There is nothing more dreary than contemporary art that sets out merely to be provocative when it is in fact conventional and reactionary. A case in point is the Danish artistic group Surrend’s anti-Israel poster showing maps of the Middle East in which the state of Israel does not exist, with the term “Final Solution” at the top. Not only does this mirror the jingoistic foreign policy of the Holocaust-denying regime in Iran, but it also resonates with many Germans.
In the late, unlamented Soviet Union, the phrase “international Zionism” was the communist version of that Tsarist-era fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hugo Chavez’s regime in Venezuela has picked up the baton:
Apart from being Jewish and having lost family members in the Holocaust (why that should bestow insight on anyone’s analysis of Middle East history and politics I don’t know but it seems to be the case), Tony Judt’s chief claim to credibility as a critic of Israel is that he is a renowned historian of modern Europe and is therefore, one would imagine, capable of getting his facts right and arguing in a rigorous and convincing manner.
June 12 marks the first anniversary of Iran’s stolen election. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues his brutal repression at home while enjoying a warm welcome in certain countries abroad, with Turkey the destination for this week’s visit.
One body which has remained conspicuously silent on Iran is the UN Human Rights Council. While Israel is a permanent item on the Council’s agenda, the Council - which brought us the Goldstone report and is now calling for a similar “investigation” into the Gaza flotilla - has behaved as though the events in Iran were taking place on another planet.
Many seasoned observers view the Council as a write-off, and for good reason: its membership is typically drawn from serial human rights violators like Saudi Arabia and Cuba. Nevertheless, last year the US reversed its position of shunning the Council by joining it. “Working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights,” said US Ambassador Susan Rice.
Now is the time to put that objective to work. AJC has launched a campaign to commemorate the anniversary and to urge American action on Iran at the Human Rights Council. Please visit the campaign page, sign the letter to Hillary Clinton and spread both the video - which you can see above, and there’s another one coming shortly - and the letter via blogs, websites and social media platforms.
Fintan O’Toole is a prominent Irish writer, journalist and theater critic. If you’re Irish and have a comfortable station in life but consider yourself progressive in your politics you probably have a very positive view of O’Toole and have incorporated a good deal of his worldview into your own.
Perhaps it’s a perverse way of marking the upcoming first anniversary of the stolen election - Iran’s Bank Melli has opened a “women-only” branch in Mashhad.
While promoting “virtue” at home, Bank Melli has attracted more critical scrutiny abroad. In 2007, the bank was designated by the US government for its involvement in Tehran’s nuclear program and for providing banking services to the Revolutionary Guard and the Qods Force. Here’s more detail:
Here’s a worthwhile piece from the Armenian Weekly which contains the photograph below, taken at a demonstration in Istanbul on June 5, in which the placard declares, “Legendary leader Adolf Hitler, our patience is running out, we need your spirit.”
How long before the flotillistas and their cheerleaders claim this image was faked?
Something else to furrow the brows of the “Israel Lobby” Theorists.
Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters believe pro-Palestinian activists on the Gaza-bound aid ships raided by Israeli forces are to blame for the deaths that resulted in the high-profile incident.
Helen Thomas is retiring. Now wait for the usual chorus of Jewish/ZOG/Israel lobby conspiracy theorists who will claim that Helen was the victim here, and that her bloodcurding demand that Jews “return” to the lands from which most of them were physically eliminated in the middle of the last century was simply… criticism of Israel.
Here’s Adam Holland with an interesting item about the Ron Paulistas support for Thomas.
But let us look beyond the Mavi Marmara. Though Israelis and Palestinians get most of the limelight, much of the script is written elsewhere. The newest entrant in the larger drama is Turkey, where the flotilla was financed and put to sea. Ankara’s fierce response to the incident was a rallying cry to the region.
Next to Iran, Nato member Turkey is now the biggest headache for the west. With Egypt sinking into torpor and Riyadh firmly ensconced on the fence between Washington and Tehran, Turkey has seen the leadership of the region up for grabs - and is going for it. It has drawn Syria into its orbit and has reached a nuclear deal with Iran, its rival for hegemony.
What better way to pursue this end than to lead a crusade against the Jewish state? Going after the “Little Satan” is the card that trumps them all, and it embarrasses the “Great Satan” to boot. The real game is about dominance at the expense of America, which US President Barack Obama has yet to grasp. Neither has Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Sailing into the Turkish trap was a blunder worthy of General Custer at Little Big Horn.
A provocative, brilliantly-argued piece by Josef Joffe from the Financial Times, which in publishing it has done something to mend its growing reputation for Robert Fiskesque editorials on the Middle East.
Yesterday’s El País ran an op-ed piece by Juan Carlos Sanz about the fallout from the flotilla. It begins by quoting an (unnamed) eye witness on the Mavi Marmara who claimed that the Israeli commandos shouted “One Minute! One Minute!” as they opened fire.
The dominant narrative of Zionist storm troopers massacring innocent peace activists on the Mavi Marmara is now so well established that no amount of evidence supporting Israel’s version of events is likely to make any difference. Still, it seems to impossible not to comment on this series of photos published by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
The IDF has now released an official clarification regarding the audio released yesterday of a radio communication in which a flotillista tells the Israeli Navy to “Go Back to Auschwitz.” Bottom line: the exchange is genuine. Those who questioned its authenticity - like Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah - have yet again revealed to the world that their grasp of such trifling matters as truth and falsehood is shaky at best.
The Guardian here makes great play of the fact that the autopsies carried out on those killed on the Mavi Marmara show that five of them received gunshot wounds to the head and one was shot between the eyes. The piece quotes a pro-Palestinian activist in the UK as accusing the Israeli commandos having had a “shoot-to-kill” policy.
The IDF, a gang of brutish, racist, trigger happy European interlopers bent on committing genocide as often as they can. Well, if that’s what you think, I’m not going to argue with you, at least not in this post. What I will do is direct your attention to the fascinating recording above. It shows two IDF soldiers, one Druze and one Bedouin, trading verses of Zajal, semi-improvised Arabic poetry. I found it on Nizo’s blog , where you can find a translation of a fragment of what’s being recited, via a link from Lisa Goldman on Facebook.
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