Palestinian refugee Iqbal Al-As'ad youngest doctor in the world

Iqbal Al-As'ad is the youngest doctor in the world to enroll in Newyork Medical school at the age of 12. She was a guest speaker at the American Muslim in Palestine (AMP). She did a great hob in delivering her message and demonstrating the struggle the palestinians live in Lebanon refugee camps.

The Kandahar massacre in Afghanistan

When it comes to travesties of justice, nothing comes close to how the US government handles soldiers accused of war crimes. That’s not because it gives a rat’s ass about the soldier but to make damn certain the crimes are treated like individual psychopathy & not US war policy. To do that, the trials have to be controlled by the Pentagon & conducted out of public scrutiny.

Robert Bales, a US Army officer, is now under court martial for the Kandahar Massacre where he murdered 16 Afghan civilians last March 11th. In a murderous rampage in the middle of the night, Bales invaded homes in two different villages, yanked people out of bed, executed them, repeatedly punched small children in the head, grabbed one 2-year-old child by the hair & violently shook her head back & forth, shoved the barrel of a gun into an infant’s mouth. Nine of the victims were children, 3 were women & 11 were from the same family. Some of those killed were then set on fire like rubbish. A crime of monstrous proportions which indicts the entire US-NATO war--especially since it came on the heels of US soldiers photographed urinating on Afghan war victims, the US government burning the Quran in trash, & the US “kill teams” caught in deranged trophy shots with Afghan corpses & taking body parts for souvenirs.

Bales was whisked out of the country 3 days after the crimes & ended up in a military prison outside Tacoma, WA that is less a prison than a half-way house for rehabilitation to civilian life. Afghan victims & some Afghan government officials demanded the trial be a public civilian trial in Afghanistan--& they are absolutely justified in that demand! Especially because there is such dispute about how many US soldiers were involved in the massacre. The Pentagon insists it was just Bales; many Afghan witnesses report up to 20 soldiers & some claim there were helicopters involved. But the US insisted on a court martial (the equivalent of traffic court) in the US precisely to cover up the nature of the crime & the direct responsibility of US war policy in Afghanistan. Reportedly, the testimony of some witnesses has been televised into the courtroom; others have been brought to the US, tutored briefly in US legal procedure, & asked to testify. What an indignity & parody of justice!

Speaking of parodies, media coverage about Bales provides a cornucopia of alibis for his crimes--in complete contrast to coverage of alleged Muslim “terrorists.” Bales walked into camp drenched in Afghan blood & said “I did it,” but the media still refers to him as the “alleged” murderer! Even his lawyers don’t dispute his involvement. We’re told he had money problems, marriage problems, that he scammed old people & joined the service to hide out for awhile, that he had traumatic brain injury, multiple deployments, didn’t want to return to the front lines, was nursing a grudge at the death of a war buddy, was on steroids, drinking hooch whiskey & watching revenge films, that he was deranged, snapped under strain, wasn’t all there. Cry me a river!

Media is also reporting how confused the Afghan witnesses are, how they changed their stories, how some are coached by relatives & are not reporting what they actually saw. In other words, the media is running defense for Bales & indicting the victims!

Appropriately, John Henry Browne, the civilian lawyer defending Bales also defended serial killer Ted Bundy. Bales hasn’t entered a plea but Browne is expected to make the insanity defense. He says he intends to put the US-NATO war on trial--probably not because he’s opposed to the war but to get his client off. Part of his defense will be indicting Lewis-McChord Army base in Washington state which trained Bales as well as the US kill teams & has a history of misconduct toward soldiers & veterans. That’s why you don’t hear a peep about the court martial in the media! Mum’s the word!

Bales committed a monstrous crime & it doesn’t matter how much hooch he drank or how deranged he was, he has to face the consequences--just like any drunk driver. But US-NATO war policy indoctrinated him in putrid racism, put him, those kill teams, & other psychos in the field & let them run wild. Of course, the US & NATO won’t hold themselves to account. That’s the job of the international antiwar movement.

Like Lt. William Calley who massacred 500 Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968, Bales will be found guilty by the court martial. And again like Calley, they’ll send him back to rehab jail, shortly place him under house arrest with his wife & kids, & in a few years exonerate him. The Afghan victims will never see justice without the active support of an international antiwar movement.

This is a photo taken in April 2013 of Hazratullah with his two sisters. Bales dragged his father from bed, took him outside & executed him; Shahara (on the left) is the little girl grabbed by her pigtails & violently shaken; Hazratullah had a pistol shoved down his throat. Masooma, their mother, pleaded for their lives. She spoke to the Associated Press about their ordeal but it’s not clear she will be asked or able to testify at the court martial of Bales.

US-NATO out of Afghanistan! Justice for the victims of Kandahar! Prosecute the US government for crimes against the people of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP)

Let them eat poop!

Will the wonders of US emancipation through war & occupation never cease to amaze!?  Here Afghan children are fetching water for their families from a streaming river near Kabul that looks more like an overflowing cesspool. Cholera & diarrhea epidemics are very real & deadly health risks from contaminated water. Diarrhea is the second highest cause of infant deaths worldwide: in 2009, it reportedly caused the the deaths of 1.1 million people over the age of 5 (many of them elderly) & 1.5 million deaths of children under the age of 5.

The US military is fully apprised of this catastrophe. According to a US Army study, water pollution from raw sewage is the worst environmental problem in Afghanistan & one of the worst health threats to deployed personnel. (Well at least they care about the soldiers!) The study of water contamination found a majority of wells contaminated with fecal or e-coli bacteria as well as other biological, nuclear & chemical contaminants. Some reports try to attribute the contamination to loss of Afghanistan’s glaciers, drought, agriculture & livestock-raising, & the reactionary canard of too many people. But how the hell do nuclear & chemical contaminants come from goat & sheep manure!? Or drought!? That’s the contamination that comes from war: from the use of depleted uranium, from military vehicles, from weaponry, from land mines, from drone bombing.

In 2002, a UN agency reported the complete neglect of waste management systems in Afghanistan with household & medical waste (we’re talking bacteria & viruses) discarded on streets. With no sewage treatment facilities, human feces floated in open sewers flowing into rivers & contaminating groundwaters. This is the result of water privatization that is part of IMF-World Bank neoliberal policies formulated since the 1990s. Neoliberal water policy combined with the US-NATO war has made water--one of the most vital elements of human life--a porridge of feces, poisons, & diseases for the Afghan people.

The Pentagon spends a considerable amount of research money developing water purification systems for the military bases. A portable, efficient water treatment unit has been developed by Pentagon-bankrolled scientists at Sam Houston State University in Texas but the generals haven’t been willing to fund these systems adequately for US troops. So you can be sure they aren’t part of any “emancipation program” for the people of Afghanistan.

UNICEF & other UN agencies, USAID, & the World Bank, claim they’re working with officials in the Afghan government to address the problem. But in ten years they haven’t been able to accomplish a damn thing. That’s because if you look at who they’re “working with” you’ll see they’re the same officials USAID & the CIA (is there a distinction?) are stuffing with bribe money. UNICEF, which claims its mandate is providing humanitarian aid to children, says it’s trying to “work around the war” to provide clean water. Has it ever considered condemning the war? Or in the interests of children, organizing against the war? Fat chance!!

End the US-NATO war against Afghanistan! Bring the troops home now! And cut the crap!

(Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP)

Nablus, Palestine, dry sweets

Nablus, Palestine, dry sweets. Green bits are almonds. Yummm!

Israeli ambassador to Amman officially expelled

"Jordan’s Minister for Information and Communication, Mohammed al-Momani, last Thursday officially announced the departure of the Israeli ambassador to Amman, Daniel Nevo.
In a press conference held on Wednesday evening, Al-Momani said that the acting Foreign Minister, Hussein al-Majali, had summoned Nevo last Thursday.
Al-Majali passed on information on the Amman protest against the Israeli violation in Jerusalem, settlers attack on worshiper in Al-Aqsa Mosque and the detention of the mufti Sheikh Mohammed Hussein."
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Azmi Bishara: Property Rights, Unjust Appropriation and the Nakba

Azmi Bishara
As I stated during a Nakba commemoration twenty years ago, the expression “armed robbery” sums up the Zionist-Israeli approach to Arab property rights in the land and holy sites of Palestine. At the time, I called it the “largest ever case of daylight robbery in the twentieth century”. Aside from it being a robbery, and one carried out by force of arms, there is another aspect of this situation which I want to make clearer below. Specifically, I will address the question of a “conflict”, and how “rights” are turned into “disputed matters” before arbitration is completed; in other words, how claims to ownership are declared only after the act of appropriation.

 1) “A” violates the property rights of “B”, let's say the latter's home 2) If “B” is unable to push “A” out, a “conflict” ensues 3) “A” proposes to “B” that they should divide the violated property (B's home), in order to prevent bloodshed. “A” also proposes that “B” lets go of the past, and focus instead on the here and now. All the while, “A” constructs a historical narrative to vindicate his own property claims, one which predates the property claims of “B”. Thus, “A” encourages others to abandon the past, so that he himself may control it: “A” is busily creating and appropriating historical myths. 4) Should “B” decline, he is branded a rejectionist, while “A”, the aggressor, becomes a moderate realist. 5) If the conflict continues until the stronger party is victorious, the party with the upper hand not only claims to have a rightful title, but claims to “the” rightful claimant; here, “B” is turned into the aggressor.

 The Israelis have used the above approach in their dealings throughout Palestine, using it in every microcosmic case, with every piece of land. They applied it to a “t” in the case of the Ibrahimi Mosque, and diligently continue the same approach with every home, every piece of land in Jerusalem.

And another good reason they might hate us!

The US war against Iraq again provides a compelling answer to the question, “Why do they hate us?” Wasn’t it the Nazis who introduced tattooing numbers on Russian POWS & at Auschwitz & other extermination camps? The barbaric practice has always been seen as dehumanizing & ignominious.

But here (in March 2007) a US soldier is marking the back of an Iraqi man’s neck with numbers to denote his home & neighborhood location in a system designed to determine if people are moving around their own town of Qubah, Iraq in violation of a US military lockdown order after a US attack. Once again, it sounds like a damn good reason to hate.

US out of Iraq! US out of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Michael Kamber)

"Why do they hate us?"

“9/11” is a date & a battle cry the US government wants etched in the minds of every rebel against oppression, though in human history much greater savageries have been perpetrated. That is not to minimize the horrors of that day. But what happened in a major metropolitan area ruled by white people is not more horrific than what happened to & still continues for millions of black & brown people under the barbarities of colonialism.

The question raised by 9/11--“Why do they hate us?”--has been answered differently by different political forces but the one peddled by the US government is Islamophobia, i.e., that Islam is intrinsically an intolerant & violent religion causing a "clash of civilizations" between the ‘Christian West’ (when will we disabuse ourselves of that delusion!?) & Islam. History belies this since religious minorities have always done better under Muslim rulers than under Christian ones. You’d have to burn a whole lot of books to rewrite that history.

So why do they hate us? Answering that doesn’t require historical knowledge of the 11th century Crusades or the 15th century Turkish expansion--although familiarity with Western colonialism is pretty darn important. But there are simpler, more direct answers to the question. One is provided here by 5-year-old Samar Hassan, an Iraqi child whose parents were killed by US soldiers in Talafar, Iraq in January 2005. This photo of little Samar was taken moments after troops fired on her family as their car approached a US patrol. Shooting on sight without provocation as people go about their daily lives!?Sounds like a damn good reason to hate to me!

(Photo by Michael Kamber)

The Nakba: Addressing Israeli arrogance

972 (Israeli-based magazine)
For Israelis wishing to participate in a common struggle, relieving ourselves of our ignorance and arrogance should be the top priority. Not for the sake of Palestinians – for our own sake, to restore our own humanity.

Palmach troops overseeing the displacement of Palestinians from the central city of Ramlah in July, 1948. (Photo: Palmach Archive)
Tom Pessah

About a decade ago, when I was studying for my first degree at Tel Aviv University, I went to a weekend retreat organized by Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam to meet Palestinian students from the West Bank. The retreat took place at a location near Bethlehem that was relatively accessible for the Palestinians, but they still had to pass through checkpoints, some getting beaten or humiliated in order to meet us.
Neve-Shalom/Wahat al-Salam’s workshops are structured very formally. During the inter-Jewish meetings I was the perfect leftist, constantly scolding other participants for views that weren’t progressive enough. And when we met the Palestinians, I tried hard to be accommodating and supportive, hanging out with them after the meetings and using my primitive spoken Arabic to listen to their experiences and questions about Israelis.
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Ad at the Chappaqua Metro-North train station, New York,

A paid advertisement displayed at the Chappaqua Metro-North train station, New York, July 10, 2012.

Islamic Art, Turkey

Kashan (Iran) Bazaar,

 Teemcheh-e-Amin o Dowleh, Kashan Bazaar (19th century). Persian architects used these structures to naturally decrease temperatures, regulate sunlight, and ventilate the interior spaces during the daytime.

Damascene Architecture

Old Damascus

Physalis alkekengi, Chinese/Japanese Lantern fruit

Life within death.
Physalis alkekengi, or the Chinese/Japanese Lantern, blooms during Winter and dries during Spring. Once it is dried, the bright red fruit is seen. The outer cover is a thin mesh that held the flower petals, seen in golden brown colour.

Ongoing Nakba: Powerful infographic from Visualizing Palestine shows century of land theft, expulsion

 Disappearing Palestine, a powerful new infographic from Visualizing Palestine (visualizingpalestine.org).

The original sin: teaching children to kiss ass

The original sin: teaching children to grovel, to bend the knee, to believe others should be deferred to & are born superior. If adults & politicians want to grovel & US media refer to Hairy as “His Royal Highness Prince Harry," that’s their shame. Let them eat their indignity. But don’t teach that crap to children.

Here New Jersey governor Christie & Hairy tour the rehabilitation after Superstorm Sandy to reinvent Hairy, teach respect for blue blood & foster the obsequious. Teaching children to kiss ass is part of the deal. It serves the new feudalism.

(Photo by John Stilwell/Pool/Getty Images)

Hawking's "hypocrisy". Elie Valley cartoon. Priceless!

In Ben Gurion's words

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister), quoted by Nahum Goldmann in “Le Paradoxe Juif” (“The Jewish Paradox”), pp121.

Palestinian population hits 11.6 million on 65th anniversary of Nakba

Almost 30 percent of Palestinian live in refugee camps

Palestinian population hits 11.6 million on 65th anniversary of Nakba In the wake of the 65th commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) announced detailed figures on the numbers of Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestine and the diaspora.
According to the statistics, the Palestinian population was 1.4 million and lived in 1,300 Palestinian towns and villages. More than 800,000 were driven out of their homeland into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries and other countries of the world.
Thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes but stayed within Israeli-controlled 1948 territory.
According to PCBS, there is documentary evidence that the Israelis controlled 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian others during the Nakba.
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The Nakba is a past and a present, a continuous and developing process of Zionist colonization

Ben White
Today marks the 65th anniversary of the historic ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Zionist movement, and the establishment of the State of Israel on the rubble of hundreds of emptied, destroyed villages. Nakba Day continues to grow in prominence as a time for remembrance and protest, an alternative history to the narrative of Israeli 'independence', and a reminder that the 'miracle' of a Jewish state was actually realised through the historically familiar methods of expulsion and colonial erasure. But this is more than just an anniversary or commemoration. In three important ways, the Nakba is not simply confined to the history books. First, the Nakba is a defining event. Many potted histories or summaries of the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" cover 1948 with a sentence like this: 'The State of Israel declares independence and is immediately attacked by its Arab neighbours'. The Palestinian refugees emerge in the narrative as if by magic, or as a vague consequence of war.
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To the US, things are looking up in Afghanistan; for the Afghanis things couldn't be worse!

This photo appears in media with the caption: “An Afghan coal seller takes a rest on his coal sacks in Kabul. Afghanistan's economy has improved significantly after suffering from decades of fighting.” Things really do look swell for this guy, don’t they!? Breathing in all that coal dust & lounging in the lap of luxury.

Far from ‘significant improvement’ in Afghanistan there is 48% unemployment & still rising (per the Afghanistan Economy Minister), 30% of primary school age children are working, often as the sole source of income for their families (per the UN), 70% of Afghans are food insecure with 50% of children under 5 years-old suffering chronic malnutrition, there are tens of thousands of homeless children, & the government is unable to provide basic services of power, water, sanitation, & waste removal to its citizens.

The US boasts that by the end of this year it will have spent $100 billion in Afghanistan on reconstruction but lest you think that’s to replace the schools & hospitals its bombed, it’s reportedly mostly to train & equip Afghan military forces. It’s not humanitarian aid. US reconstruction aid in every country is riddled with massive waste, fraud, & theft because its designed that way. Media reports reconstruction aid is a fraction of what has been spent on the war but in fact it is part of the war budget. It’s not a “hearts & minds” thing to win over the Afghan people but a central component of military & counterinsurgency strategy. That would help explain the high number of “humanitarian aid” workers that have been killed in Afghanistan. It isn’t that the Afghanis are ungrateful but that they’re wise enough to look a US gift horse in the mouth.

Turns out the phrase “Afghanistan's economy has improved significantly after suffering from decades of fighting” comes straight out of the CIA World Factbook & is repeated in several news reports about Afghanistan. So who the hell is doing good in Afghanistan!? With the CIA carting in suitcases of money to the corrupt President Karzai we know his personal economy has improved. And we know from USAID that much of the reconstruction aid is outright bribe money pumped into different ministries of the Afghan government considered one of the most corrupt on the face of the planet. USAID vouches for the agencies & says it carefully scrutinizes the recipients. Of course, the word of USAID isn’t worth horse manure because of its long association with the CIA.

(Photo by S Sabawoon/EPA)

Pardon the skepticism but if you trust the retailers you're in for disappointment!

In this photo a child consoles her mother waiting for the recovery of family members from the rubble of Rana Plaza. With photos like this circulating the globe, & with 1,127 people now confirmed killed in Rana Plaza, along with considerable political unrest, the government of Bangladesh & garment retailers are in full damage control mode. After years of violently suppressing unions, the government is coming up with all sorts of labor & safety legislation & politicians are talking like a tag team of Eugene Victor Debs & Mother Jones. Many retailers are falling over themselves to sign a fire & safety agreement called “legally binding” & giving chump change donations for safety measures in the sweat shops. Legally binding, my ass! The US has labor laws up the wazoo but getting them enforced is another matter altogether & is often in labor tribunals that are little more than kangaroo courts for workers. Pardon the skepticism, but while many consumer & labor groups laud this action, the corrective measures probably may not be worth a rat’s patoot in the long run. Overcoming the sweatshop system will require massive coercion on the part of working people, not phony largesse by the exploiters.

The more likely scenario is the one announced by some retailers of high-tailing it out of Bangladesh--of course, in search of sweatshops without safety oversights, with dirt poor pay, without international labor activists sniffing around, & without all the world attention exposing their barbaric exploitations.

The workers of Bangladesh should not have to pay for these crimes; they’ve paid far too much already in what is called one of the deadliest accidents in the history of the garment industry. The damage controls are a way to allay our concerns, to make us go away & move our attentions to one of their other catastrophes. So this is the time to keep the screws on, to keep the pickets up at department stores, to have forums and teach-ins exposing the labyrinth of international sweatshop production, & to accelerate our work demanding no sweatshops, no child labor, prosecute those involved in this atrocity--including government officials & retailers.

(Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

Ixil Mayan women celebrating the indictment of Rios Montt

This is Ixil Mayan women celebrating after the indictment of former dictator & general Jose Efrain Rios Montt for genocide. The woman in the middle is Maria Raymundo, a survivor of the genocide. In our jubilation over the indictment of Rios Montt we should stop to bow in respect & awe to the Mayan victims & supporters who fought for this vindication. He tried to exterminate them & rather than be daunted by the system that allowed his murderous siege, they campaigned relentlessly for over 30 years. There can hardly be justice for the monstrous crimes he committed; condemnation & punishment is the best a court can provide.

Politically & socially, the indictment of Rios Montt opens up a can of worms & there are probably a whole lot of people sweating bullets because this verdict opens them to exposure & possible prosecution--most notably Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, himself involved in the genocide as one of the generals. The Mayan people are doing their part to fight genocide & we in the US need to get on the stick to do ours. Those not yet called to account for this genocide include US co-conspirators--Reagan & other White House officials, the Pentagon, CIA, US paramilitary thugs.

There are strong parallels between the Rios Montt trial & the prosecution of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak for the murder of hundreds of protestors in 2011. It’s unwise to believe the Rios Montt trial will set a precedent for prosecution of dictators. It took an uprising to bring Mubarak down; it only takes a law court to let him off the hook. Mubarak appeared to malinger during his first trial but apparently the old boy was actually sick; most of us probably thought he’d already croaked. He was indicted for premeditated murder of protestors but has been serving time mainly in hospitals rather than a jail cell. Now after legal maneuverings by his defense team he won the right to retrial. Reportedly he walked into court rather than get wheeled in on a stretcher so maybe the old boy’s illnesses aren’t so real after all!

(Photo by Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)

Egypt’s powerful street art packs a punch

Astonishing work has been emerging from a new generation of Egyptian street artists. Influenced by ancient culture and contemporary politics, they are delivering potent messages of protest. Alastair Sooke surveys the scene and meets a major player. 
 
 
More than two years after protesters toppled Hosni Mubarak, Cairo is still ablaze with fiery visual reminders of Egypt’s revolution. On the edge of Tahrir Square – the nerve centre of dissent – the burned-out tower block that once housed the headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party stands blackened and empty. It forms a jarring juxtaposition with the coral-pink walls of the Egyptian Museum, the dusty storehouse of the country’s most precious antiquities, next door.
 (Thanks vza)
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Stephen Hawking's boycott hits Israel where it hurts: science

What really winds up Israel is that this rejection comes from a famous scientist, and it is science that drives its economy, prestige and military strength

Hawking's boycott 'threatens to open a floodgate with more and more scientists coming to regard Israel as a pariah state'.

Stephen Hawking's decision to boycott the Israeli president's conference has gone viral. Over 100,000 Facebook shares of the Guardian report at last count. Whatever the subsequent fuss, Hawking's letter is unequivocal. His refusal was made because of requests from Palestinian academics.
Witness the speed with which the pro-Israel lobby seized on Cambridge University's initial false claim that he had withdrawn on health grounds to denounce the boycott movement, and their embarrassment when within a few hours the university shamefacedly corrected itself. Hawking also made it clear that if he had gone he would have used the occasion to criticise Israel's policies towards the Palestinians.
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The Radical History Of Mothers Day

Diana Butler Bass (The Huffington Post)
At first glance, Mother's Day appears a quaint and conservative holiday, a sort of greeting card moment, honoring 1950s values, a historical throw back to old-fashioned notions of hearth and home.
Let's correct that impression by saying: Happy Radical Mother's Day.
In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of a Methodist congregation in Grafton, West Virginia, passed out 500 white carnations in church to commemorate the life of her mother. One year later, the same Methodist church created a special service to honor mothers. Many progressive and liberal Christian organizations -- like the YMCA and the World Sunday School Association -- picked up the cause and lobbied Congress to make Mother's Day a national holiday. And, in 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson made it official and signed Mother's Day into law. Thus began the modern celebration of Mother's Day in the United States.
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Reinventing Hairy

The British moochocracy is pulling out all the stops in reinventing Hairy & his 6-day trip to the US is part of the PR extravaganza. They can pull it off if they just keep our boy sober. The tour alternatives between the maudlin & the martial never observing the dichotomy between the two. First they evoke the image of Diana (posed as Mother Teresa of the moochocracy) with his appearance at a land mine exhibit. Then he dons military outfits to attend war games, act somber at Arlington Cemetery, meet with John McCain (who dull minds consider a war hero), & play volleyball with injured veterans. Did anyone note land mines wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for their damn wars!?

When he visited the US Congress they got female senate office staff to line the corridors & scream like adolescent groupies. Unseemly, but then Congress doesn’t usually attract rebels as its minions. Apparently there was a crowd viewing him at Arlington also but nobody in the photos exhibited more enthusiasm than they would if encountering Waldo Jones. Who is Waldo you ask? That’s precisely the point!

The main way they’re keeping Hairy sober is to have him cornered & guarded at all times. At the White House state dinner where Michelle Obama was fawning all over him, he was pinned between Teresa Heinz (wife of John Kerry & daughter of a blue-nosed Presbyterian minister) & the British ambassador. Any false moves & there’d be a fork up his ass!

Security for Hairy is being handled by the US State Department in some kind of quid pro quo with the British government: you have our backs in joint wars of plunder & we’ll keep him sober, out of brothels, out of his Nazi uniform, & fully clothed! Now if the citizens of England continue to pay tax money to support his indolence, that’s their concern. (Though how can they still claim to be descendants of the Chartists!?) But when paying for the moochocracy comes out of our tax dollars, it’s time for the Boston Tea Party to reconvene. Time to rally the militias!

(Photo of Hairy with security detail paid by US tax payers, by Getty Images)

High couture & social protest

This photo is of Mariea Wooding, a Knoxville College activist being carted out of a civil rights protest at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville in May 1963. If we could see her feet she’s probably wearing high heels too.

That was another era not only in protest but in couture. A few years later, protestors dressed for combat, not a party or for church. Nowadays, the wise protestor shows up in battle gear, gas mask, & combat boots.

The one thing that hasn’t changed a whit is youthful defiance; the cop is carting her out & she’s still chanting.

(Photo by KNS Archive/News Sentinel Archive)

The archival record of youth's role in social transformation

Young people were a central part of the US Civil Rights Movement & thousands of them were attacked & arrested. Some were killed. In 1963, an estimated 40% of kids at one Birmingham high school were skipping school daily to protest & they filled the jail cells to capacity. Here the Birmingham cops are arresting a group for violating Birmingham’s apartheid laws. Blacks & whites attended different schools & churches, weren’t allowed to play together, couldn’t eat in the same room, & had physical barriers defining where each could sit or stand at public events.

The intransigent spirit of children & youth in the Civil Rights Movement certainly explains the monstrous & violent war on Black youth in the US today. Resegregation of public education, police violence against youth under the guise of the war on drugs, & railroading thousands into jail for minor offenses is part of a strategy to prevent the emergence of a new civil rights movement by demoralizing & incapacitating the young.

Palestinian youth are playing the same leading role today in the fight against Zionist colonization & apartheid--& facing the same violent opposition & incarceration. Resistance to oppression is contagious so it’s imperative for Palestinian solidarity & the BDS movement to forge bonds of solidarity with Black youth also under siege.

(Photo by Danny Lyons)

From the annals of the US Civil Rights Movement

From the annals of the US Civil Rights Movement: Bull Connor was Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama with oversight of the fire & police departments. He became an international symbol of segregation & violence against Blacks when he initiated the use of water cannons & attack dogs against peaceful civil rights activists, including children.

Dannela Bryant, a civil rights activist said: "I was really, really involved. I didn't realize at the time how dangerous the situation was. The only thing I was concerned with was that I wanted my freedom, I wanted to be able to go where I wanted, like everyone else did."

The Civil Rights Movement remains today a beacon not only for the defiant spirit expressed in its anthem, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” but because it inspired & continues to educate freedom struggles around the world.

(Photo of Birmingham PD attacking protestors by Danny Lyons, a noted photojournalist of the movement)

Glenn Greenwald explains role of constant US violence on world

NewStateman: Stephen Hawking is right, it's time to end international support for Israeli impunity

As long as Israel can count on a blank cheque from the international community, it will continue to displace more Palestinians and further abuse and curtail their rights.
 
Stephen Hawking’s decision to withdraw from Israel’s President Conference deals a huge blow to Israel’s attempts to whitewash its crimes by branding itself as a technologically advanced liberal democracy. His decision highlights the growing consensus that Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is intolerable. More than that, Hawking has made an immensely significant contribution to the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel that has in recent years won support from musicians, artists, trade unions, faith groups and people all over the world.
Such effective forms of solidarity are badly needed in the face of government inaction. A ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2004 on the illegality of Israel’s Wall and settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories failed to persuade western governments to take action against Israel’s continued violations of international law. The reality is that Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people are only made possible through the continued financial, military and diplomatic support it receives from western states.
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BBC airs Israeli "Independence Day" propaganda presented as documentary

For anyone who still believed in the impartiality of the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s occupation, the last few weeks, since the appointment of pro-Israeli apologists to its top jobs, must have proved an eye-opening shock.
On 17 April, the day after the BBC announced the appointment of the openly pro-Israel former editor of The Times, James Harding, as the organization’s director of news and current affairs, it screened a program called Israel: Facing the Future.
This was shown on BBC Two on Israel’s so-called Independence Day, and was presented by John Ware, a journalist with a history of attacking Palestinian-supporting charities and Muslim organizations on the BBC’s Panorama program.
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Boston Globe: Stephen Hawking makes a peaceful protest

When the esteemed physicist Stephen Hawking announced his decision to boycott Israel’s Presidential Conference, a gathering of politicians, scholars, and other high-profile figures scheduled for June, the response was as predictable as the movement of the cosmos that inspired Hawking’s career. The conference chair, Israel Maimon, called the move “outrageous and improper,” while Omar Barghouti, a founder of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that advocates protests against Israeli policies, declared, “Palestinians deeply appreciate Stephen Hawking’s support.”
In fact, the decision to withdraw from a conference is a reasonable way to express one’s political views. Observers need not agree with Hawking’s position in order to understand and even respect his choice. The movement that Hawking has signed on to aims to place pressure on Israel through peaceful means. In the context of a Mideast conflict that has caused so much destruction and cost so many lives, nonviolence is something to be encouraged. That is equally true of attempts to inspire cooperation on the Palestinian side.
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Israel’s dirty hands in Guatemala

 "Known as “Brother Efraín,” a fundamentalist convert of the California-based “Church of the Word” (Verbo), Rios Montt thanked his God in heaven for anointing him as Guatemala’s president, but on earth he thanked Israel for establishing his March 1982 military coup. Israeli press reported that 300 Israeli advisors helped execute the coup, which succeeded so smoothly, Brother Efraín told an ABC News reporter, “because many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis.” Through the height of la violencia (“the violence”) or desencarnacíon (“loss of flesh, loss of being”), between the late 1970s to early 1980s, Israel assisted every facet of attack on the Guatemalan people. Largely taking over for the United States on the ground in Guatemala (with Washington retaining its role as paymaster, while also maintaining a crucial presence in the country), Israel had become the successive governments’ main provider of counterinsurgency training, light and heavy arsenals of weaponry, aircraft, state-of-the-art intelligence technology and infrastructure, and other vital assistance."
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Rios Montt found guilty of genocide

Former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has been found guilty & is sentenced to 80 years in jail for genocide & war crimes. Because he is a sociopath bereft of human conscience & still expects his pals in government to spring him out, he was serene at the reading of the verdict. But the courtroom erupted in applause & jubiliation.

There is still legal wrangling going on about jurisdiction, with a judge still trying to make this trial null & void, but this is a victory & vindication for the victims, their families, & supporters who have fought for 30 years to make Rios Montt face the music for his monstrous & unspeakable crimes against the Mayan people. The judge ordered Rios Montt arrested & immediately delivered to jail.

Rios Montt will certainly appeal the ruling & questions remain about this proceeding since it is a 3-judge tribunal to decide whether Rios Montt should be prosecuted or exonerated. But the questions should not mute our elation that this monster has been condemned & the victims vindicated in a court of law. Eighty years isn't enough but it aint over yet!

(Photo of Rios Montt in front of a collage of victims disappeared during his genocidal rampage by Gabriela Alvarez Castaneda)

The mismeasure of human beings is the science of inequality

In the past year, an abstract of a study not available to read has repeatedly swept Facebook like wildfire. The Canadian study claims to link low IQ to right-wing & racist politics. People who claim to be progressives are the ones spreading this rubbish so as to stroke their own egos at the expense of those with learning difficulties. It takes so little to make some feel superior--just an assertion with no documentation. One needn’t be informed about the idiocy of so-called IQ science to challenge this crap. The assertion flies in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence. Kissinger, the Clintons, Obama, Albright, Cameron, Thatcher, Blair & an entire army of others may all be despicable & criminal but no one would challenge their intelligence. (The US Congress is exempted from that judgement. They truly are stupid.)

This kind of low-brow science has a regrettable pedigree going back to ideology manufactured by German professors to justify slavery & to social Darwinism which link IQ to race. IQ & race--the twin idiocies of crap science! This rubbish has had many resurrections & many professorial advocates like Louis Agassiz from Harvard & the hucksters, Shockley & Jensen. Its contemporary incarnation is evolutionary psychology--better known as evo psycho--which has managed the extraordinary feat of bringing this crap science to new lows.

So many powerful refutations & polemics have been written against this stuff by so many scientists & thinkers that it’s a marvel it still dares show its repugnant face. But prejudice & elitism are stubborn things especially when they are bankrolled & promoted by the status quo to justify the inequities & barbarisms of capitalism. That’s why it’s peddled by smart guys in the most prestigious universities--another empirical & compelling refutation of that Canadian study!

Ashley Montague & Stephen J. Gould are among the leading scientists & thinkers making chopped liver out of this racist rubbish but there are many others. Gould’s writings also expose the falsity of IQ science & how it is used so viciously against those with learning problems. Susan Faludi (in “Backlash”), Carol Tavris, & other feminists & scientists have done the same for studies attempting to prove women inferior. Progressives should stop stroking their egos with invidious comparisons & inform themselves of this important science. Those who want to make this world a better place cannot do so peddling prejudice, elitism, & stupidity.

Prejudice, which is a form of social hatred, is a powerful force that must be exposed & defied & politically challenged--& not with kid gloves. They have required the power of social movements like the civil rights, feminist, & disability rights movements. You cannot rebuild these movements with a head stuffed full of prejudice toward others. The mantra for a better world remains “Liberty & Equality!”

Rios Montt shamelessly declares innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence

Endless defense maneuverings interrupted the genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt on April 19th. These legal machinations continue & still threaten the completion of the trial since several courts are competing for jurisdiction. But the trial proceeded & closing arguments are now being presented.

Yesterday, Rios Montt asked to address the court to declare his innocence--although he has dummied up for the past 30 years on his leading role in genocide against the Mayan people. The shameless beast, who reportedly has appeared cavalier throughout the trial, proclaimed his innocence to a courtroom packed with victims, family members of victims & representatives of indigenous, human rights, & student groups. This is no case of “he said-she said”; his crimes & his culpability are fully documented. But with breathtaking condescension, Rios Montt claimed he was so busy with national matters he didn’t notice what his generals were doing in the provinces.

Rios Montt was trained in genocide at the US School of the Americas (SOA). That’s why the US helped make him their henchman to fight “counterinsurgency operations” in Guatemala. With the collusion of other generals also trained at the SOA, he unleashed “Operation Sofia” on the Mayan communities destroying over 600 Mayan villages with a scorched earth policy of arson, massacre, mass rape, & crimes too unspeakable to describe.

There’s plenty of documentation for these crimes evidencing that the highest levels of Guatemala’s government were involved in their planning & direction. The Human Rights Office of the Guatemalan Archdiocese & Amnesty International have issued substantial human rights reports describing the atrocities. The National Security Archive housed at George Washington University (a non-governmental archival institution) has a raft of declassified US documents showing the culpability of Rios Montt, his generals, & other government officials.

But most importantly, there were days of testimony at the trial by witnesses to the genocide. One survivor, Juan Raymundo Matón testifed: “They looked down at us like animals, they killed us.” He added: “During this policy of scorched earth, they destroyed everything, not just our crops but our culture. People couldn’t even speak their own languages....I came to give my testimony; they ask who made you testify but I came because of my own pain, my sadness. Maybe I didn’t express myself well enough but all the people who came to do this, I saw with my own eyes. Many neighbors were shot to death. I went with to bury them. Some could only be buried in a hole like animals. At that moment there was only time to open up a hole and bury them. Or sometimes the poor people only had time to throw them in a river.”

This is Senor Matón’s indictment: “There is no peace. We lost everything: our land, our animals, our clothes but no one has replaced it. The government did it, the government is here but won’t do anything. On the contrary, they look down on us. Excuse my expression. The pain will only end when I die.” This photo is of Mayans raising a banner of indictment to commemorate the 45,000 to 70,000 who were disappeared.

Rios Montt may be able to weasel out of legal retribution because of the compromised judicial system of Guatemala but he will never live down the stench of his crimes or the power of such testimony or the determination of the Mayan people to find justice.

(Photo by Natasha Pizzey-Siegert)

A playground in Gaza

On heavy news days, children are the magic elixir to keep us grounded. The suffering they endure from war, colonialism, plunder & predation issues a political call to arms. But there is also that magic thing about them that finds something to laugh about wherever they are--in slums, refugee camps, peeking out of bomb holes or hanging their legs from bombed out buildings. And it’s that magic thing that makes us know the world is still worth fighting for, that justice can prevail.

These are Palestinian children playing in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip. The media caption said they are playing in “a poverty-stricken quarter of the town.” That’s the media’s way of shading the truth so they don’t have to explain those bomb holes came from Israeli aerial bombardment or that all of Gaza is poverty-stricken since it is under economic & military siege by Israel which denies even food & medical supplies.

No US aid to Israel! Support Palestinian children by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729)!


(Photo by Ali Ali/EPA)

Don't give money to Kissinger's "charity"!

This is the logo of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) which is now on a major fund-raising campaign in all the major international media. Using poignant photos of black & brown babies, we are urged to give charitable gifts for Mother’s Day, prenatal & maternal health care, clean water, warm blankets, & a pair of baby goats.

But take a look at the rogues gallery on the Board of Directors & Overseers who govern IRC: international serial killers & war criminals, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell; Zionist apologist, Elie Wiesel (along with a host of other Zionists); a whole criminal line-up of business magnates & bankers from JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, including Felix Rohatyn (who presided over the dismantling of social services in NYC during the 1970s), James Wolfensohn (past president of the World Bank dismantling social services on several continents); & the usual cosmetic array of movie stars & news readers like Tom Brokaw & Scott Pelley.

It’s not certain what IRC does with its money or why the millionaires & billionaires who claim to volunteer their services don’t bankroll it out of their own immense resources but you can bet your bottom dollar they’re up to no damn good! Don’t repost their ads, don’t give them a dime. Don’t fall for their manipulations!

No to sweatshops!

The death toll at Rana Plaza in Savar as of today is 930 people & authorities don’t know how many more are still buried. About 2,500 people were rescued, 648 bodies were given to families for burial, & many bodies that could not be identified were buried by the government. Hundreds of survivors are recuperating with broken & amputated limbs, now disabled for life. The government, trying to head off an uprising, has promised prosthetic limbs, compensation & future jobs but it’s record of indifference to worker’s lives speaks louder than its lies.

The back hoes haven’t even finished at Rana Plaza & there was already another garment factory fire in Dhaka that killed 8 people. The fire at the 8-story Tung Hai Sweater company, which was fueled by piles of acrylic products, broke out last night shortly after the 300 workers had gone home for the day. Eight people died from suffocation as they tried to flee the building. According to one report, there have been 41 other “fire incidents” in Bangladesh factories (killing 9 workers & injuring over 660) since the Tazreen garment factory fire last November that gruesomely killed 112 workers. Things just can’t get worse for the global sweatshop system!

But undaunted in their predation, multinational retailers are putting on an elaborate dog & pony show for damage control: the Walt Disney Company says it’s pulling out of Bangladesh & other companies are expected to follow suit (at least until the coast is clear!); Britain's Primark & Canada's Loblaw retailers have pledged to compensate the families of deceased workers (compensate for a beloved family member with money!?); Walmart is engaging in what a business magazine calls “nation building” by putting on its mean face & issuing warnings to suppliers not to violate its labor policies. It is also contributing $1.6 million (chump change) to start a health & safety school in Bangladesh. All this strutting about is not to reform the sweatshop system (it’s not reformable; it has to be abolished!) but to calm down consumer misgivings in Europe, the US, & elsewhere & make sweatshops sound like good jobs for black & brown people reportedly grateful to work for 20-cents an hour.

Did these criminal enterprises think we wouldn’t find out that a labor rights group presented a Bangladesh Fire & Building Safety Agreement to a dozen of them (including Gap, Walmart & H&M ) at a meeting in 2011 which they rejected due to extra costs & fear of incurring legal action!? The updated proposal presented last November was only signed by PVH Corp (owner of Tommy Hilfiger & Calvin Klein) & the German retailer Tchibo--who were both having work done in Rana Plaza. So much for safety agreements!

Taslima Akhter, the photojournalist who took this photo at Rana Plaza in Dhaka said: “Every time I look back to this photo, I feel uncomfortable; it haunts me. It’s as if they are saying to me, we are not a number, not only cheap labor & cheap lives. We are human beings like you. Our life is precious like yours, & our dreams are precious too.”

It’s a gruesome photo (& I was reluctant to post it) but Akhter wants it to be seen to bear witness to the barbarism of sweatshop production which is spreading like vermin around the globe. May this young man & woman RIP & may we remember them in doing everything we can to oppose the exploitation of human labor.

No to sweatshops! No to child labor! Prosecute the retailers!

(Photo by Taslima Akhter)

Medievalism at Westminster

These are British nobles at the opening of Parliament--& a case of a photo being worth a thousand laughs. One of the great mysteries of life is how these bozos maintain feudalism & capitalism at the same time--& mama that is no mean feat since there probably isn’t a living brain cell between them. Brains atrophy when they’re only used at the horse track. Or is that what minions are for?

Yesterdays display of medieval pomp & idiocy must have cost a bundle. In the style so in fashion 600 years ago, Betty & Phil traveled from Buckingham in a separate horse drawn carriage from Chucky & Camilla--probably because they’re not on speaking terms--but you think they might have doubled up in one since they were going to announce an austerity bludgeoning of working people. They were accompanied by legions of Buckingham guards & mounted escorts & those Beefeaters were marching all over the place. A legion of unarmed Beefeaters carrying lanterns performed the ceremonial search of the cellars at Westminster looking for explosives, a ritual that goes back to 1605. Five-hundred years England has tolerated this nonsense! They couldn’t have hired a couple demolition guys to go in on Monday to save all this expense!?

The Beefeater boys carried in the Imperial State Crown which arrives on pillow in its own horse drawn carriage from the Tower of London. It’s got nearly 3,000 diamonds & hundreds of pearls, sapphires, emeralds, & rubies & is reportedly worth over a million bucks. Betty wore the damn thing while she laid out the austerity program for working people.

(Photo by Geoff Pugh/AFP/Getty Images)

American pathology

I Thought Solitary Confinement in Iran Was Bad -- Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

Shane Bauer
 (Shane Bauer was one of the three American hikers imprisoned in Iran after being apprehended on the Iraqi border in 2009. He spent 26 months in Tehran's Evin Prison, 4 of them in solitary. Bauer is winner of the 2013 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism for the article below, his special investigation into solitary confinement. The winning feature was published in Mother Jones and supported by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.)

IT'S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS since I've been inside a prison cell. Now I'm back, sort of. The experience is eerily like my dreams, where I am a prisoner in another man's cell. Like the cell I go back to in my sleep, this one is built for solitary confinement. I'm taking intermittent, heaving breaths, like I can't get enough air. This still happens to me from time to time, especially in tight spaces. At a little over 11 by 7 feet, this cell is smaller than any I've ever inhabited. You can't pace in it.
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Furore deepens over Stephen Hawking's Israel boycott

Political motive revealed after Cambridge University first claimed scientist's non-attendance was on medical grounds
The Guardian
The move, denounced by prominent Israelis and welcomed by pro-Palestinian campaigners, entangled Cambridge University – Hawking's academic base since 1975 – which initially claimed the scientist's withdrawal was on medical grounds, before conceding a political motivation.
The university's volte-face came after the Guardian presented it with the text of a letter sent from Hawking to the organisers of the high-profile conference in Jerusalem, clearly stating that he was withdrawing from the conference in order to respect the call for a boycott by Palestinian academics.
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Stephen Hawking confirms he pulled out of Israel conference due to boycott, not "health" reasons

It is fully confirmed that Professor Stephen Hawking pulled out of a conference in Israel later this month in solidarity with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.
This confirmation comes after erroneous claims today that Hawking had pulled out for “health” reasons. Here’s what happened. Here’s the full story.
When The Guardian reported early today that world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking had pulled out of a conference in Israel later this month, it made headlines around the world.
Hawking’s decision was first announced yesterday by BRICUP, the UK campaign for the academic boycott of Israel.
Given his stature this was as much a victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement as it was a major blow to Israeli prestige and propaganda, especially since the conference in question is hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres.
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Will Betty Windsor be deporting her "anus horribilis"?

Betty Windsor didn’t mean maybe when she called her husband Phil her “anus horribilis.” But does she have to dump him so cruelly!? She just gave a speech outlining her crackdown on freeloading immigrants where she said Britain "accepts people who will contribute & deters people who do not” & will give those immigrants limited access to health care & social services. Does that mean he’ll be on the next plane out?

And how far back does that immigrant thing go because if history serves us right, she’s not long off the boat herself from someplace in Transylvania. England we urge you to enforce those immigration laws beginning with the moochocracy itself. Kick their asses back to where they came from & you’ll have plenty of dough for the hard-working immigrants that have given class to your little island.

(Photo of Betty delivering her speech to the House of Lords while Chucky sits comatose but hoping she’ll croak & he can finally be king--by Toby Melville/AP/Pool)

Israeli soldiers bulldozing Palestinian farm land & destroying their irrigation wells

Many people around the world fault US citizens for being so damn stupid about what’s going on in the world. But one only has to take a cursory look at news reporting on almost any country (including the US) to see how canned, mangled, half-assed, & dishonest news reporting is here. Not everyone has the time or stamina or detective skills to hunt down the truth everyday. Keeping us stupid is a major enterprise involving the best educated, least honest people in the country. Only England’s media may be worse.

The caption on this photo is a case in point: “A Palestinian man shows an uprooted olive tree after water wells were destroyed and olive trees were cut down in a field near an Israeli separation barrier near Beit Pala, West Bank on May 6, 2013.”

No explanation for who uprooted the trees, who or why the wells were destroyed. You don’t have to write a history book to be honest; all the caption had to say is: “Israeli soldiers are bulldozing hundreds of acres of private Palestinian farm land, including uprooting olive trees which farmers depend on for a livelihood, & destroying water wells used for irrigation to force Palestinians to evacuate their farms so Zionist settlers from other countries can move in.”

And there you have it! You wouldn’t even have to add a sentence explaining that the “Israeli separation barrier” is a monstrous apartheid structure! But, of course, if we were told the truth--or even an approximation of it--public opposition to the US bankrolling the Zionist project would plummet & solidarity with the Palestinians would crescendo. Even US citizens understand grand larceny.

No US aid to Israel! Support Palestinian self-determination by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729)!

(Photo by Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA)

Palestinian mother

If you ever wonder where Palestinian kids get their tenacious rebellion, take a look at mama!

(Photographer not identified)

No US aid or arms to Bahrain!

The reason for so little media coverage of the on-going uprising in Bahrain is that it makes chopped liver out of the Islamophobia that has become a propaganda hallmark of US foreign policy. The unflinching tenacity of protestors against US-bankrolled tyranny & US-armed police repression is a wonder to behold & a beacon to suffering humanity.

Violence against protestors is extreme & the use of tear gas excessive. Since February 2011, over 80 people, including many children, have been killed by police violence; hundreds of others have sustained disabling injuries. Forty-seven doctors & nurses who treated protestors were rounded up, tortured, prosecuted in a kangaroo court, & sentenced to between 5 and 15 years of prison on charges of possessing unlicensed arms, seizing medical equipment, & provoking sectarian hatred. They were also accused of refusing to treat injured cops.

Hundreds of activists, from teenagers to adults, have been convicted without due process & after torture. Some were charged with attempted murder for the use of firebombs against riot cops armed to the teeth with stun grenades & tear gas & were  sentenced to 15 years in prison. Eight opposition leaders were sentenced to life in prison for allegedly plotting to overthrow the state.

And yet, over two years later, the protests continue undaunted. This protestor in Diraz, Bahrain (May 6th) is watching riot cops storm the rallying point for a demonstration to disperse protestors as they arrived for a march in support of jailed activists.

We don't know who wrote that slogan on the wall in English in an Arab-speaking country but it is likely addressed to the US government, so implicated in the treacheries against protestors. For us it is a call to action. Our fullest respect & solidarity with the Bahraini protestors! No US aid or arms to Bahrain! Bring the 5th Fleet home!

(Photo by Hasan Jamali/AP)

Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians

A statement published with Stephen Hawking's approval said his withdrawal was based on advice from academic contacts in Palestine. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
The Guardian

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday.
Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there".
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Israel destroys agricultural land, wells in Hebron

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Tuesday destroyed over 100 acres of private Palestinian agricultural land in Hebron, locals said.
The mayor of Tarqumiya, Sami Fataftah, told Ma'an that Israeli forces bulldozed over 100 acres of land planted with olive and fruit trees.
Israeli forces also destroyed three water wells used for irrigation and military forces stole "400 olive trees and 700 fruit trees planted 5-7 years ago," Fataftah added.
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Wheelchair-bound Palestinian freelance photographer Moamen Qreiqea takes pictures of his daughter outside his home in Gaza City October 1, 2012. Qreiqea, 25, lost both his legs in an Israeli air strike in 2008 while taking pictures east of Gaza. The father of two is determined to continue his career despite his disability. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Roman theater, Libya

 Photograph by George Steinmetz

Libyans enjoy a visit to Sabratah’s ancient Roman theater, one of Africa’s largest.

Open to tourists

Ghadames, Libya.
Kasim Abdu Salaam Habib, 39, opens his lovingly decorated 600-year-old home to foreign tourists in Ghadames. The house needs repairs, and visitors are scarce these days. But Habib is optimistic. “I want to see Libya as a democracy,” he says.
Photo by George Steinmetz

A Saudi man plays with snow after a heavy snowstorm in the desert, near Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, on March 3, 2012.(Reuters/Mohamed Alhwaity)

An Indian woman, a Japanese woman, and a Syrian woman, all training to be doctors at Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, 1880s. (Image courtesy Legacy Center, Drexel University College of Medicine Archives, Philadelphia, PA.

Pakistani schoolchildren, who were displaced with their families from Pakistan’s tribal areas due to fighting between militants and the army, look for their shoes while other enter a classroom, as a health worker visits their school to give polio vaccines, in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, on Jan. 31, 2013.