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By Jay Cables, on June 16, 2013, at 3:35 pm I’ve posted before about the work of a remarkable site called Breaking the Silence. It features candid video testimonials by former Israeli soldiers about the experience of being the uniformed enforcers of occupation and state control. The site has released a series of new testimonials by females who served in the Israeli military and I’ve chosen to post one that features testimony by a former soldier named Gil Hillel.
Hillel offers no solutions but simply states what the exercise of military power does to a human being… those who as Hillel describes it are made into ‘violent, aggressive creatures. (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on May 8, 2013, at 11:52 pm
The faces in this powerful video represent the millions around the world who are united against Israeli apartheid. The faces represent all of us… the eyes, the ears, the collective memory. These performers speak for us even as the US and other powers and agencies seek to give greater legitimacy to a state that hasn’t begun to repay what it owes and that continues its policies of brutal oppression. But the people of the world won’t play their game or look away… until reparations are made… until justice is fully served.
Published on Feb 18, 2013
This (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on May 8, 2013, at 9:16 pm Reknowned British physicist, Stephen Hawking, has withdrawn from a conference scheduled to be held in Jerusalem in June. The conference – Facing Tomorrow – is to be hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Last week Hawking wrote a brief letter to Peres announcing that he wouldn’t be participating. The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine described the decision by Hawking as “his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.”
Hawking’s principled decision is a welcome boost to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on May 5, 2013, at 11:52 pm
Google has changed the tagline on its homepage in the occupied territories from “Palestinian Territories” to “Palestine.” A Google spokesperson informed BBC that the company had consulted sources and authorities and was “…following the lead of the UN, Icann [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations.”
It’s hard to get overly enthused about a word above a Google search bar so long as actual Palestinians are under occupation, apartheid and treated like pariahs in their own land. Given the recent UN vote in favor of Palestine non-member observer (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on May 4, 2013, at 2:10 pm Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian – born in Haifa, son of German-Jewish parents who fled Nazi persecution. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom – director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.
Professor Pappé is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), The Modern Middle East (2005), A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (2003), and Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (1988).
In the above Press Club address Pappé (Read more…)
By Ezra Winton, on May 3, 2013, at 4:30 pm
The newest agit-POP video from the folks at the Albino Squirrel Vimeo Channel asks Morgan Freeman and CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi to stand with Palestinians and consider cancelling an event set to take place in a few days.
By Jay Cables, on April 25, 2013, at 6:46 am
The Irish-Americans of Boston were once a source of support and inspiration for nationalists in the north of Ireland during the dark days of The Troubles. During the hunger strikes by republican prisoners, the people of Boston protested the vile policies of Margaret Thatcher and raised funds. Cash was collected in pubs, clubs, churches, rallies… you name it. They also stepped up in the wake of Sunday Bloody Sunday to show solidarity – opening their hearts and their wallets. We’re not just talking the people of Boston, we’re talking about civic leaders and prominent politicians too.
For example in (Read more…)
By LeDaro, on April 21, 2013, at 2:36 pm What is the biggest threat to stability and peace in the Middle East? It is not Iran, Iraq, or Syria… it’s Israel. The government of Israel – especially prime ministers like Netanyahu – are a de-stabilizing force in the region. The hard line policies of those like Netanyahu drive open the divisions between the West and the Middle East.
Israel occupies Palestine, as well as portions of Syria and Lebanon. Rather than seeking a two-state solution, the Israeli government has continued to build settlements on the West Bank, dividing up Palestinian lands, preventing any sort of cohesive state from being (Read more…).
This is analogous to what happened in South Africa, where blacks were provided with divided and scattered territories known as “homelands” or “bantustans.” South Africa received international condemnation, what about Israel?
Israel has over two-hundred nuclear war heads, this from none other than former US president Jimmy Carter. . . . → Read More: LeDaro: Israel and Peace in the Middle East
By Jay Cables, on April 17, 2013, at 3:07 pm
Eran Elhaik, an Israeli-American geneticist working out of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, recently had his research published in the prestigious journal Genome Biology Evolution. The groundbreaking study – The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and Khazarian Hypotheses – explodes the commonly held belief that present day Jews are primarily descendants of the so-called “chosen people” – the ancient Israelite-Canaanite people who according to biblical myth inhabited the land of Judea. Elhaik’s research indicates that present day Jewish populations are mostly descendants of a Turkic people – Jewish converts known as the Khazars – (Read more…)
By Admin CP, on April 2, 2013, at 8:51 pm By: Veterans for Peace | Press Release: WASHINGTON – April 1, 2013 – Veterans for Peace has released the following statement: With the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq behind us, the task lies before us of preventing the next one. The Iraq war, like all wars, was launched on the basis [...]
The post Veterans for Peace: Please Don’t Iraq Iran or Any Other Nation appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.
By Jay Cables, on March 21, 2013, at 10:07 pm In Jerusalem at the start of his current visit to Israel, Obama went over-the-top with superlatives in a speech that employed high flown rhetoric and symbolism. He painted the US/Israel relationship in transcendent terms – “eternal” no less. In a later speech, adopting a more pragmatic approach, the president characterized Israeli settlements as “counterproductive” without directly calling for a halt to new settlements as he did in 2009. Much of the world condemns Israeli settlements as illegal – not merely an impediment to peace.
Obama’s artful diplomacy – praising Israel it to the skies on the one hand while mildly
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Rashid Khalidi’s ‘Brokers of Deceit’: how the U.S. has undermined the peace process
By LeDaro, on March 21, 2013, at 1:50 pm Obama is reporting to his boss Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is baffling how a small country like Israel has so much influence over Obama, Harper and many European leaders.
These very leaders complain and criticize Syria, and before that Libya, and provide help to overthrow their leaders. Yet no complaint about Israel’s atrocities against Palestine and other neighbouring countries.
By Obert Madondo, on March 16, 2013, at 4:10 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip as she tried to block the demolition of a Palestinian home. Her parents, Craig and Cindy, speak on the 10th anniversary of the killing of their daughter. WATCH: This [...]
By Song of the Watermelon, on March 15, 2013, at 3:56 pm On the same day that the world erupted in joyous, teary-eyed celebration following the selection of a new pope, a slightly less climactic breakthrough was reached thousands of kilometres away as four Israeli political parties, nearly two months after elections, quietly decided to form a coalition government. Right away, the deal seemed like it might fall apart over a last-minute dispute regarding deputy prime ministerial appointments, but two days later, all differences have been ironed out and the coalition agreement signed.
The chances were never exactly high that Israel would bend far enough to conclude a successful peace agreement (Read more…)
By pogge, on March 6, 2013, at 10:41 am Palestinians could face ‘consequences’ for pursuing Israel at the UN, says Baird
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has told a powerful pro-Israel lobby that Palestinians will feel “consequences” from Canada if they pursue the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court.
Baird issued the warning just as the federal government considers whether to end hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian humanitarian aid to the Palestinians when it expires at the end of this month.
It’s certainly a gross understatement to say that the Palestinians are over-matched in their dispute with Israel. A population that has suffered four and a
. . . → Read More: Peace, order and good government, eh?: Bullying above our weight
By LeDaro, on March 5, 2013, at 11:23 am
There has been great progress, great steps forward worldwide, in human and civil rights. In the United States, people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and others fought a hard battle against racial segregation – and for equal rights, such as voting – in the 1950s and 1960s, making great strides for African-Americans. These struggles paved the way, four decades later, for the election of the first African-American president, Barack Obama.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for almost thirty years for standing up against apartheid, would oversee the end of this appalling system of discrimination
. . . → Read More: LeDaro: Palestinians Need Their Rosa Parks
By Jay Cables, on March 4, 2013, at 10:40 am Mondoweiss has a post about a prank story that ran in the Jewish Press over the Purim holiday. Under the headline – “Defying Boycotts, Jagger, Stones, to Honor Israel’s 65th Birthday” – the JPress article makes the hoax claim that the Rolling Stones are scheduled to perform in Israel in April.
A badly photoshopped pic that accompanies the article shows Keith Richards with an arm around Ronnie Wood’s shoulder, awkwardly displaying Israel’s state symbol.
The way the article tells it, the Stones got savaged on Twitter and elsewhere for agreeing to perform in Jerusalem in honor of Israel Independence Day:
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Purim hoax: Rolling Stones ‘Israel performance’ story reported as real news by a few pundits
By Jay Cables, on February 19, 2013, at 11:07 pm
Top: Instagram ‘sniper’ image Below: Mor Ostrovski and weapons
A photo posted on the personal Instagram account of Israeli soldier, Mor Ostrovski, showing rifle crosshairs trained on the head of what appears to be a Palestinian youth has sparked outrage and criticism.
Ostrovski’s twisted visual isn’t exactly unusual. That Palestinian life is cheap in the eyes of some IDF soldiers comes across also in t’shirts. In an earlier post I discussed incredibly offensive anti-Palestinian t’shirt graphics, one of which depicted crosshairs trained on the stomach of a pregnant Palestinian woman along with the line “1 shot kills 2.”
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Mor Ostrovski’s offensive Instagram image: what it says about the IDF ‘culture of impunity’
By Jay Cables, on February 9, 2013, at 4:41 am
Standing for Free Speech: Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College in the run-up to the BDS event
The BDS panel discussion at Brooklyn College went ahead Thursday. It proceeded as planned despite efforts to discredit the event and intimidate the College in what really amounted to an attack on academic freedom. The detractors as mentioned in my previous post included NYC politicos and even a few Democratic members of Congress.
The backlash by Israel supporters to the event was over-the-top – driven in more than a few cases by a hardline pro-Israel mindset that brooks little or no
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: BDS event at Brooklyn College goes as planned despite backlash by Israel supporters
By Jay Cables, on February 4, 2013, at 11:58 pm
Top: Brooklyn College / Beneath: Dov Hikind and Alan Dershowitz
Brooklyn College in New York has been the target of protests following a decision by the political science department to cosponsor a panel discussion on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Speakers for the event include the University of California Berkeley philosopher, Judith Butler, and Palestinian political analyst, Omar Barghouti.
The BDS movement reflects the consensus in Palestinian civil society for a broad based and ongoing campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to protest its oppression of the Palestinian people. For more detailed background link to
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Brooklyn College BDS panel targeted by Alan Dershowitz and other detractors
By Guest Blog, on February 3, 2013, at 6:21 am The willingness of new governments to respect rights will determine whether those uprisings give birth to genuine democracy or simply spawn authoritarianism in new forms.
By The Mound of Sound, on January 31, 2013, at 1:44 pm The United Nations Human Rights Council has told Israel to remove all settlements from the occupied West Bank or else be prepared to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court for violations of the Geneva Conventions.
In other words, get out or stand as an outlaw country, a criminal state. True to form, Israel responded dismissively, calling the demands “counterproductive and unfortunate.”
All settlement activity in occupied territory must cease “without preconditions” and Israel “must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers”, said the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Israel, it said, was in violation of
. . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: Israel on Notice – Remove Settlements or Face Justice
By Jay Cables, on January 31, 2013, at 12:42 am The recent admission by an Israeli government official that women of Ethiopian origin have been receiving injections of the long-lasting contraceptive Depo Provera simply confirms what many have known. The allegations have been around for a number of years but Israeli government officials have always denied the practice. The story got greater exposure recently following coverage on Vacuum news magazine – an Israeli TV show.
Ethiopian women interviewed for Vacuum talked about pressure from representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). They were warned about the hardships of raising large families… warned that if they had large families employment would
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Depo Provera injections of Ethiopian women in Israel: accusations of racism
By Jay Cables, on January 31, 2013, at 12:41 am
By Richard Hughes, on January 28, 2013, at 1:52 pm Richard Hughes-Political Blogger
Much money has been made and a great deal of environmental damage has been done through the practice of ‘Fracking’ or Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing.
Canadians have had a heads up following horror stories in the US but never mind there is money to be made. The politicians of all stripes are as weak as water when it comes to regulating, reporting and permitting of these fracking operations.
BC and Alberta’s energy resources used to make the provinces hum, but today the difficulties are becoming harder to sweep under the carpet.
Check out this report from Fracking Canada and then question
. . . → Read More: Cowichan Conversations: Liberals and NDP Must Declare a ‘MORATORIUM’ On Fracking In BC!
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