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Israelis targeting grassroots activists

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By Mel Frykberg

(source:IPSnews)

East Jerusalem – Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating non-violent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community.

Several weeks ago masked Israeli soldiers stormed the home of Ehab Jallad from The Jerusalem Popular Committee for the Celebration of Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture for 2009.

"Around 3am the soldiers started kicking and banging on the door and threatened to break it down if I didn’t open immediately. My young daughters were terrified as they didn’t know what was happening," recalls Jallad, a young Palestinian architect from Jerusalem.

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Kasrils whos afraid of richard goldstone ?

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Address by Ronnie Kasrils to NADEL (National Association of Democratic Lawyers of South Africa):

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 Topic “Goldstone Report & The Struggle of the Palestinian People”

Cape Town, 24 October 2009

(source: Electronic Intifada)

Justice Richard Goldstone is an internationally respected judge of integrity and credibility. Sober, reserved, most prim and proper, his reputation has been built on impeccable credentials. This has included his investigations into the apartheid-era hit-squads and violence; violations of international law in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and in connection with the UN Iraq Oil for Food Programme; and of course his outstanding service with South Africa’s Constitutional Court.

Whilst it was expected that the apartheid era security services and generals would be afraid of the man, ironically in the aftermath of the release of the UN Report on Gaza, this life-long friend of Israel, a professed Zionist himself, has been vilified by Netanyahu and the Israeli Government; by the Chief Rabbi of South Africa; and in equally hysterical terms by many fellow Jews. It seems that this unlikely candidate for “self-hating Jew” has become top of their list. Without doubt the Israeli Government and Defence Force, and Zionist apologists world-wide, have come to fear and loathe this quiet, genteel, undemonstrative man who strives to serve truth, justice and the rule of law in the best way he can.

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Photography can become a weapon of repression

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Offering Silence To The Oppressed Or How Photography Can Become A Weapon Of Repression

By Derek Powazek

(source:The Spinning Head Blog)

An exhibition called ‘Beware The Cost Of War’ recently opened in London.

Reading about it in the New York Times ‘Lens’ blog left me deeply disappointed and concerned.

Let me explain.

(Aside: Yoav Galai, the curator, is someone I have called a friend for some time now and I hope that he will forgive me for this very critical review of what is something he clearly put a lot of work in to. It is not personal, but merely a reflection on this propensity in our world to fear speaking, to raise a voice, to add details and specifics where generalizations only confuse, perpetuate injustices and acquit the guilty. I am sorry Yoav. I must say my piece.)

In their book Another Way of Telling photographer Jean Mohr and writer/intellectual John Berger present an experiment where a series of Mohr’s photographs, each with their captions removed, are shown to a number of ordinary strangers and each is asked to explain what they see in the photograph. As Jean Mohr himself explains:

Was it a game, a test, an experiment? All three, and something else too; a photographer’s quest, the desire to know how the40he makes are seen, read, interpreted, perhaps rejected by others. In fact in face of any photo the spectator projects something of her or himself. The image is like a springboard. (page 42)

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The runoff farce in Afghanistan

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By Bill Van Auken

(source: World Socialist Website)

The protracted crisis over the fraudulent election in Afghanistan, culminating in President Hamid Karzai’s acceptance last week of a runoff with his top challenger and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, has once again laid bare the colonial character of the US occupation and the puppet status of the government in Kabul.

The entire degrading process reeks of cynicism. A United Nations-backed panel confirmed that over 1.2 million ballots in the August 20 election were fraudulent—including fully one-third of the votes cast for Karzai. The incumbent’s chief challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, is no less venal. Some 200,000 of his own votes were bogus. In areas dominated by his cohorts, ballot-stuffing was just as prevalent as that carried out by Karzai operatives in other regions.

Now the incumbent president is being hailed by the West as a true “statesman” for agreeing to a November 7 runoff that will supposedly lend the presidential election legitimacy.

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