First, we must immediately move for the de facto suspension of Israel throughout the entirety of the United Nations System, including the General Assembly and all U.N. subsidiary organs and bodies. We must do to Israel what the U.N. General Assembly has done to the genocidal rump Yugoslavia and to the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa! Here the legal basis for the de facto suspension of Israel at the U.N. is quite simple:
As a condition for its admission to the United Nations Organization, Israel formally agreed to accept General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) (1947) (partition/Jerusalem trusteeship) and General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) (1948) (Palestinian right of return), inter alia. Nevertheless, the government of Israel has expressly repudiated both Resolution 181 (II) and Resolution 194 (III).
Therefore, Israel has violated its conditions for admission to U.N. membership and thus must be suspended on a de facto basis from any participation throughout the entire United Nations System.
Second, any further negotiations with Israel must be conducted on the basis of Resolution 181 (II) and its borders; Resolution 194 (III); subsequent General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions; the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949; the 1907 Hague Regulations; and other relevant principles of public international law.
Third, we must abandon the fiction and the fraud that the United States government is an “honest broker.” The United States government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the United States has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians. We need to establish some type of international framework to sponsor these negotiations where the Palestinian negotiators will not be subjected to the continual bullying, threats, harassment, intimidation and outright lies perpetrated by the United States government.
Fourth, we must move to have the U.N. General Assembly impose economic, diplomatic, and travel sanctions upon Israel pursuant to the terms of the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), whose Emergency Special Session on Palestine is now in recess.
Fifth, the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine must sue Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for inflicting acts of genocide against the Palestinian People in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention!
Sixth, An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) can be established by the UN General Assembly as a “subsidiary organ” under article 22 of the UN Charter. Article 22 of the UN Charter states the UN General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and Prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offences against the Palestinian people.
In the JPost story, ex-UN Israeli ambassador Gabriela Shalev says:
If the Palestinians can gain General Assembly recognition for statehood under a “Uniting for Peace” resolution, she warned, “it would be a real obstacle… not just a public relations setback. This would seek to impose on us some kind of Palestinian state.”
It is made clear again that, as the Palestine Papers highlighted, Israel is terrified of the concept of a Palestinian state, despite all its protestations of being a genuine partner in peace processes aimed at producing one, though not the sort of state which Palestinian people would like, nor one with sovereign powers, but rather a tripartite bantustan system.
So what do the zionists want? Patently, the default position – to continue expansionism as long as possible while pretending to be honest ‘peace partners’ – expansionism as ever is zionists’ primary strategy, tactic and aim, to take all the land, to drive out and dispossess as many Palestinians as possible while making life discriminatory and uncomfortable for Palestinians who remain on their indigenous land, the same as zionists have been doing for more than 63 years.
Now Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak is warning of even tougher action.
“Israel will not tolerate these terror attacks and we will not allow terror to rise once again,” he said.
At a joint press conference in Ashdod with US defence secretary Robert Gates, Mr Barak said Israel had no choice but to respond to the latest violence.
But he is yet to reveal the timing or nature of the response.
Mr Gates says the violence is all the more reason to reopen the peace process which collapsed late last year.
“There is a need and an opportunity for bold action to move toward a two-state solution,” he said.
Despite the escalation, Hamas does not seem to want large-scale clashes yet. The organization actually has good reasons to believe that Israel is the one heating up the southern front. It began with a bombardment a few weeks ago that disrupted the transfer of a large amount of money from Egypt to the Gaza Strip, continued with the interrogation of engineer and Hamas member Dirar Abu Sisi in Israel, and ended with last week’s bombing of a Hamas training base in which two Hamas militants were killed.
It is noteworthy that Hamas has not fired at Israel over the past two days, even after four Palestinian civilians were killed by errant IDF mortar fire on Tuesday.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s office said yesterday that Haniyeh had phoned the secretary general of Islamic Jihad, Abdallah Ramadan Salah, in Damascus. Pundits in Gaza said Haniyeh asked Salah to stop the escalation, for which Islamic Jihad is mainly responsible.
Marrickville Council supports the global BDS movement, and Mayor Fiona Byrne is standing for the Greens for the state legislature, promising to expand BDS against apartheid Israel there if she gains election. A phony push poll has been discovered aimed at undermining her campaign and BDS.
Residents were asked questions such as “Did you know Fiona Byrne led a boycott against Israel on council recently?”
A council spokeswoman said no such survey had been commissioned and the calls were being investigated. If necessary, they would be referred to the Federal Police.
Cr Byrne said the calls were a clear case of “push polling”. “Push polling is a manipulative dirty trick, an old style political tactic and people are sick of it,” she said. “The Greens support is growing because we campaign positively on issues that matter to people.”
It is the second instance of alleged push polling in a seat held by a Labor minister. The Coalition accused Labor of push polling in John Robertson’s seat, Blacktown, in February after residents were phoned and asked about fake Liberal policies.
…
Marrickville resident Gavin Smith said he became suspicious when the interviewer repeatedly mispronounced the mayor’s surname and referred to the council as “Marrickville City Council”.
“I immediately said to the girl ‘Are you representing the Labor Party?’ and she said ‘No no it’s Marrickville City Council’,” he said.
Deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt, who holds the seat by a 7.5 per cent margin, denied the calls came from Labor.
“We have no knowledge of these phone calls and are not responsible for them,” she said.
One resident traced the call to a telephone research company called Australian Fieldwork Solutions. The company confirmed it was carrying out a survey in Marrickville but would not disclose who commissioned it or what the questions were.
The Greens candidate for Marrickville is the local mayor Fiona Byrne. Last December, the Greens and Labor-dominated council voted 10-2 to cut links with organisations that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. NSW Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt, the current MP for Marrickville, opposes the boycott?—?as does her husband Anthony Albanese, who represents the area at a federal level.
Byrne said: “This is absolutely and obviously push polling, but misrepresenting itself. I think that misrepresentation is quite insidious. It’s old-style political tactics and I think people are tired of it.”
…
She said the survey had misled voters by asking whether they would vote for her given she had “instigated” a boycott against Israel.
“I supported a motion that came to council. I as a councillor did not instigate a boycott,” she said.
And from the Australian, it’s reported that zionist groups have attempted a wedge in Marrickville “booking the local town hall for an AFL “peace team” made up of Israeli and Palestinian footballers.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies spokesman Peter Wertheim yesterday branded as “total hypocrisy” tonight’s anticipated decision by the Marrickville council to allow the reception for the team, which is visiting for the AFL World Cup in Melbourne in August, to proceed.
“While the proposal to host the AFL peace team is precisely the sort of project we encourage, it is total hypocrisy for a council that has a boycott in place to allow it to occur in their facility,” Mr Wertheim told The Australian.
Fiona Byrne addressed this shonky tactic clearly:
“There is no issue with a local group hiring a hall to host the AFL peace team. The global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign has to do with council activities, not with what local community groups do when they hire a hall.”
The peace team is co-sponsored by the Peres Peace Centre in Jerusalem and the Al-Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue, a Palestinian non-government organisation.
Fiona Byrne said two push-polls had been reported to her, including one poll which reportedly claims to be from Marrickville Council. Marrickville Council will follow up with Police to see if a crime has been committed by persons pretending to be from Council.
Liberal candidate Rosana Tyler, who opposes Marrickville Council’s boycott, says members of her campaign team had received the call.
“The caller gave their name but not the organisation. They just said they were ringing from a Melbourne-based company. They did say they were ringing on behalf of Marrickville Council. The questions did seem to be manipulative.”
Tyler says the boycott issue is turning “ordinary” voters against the Greens: ”There is consternation in Marrickville that this council has just lost the plot.”
Greens spokesman Mark Riboldi says he believes two “push polls” canvassing the boycott issue have been running in the area. In the first, callers identify themselves as employees of polling firm Australian Fieldwork Solutions. He says this poll is “not illegal, but definitely dirty”. In the second, callers claim to be ringing on behalf of Marrickville Council.
St Peters resident Mel McCabe told Crikey she participated in the fake Marrickville Council survey last Friday evening.
“It’s made me angry,” she said. “I’m not aligned with anyone, but I’m really angry that I gave personal insights about my views to give fodder for someone to throw at Fiona. It didn’t sit well.”
She says she was asked whether she would be more or less likely to vote for Byrne given the mayor’s support for the boycott.
…
Petersham retiree Gavin Smith, a well-known local environmentalist, told Crikey he received a call last Tuesday purportedly on behalf of Marrickville City Council. He said the caller asked whether councils should be involved in foreign affairs.
Israel’s lobbying clout in Washington is formidable, but does it out-clout the generals?
As the head of one Israeli strategy think-tank remarked after the Tahrir Square triumph against the Mubarak regime: “Our whole structure of analysis just collapsed.”
The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an, which is close to the PA leadership, ran a lead news story that claimed that a Thai worker had been arrested by the IDF on suspicion of killing the five members of the Fogel family on Friday night.
The agency did not say how it obtained the information. However, it said that shortly after the killings, Israeli security forces arrested all the Thai workers who were inside the settlement.
Ma’an pointed out that no Palestinian group had claimed responsibility for the attack and that Palestinians were banned from entering settlements.
Another Palestinian news agency, Qudsnet, claimed that an Asian man who used to work for the Fogel family was behind the killings.
Quoting a Palestinian family living in the nearby village of Awarta, the agency said that the family members were slaughtered because the father refused to pay the Asian worker his salary, which is estimated at 10,000 Shekels.
‘Communications to Washington from senior American diplomats in the New Delhi Embassy constantly portray India’s West Asia policy as being hostage to the Muslim factor in domestic politics. In its bid not to antagonise Muslim voters, the cables explained, the government was forced to play down its “strategic relationship” with Israel. ‘
Fighting hate is a tedious job – it seems that for every user we report 5 new ones spring up in its place. But this only makes me more determined to stand up to hate and anti Semitism. The list of links today are all of users that spread hate, promote anti Semitism and de-legitimise Israel. Please report them to Facebook or Twitter respectively.Facebook
Login into your facebook account and click on any of these links. Click on the “Report/Block this person” or the “Report page” link on the left hand side of the screen.
* Students for Justice in Palestine – spreading anti semitic hate messages claiming Israel is engaged in ethnic cleaning
* Justice for Palestine – blames Israel of brainwashing Christian children and encourages people to sign up for the next flotilla to Gaza.
* Abdus Ayydin Rayyan Samad – justifies shooting rockets on civilians in Israel
Twitter
Login into your twitter account and click on any of these links. click on the options button located on the upper right hand side Twitter button. Choose the 3rd option which would report that user to Twitter.
* cactijakeye – bluntly calls himself anti Semitic in his profile – supports hateful conspiracy theories like 9/11 was an inside Israeli job
* xXKelly82Xx – claims Zionists are not human and other fanatic hate speech
* BoycottAhava – behind the global campaign to boycott Ahava products claiming Ahava Cosmetics are made by Israeli profiteers in Occupied Palestine.
* Ziggy stardust – with twits like “racist zionist settlers kill Palestinian children” there is no doubt Ziggy Stardust is anti Zionist and Anti Semitic
* Remroum – openly supports terrorism against Israel
* Tha Captain – Anti zionist calling Israel a murdering state
* Ali Abunimah – constantly spreads Israel Apartheid mantra
* Jinjirrie – Promotes flotilla anti zionist and anti Semitic causes
* Worldpeace2day – obsessively promotes Israel Apartheid messages
* Nouren shiraz – constantly calling Israel a racist terrorist state engaged in “ethnic cleansing”
Thank you for taking part in this effort – all of us in Giyus.org are for free speech but that does not entitle anyone to delegitimize Israel and spread hate against the Jewish people as a whole.
What, then, does one do, when faced with one’s appearance on this ridiculous haet lsit? Why, message the perpetrator, of course 🙂
Jinjirrie: . @giyusgirl – pls get yr hasbaroid witchhunt rap correct – i’m anti-zionism, anti-occupation, anti-racism & anti-bigotry – that means you #
giyusgirl: @Jinjirrie anti-Zionism = no country for Jews = Jews are not entitled to their own country = Antisemitism . Enough said. #
Jinjirrie: . @giyusgirl anti-zionism = anti-racism & anti-fascism = equal rights & true democracy instead of ethnosupremacy = justice #
This is not the first zionist haet lsit on which I’ve appeared – the JIDF have me on several of their puerile witchhunt campaigns also. For some of my historical brushes with them, see here.
Zionism is a secular political ideology which grew alongside other nationalist movements in the 19th century. Similar to some other nationalisms, zionism exhibits toxic symptoms of white supremacism in its colonialism – indigenous arabs were and are regarded largely as inconvenient sub-humans, to be expelled and exterminated whilst the entitled, privileged ‘race’ usurp their land. Racists like @giyusgirl see indigenous Palestinians in Israel and the Territories it occupies as excess humans, and that challenging this zionist ethnosupremacism and colonialism is ‘anti-semitic’. Yet *all* colonialism is chauvinistic, shored up by a sense of rightness, privilege and entitlement. The erroneous concept of ‘races’ is essential to racists who desire superior privileges for their own ‘race’. There is only one race, the human race, and all humans are entitled to equal rights, respect and dignity wherever they may be, wherever they were born.
Palestine / Israel Links
@georgehale Get this: On Thursday’s “day of rage”, Israel settlers distributed threatening flyers to several diplomats in the West Bank. #
Economists are extremists
of irrational faith,
acolytes of daily newsprint
parsing icons of inflation and recession
with fringe benefits
doctrines of gain through pain,
while wealth breeds wealth by stealth.
Keynes, Smith and Friedman –
Thatcher, Keating, Reagan,
the pedantic pantheons
and sacrifice of certainty.
Economists as pampered disciples,
their J curved recursive credos of trade and ego
hardening malleable hearts to stone,
resounding hollow in
less speculative souls.
I’d like to turn the tables in the temple,
and for every new presumption,
make them reimburse the poor.
Jinjirrie 1992
To our sisters on #IWD2011 – equal rights : stand with the oppressed not the oppressor : end imperialism : capitalism is not woman-friendly
Ms Gillard will become the first foreign dignitary to address the new US congress and only the fourth Australian prime minister to ever do so.
Her speech is expected to commemorate 60 years of the ANZUS alliance.
The other big moment will be a meeting with Mr Obama, where the exit strategy for the Afghan war and the global economic recovery will be likely topics.
But Ms Gillard has already indicated she will steer clear of difficult territory, including Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
She will also discuss global security during talks with other senior administration figures, including secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the CIA director.
The global economy will dominate discussions with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and the head of the World Bank.
There will also be dinner with former Labor leader and now US ambassador Kim Beazley, lunch with News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch and talks with UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
Steve Weizman, AFP: Without going into details Minister, did you in your talks with the Prime Minister raise your concerns about settlements.
Mr Rudd: I don’t go into those details, because my relationship with the Israeli Government is longstanding, with the Prime Minister it’s longstanding in various positions he and I have held over a long period of time. Therefore I leave those deliberations to themselves.
Of course, the wider question of settlements is a continuing issue in the international debate, as are the broader questions concerning the final status issues which I referred to before.
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is pushing for the arms embargo slapped on China after the Tiananmen Square massacre to be scrapped on the grounds that relations with Beijing need to be nurtured for strategic reasons. Proving that she suffers from the same lack of scruples as other top players in New Labour, she is more concerned with drumming up business for the arms industry than in China’s oppression of Uighurs in Xinjiang or Buddhists in Tibet. Proving, too, that mollycoddling the arms industry transcends party lines in British politics, David Cameron toured the Persian Gulf last month with a few of his country’s leading arms traders. Critics of the trade are “completely at odds with reality”, the prime minister thundered.
It is right that a fresh ban on weapons sales to Libya has now been introduced. But we know that such bans can be lifted on the flimsiest of pretexts.
While the recent earthquake shook the bones of Christchurch in New Zealand, an earthquake of another kind rippled briefly through the Australian landscape. I want to make sure it is not ignored. The results of the 12 year nationwide Challenging Racism survey from the University of Western Sydney shocked me to the bone. Download the national results here, state comparisons here, and click on the map here to find out further information about racism in your region, which is where you are able to compare the different groups who are the main targets of racists with the state and national averages.
The results for Wide Bay-Burnett (my area in Queensland) confirm decades of personal observation, demonstrating the existence of significantly more racism than the state or national averages with US racial target of choice, Muslims at the top of the polls, a trend which is consistent from region to state to nation. Queenslanders are more prejudiced toward Aboriginal folks than Asians, a trend which is reversed in my region by a whisker. There are more equal opportunity haters in my neck of the woods it seems as there’s a scant couple of percent between the antipathy toward Indigenous folks, Asians and Jews.
% of Wide Bay respondents
Total QLD survey %
Total Australia survey %
Anti-Asian
36.4
27.9
23.8
Anti-Indigenous
35.8
29.0
27.9
Anti-Italian
17.0
12.7
11.0
Anti-British
8.5
7.5
7.8
Anti-Muslim
57.0
50.1
48.6
Anti-Semitic (Jewish)
33.9
23.5
23.3
Anti-Christian
14.5
9.0
9.7
Anti-Black African
–
–
27.0*
* Note: Responses for ACT, SA, Perth, NT and TAS only.
However, it doesn’t matter which shade of bigotry folks project, their carbon footprint is more related with their faith and participation or lack thereof in the modern idolatry of consumerism and its theoretical underpinnings in economic irrationalism.
Concerned about the carbon tax and its effect on your much abused budget? Are you not incensed you have voluntarily adopted a simpler less consumerist lifestyle for years and you will now be punished further by price rises because of the irresponsible behaviour of the rest of the wretches with whom you share these colonial shores? Gillard’s vaunted “educative” spanking effect from the carbon tax on consumer habits may be short-lived and very quickly, the population will resume its profligate ways, as with the GST, another notable government tax grab. We need a broader vision, with a widet more-effective brush, and not the the faux “Billy Tea Party” offered by Cory Bernardi, one must quickly add.
Here’s an idea to substitute for the carbon tax which would have a multiplier effect elsewhere, by encouraging holiday makers to less polluting relaxation.
End the cruise ship industry now – it is an anachronism which mainly benefits a tiny fraction of the population, the ruling elite. If Australia closed down all cruise ship industries, a good proportion of our carbon tax would be paid in advance. Noone would be screaming except rich boaties, cruise ship companies,.gluttonous tourists and their class allies, the politicians whom they pamper with campaign donations and dinners at yacht. Who *really needs* to go on a cruise ffs … end the cruise shipping industry now, do the planet and everyone but the rich and/or stupid and their enablers a favour. For those who simply must have a ‘cruise’, the ships can be permanently based ashore where waste can be disposed of properly and fuel impact removed. My favourite whiners against my stellar idea thus far are self-labelled greenies who have taken Alaskan cruises so they can say they’ve seen the result of the Exxxon Valdez oil spill disaster. These folks must do better. There’s plenty of room for productive extension also, by cutting back on defence force ship size and number, and on commercial shipping generally. At the very least, tightening of pollution regulations across the oceans would contribute greatly to the reduction of the human carbon AND pollution footprints.
For more positive climate change impact, consider this simple two pronged approach: (1) Lower the population by removing incentives for breeding by ensuring adequate pensions and care for aged folks, and (2) Educate women since educated women choose to breed less overall, “except for women who pursue the most advanced degrees. . Women with professional degrees and Ph.D.’s are slightly more likely to have had children than their counterparts with just master’s or bachelor’s degrees”.
Now, for some other climate saving ideas which anyone except the completely decrepit, lazy or unimaginative middle class twit can implement:
Climate savers #1 : Instead of *driving* to gym or sports club in your big shiny 4WD, walk or take a train; form a neighbourhood walking group
Climate savers #2 : Eat less, you corpulent middle class wankers
Climate savers #3: Don’t overbreed, it only viralises your existent pollution and ignorant consumerist mindset
Climate savers #4: If you really must breed, instead of buying little Georgina a puppy or the latest Nintendo, buy her a pet rock.
Climate savers #5: Instead of burning fossil fuels, burn politicians in a non-polluting furnace. Or use as mulch for your garden.
Climate savers #6: If there are no politicians left to feed the non-polluting furnace, throw in the farting cows. Consider drilling down the pollutant gas-producing food chain.
Climate savers #7: Surprise the husband and kids! experience the unexpected and stay HOME for the holidays. Talking with each other makes a novel, relaxing change so for added benefit, send your iPads, iPods and iPhones television, computers, wiis and xboxes on a holiday to a friend’s shed and/or for a jaunt through Australia Post snail mail so you are not tempted.
Climate savers #8: Instead of planning your next boastful debt to be for a below ground pool, plant a rainforest in your backyard.
Climate savers #9: Learn from 40,000 years of indigenous habitation of Australia – your white colonial consumerism and capitalism are unsustainable, planet and people unfriendly. Contrary to questionable popular beliefs, humans are more likely to survive as a species if they cooperate and live within the garden in balance rather than attempting to dominate and subdue it for the benefit of an insatiable ruling elite. Don’t vote against your own interests. The elite are relying on the fact that you have done this in the past.
Climate savers #10: Economic rationalism is irrational. Never trust a smiling politician or any other member of the ruling elite and if they are telling you to do something it is quite often something which they will not do themselves. Insist any politician or pundit who asks you to change your habits by going without something, practise what they preach and demonstrate how to do it themselves first. You might also remind them that carrots taste much better than sticks and are healthier for you and the planet too.
A US scientific study is pointing the finger at the global shipping industry as a major contributor to climate change.
The study has found that the one hundred thousand commercial ships which travel the world’s oceans emit almost half as much particle pollution as the world’s 600 million cars.
The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
And the lead author is calling for an improvement in the quality of shipping fuels.
In the past, ships running under flags of convenience have been exposed in reports like the Ships of Shame inquiry as being unsafe for crews and polluting the ocean.
Now scientists have put a figure on exactly how much air pollution is emitted by the world’s shipping fleet.
US-based scientist Daniel Lack, who works for a US government agency called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has found every year commercial ships emit 1 million kilograms of particle pollution into the air.
The cruise ship industry is largely a North American phenomenon, and more than 80 percent of the approximately seven million passengers traveling are North Americans. The cruise ship market has expanded slightly in the Mediterranean and very slightly in the Far East. In Europe there are a large number of smaller passenger vessel services operating in the domestic or car ferry markets, but these vessels tend to provide transportation rather than entertainment and tourism.
Given their lucrative ties to the United States market, it is hardly surprising that the major cruise lines all maintain their principal offices in the United States. For example, Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. has its corporate headquarters in Miami and employs approximately 1200 personnel throughout the United States. Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise line company in the world, has several offices in the US, as well as personnel and properties scattered throughout the country. Carnival owns twelve cruise brands, including Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, and Windstar Cruises, all of which operate in North America. Royal Caribbean has its principal executive office in Miami.
The cruise line industry will exhibit strong growth throughout the next two decades. The average annual growth of the industry has been almost eight percent since 1980, and with the world fleet of 230 cruise ships operating at 90 percent capacity, there are no signs of this growth slowing. North America is the largest market, and surveys indicate that 56 percent of Americans want to take cruises, while only 11 percent have done so. The number of cruise line passengers worldwide is projected to triple to 15 million by 2020, according to one industry expert.
Experiencing the stupidity of high density high consumption human living on the high seas – New York on the waves!
When she launches in 2010, Allure of the Seas will share the title of the world’s largest and most revolutionary cruise ship with sister-ship Oasis of the Seas. An architectural marvel at sea, Allure of the Seas will span 16 decks, encompass 220,000 gross registered tons (GRT), carry 5,400 guests at double occupancy, and feature 2,700 staterooms. Allure of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas, will be homeported at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Allure of the Seas will tout the cruise line’s new neighborhood concept of seven distinct themed areas, which will offer guests of every age the widest array of onboard vacation experiences that cater to their personal styles, preferences or moods. Guests will enjoy lush and tropical grounds open to the sky in Central Park, located in the center of the ship and spanning more than the length of a football field. Central Park will be lined with boutiques and specialty restaurants, ranging from casual to fine dining, and introduce balcony staterooms rising five decks above the storefronts and overlooking the park – one of a few new categories of onboard accommodations made possible by the ship’s revolutionary design.
For a quick digression, here’s what happened when bigots took flight against Muslims in Orange County, California, recently.
A quarter of Australians describe their personal attitude towards Muslims as negative or very negative, according to a detailed national survey on social cohesion and immigration.
People who are most likely to be highly intolerant towards Muslims include those who are over 65, educated to year 11, work in trades and intended to vote Liberal/National or independent.
Why not call out Beyonce, Usher, Mariah Carey, and so many other artists, all of whom have performed in Israel, a state which practices a form of apartheid worse than anything the South African apartheid government had ever done? In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly defined the crime of Apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” As Israel’s official policy privileges Jewish nationals over non-Jewish citizens, creating de facto and de jure discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian people, it is hard to dispute that this supposed “democracy” is in reality an apartheid state.
Jewish stabber not charged with murder. Other teens involved in murder of Arab man to stand trial for aggravated assault, obstruction of justice. Father of victim: ‘My son brutally murdered for speaking Arabic’
When urged at the start of January by Assange’s publisher to help him write his memoirs I said I was ready to assist, but only if I had strong editorial input and that no subject was off-limits. This, I was told, was not acceptable. Roughly at the same time our organisation started asking questions about Israel Shamir, a man accused of Holocaust denial and of being a close associate of Belarus’s autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko. Index is one of the founders of the Belarus Committee. Despite repeated but polite requests to WikiLeaks, our team was stonewalled, so we went public with our concerns.
Assange’s reported conspiracy remarks to Private Eye magazine about me and senior figures in the Guardian do not help his cause. With so many genuine adversaries, why seek more? His approach has reinforced a view that whistleblowing is the preserve of irresponsible eccentrics – playing into the hands of malign forces in the US seeking to prosecute him for “terrorism” or under the espionage act.
Thanks in large part to WikiLeaks, no matter how hard the authorities try, it will be impossible in future to prevent conscientious whistleblowers from passing on material that seeks to cast a light on the actions of the powerful – information that might otherwise remain secret. Due to the published documents, people around the world – notably in the Middle East and north Africa – have a better sense of what others thought of their autocratic leaders. All this is the positive legacy. The rest is soap opera or, dare I say it, Tinseltown.
