Lawfare – Breaking News

Does anyone actually know the meaning of the term ‘Jewish state’? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a just democracy?

By Gideon Levy

(source: Haaretz)

Sometimes you really can’t see the forest for the trees. The forest of political, governmental and institutional racism in Israel is dark and deep. One particular tree in that forest happens to have Israelis all riled up: The state’s handling of the children of migrant workers. In the shade of a nearby tree is the state’s handling of these children’s parents, but this excites the Israelis somewhat less. And there are many other poisonous trees in the forest: Citizenship laws, loyalty laws, conversion laws, the razing of Bedouin villages in the Negev and even the story of the Arab delivery man who was convicted of rape for pretending to be a Jew. Each one galvanized parts of society into action, and this is well and good; but few see the big picture, and the big picture is several times worse than the sum of its components.

Enlightenment came from an unexpected direction; it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of all people, who accurately defined the problem. In deciding on these children’s future, he said, the cabinet is torn between humanitarian considerations on one hand and Zionist considerations on the other. The prime minister of Israel himself presents them as a contradiction, and this is the story in a nutshell.

Read More »Missing the forest

Sri Lanka: Distant Voices, Desperate Lives – John Pilger

The Sri Lankan government used Israel’s actions in Gaza as their model for slaughter, Pilger writes.

In the early 1960s, it was the Irish of Derry who would phone late at night, speaking in a single breath, spilling out stories of discrimination and injustice. Who listened to their truth until the violence began? Bengalis from what was then East Pakistan did much the same. Their urgent whispers described terrible state crimes that the news ignored, and they implored us reporters to “let the world know”. Palestinians speaking above the din of crowded rooms in Bethlehem and Beirut asked no more. For me, the most tenacious distant voices have been the Tamils of Sri Lanka, to whom we ought to have listened a very long time ago.

Read More »Sri lanka distant voices desperate lives

By Ali Abunimah

(source: Electronic Intifada)

In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.

As part of his daily routine of publicity stunts, unelected Ramallah-based "Prime Minister" Salam Fayyad has been seen tossing bundles of settler-produced goods onto bonfires. As for PA "President" Mahmoud Abbas, he recently signed the "Karama" (dignity) Pledge — promising not to allow settlement goods into his house and encouraging others to do the same. PA volunteers have been going door-to-door in the occupied West Bank to distribute lists of settler-made consumer goods that should be avoided.

Read More »The pas disingenuous boycott campaign

War is Unsuitable for Children: Another YouTube outrage
by Cindy Sheehan

Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic40of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting40of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.

I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the40I posted and with40that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.

Read More »War is unsuitable for children another youtube outrage