These items may indicate part of the reason for the turning of Palestinians to help from places like Iran because of the hard-hearted silence of too many Americans and others in the West who are ignoring even the most strategic concerns of leaving such an humanitarian crisis mostly to other countries...
Isn't this somewhat like why the Sandinistas in Nicaragua turned to Russia during the US-supported oppression and war on the poorest and most in need?
here
Go to read an article by Alastair Crooke on why Israel-US strategy is not working with Palestinians and other key countries and more on the War in Gaza
here
Also how about this one?
See the latest on GAZA from Dreyfuss in THE NATION...he begins:
"Anger is boiling over in the Middle East over Gaza, and -- exactly as I predicted --the result of the war has been to boost radicalism throughout the region..."
in his newest on The Nation...
Arabs Pushed to the Brink...
here
Monday, January 26, 2009
PAKISTAN: a larger concern than Afghanistan for the US?
mother nurses war-traumatized child
Photo of Pakistan key area where over 1,500 deaths in 19 monthsPakistan Poses a Growing Challenge for the Obama Administration JUST IN:
here
Deadly Blast hits Pakistani Town // Is this the first strike under Obama's watch?
here
President: Tribal Talks
here
My favorite Pakistani blogger who is also an historian and writer--see this overdue question:
Is America a Failed Democracy? (from the blogger-writer-historian above)
here
NOTE: I am looking for more from the above blogger and author of the recent book: -The Republic of Rumi- on the feminine. I am particularly interested in a continuation of his past commentary on Feminine archetypes in cinema. Perhaps in the near future we will see much more both in film and from this writer on a newer type as a role model for girls: a kind of feminine "Peace Warrior" who is attracted only to other Peace Warriors of all genders...?
Find various links to Pakistan media, etc.
here
Information & Broadcasting - Official
here
Who's Who in Pakistan history (find more items at The Republic of Rumi above)
here
HEADLINE: Crimes Against Child Soldiers - First Permanent International Court
Front Page Today - Monday, Jan 26, 2009:
here
here
The Audacity of Hope and Updates on GTMO/Chinese detainees & more...
The Audacity of Hope is the name of this image by Lewis Peake which was published in the SF Chronicle on Friday Jan 23. Last year he created some images for Reprieve based on Sami Al Hajj's designs--a separate project. See Comments below for some links to the 4-5 Sami Al Hajj's inspired pieces Lewis Peake created for the site, Reprieve.For Updated and select items on Guantanamo items see GTMO Files in Disarray:
here
CHINESE DETAINEES(Uighurs)--
Background, Uighurs:
here
Find several recent & at least one older items by clicking:
here
here
Older (last autumn) on Uighers detainees
here
Older (last October) on Uighers detainees
here
Here's a note from Andy on doing best to support Obama's actions in terms of GTMO:
"As for Barack Obama, only time will tell, of course, but today is certainly his day, and I promise to give him as much support as I can offer to aid him in his promise to close Guantánamo, ban torture, and restore the United States to the rule of law."
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following to order books from the US & UK Go to
here
and
here Also find an RSS feed pop-up box for signing to receive free email articles.
According to Andy Worthington who wrote -The Guantanamo Files- and posts on his website: here - Sami Al Hajwas "was released last May, but it’s a measure of his influence that, although he was supposed to be taking part in “Two Sides, One Story,” a UK tour with Moazzam Begg and former Guantánamo guard Chris Arendt (organized by Cageprisoners), the British government has refused to give him a visa."
Go to Andy's site for much more on his ONGOING work and his book:
here
Finally, here is a link to an item I post here with some hesitance and yet, it's part of the dialogue and part of seeking to do ALL we can to make sure actions to END GTMO and other torture sites around the world are truly ACTIONS that result in the promises rather than rhetoric alone:
here
Also go to Cageprisoners dot org -- Also, check out this site as well regularly:
bordc dot org (scroll down once on this site - daily emails are available for free)
Current News from Bill of Rights Defense Committee:
1/26, Daphne Eviatar, Washington Independent, Torture Case Tests Obama Secrecy Policy
1/26, Amnesty International UK, EU ministers urged to help close Guantánamo
1/26, Associated Press, 3rd Trial Looms for Alleged Sears Tower Plotters
1/26, Peter Eisler, USA Today, Federal departments fall short on civil liberties
1/26, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Shane Harris, and Corine Hegland, Global Security Newswire, Obama Challenged to Move From War on Terror to Routine Vigilance
1/26, Media Matters for America, On Hannity, Rove falsely asserted that Army Field Manual prohibits good cop-bad cop interrogations
1/26, Charles Rault and Frederick P. Hitz, Isria, Interview - Frederick P. Hitz, former CIA Inspector General discusses his latest book "Why Spy? Espionage in an age of uncertainty"
Again, for all these, go...
here
Keep watching for more COMMENTS, including item on Lewis Peake cartoons (based on Sami Al Hajj's drawings)
Art Connects Gaza to Sabra and Shatila
This article below needs to be "mitigated" by a recent radio interview with one of the maker's of this film story who commented that although we seldom know what's going to be happening currently in the world when a film finally "comes out", sometimes timing is quite important in order to see the connections with current situations which similarly deserve the world's outrage such as Gaza. Maybe one of the biggest blind spots today is smart folk's inability to see parallels? Connie
In “Waltz With Bashir” Art Connects Gaza to Sabra and Shatila
by James M. Wall
Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary film by Israeli Director Ari Folman, arrived in U.S. theaters during the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
During the invasion, Gary Kamiya wrote a review of the film for Salon.com. He entitled it: “What Waltz With Bashir can teach us about Gaza”. Here is an excerpt from that review:
. . . . It is clear that [in the Gaza invasion] Israel has no strategic vision, no idea of what its onslaught is supposed to ultimately achieve or how to end it. When it finally ends its assault, Hamas will emerge from the rubble, Iran and Hezbollah will be empowered, Egypt and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will be weakened, and America’s standing in the region will be lower than ever. . . .
. . . . [I]n a strange case of art imitating life, at the same time that Israel is blasting a defenseless population enclosed in a tiny area, an Israeli film has appeared that depicts an earlier war in which Israel was complicit in an appalling massacre.
America’s cultural gatekeepers have rightfully hailed Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir as a tour de force and cinematic breakthrough. On Sunday night, as Israeli warplanes carried out 12 bombing raids in Gaza, “Waltz With Bashir” won the Golden Globe Award for best foreign film.
Most people who see Folman’s stunning film will probably not connect it with Israel’s current war. But if they dig a little deeper, they might realize that the film’s moral lessons apply not just to the terrible events that took place 28 years ago but also to what is happening today.
Waltz With Bashir is about Folman’s attempt to recover his lost memory of his experiences as a soldier during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and in particular the Sabra and Shatilla slaughter of Palestinian civilians in two refugee camps.
Carried out by Lebanese Christian militiamen, under Israeli protection and with its leaders’ complicity, it was one of the most notorious massacres of the 20th century. . .
(To read Gary Kamiya’s complete Salon review, click here)
TomDispatch dot com, under the editorial direction of Tom Engelhardt, is publishing two long excerpts from a graphic memoir, Waltz with Bashir, which was developed in tandem with the film.
The novel will be in bookstores in a few weeks...The first TomDispatch excerpt is currently on line; the second will be posted by TomDispatch next Saturday.
Waltz With Bashir is one of five nominees for the Academy Award category of Best Foreign Language Film of 2008. This recognition could generate controversy when the winners are announced Sunday, February 22.
In his review of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, critic Ron Henderson had this to say in his Wall Writings post about Waltz With Bashir:
As though to underscore Israeli complicity in the massacre of hundreds (estimated as high as 3,000) Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Phalangists in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, soldier-filmmaker Ari Folman shifts away from animation in the final scene to jarring actual documentary footage of the few survivors leaving the camps. As a statement of conscience and shame, guilt and expiation, Waltz with Bashir stands high on the list of the best antiwar films made.
Art and history come together in Gaza and in the Lebanon invasion that led to Sabra and Shatila. Is the connection absolute? Of course not, no historical parallel is ever absolute. But as Gary Kamiya writes, there are “painful similarities”:
. . . . Israel’s moral culpability for the 1982 massacre is not the same as its moral responsibility for the civilians killed in the current war. But there are painful similarities. Sooner or later the patriotic war fervor will fade, and Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing. And perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release “Waltz With Hamas.” . . . .
Anthony H. Cordesman concludes his analysis of “The War in Gaza”, for the Center for Strategic and International Studies with blunt answers to difficult questions:
. . . . Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process?
To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes. To paraphrase a comment about the British government’s management of the British Army in World War I, lions seem to be led by donkeys. If Israel has a credible ceasefire plan that could really secure Gaza, it is not apparent. If Israel has a plan that could credibly destroy and replace Hamas, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to help the Gazans and move them back towards peace, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to use US or other friendly influence productively, it not apparent.
As we have seen all too clearly from US mistakes, any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni, and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends. If there is more, it is time to make such goals public and demonstrate how they can be achieved. The question is not whether the IDF learned the tactical lessons of the [Lebanon] fighting in 2006. It is whether Israel’s top political leadership has even minimal competence to lead them.
In “Waltz With Bashir” Art Connects Gaza to Sabra and Shatila
by James M. Wall
Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary film by Israeli Director Ari Folman, arrived in U.S. theaters during the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
During the invasion, Gary Kamiya wrote a review of the film for Salon.com. He entitled it: “What Waltz With Bashir can teach us about Gaza”. Here is an excerpt from that review:
. . . . It is clear that [in the Gaza invasion] Israel has no strategic vision, no idea of what its onslaught is supposed to ultimately achieve or how to end it. When it finally ends its assault, Hamas will emerge from the rubble, Iran and Hezbollah will be empowered, Egypt and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will be weakened, and America’s standing in the region will be lower than ever. . . .
. . . . [I]n a strange case of art imitating life, at the same time that Israel is blasting a defenseless population enclosed in a tiny area, an Israeli film has appeared that depicts an earlier war in which Israel was complicit in an appalling massacre.
America’s cultural gatekeepers have rightfully hailed Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir as a tour de force and cinematic breakthrough. On Sunday night, as Israeli warplanes carried out 12 bombing raids in Gaza, “Waltz With Bashir” won the Golden Globe Award for best foreign film.
Most people who see Folman’s stunning film will probably not connect it with Israel’s current war. But if they dig a little deeper, they might realize that the film’s moral lessons apply not just to the terrible events that took place 28 years ago but also to what is happening today.
Waltz With Bashir is about Folman’s attempt to recover his lost memory of his experiences as a soldier during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and in particular the Sabra and Shatilla slaughter of Palestinian civilians in two refugee camps.
Carried out by Lebanese Christian militiamen, under Israeli protection and with its leaders’ complicity, it was one of the most notorious massacres of the 20th century. . .
(To read Gary Kamiya’s complete Salon review, click here)
TomDispatch dot com, under the editorial direction of Tom Engelhardt, is publishing two long excerpts from a graphic memoir, Waltz with Bashir, which was developed in tandem with the film.
The novel will be in bookstores in a few weeks...The first TomDispatch excerpt is currently on line; the second will be posted by TomDispatch next Saturday.
Waltz With Bashir is one of five nominees for the Academy Award category of Best Foreign Language Film of 2008. This recognition could generate controversy when the winners are announced Sunday, February 22.
In his review of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, critic Ron Henderson had this to say in his Wall Writings post about Waltz With Bashir:
As though to underscore Israeli complicity in the massacre of hundreds (estimated as high as 3,000) Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Phalangists in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, soldier-filmmaker Ari Folman shifts away from animation in the final scene to jarring actual documentary footage of the few survivors leaving the camps. As a statement of conscience and shame, guilt and expiation, Waltz with Bashir stands high on the list of the best antiwar films made.
Art and history come together in Gaza and in the Lebanon invasion that led to Sabra and Shatila. Is the connection absolute? Of course not, no historical parallel is ever absolute. But as Gary Kamiya writes, there are “painful similarities”:
. . . . Israel’s moral culpability for the 1982 massacre is not the same as its moral responsibility for the civilians killed in the current war. But there are painful similarities. Sooner or later the patriotic war fervor will fade, and Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing. And perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release “Waltz With Hamas.” . . . .
Anthony H. Cordesman concludes his analysis of “The War in Gaza”, for the Center for Strategic and International Studies with blunt answers to difficult questions:
. . . . Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process?
To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes. To paraphrase a comment about the British government’s management of the British Army in World War I, lions seem to be led by donkeys. If Israel has a credible ceasefire plan that could really secure Gaza, it is not apparent. If Israel has a plan that could credibly destroy and replace Hamas, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to help the Gazans and move them back towards peace, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to use US or other friendly influence productively, it not apparent.
As we have seen all too clearly from US mistakes, any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni, and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends. If there is more, it is time to make such goals public and demonstrate how they can be achieved. The question is not whether the IDF learned the tactical lessons of the [Lebanon] fighting in 2006. It is whether Israel’s top political leadership has even minimal competence to lead them.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Abbas and Haniyeh Joined Protest in Bil'in via Masks
Three injured and dozens suffered tear gas inhalation during the Bil'in Weekly Demonstration
Friday, 23rd 2009
The residents of Bil'in today gathered after the Friday prayer in an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza and insisting that the village is still resisting the wall and settlement building. They were joined by international activists and the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, all opposing the war on Gaza.
The protesters carried all the Palestinian party flags as call for national unity to stand against the Israeli occupation. Protesters put on masks of Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh and walked toward the wall holding hands as a hopeful symbol that the Palestinian internal conflict will end and they will unite against the Israeli occupation once again.
The protest marched toward the wall which is built on Bil'in's land. The Israeli army was behind concrete blocks. When the protesters opened the gate, the army immediately fired tear gas canisters. The army chased the demonstrators back to the village using rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas. Dozens suffered tear gas inhalation and three were shot with live bullets the three: Spain journalist, and Japanese journalist his name Kazuaki Kiryu and Khames Fathi Aburahma was shot in the head with a live bullet shot from the new type of bullets called 0,2 the two has been transferred to Sheikh Zayed hospital in Ramallah for treatment.
here
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
Head of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin
Email- ffj.bilin@yahoo.com
Mobile- (00972) (0) 547847942
Office- (00972) (2) 2489129
Fax- (00972) (2) 2489129
bilin-ffj dot org
Friday, 23rd 2009
The residents of Bil'in today gathered after the Friday prayer in an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza and insisting that the village is still resisting the wall and settlement building. They were joined by international activists and the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, all opposing the war on Gaza.
The protesters carried all the Palestinian party flags as call for national unity to stand against the Israeli occupation. Protesters put on masks of Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh and walked toward the wall holding hands as a hopeful symbol that the Palestinian internal conflict will end and they will unite against the Israeli occupation once again.
The protest marched toward the wall which is built on Bil'in's land. The Israeli army was behind concrete blocks. When the protesters opened the gate, the army immediately fired tear gas canisters. The army chased the demonstrators back to the village using rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas. Dozens suffered tear gas inhalation and three were shot with live bullets the three: Spain journalist, and Japanese journalist his name Kazuaki Kiryu and Khames Fathi Aburahma was shot in the head with a live bullet shot from the new type of bullets called 0,2 the two has been transferred to Sheikh Zayed hospital in Ramallah for treatment.
here
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
Head of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin
Email- ffj.bilin@yahoo.com
Mobile- (00972) (0) 547847942
Office- (00972) (2) 2489129
Fax- (00972) (2) 2489129
bilin-ffj dot org
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