Remember how, on the eve of the Iraq war, thousands upon thousands of protestors chanted - in addition to “Free Palestine” - that no blood should be shed for oil, or any other commercial transaction?
I wonder how the “anti-war” movement feels now about the resistance of certain banks and corporations to the implementation of sanctions against Iran. Here’s a disturbing example from Benny Weinthal:
Though the AMIA massacre occurred on July 18th, 1994 the official commemoration of its sixteenth anniversary took place on the 16th. In these two stories covering the events that took place you’ll find Guillermo Borger, head of the AMIA community organization. the one directly affected by the attack, praising the “good performance” of the present administration with regard to the investigation into the attack and lauding Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s “bravery” in calling for the extradition of the Iranian fugitives in her speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
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With great sadness, we report that David Twersky, one of the top American Jewish journalists, passed away last night, succumbing to cancer. When I was Managing Editor of JTA, the global Jewish newswire service, regular phone calls with David, then editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Jewish News, always revealed insights into stories we were working on or should tackle, as well as his tenacity to follow leads and sources, and a commitment to produce a solid journalistic product. In his work at the Forward, and later at the New York Sun, as he moved between journalism and public relations stints at the American Jewish Congress, David’s impact was using the power of the pen and computer keyboard to fulfill his dedication to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. We will miss you.
Read this detailed obit from the New York Sun.
Zichrono livracha.
I gave an interview to broadcaster RT based on my recent Huffington Post article, in which I argued that the Libyan regime’s decision to dispatch a ship to Gaza is the political equivalent of money laundering; instead of washing dirty notes, you wash a bloodstained reputation in the name of humanitarianism.
Periodically, I’ve written about the loathsome Holocaust denial outfit Press TV (see here and here and here, for example,) a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime that masquerades as a legitimate broadcaster.
In the Jerusalem Post, Benny Weinthal reports the following:
Executives from two public TV channels last week hosted Ezzatollah Zarghami, the president of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, who allegedly has ties to the Revolutionary Guards, prompting criticism on Monday.
“You never listened to a word that I said…” Thus did John Lydon, with his muezzin-like wail, kick off one of the greatest songs he ever wrote, “Public Image,” by his post-Sex Pistols group Public Image Limited (PiL to you and me.)
The Israel boycott crowd would be well advised to listen to what Lydon has to say now. And they can listen to him telling the BBC that, as far as he’s concerned, politics everywhere are terrible, not just Israel, and that he’s against all government - “I have been all my life,” he says. You may not agree with Lydon’s trenchant loathing of authority qua authority, but at least he’s morally consistent. And that logic means that the recently-reformed PiL will play in Tel Aviv, unlike Santana, Elvis Costello, The Pixies and others who bowed to the pressure of those who reserve their hatred for Israel alone, and have expressed it by sending Lydon hate mail.
Here, then, are PiL with “Public Image.” Yesher koach, Mr. Lydon.
(Via Engage)
UPDATE: Davem on Harry’s Place, where this piece is cross-posted, points out that Hezbollah has declared its solidarity with al-Bashir.
Over at savedarfur.org, Megan Flemming explains the arrest warrant issued yesterday against the Butcher of Khartoum, Omar Hasan al-Bashir:
The judges found that there are reasonable grounds to believe al-Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.
Here are some good suggestions of action you can take to assist the process of bringing al-Bashir to a prison cell. Why should you? Here’s the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Louis Moreno Ocampo:
Continue reading ‘“It’s Not Possible for a Muslim to Commit Genocide…”’
‘Bloody Jews,’ he said. ‘Bloody Jews, bugger the Jews, I’ve no sympathy for them.’I gazed at him, aghast. Where had this suddenly come from?
The encounter I’m here describing took place very recently, in the course of a large academic dinner at a University in another city, not my own one. It was a pleasant occasion, and the people at my table were innocuously and comfortably talking about sociological issues connected with the economic crisis, all completely harmless and (relatively) uncontentious. And then I heard the academic on my right hand side say to the person opposite him, ‘Bloody Jews.’
When he saw my appalled stare, he said impatiently, ‘Oh well, I’m sorry, but really…!’
‘I’m glad you’re sorry,’ I replied politely, collecting myself together for a fight. But then he asked, ‘Are you Jewish?’ When I nodded, this academic - whom I’d met for the first time that day - put his arm around me and said, ‘I’m sorry, but really Israel is terrible, the massacres, Plan Dalet, the ethniccleansing, they’re like the Nazis, they’re the same as the Nazis…’
Read more from Eve Garrard at Normblog. And then prepare for the usual whining about how it’s unfair to call these people antisemitic, they’re just critics of Israel…
One might say that it’s a political form of money laundering; just as one would wash shady banknotes through an offshore bank, so can the most bloodstained of reputations be cleansed just by engaging in a publicity stunt billed as a humanitarian gift to Gaza’s Palestinians.
My latest piece over at The Huffington Post.
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Move over Elvis Costello. Here’s Jennifer Lopez. And it’s not Israel where she’s declining to perform.
The Argentine singer and songwriter Diego Torres played to a packed house at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv on Monday. If you go to his Facebook page you can see him doing a bit of tourism as well. Good for you, Diego.
So here’s the deal. Give Israel some U.S. support in exchange for modest steps that the administration hopes accomplishes its goals. Israel will give some things that don’t appreciably hurt its interests in order to maintain good relations with the United States.
Barry Rubin’s take on the Netanyahu-Obama talks in Washington today.
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In Argentina in the 1970s hundreds of young Jewish people were kidnapped, tortured and murdered because they adhered to one of the revolutionary branches of Peronism or Marxism, because they were in contact with someone who did or simply because the rabid antisemites in the police and army saw being Jewish as necessarily being some kind of Bolshevik. 1n 2010 some of their murderers and tortures are having to answer for their acts in courts throughout the country. The present government deserves much credit for this as large sectors of society would prefer the crimes of the 1976 - 1983 dictatorship to be forgotten about.
Continue reading ‘Argentina, Al-Assad And Two Kinds of Dead Jew’
If you click here you can read a report from Télam, Argentina’s official news agency, about the official visit of President Bashir al Assad to Buenos Aires. You can also see a short excerpt from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s remarks after the lunch which she hosted for the Syrian leader. She talks about the Golan Heights and the Falklands/Malvinas, the importance of founding a Palestinian state and Argentina’s desire to play a leading role in the Middle East peace process. In the story that accompanies the video mention is also made of the signing of bilateral agreements and moves to expand trade; the usual stuff of state visits.
Why? Read about it here. As for the response, this powerful statement from the UK Board of Deputies of British Jews says it all:
Statement from Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council: Methodist Conference
30 June 2010 - This is a very sad day, both for Jewish-Methodist relations and for everyone who wants to see positive engagement with the complex issues of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Methodist Conference has swallowed hook, line and sinker a report full of basic historical inaccuracies, deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of Jewish theology and Israeli policy. The deeply flawed report is symptomatic of a biased process: The working group which wrote the report had already formed its conclusions at the outset. External readers were brought in to give the process a veneer of impartiality, but their criticisms were rejected. The report’s authors have abused the trust of ordinary members of the Methodist Church, who assumed that they were reading and voting on an impartial and comprehensive paper, and they have abused the goodwill of the Jewish community, which tried to engage with this issue, only to find that our efforts were treated as an unwelcome distraction. This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and as an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations, Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the Methodist Conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the Conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines.
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