
Chomsky, a world-renowned intellectual and linguist, was detained briefly at the Palestinian side of the Allenby Bridge on Sunday 16 May. There he was told by Israeli authorities that the Israeli government didn’t like his writings and that he was viewed as persona non grata.
Chomsky, 81, had been scheduled to lecture at the Birzeit University in the West Bank. Following his deportation, the non-conformist American Jewish intellectual told reporters that he concluded from the questions of the Israeli official at the border terminal that the fact that he came to lecture at a Palestinian and not an Israeli university led to the decision to deny him entry.
“I find it hard to think of a similar case in which entry to a person is denied because he is not lecturing in Tel Aviv. Perhaps only in the Stalinist regime.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor of linguistics and philosophy is a well-known critic of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. On many occasions, Chomsky compared Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank with those of the defunct white minority apartheid regime in South Africa.
Chomsky also castigated the genocidal Israeli onslaught on Gaza last year along with the ongoing blockade of the coastal enclave’s 1.7 million people initiated by Israel more than three years ago for the purpose of pushing Gazans to rise up against Hamas. Hamas won a landslide victory in the 2006 general elections, which infuriated Israel and its guardian-ally, the United States, prompting them to impose draconian sanctions on Gaza.
“The young man [the Israeli border official] asked me whether I had ever been denied entry into other countries. I told him once, to Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet invasion in 1968,” Chomsky said, adding that he had gone to visit ousted Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, whose reforms the Soviets crushed.
According to Haaretz newspaper, Chomsky, who was accompanied by his daughter and several other friends, was questioned on the nature of his lectures, whether he was going to criticise Israeli policies and whether he had spoken with Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He was further asked why he didn’t have an Israeli passport since he was Jewish. He reportedly answered, “I am an American citizen”.
Chomsky supports the two-state solution but he rejects the Israeli concept of the two-state solution strategy: namely, ceding the Palestinians some isolated cantons cut off from each other and that could never be a “viable and territorially contiguous state”.
In recent years, especially with the rise to power in Israel of religious and rightwing anti- democratic parties, the Israeli political establishment became more sensitive to criticisms of Israeli policies abroad, especially from such Jewish intellectuals such as Chomsky.
In 2008, Israel refused entry to Richard Falk, an American Jewish academic, for comparing the Israeli occupation with Nazi crimes against Jews. In 2007, Falk, a Princeton University professor of international law, was quoted as saying that Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip was “a Holocaust in the making”. Falk was later appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel defended its decision to deport Falk, arguing that he indulged in “shameful comparisons to the Holocaust”.
Similarly, nearly, two years ago, Israeli security services deported Norman Finkelstein, another American Jewish intellectual and critic of the Israeli occupation. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said that Finkelstein was not permitted to enter Israel because of suspicious involvement with hostile elements in Lebanon, and because “he didn’t give a full account to interrogators with regards to these suspicions”.
Finkelstein remarked on that episode, saying: “I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn’t much more to say for myself — no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations.”
Finkelstein, 57, had accused Israel of exploiting the holocaust for political ends and in order to justify its crimes against the Palestinian people. In 2000, Finkelstein wrote The Holocaust Industry on the exploitation of Jewish suffering.
Mounting international criticism of the repressive Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as well as the extensive havoc and destruction wreaked on civilians in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, generated strong reactions by intellectuals and human rights activists around the world. Such criticisms seemed to push the political class in Israel towards stonewalling with the Israeli government resorting to deportation as a method to silence vocal critics of Israeli practices.
In 2008, Israel refused Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu entry while on a UN fact-finding mission in the Gaza Strip. Israel apparently feared that Tutu would file a damning report, indicting Israel for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, as did Judge Richard Goldstone a year and a half later, following the Israeli blitzkrieg against Gaza that killed and maimed thousands of Palestinian civilians and inflicted widespread destruction.
Subsequently, Israel and its supporters repeatedly accused Goldstone of being biased against, and hostile to, Israel. Some “Israel-Firsters”, especially in North America, have gone as far as calling Goldstone an “anti- Semite” and “self-hating Jew”.
The abovementioned intellectuals are mere examples of how Israel, which claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, is drifting towards Jewish fascism. On 18 May, one Israeli journalist wrote, commenting on the deportation of Chomsky: “Denying Noam Chomsky entry to Israel puts an end to the myth that Israel is a democracy. It is a state where the police arrest demonstrators protesting the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and expel a pregnant non-Jewish woman so that she won’t give birth to her child in Israel. I will not argue whether Israel is fascist or not. But in reality, Israel is walking in the path of fascism.”
Desertpeace 