In a statement provided by the Shalom Institute program director, Michael Misrachi, organisers said they decided to rule out presenters who advocated the boycott because it undermined the event’s engagement with Israeli academic and artistic institutions and their representatives.
”This is not about censorship, nor are we seeking to stifle dissenting views. Limmud-Oz is proud of the principles of pluralism and inclusiveness which guide us and Limmuds around the world,” it read.
Mr Misrachi confirmed Dr Slezak and Ms Porzsolt’s names were removed from the list of speakers on the event’s website following complaints.
Two other speakers have since pulled out of the festival in protest at the ban, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.
Ms Porzsolt, who said she would still attend the festival, told organisers in an email they had misrepresented the boycott, and asked them to reconsider.
”My proposed workshop was not even on BDS … The exclusion of me as a person for the ideas I hold generally, and not because of the topic of my workshop, smacks of excommunication,” it read.
The chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff, said it endorsed the decision of the Shalom Institute.
There is a breaking point for Palestinian patience and Netanyahu is making sure that we reach it soon. Clouding the issues will not change the fact that millions of Palestinians in the territories are under occupation and siege. Their national aspiration for liberation has not died down nor will it recede. Netanyahu may have buried the peace process but he has brought back to life the Arab-Israeli conflict, this time in a changing Arab world!
Whatever outcome there is, whether one or two states in the land that was Palestine until the conflict began in 1948, all citizens must enjoy equal rights, whether, they’re Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, whether men or women. … Until President Obama is willing or able to use U.S. leverage with Israel to hold it accountable under the law, then Israel will continue to colonize Palestinian land, and the Arab world will continue to hold America responsible.
In the West Bank, Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, called the speech “a declaration of war against the Palestinians.”
“This is an escalation and unfortunately, it received a standing ovation,” he told The Associated Press. He noted that Mr. Netanyahu had rejected Palestinian demands on issues as central as future borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of refugees.
…
Mr. Netanyahu said that the Palestinian leader must do what he has done: “I stood before my people and I said, ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’ It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’ ”
He added: “Those six words will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With those six words, the Israeli people will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise.”
@avinunu I am Israel, I expel you, oppress you, deny your history, accuse you of having a culture of hate, then demand that you recognize & love me. Shir Hever: ‘The prospect of a democratic state in which Palestinians will be equal citizens is more threatening to the Israeli government than an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and because of that the Israeli government will implement, and has already began to implement, mechanisms by which to turn the PA into a subcontractor of occupation.’ Obama admin pleased that Netanyahu refuses to acknowledge Zionist racism Disagreement is treason: VIDEO: AIPAC Attendees Say Jews Who Criticize Israel Are Traitors, Demand Loyalty To Netanyahu
Omar Barghouti: “There is no Israeli nationality, just Jewish nationality. Israel is the only nation on earth which does not offer nationality to all its citizens.”
“You don’t acquire a right by committing a crime.”
“Colonisers don’t have natural rights in acquired territory.”
Chomsky 1976: ‘There is no such thing as “Israeli nationality” in the state of Israel. There is a “Jewish nation” but no “Israeli nation”. (In “The Arabs in Israel” – Sabri Jiryis)
Obama’s use of demographic scare-mongering indicates an acceptance of the fundamentally racist view that the mere existence of certain categories of humans (in this case non-Jewish Palestinians) in a country is unacceptable and dangerous – even if they or their parents or grandparents were born in that country. Palestinians “west of the Jordan River” are not interlopers or intruders. They are indigenous people of the country. Instead of searching for ways for Israel to escape them by gerrymandering a bantustan, Obama should be calling for full and equal rights, nothing less.
Israel is not supported by the Australian state (and Western powers) because of strong Israel lobbies in these countries or because politicians simply are misinformed and can do with a bit more reading. Unfortunately, they are informed all too-well and choose to support Israel regardless of its human rights violations. Israel serves a fundamental role as a pillar of support for western hegemony over the Middle East. Understanding this allows us to shift our longer-term Palestine solidarity organizing from lobbying politicians on an individual basis and writing letters to the media, to actually taking on the harder work of building a mass movement that targets the very economic and political connections that allow apartheid to continue. The strategic demands of boycott, divestment, and sanctions that we put forward target the powerful economic and ideological ties between North American, European, and Australian capital and apartheid Israel.
The rationale to “intervene” was that child abuse among Aborigines was in “unthinkable numbers”. This was a fraud. Out of 7 433 Aboriginal children examined by doctors, four possible cases were identified. This is about the rate of child abuse in white Australia. What this covered was an old-fashioned colonial grab of mineral-rich land in the Northern Territory where Aboriginal land rights were granted in 1976.
The Murdoch press has been the most lurid and vociferous in its promotion of the “intervention”, which a United Nations special rapporteur has condemned for its racial discrimination. Once again, Australian politicians are dispossessing the first inhabitants, demanding leasehold of land in return for health and education rights that whites take for granted and driving them into “economically viable hubs” where they will be effectively detained – a form of apartheid.
The outrage and despair of most Aboriginal people is not heard. For using her institutional voice and exposing the government’s black supporters, Larissa Behrendt has been subjected to a vicious campaign of innuendo in the Murdoch press, including the implication that she is not a “real” Aborigine. Using the language of its soulmate the London Sun, the Australian derides the “abstract debate” of “land rights, apologies, treaties” as a “moralising mumbo-jumbo spreading like a virus”. The aim is to silence those who dare tell Australia’s dirty secret.
And here are my notes, scattered widdershins in the detritus of a surly Friday afternoon after wasting good dreamtime in today’s early hours to listen to Obama’s imperious snake oil salesmanship live. His neocolonisation of history and efforts to turn Arab spring into neoliberal winter were impressively transparent. With seductive offers of finance infrastructure and job creation, Enterprise Funds and ‘a comprehensive Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa;, Obama sounded more interventionist than any neocon.
Did you appreciate how Obama took oil exports out of the equation? ‘If you take out oil exports, this region of over 400 million people exports roughly the same amount as Switzerland.’ That’s US oil he’s talking about. It will pay for the sleazy neoliberal debt dependency structures he was touting and of course maintain existing US/EU arms sales to the region which are calibrated by Israel’s US congressionally legislated, guaranteed Qualitative Military Edge.
This had to be the most ironic line: ‘Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress – the corruption of elites who steal from their people’. Ahem. Wall Street? Goldman Sachs, Enron, Kellogg Root, Halliburton, Blackwater … plenty to be working on back home, Obama.
Obama on Palestine
Obama: ‘Palestinians have walked away from talks.’ Well, Obama, you failed to put your professedly impotent foot down on settlement activity, what do you think Palestinians should do about the theft of their land?
Obama: ‘For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.’
Israel is doing the lion’s share of delegitimising itself through its criminal atrocities. Obama’s unctuous moral vacuity is suited to a sycophantic AIPAC audience, not to people in the ME.
Obama: ‘We support a set of universal rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders — whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran. ‘ BUT NOT IN PALESTINE OR ISRAEL. Does he even comprehend his moral hypocrisy?
Obama: ‘Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and respect for the rights of minorities.’ Except when the minorities are Palestinians in Israel.
Again, Obama declared fake US impotence as a peacemaker between Israel and Palestinians, instead supporting Nutanyahoo’s disgraceful de-militarised bantustan plan, though not IDF presence in the Jordan Valley.
Obama: ‘As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism; to stop the infiltration of weapons; and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. The duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.’
Obama: ‘But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.’
Obama is assenting to Lieberman’s sinister interim plan. Israel gets the territory and the security. Palestinians get a de-militarised, defenceless bantustan. That’s fair?
How can a ‘sovereign’ state not have the right to defend itself against a monstrous predator neighbour, whose representative, Danny Danon, the very morning of Obama’s speech trumpeted Israel’s incipient genocidal intent?
For the US, ongoing division between Palestinians and Israelis works out well in a regional context. It keeps Israel weak. A combined Palestinian/Israeli entity would have the potential to challenge US regional power. So Obama can pretend to have his hands tied by the nasty Israel lobby, and still blither sleazily about universal human rights and fake sovereignty for Palestinians which are really both sacrificed for the shibboleth of Israeli ‘security’. So the ‘peace process’ masquerade continues to be insulated by the hegemon, enabling more happy years of land theft and genocide by Israel.
The interests of the ruling US and zioelite are complementary. Obama can throw his hands up and say the US is unable to impose a solution, and absolve himself from promoting justice or human rights for Palestinians – the cognitive dissonance between professed US values and practice is the same old hypocrisy of empire, which pretends nobility whilst exploiting vulnerable people to serve its own ‘interests’ (read interests of its ruling elite and cronies).
Obama: ‘That is the choice that must be made — not simply in this conflict, but across the entire region — a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past, and the promise of the future’.
Obama, Amerikkka and Israel are shackled by the past, they are the shackles of the past and present, and offer no promise except that of more shackles – of neoliberal debt and oppression. No choice there, so I choose to hope that sufficient people see through the obnoxious fascist and imperialist rhetoric to the present need for resistance to tyranny and imperialism. Yes, Obama, ‘tyranny does fall’, and so will Israel and Amerikkka. Your words are drivel from an empire which has long since lost its vigour, an untrustworthy, exploitative, racist entity without a soul.
Just walk away, folks, the naked empire is doomed by its complicity with oppression, it has little to offer but more oppression.
UPDATE
Ali Abunimah on Al Jazeera English 20/5/11:
“peace process is dead, two state solution is dead, buried today, not for the first time’ @avinunu on @ajenglish
‘nothing is enough for nutanyahoo, nothing is enough for israel, time for sanctions & BDS’ @avinunu on @AJEnglish
the world’s superpower has no intention of bringing Israel to heel; Israeli intransigence is what is staying in the way of peace.’ @avinunu
?’US is really not going to stand up for itself and certainly not for the Palestinians.’ @avinunu on @AJEnglish
‘The US-supported repression in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, and in the United Arab Emirates goes hand in hand with the Euro-American-Qatari intervention in Libya to safeguard the oil wells for Western companies once a new government is in place.
…
While it is true that revolutionaries make their own history, as Karl Marx famously put it, “they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”
Guarding against the co-optation of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions is the hope of all Arabs today.
The question is, will the international community finance a military takeover in Egypt despite massive public support for a democratic, civilian-run government?
Egypt has officially requested financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund to meet an expected $10 billion to $12 billion funding shortfall between now and June 2012, an IMF official said Thursday. “We are negotiating with IMF for loans of between $3-4 billion and with World Bank for about $2.2 billion,” Finance Minister Samir Redwan said.
If these loans are granted, Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will have been given a giant green light to dismiss Egyptians’ grievances and continue to be a ruthless, controlling army instead of a loyal army.
The second wave of Egyptian Revolution is already scheduled for May 27.’
‘People are blaming the revolution for new oil crises despite this is not the first time it happens , in fact some people tend to forget in the past few years of Mubarak we have even more worse crises. Where was the revolution when people were actually killing each other to get a loaf of bread during the time of Mubarak !?’
Netanyahu’s Israel is on course to become a pariah state Rashid Khalidi: A more democratic Arab world, should that be the outcome of the revolutionary events of the past five months, will be far less tolerant of U.S. acquiescence in a fifth decade of illegal Israeli occupation and a seventh of Palestinian dispossession.
Live Tweets of Note
@amities the game plan is always to keep the region from unifying and thus alienating control of the resources
RT @avinunu: The best Marshall Plan would be an orderly US withdrawal from other peoples’ countries and business. #mespeech
Just say “NO” to yankee dollars – the interest never goes away & they take the farm as well
Never trust a smiling imperialist with tankloads of cash
RT @Henry_Kissinger: Preview of Obama’s speech: We support freedom in Iran, Libya & Israel but not in Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi, Yemen & Palestine. Got it? V @avinunu
RT @ANagdi: People demand the #SCAF to turn down the #USA aid. #Jan25 #TahrirTv #ArabSpring #May27 #Egypt #MEspeech @BarackObama @YosriFouda
Hillary Shillary dress matches the Israeli flag nicely #mespeech
Protests to politics, Hillary? you mean that, that protests aren’t political??? #mespeech
Obama: square by square, town by town, country by country, … is he a real estate agent? #mespeech
Accurate spotting there mate 🙂 RT @JNewsLondon: he’s quoting Qaddafi’s ‘zenga zenga’ – I wonder if he realizes #mespeech
RT @hocinedim: Well done Obama, not mentioning #Bahrain and #Yemen. That’s not obvious and completely transparent. #mespeech
broaden our approach, mutual interests, mutual respect … stability, fault lines – newspeak #mespeech
RT @LowkeyMusic1: The eloquent voice of an empire in decline.. #mespeech
focus the world as it should be … with humility #newspeak #mespeech
universal rights, peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, right to choose your own leaders l… bye bye saudi dictators? #mespeech
Libya … well, fk me dead, the rebels took up arms too, obama … which violence do you oppose again? #mespeech
The syrian govt does what the israeli govt does too – why only criticise syria, Obama?? eh eh ?? #mespeech
Obama is neocolonising history #mespeech
RT @kungfujew18: “If you take the risks” to reach democracy “the US will support you” — and in Palestine? #MEspeech
Politics alone has not put protesters into the streets? #orientalism #mespeech
RT @HybridStates Obama’s “tough talk” to Israel is essentially a national blow-job. #mehspeech hahahaaa
RT @hocinedim: If anyone still thought that the peace process and 2-state solution were alive Obama quashed those hopes. #mespeech
RT @JNewsLondon: Time for the region to take the lead. Time for Arabs to stand for justice. #MEspeech
RT @avinunu: Obama: “All men are created equal” and “recognize Israel as a Jewish state.” Huh? WTF? #mespeech
RT @avinunu: How is Obama’s #mespeech different from Bush’s Freedom Agenda? Oh yeah, it isn’t.
RT @hocinedim: Now Obama made it clear that the US continues to be an counter-revolutionary force, can his Arab cheerleaders STFU? #mespeech
RT @Ultra_Bravo: if US supports 1967 borders, why is it opposing palestine’s declaration of state at the UN? #MEspeech #thingsthatdontmakesense
RT @Remroum: Dear #Obama: check out this Israeli “hate & violence” rt @theimeu Butt of a Rifle in His Face: http://bit.ly/larsBK
RT @sahoura: Obama mentioned “delegitimization” more than international law #Palestine #mespeech via @benabyad
RT @benabyad: “moving forwrd on basis of territory/security = foundation 4 resolving other issues” Obama endorsed Lieberman’s “interim” plan
RT @rowanahmed: dear supreme council of the armedforces,we have had enough from and if u didn’t already notice all Egyptians hate u so may u plz leave #scaf
believe Jews are a foreign imprint on the Middle East and are destined to be replaced by Palestinians, and a similar proportion believe that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state.
…
Among Arabs, 71% said they blamed Jews for the hardships suffered by Palestinians during and after the “Nakba” in 1948. The survey also found that the percentage of Arabs taking part in “Nakba Day” commemorations rose from 12.9% in 2003 to 36.1% in 2010. In addition, 37.8% of Arabs polled in the survey said they didn’t believe that millions of Jews had been the victims of a campaign of genocide waged by Nazi Germany.
Among Jewish respondents, 57.7% said they didn’t believe that a disaster of any sort happened to the Palestinians in 1948, and 68.1% expressed their opposition to public Nakba commemorations.
Also, 66.8% said the Palestinians bore the blunt of the blame for the continued conflict between Jews and Arabs.
Among Jewish respondents, 32.6% said they supported a cancellation of the voting rights of Arab citizens, and 16.5% said they were against the rights of an Arab minority to live in Israel.’
Further to the existent and potential neoliberalism (formalisation of bantustan economy) in any incipient Palestinian state is the role that state of bantustans would play in the predatory US regional strategic plan as it counters the ‘arab spring’. Since Nutanyahoo doesn’t have the political capital or intention to offer a viable sovereign Palestinian state, the possibility for such is strictly hypothetical.
As more countries recognise a Palestinian state prior to another proposed declaration of same in September, Israeli politicians have moved to counter it with plans for annexation. However, if the OPT or parts thereof are annexed, Israel will have institutionalised apartheid systemically, highlighting the existing Palestinian bantustans and the two tiered racist zionist entity where non-jews are discriminated against by more than 20 laws. At that point, Israel will become unsustainable to the point of complete self-delegitimisation. The struggle will then be firmly focussed on equal rights for all, and the ethical nature of and necessity for BDS, boycotts, divestments and sanctions will be affirmed even more strongly.
Hamas has long signalled its desire to move away from armed struggle toward purely political means – this is the essence of its proposed hudna, or long-term truce, with Israel. It is of course possible to defend the legitimate and universal right to armed resistance against occupation, while choosing not to exercise it. “Where there is occupation and settlement, there is a right to resistance. Israel is the aggressor,” Meshaal told The New York Times on May 5, “But resistance is a means, not an end.”
Yet to choose different means, a movement has to have a viable political strategy and a clear definition of its ends. Hamas has failed to articulate, or to rally the Palestinian people around either. Instead its strategy appears to be simply to sign on to the inherently unjust, and infeasible “two-state solution” – and hope for admission to “the peace process”.
After delays and unscrupulous attempts to keep him out of the US, Omar Barghouti is finally allowed into the US for his speaking tour to promote his new book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.
Omar comments on BDS, the current Israeli onslaught in Gaza, US complicity and the overall Middle East scene.
We’re seeing a not just sea change in Arab diplomacy after the departure of Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt. First we saw the U.S. veto against its own position for decades that Israel’s colonial settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace. The U.S. had to veto that, because there was no longer Mubarak to do its dirty work. If Mubarak were still around, he would have pressured the Palestinians to pull this out of the Security Council and not to embarrass the U.S. So the U.S. had to vote against its own position and to stand in this little dark corner with Israel facing the entire world community. So we’re seeing here some change, some real change, in the tone of the Arab League and of the Arab officials towards the Palestinians. Absolutely, a no-fly zone is more justified than ever over Gaza. Why should it be over Libya only, and Israelis, as an occupying power, continue to bomb Gaza with U.S. weaponry, F-16s and U.S. missiles?
…
Israel is feeling this complete imbalance in its so-called Arab neighbor. So, Israel is losing that cover, and this is extremely important for our movement. And it has given a boost to the Palestinian nonviolent movement, especially in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. We saw a lot of growth around the world.
…
In the last year or so, especially after the attack on the flotilla, we’ve seen a very steep rise in cultural boycott of Israel. So we’re connecting this with the cultural resistance on the ground. It’s not just that the Palestinians are continuing to produce culture to counter Israel’s occupation and apartheid, but we’re also calling on performers, musicians, theater directors, and so on, not to perform in Israel, as they did during the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
…
The BDS movement is based on international law and universal principles of human rights. We have Israeli partners. We have many faith communities, many trade unions supporting the movement now. It has really grown drastically, and this is why it’s worrying Israel, because it has not yet developed a weapon to counter this simple nonviolent movement. It’s not a centralized, dogmatic kind of movement. It doesn’t have a very difficult agenda. It’s a basic, liberal, decent agenda based on human rights that any person can join. And many people have been joining.
Omar Barghouti : “People have rights, and when we say we want to end Israel’s multitiered system of oppression…we must immediately, in the same sentence, say people have equal rights in every formal way” . Author, activist and professor Sarah Schulman has been involved with the Palestinian queer movement, emphasizing that their struggle is deeply tied to the struggle to end the occupation.
Fight to rescind the Goldstone report reaches the US Congress : the evil ziolobby in the US attempts to quash the evidence of war crimes. This is possibly an indication of the fear by which this report is held by the ziolobby. Fortunately, the UN is not subject to this sort of outrageous bullying and the UNGA may take this as further incitement against it and react in the opposite manner to which the ziolobby intends. I’m hoping for a Uniting for Peace resolution which will permit Israel and its scumbag US accomplice to be thwarted by ICC action regardless of US power.
‘According to Ros-Lehtinen, the initiative will “make it U.S. policy to demand that the UN General Assembly revoke and repudiate the Goldstone Report and any UN resolutions stemming from the report, and will refund to U.S. taxpayers their share of the costs for the report and its follow-on measures.”’
“They know very well that we’ll hit public institutions and have even instructed students to continue attending school,” he said, adding, “How ironic that while their kids continue to attend school, they keep firing rockets deep into Israeli territory.”
Goldstone’s community in Johannesburg summoned Goldstone to a meeting with the Jewish Federation at which communal leaders essentially indicted Goldstone for being a traitor.
As our southern towns continue to come under heavy fire, Israel must respond disproportionately until normalcy and calm are reestablished and our waning deterrence has been restored
Where exactly is the extremism with this vision that is “rooted in a century-old history of civil, non-violent resistance against settler colonialism, occupation and ethnic cleansing”? The extremism is more likely to be found in the anti-BDS propaganda, comparing this unarmed resistance to the Nazi boycott of Jews in 1930’s, whereby “dehumanizing them…is a vital step on the way to genocide”.
…
Australia’s bipartisan loyalty to Israel is apparently in question when the Greens gain the balance of power in the Senate in three months. Is this because the major parties need to save face with Israel or Australia?. Over 100 Australian leaders have ‘graduated’ from the Rambam Israel Fellowship, including Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Alexander Downer and Bill Shorten. The six day program is engineered by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. By their own admission, the Rambam organisers have declared that “for the money we invest in, you can’t ask for better results”.
The latest vilification of the BDS campaign is yet another example of a return on this investment.
The AIJAC organisation which pays for the Rambam hasbara fellowships which 100 pollies etc have been on is a private organisation which doesn’t disclose its funding. Sourcewatch says:
‘The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is a right wing lobby group based in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. On its website and in the media, AIJAC often claims to represent the Australian Jewish community, stating that it “represents the interests of the Australian Jewish community to government, media and other community groups and organisations.” [1]. In reality, it is a small, privately funded think tank which represents no one but its own small membership.
AIJAC describes itself as a think tank, however it does not do original research, and focuses mostly on political lobbying. It has been described as “an aggressive, no holds barred, privately funded, political lobby group. It is variously described as “the only effective organisation that lobbies for Israel”, a “Melbourne based pro-Zionist think-tank”, “Zionist propagandists”, “contentious”, but not a body, according to the President of the New South Wales Board of Deputies, “that is in any elected or democratic sense representative of the community”. ‘
‘AIJAC’s website states that it is “associated with” the American Jewish Committee’
“The Pratt Foundation was established in 1978 by Richard and Jeanne Pratt with the shared vision of supporting charitable enterprises and adding value to philanthropy. The Foundation is now one of the largest private sources of philanthropy in Australia. In the words of its mission statement, it aims “to enrich the lives of our community” and, in the words of Jeremiah, it works to fulfil this aim in a spirit of “kindness, justice and equity”.” [1]
“Through the Pratt Foundation, Visy donates over $10 million to a wide range of causes.”
The Israeli government is clever in using settlers. They are trying to say that Hebron is important for religious history, but what I hear from settlers is that it is a step towards taking Nablus, Ramallah, and the entire West Bank. Hebron is a frontline. If they succeed here in their campaign of ethnic cleansing under the banner of religion, they will move on to new goals.
Reading from a Wikileaks document, Finkelstein revealed that Israeli officials privately announced to an American representative that Israel planned to bring Gaza’s economy to the brink of collapse.
“There never has been, is not, and never will be a peace process,” Finkelstein said. “Rational people don’t judge by words, they judge by outcomes and results. Truthfully, it is an annexation process that uses peace as a facade.”
But when Israel supporters whine about the “anti-Israel climate on campus”, let’s not forget that the only groups with money to take out full-page ads are Israel advocates.
For the people of Libya, there can be no quick fix. Not only will the post-invasion Libyan state lack the means to defend its sovereignty externally, a post-invasion Libyan government will need to accommodate a highly fractured society through patient coalition-building, if Libyan society is not to disintegrate into an Afghan-style civil war.
That necessary work will have to be political, not military. For that work to begin, the first prerequisite is an end to the NATO invasion and a ceasefire.
‘the attack the NSW Greens have endured is not simply about discrediting the third force in Australian politics – although that certainly is one of the aims. This campaign of slander is, more broadly, an attempt to intimidate anyone even thinking about taking a principled anti-racist stance against Israel.
The right’s unwavering devotion to Israel’s cause is not, as they claim, a function of their support for freedom and democracy, but a reflection of their unquestioning support for Western domination of the Arab world. For that reason at least, supporters of Palestine need to stand firm against the ravings of the pro-Zionist right.’
Wikileaks Links
#Wikileaks @ioerror harassed & detained at airport AGAIN by CBP who say ‘You remember 9/11? That’s why!’ #US #fascism #policestate #
@ioerror Of course, I was again denied access to my lawyer, again denied information on my “random” screening, and I missed my connecting flight. #
@ioerror While asking questions, they located Gene Sharp books about authoritarianism and obedience. Apparently, something some passengers lack. #
@ioerror When I discussed my detainment with one of the officers, before I’d missed my flight, I was told that I was making it harder on myself. #
@ioerror The actual interactions with the border guards are certainly becoming less and less pleasant. The CBP agents in Texas also served in Iraq. #
@ioerror Needless to say, I do not actually believe that Americans are safer because Agent Rodriguez and his buddies were Army snipers in Iraq. #
