Ever feel like you’ve heard this somewhere before?
Whatever it takes to keep the Jewish state focused on bombing innocent civilians:
Israeli fighter pilots may soon be receiving Viagra-style pills to help them to perform better at greater heights, according to a study by military officials released yesterday.
While the potential use of antiimpotence pills may make pilots’ enemies in the Middle East crack a joke or two at their expense, military researchers believe the ingredients that allow improved blood flow for men suffering from sexual problems may help flyers operating at very high altitudes.
Tudou, the Chinese video sharing site, claims to have overtaken YouTube with over one billion megabytes of data transfers every day.
Dahr Jamail, The Nation, February 8, on the likely effects of a US withdrawal from Iraq:
We have a specific example of what would likely happen throughout Iraq if the US were to withdraw completely. When the Brits recently pulled out of their last base in Basra City late last year, The Independent reported that according to the British military, violent attacks dropped 90 percent. I think that goes to show that the Brits down in Basra, like the Americans in central and northern Iraq, have been the primary cause of the violence and the instability.
And I think it’s easy to see that when the US does pull out completely, we would have a dramatic de-escalation in violence. We would have increased stability and it would be the first logical step for Iraqis to form their own government. This time, it would actually have popular support, unlike the current government, where less than 1 percent of Iraqis polled even support it or even find it legitimate at all.
A Western journalist set to cover the upcoming Beijing Olympics games said recently that he is concerned that communist authorities will crack down and arrest reporters who cover social repression in the country.
Francesco Liello, China correspondent for La Gazetta dello Sport of Italy and the first reporter credentialed for the games told a recent conference he is concerned about coverage.
Liello has already been arrested for working on a story about alleged doping of young Chinese athletes and said he fears overzealous authorities could ruin what otherwise promises to be a spectacular event.
From forcing the rescue of hundreds of brick kiln slave laborers last year and seeing it through long after local bodies gave up to being analytical piranhas when dealt obvious official lies, and numerous examples in between, it seems some netizens have realized their comparative advantage over local government authorities and this hubris now brings us the China Netizen Party.
My following article appeared in yesterday’s Guardian Comment is Free section:
During the current Israeli siege of Gaza - correctly described by Saree Makdisi as “strangulation”, Israel’s ambassador to Australia issued a plea for understanding the Jewish state’s position.
The ambassador, Yuval Rotem, argued that, “the people of Gaza are not the enemy”. He also wrote, “nor is there any benefit from Israel making them so” but the words of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert directly contradicted him. “As far as I am concerned”, he said, “all of Gaza’s residents can walk and have no fuel for their cars, as they live under a murderous regime”.
Israel’s supreme court last week ruled that the state could limit the supply of petrol, diesel and electricity. Collective punishment is illegal under international law. Leading neoconservatives now proudly encourage the west to push Egypt to take full responsibility for Gaza. The worldwide Jewish community leadership responds with a shrug or remains complicit in its silence.
The one-year anniversary of the launch of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) in Britain signals a similar milestone for a movement I co-founded: Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV). As I described on this site last March, many Jews in Australia believed that the official Jewish leadership could not claim to speak on behalf of all Jews.
We gathered close to 500 signatures and launched a campaign of public awareness that made clear that a growing number of Jews would no longer issue unconditional support for every action of the Jewish state. The response was overwhelming and continues to this day. Barely a week passes without a disparaging comment about IAJV in the national Jewish newspaper, Australian Jewish News. Like IJV, we plan a series of events and speakers to expand debate in the public domain.
Australian media coverage of the Middle East conflict is predominantly friendly to Israeli goals, ably assisted by a new Labor government. A recent glowing article in Rupert Murdoch’s national broadsheet articulated the mindset: “Deep inside the plucky country”. But groups such as IAJV and IJV are undoubtedly reflecting a global shift in Jewish sentiment, increasingly vocal in their concerns over ongoing Zionist dominance.
A leading Israeli professor has warned that the relationship between Israel and the diaspora is drifting apart. The Jewish state, he said, was “no longer viewed as a safe haven, a source of pride”. Thirty-four per cent of Israeli children are now living in poverty. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu continues to compare conditions in Palestine to apartheid South Africa.
The current American presidential election has proven that unwavering support for Israel is an article of faith for the leading candidates. Republican contender Mike Huckabee writes that Washington should ignore the Middle East’s “terrorist states” - any nation that refuses to bend to Israeli dictates - and “defeat Islamofascism”. However, a recent study by the American Jewish Committee proved that this neoconservative doctrine is fundamentally opposed by a majority of American Jews.
A far saner suggestion, offered by dedicated Zionist writer AB Yehoshua, is for America to recall its ambassador in Israel until all West Bank settlements are removed. Despite all the rhetoric about a two-state solution, the ever-expanding occupation makes this impossible. The number of settlers in the West Bank grew by five per cent in 2007.
Australians are a long way from the Middle East, but a blind man could see that Israeli and American actions are making the region a more volatile place. Perhaps Haaretz editor David Landau was right when he said that the Jewish state had to be “raped” by America to achieve peace.
Western internet companies should get ready for many more cases like this one:
A Chinese scholar who challenged the Communist government by setting up a democratic opposition party has vowed to sue the US internet company Google for excising his name from its local search results.
If a company such as Google censors its own services in the Communist nation, it should not expect all citizens to accept it.
Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, The New Republic, February 4:
[Barack] Obama doesn’t understand that the Palestinians are more interested in
This is the default Zionist lobby position. Defame an entire people, deny their right to independent thought and presume terrorism lurks within every Palestinian.
Jews are noble, peace-loving and humane.
And Klein wonders why the Zionist lobby is under pressure like never before…
A new analysis by NBC News reveals that more than a quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report refer to controversial interrogation techniques. Ie. torture.
Dilip Hiro, Guardian Comment is Free, February 7:
Unless Washington takes a lead on turning the spotlight on Israel’s WMD, the idea of the WMD-free Middle East will remain empty rhetoric.
Is Iraq about to explode in further violence?
In the alleys of the ancient district of al-Salaikh in Baghdad, a Shia family fought a fierce gun battle with Sunni militiamen who tried to stop them reoccupying their house from which they had been forced to flee months earlier.
The Shia family got the worst of the fighting and, after suffering seven dead, sent a desperate message asking for help to the Mehdi Army, the powerful Shia militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that once would have rushed to defend them. On this occasion, however, the local Mehdi Army commander turned them down, saying: “We can do nothing because we are under orders not to break the ceasefire.”
It is this six-month ceasefire, declared on 29 August last year by Mr Sadr, which American commanders say is responsible for cutting much of the violence in Iraq. But the ceasefire will expire in the next few weeks and political and military leaders loyal to Mr Sadr are advising him not to renew it.
What could be more important than funding more wars around the world?
Voices without Votes is a new project that “opens a window on what non-Americans are saying in blogs and citizen media about US foreign policy and the 2008 presidential elections.”
Take a Haitian blogger on the US election or the Arab world on Barack Obama and religion.
Calling for war to bring peace to Darfur.
(That’s something only the mainstream media could achieve.)
Lynne Segal, Guardian Comment is Free, February 5:
Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) celebrates its first year with its eyes on Gaza, demanding an end to the Israeli blockade and, on the uneven playing field of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an end to human rights abuses on both sides.
IJV was formed a year ago to raise issues of human rights generally, but especially in that part of the world where we feel our voices might have most resonance, urging a fair and peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Happily, despite inevitable opposition, we quickly gained significant support and media coverage for our stance, especially in Jewish publications around the world.
Such exposure enabled us to further our goal in launching IJV, which was to change the parameters of the debate in this conflict: prioritising the issue of human rights, paying attention to the situation of both Palestinians and Israelis in the search for peace, opposing all forms of racism. Tragically, over this same year, we have seen no serious move coming from the vastly stronger party in the conflict, the Israeli state, towards ending the multiple human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories it controls.
My latest New Matilda column is about the recently released Winograd Report in Israel and what it says about the institutional failures within the Jewish state:
The release last week of the Israeli Government’s Winograd Report was designed to reveal the failures of the Lebanon adventure and hold military and political leaders to account. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defence Minister Amir Peretz were criticised for their conduct but Olmert appears to have saved his job. “We are all guilty” was how one Israeli commentator interpreted the report. Another labelled the war a victory. Winograd gave Israel a pass on its use of cluster bombs, despite warning that its future use may not conform to international law.
Amnesty International rightly challenged the report. It was, according to Amnesty spokesman Malcolm Smart, “another missed opportunity to address the policies and decisions behind the grave violations of international humanitarian law - including war crimes - committed by Israeli forces” in Lebanon. Smart went on: “The indiscriminate killing of many Lebanese civilians not involved in the hostilities and the deliberate and wanton destruction of civilian properties and infrastructure on a massive scale were given no more than token consideration by the commission.”
The Western conundrum over Islamism:
“So, you spoke to the leaders of Hezbollah?”
“Yes”
“And you also speak with the leaders of Hamas?”
“Yes”
“And they told you that they support democracy?”
“Yes”
“And you believe them?”
With this the leader of a Washington think-tank smiled satisfied to her audience and sat down.
Clearly the biting scepticism of her question “and you believe them?” was fairly clear. It implies a conviction that Islamists have nothing to say, or if they do speak, and when they do have something to say, that this is just babble with no particular meaning or sense to it. This exchange conveys the sense in the West that when Islamists speak, their language is somehow shadowy, unreachable and coded, whereas our language - the language of the West - is transparent, accessible and honest. When we say we support democracy, we are serious, whereas when Hezbollah or Hamas say that they support democracy, then they, of course, are lying. This is the implication of the way that the question above was framed.
The key issue in the 2008 American election: bullshit:
Murdoch’s Australian newspaper may continue to praise the recently deceased Indonesian dictator Soeharto - after all, human rights abuses against Communists and other “undesirables” is a small price to pay for economic development - so it’s worth remembering the legacy of another Western-favoured autocrat, Chile’s General Pinochet:
It’s true that, starting in 1973, Pinochet spearheaded the free-market policies that were later embraced so wholeheartedly by Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and by U.S. president Ronald Reagan through the 1980s. It’s also true that in the Western media that paternity is often ignored. Yet, one must realize that, contrary to some widespread perceptions, Chile’s economic performance during those 17 years of military rule was, at best, mediocre.
Leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals that last year’s Israeli bombing of Syria’s “nuclear” facilities was a classic case of false intelligence and hyped threats (and yet the mainstream media played along again):
Joseph Cirincione, the director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, told me, “Syria does not have the technical, industrial, or financial ability to support a nuclear-weapons program. I’ve been following this issue for fifteen years, and every once in a while a suspicion arises and we investigate and there’s nothing. There was and is no nuclear-weapons threat from Syria. This is all political.” Cirincione castigated the press corps for its handling of the story. “I think some of our best journalists were used,” he said.
UPDATE: Hersh discusses his story on CNN: