Blog For Palestine

So I stumbled on this article in the International Herald Tribune by Tom Segev called “What if Israel had turned back?“  The article itself is uninteresting - the old Israel was forced to occupy Palestinian land story - c’mon give me a break.  I’ve seen opinion pieces written by retarded chihuahuas that are more inspired and possibly more convincing.  What actually caught my attention is the opening line:

Forty years ago, on the morning of June 5, 1967, Jordan launched an artillery attack on the Israeli part of Jerusalem. In reaction, Israel conquered the Arab sections of the city as well as the West Bank.

Hmmm, one would think by reading this deliberately misleading opening paragraph, that the 1967 war was started by Jordan.  Maybe they did, wait let me check my history books…  Nope, history hasn’t changed while I was on vacation, Israel was the one that started the war by attacking Egypt under the pretense that Egypt was a threat.  Oh wait, it says here that Begin later said the even that wasn’t true and that Egypt wasn’t even a threat and the Israelis simply wanted to attack for strategic reasons.

In light of these facts I’d like to suggest a couple of alternative title for this article, I think they might be more accurate?

• What if the media stops spreading lies?
• What if reporters try honesty every once in a while?
• What if we replace all the opinion page writers with retarded chihuahuas?
• What if Tom Segev stops being a total douche bag?

I think we should let Hugo Chavez run Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  He seems to be the only one willing to take a concrete stand on the current Israeli agression.  He’s not ideal by any measure but he would definitely be an improvement over the pieces of garbage currently in power there.  By pulling the ambassador and now threatening to sever relations he is, along with the popular sentiment in Venezuela, saying that what Israel is doing is criminal and therefore cannot be ignored.

-Tineen

So we had an ADC meeting today.  We went through the list of proposed projects that I had previously put together.  We’ve settled on the following:

1. Round of meetings with Representatives and Senators
2. Candidate Questionnaires to be translated into a voter guide
3. A week of Political/Media action to be organized and launched.  This week will be preceded by a large community event to involve and motivate

Things are going to happen quickly over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to keep you updated.

-Tineen

In this article on Counterpunch Virginia Tilley tells why it’s now time to make the boycott of Israel a reality.  She lays out the primary reasons, the strategies and the real goals.  I cannot agree more with everything that she says.

Until recently I have completely ignored the varying Boycott calls; for example to my own shame and to that of my family, I was seldom seen without a Starbucks cup.  This has ended there is no more Starbucks for me, besides Seattle has much better coffee than Starbucks, Cafe Vita absolutely rocks.  But beyond my relationship with Starbucks, there needs to be a serious effort around mobilizing people to join the Boycott campaign against all Israeli goods, and US companies that support Israel.  There also need to be efforts around Academic and Tourism Boycotts.  Finally Divestment needs to be worked into this whole thing.

Is everyone on board?

-Tineen

So the basic website (www.seattlearabamericans.net) is ready to go.  I have filled out all the sections, the goals and strategies for each group, and created a subscription list for the site.  The next step are to identify a series of short term and long term projects to adopt into this effort.  I’m getting together with a bunch of people today to brainstorm a bunch of ideas.  I already have a few ideas that I’m planning to run by them.

-Tineen

From Beirut… to those who love us

I seriously believe that Condasleeza Rice should officially change her name so that she recieves the honors she properly deserves.  From this point on everybody should refer to her as “Condasleeza Rice El Sharmouta” God knows that’s the only way I’ve managed to refer to her in the past couple of weeks.

-Tineen

Israeli attacks against Palestine and Lebanon continue unabated.  The actions of Israelis are by all measures barbaric.  The IDF, with the full backing of the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli society, have launched a murderous war aimed squarely at the civilian population of Palestine and Lebanon.

Many people are asking the question why is Israel doing this.  They answer is simple and it is something that the Israelis have no problem stating publicly.  The IDF is trying to restore it’s so-called deterence power, something that has been harmed by the success of the Lebanese resistance against the occupation in the south and by the Palestinian intifada which perserveres despite the most oppressive of Israeli measures.  What isn’t discussed is that the Israeli plan for projecting its deterence power is through the dual policy of eliminating all direct or indirect challenges to its power which it is doing directly against the Palestinian and Lebanese and which it is cooperating with the US  when it comes to Iraq, Iran and Syria.  Another critical portion of Israel’s deterrence forumlation that is revealed in the current attack against Lebanon is that Israel is building its “mad dog” image, that it will act without restraint and in the most barbaric ways against anything that threatens its supremacy.

The distinction that needs to be made is that Israeli society’s obsession with military superiority isn’t rooted in security as some might think but rather in an obsession with ethnic supremacy.  Israel is a country and society that was built on a racist ideology and as such any threats to its right to total belligerence is a threat to its nazi like superiority fantasies.  This is the reason why Israelis almost unanimously support the most vicious of attacks and the killing of massive numbers of innocent civilians since they believe this asserts Israeli racial superiority.

-Tineen

I guess the best translation of Chutzpah would be ‘gall’. In the case of Israel it is the capacity to adopt the most racist, hypocritical, and immoral positions and do so proudly. Ehud Olmert’s speech to congress, as Kathleen Christison’s Counterpunch piece illustrates, smacks of the insolent hypocricy that is so characteristic of many of Israel’s positions. Olmert proudly pronounces that he “believed, and to this day still believe, in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land.”

Now that’s what I call Chutzpah (in Arabic we call it Wa’aha). The Prime Minister of Israel, goes up in front of congress, openly declares the most extreme of Zionist Land fantasies, and says that the problem is that the Palestinians are refusing to recognize Israel. And all of this insanity is met with a standing ovation. I was just waiting for the Twightlight Zone dude to come out after the end of that speech and say something clever about how twisted reality can be.

The other Israeli PR gift is of course Hasbara (which sort of also has a good Arabic translation Za’bara). In Israel’s case it means lying, cheating, and general dishonest carsalesmanship. And while an argument can sometimes be made that the ends justify the means, I’m not sure it works when the ends are to oppress a people, and to impose a ruthless apartheid system on them. In another Counterpunch article, Jonathan Cook, illustrates how all the talk of unilateral disengagement, peace, and outstretched hands, is just meant to hide the awful truth of Israeli actions and intents. He explains how the whole disengagement story is really nothing more than reconcentrating israeli military energies to more efficiently go after the Palestinians. This quote from an Israeli peacenik makes it painfully clear what disengagement really means:

“After we remove the [isolated] settlements and after we stop being an occupation army, all the rules of war will be different. We will exercise our full force. We will not have to run around looking for this terrorist or that instigator — we will make use of force against an entire population. We will use total force. Because from the minute we withdraw I don’t want to know their names. I don’t want any personal relations with them. I am no longer in a situation of occupation and policing and B’Tselem [the Israeli human rights organization]. Instead, I will be standing opposite them in a position of nation versus nation. State versus state.”

-Tineen

Recently I’ve been lamenting the lack of Palestinian art and music in the last decade and a half. That is, until I came across this wonderful Arabic redition of ‘You Are Beautiful’ on Kabobfest.

Hit it Djim…