Middle East

NOVANEWS   December 29, 2010 by Michael Leon Israel: We need lebensraum. And Americans, you can pay. Imagine being expelled from your city–the city where you were born, the city where you grew up, the city where you started a family and where you are raising your four children, the city where you have always lived. From Jewish Voice for Peace This horrible expulsion edict has been issued by the Israeli authorities against Adnan Gheith, a Palestinian political organizer. The Israeli authorities have served him notice that they intend to banish him for four months from Jerusalem, his city, effective December 26th. That is the same day of a planned eviction of a Palestinian home and construction of a Jewish Israeli settlement in its place. The Israeli Supreme Court issued a last minute in...

NOVANEWS December 28, 2010 by Lila Rajiva AND NOW COMES NEWS THAT ALL HUMAN LIFE BEGAN IN ISRAEL. According to the Israelis. Whether that’s so or not, some of us fear that the way things are going, all human life might endthere too. AP reports: “It’s very exciting to come to this conclusion,” said archaeologist Avi Gopher, whose team examined the teeth with X-rays and CT scans and dated them according to the layers of earth where they were found. He stressed that further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he says, “this changes the whole picture of evolution.” The accepted scientific theory is that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated out of the continent. Gopher said if the remains are definitively linked to modern human’s ancestors, it could mean that mod...

NOVANEWS Dear Friends,   Just 3 items tonight.    The first is Yonatan Pollak’s speech at court yesterday.  As one would expect of Yonatan, he said exactly what should be said—from beginning to end, beginning by stating that he would not (as is customary) either apologize or request leniency. The remainder in essence defends civil disobedience, but not merely as a just act but as an act in the circumstances of the attack on Gaza, and stressing that his act was decidedly a political act.  But why should I put words in his mouth when he speaks so well himself.    The 2nd item is about the Seattle bus ads that to date have not been on the buses, but whether or not they will be, the point has been made and distributed widely.   The 3rd item is about Israel’s denial of family reunification—one ...

NOVANEWS This is Israel today Why states are happy to pass security jobs to private armies Here’s an idea; let’s get mercenaries from Iraq and send them to another war Government and media are different? Yes, Murdoch paper makes up stories Damascus had hand in Prophet Mohammed outrage How much racism can a “democracy” take? History repeats itself over Wikileaks   This is Israel today Posted: 29 Dec 2010 03:54 PM PST     Why states are happy to pass security jobs to private armies Posted: 29 Dec 2010 05:23 AM PST Privatised mercenaries are largely beyond international law and that’s the way they like it. The UN has set up a working group to find ways to regulate a massively increasing industry. Jose L. Gomez del Prado spoke in Geneva in November and articulated the c...

NOVANEWS Karzai knows his pimp isn’t going anywhere, yet A “serious” newspaper debases itself “In World War Two, journalists were patriots first” Sarkozy doesn’t dislike Arabs all the time? CNN hearts Bush admin peeps over Wikileaks “Don’t come back to Nabi Saleh you piece of shit” Corporations are on the way out thanks to intense leaking? Zionist fear of fascism grows and who should they blame? Wikileaks resonates in Mugabe’s gulag   Karzai knows his pimp isn’t going anywhere, yet Posted: 28 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST How we all miss the good old days? Useful idiot dictator longs for an unquestioning, clueless Washington elite to prop up his regime (not that the Obama administration is much different): Longing for the early years of the Bush administration, Afghan Presiden...

NOVANEWS   Dear Dorothy,   Step by step, day by day, committing ourselves to the actions that move us all closer to a just world. All of them matter, in ways big and small. But sometimes, our actions capture the attention of people all over the country, and the world – and the world changes. Your support is what makes it happen. By now, many have heard about the Young, Jewish, and Proud members at the national gathering of Jewish federations where Bibi Netanyahu proclaimed that the movement for peace, justice andequality in Israel and Palestine, the movement to end the Israeli Occupation, is a movement to delegitimize Israel. And one by one,each of these young leaders bravely stood up in front of thousands of unbelievably hostile people and chanted the text on their banners, right in the m...

NOVANEWS [This was not on-line when I scanned the papers earlier. My stomach turns!  This, my friends, is ISRAEL. Dorothy]   Haaretz, December 28, 2010   Rabbis' wives urge Israeli women: Stay away from Arab men A new letter signed by 30 women suggests that girls who date non-Jews will be cut off from their 'holy race'.   http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/rabbis-wives-urge-israeli-women-stay-away-from-arab-men-1.333841   By Chaim Levinson   A letter urging Jewish women not to date non-Jewish men has been published by a group of rabbis' wives. The letter comes on the heels of a rabbis' letter published earlier this month urging Jews not to sell or rent properties to non-Jews.   The new letter, signed by 30 rabbis' wives, says, "For your sake, for the sake of future generations, and so yo...

NOVANEWS   Wikileaks tells us the biggest stories of the year British tax dollars going to the Serco beast Simon Wiesenthal Centre is tone deaf It’s Christmas   Wikileaks tells us the biggest stories of the year Posted: 25 Dec 2010 05:11 AM PST The sound and fury directed at Wikileaks in the last month has (largely) been against the group itself rather than the revelations in the cables. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald outlines what we now know and why many in the political and media elites are afraid of the public learning of crimes committed in their names: As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing.  The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them:  ...

NOVANEWS Four cases against Israeli democracy More Recent Articles Search The Only Democracy? By Jesse Bacon While I was away on vacation, four cases of the continuing slow death of Israeli democracy occurred. Taken together, they represent a good spectrum of the responses to democracy activists by Israel, all negative. First, Matan Cohen, Israeli-American activist, member of Young, Jewish, and Proud, and one of the people behind the push for divestment at Hampshire College. He attempted to return home as he often does. He was taken aside on December 17 by Israeli security’s “Jewish division” and accused of “hostile terrorist activities,” ie nonviolent organizing. Here’s his account: Dear friends,  I just wanted to update you about a recent experience I ha...

NOVANEWS Gilad Atzmon      December 26, 2010   Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman taught us today another lesson in Jewish diplomacy calling his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu a liar. Lieberman took aim at Turkey today just hours after the Mavi Marmara was cheered into Istanbul port. At a conference of Israeli ambassadors Lieberman also rejected the notion of peace with the Palestinians. "Even if we were to offer Tel Aviv as the capital of Palestine and returned to the 1948 borders they would still find a reason not to sign a deal." I can only advise Lieberman to give it a try. If he is indeed correct, if the Palestinian refuse to take Tel Aviv aka Yaffa back, it could be presented as a great Hasbara victory.