Middle East

NOVANEWS 11/05/2010 Burston on the Jewishness of Israel Yes Feingold was fantastic and courageous and independent. But A tale of two ghettos The real Yitzhak Rabin Neocons didn’t gain traction with Jewish voters. Hmmm Thank you sir, may I have another humiliation? Israel blocks Qureia’s entry to Jordan ‘Israeli Occupation Awareness Week’ comes to Brandeis Bill Clinton slightly tweaks Netanyahu, goes on to say very little If you will it . . . No loyalty to apartheid   Burston on the Jewishness of Israel Nov 04, 2010 Philip Weiss  Yesterday I did a post on the crisis of liberal Zionists, and quoted visiting Israeli journalist Bradley Burston, Haaretz columnist, who spoke at Richard Silverstein's synagogue in Seattle. Burston then sent a note to Silve...

NOVANEWS Obama and Bush share the same view on abusing “terrorists” Getting out of colony building is making business sense Interview with Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas Who do we want to control us? Britain is experiencing the shock doctrine in action Britain desperate to insulate Zionists from examination Serco says it’s doing a wonderful job Obama and Bush share the same view on abusing “terrorists” 04 Nov 2010 Salon’s Glenn Greenwald spoke last night at the University of Wisconsin on “Civil Liberties and Terrorism in the Age of Obama”. Suffice to say, to any on the Left who think Barack Obama is radically different to George W. Bush, they need to get their head read.  Glenn Greenwald on civil liberties and terrorism after Obama from The Badger Herald on Vime...

NOVANEWS Dear Friends, 5 items below, several preceded with my remarks in brackets.  Since I’ve said what I have to say in the brackets, here I’ll just mention briefly the subject of each item. Item 1 reveals another of the present Minister of Education’s attempts to muzzle—this time academics.  Will he succeed?  Time will tell. Item 2 is the Independent’s report on the visit to Israel of  British Foreign Secretary William Hague.  It’s report, as also the Guardian’s, is vastly different in tone from those of the Israeli press on the subject.  Whereas Israeli press stress that Hague promised that England would change the law, the Independent report is obviously furious with Israel for having ‘ambushed’ the Foreign Secretary on his first visit to Israel in his present capacity. Item 3 is abo...

NOVANEWS 11/03/2010 Israeli state violence and the value of Palestinian life Ten years later, Palestinian citizens of Israel are still waiting for justice If a stranger spews hateful rhetoric in the woods in Maine, and no one’s there to hear him… UNRWA tells the story of Palestinian refugees in the new series ‘Peace starts here’ B’Tselem documents cruel treatment of Palestinians arrested at night and held in windowless, cramped cells with artificial light for days The new Jewish upside-down world: intellectual who calls for equal rights is likened to KKK How can you tell whether an American politician is running for president (of the United States)? Help send Alex Kane to Israel/Palestine Rabbi Gordis once gritted his teeth over discrimination at WASPy sc...

    NOVANEWS She was a girl back then, in 2003. She had just stopped eating meat because she wouldn’t be  an accomplice to killing, she said. And on the street she pitied the homeless. When she learned  about the segregation that had been common practice in the US not so long ago, whereby the dark-skinned were not allowed to sit next to the fair-skinned, she asked me, her voice quivering, how could that be? A sensitive girl, a bleeding heart, not quite sixteen. And I told her about fourteen-year old Omar Matar from Qalandiya refugee camp who had been murdered two weeks before that. How he and a group of children and youths had run from the soldiers at the checkpoint and how the soldiers had chased them, knelt, took aim and fired at the boys as they ran. And how a live bullet entered ...

NOVANEWS In This Issue... Budrus hero calls for Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s freedom More Recent Articles Search The Only Democracy? Budrus hero calls for Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s freedom   By Jesse Bacon I recently had the good fortune to attend a packed Monday night NYC screening sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. One issue raised by the extremely well-informed director was how similar protests in other villages have had difficulty duplicating Budrus’s success. A Budrus protest participant told me that  even Budrus itself could see its victory threatened as Israel completes the building of the Wall. So it is inspiring to me that Ayed Morrar, the Budrus leader, has continued to struggle on beh...

NOVANEWS Serco bring in the robots, body and soul Israel firsters rejoice in US at taming of Obama Americans just love being American Hamas is flailing on all fronts Being gay in Israel (with two Jews) New Delhi and Tel Aviv get all cosy Those WMDs must be somewhere safe, reflected Bush Serco bring in the robots, body and soul 03 Nov 2010 First they privatise hospitals and then they call for cost cutting to increase “efficiency”: Robots, instead of human staff, would provide some essential services at WA’s new Fiona Stanley Hospital under a plan that unions warn could cost hundreds of jobs. Serco the company the WA Government wants to provide privatised services at the hospital has already introduced the robots for day-to-day tasks in a hospital it runs in Scotland. ...

NOVANEWS In This Issue... Terry Fletcher responds to Audrey Farber’s post on Palestinian democracy More Recent Articles Search The Only Democracy? Terry Fletcher responds to Audrey Farber’s post on Palestinian democracy   In her recent post A true Democracy; if Israel would only let it, Audrey Farber paints a very rosy picture of Palestinian democracy, both present and future. Other commentators and human rights organizations paint a quite different picture, at least of the present. In this New York Review of Books article, Nathan Thrall asserts, A year into Fayyad’s first term, Mamdouh al-Aker, then head of the PA’s human rights organization, spoke of the government’s “militarization” and asserted that “a state of lawlessness had shift...

NOVANEWS Wednesday, 3 November 2010 The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders.   “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same anywhere. “ – Herman Goering COEXIST has been a little quiet of late because I have been driving in a convoy of humanitarian aid to Gaza with Viva Palestina. Full details on the blog (www.pippabartolotti.blogspot.com). I have witnessed for myself the level of terror and oppression being daily forced upon the besieged Palestinians, millions of whom are scattered in refugee camps across the Middle East, millions of whom are patiently an...

NOVANEWS Dear friends, Once again 6 items, and once again was difficult to select from among the many that should be read.   In any event, I doubt that you will find any of the below superfluous. The initial item is a report on the way Israel welcomes some professors who are invited to participate in a conference.  While the report below is only about this professor, she is not the only one to have received such treatment. Hers is a typical case of how the establishment acts towards people it does not want. Item 2 is a response by Kathleen Barry to the statistics of civilian deaths in Iraq furnished by Wikileaks.  I preface her letter with a few words, below. In item 3 Gideon Levy justifiably censures Israel’s ‘victim’ fixation, and where it is leading us. Item 4 is a PCHR (Palestinian Cen...