Hamas offers Israel a ten year hudna

Two representatives of Hamas, visiting the UK at the invitation of NGOs, declared that for Hamas, Israel's existence is a fact. However, Hamas cannot recognise Israel in a formal way before observing a 10 year truce (hudna) simply because the Palestinian people are not ready for this move. The 10 years truce plan was originally offered by Cheikh Yassine, the former Hamas spiritual leader assassinated by Israel.

Not only the de facto existence of Israel is something Hamas recognise but also they recognise that making a hudna with someone is another form of recognition.

In the meantime, the UK government who issued visas for the Hamas representatives to visit the UK, refuse to talk to Hamas which it considers as a terrorist organisation.

Trying to understand Hamas's move.
Antecedents: Israel withdrew from Oslo despite its recognition by the PLO, it is making sure the entire Palestinian population will be on its knees by starving and shelling them in order to put in place of the Hamas government a collaborationnist one, it is violating the Lebanese air space despite UN resolution 1701 and flying Beyrouth's southern suburbs at a very low altitude in a show of force and intimidation. I n fact, in the present political climate, Israel can act with no restraint. Why would then a bully like Israel take Hamas's meager offer ?
May be Hamas is putting this offer on the table as part of its diplomatic offensive or as not to tour Europe empty handed. The offer is also a sign that Hamas will not bend and accept any move dictated by pressure and intimidation.

The offer is equally a test to israel,s ability to engage in a peace process. Indeed Israel's condition during the height of the second intifiada to ease tension was always a three to five months suspension of attacks from Palestinians. Here Israel is offered ten years during which a peace process can be implemented, not to forget that Hamas has not been doing any military operations against israel for the last two years. If Israel refuses this hudna then it is contradicting itself. Israel may refuse the hudna on the basis that Hamas is a terrorist organisation but Hamas is equally the democratically elected government of the PA. So Israel does not want to talk to Hamas and to the majority it represents, to whom Israel want to talk ?

If Israel is hionest about its aspiration for peace and really wants peace and is willing to stop its hysterical vindication as to its existence and to live in peace with a diginified and not submitted Palestinian state, it should accept Hamas's offer, allow Palestinians to breath, to breath the air of democracy, political reforms and economic developments. Israel can put also its own conditions on this truce, it can assort the acceptation of this truce by a condition as to a peace deal based on the roadmap or the Arab initative in ten years from now.

However, I am not sure Israel wants peace. In this case, Hamas's offer can be considered as a test of Israel's willingness to stop the bras de force with the Palestinians and the escalation. My bet is that Hamas's offer will go unnoticed outside NGOs circles and some brief mentions in the European press, Madonna's adoption controversy getting more coverage than the will of the representatives of the people of Palestine to engage with their ennemies without losing their dignity. It follows from this that Hamas's offer, however meager it may appear in the eyes of many, is a completely rational and reasonable offer to start a peace process in Palestine based on de facto premices and not propaganda.

UN investigates Israel's use of 'uranium weapons' in Lebanon

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem

The United Nations Environment Programme is investigating allegations, first published in The Independent, that Israel may have used uranium-based weapons during this summer's war in Lebanon.
Twenty UN experts, working with Lebanese environmentalists, have spent two weeks assessing various samples. They are planning to report their findings in December.
Butros al-Harb, Unep's Middle East director, told a Lebanese radio interviewer at the weekend: "If uranium was used, we will find out and we will announce it. We cannot confirm anything now, but we will wait for results."

Yesterday Israel issued its most explicit denial yet. Major Avital Leibovitz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Defence Forces, said: "We deny using any weapons containing uranium." One official suggested that if the environmentalists had indeed found traces of uranium, they would have to look for a different explanation.
Chris Busby, the scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, based in Brussels, reported last week that two soil samples thrown up by Israeli bombs in the south Lebanese villages of Khiam and At Tiri, centres of fierce fighting between Israel and Hizbollah, showed "elevated radiation signatures". Dr Busby warned that particles from the explosions were long-lived in the environment and could be inhaled into the lungs, causing "significant" health effects on civilians.

The Harwell laboratory for mass spectrometry in Oxfordshire confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples, but the European experts were puzzled about what weapons Israel might have been using and why.

Mark Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "If someone comes with a complaint, comes with a charge, we will review it." But he protested that Israel was being singled out when nobody had accused it of deploying weapons banned under international law or practice. "The sort of munitions we used in the Lebanon campaign," he said, "were almost identical to the sort of weaponry used in conflicts over the past decade by Nato countries, by Western countries. Sometimes there's a feeling that the Jewish state is being singled out for special treatment. One really has to ask why it is that the finger is being pointed at Israel."

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Zionism is a Failed Ideology

A great post by Behemoth where he demonstrates that zionists ask to be treated differently and with privilege while at the same time wanting to appear as any other normal state, except when it comes to accountability.

My comment:

One internal contradiction to zionist ideology is related to the notion of a 'democratic' Jewish state. If the state is to be democratic it has to allow equal treatment and rights to all, Jews and non Jews. So not only Israel discriminates against the remaining Palestinian population but it it is closely watching their percentage in the state. The founders foresaw a proportion of 60% Jews to maitain the nature of the state as Jew, the proportion now is 80 %. So Israel as a Jewish 'democratic' state is completely against the one state solution. This is my test for real zionists appearing as zionists pacifists or for those who are doctrinally intoxicated by zionism. I put down the one state solution (Which I advocate, my preferred one) and I watch their reaction. Usually they react vehemently, invoke some security reasons against the one state solution of the type: 'Israelis will not feel safe among all these Palestinians'. Well Hutus and Tutsis are living together again. Lebanese are living together again, by the way this is bothering Isarel a lot, Israel would like to see a ME divided into samll states and ethnic and religious lines so it can justify its own existence as a 'democratic' Jewish state. South Africans are living together again.

If the One state solution is not acceptable because it is not ethnically pure, all what is left to offer to Palestinians is a Two states solution. However Israel has been doing every possible brutal maneuvre including a 'painful' withdrawal from Gaza to put the road map which advocate a Two states solution in the 'Formaldehyde', according to the outspoken Dov Weissglass. And if the evacuation of few illegal settlers was so painful, don't you think that the two states solution has become impossible ? I mean the Palestinian territories cannot reasonably constitute a basis for a viable state. Withdrawing from Oslo and initiating the second Intifada by provoking Muslims in their own prayer site was the starting point for a zionist style solution, the withdrawal from any peace process, the diabolisation of the Palestinians and the final solution, getting rid of what constitutes an internal contradiction in the zionist ideology, the very existence of the Palestinians. Israel has therefore no other solution for Palestinians then killing them slowly but not softly.

This other contradiction shows that zionism is a failed ideology because it is an ideology for a perpetual state of war in the ME. And this is what is exactly happening in the ME.

Forgetting Gaza

I woke up early this morning at the sound of a persistent rain. I browsed the news. JSF had a post on Gaza. I read it, went to the source article and asked myself: Are we forgetting Gaza ?

We are inclined to forget what bothers us, to clean our memory from painful emotions. This can do some good when it is related to our own suffering, it is salutary. However, it cannot do any good for us when it is related to the suffering of others because our conscience will come back to haunt us. The remorse will transfer what we consider the suffering of others and makes it our own, in other forms, much worse, shame, guilt, what have we done ? What have they done in our names ? This is of course what will happen for those who have conscience, for those of us who consider themselves as part of Humanity.

The whole world has become morally lethargic. The amount of suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza is unbearable, Gaza is a Warsaw ghetto where there is no income, no electricity, no normal medical care, no food, only bullets and brutality and bombings provided on a daily basis by the zionist state. The world is doing nothing, just as the world did nothing when Jews suffered in the Warsaw ghetto and in Nazi concentration camps. Do we want this tragedy to come back and haunt us like the tragedy of the Jews during WWII and the other large scale human tragedies that happened and are still happening before our eyes ?

I think the more we allow tragedies to happen, the more we become 'tolerant' to the suffering of others, the more we become morally inhibited and desensitisised, loosing our conscience and our humanity. What have we done for the Rwandan tragedy, the Armenian tragedy, the Bosnian tragedy, the south African tragedy, the ongoing ME tragegdies in Iraq and Lebanon, the African continent many tragedies, the Native American tragedy, the black people tragedy, the New Orleans tragedy ? We let them happen.

Tears are springing in my eyes as I am writing. In ten minutes, I will stand and start my day; go to the kitchen, prepare the coffee, eat my breakfast with my family, walk the dog, shop for the week afterward, see my father, have my spanish lesson, dine with friends this evening and Gaza will be forgotten...One of the biggest human tragedy of our time will have the back seat in my memory, for the day. It will return probably at night and then next morning when I will read the news, more bombings, more killings, more suffering and no indignation, just a downward spirale of violence and death inflicted by Israel wrongly in the name of past Jewish suffering.

I wish holocaust survivors can stand united and say: ''Not in our names' . In the present moral and political disengagement of the international community and of individual consciences from Gaza and the Palestinian territories, this will be the most effective thing to do to stop the ineluctable. I guess they don't know what is being done in their name.

''How long will the "international community" allow the slaughter to continue? The cruel repression of the occupied territories, and of Gaza in particular, is one of the most scandalous in the world today. It is the blackest stain on Israel's patchy record as a would-be democratic state.'' writes Patrick Seale. Read the whole article...

Israeli jets clash with German ship near Lebanon

Via professor Finkelstein's website.
Israel Declares War on Nazi Germany; World Jewish Congress demands new Holocaust reparations; Burt Neuborne to defend (unborn) victims pro bono.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Two Israeli warplanes and a German navy vessel have clashed off the Lebanese coast, the Defense Ministry in Berlin said on Wednesday without giving further details.
Germany daily Der Tagesspiegel earlier on Wednesday quoted a junior German defense minister as telling a parliamentary committee that two Israeli F-16 fighters flew low over the German ship and fired two shots.
The jets also released infra-red countermeasures to ward off any rocket attack, the paper quoted him as saying.
The minister did not say when the incident happened or what had caused it, the paper said."I can confirm that there was an incident," a ministry spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.
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A Jewish Lobby for Peace: The end of 'The Pro-Israel Lobby' ?

The excellent Alain Gresh reports on an intiative in the US for a Jewish lobby for Peace with the Palestinians. What follows is mainly a translation from Gresh's site.

At the origin of the idea, which is gathering momentum, a letter signed by some 150 intellectuals, academics and ex diplomats, most of them Jewish. Norman Birnbaum, one of the letter initiators declared to the Financial Times, which published the story, that the pro-Israel lobby in the US has built a 'Warsaw ghetto for the minds'.

However, AIPAC seems so ingrained in American Politics that nine persons who signed the letter declared that they are not willing to work against but with AIPAC. Some of the members who signed the letter are also suspicious of the presence of George Soros behind the initiative whom they accuse of being anti-zionist and a harsh critic of Israel.

The declared objective is to lobby for a two state solution. The very presence of such an initiative shows that the current political leaders and Politicians in Israel and the US are not working toward peace in the ME.

Justin Raimondo on AntiWar.com has an interesting analysis, according to him, the AIPAC will never recover from the fact that two of its former prominent members were charged for violating the espionage act and for transmitting sensitive information from the US government to Israel, working directly with the Israeli embassy in Washington. The AIPAC affair has many tentacles. Jane Harman, Democrat and member of the intelligence committee of the US congress, is being investigated. Her bureau leaked classified intelligence information to the New York Times and the goal of the investigation is to find links pointing to Israel.

According to Raimondo, the shell of the organisation will continue to exist but the substance will have to be replaced and this is why there is a momentum gaining for a new lobby that will appear more 'liberal' and more open to peace than AIPAC.

Avigdor Lieberman or how do we say facist in hebrew

From Le Monde Diplomatique via Alain Gresh's blog, an anthology of Avigdor Lieberman, the new vice prime minister and minister for Strategic Threats, a key member of Israel's security cabinet in charge of the Iran portfolio.

In French.

I am only translating one quote:

''Mon plan propose de placer la plupart des Arabes sous autorité palestinienne en excluant les villages arabes des territoires sous souveraineté israélienne. Parce que si on accepte la création d’un Etat palestinien sans trouver une solution aux Arabes israéliens, notamment les musulmans parmi eux qui habitent les villages du Triangle et qui se trouvent pour leur majorité sous l’influence de la section nord du mouvement islamiste, ce serait notre fin.'' Décembre 2004

''My plan for most Israeli Arabs is to transfer them under the Palestinian Authority while excluding Arab villages in the territories which are under Israeli sovereignty. Because if we accept the creation of a Palestinian state without finding a solution to Israeli Arabs, especially Muslims who live in the villages of the Triangle and who are under the influence of the northern section of the Islamist movement, it will be the end for us.''

What Lieberman is proposing is a redrawing of the green line for the sole purpose of more ethnic cleansing.

Tommy Sheridan blogs from Lebanon

Tommy Sheridan, the socialist scottish MP, is visiting Lebanon with a delegation from Solidarity Scotland's Socialist Movement. You can read here his letters from Lebanon.

Thanks Joe90 who gave the information in the comment section on JSF.

Ilan Pappe's 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'

The book is out.

Sabbah's features a video on Sky News with Pappe and Efraim Karsh denying the whole book and even denying that Pappe exists.

An interview with Pappe on ZNet.

Lebanese artist sings Nasrallah's words

Lebanese blogger UrShalim posted the story and the video.
''This new single is not just a song. It is a whole project which aims at helping the families of all Lebanese martyrs who perished during the latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon.'' From the singer website

Chris Hedges on the Holocausts

I took the liberty of reproducing the entire article.

It is liberating to read such an articulate argument against the use of victimisation for political purposes, any victimisation. He also argues that while he is against the use of the recent recognition by the French parliament of the Armenian Genocide and the criminalisation of its denial by the Armenians for political gain, he sees in this move the proof that there are many groups who can claim the same statute of victims as claimed by Jewish and that there is no reason why the Holocaust should be considered as an exclusive act of savagery in the history of mankind.

''When we sanctify ourselves we do so at the expense of others'' Chris Hedges.

Chris Hedges: Coveting the Holocaust

I sent my New York University journalism students out to write stories based on any one of the themes in the Ten Commandments. A woman of Armenian descent came back with an article about how Armenians she had interviewed were covetous of the Jewish Holocaust. The idea that one people who suffered near decimation could be covetous of another that also suffered near decimation was, to say the least, different. And when the French lower house of parliament approved a bill earlier this month making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide I began to wonder what it was she, and those she had interviewed, actually coveted.

She was not writing about the Holocaust itself—no one covets the suffering of another—but how it has become a potent political and ideological weapon in the hands of the Israeli government and many in the American Jewish community. While Armenians are still fighting to have the genocide of some 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks accepted as historical fact, many Jews have found in the Nazi Holocaust a useful instrument to deflect criticism of Israel and the dubious actions of the pro-Israeli lobby as well as many Jewish groups in the United States.

Norman Finkelstein, who for his writings has been virtually blacklisted, noted in “The Holocaust Industry” that the Jewish Holocaust has allowed Israel to cast itself and “the most successful ethnic group in the United States” as eternal victims. Finkelstein, the son of Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, goes on to argue that this status has enabled Israel, which has “a horrendous human rights record,” to play the victim as it oppresses Palestinians or destroys Lebanon. This victim status has permitted U.S. Jewish organizations (the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and others) to get their hands on billions of dollars in reparations, much of which never finds its way to the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors. Finkelstein’s mother, who was in the Warsaw ghetto, received $3,500, while the World Jewish Congress walked away with roughly $7 billion in compensation moneys. The organization pays lavish salaries to its employees and uses the funds to fuel its own empire. For many the Nazi Holocaust is not used to understand and deal with the past, and more importantly the universal human capacity for evil, but to manipulate the present. Finkelstein correctly writes that the fictitious notion of unique suffering leads to feelings of unique entitlement.

And so what this student, and those she had interviewed, coveted was not the actual experience of the Holocaust, not the suffering of Jews in the death camps, but the political capital that Israel and many of its supporters have successfully gleaned from the Holocaust. And while I sympathize with the Armenians, while I understand their rage toward Turkey, I do not wish to see them, or anyone else, wield their own genocide as a political weapon.

There is a fine and dangerous line between the need for historical truth and public apology, in this case by the Turks, and the gross misuse of human tragedy. French President Jacques Chirac and his interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said this month that Turkey will have to recognize the genocide before Turkey is allowed to join the European Union. Most European nations turned their backs on the French, with the EU issuing a statement saying that the French bill will “prohibit dialogue.” But the French move is salutary, not only for the Armenians who have been humiliated and defamed by successive waves of Turkish governments but for the Turks as well. Historical amnesia, as anyone who has lived in the Middle East or the Balkans knows, makes reconciliation and healing impossible. It fosters a dangerous sense of grievance and rage. It makes any real dialogue impossible. Nearly 100 years after the murderous rampage by the Turks it can still be a crime to name the Armenian holocaust under Law 301, which prohibits anyone from defaming Turkey. One of the most courageous violators of that law is the writer Orhan Pamuk, who has criticized his country’s refusal to confront its past, and who just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. But he is a solitary figure in Turkey.

Historical black holes also empower those who insist that the Nazi Holocaust is unique, that it is somehow beyond human comprehension and stands apart from other human activity. These silences make it easier to minimize, misunderstand and ignore the reality of other genocides, how they work and how they are carried out. They make it easier to turn tragedy into myth. They make it easier to misread the real lesson of the Holocaust, which, as Christopher Browning illustrated in his book “Ordinary Men,” is that the line between the victim and the victimizer is razor-thin. Most of us, as Browning correctly argues, can be seduced and manipulated into killing our neighbors. Few are immune.

The communists, not the Jews, were the Nazis’ first victims, and the handicapped were the first to be gassed in the German death factories. This is not to minimize the suffering of the Jews, but these victims too deserve attention. And what about Gypsies, homosexuals, prisoners of war and German political dissidents? What, on a wider scale, about the Cambodians, the Rwandans, and the millions more who have been slaughtered by utopian idealists who believe the eradication of other human beings will cleanse the world?

When I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington I looked in vain for these other victims. I did not see explained in detail the awful reality that Jewish officials in the ghettos—Judenrat—worked closely with the Nazis to herd their own off to the death camps. And was the happy resolution of the Holocaust, as we saw in images at the end of the exhibits, the disembarking of European Jews on the shores of Palestine? What about the Palestinians who lived in Palestine and were soon to be pushed off their land? And, as importantly, what about African-Americans and Native Americans? Why is the Nazi genocide, which we did not perpetrate, displayed on the Mall in Washington and the brutal extermination of Native Americans ignored? Why should billions in reparations be paid to Jewish slave laborers and not a dime to those enslaved by our own country?

These questions circle back to the dangerous sanctification of any genocide, the belief that one ethnic group can represent goodness, solely because its members are the victims, and another evil because from its ranks come the thugs who carry out mass slaughter. Once these demented killing machines begin their work the only thing unique is the method of murder. The lesson of any genocide is not that one group of human beings is better than another, but that in the intoxication of the moment, gripped by the mass hypnosis of state propaganda and the lust for violence, we can all become killers. All the victims must be heard. None are unique. And all of us have to be on guard lest we be seduced. We carry within us—German, Jew, Armenian or Christian—dark and dangerous lusts that must be held in check. I applaud the French. I hope the French action pushes the Turks toward contrition and honesty. But I do not wish for the Armenians to covet the Holocaust, to begin the process of sanctifying their own suffering. When we sanctify ourselves we do so at the expense of others.

Chris Hedge is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and author of the bestseller “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning”.

Extremist party joins Israel government

From Electronic Intifada:
''World Silent as Facists join Israel government . In a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition government. The party's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is to be vice prime minister and, as "Minister for Strategic Threats," a key member of Israel's "security cabinet" in charge of the Iran portfolio.

Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous extremist party with fascist tendencies that has openly advocated the "transfer" of Palestinians, including the transfer of Arab towns within Israel to a Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity. It has made clear that a Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. The party, whose strongest base is among Russian immigrants brought to Israel in the 1990s, surged at the Israeli election earlier this year, taking eleven seats in Israel's 120 seat Knesset.''

''In an interview with an Israeli newspaper in September, Yisrael Beitenu leader Lieberman said: "The vision I would like to see here is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state...I very much favour democracy, but when there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important." (Scotsman, October 23, 2006)

In addition to espousing ethnic cleansing, Lieberman has a long history of inciting discrimination, hatred and violence against Palestinians within the Jewish state and living under Israeli military occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. When he served as minister of transport in a previous government, Lieberman called for all Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli occupation authorities to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to provide the buses ("Lieberman blasted for suggesting drowning Palestinian prisoners," Ha'aretz, July 11, 2002). He has proposed to strip the citizenship of, and expel any Palestinian citizen of Israel who refuses to sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish Zionist state ("A Jewish demographic state," Ha'aretz, June 28, 2002).

In 2002, Lieberman declared, "I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control] for 48 hours. Destroy the foundation of all the authority's military infrastructure, all of the police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the security forces... not leave one stone on another. Destroy everything." He also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that the air force systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations and banks in the occupied territories (The Independent, March 7, 2002). And, he has proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam, despite that country's peace treaty with Israel since 1979. What will he propose to do to Iran?

Hebrew University professor Ze'ev Sternhell, a leading Israeli academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism, was quoted by the Scotsman newspaper as terming Lieberman "perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel."''

When Hamas formed the Palestinian Authority government, the world stopped its aid to the Palestinians punishing them in a savage way and the US is still looking for alternatives to Hamas by financing a civil war between Palestinian factions in the territories.

Look how the world is reacting to Yisrael Beitenu (Israel our home) joining Israel government in a key position, SILENCE. And when the EU is asked about the matter, the answer is: "You will understand that we cannot interfere with the setting up of a foreign government. This is a matter for which the concerned State alone is responsible," wrote Cristina Gallach, the official spokesperson for Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for foreign policy, in an email responding to a query about whether the EU would impose sanctions on Israel if Yisrael Beitenu joined the government. ''

Never before such double standards have been applied in international politics . This is frightening. How would you like your international justice from now on ? A la carte for some and the standard menu for others.

Suleiman withdraws from the cultural boycott of Israel

Again, it is the buoyant Jews Sans Frontières who was among the first to break the news about the withdrawal of Palestinian director Elia Suleiman from the cultural boycott of Israel.

I was surprised. I saw Suleiman's most celebrated movie 'Divine Intervention' at the Festival Nouveau Cinema Nouveaux Media in Montreal few years ago and thought that it was a good movie. I also get the chance to glance at the director, Mr. Suleiman, who was in Montreal that night promoting the movie. The theater was full. The movie got a good reception in Montreal and it has already won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Walking out of the theater, Suleiman looked relaxed, at ease with fame. What struck me in him was that he looked nonchalant and dandy. He is actually quite good looking. I wondered how can soemone be a dandy and a palestinian living in Ramallah ? One might want to read the definition of 'Dandy' in Wikipedia which alludes to a dandy as a 'class traitor'. And Suleiman is a traitor, a special kind of traitor. Not that everyone should support the boycott of Israel, people are entitled to their opinions and positions. I think what is particular in Suleiman's position is that he signed the boycott not long ago in August at the height of the Israeli agression of Lebanon and then wrote a letter to retract two months later accusing those who boycott of not knowing what they do and hysterically starting his letter by citing Karl Kraus, an Austrian writer and satirist known for his satirist critique of German and Austrian culture and politics:''Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do! ''

Suleiman's main argument is that the boycott is hurting Isareli artists who speak against their state's policies. However, Suleiman didn't name these artists and didn't say in which way the two month old boycott hurted them. He then lead a charge, in the letter, against those who boycott, accusing them of 'witch hunt'. This is a bizarre and contradictory claim since if there is really a witch hunt going on the boycott must then be working only against those who are hostile while protecting Israeli artists who voice their protests against Israel's policies in the occupied territories, contrary to what Suleiman pretends initially.

He then goes on to speak about Art and Humanity...

I wonder how can we separate Art from our daily lives and elevate it beyond the lives of Palestinian children ? I wonder: didn't Suleiman know what a boycott is before committing himself to one ? I wonder didn't he know that the boycott was signed at the darkest hours of the history of his people, and there are more to come, at a time when the international community was turning its back on the Palestinians and the Lebanese, at a time the US secretary of state was calling the tragedy of Lebanon the 'birth pangs of the middle east' ?


I wonder what Suleiman or what any dandy individualist libertarian know about Humanity ? The pursuit of individual desires is not a moral pursuit, it is embedded in an individuality which can be sometimes divorced from humanity. There is no way that individualism can become a moral theory and replace humanism. An animal is an individual as long as it is a separate organism acting by itself without the influence of other organisms. Does this definition replace the notion of Humanity ? An individual freedom should be in harmony with the rest of society and of other individuals; this is where our humanity stands, between us and others. I think we don't know what the word 'Humanism'' means nowadays because we counfound the word with 'individualism'. Humanism is more encompassing than individualism. It elevates the individual to universal values, not common values as Suleiman writes in his dissent letter because he confuses the common values of two communities with universal values. Universal values have nothing to do wth specific values, they are above all other values. Humanity is more than two communities and it is the only way by which an individual can achieve his self emancipation, outside his own community and other communities, by reaching to higher values. These higher values are stated in the universal declaration of Human rights.

How can Suleiman proclaims that he is acting in a non sectarian way while his only motivation for resigning from the boycott campaign seems to be to distinguish himself from his community by openly defining himself against it ? (the Kraus citation is very emblematic in my opinion) .

And I would like to compare here Suleiman's position to that of Aki Kaurismaki, the artist of Humanity and the humanity of the Arts he represents and probably all the Arts. Here is an artist, another Cannes darling, who refused to come to the ceremony of the oscars in 2002 to promote his nominated movie 'The man without a past' because of Georges Bush's and America's war in Afghanistan. This was before the Iraq war. This year, Kaurismaki asked the Finnish academy to withdraw his movie 'Lights in the dusk' from the Oscar list , probably for the same reasons, which are still the same but amplified with what is happening in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. I have written a post abot Kaurismaki and the related issue.

Here is an artist who is boycotting himself and not afraid to do so in the name of Justice and individual conscience against individual desires and against opression, all kinds of opression. Here is an artist who elevates the Arts to the level of humanity and make them thrive honorably, not on the expanses of the lives of others being Palestinians, Lebanese or Iraqi children or in the name of some obscure individualistic cultural dandyism proclaimed as a moral value.

Artists like Kaurismaki consider their art as a form of human achievement, an achievement for all humanity and for the sake of humanity, not as a form of personal achievement. This is where Palestinian and Israeli artists should look in order to communicate, at higher human values and not common values for both communities because, not to be cynical, there is nothing common between Palestinian artists and Israeli artists when one looks at the conditions of both people and both homelands, if one can call the actual Palestinian territories a 'Homeland'.

Suleiman's Art can never reach Kaurismaki's because it is an Art constrained by the considerations of an individual preoccupied by distinguishing himself from his community even when this community has come to symbolise by its suffering the universal condition of challenged humanity. Suleiman's Art is no universal Art, it is an Art with boundaries, the boundaries of Suleiman's self.

P.S. Read here my argument for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel , here my update on the different boycotts of Israel and here a guide to an economic boycott of Israel (it is in Arabic but if you go through the document you will find the names of the companies in English).

Who is behind the New Inquisition against Islam ?

Bradley Burston is unahppy with what is happening to Muslims in the West and he would like you to believe that this is the West's fault -Aie, these ugly racists, people of the West...While we, people of Israel are tolerant... - But in no way does Burston recognize that the new inquisition against Islam has to do with zionism and the state of Israel. Few days ago a fellow blogger Behemoth posted some profiles from a social network for college students in the US and North America (Facebook).

Here is one of them:
Name: American Friends of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)
Type: Common Interest - Politics
Description: This group is dedicated to patriotic Americans who understand the threat posed by radical Islam, and support the State of Israel in its defiance of Global Jihad, realizing that it is in the best interest of America.
Contact InfoEmail: dskohn0620@gmail.com
Website: http://www.israelsoldiers.org/
City: Eastchester, NY

It is typical of zionists to appear as respectable and tolerant people while others throw stones in their names. But read the comments under Burston's article and discuss with young zionists, none hides his satisfaction with what is hapenning to Muslims in the West. After all, didn't Israel sell the War against Lebanon as a war against radical Islam ? And didn't Israel convince the international community to starve the Palestinians because they elected an Islamist movement ? And Isn't Israel trying to sell the War against Iran as a war to prevent a Muslim (terrorist) nation from acquiring nuclear technology ? And never forget famous pro-zionist American Daniel Pipe's early charges on Islam and especially Europe Muslim population in the 1990.

The least we can say is that Burston is not being honest in his defence of Islam and Muslims.

Thanks Issam.

Zionism, Eugenics and Racism

Mark Elf from Jews Sans Frontières posted an interesting and disturbing article from Haaretz on the connection between zionism and the concept of 'pure race' and what early zionist leaders and thinkers thought to make of the biological concepts of their time and where one can discover that there is more than one connection between zionism and nazism...

''Religious Jews saw themselves as a biological entity, as the descendants of the patriarch Abraham, but also accepted converts into their midst. But from the late 19th century on, the Zionists defined Jews in a biological sense with no connection necessarily to religion or culture. This was for the sake of uniting the Jews and saying: Look, we're a race that is also a nation, and like any other nation and race, we deserve our own piece of land. In his writings, Martin Buber, who was liberal and enlightened, defined a nation by means of what the Germans called Blut und Boden (blood and soil). The Zionists also had a concept of 'blood and soil.' Not in the way it developed with the Nazis, but Zionism was certainly a national movement that took people's biology into account."
''Dr. Max Nordau, Herzl's associate and a physician and publicist, also adopted the eugenic theories. Nordau contended that for the Jews, life in exile as a separate ethnic group had led them to a state of degeneration in body and soul. He recommended that Jews live in nature and pursue a more physical culture - that Judaism build up some muscles. "He thought that the biology of the Jews needed to be changed via eugenics. That is, to improve the Jewish race by means of selection as is done with plants and animals to ward off degeneration," says Falk. ''

It is difficult to still think that Israel's elimination of Palestinians and its treatement of the remaining Palestinian population has nothing to do with Racism and cannot be compared to the Nazis obessive extermination of Jews. Both Nazism and Zionism are Racists. However, they were able to exercise their racist practices from differemt perspectives. Israel's one is a long term perspective, discriminating and killing on a less wider scale but aiming at negating and eliminatimg Palestinians nonetheless. Can we still think that numbers and time only qualify horrible acts as genocide ? Or are we ready to recognize that the main component of genocide are race and planning the elimination of the other race. This article shows very clearly that race is an issue for zionists and while there is no apparent deliberate planning of the elimination of the other race there is definitely a negation of the other revealed in the savagery of the discriminations and the killings Israel is exercising on palestinians in front of the whole world silenced by the memory of the holocaust. And don't tell me that Israel has an Arab population. Clearly they don't enjoy the same rights as other citizens and they are kept a minority, early zionist figured out a 60 % Jewsih ratio to maintain a Jewish state and never dreamed of the 80 % the actual state of Israel is keeping for the Jewish population by all sorts of non declared and declared racial measures, the most celebrated being the Jewish right to the soil over all races which many profit from by making their Aliyah to Israel.
My thoughts go especially to the Palestinian refugees of Iraq who are in critical conditions in the new 'liberated Iraq' and are at pain to find a second exile while Jews from all over the world enjoy such a right. Is Zionism the new Nazism ?
Here is the original Haaretz article

Beyond the Myth: Images and the Reality of War

Pierre Tristam delivers an interesting analysis of the Iwo Jima flag-raising picture by Joe Rosenthal. The image will be in the news again as this week's Clint' Eastwood newly released movie 'Flags of our Fathers' tells the story of the battle of Iwo Jima.
Don't miss the comment section...

The actual state of Iraq and the ME

Does a picture summarises it all ?

Gorilla's Guides: Boy Holding The Feet Of His Father Baquba Hospital Morgue October 18 2006

I wonder, what is the ratio of pictures of desolation and tragedy that are coming out from Iraq to those that are coming from Palestine. I also wonder, as the tragedy of Iraq is unfolding as a massive one, aren't we inclined to feel it as more pressing than that of Palestine ?

My point is that the core problem in the middle east, the Palestinian problem, is being immersed in much wider, bigger, massive and tragic conflicts, Iraq being at the forefront of all...One success you can attribute to the neo-cons in Iraq is that this conflict has eclipsed the main one in the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So lets speak of the Iraq war as an Israeli-Arab conflict and I think this is how we should call it from now...A solution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine should come as a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict and to other conflicts in the region. Palestine, despite the savagery of the Iraqi conflict, is still the main grievance in the region...

The more I think of what is happening in the ME, the more I find bizarre the absence of any political will to put an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict. It is true that our world is driven by spin, the spin of a Bush administration and its zionist allies determined to put an end, not to the conflict, but to any legitimate grievance and demand for justice that are emerging everyday from one side of this conflict. And how are they trying to silence the other side, and with it the international civil society who think that the Palestinian people and the Arab world and the middle east, deserve justice ? By opening more conflicts in the ME.

Why ? Because Israel has been in pain to come to term with its imperialist adventure. And Israel knows that every imperialist adventure might come to en end. Israel is then trying to encourage other imperialist adventures in the ME, like Iraq and Iran while extending its own amid the silence provoked by the fact that our attention is turned to other imperialist adventures, always more savage and more brutal and more unjust, and by the continual revival of the anti-semitism ghost and the accusations that go with it.

There is however a simple and one solution to get out of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the respect of international law. The International Crisis Group launched such an appeal on the basis that the Palestinian problem is becoming the main cause for the spread of violence in the region. May be you are going to tell me that at a time when US lawmakers are changing their country's law, in a clear defiance to international law regarding their extraterritorial prisons for 'Unlawful ennemy combatants', it is utopian and naive to think of the Israeli-Arab conflict in terms of international law. May be I will agree with you. But then we have to start somewhere. Putting all our energies in resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict should be a priority for our generation.

So lets mourn the dead of Iraq but lets not forget Palestine because it is this great unjustice that is fueling the violence in the region, not only terrorist violence, but state violence, that of the state of Israel and its unconditional ally the US who are ready to burn the entire Middle east to the last soul in order to prolonge their long time expired imperialist adventure...

Aki Kaurismaki: the man with a past

If you did not watch ‘The man without a past’ from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, go and rent it quickly. Crowned at Cannes in 2002, the movie is an intimate look, through the eyes of a man who lost his memory after an accident, at the present state of our humanity.

The main character in the movie wake up at the beginning of the story with his mind in a blank slate, a tabula rasa, to discover the world without preconceptions. However, the world he is discovering has a lot of preconceptions and mainly negative ones on him because he does not fit into society. He has no identity, no name, no work, no belongings, no home and no family. These preconceptions from ‘normal’ society will drive the man very quickly into another world, a world at the margins, where the rules of everyday life, suffering, work, betrayal and love are radically different.

Kaurismaki comes up with a surprising end.

In 2002, Kaurismaki refused to go to the Oscars to promote ‘The man without a past’ which was nominated for best foreign language picture. His refusal was motivated by The US's international politics and by Georges Bush. This was before the Iraq war. This time, Kaurismaki is refusing that the Finnish Academy nominates his film ‘Light in the Dusk’ to represent Finland at the Oscars. His reasons are still the same. The movie will however be distributed in the US.

I think if Bush and his neo-con mentors were able to transform our lives radically by making wars, killing civilians, creating international chaos, restraining liberties and promoting Torture, all this before our eyes, it is because we live in a society who does not have a past, who accepted to construct a past with one single event, September eleventh 2001 and to erase everything that comes before. What is worse is that we are imposing this extermination of the past on other people and other countries and making sure that nothing in the definitions we are creating of our spin fabricated past and theirs will unite us one day, not even minimal universal moral values like human rights and human diginity, what makes us human beings and not merely sacrificial animals at the Bush constructed altar for the Terror God.

Source: AFP, October 18, 2006

Israel's wars as a sustainable development strategy for Tourism

Looking for a five star accomodation for your next vacations ?
Do you want to make a humanitarian contribution during your vacations ?
Do you want to watch the barbarians of the Middle East from behind a secure fence in Israel and under the protection of the Israeli army and Intelligence forces ?
Do you want to feel the excitement of being secure and on the good side of history while others die 'lawfully' thanks to your money ?
Do you want to see the terrorists you watch daily on your TV screen and you wonder if they exist ?
Do you want to watch and receive briefings about how Israel can kill morally and strike surgically ?
Do you want to see the last remnants of a great culture, a great country and a great population which resisted heroically occupation, starvation and killings ?

The Ultimate Mission to Israel is for You*.

''Mission Highlights
Briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet.
Briefing by officers in the IDF Intelligence and Operations branches.
Inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings.
Live exhabition of penetration raids in Arab territory.
Observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court.
First hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points.
Inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases.
Meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence.
Briefing by Israel's war heros who saved the country.
Meetings with senior Cabinet Ministers and other key policymakers.
Small airplane tour of the Galilee, Jeep rides in the Golan hights, water activities on Lake Kinneret, a cook-out barbecue and a Shabbat enjoying the rich religious and historic wonders of Jerusalem's Old City. ''

* This blog does not consider this information as an ad and consequently will not accept paiements form the Israel Law Center who organises the mission because their funds are mainly collected from terrorist organisations...
Thanks Abu-Issa for the info.

Fall foliage with the dog en camouflage

Paris, canal Saint Martin, septembre 2006.

Montréal, Neighbourhood palette, octobre 2006.

Montréal, Ginko Biloba, octobre 2006. These trees are a marvel to watch in the fall season, their tiny leaves litteraly steal the sunlight. In French, the tree is called 'l'arbre aux quarante écus'.

Montréal, the family dog 'en camouflage', octobre 2006.

Olmert's Gesticulations

I was surprised to read the Lebanese news this morning. Ehud Olmert is still active on the political scene, he si not dead, politically dead I mean, neither his chief of Defence who is filling his obligations by making sure his warplanes are flying daily the Lebanese airspace in violations of UN resolutions. Habits are hard to break, especially the bad ones.

Can somebody tell me what is the meaning of Olmert's latest political moves ? I mean if I was the man and I want to stay in the Politic business, after the Lebanese fiasco, I would hide for sometime from the political limelight and make people forget who I am and eventually return as a born-again. Bush might have some good advice in that matter. But that's not the style of Israeli Politicians...

After weakening the Lebanese government of Fouad Sanyura with an ugly war and leaving south Lebanon as a gigantic mine for deadly cluster bombs killing in the absence of his army, Olmert is now extending an olive branch to Sanyura while Refusing to talk to Syria. According to Lebanese sources, Olmert is also accusing Syria of planning to topple the Sanyura government. Olmert is no more credible than Jumblatt when he utters such accusations. And to assume that such a plan really exists, it looses any credibility when accredited by Olmert.

It seems also that, after having failed to adopt a Sharon style Politics, Olmert is converting to Lebanese style politics; manipulative rethoric, fingerpointing, accusations and gesticulations.

Doesn't Olmert know that by these moves it is he who is helping to topple Sanyura's government and reinforce its isolation and weakness at the internal Lebanese political scene ? Or may be that's just what he wants because if Olmert really wanted to make peace with Lebanon, he shouldn't have gone to war in July...

Pangs of Birth

Alain Gresh is in Lebanon. 'Les douleurs de l'enfantement' is a letter describing his first impressions of the country after the July war. In French. With the title, Gresh is referring to the infamous remark made by Condoleeza Rice to describe the Israeli-Lebanese war.

I may translate it to English later...

What should Hamas and the Palestinians do ?

Palestine and the Palestinians are off the international agenda. The chaos created by the active realisation of the neo-con ultrazionist American project for the New Century, the hundred thousand deaths in Iraq and the country's uninterrupted descent to hell, the criminal war on Lebanon and its civilian population, the return of Afghanistan's talibans, the international war of the Bush administration on Islam, the looming war on Iran and the revival of North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the silenced but hassle freed from accusations of anti-semitism and obediant international community, all are letting Israel and its US ally have their hands free in occupied Palestine.

Israel and the US, after imposing sanctions and boycott on Palestinians for having democratically elected Hamas, after having achieved the obejctif of starving them as herr doctor Weisglass predicted, after having ignored every land grab achieved illegally by settlers in the West bank since Sharon made 'painful concessions' by ethnically cleaning Gaza from Jews to leave it in a state of siege to its Palestinian inhabitants, after having imprisoned the majority of the Hamas elected palestinian members of parliament, after having made daily attacks and daily killings in Gaza, after having experimented new weapons on Gaza's children and destructed its fragile infrastructre, are now financing the civil war between the Fatah thugs, those who were raised on the Arab bakhchiche and who stole the first Intifada victory and dignity from the Palestinians, and Hamas.

A cloud of civil war is hanging over Palestine. Israel will soon achieve with the help of Fatah, the US and the silent international community, the last stage of its plan, the killing of the Palestinian cause amid international silence on Palestine stemming from the fact that there is international furore channeled and directed elsewhere...

Hamas should resign and not engage in a civil war with Fatah because that's what Israel and the US want, complete chaos in the ME and Palestine to hide the absence of any political will to bring peace and justice to the region. Its members should enter clandestinity, leave the government to the thugs who are accepting the money and the weapons directed at their kins and their children and their people and wait for an awakening of the international community and the international public opinion and the international law, wait for all the fury and the spin to settle, wait for Humanity to rise again...

On October 4th, while Ms Rice was visiting the middle east trying to raise support for a USraeli war on Iran, the International crisis group wrote an appeal signed by ex-head of states and governments and Human rights activists calling for an immediate end to the israeli-Arab conflict, for an opening of negociations and for the revival of all UN resolutions concerning the Israeli-Arab conflict. Nothing really revolutionary, just respect for all UN resolutions without double standards and an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict with the danger of a nuclear escalation hovering on the minds. The appeal got little if no mention at all in the Western press. Palestine is off the international agenda...

The Palestinians and we, their friends in the middle east and beyond, should keep the options for peace in the drawers for now, survive and weep. Weep for Iraq, weep for Lebanon, weep for Palestine, weep for the dead, weep for the Middle east and its children, locked across the generations in an eternal state of anger and hopelesness.

Science and Credibility: The New Iraq Body Count

''Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible"
GWB
Well, I agree with GWB. That's really incredible ! But so are most scientific discoveries; the movement of the planets, the laws of attraction, the dynamic of Fluids, Quantum Physics, the Theory of Evolution, the mind/brain theories, Climate Change, etc... The Lancet study is a scientific study. It is not about credibility, it is about evidence obtained by rigourous methodological means.

First survey: 2004 study
A great post and comment section from Out of the Crooked Timber as a reaction to the first survey.

New Survey, 2006 study. 'Human cost of the war in Iraq: A mortality study 2002-2006' can be found on the MIT web.
I found the link through Mark from Gorilla's Guides

If Blair and Bush don't like the study, they may start doing their prayer and ask their murderous God what went wrong with the numbers or why is this an issue after all, wasn't this his divine will ?
Esteemed colleague and blogger UrShalim figured out a little prayer for them...

UPDATE: Another post from Out of the Crooked Timber on the second Iraq Lancet study.

'Democracy' by the Sword

According to a new Lancet study, 655 000 Iraqis died since 2003.

''The figure for the number of deaths attributable to the conflict - which amounts to around 2.5% of the population - is at odds with figures cited by the US and UK governments and will cause a storm, but the Lancet says the work, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, has been examined and validated by four separate independent experts who all urged publication.''

Well, I have a question for the Pope, for Paleologos and for all the Islamophobics of the 'civilised' world:
Who is violent ?
Muhammad or the Pope ?
Muhammad or Bush ?
Muhammad or Blair ?
Muhammad or Sharon ?
Muhammad or Bolton ?
Islam or the West ?
Muslims or Freedom of Expression's liberal defenders, Muslim bashers like Bernard-Henri Lévy, Claude Lanzmann, Robert Redeker, Irshad Manji, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Chris Hitchens, Michelle Malkin, Flemming Rose, Fox news, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post... ?

I desperately need an answer because facts contradict the spin the world population is being fed day and night by the leaders of the 'peaceful and civilised' West...
And don't tell me this is Muslim violence against Muslims, what are 150 000 American and British soldiers doing in Iraq to stop all this violence ? If they cannot pacify a country like Iraq then either they withdraw admitting their failure or they do the job for which we sent them there; liberate Iraqis from Tyranny and Death. As they are doing none of this and seem, on the contrary, to be working against their mission, one must assume that their very presence is either passive negative or active negative. These soldiers are therefore participating in bringing death and misery to Iraqis by the hundred thousands in the name of 'Freedom' and 'Democracy'....

Thanks the Lancet, this is Science with a human face, unlike the Torture 'science' of the 'civilised' thugs of Guantanamo.

Pierre Tristam on Democracy and Information

Under the title 'Democracy's Ultimate Cover-Up', Pierre Tristam assesses, with his usual witty eloquence, the information we are being fed on the US's actual wars and its relation to the democratic process.

Apocalypse Now ?

Chris Hedge on the coming Iran war and Bush's nuclear apocalypse. (Thanks L.M.)

Even Israel's jet set in Washington knew directly of Bush's Iraq war a year before it happened

The extent of Israel's and the US's collaboration in setting up the Middle East agenda is scandalous by all means.
Even Abramoff knew about the Iraq war from his Israeli friends back in 2002. My guess is that the American public and even their representatives didn't know as much in advance...
Read Middle East Memo's post on this.

The ADL, Anti-Semitism and Freedom of Expression

When considering freedom of expression in the US, it seems to me that every hateful bigot has the right to spread his killing words and feel protected by the constitution and by those naive liberals who are trapped in thinking that their first duty is to protect Free expression no matter what...Two recent examples- Michelle Malkin's hateful video on Muslims and the Columbine father accusing the scientific teachings in public schools for being responsible for the shootings - show how hate and bigotry can reach the national stage without provoking any debate other than that of the freedom of expression...It seems as if this principle is an all or none principle.

Well it is actually not when it comes to the criticism of Israel. The cartoon here is from Latuff (Thanks FurGaia)

Tony Judt, a prominent antagonist of the Israel Lobby, was prevented from speaking on october 4th on the lobby in a space rented from the Polish consulate on the basis that he and others, speaking on the Israel lobby, are encouraging anti-semitism. The accusation, which is being defended by Chris Hitchens, came from the ADL, assorted with an implicit threat of legal action.

I think we are going through a process of radicalisation of the public opinion by which honest debates about important matters like the war on Iraq, Lebanon and the situation in the middle east in general are suppressed, information is held from the public by both authorities and news outlets, while everything else from hateful anti-Muslim expressions to provocations and manipulations are unleashed without any reasonable restraint.

In this context, it is very dangerous to leave the debate where it is now, at the level of an unconditional protection of free expression, without trying to regain equal rights for all individuals, to reestablish balance in the public debate and accountablility from our newsmen and women and our leaders.

Freedom of expression was established in a context in which other equally important rights were established; the right to be informed and the duty to inform, the right to exercise one's own civic and democratic responsibilities and the duties that go with them; the right to defend oneself from attacks and the right to be defended against attacks; the right to have access to courts and legislation that protect the citizen and the duty to keep laws and legislations in the sevice of justice. Without the democratic state there can be no democratic virtues. We just have to ask ourselves, are we living the democratic promise in the US right now ? I believe not since George Bush was elected. So lets work to reestablish our basic democratic rights before giving the right to free expression to someone like Ms Malkin.

I would like to quote here Jean Baubérot French historian who teaches the history of Seculairsm at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. Commenting on the recent controversy around the anti-Islamic and offensive publication of Robert Redeker's article and the ensuing controversy, Baubérot writes in Le Monde: '' We are walking on a road lined by two precipices and I am afraid that the intellectuals who defend the freedom of speech of Redeker and the likes are seeing only one precipice and walking backward so horrified from it to fall in the one they did not want to see.''

Defending unconditionally free speech in the actual context amounts to an irresponsible surrender motivated only by fear of what we know to fall in the darkness of what we don't want to face and try to know better.

Sign the 'No War With Iran' Petition

I received this message today from a friend:

''Incredibly enough, sources inside Washington say that the Bush Administration is moving ahead with a possible military strike against Iran. As insane as that sounds, I can believe that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would actually do such a thing.''

Go to this page to sign the 'No War With Iran' Petition.

The latest veil controversy: in defence of Straw's argument*

Never before I felt such a great symapthy and empathy for a Politician. And I was surprised Jack Straw would be this one. Nothing from what I knew about him prepared me for this new symapthy. I heard about the veil controversy this morning on the radio and thought that this was just another non-event transformed by our overzealous media as the event of the day and who knows may be the event of the month or the event of the next two or three months if they have no non sense to talk about. And of course there are all these extremist Muslim zealots giving their opinion on the matter and feeding the non-event.

I read Straw's opinion article about his interviews with Muslim women and why he asked them to uncover their face. He came out from this opinion as a fine human being. Straw's point was a humanist one. I think this is the first time I can see some honest objection to the veil based on a humanist approach and not some extremist secularism and what is the answer ? Western media and their present time darlings, Muslim extremists, are not able to pick up on the argument which can potentially bridge the divide between communities. There is no communication if you don't see the face of the Other and especially when this Other comes asking for help. There is no Other in the presence of the veil. I understand that some Muslim women might keep their veil in the street and I respect their choice, a woman is entitled not to be subjected to gratuitous scrutiny in the street or in the eyes of strangers and I think our civilisation with its overt insistance on coded appearances in a social setting with all their transformations and their sometimes provocative content has impoverished the face to face communication which is an open door to the soul of the Other beyond any appearance. In the absence of direct communication , looking at someone's face could indeed be a completely different matter, and it can be considered as voyeurism depending on the intentions of the moment. However, looking at someone's face in the presence of direct communication implying a dialogue, in which the two sides might engage in some theorising about the mental states of the Other, is a dialogue between two souls and two minds, it is no more voyeurism. In this setting, a veil deprives a woman from its soul and its mind in the face of the Other and this is where Straw's argument is highly valuable in my opinion.
Straw did ask Muslim women to unveil and he did it in a very subtle and gentle way and the women and their husbands accepted. So what's the hype about ? Instead of condemning and protesting, we should thank him for taking the veil controversy to another level, to a level where we humans should be communicating, with our souls and our minds and not with our ideolgies, being Muslim extremism or secularist extremism. And yes the latter exists, just ask the present Danish government, ask Hirsi Ali and some Islamophobics who cannot live without their extremist secularism...and this form of extremism, as much as Muslim extremism, is impoverishing and hindering the 'values' dialogue between Muslims and the West.

*UPDATE: A previous version of this post was written 'In defence of Jack Straw'. However after the heated and diverse debate around this post, I decided that a synthesis of all the arguments presented in the comment section makes it clear for all of us that we were not defending Straw but rather the argument advanced by Straw, on the condition that it comes with good intentions and that no matter the value of this argument, what is important, as some commentatots from both sides of the divide said, is that it allows a honest discussion in which everybody can see more than one aspect of this controversy, I believe...
Thanks for all the commentators, the comment section is not closed and everybody is encouraged to add new items and ideas to it...

South Lebanon: The war that never ends ?

I came across this article from David Hirst published in 1999. Read it if you have time. There is definitely a better understanding of the outcome of the latest Israeli agression on Lebanon from reading this excellent article.

Memoirs of a shallow Power

Angry Arab's reading of Woodward's State of Denial.

The W & M's anti-lobby campaign now on T-Shirts

Get your Walt and Mearsheimer T-shirts at Cafe press. Thanks Elizabeth.
P.S. I like the Ringer-T and the Green one.