Mondoweiss writes:
On Sunday, the last day of his 81st year, Noam Chomsky gave a speech on Gaza in Watertown, Mass., at the behest of Newton Dialogues on Peace and War. They raised alot of money for the Gaza Freedom March. I heard a rumor that the original venue for the speech, Eliot Church in Newton, had dropped the speech under pressure, saying that the speech was “controversial” and had not gone through the appropriate processes for church events. I emailed Newton Dialogues. Dave Ascher responded. If you read between the lines of his response below, it is clear that the Eliot Church came under pressure because of the political nature of the Chomsky speech.
Ali Abunimah
Rehaviya Berman conducted an interview with Ali Abunimah, for Ha’aretz, a few weeks ago. The Interview was never published. Berman decided to publish it on his blog [Hebrew] and I decided to translate it, for your reading pleasure:
Exclusive: One On One with the Leader of the Electronic Intifada
Rehaviya Berman
Meet Ali Abunimah, the son of a Jordanian diplomat, a Palestinian activist, and the man who brings the hottest news of the struggle to thousands of people. His message: Forget two states, one will be tough enough to get it right.
One-quarter of Europeans believe that “Jews have too much influence“
31% agree that “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind.”
45.7% of the Europeans somewhat or strongly agree that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.”
About 37.4% agree with the following statement: “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.”
Rachna Dhingra, 32, originally from Delhi, was just six years old when the world’s worst industrial disaster struck Bhopal in 1984. She studied in the US and joined a student group that took up the issue of the Bhopal gas disaster. Rachna graduated with a business degree in 2000 and went to live in Bhopal in January 2003. She is now an important force in the international campaign and locally with the Bhopal Group of Information and Action. Before returning to India she was associated with Dow Chemical, the parent company of Union Carbide Corporation. We met her at Leverkusen/Germany, home of Bayer Corporations´s global headquarters.
Press Release, Gaza Freedom March
December 4, 2009
The Gaza Freedom March that will take place in Gaza on 31 December is an historic initiative to break the siege that has imprisoned the 1.5 million people who live there. Conceived in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and nonviolent resistance to injustice worldwide, the march will gather people from all over the world to march — hand in hand — with the people of Gaza to demand that the Israelis open the borders.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 Israeli invasion that left more than 1,400 dead, this is a grassroots global response to the inaction on the part of world leaders and institutions. More than 1,000 international delegates from 42 countries have already signed up and more are signing on every day.
Participants include Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker, leading Syrian comedian Duraid Lahham, French Senator Alima Boumediene-Thiery, autthor and Filipino Parliament member Walden Bello, former European Parliamentarians Luisa Morgantini from Italy and Eva Quistorp from Germany, President of the US Center for Constitutional Rights Attorney Michael Ratner, Japanese former Ambassador to Lebanon Naoto Amaki, French hip-hop artists Ministere des Affaires Populaires, and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein.
We also have families of three generations, doctors, lawyers, diplomats, 70 students, an interfaith group that includes rabbis, priests and imams, a women’s delegation, a Jewish contingent, a veterans group and Palestinians born overseas who have never seen their families in Gaza.
The international delegates will enter Gaza via Egypt during the last week of December. In the morning 31 December, they will join Palestinians in a nonviolent march from northern Gaza to the Erez/Israeli border. On the Israeli side of the Erez border will be a gathering of Palestinians and Jews who are also calling on the Israeli government to open the border.
Inside Gaza, excitement is growing. Representatives of all aspects of civil society, including students, professors, refugee groups, unions, women’s organizations, nongovernmental organizations, have been busy organizing and estimate that at least 50,000 Palestinians will participate. People from the different sectors will march in their uniforms — fishermen, doctors, students, farmers, etc. Local Palestinian rappers, hip-hop bands and dabke dancers will perform on mobile stages.
by Denis Halliday
“The UN of the arms dealers – the most disreputable and yet profitable business on earth.”
Global Research Public Lecture, Montreal, December 1, 2009
Some times the New York Times does the right thing. This morning the Editorial (December 1, 2009) condemned the Swiss referendum vote to prohibit the construction of minarets on Mosques throughout the country. And on the Op. Ed. Page Bob Herbert quoted Eisenhower “ I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, it futility, its stupidity.” He added, and “:every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
And especially thank you Professor Chossudovsky for this opportunity to speak in Montreal. And to listen, and to learn from audience reaction and comments.
As you may have guessed – this is not intended to be a ‘feel good’ review of the UN. We are here to think, and consider something different, something better. Something representative, something respectful of international law: committed to equality of nations and people. An organization that really believes in a single standard of behaviour and treatment for all… and not double standards as of now.
Latuff
Military service is compulsory in Israel for all Jewish men and women. After their years of service, they are granted a discharge bonus, which many of them use to fly to India to recover from their experiences (daily killing innocent Palestinians). Approximately 90 per cent will use drugs during their stay, and each year some two thousand of them will need professional help due to this drug use. The psychotic break with reality they experience is commonly referred to as “flipping out.”
Shot over a period of two years by Yoav Shamir, Flipping Out offers a close-up look at these former terrorists (a.k.a. soldiers), most of them under the age of 25, as they follow this strange post-military odyssey. From the guest houses of northern India to the beach resorts of Goa in the south, the film reveals the pervasive culture of drugs and hedonism that leaves some of these young people battling for their sanity. It also offers a look at the efforts by Israelis to rescue them such as people like Helik Magnus, an ex- Mossad agent hired by families in Israel to bring some of the most disturbed backpackers home.
This is Israel’s drug generation.
First of six parts
Part 2/6:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16MsvcU-eJY
Part 3/6:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gktvx-bH0Aw
Part 4/6:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXnf4fLZkp4
Part 5/6:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY2DTfSEcig
Part 6/6:
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzRRtsfi57A
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