Dedicated to the soul of the great Alexandrian artist, the late Nabeel Al-Baqli
see full article here
[youtube http://youtu.be/BAV-3-AqP9M?]
Above is a newly-released video of the Young, Jewish and Proud declaration. Rabbi Brant Rosen responds as the Jewish community prepares for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year):
It’s well known that Birthright was born in response to growing reports that American Jewish young people were becoming increasingly disconnected to the state of Israel. But by rushing to address this issue through a massive multimillion dollar community initiative, we successfully avoided asking some deeper questions.
Could it be that we were afraid to know the answers?
Could it be that young people are becoming disenchanted with Israel because they are becoming increasingly troubled by its treatment of Palestinians? Could it be that growing numbers of young Jews regard Israel more as an oppressive colonial project than a source of Jewish pride? Could it be that in the 21st century world, the identities of young Jews are tied less to Jewish ethno-nationalism than to a more universal vision of liberation?
“Young, Jewish, Proud” is decidedly not the product of a Jewish communal initiative. On the contrary it is a grass-roots, self-organized effort of young Jews who seek to express their Jewish identity in a time-honored Jewish manner: by speaking truth to power, by advocating unabashedly for peace, justice and liberation, by standing up to oppression, racism and persecution in Israel/Palestine – and throughout the world. They simply aren’t buying what the Jewish establishment has been selling them. They are finding their own voices.
Read Rabbi Rosen’s full response and learn more about Young, Jewish and Proud here.
Simon Collis
Ambassador to Syria, Damascus
Might be a spoof, but a good one with that
Posted 26 September 2011 by e-Media Global | 23 Comments
I’ve been British Ambassador in Syria for the last four years. Last weekend I decided to start this blog after Syria passed a terrible milestone. The Syrians have now endured six months of unrest and violent suppression of mostly peaceful protests. As they now look towards the next six months with a mixture of uncertainty, fear and hope, I wanted to share some personal impressions about what’s happening. Some thoughts about why it’s happening. And maybe to spark some debate about what comes next and what can be done.
In doing so I am privileged. Because I can. The last six months have shown the Syrians can too. But in doing so, they face censorship, threats and arbitrary arrest.
The Syrian regime doesn’t want you to know that its security forces and the gangs that support them are killing, arresting and abusing mostly peaceful protesters: The UN says over 2,700 people have died in the last six months, some of them under torture in prison. It doesn’t want you to know that it is preventing many from meeting peacefully to discuss reform. It wants you to hear only one version of the truth – its own. And to see only one way out – the return to authoritarian rule where fear surpasses a desire for freedom. This is a regime that remains determined to control every significant aspect of political life in Syria. It is used to power. And it will do anything to keep it.
People say that in today’s world it’s no longer possible to hide the truth. A lot’s been said about the power of Twitter and Facebook, the inability for information to be censored in Tunisia and Egypt. The cruel reality in Syria is that they are doing all they can to pull the shutters down.
Foreign journalists are refused entry. Any non-Syrian local correspondents are kicked out – sometimes after a beating. Syrian correspondents, bloggers and citizen journalists are systematically tracked down and imprisoned. It’s a criminal offence to have a satellite phone. Mobile phone and internet networks are heavily monitored, or connection reduced to a crawl especially on Fridays. They are cut entirely anywhere the security forces mount mass arrest campaigns or send heavy armour into cities. Websites and satellite TV channels are blocked, with help from Iran. Before the start of this crisis Reporters Without Borders already ranked Syria as the fifth worst place in the world for media freedom. Over the last six months it’s got worse. A lot worse. The regime wants to create its own truth. We should not let it.
Is it a bird, is it a bullet? It’s Syria’s new media law!
I suppose we all learn early in life that there’s quite a difference between saying something and doing it. Like pretty much all of its reform programme to date, the regime’s answer to its critics was to announce that there would be a new media law; and that a committee had been set up to draft it. But you don’t need a new law to decide to let journalists in. You don’t need a new media law to prevent the big brother mentality that prevails here. You just need to decide to stop restricting media freedoms, and then to act on your decision. And until that happens, why should anyone believe that anything will be different?
Mind the gap
I’ve got a feeling that this gap between reality and promise will sadly continue. President Assad has announced a big reform programme, several times. It’s got a lot of stuff in it that sounds pretty good. Some laws are indeed being passed, and there are more to come. But when you read the fine print, what you tend to find is that every path that’s signposted towards increased freedom and openness actually winds back to a chokepoint. Every avenue leads to a regime official who only lets through what he’s told to let through. Everyone else has to turn back. Or face the consequences.
Shine a light
Even so, brave individuals continue to find ways through to get out video clips that show Syrian security forces firing into crowds of unarmed protesters, or abusing detainees – you can search for them on YouTube. I’m constantly amazed at their skill, daring and ingenuity in finding ways to capture and upload pictures of events on the ground in something close to real time. Regime attempts to dismiss most of this as the fabrications of a foreign conspiracy are absurd.
But without context, it can be hard to make sense of jumpy grainy images. And tragically, repetition dulls the senses. Unless we have some information about what’s happening and why, we risk forgetting that another day, another death is real. It is not just an image of people in a street we don’t recognise, in a town we’ve never been to, chanting slogans in a language that perhaps we don’t understand.
That’s where I hope to come into the picture. As far as I’m concerned this blog will be worth it if it helps to get a discussion going – on this page, with your friends, or even just inside your head – about what’s happening, why it’s happening, and why it matters. Thanks for sticking with me this far. I hope you’ll want to take a look at the next instalment.
By Lyse Doucet BBC News, Damascas
Continue reading the main story and watch the videos
Syria is no different from many countries across the Arab world engulfed this year in unprecedented protests.
But getting in to tell this story has been far more difficult. Reporting restrictions means there have been few journalists here to witness this story firsthand.
A rare official permission to enter means we can now report from the ground, albeit with a government minder at our side on the streets.
The roads of Damascus are still choked with traffic. The ancient old city, with its maze of narrow alleys, hasn’t lost its charm or bustle.
Syrians still throng the cobbled streets in the covered markets, browsing in stalls selling everything from fashionable head scarves to the latest fashion in tight-fitting sequined jeans.
But beneath the surface, this is clearly a city on edge, with a people worried about an uncertain future.
Business is bad. Most factories are only paying about 65% of the salaries and have had to lay off employees.
Government supporter confronts Lyse Doucet: “You are not telling the truth about Syria… Syria is very quiet”
“We’re suffering and we know its going to get worse and worse before it ends,” said one of Syria’s top business executives who, like most people, would only speak off the record.
Worried about future
There are almost no tourists in what was once a choice destination for travellers. Some owners of the delightful boutique hotels opened in recent years told us they may be forced to close.
“I am worried about the days that are coming, worried about business, money, our life here. I hope it will be fixed soon,” said one shopkeeper who approached us in the old city.
How would he fix it? “I love [President] Bashar al-Assad. We give him not one chance, but 100 chances to bring about change.”
Another man standing next to an array of burlap sacks brimming with Syrian nuts and dried fruit, turned on us, shouting that the foreign news channels were lying.
“You are not telling the truth about Syria. Everyone loves the president. Twenty-three million people love him.” he said angrily.
Asked about the growing protests, in cities and towns outside Damascus, he conceded maybe “10,000 don’t like him”. He used the phrase used by the government that the protesters are mostly “armed gangs”.
There are few tourists left in a once popular destinationIn a country where it’s never been easy to ask Syrians about politics in public, the only people who wanted to speak openly were those who expressed what seemed to be genuine support for their 46-year-old president. Bashar al-Assad took over from his father Hafez al-Assad on his death in 2000.
But it’s impossible to know what people really think in the midst of such tension. One man who insisted there were “no problems” quickly changed his tune once the government minder was out of earshot. “I can’t tell you what I really think,” he whispered furtively.
There is no visible security presence in the centre of Damascus, but plainclothes police are known to be everywhere. We begin to spot a few familiar faces.
Syria’s immediate harsh response to protests, including the revival of a militia deployed during protests in the 1980s, has blocked protesters here from capturing a strategic square in the heart of the city.
‘One family’
But there have been growing protests, and violent clashes, including targeted killings, in some of the suburbs.
There have also been brave acts of defiance closer to the centre, but even the occasional bold unfurling of a flag or banner has been suppressed within moments.
The only people prepared to speak were those who supported President AssadColourful banners festooning the streets at key intersections proclaim: “Dialogue is the only way to resolve our problems.”
In one glass-fronted shop, we see a new selection of Bashar al-Assad memorabilia alongside the shiny posters of him which have always been ubiquitous. Now there are key chains, and ceramic plates and stickers with “I love Bashar” and “Proud to be Syrian”.
“It’s the truth,” says the shopkeeper who comes out to talk to us. ”
The naufara coffee shop, lying in the shadow of the grand Ummayad mosque, is still packed night and day with Damascenes drinking sweet dark coffee and smoking the popular water tobacco.
The city’s only traditional storyteller still holds court, recounting epic Arab tales of ancient conflicts and heroes of old.
“All Syrians are one family and we have a good future,” effused storyteller Shadi Rashid al-Khallah when I asked him about Syria’s current story.
But it’s a story that’s still being written and is still hard to tell.
click on image
In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.
But how did it all go so wrong?
Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place.
Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced ‘light touch regulation’ – giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace.
All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world’s biggest financial collapse.
Meltdown is a four-part investigation that takes a closer look at the people who brought down the financial world. It can be seen on Al Jazeera English from Tuesday, September 20, at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2000; Wednesday: 1200; Thursday: 0100; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 2000; Sunday: 1200; Monday: 0100; Tuesday: 0600. Click on image |
By Salma Abdelaziz, CNN
September 23, 2011 — Updated 2031 GMT (0431 HKT)
Zainab Alhusni, 19, turned up beheaded and dismembered after Syrian security forces whisked her away.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- “They killed the rose Zainab,” protesters’ placards say
- Zainab Alhusni’s death is called “appalling” by the United Nations
- The woman was seized to get at her brother, many say
(CNN) — A young woman whisked away by Syrian security forces to coax the surrender of her activist brother turned up beheaded and dismembered, activists and human rights groups say, yet another high-profile display of cruelty in the conflict-wracked nation.
Nineteen-year-old Zainab Alhusni stepped away from her Homs residence last month to buy groceries.
Her family never saw her again until security forces returned her mutilated corpse, two opposition activist groups operating inside Syria and Amnesty International told CNN.
As reports of the torture sparked outrage across Homs and the rest of the world, amateur video surfaced of dozens of woman protesting the death.
“They killed the rose Zainab,” their placards said.
“If it is confirmed that Zainab was in custody when she died, this would be one of the most disturbing cases of a death in detention we have seen so far,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The case also drew the antipathy of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which characterized the incident as “appalling” and as one example of the “targeting and attacking of families and sympathizers of the protesters by security forces.”
The ferocious Syrian government crackdown against dissenters began in mid-March when anti-government protests unfolded. The number of people killed over the past six months has reached at least 2,700, according to the U.N. human rights office. Some activist groups put the toll at around 3,000.
Zainab’s brother Mohammed Alhusni — a prominent opposition activist praised by colleagues for leading anti-government protests and treating the wounded — had been evading authorities for weeks when his sister disappeared, said the Homs Quarters Union, an activist group.
“The secret police kidnapped Zainab so they could threaten her brother and pressure him to turn himself in to the authorities. The government often uses this tactic to get to activists,” a union media coordinator told CNN.
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an activist group, said security forces called Zainab’s family to trade her “freedom for her pro-democracy activist brother’s surrender,” LCC said.
Mohammed Alhusni was eventually slain on September 10, when security forces fired on demonstrators in Homs.
When the family retrieved Mohammed’s body from a Homs military hospital, medical officials told relatives about another unclaimed body with the label “Zainab Alhusni” that had been kept in a hospital freezer for some time.
Days later, Zainab’s family received the woman’s headless and limbless corpse, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Amnesty International and the Homs Quarters Union said.
The Homs Quarters Union provided a video to CNN showing the pale trunk of a female body beside a detached head with long black hair among dismembered limbs.
Authorities forced Zainab’s mother to sign a document saying both Zainab and Mohammad had been kidnapped and killed by an armed gang, Amnesty International said in an online statement.
Syrian authorities could not be reached for comment on the Alhusni case. The Syrian government has maintained that armed gangs with foreign agendas, not the regime, are responsible for the violence that has plagued the Arab country for months.
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video, the claims, or the death toll because the government has repeatedly denied requests for journalists to report inside Syria.
Video hard to watch here
[youtube http://youtu.be/OwWInp75ua0?]
Nobody mentions the billions dished out to Israel
Livestream here
After the president’s speech to the UN, our senior analyst wonders why US leaders continue to pander to a foreign power.
Marwan Bishara Last Modified: 22 Sep 2011 18:23
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| Barack Obama has become even more pro-Israel than George W Bush, analyst argues [GALLO/GETTY] |
Obama is the “the first Jewish President”. That’s the title of New York magazine’s lead article, written by John Heilemann and quoting a major Obama fundraiser.
Listening to Obama speak at the United Nations on Wednesday many would nod in agreement, not less in Palestine and the Arab world.
The US president has embraced the rejectionist Israeli position on the question of international recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
But that’s not a Jewish position. It’s a radical Zionist position. Many Jews, including US and Israeli Jews, do not embrace such extremist views.
But the fact that Obama surpassed his predecessor George W Bush, the most radical supporter of Israel among all US Presidents, has left everyone in Israel dumbstruck. The latest Zionist US president sounded like Israel’s own founding fathers.
Never have they heard a US president read straight from the papers of the Israeli government.
Propaganda passes for history
That he would underline, not undermine, his own words uttered in Cairo a year and a half ago about the need for Israel to stop its illegal settlements in Palestine.You would think after six decades of dispossession, four decades of occupation and two decades of peace processes that President Obama would recognise a political and moral discrepancy that needs fixing.
That he would underline, not undermine his own projection – read promise – from the same podium last September of a Palestinian state within a year, meaning this week.
That he would underline, not undermine, his own rhetoric about freedom in the Arab region.
Or that he would underline, not undermine, his own opening emphasis about a peace based on withdrawal, not more of the same logic of war.
Alas, President Obama undermined his entire “change we can believe in” slogan.
His narrative is inspired by the worst of Israel’s official propaganda. Indeed, much of it is cut and pasted from their playbook.
He spoke of historical “facts” that have long been repudiated by Israeli historians, and of truths that are nothing more than one sided interpretations of a political situation.
Obama claimed that the Arabs launched wars against Israel. But, in actual fact, Israel is the aggressor, launching or instigating wars in: 1956, 1967, 1982, 2006 and 2008. Only the 1973 war was launched by Arabs, but only to recuperate occupied territories after the US and Israel rejected Anwar Sadat’s peace overtures.
He underlined the work of Israelis in forging a successful state in their “historic homeland”. But most of the world, and certainly the Arab world, saw Israel’s inception as a colonial project with theological pretexts.
Serbia also believes that Kosovo is the birth place of its nation; should they be allowed to forge a successful state of their own, an exclusively Serbian state in that territory?
Should each and every occupied people search from accommodation with their occupiers without interference from the international community? Is that how African and Middle Eastern nations gained their independence from European colonial powers?
Should a whole people go on living under occupation until their occupier is satisfied with the conditions for surrender?
It’s politics, stupid
Every other commentator in town would like to remind you not to expect much action from a US president on Israel during an election year.
As Heilemann illustrates in his article, Obama’s career was built on his relationships with generous Jewish contributors in Chicago.
Indeed, the guy who brought the most money to the Democratic party over the last several decades became Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Today, he’s the mayor of Chicago.
But it’s not only about money. It’s also about crucial support in Congress over urgent domestic issues that could make or break the Obama presidency. And the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, can make the president’s life miserable over the course of the next year.
Now, I understand all of that. But what I don’t understand is why it is accepted as a fait accompli! As the nature of politics! Take it or leave it!
If this is the case, then let’s at least call a spade a spade; and out the US administration(s) for being what so many seem to say it is: Not Jewish or Zionist, rather hypocritical.
It speaks of justice but pursues unfair policies; speaks of repression, but promotes its own interests at any cost. It preaches freedom but supports occupation; speaks of human rights but insists on entrusting the wolf, and only the wolf, with the hen house.
The joke is on everyone
Why should the Palestinians be held victims to US politics while being held hostage to Israeli politics for the last six decades. Why should most Israelis continue to live in a garrison state incapable of normalising relations with their neighbors?
Why should Americans watch as their politicians are held hostage to a foreign power and its influential supporters?
The pro-Israeli Jewish lobby, J Street, commented on the alarming pandering to Israel not only among Democrats but also Republicans, saying: “There’s no limit, it seems, to how far American politicians will go these days in pandering on Israel for political gain.”
While there has been strategic logic for the US support for Israel in the past, Washington’s current pandering makes little sense.
Washington has long used its influence with Israel as strategic leverage to reign in Arab leaders. Only Washington can restrain Israel in war and wring concessions in diplomacy, Arab leaders once reckoned.
But the dictators who either exploited Palestine to garner popular support at home, or bartered it in return for Western favours, belong to the past.
Today’s Arabs are bitter and angry at US-Israeli complicity in Palestine and they won’t be as easily bounded or bribed as their fallen dictatorships.
Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst. He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris. An author who writes extensively on global politics, he is widely regarded as a leading authority on the Middle East and international affairs.
