One year and a half before the coming 2008 US presidential elections, An Israeli panel is giving marks to candidates, week by week, based on their speeches at The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), sponsored policies, and declarations. (Members of the Panel, which is an AIPAC bis).
I am sure Sarkozy can beat them all.
(Link found on Angry Arab)
30.4.07
Sarkozy et les néocons: même combat contre la société civile
Ce qu'il y a peut-être de plus significatif dans la charge de Nicolas Sarkozy sur Mai 68 est sa parenté evec le projet des néoconservateurs US. Ces derniers ont voulu eux aussi se débarrasser des valeurs léguées à leur société par la révolution tranquille des années soixante comme la libéralisation sexuelle et ce qu'ils considèrent comme le relâchement des moeurs et le pacifisme.
29.4.07
Sarko et la haute main sur les médias, suite: Plantu, Sarko et la mouche
''Succédant à une série de moustiques nommés "Sarkungugna", la première apparut sur un dessin du 14 décembre 2005. Jacques Chirac, très ému, déposait une gerbe à la mémoire des esclaves ; dans son dos, un élu UMP en short et casque colonial murmurait une traîtrise à l'oreille du ministre de l'intérieur. Il faisait chaud, la mouche volait bas, un peu par hasard, se souvient Plantu. Lequel fut fort étonné, le lendemain, de voir débarquer un motard en tenue, pour lui remettre une lettre à en-tête du ministère de l'intérieur.
Nicolas Sarkozy, après des compliments d'usage, disait : "Je n'ai pas manqué de remarquer un détail qui agrémente ma présence sur votre dessin (...) : une mouche. (...) Je sais qu'elles accompagnent généralement la représentation de Jean-Marie Le Pen. (...) J'ignore sincèrement ce qui me vaut un tel traitement, tant je considère avoir, tout au long de ma vie politique, combattu les idées de l'extrême droite : le racisme, l'intolérance, l'antisémitisme et, de manière générale, tout ce qui atteint l'homme dans sa dignité, à commencer par l'esclavage." Suivait une proposition d'entretien pour dissiper le "malentendu".
"Bien sûr, le lendemain, j'ai dessiné trois mouches !", raconte Plantu en riant. Depuis, Nicolas Sarkozy a aggravé son cas en se plaignant auprès de la direction du journal d'avoir été croqué en petit chien, "en roquet", selon lui, puis d'avoir été affublé du brassard "I. N.". "Il provoque lui-même la réaction qu'il redoute, note le caricaturiste. Là où il y a une mouche, il en crée trois..."
Personnellement, je trouve la soumission du Monde à Sarkozy tellement évidente et le fait de laisser s'exprimer la caricature de Plantu ne devrait pas être un sujet d'orgueil pour Le Monde car quand on est réduit à ne laisser s'exprimer que la bouffonnerie, et j'ai beaucoup de respect pour Plantu mais la bouffonnerie ici revêt son rôle noble, celui de supplanter les lâches et les soumis et le travail de dissidence normal, on peut alors crier 'Vive le Roi!'
Lire La haute main de Sarkozy sur les médias
La Ligue des Droits de l'Homme appelle à voter pour Ségolène Royal
Communiqué
Contre-pouvoir et association civique luttant contre l'arbitraire, l'injustice et l'intolérance, la Ligue des droits de l’Homme n’intervient dans le débat électoral que si le bon fonctionnement de la démocratie, l'effectivité de la citoyenneté et le respect des principes de liberté, d'égalité et de fraternité sont en jeu.
Nous venons de vivre cinq années de régression des libertés, de l’égalité et de la fraternité. Tous les pouvoirs ont été accaparés par un seul courant politique. L’autoritarisme, le recours aux moyens d’exception ont accompagné le renforcement du contrôle social, le choix du tout répressif, le recul des droits des justiciables, les attaques contre l’indépendance des juges. L’insécurité sociale a été renforcée pour les plus faibles, la protection sociale fragilisée, la précarité du travail encouragée. Les « marginaux », les « différents », les jeunes des quartiers défavorisés, ont été traités en boucs émissaires, les étrangers traqués jusque dans les écoles maternelles, les familles les plus démunies sanctionnées pour leur pauvreté.
Si Nicolas Sarkozy se voyait confier la plus haute charge de l’Etat, nous ne pourrons pas dire que nous ne savions pas : loi durcissant encore la répression pénale, nouvelle loi anti-étrangers, contrat de travail « unique » se substituant au CDI, sans parler du ministère de l’« identitaire » et de l’immigration… Il est de notre devoir d’alerter les citoyennes et les citoyens de ce pays : la poursuite et l’amplification de la politique menée depuis cinq ans ne serait pas un «rêve» mais un cauchemar. Nous ne voulons pas d’une démocratie muselée qui, parce qu’elle laisserait sur le bord de la route des millions de personnes, attiserait le communautarisme, le racisme, l’antisémitisme et la xénophobie et ouvrirait la voie aux révoltes sociales.
Nous voulons une autre France : fière de sa diversité, soucieuse que chacun puisse réaliser ses aspirations, porteuse des libertés et rénovant sa démocratie. La France n’est jamais aussi grande que lorsqu’elle met ses actes en accord avec son ambition séculaire de voir tous les droits valoir pour tous. Pendant qu’il en est temps, la LDH appelle les électeurs à choisir la solidarité et non la peur, le respect et non les menaces, l’égalité et non les discriminations.
La Ligue des droits de l’Homme appelle à voter et à faire voter, le 6 mai 2007, pour Ségolène Royal.
Paris, le 28 avril 2007.
Contre-pouvoir et association civique luttant contre l'arbitraire, l'injustice et l'intolérance, la Ligue des droits de l’Homme n’intervient dans le débat électoral que si le bon fonctionnement de la démocratie, l'effectivité de la citoyenneté et le respect des principes de liberté, d'égalité et de fraternité sont en jeu.
Nous venons de vivre cinq années de régression des libertés, de l’égalité et de la fraternité. Tous les pouvoirs ont été accaparés par un seul courant politique. L’autoritarisme, le recours aux moyens d’exception ont accompagné le renforcement du contrôle social, le choix du tout répressif, le recul des droits des justiciables, les attaques contre l’indépendance des juges. L’insécurité sociale a été renforcée pour les plus faibles, la protection sociale fragilisée, la précarité du travail encouragée. Les « marginaux », les « différents », les jeunes des quartiers défavorisés, ont été traités en boucs émissaires, les étrangers traqués jusque dans les écoles maternelles, les familles les plus démunies sanctionnées pour leur pauvreté.
Si Nicolas Sarkozy se voyait confier la plus haute charge de l’Etat, nous ne pourrons pas dire que nous ne savions pas : loi durcissant encore la répression pénale, nouvelle loi anti-étrangers, contrat de travail « unique » se substituant au CDI, sans parler du ministère de l’« identitaire » et de l’immigration… Il est de notre devoir d’alerter les citoyennes et les citoyens de ce pays : la poursuite et l’amplification de la politique menée depuis cinq ans ne serait pas un «rêve» mais un cauchemar. Nous ne voulons pas d’une démocratie muselée qui, parce qu’elle laisserait sur le bord de la route des millions de personnes, attiserait le communautarisme, le racisme, l’antisémitisme et la xénophobie et ouvrirait la voie aux révoltes sociales.
Nous voulons une autre France : fière de sa diversité, soucieuse que chacun puisse réaliser ses aspirations, porteuse des libertés et rénovant sa démocratie. La France n’est jamais aussi grande que lorsqu’elle met ses actes en accord avec son ambition séculaire de voir tous les droits valoir pour tous. Pendant qu’il en est temps, la LDH appelle les électeurs à choisir la solidarité et non la peur, le respect et non les menaces, l’égalité et non les discriminations.
La Ligue des droits de l’Homme appelle à voter et à faire voter, le 6 mai 2007, pour Ségolène Royal.
Paris, le 28 avril 2007.
28.4.07
Nobel Peace prize winner hurt by IOF's rubber coated steel bullets as she was protesting the wall at the palestinian village of Bil'in
Mairead Corrigan McGuire received the Nobel Peace prize in 1976 for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. She was recently participating in a conference in the village of Bil'in when she joined to the weekly held peaceful protest against the wall. This protest has been going on for a long time uniting every week come 100 peace activists, Israelis, Palestinians, and international activists. And every week the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)react by harsh intimidation, sometimes shooting rubber coated steel bullets at protesters. The rubber coated steel bullets came into question many times as they are not only meant to repel a protest but they can kill at close range.
Here is the video of Ms McGuire found on Mont Asbury:
Here is more on the story from Reclaiming Space and from Jim Wallis's blog
Here is the video of Ms McGuire found on Mont Asbury:
Here is more on the story from Reclaiming Space and from Jim Wallis's blog
La haute main de Sarkozy sur les médias
Un troublant constat. Enquête des journalistes Raphaël GARRIGOS, Catherine MALLAVAL, Isabelle ROBERTS, de Libération.
C'est sans doute sur Paris Match que les interventions de Nicolas Sarkozy ont été les plus directes et les plus pressantes. Témoin, l'incroyable limogeage de l'ancien patron de Paris Match, Alain Genestar. Témoin aussi, depuis, le chouchoutage du candidat. Ah ! ce titre «Un destin en marche», dont a bénéficié Sarkozy en décembre dernier (sans parler des huit pages lui étant dédiées). Mais si c'était tout. Très déboussolant aussi, le tout récent «outing» de Joseph Macé-Scaron, actuellement directeur adjoint de la rédaction de Marianne (1) , dans l'émission On refait le monde du 16 avril sur RTL : «J'ai été démissionné du Figaro Magazine [en juin 2005], tout simplement parce que j'ai refusé de tailler des pipes à M. Nicolas Sarkozy.» Direct. Autant que les coups de fil de Sarkozy à Edouard de Rothschild (actionnaire de référence de Libération ) pour se plaindre... L'intégralité de l'enquête
C'est sans doute sur Paris Match que les interventions de Nicolas Sarkozy ont été les plus directes et les plus pressantes. Témoin, l'incroyable limogeage de l'ancien patron de Paris Match, Alain Genestar. Témoin aussi, depuis, le chouchoutage du candidat. Ah ! ce titre «Un destin en marche», dont a bénéficié Sarkozy en décembre dernier (sans parler des huit pages lui étant dédiées). Mais si c'était tout. Très déboussolant aussi, le tout récent «outing» de Joseph Macé-Scaron, actuellement directeur adjoint de la rédaction de Marianne (1) , dans l'émission On refait le monde du 16 avril sur RTL : «J'ai été démissionné du Figaro Magazine [en juin 2005], tout simplement parce que j'ai refusé de tailler des pipes à M. Nicolas Sarkozy.» Direct. Autant que les coups de fil de Sarkozy à Edouard de Rothschild (actionnaire de référence de Libération ) pour se plaindre... L'intégralité de l'enquête
26.4.07
Mogadishu: the new killing zone on the neocon 'liberation' trail
''There are so many wounded people; from babies to 90-year-olds. They are brought to the hospitals near my house in wheelbarrows and donkey carts, bleeding, missing limbs.
The smells and sounds are unbearable. I find myself crying. I need to go to the hospitals to chronicle what is happening. But it is getting too hard emotionally. As a reporter for Reuters I am an observer, but I am also a human being.''
READThe return of Somalia warlords by Amina Mire (Thanks to Reclaiming Space, Forever Under Construction, and Ben Heine who featured Mire's article on his blog)
The smells and sounds are unbearable. I find myself crying. I need to go to the hospitals to chronicle what is happening. But it is getting too hard emotionally. As a reporter for Reuters I am an observer, but I am also a human being.''
READThe return of Somalia warlords by Amina Mire (Thanks to Reclaiming Space, Forever Under Construction, and Ben Heine who featured Mire's article on his blog)
Bronislaw Geremek, Polish witchhunt, and the now old fashioned moral choice in politics
Bronislaw Geremek, member of Solidarnosc, fought the communist regime in Poland. Now he is fighting the extreme right twin's regime. This regime has promulgated a law, which is called the 'lustration' law requiring from citizens applying for government jobs, any job, to sign a document or a confession declaring that they did not collaborate with the secret police of the communist regime, while, at the same time, maintaining the archives of the former regime, classified within a special ministry. Any refusal to sign or any proof of false declaration can make the person loose her job immediately.
Geremek, as an elected official, signed the document many times but felt that the recurrence of such a procedure and the new form it was given were humiliating for citizens and refused to sign it this time. He was immediately deposed by the Polish government from his elected position as European deputy.
Here is a translation of a text he wrote in protest to this law.
Central Europe is still struggling to come to terms with its communist past. This difficulty can be found not only at the reflexion and analysis levels but also at the political one.
To define the new measure taken by Polish authorities to debunk those individuals who were involved in some sort of collaboration with the political police of the communist regime in order to prevent them from participating in public life, Czechs introduced the term 'lustration'. All other central and eastern European countries have endorsed the term while giving it slightly different meanings and content.
Poland, since 1989, have attempted to come to terms with the problem without following the example of Germany who largely opened the archives of the Stasi to the public. In Poland, and it has been going on for few years now, we are summoned to declare during any election, local, national or European, if we had collaborated with the security services of the ex-regime. People accepting a job in the administration of the state were submitted to the same measure.
I personally, on many occasions, had to sign a declaration to the effect that I did not collaborate with the secret services of the communist regime. Last time I signed such a declaration was in 2004 when I ran for a seat in the European parliament. However, in March 2007 I was asked again to sign the declaration under the new 'lustration' law assorted by a new condition which strips from his job any individual refusing to sign the declaration.
This is a humiliating and absurd requirement but these are not the only reasons that pushed me to refuse to sign the declaration. By refusing to sign the declaration, I am expressing, this time, my refusal of the new law. I find such a law unacceptable in a democratic Europe. This 'lustration' law concerns some 400000 to 700000 individuals who work in government jobs. A special institute named 'the institute of national memory' is devoted to the archives of the secret police. This insitute has the mandate to judge directly any individual who was involved with the secret police byassing the regular justice system. In addition to people who hold giovernment jobs, journalists and teachers are concerned by the 'lustration' law and the judgements of the institute.
I believe that the 'lustration' law in its present form violates moral rules, threatens freedom of expression as well as the independance of universities and the media. It embodies a form of state control on Truth and Memory by generating a 'ministry of truth' a 'police of memory'. It strips the citizen form his rights to defend himself from libel and calumny by weakening the legal protection of his rights.
By refusing to sign my own declaration I am expressing my condemnation of the law. My action is not a political action. I hope that my refusal will push authorities to become more aware of the plight and the moral concern of the ordinary citizen and to reformulate the law. Such a law reveals a way of governance in which the power is based on the exploitation and the creation of conflicts in a society. The law creates a general feeling of anxiety among citizens and strenghtens the dependance of indiviudals to the power.
Poland is a free and democratic country, well anchored in the European union. I want society to mobilise in order to eliminate bad laws and end such methods of governance. This is not a personal plight, this is a plight for a democratic and European Poland.
Read Ignacio Ramonet's 'Polish witchhunt'
Geremek, as an elected official, signed the document many times but felt that the recurrence of such a procedure and the new form it was given were humiliating for citizens and refused to sign it this time. He was immediately deposed by the Polish government from his elected position as European deputy.
Here is a translation of a text he wrote in protest to this law.
Central Europe is still struggling to come to terms with its communist past. This difficulty can be found not only at the reflexion and analysis levels but also at the political one.
To define the new measure taken by Polish authorities to debunk those individuals who were involved in some sort of collaboration with the political police of the communist regime in order to prevent them from participating in public life, Czechs introduced the term 'lustration'. All other central and eastern European countries have endorsed the term while giving it slightly different meanings and content.
Poland, since 1989, have attempted to come to terms with the problem without following the example of Germany who largely opened the archives of the Stasi to the public. In Poland, and it has been going on for few years now, we are summoned to declare during any election, local, national or European, if we had collaborated with the security services of the ex-regime. People accepting a job in the administration of the state were submitted to the same measure.
I personally, on many occasions, had to sign a declaration to the effect that I did not collaborate with the secret services of the communist regime. Last time I signed such a declaration was in 2004 when I ran for a seat in the European parliament. However, in March 2007 I was asked again to sign the declaration under the new 'lustration' law assorted by a new condition which strips from his job any individual refusing to sign the declaration.
This is a humiliating and absurd requirement but these are not the only reasons that pushed me to refuse to sign the declaration. By refusing to sign the declaration, I am expressing, this time, my refusal of the new law. I find such a law unacceptable in a democratic Europe. This 'lustration' law concerns some 400000 to 700000 individuals who work in government jobs. A special institute named 'the institute of national memory' is devoted to the archives of the secret police. This insitute has the mandate to judge directly any individual who was involved with the secret police byassing the regular justice system. In addition to people who hold giovernment jobs, journalists and teachers are concerned by the 'lustration' law and the judgements of the institute.
I believe that the 'lustration' law in its present form violates moral rules, threatens freedom of expression as well as the independance of universities and the media. It embodies a form of state control on Truth and Memory by generating a 'ministry of truth' a 'police of memory'. It strips the citizen form his rights to defend himself from libel and calumny by weakening the legal protection of his rights.
By refusing to sign my own declaration I am expressing my condemnation of the law. My action is not a political action. I hope that my refusal will push authorities to become more aware of the plight and the moral concern of the ordinary citizen and to reformulate the law. Such a law reveals a way of governance in which the power is based on the exploitation and the creation of conflicts in a society. The law creates a general feeling of anxiety among citizens and strenghtens the dependance of indiviudals to the power.
Poland is a free and democratic country, well anchored in the European union. I want society to mobilise in order to eliminate bad laws and end such methods of governance. This is not a personal plight, this is a plight for a democratic and European Poland.
Read Ignacio Ramonet's 'Polish witchhunt'
24.4.07
Neocon with a French passport:Nicolas Sarkozy by his own words
The document is 106 pages long and is a portrait of Sarkozy, his political action as finance minister, and later as interior minister, and his political program. The document was researched and written by and for the French socialist party. It concludes that Sarkozy is a neocon (meaning a US import) with a French passport. (link to the text in French)
Here are some excerpts which quote Sarkozy himself:
The apology of the communautarist religious model
In his book 'The republic, religion and hope' Sarkozy writes "I believe that religious practice and religious belief can contribute to appease and regulate a free society...The leaders of the French church can initiate a debate on the necessity to build synagogues, churches and mosques in the suburbs. It is as important to devote spaces for religious cults in big urban zones as it is for sports, the latter have been very useful ! Our main concern should be focused on the ideals for the future young generation. There are all these youths who don't believe in anything, that's a challenge for all religions !"
To put it in a nutshell, for sarkozy the neoliberal, the only way to calm the growing discontent of the economically left behind by neoliberalist policies is to give them the opium of faith and organised religion. Quebec had this model cultivated by the Catholic church who was connivant with the English occupier and was later endorsed by Quebec's first nationalists like Maurice Duplessis who was a a conservative and a clerical fascist. There is a church in Montreal, Notre Dame de La defense, in little Italy, where you can admire Mussolini on his horse. The excuse for maintaining Mussolini in the painting is because it was made to commemorate the agreement by which Mussolini gave the Vatican its independance.
Sarkozy on Security
Sarkozy is known for his repressive attitude toward delinquancy and other social problems. In November 2006 he declared "We have to open a debate on the question of minimal sentencing for young and second offenders guilty of crimes against other persons". Sarkozy is also known for an attempt to promote on the national level the screening of children in daycares for conduct disorders, at the national level, and to track those who are thought to be vulnerable to developp them and send them to the approrpiate medical services. In this attempt, he tried to misuse a research report on behavioural disorders in children. 'Dr' Sarkozy reiterated recently his biological determinist approach to social order by declaring to philosopher Michel Onfray that pedophiles are born pedophiles and that behavioural and mood disorders, like suicidal behaviour, are genetically determined.
Here is a link to a book (which can be downloaded for free) written by a French magistrate opposed to Sarkozy revealing very disturbing practices of Sarkozy as an interior minister.
Bush's clone and Sarkozy the American
"Some in France call me Sarkozy the American. I am proud of this. I am a man of action, I do as I say and try to be pragmatic. I share many of the American values" declared sarkozy in April 2004 before the American jewish committee (AIPAC).
Read here Patrice de Beer's Sarkozy the American.
Here are some excerpts which quote Sarkozy himself:
The apology of the communautarist religious model
In his book 'The republic, religion and hope' Sarkozy writes "I believe that religious practice and religious belief can contribute to appease and regulate a free society...The leaders of the French church can initiate a debate on the necessity to build synagogues, churches and mosques in the suburbs. It is as important to devote spaces for religious cults in big urban zones as it is for sports, the latter have been very useful ! Our main concern should be focused on the ideals for the future young generation. There are all these youths who don't believe in anything, that's a challenge for all religions !"
To put it in a nutshell, for sarkozy the neoliberal, the only way to calm the growing discontent of the economically left behind by neoliberalist policies is to give them the opium of faith and organised religion. Quebec had this model cultivated by the Catholic church who was connivant with the English occupier and was later endorsed by Quebec's first nationalists like Maurice Duplessis who was a a conservative and a clerical fascist. There is a church in Montreal, Notre Dame de La defense, in little Italy, where you can admire Mussolini on his horse. The excuse for maintaining Mussolini in the painting is because it was made to commemorate the agreement by which Mussolini gave the Vatican its independance.
Sarkozy on Security
Sarkozy is known for his repressive attitude toward delinquancy and other social problems. In November 2006 he declared "We have to open a debate on the question of minimal sentencing for young and second offenders guilty of crimes against other persons". Sarkozy is also known for an attempt to promote on the national level the screening of children in daycares for conduct disorders, at the national level, and to track those who are thought to be vulnerable to developp them and send them to the approrpiate medical services. In this attempt, he tried to misuse a research report on behavioural disorders in children. 'Dr' Sarkozy reiterated recently his biological determinist approach to social order by declaring to philosopher Michel Onfray that pedophiles are born pedophiles and that behavioural and mood disorders, like suicidal behaviour, are genetically determined.
Here is a link to a book (which can be downloaded for free) written by a French magistrate opposed to Sarkozy revealing very disturbing practices of Sarkozy as an interior minister.
Bush's clone and Sarkozy the American
"Some in France call me Sarkozy the American. I am proud of this. I am a man of action, I do as I say and try to be pragmatic. I share many of the American values" declared sarkozy in April 2004 before the American jewish committee (AIPAC).
Read here Patrice de Beer's Sarkozy the American.
A new hope for Palestinian struggle ?
Israeli Arab deputy Azmi Bishara resigns seat and stays in Cairo. I saw some light of hope in these news.
Israel is a democracy for its Jewish citizens only. If you are an Arab, you just have to shut up and feign that everything is O.K. Azmi Bishara, one of the eleven Arab deputies in the knesset and leader of the Balad party, is a prominent critic of the paradox of the 'Jewish democracy', highlighting the many injustices done to Israeli Arabs by the Jewish state, like the interdiction to marry Arabs from occupied territories and the absence of state investments benefiting Israeli Arabs. Clearly Israeli Arabs do not live under the protection of the state like Jews. After Israel experienced some Katioucha rockets damages from Hezbollah last summer, only Jewish communities were evacuated and compensated while Arab communities who were more exposed than Jewish had to go to court to ask for equal compensation. Bishara was exposing eloquently to the world the lie that is 'democracy' in Israel.
Bishara is 50. He is a Christian from Nazareth, a communist and a Philosophy graduate from Humboldt university, Berlin. Recently he came under a police investigation whose motive was undeclared and under media censorship. Rumours circulated to the effect that Israel was going to accuse him of treason because of two visits he made to Syria, for his advocacy for civil rights for Israeli Arabs, and for his critique of Israel's democracy as a Jewish only democracy. Fearing the worse, Bishara decided recently to stay in Cairo where he was on a visit.
In a recent radio interview he declared: ''We, Arabs, are the true owners of this land. They want to treat us as guests in our own country while asking us to feign that everything is fine. No, things are not going well. We, Palestinians, are the children of this land and we will act like other people fighting occupation. I am more democrat, more liberal and more leftist than any of them.'' He also declared that Hezbollah was not a terrorist organisation but a resistance movement and the example young Palestinians admire and want to follow.
I think Mr. Bishara has done the right thing. Palestinian resistance inside the territories is doomed. Contrary to pre-Oslo when it was the only legitimate resistance, now it is corrupted by the imported Fatah movement who will do whatever possible to defeat Hamas's aspirations to effectively lead the Palestinians. Hamas has compromised on many things under international pressure and lost credibility while loosing progressively political power and any real possibility for strategic choice, the only choice left to them is fight an ugly war or surrender to Fatah and a collaborationnist attitude with Israel, leaving Palestinian people to be exiterminated by Israel. All hopes are now outside occupied territories, within Israeli Arabs capacity to fight for their civil rights in Israel and associate Palestinians in the occupied territories in this fight for civil rights as one people for one land. This is the only possibility left for Palestinian resistance and it is a one Israel fears so much because as long as Palestinians are the Other, terrorists, threat, whatever, Israel can ruthlessly fight and annihilate them. Not if they are part of the state. Not if they are asking peacefully for their civil rights. For this last fight to succeed the strategy must be one of non violence. Non violence does not mean passiveness and absence of action. Non violence means setting goals and sticking to these goals. One of the goals should be for all Palestinian factions to declare the end of armed fighting and military operations against Israel, dissolve the PA (which is a collaborationnist entity), put themselves under effective occupation, renounce Autonomy, and ask Israel to take its responsibilites as an occupier while not recognising the legitimacy of its existence as a normal state. I know that in some pro-Palestinian milieux non-violence is perceived as a surrender (and I agree that Palestinian resistance in the seventies is what put the Palestinian question on the world stage). However, times have changed and public opinions are now more willing to rally civil rights movement than armed resistance. The Palestinian struggle must espouse the values of the times and renounce violence. But it shouldn't renounce violence without some self defining goals. The main self defining goal should be the refusal to recognise the Israeli state. Palestinians should do the contrary of what they are doing now. Now they are fighting Israel with ridiculous means while showing their will, which is not being heard, to negotiate and recognise Israel. They should absolutely do the contrary, they should renounce armed struggle and refuse to recognise the state of Israel, therefore pressing Israel and the international community to face their contradictions.
Every struggle has its specifics and every power has its weakness and Israel's weakness is in its international standing. As long as Israel can turn the Palestinian armed struggle into terrorism the world will not care but when palestinians will turn Israel's argument against Israel by renouncing violence while refusing to recognise the Israeli state unless they have full civil rights, this is where Israel will find itself against the wall and will start to loose support.
I just have one advice for Mr. Bishara. He should leave Egypt and reside in a non Arab country friendly to the Palestinian cause like Norway or Sweden or even Belgium. Arab countries corrupted the Palestinian resistance and taught them how to collaborate with ennemies. Mr. Bishara is an independant mind and there is no fear for him to become corrupted, however, if he does not become corrupted he might be targeted for assassination. The history of the Palestinian resistance sadly points toward these two issues for Palestinian leaders exiled in Arab countries.
Read Ali Abunimah: 'What the persecution of Azmi Bishara means for palestine'
23.4.07
Le congrès Américain s'intéresserait au vote juif en France
Je publie ci-dessous les coordonnées d'un visiteur de mon site.
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22.4.07
Perspective britannique sur les élections françaises
An excellent analysis of the French social and political landscape within the context of the presidential elections from the London Review of Books, by Jeremy Harding.
LRB | Vol. 29 No. 8 dated 26 April 2007 | Jeremy Harding
''Royal’s ratings in the polls have fluctuated, and lately she has flagged. Her niceness quotient has been thinned away by unpleasant stories about her from people who’ve deserted her campaign, and by the popularity of the extremely nice Bayrou. She is desperate to impress business – and to encourage ‘medium and small’ businesses in particular, since large numbers of people will have to invent themselves as earners in the absence of a flourishing labour market between now and 2012. To this end she is promising more and more liberal economic measures and start-up exemptions. She stands, however, for a not very different, still immobilised France where unemployment figures will remain steady even if the low purchasing power of the French earner, which she’d like to improve, means a narrower gap between rich and poor than exists in the lands of sterling and the dollar. She hopes there’ll be French flags in every home, and she is adamant there’ll be security on the streets: she’s a tough love figure, big on law and order, big on boot camps for young offenders. She wants ‘citizens’ juries’ to monitor public policy and public life. At the same time, she has said she’d like to shake down the bureaucracy with its ‘jacobin’ intrusiveness and complexity, but she hasn’t explained what job losses this would entail in the public sector. She is for more spending without raising taxes, and wants to constitute a Sixth Republic with an element of proportional representation for election to the National Assembly and devolution of power to the regions. Beneath the appearance of candour, her policies can seem elusive. In the Middle East last year, she expressed solidarity with the Israelis and the Palestinians. She is worryingly touchy-feely and stands in relation to the Parti Socialiste a little like Blair stood in relation to Old Labour in 1997.''
LRB | Vol. 29 No. 8 dated 26 April 2007 | Jeremy Harding
''Royal’s ratings in the polls have fluctuated, and lately she has flagged. Her niceness quotient has been thinned away by unpleasant stories about her from people who’ve deserted her campaign, and by the popularity of the extremely nice Bayrou. She is desperate to impress business – and to encourage ‘medium and small’ businesses in particular, since large numbers of people will have to invent themselves as earners in the absence of a flourishing labour market between now and 2012. To this end she is promising more and more liberal economic measures and start-up exemptions. She stands, however, for a not very different, still immobilised France where unemployment figures will remain steady even if the low purchasing power of the French earner, which she’d like to improve, means a narrower gap between rich and poor than exists in the lands of sterling and the dollar. She hopes there’ll be French flags in every home, and she is adamant there’ll be security on the streets: she’s a tough love figure, big on law and order, big on boot camps for young offenders. She wants ‘citizens’ juries’ to monitor public policy and public life. At the same time, she has said she’d like to shake down the bureaucracy with its ‘jacobin’ intrusiveness and complexity, but she hasn’t explained what job losses this would entail in the public sector. She is for more spending without raising taxes, and wants to constitute a Sixth Republic with an element of proportional representation for election to the National Assembly and devolution of power to the regions. Beneath the appearance of candour, her policies can seem elusive. In the Middle East last year, she expressed solidarity with the Israelis and the Palestinians. She is worryingly touchy-feely and stands in relation to the Parti Socialiste a little like Blair stood in relation to Old Labour in 1997.''
21.4.07
Les Français de Montréal Votent
Il y a trent-quatre à trente-six mille électeurs à Montréal. La journée fut belle et chaude pour la saison. Ce n'est pas la première fois que je vote mais j'ai eu l'impression que la participation était grande cette fois-ci. Elle le fut aussi lors du deuxième tour Chirac-LePen en 2002. Avec le décalage horaire, six heures derrière la France métropolitaine, nous avions l'habitude de voter, le même jour, avec, pour ceux qui allaient voter l'après-midi, une certaine connaissance des résultats de la sortie des urnes. Le fait que nous avons eu le privilège de voter avant la France métropolitaine, pour cette élection, a attiré beaucoup d'électeurs avec le sentiment de peser sur les résultats plutôt que de les endosser, ou les contester, après-coup.
P.S. Un lecteur anonyme soucieux de l'intégrité de la langue française a noté une faute d'orthographe dans cet article. Correction faite, je le remercie de me l'avoir signalée.
20.4.07
Un des gros actionnaires de CSA au secours de Nicolas Sarkozy?
Beaucoup a été dit sur les sondages portant sur les présidentielles en France. Mais il y a eu quelques constantes:
1) La montée de François Bayrou et son maintien parmi les candidats de tête.
2) Parallèlement, tous les sondages donnaient M. Bayrou gagnant contre M. Sarkozy au deuxième tour, et par une grande marge, alors que la victoire de Ségolène Royal au deuxième tour semblait loin d'être assurée.
Cet état des choses a créé une frénésie à la fois chez les socialistes qui commençaient à avoir peur d'être éliminés au premier tour comme en 2002 et chez Sarkozy et son large support médiatique et corporatiste qui craignaient de voir passer Bayrou au deuxième tour et voler une victoire qui semblait plus assurée dans un Sarkozy face à Royal. La peur du camp Sarkozyste a atteint un tel point que M. Colombani, l'éditeur du Monde, dont le journal n'a cessé d'égratigner Bayrou tout au long de la campagne, s'est fendu d'un éditorial (les siens sont surtout courts, tièdes, et tépides d'habitude) appelant ni plus ni moins à faire l'inverse qu'à l'habitude et à 'éliminer au premier tour pour pouvoir choisir au deuxième', le seul 'choix démocratique' selon Colombani est celui qui se fera entre Royal et Sarkozy. Cet éditorial est une infamie en matière de manipulation d'opinion et de rectitude journalistique.
Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, le journal Le Monde publiait des articles sur la menace Le Pen au deuxième tour alors que Le Pen ne semblait pas constituer une menace comme en 2002. Manière de suggérer à ceux qui sont tentés de voter Bayrou, et dont la plupart sont des centristes, des gens qui (contrairement à sarkozy) auraient horreur de voir passer Le Pen au deuxième tour, que leur vote pour Bayrou au premier tour risque d'être inutile. Or il se trouve que Le Monde a voulu appuyer ses prédictions capricieuses par un sondage de plus juste avant la fermeture officielle de la publication des sondages avant le premier tour.
Ce soir, assise devant mon ordinateur à Montréal vers 22h locales, je lis qu'un sondage CSA donne Bayrou derrière Le Pen, alors que Royal et Sarkozy sont à égalité au premier et au deuxième. Le sondage a été commandité par le Parisien, connu je crois pour son biais en faveur de Sarkozy, moins subtil que celui du Monde. Le sondage est repris par le Monde avec une grande avidité en forme de dépêche. Il est clair que tout cela, un sondage à quelques heures de la prise d'effet de l'interdiction de publication de sondages avant le premier tour du scrutin qui se démarque de tous les autres, non corroboré, non analysé, et contredisant tous les autres sondages préalables, sent mauvais. Il n'est que de la manipulation d'opinion destinée à détourner les électeurs de gauche centristes d'un vote en faveur de Bayrou.
Ce qui est imprtant dans la publication de ce sondage n'est pas dit:
1) Le fait que c'est un résultat non corroboré par un autre institut;
2) le fait que c'est un sondage commandité à CSA qui est une firme privée appartenant à des intérêts privés par un journal pro-Sarkozy appartenant lui-même à des intérêts privés;
3) Ces milieux d'affaires proches de Sarkozy seraient ils déstabilisés par l'élimination de leur poulain Sarkozy pour qu'ils se risquent à la réalisation et la publication d'un sondage controversé ?
Une petite recherche donne le résultat suivant. Devinez qui est entré dans le capital de CSA en septembre 2006 ?
M. Vincent Bolloré (Page Wiki en Français, différente mais complète la version anglaise.
M. Bolloré fait entrer Philippe Wahl et Xavier Susperregui au CA de CSA, les autres personnes siégeant au CA de CSA sont des professionnels du métier. Ce ne sera pas la première fois qu'un institut de sondage se tromperait. Cela n'égratignerait en rien leurs affaires car ils font aussi dans le marketing commercial. En passant, en publiant ce sondage de dernière minute, on aura effrayé des électeurs de Royal et Sarkozy, mais plus les électeurs de Royal à mon avis, tentés par le vote centriste pour les obliger à retourner dans les girons des deux candidats Sarkozy et Royal.
Tout le monde, dans l'establishment on s'entend car le peuple ne compte pas, sera content. Avec un peu de chance et beaucoup de manipulation, les patrons auront leur président, Royal aura passé le premier tour et sauvé sa carrière politique, les patrons, et le candidat du centre, et du peuple français qui en a marre, ne compte pas, il ne fait pas partie des 'copains', il peut être éliminé en silence. Personne n'osera demander à Bolloré et CSA de rendre des comptes.
Information sur les personnes liées à Vincent Bolloré sur News Explorer
Information sur les personnes liées à Philippe Wahl.
Good night and Good Luck...
1) La montée de François Bayrou et son maintien parmi les candidats de tête.
2) Parallèlement, tous les sondages donnaient M. Bayrou gagnant contre M. Sarkozy au deuxième tour, et par une grande marge, alors que la victoire de Ségolène Royal au deuxième tour semblait loin d'être assurée.
Cet état des choses a créé une frénésie à la fois chez les socialistes qui commençaient à avoir peur d'être éliminés au premier tour comme en 2002 et chez Sarkozy et son large support médiatique et corporatiste qui craignaient de voir passer Bayrou au deuxième tour et voler une victoire qui semblait plus assurée dans un Sarkozy face à Royal. La peur du camp Sarkozyste a atteint un tel point que M. Colombani, l'éditeur du Monde, dont le journal n'a cessé d'égratigner Bayrou tout au long de la campagne, s'est fendu d'un éditorial (les siens sont surtout courts, tièdes, et tépides d'habitude) appelant ni plus ni moins à faire l'inverse qu'à l'habitude et à 'éliminer au premier tour pour pouvoir choisir au deuxième', le seul 'choix démocratique' selon Colombani est celui qui se fera entre Royal et Sarkozy. Cet éditorial est une infamie en matière de manipulation d'opinion et de rectitude journalistique.
Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, le journal Le Monde publiait des articles sur la menace Le Pen au deuxième tour alors que Le Pen ne semblait pas constituer une menace comme en 2002. Manière de suggérer à ceux qui sont tentés de voter Bayrou, et dont la plupart sont des centristes, des gens qui (contrairement à sarkozy) auraient horreur de voir passer Le Pen au deuxième tour, que leur vote pour Bayrou au premier tour risque d'être inutile. Or il se trouve que Le Monde a voulu appuyer ses prédictions capricieuses par un sondage de plus juste avant la fermeture officielle de la publication des sondages avant le premier tour.
Ce soir, assise devant mon ordinateur à Montréal vers 22h locales, je lis qu'un sondage CSA donne Bayrou derrière Le Pen, alors que Royal et Sarkozy sont à égalité au premier et au deuxième. Le sondage a été commandité par le Parisien, connu je crois pour son biais en faveur de Sarkozy, moins subtil que celui du Monde. Le sondage est repris par le Monde avec une grande avidité en forme de dépêche. Il est clair que tout cela, un sondage à quelques heures de la prise d'effet de l'interdiction de publication de sondages avant le premier tour du scrutin qui se démarque de tous les autres, non corroboré, non analysé, et contredisant tous les autres sondages préalables, sent mauvais. Il n'est que de la manipulation d'opinion destinée à détourner les électeurs de gauche centristes d'un vote en faveur de Bayrou.
Ce qui est imprtant dans la publication de ce sondage n'est pas dit:
1) Le fait que c'est un résultat non corroboré par un autre institut;
2) le fait que c'est un sondage commandité à CSA qui est une firme privée appartenant à des intérêts privés par un journal pro-Sarkozy appartenant lui-même à des intérêts privés;
3) Ces milieux d'affaires proches de Sarkozy seraient ils déstabilisés par l'élimination de leur poulain Sarkozy pour qu'ils se risquent à la réalisation et la publication d'un sondage controversé ?
Une petite recherche donne le résultat suivant. Devinez qui est entré dans le capital de CSA en septembre 2006 ?
M. Vincent Bolloré (Page Wiki en Français, différente mais complète la version anglaise.
M. Bolloré fait entrer Philippe Wahl et Xavier Susperregui au CA de CSA, les autres personnes siégeant au CA de CSA sont des professionnels du métier. Ce ne sera pas la première fois qu'un institut de sondage se tromperait. Cela n'égratignerait en rien leurs affaires car ils font aussi dans le marketing commercial. En passant, en publiant ce sondage de dernière minute, on aura effrayé des électeurs de Royal et Sarkozy, mais plus les électeurs de Royal à mon avis, tentés par le vote centriste pour les obliger à retourner dans les girons des deux candidats Sarkozy et Royal.
Tout le monde, dans l'establishment on s'entend car le peuple ne compte pas, sera content. Avec un peu de chance et beaucoup de manipulation, les patrons auront leur président, Royal aura passé le premier tour et sauvé sa carrière politique, les patrons, et le candidat du centre, et du peuple français qui en a marre, ne compte pas, il ne fait pas partie des 'copains', il peut être éliminé en silence. Personne n'osera demander à Bolloré et CSA de rendre des comptes.
Information sur les personnes liées à Vincent Bolloré sur News Explorer
Information sur les personnes liées à Philippe Wahl.
Good night and Good Luck...
19.4.07
British journalists call for boycott of Israeli goods
''At the annual delegates meeting of the journalists' union last Friday, a vote calling for "a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa" was approved 66 to 54.''
17.4.07
Sarkozy the ruthless demagogue
Naima Bouteldja on the wannabe president.
Sarkozy, like Bush, is unfit to become president, and if he becomes president 'French are going to suffer' hell (dixit Michel Rocard).
Sarkozy, like Bush, is unfit to become president, and if he becomes president 'French are going to suffer' hell (dixit Michel Rocard).
USrael's Lies: The New Orientalism and the Elusive Peace
Israel does not want peace. That's not only Gideon Levy's conclusion but also the conclusion of some in the Bush camp as it appears (i.e. Robert Novak). Indeed, nothing for now can move Israel and the neo-cons from their attitude toward conflict and peace in the ME, because public opinion in the US and the west in general are kept in ignorance of facts about the region. Western policy about the Middle east is divorced from facts and from informed public opinion, thanks mainly to the work of the neo-cons.
''To these people the interests of Israel are paramount, and if Israel is not interested in a two state solution that involves handing back settlements then neither are the neo-cons. And no matter what game they play publicly, their policy line remains tied to whatever the state of Israel wants.''
A blatant example of this willful ignorance is the death of investigative journalism and the reduction of the media, even the most prominent ones, to simple mouthpieces of their governments and their leaders. Homeyra points out to an article on the neo-cons where there is mention of the fact that most of them come from the news media which they tranformed into their echo chamber, a subjective one by their own admission. Le Monde yesterday published answers to questions sent to the three front runner candidates for the presdiential elections in France. The questions were about ten 'crucial' issues in foreign policy, as determined by le Monde. A third of the questions was about Iran, more than a third was about internal and foreign affairs issues related to Europe including attitudes toward China and Russia, and there was a question on Darfur, a recently zionist sponsored 'humanitarian' cause. There was no mention of the Israeli-Arab conflict, no mention of Iraq, and no mention of Palestine. Half of the questions on crucial foreign policy issues in France, as determined by le Monde, can be seen as neo-con issues. Le Monde is a center left mainstream French newspaper. The sounds of the drumbeats in the echo chamber are reaching distant neighbourhoods.
I realised yesterday that the neo-con thinking has become invasive, even among people and countries outside their own circles. This work of disinformation was achieved by a joint effort from Israel and its neo-con allies through means including shock and awe wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lying, intimidation, mayhem, threats, and most of all, the devaluation of facts on the ground which were replaced and substituted by false narratives bearing no relation to Truth.
Take for example the present zionist narrative on the Israeli-palestinian peace process, the one that was fabricated since 9/11 with the help of the 'War on Terror'. We all know that the 'war on terror' has produced more terror, displaced three to four millions Iraqis from their homes while eight to nine millions need humanitarian assistance, killed another million of them, and destabilised the whole Middle East, not to mention Afghanistan. On the other hand, the 'war on terror' served as the main line in a narrative preventing any effort to reach peace in Palestine. The following were the main premices of the 'War on Terror' narrative:
-Sharon could not talk to Arafat because Arafat was a terrorist;
-Sharon could not talk to Abbas because Abbas could not reign in on terrorists;
And when Abbas was sufficiently weakened and Hamas took over democratically after having stopped suicide bombings:
-Sharon, and consequently Olmert, could not talk to Hamas because not only Hamas are terrorists but they don't recognise Israel's 'right to exist'. Israel was frightened asking for the protection of the international community because, in Palestine, terrorists in government don't recognise its 'right to exist';
The international community followed Israel in this path and Israel felt enough support to conduct daily invasions and armed assaults on Gaza (Remember Jennine, Beith Hanoun ?) as well as daily harrassement of Palestinians, which continue to go on as I am writing. Israel felt enough support to conduct a bloody criminal war on Lebanon to get the pro-Bush Sanyura government rid of Hezbollah 'terrorists' which are roughly 40 % of the country's population and more if you count their popular support from other communities, killing, in one month, more than a thousand civilians, displacing a quarter of the population, destroying infrastructure and dropping some one million cluster bombs intended to kill well after the ceasefire.
During this time, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were caving to international pressure to form a unity government so the west could send aid, halted at the election of the Hamas government, to palestinians who are in critical conditions and starving. Rice, Bush and Olmert tried their best, and behind the scenes, to stop a unity government, by giving money and arms to corrupt Palestinian factions (Fatah) pushing Gaza into a civil war. Things were starting to look really ugly when Saudi Arabia, the first official US and Israel implicit ally in the region, worried by a rise of anti-Saudi sentiment in the Arab street and among Muslims, stepped in and brokered a unity government. The Palestinian Authority government that resulted has not only a third of its members from Fatah, an organisation seen now as 'moderate' by the US and Israel (it wasn't moderate enoug for them when it was time to negotiate with Arafat), but it has also more than a third of its members from the civil society and independant groups. Israel ignored the government. The saudis relaunched their peace initiative, with an implicit agreement from the present Palestinian government, Israel continued to ignore it, until a week ago. Meanwhile, Olmert is mulling the Arab peace offer. If it is good for him on the internal level, he may engage in talks but he seems reluctant to accept it as such. Read here how Israel and most Israelis view the peace initiative, which is minimal to a two state solution, and here an appraisal of the initiative.
During the five years and a half since 9/11, chances for peace in the ME were squandered by a simple narrative, the 'war on terror' narrative, making all Arabs and Muslims potential terrorists, ennemies of the West, unfit for talks and undeserving peace. It is a convenient lie and it is a new dehumanising tactic for the New Orientalism enabling the continued and renewed occupation of Palestine, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the invasion and bombing of Lebanon, the extraordinary renditions, torture, at scales unseen before, by modern western democracies, enabling Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the reorientation of the international foreign policy agenda away from the Israeli-Arab conflict to new satellite but nonetheless important conflicts like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Somalia. And it does not stop there. Al-Qaida, which is an objective ally of the neo-cons in the 'war on terror', because Al-Qaida exists as long as the 'war on terror' exists (see the Adam Curtis documentary, 'The Power of Nightmares'), was trying recently to spread this 'war' to the Maghreb, Algeria and Morocco. The Algerian government, which dealt with a murderous and state threatening wave of Islamist terror whose scale was much wider than 9/11 related directly to an internal social and economical malaise, and which is trying to revive the state, the economy, and national reconciliation, was very very angry with the US ambassador's reaction to the recent bombings in Alger. It accused the US embassy, who issued a warning on future and imminent Al-Qaida terror attacks in Alger, of interference in internal affairs of a sovereign state. The present US ambassador in Alger had a previous job in occupied Iraq as an ambassador. The Algerian government is labeling the shocking attitude of the US ambassador as the 'Iraqi' attitude, a coloniser attitude. Algerians fought a bloody war of decolonisation and they are, more than other Arabs, very sensitive to the colonialist attitude.
Lets listen to professor Edward Said speaking on Orientalism.
Thanks Kel.
By labeling Arabs and Muslims as terrorists and potential threats to the US and the West, Israel, the neo-con, and their much cherished 'war on Terror' have recreated Orientalism. This New Orientalism, no less dehumanising, is much more rapacious; it supresses any humanity to Arabs and Msulsims and manages to deny them the status of victims and to convince the world that it is Israel who is the victim in this conflict. The 'War on Terror' is a convenient lie hiding an inconvenient truth; the unjustice done to Palestinians, Muslims, and the Arab world, by Israel.
This New Orientalism is unlike others because it uses as a proxy an occupying state, Israel, which is politically and strategically, and at the same time, an integral part of the ME and an integral part of the West. Unlike other occupation endeavours, and with the exception of the European occupation of the new World, this one, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, is here to stay. If it refuses peace, if it refuses to merge into a uniquely Middle Eastern state strategically and politically different from the West's military power and in peace with its neighbours, and if the West refuses to dissociate itself from this occupation, the only logical outcome, and history is here to testify to this outcome, will be a dramatic outcome and either one of these:
The end of the existence of the Palestinian state. It happened already;
The end of the Israeli state. It could not happen given the military and economic power of Israel;
The extermination and dissemination of the Palestinian people. This is happening before our eyes.
If Israel does not want a two state solution, giving a viable state to Palestinians and retreating behind the 1967 occupation lines, neither a one state solution integrating all Palestinians and giving them rights equal to Jewish citizens, the only outcome will be the slow extermination of the Palestinian people. This is the simple truth we are trying to hide from by listening to neo-con lies.
UPDATE: I am relieved that no Arab or Muslim was behind the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech on Monday April 16th. Otherwise, Bush would have to invade the Arab or Muslim country of the shooter. That's the meaning of the war on terror; waging wars with organised armies against a bunch of fools and thugs. Now, is Bush going to attack South Korea ?
''To these people the interests of Israel are paramount, and if Israel is not interested in a two state solution that involves handing back settlements then neither are the neo-cons. And no matter what game they play publicly, their policy line remains tied to whatever the state of Israel wants.''
A blatant example of this willful ignorance is the death of investigative journalism and the reduction of the media, even the most prominent ones, to simple mouthpieces of their governments and their leaders. Homeyra points out to an article on the neo-cons where there is mention of the fact that most of them come from the news media which they tranformed into their echo chamber, a subjective one by their own admission. Le Monde yesterday published answers to questions sent to the three front runner candidates for the presdiential elections in France. The questions were about ten 'crucial' issues in foreign policy, as determined by le Monde. A third of the questions was about Iran, more than a third was about internal and foreign affairs issues related to Europe including attitudes toward China and Russia, and there was a question on Darfur, a recently zionist sponsored 'humanitarian' cause. There was no mention of the Israeli-Arab conflict, no mention of Iraq, and no mention of Palestine. Half of the questions on crucial foreign policy issues in France, as determined by le Monde, can be seen as neo-con issues. Le Monde is a center left mainstream French newspaper. The sounds of the drumbeats in the echo chamber are reaching distant neighbourhoods.
I realised yesterday that the neo-con thinking has become invasive, even among people and countries outside their own circles. This work of disinformation was achieved by a joint effort from Israel and its neo-con allies through means including shock and awe wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lying, intimidation, mayhem, threats, and most of all, the devaluation of facts on the ground which were replaced and substituted by false narratives bearing no relation to Truth.
Take for example the present zionist narrative on the Israeli-palestinian peace process, the one that was fabricated since 9/11 with the help of the 'War on Terror'. We all know that the 'war on terror' has produced more terror, displaced three to four millions Iraqis from their homes while eight to nine millions need humanitarian assistance, killed another million of them, and destabilised the whole Middle East, not to mention Afghanistan. On the other hand, the 'war on terror' served as the main line in a narrative preventing any effort to reach peace in Palestine. The following were the main premices of the 'War on Terror' narrative:
-Sharon could not talk to Arafat because Arafat was a terrorist;
-Sharon could not talk to Abbas because Abbas could not reign in on terrorists;
And when Abbas was sufficiently weakened and Hamas took over democratically after having stopped suicide bombings:
-Sharon, and consequently Olmert, could not talk to Hamas because not only Hamas are terrorists but they don't recognise Israel's 'right to exist'. Israel was frightened asking for the protection of the international community because, in Palestine, terrorists in government don't recognise its 'right to exist';
The international community followed Israel in this path and Israel felt enough support to conduct daily invasions and armed assaults on Gaza (Remember Jennine, Beith Hanoun ?) as well as daily harrassement of Palestinians, which continue to go on as I am writing. Israel felt enough support to conduct a bloody criminal war on Lebanon to get the pro-Bush Sanyura government rid of Hezbollah 'terrorists' which are roughly 40 % of the country's population and more if you count their popular support from other communities, killing, in one month, more than a thousand civilians, displacing a quarter of the population, destroying infrastructure and dropping some one million cluster bombs intended to kill well after the ceasefire.
During this time, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were caving to international pressure to form a unity government so the west could send aid, halted at the election of the Hamas government, to palestinians who are in critical conditions and starving. Rice, Bush and Olmert tried their best, and behind the scenes, to stop a unity government, by giving money and arms to corrupt Palestinian factions (Fatah) pushing Gaza into a civil war. Things were starting to look really ugly when Saudi Arabia, the first official US and Israel implicit ally in the region, worried by a rise of anti-Saudi sentiment in the Arab street and among Muslims, stepped in and brokered a unity government. The Palestinian Authority government that resulted has not only a third of its members from Fatah, an organisation seen now as 'moderate' by the US and Israel (it wasn't moderate enoug for them when it was time to negotiate with Arafat), but it has also more than a third of its members from the civil society and independant groups. Israel ignored the government. The saudis relaunched their peace initiative, with an implicit agreement from the present Palestinian government, Israel continued to ignore it, until a week ago. Meanwhile, Olmert is mulling the Arab peace offer. If it is good for him on the internal level, he may engage in talks but he seems reluctant to accept it as such. Read here how Israel and most Israelis view the peace initiative, which is minimal to a two state solution, and here an appraisal of the initiative.
During the five years and a half since 9/11, chances for peace in the ME were squandered by a simple narrative, the 'war on terror' narrative, making all Arabs and Muslims potential terrorists, ennemies of the West, unfit for talks and undeserving peace. It is a convenient lie and it is a new dehumanising tactic for the New Orientalism enabling the continued and renewed occupation of Palestine, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the invasion and bombing of Lebanon, the extraordinary renditions, torture, at scales unseen before, by modern western democracies, enabling Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the reorientation of the international foreign policy agenda away from the Israeli-Arab conflict to new satellite but nonetheless important conflicts like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Somalia. And it does not stop there. Al-Qaida, which is an objective ally of the neo-cons in the 'war on terror', because Al-Qaida exists as long as the 'war on terror' exists (see the Adam Curtis documentary, 'The Power of Nightmares'), was trying recently to spread this 'war' to the Maghreb, Algeria and Morocco. The Algerian government, which dealt with a murderous and state threatening wave of Islamist terror whose scale was much wider than 9/11 related directly to an internal social and economical malaise, and which is trying to revive the state, the economy, and national reconciliation, was very very angry with the US ambassador's reaction to the recent bombings in Alger. It accused the US embassy, who issued a warning on future and imminent Al-Qaida terror attacks in Alger, of interference in internal affairs of a sovereign state. The present US ambassador in Alger had a previous job in occupied Iraq as an ambassador. The Algerian government is labeling the shocking attitude of the US ambassador as the 'Iraqi' attitude, a coloniser attitude. Algerians fought a bloody war of decolonisation and they are, more than other Arabs, very sensitive to the colonialist attitude.
L'attitude des Américains mise en cause à Alger après un avis d'alerte aux attentats
LEMONDE.FR | 15.04.07
LEMONDE.FR | 15.04.07
© 
L'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Alger redoute de nouvelles attaques dans la journée
LEMONDE.FR | 14.04.07
LEMONDE.FR | 14.04.07
©
Lets listen to professor Edward Said speaking on Orientalism.
Thanks Kel.
By labeling Arabs and Muslims as terrorists and potential threats to the US and the West, Israel, the neo-con, and their much cherished 'war on Terror' have recreated Orientalism. This New Orientalism, no less dehumanising, is much more rapacious; it supresses any humanity to Arabs and Msulsims and manages to deny them the status of victims and to convince the world that it is Israel who is the victim in this conflict. The 'War on Terror' is a convenient lie hiding an inconvenient truth; the unjustice done to Palestinians, Muslims, and the Arab world, by Israel.
This New Orientalism is unlike others because it uses as a proxy an occupying state, Israel, which is politically and strategically, and at the same time, an integral part of the ME and an integral part of the West. Unlike other occupation endeavours, and with the exception of the European occupation of the new World, this one, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, is here to stay. If it refuses peace, if it refuses to merge into a uniquely Middle Eastern state strategically and politically different from the West's military power and in peace with its neighbours, and if the West refuses to dissociate itself from this occupation, the only logical outcome, and history is here to testify to this outcome, will be a dramatic outcome and either one of these:
The end of the existence of the Palestinian state. It happened already;
The end of the Israeli state. It could not happen given the military and economic power of Israel;
The extermination and dissemination of the Palestinian people. This is happening before our eyes.
If Israel does not want a two state solution, giving a viable state to Palestinians and retreating behind the 1967 occupation lines, neither a one state solution integrating all Palestinians and giving them rights equal to Jewish citizens, the only outcome will be the slow extermination of the Palestinian people. This is the simple truth we are trying to hide from by listening to neo-con lies.
UPDATE: I am relieved that no Arab or Muslim was behind the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech on Monday April 16th. Otherwise, Bush would have to invade the Arab or Muslim country of the shooter. That's the meaning of the war on terror; waging wars with organised armies against a bunch of fools and thugs. Now, is Bush going to attack South Korea ?
12.4.07
Al-Qaida Maghreb vote pour Sarkozy
L'extrait suivant de dépêche AP date de Jeudi 14 septembre 2006.
Dans son message vidéo du 11 septembre, coïncidant avec le cinquième anniversaire des attentats sur le sol américain, le No2 d'Al-Qaïda, Ayman al-Zawahri, demande ainsi au GSPC "d'être un os dans la gorge des croisés américains et français" et d'inspirer peur et détresse "dans les coeurs des traîtres fils apostats de France".
A l'Époque, Al-Qaida et le monde commémoraient le cinquième anniversaire du 11 septembre. Nicolas Sarkozy, déjà président de l'UMP et assuré de sa candidature à la présidentielle, effectuait une visite très médiatique aux États-Unis. De ce pays dont il admire tant le dirigeant actuel, George Bush, Sarkozy s'est fait un plaisir de commenter la déclaration de Ayman Al-Zawahiri de la manière suivante:
"Nous prenons très au sérieux ces menaces. J'ai eu l'occasion de qualifier la menace en France d'élevée et de permanente, les mots ont un sens. Mais il n'y a rien de nouveau", a confié le ministre de l'Intérieur. "Nous savons depuis le 11 septembre 2003 que le GSPC, qui est le successeur du GIA a fait acte d'allégeance à Al-Qaïda.
A l'époque, j'avais mentionné la déclaration du numéro 2 de Al-Qaida comme reflétant le sens aigu de la communication médiatique de ce groupe terroriste. En effet, le moment choisi pour lancer des menaces vis-à-vis de la France, la visite d'un néocon Français à un néocon US, assurait Al-Qaida, et paradoxalement en même temps Sarkozy, de la meilleure couverture médiatique possible, eux pour rappeler au monde qu'ils existent quand même du fin fond de leurs caves en Afghanistan, et Sarkozy, en réagissant, de rappeler au monde et aux Français qu'il est le meilleur candidat pour les protéger contre le terrorisme, si proche d'eux.
Il me semble que c'est dans ce contexte qu'il faut placer les récents attentats du groupuscule lié à Al-Qaida au Maroc et en Algérie, le contexte de la campagne électorale en France. En fait, comme nous le rappelle si bien Adam Curtis dans son excellent 'The Power of Nightmares', Al-Qaida a besoin de l'idéologie néocon pour exister. Les deux idéologies sont interdépendantes.
Mais pourquoi maintenant et pourquoi avant le deuxième tour des élections alors que Nicolas Sarkozy est assuré, selon tous les sondages, d'être élu pour le deuxième tour ? Al-Qaida a vraisemblablement appris la leçon de Madrid. Quand une intervention de ce genre est trop proche des élections, elle risque d'affoler et de produire l'effet contraire. La meilleure combinaison pour Al-Qaida serait un deuxième tour entre Sarkozy et Le Pen, ainsi Sarkozy sera assuré d'être élu. Comme pour Chirac, les électeurs pinceront leur nez et iront aux urnes pour élire Sarkozy. Mais cette fois-ci c'est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet croyez-moi. Sarkozy n'est différent de le Pen que par la respectabilité qui lui a été dévolue par un grand parti politique qu'il a mis à la disposition de ses ambitions électorales par toutes sortes de manoeuvres.
Attendons nous au pire. Dans les jours qui viennent, les discours des quatre candidats principaux vont se radicaliser et se concentrer sur le thème de la sécurité intérieure et de l'immigration comme medium du terrorisme. Déjà, hier, Ségolène affutait ses armes contre l'Iran craignant probablement que Sarkozy ne l'accuse encore de mollesse. Et il ne tardera pas à le faire, croyez-moi.
La seule sortie honorable, pour nous citoyens, de ce cauchemar balisé par des extrêmistes des deux bords est de refuser la politique du pire, de refuser la peur, de refuser à la fois les discours musclés, les candidats Chickenhawk comme Sarkozy, et faibles dans leur propre parti, sous tutelle d'un autre néocon potentiel (Dominique Strauss Kahn et autres proches de son parti comme Bernard Kouchner), comme l'est Ségolène Royal.
Mon collègue Kel (Osterley Times) a un délicieux post montrant une caricature et une définition du Chickenhawk (terme anglais qui peut être traduit par 'le vautour poulet', désignant les néocons qui n'ont jamais eux-même été à la guerre - poulets - mais qui mènent des politiques guerrières - vautours). Pour ceux qui aiment la volaille !
Lire l'article de Alain Gresh rassemblant les déclarations de Sarkozy sur Al-Qaida et montrant clairement l'ignorance du ministre de l'intérieur, tout comme les neo-cons, des spécificités du radicalisme sunnite allant jusqu'à même ignorer la différence entre sunnites et shiites.
AUDIO
Dans son message vidéo du 11 septembre, coïncidant avec le cinquième anniversaire des attentats sur le sol américain, le No2 d'Al-Qaïda, Ayman al-Zawahri, demande ainsi au GSPC "d'être un os dans la gorge des croisés américains et français" et d'inspirer peur et détresse "dans les coeurs des traîtres fils apostats de France".
A l'Époque, Al-Qaida et le monde commémoraient le cinquième anniversaire du 11 septembre. Nicolas Sarkozy, déjà président de l'UMP et assuré de sa candidature à la présidentielle, effectuait une visite très médiatique aux États-Unis. De ce pays dont il admire tant le dirigeant actuel, George Bush, Sarkozy s'est fait un plaisir de commenter la déclaration de Ayman Al-Zawahiri de la manière suivante:
"Nous prenons très au sérieux ces menaces. J'ai eu l'occasion de qualifier la menace en France d'élevée et de permanente, les mots ont un sens. Mais il n'y a rien de nouveau", a confié le ministre de l'Intérieur. "Nous savons depuis le 11 septembre 2003 que le GSPC, qui est le successeur du GIA a fait acte d'allégeance à Al-Qaïda.
A l'époque, j'avais mentionné la déclaration du numéro 2 de Al-Qaida comme reflétant le sens aigu de la communication médiatique de ce groupe terroriste. En effet, le moment choisi pour lancer des menaces vis-à-vis de la France, la visite d'un néocon Français à un néocon US, assurait Al-Qaida, et paradoxalement en même temps Sarkozy, de la meilleure couverture médiatique possible, eux pour rappeler au monde qu'ils existent quand même du fin fond de leurs caves en Afghanistan, et Sarkozy, en réagissant, de rappeler au monde et aux Français qu'il est le meilleur candidat pour les protéger contre le terrorisme, si proche d'eux.
Il me semble que c'est dans ce contexte qu'il faut placer les récents attentats du groupuscule lié à Al-Qaida au Maroc et en Algérie, le contexte de la campagne électorale en France. En fait, comme nous le rappelle si bien Adam Curtis dans son excellent 'The Power of Nightmares', Al-Qaida a besoin de l'idéologie néocon pour exister. Les deux idéologies sont interdépendantes.
Mais pourquoi maintenant et pourquoi avant le deuxième tour des élections alors que Nicolas Sarkozy est assuré, selon tous les sondages, d'être élu pour le deuxième tour ? Al-Qaida a vraisemblablement appris la leçon de Madrid. Quand une intervention de ce genre est trop proche des élections, elle risque d'affoler et de produire l'effet contraire. La meilleure combinaison pour Al-Qaida serait un deuxième tour entre Sarkozy et Le Pen, ainsi Sarkozy sera assuré d'être élu. Comme pour Chirac, les électeurs pinceront leur nez et iront aux urnes pour élire Sarkozy. Mais cette fois-ci c'est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet croyez-moi. Sarkozy n'est différent de le Pen que par la respectabilité qui lui a été dévolue par un grand parti politique qu'il a mis à la disposition de ses ambitions électorales par toutes sortes de manoeuvres.
Attendons nous au pire. Dans les jours qui viennent, les discours des quatre candidats principaux vont se radicaliser et se concentrer sur le thème de la sécurité intérieure et de l'immigration comme medium du terrorisme. Déjà, hier, Ségolène affutait ses armes contre l'Iran craignant probablement que Sarkozy ne l'accuse encore de mollesse. Et il ne tardera pas à le faire, croyez-moi.
La seule sortie honorable, pour nous citoyens, de ce cauchemar balisé par des extrêmistes des deux bords est de refuser la politique du pire, de refuser la peur, de refuser à la fois les discours musclés, les candidats Chickenhawk comme Sarkozy, et faibles dans leur propre parti, sous tutelle d'un autre néocon potentiel (Dominique Strauss Kahn et autres proches de son parti comme Bernard Kouchner), comme l'est Ségolène Royal.
Mon collègue Kel (Osterley Times) a un délicieux post montrant une caricature et une définition du Chickenhawk (terme anglais qui peut être traduit par 'le vautour poulet', désignant les néocons qui n'ont jamais eux-même été à la guerre - poulets - mais qui mènent des politiques guerrières - vautours). Pour ceux qui aiment la volaille !
Lire l'article de Alain Gresh rassemblant les déclarations de Sarkozy sur Al-Qaida et montrant clairement l'ignorance du ministre de l'intérieur, tout comme les neo-cons, des spécificités du radicalisme sunnite allant jusqu'à même ignorer la différence entre sunnites et shiites.
AUDIO
The Mandchurian candidate: Who is Nicolas Sarkozy ?
According to Le Monde, the video below has been circulating since November 2006 on the French blogosphere. French bloggers have even edited the video because they were not able to verify the highly incriminating passages concerning Sarkozy's past. The fact that his parents were Nazi collaborators. There is mention of this suspicion on this magyar website.
Sarkozy comes from an aristocratic Hungarian family who fled Hungary for France, probably to escape persecutions for collaborating with the nazi regime. Among other corpses unburied from sarkozy's past is his direct responsibility in hiding the radioactive pollution in France during the Tchernobyl catastrophe. I remember very well this episode. At the time we were living in France and my daughter was 18 months old. There was some worry for children's food like cow milk and cheese. The French government issued a statement denying any pollution. My husband and I visited his cousin in Italy during the same period and in Italy there was a ban on fresh milk. We wondered why in France it was all O.K. when over the border there was a ban ? We were really worried for our baby daughter. My husband joked at the time by telling me that the radioactive cloud stopped at the French border.
Sarkozy was responsible at the time for chemical and radioactive pollution and threat, and it was he who decided that the truth must be hidden from the French people. Of course later, it was officially aknowledged that there was pollution in the vegetation and consequently the cattle in eastern and southern France.
As for Sarkozy's parents collaboration with nazis, I find it ironic that Politicians whose parents collaborated with the Nazis are the most submissive to the Israel lobby. Bush's grandfather is known to have breached an official US ban on commercial dealings with nazi Germany and he could have been tried for treason. There is actually a law suit from holocaust survivors, at least two families, against the Bush family. It is also known that the Bush family fortune was made this way. In the 'Inside Man', director Spike Lee shows us the picture of the Bush family in the bakground of the final scene when the New York financier is forced to reveal to the policeman his dealings with the nazis, as well as illegal possession of diamonds having belonged to deported Jewish families. Sarkozy, despite being catholic, says that his mother was a jew converted to catholicism. I am surprised by the number of people who compete for the high office and who reveal during their campaign that one of their parents was actually Jew. Remember John Kerry ?
What is more ironic is that this kind of people, along with fundamentalist Christians who prefigure the end of the Jewsih people in the Apocalypse, provide now the strongest support for the state of Israel. And the state of Israel, since its foundation, has never refused a fruitful collaboration with nazis and ex-nazis. Now, I don't really know if Sarkozy de Nagy Bosca's (his real name) family were really Nazi collaborators but given the kind of servile support of Sarko for Israel, I will not be surprised that this kind of support is actually the only choice left for Sarkozy if he wants to have a high profile political career. This means that the US before, and now as France probably will, have presidents who can easily be blackmailed by zionists. This is not to excuse Bush and Sarkozy for their families past dealings with nazis but to highlight that citizens must not choose for the high office someone who is already doomed and whose only choice is servility toward a foreign power. We are ruled by Mandchurian candidates.
Sarkozy comes from an aristocratic Hungarian family who fled Hungary for France, probably to escape persecutions for collaborating with the nazi regime. Among other corpses unburied from sarkozy's past is his direct responsibility in hiding the radioactive pollution in France during the Tchernobyl catastrophe. I remember very well this episode. At the time we were living in France and my daughter was 18 months old. There was some worry for children's food like cow milk and cheese. The French government issued a statement denying any pollution. My husband and I visited his cousin in Italy during the same period and in Italy there was a ban on fresh milk. We wondered why in France it was all O.K. when over the border there was a ban ? We were really worried for our baby daughter. My husband joked at the time by telling me that the radioactive cloud stopped at the French border.
Sarkozy was responsible at the time for chemical and radioactive pollution and threat, and it was he who decided that the truth must be hidden from the French people. Of course later, it was officially aknowledged that there was pollution in the vegetation and consequently the cattle in eastern and southern France.
As for Sarkozy's parents collaboration with nazis, I find it ironic that Politicians whose parents collaborated with the Nazis are the most submissive to the Israel lobby. Bush's grandfather is known to have breached an official US ban on commercial dealings with nazi Germany and he could have been tried for treason. There is actually a law suit from holocaust survivors, at least two families, against the Bush family. It is also known that the Bush family fortune was made this way. In the 'Inside Man', director Spike Lee shows us the picture of the Bush family in the bakground of the final scene when the New York financier is forced to reveal to the policeman his dealings with the nazis, as well as illegal possession of diamonds having belonged to deported Jewish families. Sarkozy, despite being catholic, says that his mother was a jew converted to catholicism. I am surprised by the number of people who compete for the high office and who reveal during their campaign that one of their parents was actually Jew. Remember John Kerry ?
What is more ironic is that this kind of people, along with fundamentalist Christians who prefigure the end of the Jewsih people in the Apocalypse, provide now the strongest support for the state of Israel. And the state of Israel, since its foundation, has never refused a fruitful collaboration with nazis and ex-nazis. Now, I don't really know if Sarkozy de Nagy Bosca's (his real name) family were really Nazi collaborators but given the kind of servile support of Sarko for Israel, I will not be surprised that this kind of support is actually the only choice left for Sarkozy if he wants to have a high profile political career. This means that the US before, and now as France probably will, have presidents who can easily be blackmailed by zionists. This is not to excuse Bush and Sarkozy for their families past dealings with nazis but to highlight that citizens must not choose for the high office someone who is already doomed and whose only choice is servility toward a foreign power. We are ruled by Mandchurian candidates.
11.4.07
The Hezbollah between USraeli sponsored anti-guerilla and national and regional dialogues
The political situation in Lebanon is in a dead end. The Sanyura government supported by the Bush administration is refusing any internal dialogue with its opponents, which are a majority in Lebanon and include Hezbollah, Amal and the Free patriotic movement. Arguing that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation holding allegiances to Iran and Syria, the Bush administration has undermined any solution to the Lebanese dead end and is actively promoting confrontation by literally arming the anti-Hezbollah Samir Gea'gea's militia, the security apparatus of Sanyura's puppet government, which doubled in a matter of months reaching 24000 men, and by tolerating the activity of openly islamist sunni extremist organisations in Lebanon. The last bombing of two passengers buses in the Lebanese mountain at 'Ayn 'Alaq had the signature of sunni extremists. Read the April report of the International Crisis Group, page 11.
The opposition to the Sanyura government has entered its fifth month of standoff with no solution in sight despite some attempts (not genuine in my opinion) from the Saudis to come up with a proposal. Initially, the opposition has asked for an extension of the Sanyura government into a national unity government to include ministers from the Christian Free Patriotic Movement. As their pacifist demand was ignored, they have now one outcome, the ballot box. But even here, the Sanyura government seems to be reluctant to agree on early elections and is afraid of losing its grip on power.
It is in this tense climate that Hassan Nasrallah gave Alain Gresh the following interview translated by the author of this blog.
Meeting and interviewing Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the most important party in Lebanon, is not an easy task. Even though Hezbollah is a parliamentary party with a large social infrastructure and a preponderant influence among Shiites, it is classified as a terrorist organisation by the US. Hassan Nasrallah is, without a doubt, un « homme à abattre », a man on the killing list.
The interview is meant for TV and is a part of a TV documentary on Hezbollah. We are told that the meeting will take place in the afternoon and that someone will meet us at a restaurant and drive us to the meeting venue without any other precision as to the time of the meeting. A first car drives us into a garage where we are transferred into a second car with blackened windows: we cannot identify the trajectory. We will be transferred five times from one car to another before we reach our destination: an improvised studio with two flags, the Lebanese and Hezbollah's.
Despite all these precautions, the man who comes to meet us does not appear anxious. He speaks slowly, smile often and tries to convince without ever raising the tone of the conversation. The interview lasts 2 hours. Here are some themes tackled in the interview. There are no transcripts yet of the recordings and the quotes are taken from personal notes. Questions are in Italic Bold.
The internal situation in Lebanon.
The risks for a renewal of the civil war exist, however Hezbollah will do everything in its power to avoid it. The majority of the Lebanese people, who have already experienced a civil war, do not want another one. Our objective for Lebanon is not an Islamic republic for to be implemented the Islamic republic will require the consent of the majority of the population. That is not the case in Lebanon: not only the Christian minority refuse to live in an Islamic republic but even Lebanese Muslims are not convinced by such a project. We want a Lebanon whose destiny is not decided by one religion but by all its religious communities. It is for this same reason that we asked for a national unity government. The Imam Moussa Sadr was the first to advocate an end to sectarianism in Lebanon; but we have to take into account the realities and fears of Lebanese, those among Christians who are afraid from becoming marginalised.
Why doesn't Hezbollah give its weapons in a sign of good will destined to the other communities?
Our weapons are not directed at other communities in Lebanon neither are they for at internal combat operations. They were never used as such. Our weapons are destined to Israel and the resistance against the external enemy, Israel and Israeli aggression and occupation.
The velayat e-faqih [1] and relations with Iran. Is there a contradiction between the fidelity to the religious principle of velayat e-faqih and the fact that Hezbollah is a national Lebanese political party ?
No. On one hand, all what we do we do it to serve our country Lebanon. We even make use of our relations with Iran in the service of our country, never the contrary. We define our Politic and our strategy according to our priorities. On the other hand, the velayat e-faqih is an allegiance to a man and not a country. The Velayat e-faqih is actually Iranian, before he was Iraqi, and in the future he will probably be Lebanese. Iran is a state and it designs its strategy and obligations accordingly. These strategy and obligations are not ours. For example, Iran has diplomatic relations with Lybia but we don't. We are hostiles to such relations as long as Lybia does not explain the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr (Sadr is the founding Shi'ite Imam of the political movement 'Al-Mahroumin', the dispossessed, the precursor movement to present Shi'ite political parties, Amal and Hezbollah. He disappeared in Lybia in suspicious circumstances in 1978 and his disappearance has not been explained by Lybian authorities). We also differed with Iraq's Sh'ia on the decision to execute Saddam Hussein. We had concerns about the timing and the conditions in which the execution was carried. In Iran, there were different opinions on this matter also.
On Israel and Palestine.
The creation of Israel is the result of a denial; denying the Palestinians their right on their land. Time will do nothing to this fact and Palestinian rights must be respected. The two state solution is not possible, it is not realistic. The best solution is a one state solution. One democratic state on the entire territory of Palestine in which Jews, Muslims and Christians can live and coexist. The name of such a state is not important, it can be agreed upon by all parties.
What will happen if the Palestinian national unity government signs a peace agreement with Israel?
We supported the Mecca agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah. The Palestinian problem should be left to Palestinians themselves to decide and we should not impose upon them a solution (as we should not impose upon Lebanese a solution they don't agree with). Our first responsibility goes for Lebanon and its occupied territory, not Palestine.
If a global peace agreement is signed between Israel and Arab countries, will Hezbollah recognize Israel ?
There are too many ifs. We will define our position in due time according to the regional and international contexts.
Al-Qaida.
Our disagreements with this movement are numerous and they concern Religion and Politics. This movement the non participation of Islamic movements i n national elections while we in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, as well as the Muslim brothers in Egypt, are engaged in the political electoral process. Moreover, Al-Qaida denounces Muslims who depart from Al-Qaida's political and religious agenda and does not refrain from killing them. That is not our conception of Religion and Politics. Some tried to suggest the existence of links between our movement and Al-Qaida but nobody has been able to substantiate this claim with the slightest proof. We will never engage if fight against them as we do not intend to fight anybody who does not attack us (Nasrallah is sending a message here to Sunni Muslim extremists in Lebanon linked to Al-Qaida whose presence was revealed by the article of Seymour Hersh, the redirection, and who seem to infiltrate Lebanon with the blessings of the US and its allies, the Sanyura government and Saudi Arabia).
Risk of war.
If there is a war on Lebanon, the situation will be totally different from what was before the July war when Israel attacked Lebanon. We have vacated the border positions between Israel and Lebanon and they are now occupied by the Lebanese army. If Israel were to attack again, the role of the army will be to defend the Lebanese territory. We are present in the south because we live in the cities and villages of the south. Our combatants come from these cities and villages, they can fight in the next war. The UNIFIL will be in a very difficult position: either it will be a spectator of the war or it will help repel the aggression. It can also retreat. None of these solutions is satisfactory. Some are surprised and concerned that we are renewing our weapons arsenal but they do not react the same way to the fact that Israel is seeking weapons from the US and is preparing for war through maneuvers and intensive training
Read here my post: Hassan Nasrallah, the New Face of Moderation in Lebanon and the Middle East
Notes
[1] The principle of velayat e-faqih, or the government of the doctrine, is to assign an important power to the guide of the community of the faithfuls in the Shi'ite religion. Since the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran, this position was attributed to ayatollah Khomeini and is now filled by Ali Khamenei. This principle is disputed by many Shi'ite clerics. It is accepted by Hezbollah while rejected by ayatollah Mohammad Fadlallah, one of the highest ranking Shi'a clerics in Lebanon. Fadlallah is considered also as someone who is close to Hezbollah.
Read how Haaretz reports on Hezbollah's public declarations about its weapons arsenal. It seems that Hezbollah is doing this just to offset Israel.
The opposition to the Sanyura government has entered its fifth month of standoff with no solution in sight despite some attempts (not genuine in my opinion) from the Saudis to come up with a proposal. Initially, the opposition has asked for an extension of the Sanyura government into a national unity government to include ministers from the Christian Free Patriotic Movement. As their pacifist demand was ignored, they have now one outcome, the ballot box. But even here, the Sanyura government seems to be reluctant to agree on early elections and is afraid of losing its grip on power.
It is in this tense climate that Hassan Nasrallah gave Alain Gresh the following interview translated by the author of this blog.
Meeting and interviewing Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the most important party in Lebanon, is not an easy task. Even though Hezbollah is a parliamentary party with a large social infrastructure and a preponderant influence among Shiites, it is classified as a terrorist organisation by the US. Hassan Nasrallah is, without a doubt, un « homme à abattre », a man on the killing list.
The interview is meant for TV and is a part of a TV documentary on Hezbollah. We are told that the meeting will take place in the afternoon and that someone will meet us at a restaurant and drive us to the meeting venue without any other precision as to the time of the meeting. A first car drives us into a garage where we are transferred into a second car with blackened windows: we cannot identify the trajectory. We will be transferred five times from one car to another before we reach our destination: an improvised studio with two flags, the Lebanese and Hezbollah's.
Despite all these precautions, the man who comes to meet us does not appear anxious. He speaks slowly, smile often and tries to convince without ever raising the tone of the conversation. The interview lasts 2 hours. Here are some themes tackled in the interview. There are no transcripts yet of the recordings and the quotes are taken from personal notes. Questions are in Italic Bold.
The internal situation in Lebanon.
The risks for a renewal of the civil war exist, however Hezbollah will do everything in its power to avoid it. The majority of the Lebanese people, who have already experienced a civil war, do not want another one. Our objective for Lebanon is not an Islamic republic for to be implemented the Islamic republic will require the consent of the majority of the population. That is not the case in Lebanon: not only the Christian minority refuse to live in an Islamic republic but even Lebanese Muslims are not convinced by such a project. We want a Lebanon whose destiny is not decided by one religion but by all its religious communities. It is for this same reason that we asked for a national unity government. The Imam Moussa Sadr was the first to advocate an end to sectarianism in Lebanon; but we have to take into account the realities and fears of Lebanese, those among Christians who are afraid from becoming marginalised.
Why doesn't Hezbollah give its weapons in a sign of good will destined to the other communities?
Our weapons are not directed at other communities in Lebanon neither are they for at internal combat operations. They were never used as such. Our weapons are destined to Israel and the resistance against the external enemy, Israel and Israeli aggression and occupation.
The velayat e-faqih [1] and relations with Iran. Is there a contradiction between the fidelity to the religious principle of velayat e-faqih and the fact that Hezbollah is a national Lebanese political party ?
No. On one hand, all what we do we do it to serve our country Lebanon. We even make use of our relations with Iran in the service of our country, never the contrary. We define our Politic and our strategy according to our priorities. On the other hand, the velayat e-faqih is an allegiance to a man and not a country. The Velayat e-faqih is actually Iranian, before he was Iraqi, and in the future he will probably be Lebanese. Iran is a state and it designs its strategy and obligations accordingly. These strategy and obligations are not ours. For example, Iran has diplomatic relations with Lybia but we don't. We are hostiles to such relations as long as Lybia does not explain the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr (Sadr is the founding Shi'ite Imam of the political movement 'Al-Mahroumin', the dispossessed, the precursor movement to present Shi'ite political parties, Amal and Hezbollah. He disappeared in Lybia in suspicious circumstances in 1978 and his disappearance has not been explained by Lybian authorities). We also differed with Iraq's Sh'ia on the decision to execute Saddam Hussein. We had concerns about the timing and the conditions in which the execution was carried. In Iran, there were different opinions on this matter also.
On Israel and Palestine.
The creation of Israel is the result of a denial; denying the Palestinians their right on their land. Time will do nothing to this fact and Palestinian rights must be respected. The two state solution is not possible, it is not realistic. The best solution is a one state solution. One democratic state on the entire territory of Palestine in which Jews, Muslims and Christians can live and coexist. The name of such a state is not important, it can be agreed upon by all parties.
What will happen if the Palestinian national unity government signs a peace agreement with Israel?
We supported the Mecca agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah. The Palestinian problem should be left to Palestinians themselves to decide and we should not impose upon them a solution (as we should not impose upon Lebanese a solution they don't agree with). Our first responsibility goes for Lebanon and its occupied territory, not Palestine.
If a global peace agreement is signed between Israel and Arab countries, will Hezbollah recognize Israel ?
There are too many ifs. We will define our position in due time according to the regional and international contexts.
Al-Qaida.
Our disagreements with this movement are numerous and they concern Religion and Politics. This movement the non participation of Islamic movements i n national elections while we in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, as well as the Muslim brothers in Egypt, are engaged in the political electoral process. Moreover, Al-Qaida denounces Muslims who depart from Al-Qaida's political and religious agenda and does not refrain from killing them. That is not our conception of Religion and Politics. Some tried to suggest the existence of links between our movement and Al-Qaida but nobody has been able to substantiate this claim with the slightest proof. We will never engage if fight against them as we do not intend to fight anybody who does not attack us (Nasrallah is sending a message here to Sunni Muslim extremists in Lebanon linked to Al-Qaida whose presence was revealed by the article of Seymour Hersh, the redirection, and who seem to infiltrate Lebanon with the blessings of the US and its allies, the Sanyura government and Saudi Arabia).
Risk of war.
If there is a war on Lebanon, the situation will be totally different from what was before the July war when Israel attacked Lebanon. We have vacated the border positions between Israel and Lebanon and they are now occupied by the Lebanese army. If Israel were to attack again, the role of the army will be to defend the Lebanese territory. We are present in the south because we live in the cities and villages of the south. Our combatants come from these cities and villages, they can fight in the next war. The UNIFIL will be in a very difficult position: either it will be a spectator of the war or it will help repel the aggression. It can also retreat. None of these solutions is satisfactory. Some are surprised and concerned that we are renewing our weapons arsenal but they do not react the same way to the fact that Israel is seeking weapons from the US and is preparing for war through maneuvers and intensive training
Read here my post: Hassan Nasrallah, the New Face of Moderation in Lebanon and the Middle East
Notes
[1] The principle of velayat e-faqih, or the government of the doctrine, is to assign an important power to the guide of the community of the faithfuls in the Shi'ite religion. Since the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran, this position was attributed to ayatollah Khomeini and is now filled by Ali Khamenei. This principle is disputed by many Shi'ite clerics. It is accepted by Hezbollah while rejected by ayatollah Mohammad Fadlallah, one of the highest ranking Shi'a clerics in Lebanon. Fadlallah is considered also as someone who is close to Hezbollah.
Read how Haaretz reports on Hezbollah's public declarations about its weapons arsenal. It seems that Hezbollah is doing this just to offset Israel.
10.4.07
The Israeli sponsored US invasion of Iraq and the ethnic cleansening of Baghdad and the Middle East
Four years after the US invasion, an ethnic cleansening in Baghdad has been achieved.
Le Monde has a map of Baghdad's neighbourhoods in 1919, 1956 with an assessment of post-Saddam Baghdad. If you look at the 1956 map, the yellow covers mixed neighbourhoods in Baghdad. The light yellow is mixed neighbourhood with a Muslim majority and the strong yellow is simply a mixed neighbourhood with no majority.
It emerges that ethnic mix between Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad was well advanced in the fifties and maintained afterward by the Baath party secular regime. However, the US invasion has prompted an unprecedented ethnic cleansening in Baghdad with displaced families by the hundreds thousands and that is probably the only achievement of the US occupation.
It is ironic that today I read an article by former Israeli Knesset member and Gush Shalom director Uri Avnery about to which lenghts Israel is ready to go against those who, even by peaceful and legal means, defy its founding idea as democratic and an ethnically pure state. Avnery underlines the oxymoron that is the definition of Israel as a 'Jewish democratic state', democratic only for its Jewish population.
''According to Ha'aretz, the Israeli Security Agency... "would foil the activity of anyone seeking to harm Israel's Jewish or democratic character, even if that activity was carried out by legal means." This is an admission, ''not only that anyone who strives to alter the Jewish character of the state is considered an enemy and will be treated as such but that the secret service has no respect for democratic practices and procedures.''
Many reasons were advanced for the Iraq invasion, among them Oil. However, an invasion and an occupation of this magnitude might have more than one reason. And I believe that among the many reasons the US went to Iraq is the desire to create small ethnic states at the image of Israel, as we all know by now the prominent role of pro-zionists in the advocacy for the 2003 Iraq invasion. However these new small ethnic states will be unchallenging for Israel because of their submission to the US and because their forced divisions will bring about tens if not hundred years of internal strife leaving Israel the only superpower in the Middle East as the rest of the Middle east will be ruins. At least, the Iraq invasion seems to have achieved this objective very quickly. And the war of agression on Lebanon, despite failing to crush Hezbollah, succeeded in pushing the internal divisions of the country to the surface once again by underminig a fragile national dialogue through an inconditional support for the corrupted sanyura government from the US and the criminalisation of lebanon's high profile and popular party, the Hezbollah. As for Palestine and Israel, the new generation of Israeli Politicians like Gaydamak and Lieberman, if the Israeli electorate is not going to stop them, will make sure that the ethnic cleansening project will take place. Syria will be destabilised by continuous pressure, a refusal to broker a peace deal on the Golan, and support for anti-baathist islamist organisations, until the baathist regime falls apart to be overtaken by Islamist extremists who are already on the wait in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the recently 'liberated' Lebanon from Syrian baathist influence.
It is easier to divide rather than unite. Breaking the fragile social and ethnic cannevasses of the Middle East and stigmatizing part of its population while providing the other part with support and weapons and access to supervised power, are certainly a 'good' start for the Neo-cons. However, despite their troubled history, the peoples of the Middle East have always lived together. Zionist and neo-cons may distort narratives, provoke wars, displace populations, implement government sponsored terror, the natural order of things for us, peoples of the Middle East, is to live together.
8.4.07
Gideon Levy: Israel does not want peace
I was celebrating Easter this week-end with my family. I had no time to post. However, between meal preparations and visits I read the news and gathered material for some posting next week and was saddened at fellow pro-Palestinian blogger's Ben Heine censorship at Daily Kos. His post was erased and treated as a troll post following an article he published there drawing comparisons between Avigdor Lieberman's ethnic cleansing project for Israel and the Nazis'. Autocensorship regarding sensibilities toward the Israeli question are very strong among western so called 'liberals'. Because the west stands with its both wings, right and left, as a barrage against criticism against Israel, voices for Peace and Justice are not heard these days and the current thinking want us to blame the victims, the palestinians, for the absence of peace.
There was some consolation for me in reading this article by Gideon Levy in Haaretz. Because every time there is a censorship of plain facts, we make a step away from Truth and Peace, and courageous voices, like Levy's, must be heard if we want to make the effort of debunking lies and the demolition and vandalism of the Truth they achieve.
The moment of truth has arrived, and it has to be said: Israel does not want peace. The arsenal of excuses has run out, and the chorus of Israeli rejection already rings hollow. Until recently, it was still possible to accept the Israeli refrain that "there is no partner" for peace and that "the time isn't right" to deal with our enemies. Today, the new reality before our eyes leaves no room for doubt and the tired refrain that "Israel supports peace" has been left shattered.
It's hard to determine when the breaking point occurred. Was it the absolute dismissal of the Saudi initiative? The refusal to acknowledge the Syrian initiative? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's annual Passover interviews? The revulsion at the statements made by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in Damascus, alleging that Israel was ready to renew peace talks with Syria?
Who would have believed it? A high-ranking U.S. official says Israel wants peace talks to resume and instantly her president "severely" denies the veracity of her words. Is Israel even hearing these voices? Are we digesting the significance of these voices for peace? Seven million apathetic Israeli citizens prove that we are not.
Entire generations grew up here weaned on self-deception and doubt about the likelihood of achieving peace with our neighbors. In our younger days, David Ben-Gurion told us that if he were only able to meet with Arab leaders, he would have brought us peace in his time. Israel has demanded direct negotiations as a matter of principle and Israelis have derived great pride from the fact that their daily focus on "peace" has concealed their state's lofty ambitions. We were told that there was no partner for peace and that the ultimate ambition of the Arabs is to bring about our destruction. We burned the portraits of "the Egyptian tyrant" at our bonfires on Lag Ba'omer, and were convinced that all blame for the lack of peace lied with our enemies.
After that came the occupation, followed by terror, Yassir Arafat, the failed second Camp David Summit and the rise of Hamas to power, and we were sure, always sure, that it was all their fault. In our wildest dreams, we wouldn't have believed that the day would come when the entire Arab world would extend its hand in peace and Israel would brush away the gesture. It would have been even crazier to imagine that this Israeli refusal would have been blamed on not wanting to enrage domestic public opinion.
The world has been turned upside down and it is Israel that stands at the forefront of refusal. The policy of refusal of a select few, a vanguard of the extreme, has now become the official policy of Jerusalem. In his Passover interviews, Olmert will tell us that, "The Palestinians stand at the crossroads of a historic decision," but people stopped taking him seriously a long time ago. The historic decision is ours, and we are fleeing from this crossroads and from these initiatives as if from death itself.
Terror, used as the ultimate excuse for Israeli refusal, only helps Olmert keep reciting, ad nauseum, "If they [the Palestinians] don't change, don't fight terror and don't adhere to any of their obligations, then they will never extract themselves from their unending chaos." As though the Palestinians haven't taken measures against terrorism, as though Israel is the one to determine what their obligations are, as though Israel isn't to blame for the unending chaos Palestinians suffer under the occupation.
Israel makes a point of setting prerequisites and believes it has an exclusive right to do so. But, time and time again, Israel avoids the most basic prerequisite for any just peace - an end to the occupation. Of all the questions asked during his Passover interviews, no one bothered to ask Olmert why he didn't react with excitement to the recent Arab initiatives, without preconditions? The answer: real estate. The real estate of the settlements.
It's not only Olmert who is dragging his feet. A leading figure in the Labor party said last week that "it will take five to 10 years to recover from the trauma." Peace is now no more than a threatening wound, with no one still talking about the massive social benefits it would bring in development, security, freedom of movement in the region and by establishing a more just society.
Like a little Switzerland, we are focusing more these days on the dollar exchange rate and on the allegations of embezzlement leveled against the Finance Ministry than on the fateful opportunities fading away before our very eyes.
Not every day and not even in every generation do we encounter an opportunity like this. Although it's not for sure if the initiatives are completely solid and believable, or if they are based on trickery, no one has stepped up to challenge or acknowledge them. When Olmert is an elderly grandfather, what will he tell his grandchildren? That he turned over every stone in the name of peace? That there was no other choice? What will his grandchildren say?
There was some consolation for me in reading this article by Gideon Levy in Haaretz. Because every time there is a censorship of plain facts, we make a step away from Truth and Peace, and courageous voices, like Levy's, must be heard if we want to make the effort of debunking lies and the demolition and vandalism of the Truth they achieve.
The moment of truth has arrived, and it has to be said: Israel does not want peace. The arsenal of excuses has run out, and the chorus of Israeli rejection already rings hollow. Until recently, it was still possible to accept the Israeli refrain that "there is no partner" for peace and that "the time isn't right" to deal with our enemies. Today, the new reality before our eyes leaves no room for doubt and the tired refrain that "Israel supports peace" has been left shattered.
It's hard to determine when the breaking point occurred. Was it the absolute dismissal of the Saudi initiative? The refusal to acknowledge the Syrian initiative? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's annual Passover interviews? The revulsion at the statements made by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, in Damascus, alleging that Israel was ready to renew peace talks with Syria?
Who would have believed it? A high-ranking U.S. official says Israel wants peace talks to resume and instantly her president "severely" denies the veracity of her words. Is Israel even hearing these voices? Are we digesting the significance of these voices for peace? Seven million apathetic Israeli citizens prove that we are not.
Entire generations grew up here weaned on self-deception and doubt about the likelihood of achieving peace with our neighbors. In our younger days, David Ben-Gurion told us that if he were only able to meet with Arab leaders, he would have brought us peace in his time. Israel has demanded direct negotiations as a matter of principle and Israelis have derived great pride from the fact that their daily focus on "peace" has concealed their state's lofty ambitions. We were told that there was no partner for peace and that the ultimate ambition of the Arabs is to bring about our destruction. We burned the portraits of "the Egyptian tyrant" at our bonfires on Lag Ba'omer, and were convinced that all blame for the lack of peace lied with our enemies.
After that came the occupation, followed by terror, Yassir Arafat, the failed second Camp David Summit and the rise of Hamas to power, and we were sure, always sure, that it was all their fault. In our wildest dreams, we wouldn't have believed that the day would come when the entire Arab world would extend its hand in peace and Israel would brush away the gesture. It would have been even crazier to imagine that this Israeli refusal would have been blamed on not wanting to enrage domestic public opinion.
The world has been turned upside down and it is Israel that stands at the forefront of refusal. The policy of refusal of a select few, a vanguard of the extreme, has now become the official policy of Jerusalem. In his Passover interviews, Olmert will tell us that, "The Palestinians stand at the crossroads of a historic decision," but people stopped taking him seriously a long time ago. The historic decision is ours, and we are fleeing from this crossroads and from these initiatives as if from death itself.
Terror, used as the ultimate excuse for Israeli refusal, only helps Olmert keep reciting, ad nauseum, "If they [the Palestinians] don't change, don't fight terror and don't adhere to any of their obligations, then they will never extract themselves from their unending chaos." As though the Palestinians haven't taken measures against terrorism, as though Israel is the one to determine what their obligations are, as though Israel isn't to blame for the unending chaos Palestinians suffer under the occupation.
Israel makes a point of setting prerequisites and believes it has an exclusive right to do so. But, time and time again, Israel avoids the most basic prerequisite for any just peace - an end to the occupation. Of all the questions asked during his Passover interviews, no one bothered to ask Olmert why he didn't react with excitement to the recent Arab initiatives, without preconditions? The answer: real estate. The real estate of the settlements.
It's not only Olmert who is dragging his feet. A leading figure in the Labor party said last week that "it will take five to 10 years to recover from the trauma." Peace is now no more than a threatening wound, with no one still talking about the massive social benefits it would bring in development, security, freedom of movement in the region and by establishing a more just society.
Like a little Switzerland, we are focusing more these days on the dollar exchange rate and on the allegations of embezzlement leveled against the Finance Ministry than on the fateful opportunities fading away before our very eyes.
Not every day and not even in every generation do we encounter an opportunity like this. Although it's not for sure if the initiatives are completely solid and believable, or if they are based on trickery, no one has stepped up to challenge or acknowledge them. When Olmert is an elderly grandfather, what will he tell his grandchildren? That he turned over every stone in the name of peace? That there was no other choice? What will his grandchildren say?
The Blogosphere: Beyond Manners
A call for manners in the world of nasty blogs.
The blogosphere should not be a free for all place where nastiness is the rule. Moreover, rules for the blogosphere should go beyond pure manners and strive for standards abandoned by mainstream media.
It is important for example to stress the difference between politeness and censorship. Censorship is when we try to hide or supress facts and well crafted arguments and points of view that challenge ours. I don't consider supressing an ill intentioned information or willful propaganda as censorship. I don't consider supressing insults as censorship.
Secondly, arguing is an art that has rules and ehtics and any argument that does not follow some basic logic and honesty about actual facts is not an argument. Propaganda is based on flawed logic and a disregard for facts.
Thirdly, moderation is not a middle of the road position, Aristotle defined it as a point somewhere outside a line formed by the two extremes and not the middle of the line joining the two extremes. True moderation is creative.
Today's political correctness has corrupted the rules of arguing and informing about facts, and the ethics of information and communication. Today's political correctness considers fairness as giving voices to all sides, even though some of them may be lies and pure fabrications and dangerous rethorics. Otherwise how did we come to be poisoned by the Malkins, the O'Reillys, the Hirsi Alis, the Coulters, the Bin Ladens, spitting their hate and their propaganda on mainstream media. On the other hand, today's political correctness in the US leftist and 'liberal' blogopshere condemns censorship except for the criticism of Israel which it censors as 'antisemitic'. Today's political correctness has corrupted our view of the world to the point of putting propaganda and truthful information at the same level obscuring real information in a web of lies and unleashing hate where dialogue should be fostered by objective and respectful information.
Mainstream news outlets have their commercial imperatives, their political allegiances, their corporate interests, and sometimes their hidden political agenda. We, in the blogosphere, have only our conscience to guide us. We should practice freedom of expression with conscience. We should be open and forward coming about our political agenda. We should be ready to offend when it is justified to offend and we should refrain from offending when the only result of the offense is to offend and nothing else.
As a blogger, I encountered some serious problems with some commentators visiting my blog. Insults, manipulation attempts, distortion attempts, propaganda attempts. I finally decided to moderate, and, when not moderating, to erase any comment that does not respect the basic ethics of communication, information and arguing. It was a difficult excercice in the beginning but from the practice emerged some simple rules. No lies, no propaganda, no disrespect, no insults, no faulty logic (this one is tolerated to some point when it is only due to weakness of the intellect and not ill intentioned, after all we are not machines, we are also humans with emotions), and most of all, no manipulation of the information we, bloggers, slave to put on our blogs.
UPDATE: Francis Pisani from Le Monde has a post and a summary of the new code of conduct for bloggers that is being prepared under a wiki form and can be found as a draft that can be commented on this blog.
Main points of the code of conduct:
1) We are responsible of all material published on our blog, posts and comments.
2) We should never publish things online that we cannot state in person.
3) Conflicts should be resolved in private (by email) before becoming public.
4) We should act if somebody attacks unjustly another person on our blog. In private first in order to convince him of changing his wrongful attitude.
5) We should not permit anonymous comments.
6) We should ignore trolls.
From The Guardian: Web Gurus try to banish bad behaviour from the blogosphere.
The blogosphere should not be a free for all place where nastiness is the rule. Moreover, rules for the blogosphere should go beyond pure manners and strive for standards abandoned by mainstream media.
It is important for example to stress the difference between politeness and censorship. Censorship is when we try to hide or supress facts and well crafted arguments and points of view that challenge ours. I don't consider supressing an ill intentioned information or willful propaganda as censorship. I don't consider supressing insults as censorship.
Secondly, arguing is an art that has rules and ehtics and any argument that does not follow some basic logic and honesty about actual facts is not an argument. Propaganda is based on flawed logic and a disregard for facts.
Thirdly, moderation is not a middle of the road position, Aristotle defined it as a point somewhere outside a line formed by the two extremes and not the middle of the line joining the two extremes. True moderation is creative.
Today's political correctness has corrupted the rules of arguing and informing about facts, and the ethics of information and communication. Today's political correctness considers fairness as giving voices to all sides, even though some of them may be lies and pure fabrications and dangerous rethorics. Otherwise how did we come to be poisoned by the Malkins, the O'Reillys, the Hirsi Alis, the Coulters, the Bin Ladens, spitting their hate and their propaganda on mainstream media. On the other hand, today's political correctness in the US leftist and 'liberal' blogopshere condemns censorship except for the criticism of Israel which it censors as 'antisemitic'. Today's political correctness has corrupted our view of the world to the point of putting propaganda and truthful information at the same level obscuring real information in a web of lies and unleashing hate where dialogue should be fostered by objective and respectful information.
Mainstream news outlets have their commercial imperatives, their political allegiances, their corporate interests, and sometimes their hidden political agenda. We, in the blogosphere, have only our conscience to guide us. We should practice freedom of expression with conscience. We should be open and forward coming about our political agenda. We should be ready to offend when it is justified to offend and we should refrain from offending when the only result of the offense is to offend and nothing else.
As a blogger, I encountered some serious problems with some commentators visiting my blog. Insults, manipulation attempts, distortion attempts, propaganda attempts. I finally decided to moderate, and, when not moderating, to erase any comment that does not respect the basic ethics of communication, information and arguing. It was a difficult excercice in the beginning but from the practice emerged some simple rules. No lies, no propaganda, no disrespect, no insults, no faulty logic (this one is tolerated to some point when it is only due to weakness of the intellect and not ill intentioned, after all we are not machines, we are also humans with emotions), and most of all, no manipulation of the information we, bloggers, slave to put on our blogs.
UPDATE: Francis Pisani from Le Monde has a post and a summary of the new code of conduct for bloggers that is being prepared under a wiki form and can be found as a draft that can be commented on this blog.
Main points of the code of conduct:
1) We are responsible of all material published on our blog, posts and comments.
2) We should never publish things online that we cannot state in person.
3) Conflicts should be resolved in private (by email) before becoming public.
4) We should act if somebody attacks unjustly another person on our blog. In private first in order to convince him of changing his wrongful attitude.
5) We should not permit anonymous comments.
6) We should ignore trolls.
From The Guardian: Web Gurus try to banish bad behaviour from the blogosphere.
7.4.07
Knutmania
The Berlin Zoo is a fantastic Zoo. They have the highest birth rate in the world for captive animals . Knut is a polar bear born on December 5th 2006. His mother refused to care for him, his twin died from this treatment. Finally with the help of the carers at the zoo Knut survived and now he is an international star visited by Politicians. He made his first appearance to the public with Germany's environment minister by his side. When I visited the zoo last year, I witnessed a play between an Orang-Utan mother and her baby. It was really moving. And a zoo with infants animals is definitely less depressing than regular zoos.
I think that our sense of imminent loss at the reduction of biodiversity, the problem of endangered species, and climate changes, are no strangers to the phenomenal success of Knut. Too much to bear for a little bear...
5.4.07
Torture and Terror: The descending spirale
The war on terror has reached now the horn of Africa with, in its trail, new accusations of renditions, secret prisons, and torture by the CIA and the FBI in US friendly countries. Citizens from 19 countries are being 'interrogated' by the US with the help of the rendition services provided by Kenya and the torture apparatus in Ethiopia and Somalia.
Since its beginning, the 'war on terror', as conceived by the US, is pulling western democracies in a spiraling moral descent which is becoming out of control. Many innocent citizens are caught in this spirale. Read here my post on why the methods used by the US and its allies in the 'war on terror' are doomed to fail.
UPDATE: European Union given war crimes warning over aid to Ethiopia and Somalia.
Bernard Kouchner and Bernard-Henri Lévy, the campaigners for Darfur, won't lift a finger for civilians tortured, illegaly detained, ethnically cleansed and assassinated in Somalia, neither for the genocide that is going on in Iraq under the watch of 150000 US soldiers and the genocide that id going on in Palestine at the hands of the Israeli army.
Since its beginning, the 'war on terror', as conceived by the US, is pulling western democracies in a spiraling moral descent which is becoming out of control. Many innocent citizens are caught in this spirale. Read here my post on why the methods used by the US and its allies in the 'war on terror' are doomed to fail.
UPDATE: European Union given war crimes warning over aid to Ethiopia and Somalia.
Bernard Kouchner and Bernard-Henri Lévy, the campaigners for Darfur, won't lift a finger for civilians tortured, illegaly detained, ethnically cleansed and assassinated in Somalia, neither for the genocide that is going on in Iraq under the watch of 150000 US soldiers and the genocide that id going on in Palestine at the hands of the Israeli army.
4.4.07
When 'Savages' Embark on a 'Civilizing' Mission
When one embarks on a 'civilizing' mission, one never knows who will end up being the real savage.
The Osterley Times has an excellent post on the treatment of prisoners and 'justice' as delivered in Guantanamo as compared to the treatment of the 15 British army personnel by Iran.3.4.07
Cluster Bombs: Foreseeable Harm
Just Foreign Policy and Jewish Voice for Peace have launched a petition, hosted by Democracy In Action, in support of legislation s.594 written by senators Patrick Leahy and Diane Feinstein to restrict the sale and use of cluster bombs.
Israel dropped over a million cluster bombs on heavily populated areas in south Lebanon last summer, 90% of them were dropped during the last three days before the official ceasefire took effect.
Israel was even delaying the application of the ceasefire when it dropped the bombs.
Clearly, Israel not only meant but planned and intended harm to civilian populations in south Lebanon when it dropped the million bombs over an area only about two thousand Km2. The results of Israel's use of these bombs have been felt well after the end of the July war which left more than thousand civilians, among them a majority of children and elderly, dead. Cluster bombs killed well after the ceasefire. During the first months post ceasefire there have been over 22 deaths in Lebanon, again most of them children. Villagers in south Lebanon have been unable to harvest their orchards and walk in their fields. Cluster bombs are a silent unreported and an illegl war when the official and media reported war is over.
This use was aknowledged by Israel and condemned by humanitarian organisations and the UN.
In the US, who is the provider of these bombs, there have been some aknowledgment of a breach of the official agreement on the use of these bombs but no official condemnation. According to its six year history relations with Israel, the Bush administration is unlikely to take any action against Israel neither toward a more restrictive use of these bombs. I think we have to seize the opportunity given to us by the senators who wrote the new legislation on cluster bombs and support their initiative. Although, a total ban of these bombs would be preferrable to more restrictions (because initial restrictions were not respected), this is all we have now to go forward and try to defend the fundamental rights of civilians caught in war zones.
Please sign the petition here.
Israel dropped over a million cluster bombs on heavily populated areas in south Lebanon last summer, 90% of them were dropped during the last three days before the official ceasefire took effect.
Israel was even delaying the application of the ceasefire when it dropped the bombs.
Clearly, Israel not only meant but planned and intended harm to civilian populations in south Lebanon when it dropped the million bombs over an area only about two thousand Km2. The results of Israel's use of these bombs have been felt well after the end of the July war which left more than thousand civilians, among them a majority of children and elderly, dead. Cluster bombs killed well after the ceasefire. During the first months post ceasefire there have been over 22 deaths in Lebanon, again most of them children. Villagers in south Lebanon have been unable to harvest their orchards and walk in their fields. Cluster bombs are a silent unreported and an illegl war when the official and media reported war is over.
This use was aknowledged by Israel and condemned by humanitarian organisations and the UN.
In the US, who is the provider of these bombs, there have been some aknowledgment of a breach of the official agreement on the use of these bombs but no official condemnation. According to its six year history relations with Israel, the Bush administration is unlikely to take any action against Israel neither toward a more restrictive use of these bombs. I think we have to seize the opportunity given to us by the senators who wrote the new legislation on cluster bombs and support their initiative. Although, a total ban of these bombs would be preferrable to more restrictions (because initial restrictions were not respected), this is all we have now to go forward and try to defend the fundamental rights of civilians caught in war zones.
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Since March 29th 2006
