Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Double standards all the way…

Ynet:


Unknown persons sprayed racial slurs and a Star of David on a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Beitilu. The vandals wrote among other things: Mohammed is dead. Police are searching for the culprits.


There’s more (follow the link).

Comments
Angry Arab:


If Muslim or Christian Arabs did that on Jewish homes, this would be covered in specials on TV and on front pages of newspapers in the US


I believe it was Shlomo Ben Ami who once stated (paraphrasing from memory): ‘If what was said about Muslims today was said about Jews today all hell would break loose…’

Friday, June 24, 2011

Jello Biafra: not Kosher…

Israeli activist urges Jello Biafra not to play in Tel Aviv:







Update:

Well, looks like he’s not going!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Freedom for Palestine

Monday, June 06, 2011

Israeli killings on Israel-Syria border

The United States said Sunday it is "deeply troubled" over clashes on the Syrian border with Israel that reportedly resulted in 14 deaths, and called for calm on both sides.

Israeli troops opened fire as protesters from Syria on Sunday stormed a ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights.

"We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life," the State Department said in a statement.

"We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided."

The US statement emphasized that "Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself."

The apparatchiks in Washington are ‘deeply troubled’, apparently. And Israel ‘has a right to defend itself’: with live fire against unarmed protesters (sorry apologists, stones and wire cutters don’t count in my book). As for “Provocative actions like this should be avoided”, read: “As racist supporters of Israel we believe the Arabs should take everything lying down…”



"Despite numerous warnings, both verbal and later warning shots in the air, dozens of Syrians continue to approach the border and IDF (Israel Defense Forces) forces were left with no choice but to open fire towards the feet of protesters in efforts to deter further actions," an Israeli army spokesman told AFP.


Most moral this IDF but not brilliant at aiming in front of feet, apparently. Wait for Mark ‘Iffy Ozzie’ Regev to hasbarah that the shots ricoched…



H/T Angry Arab (As’ad AbuKhalil)

Source.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says?

Robert Fisk, The Independent.

President Obama has shown himself to be weak in his dealings with the Middle East, says Robert Fisk, and the Arab world is turning its back with contempt. Its future will be shaped without American influence.

This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America's new role in the region. It was pathetic. "What is this 'role' thing?" an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. "Do they still believe we care about what they think?"

And it is true. Obama's failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab "spring", save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain's cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia. And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions.








Read the rest at
source (h/t Mondoweiss).

Of course it cannot be excluded that the inner circle at the heart of the Empire yet decide to deploy what they’re best at and what they’ve got plenty of: blunt, brute force exercised overtly or covertly.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Lest we forget…

H/T Angry Arab (As’ad AbuKhalil), source.

One myth is that the "creation" of the Palestinian refugee "problem" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing) was a consequence of the Arab countries' war with Israel. This claim was undermined - almost despite himself - by Israeli historian Benny Morris, who though joining the attack on Abbas' op-ed, noted that 300,000 Palestinians had lost their homes before 15 May 1948.

In fact, as serious historians and research have shown, Palestinians left their homes and villages through a combination of attacks, direct forced removals, and fear of atrocities.

The expulsion of the refugees was ultimately realised by the forcible prevention of their return, the destruction of villages, and the legislative steps taken to expropriate their land and deny them citizenship.

A second myth manipulates the question of the Jews from Arab countries, around 850,000 of whom left between 1948 and the 1970s. Israel's apologists try and suggest that these "Jewish refugees" somehow "cancel out" the Palestinian refugees, as if the residents of Ramla or Deir Yassin were responsible for events in Baghdad and Cairo.

More than a hint here of "all Arabs are the same".

In fact, most scorn the link, such as Israeli professor Yehouda Shenhav who wrote that "any reasonable person" must acknowledge the analogy to be "unfounded". When the US house of representatives in 2008 called for linking the issues of Jews from Arab countries and Palestinian refugees, The Economist wrote that the resolution showed "the power of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington".

Put simply, one right does not cancel out another. Ask those pushing this propaganda if they support restitution and redress for all refugees, Jewish and Palestinian, and they fall strangely silent.