Michael Collins isn’t a name that will mean much to many readers of this blog. For present purposes it will suffice to say that he was a key figure in the War of Independence that led to Ireland winning its freedom from Great Britain. He was shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War 88 years ago today.
Continue reading ‘Michael Collins, 88 Years and Burying the Past’
At 6:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, President Obama’s speech hit what the Wall Street Journal’s live bloggers called a “sensitive passage.” This one:
Here is the Palestinian writer and literary critic Hassan Khader on the “Nakba Narrative.”
Despite the fact that the signed agreements shook the foundations of accepted Palestinian norms and expectations, the PLO did not fail to develop rhetoric that emphasized the extent of its continued commitment to, and perhaps even conformity with, the traditional Narrative, despite obvious contradictions.
In the end, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly, decided not to attend the Holocaust commemoration ceremonies at UN Headquarters here in New York. One can speculate endlessly as to why D’Escoto - whose choice of metaphor to describe Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians is “crucifixion” - bowed out. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to be in a room where he wasn’t welcome; perhaps something inside him dreaded the prospect of looking actual Holocaust survivors in the eye just a few months after he embraced the world’s most well-known exponent of Holocaust denial; perhaps (let us not forget those who will inevitably say this) he was “leaned on” or “pressured” or “prevented” by you-know-who.
Writing about the recent conflict in Gaza, Martin Shaw says that,
In military terms it more resembles the pulverising of the cities of Germany and Japan in the Second World War that was intended to shatter the morale of the civilian population and destroy the political basis of the regime. But the lesson of the period is that such violence - utterly immoral and outside the laws of war - “works” in political terms only when it is used without limit and with a view to unconditional surrender. These circumstances cannot be made to apply in Gaza.
Fintan O’Toole is a a prominent Irish writer, journalist and theater critic. Writing in the Irish Times, he lays into Israel, accusing it of all of manner lies and obfuscations to disguise the reality of its actions. There are references to other conflicts sprinkled throughout the text but the central intention is clear: strip away the rotten cladding of untruth and show the Israelis to be the blood-soaked monsters that they are.
Mairead Maguire yesterday stated that Israel and only Israel should have its membership of the UN suspended, or revoked entirely, as a punishment for ignoring UN resolutions. Maguire’s pronouncements and activities regularly make the news because she was, along with Betty Williams, awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to build a grassroots anti-violence movement, known as the Peace People, in Northern Ireland.
My earlier post about Avraham Burg has generated some sharp exchanges in the comments. One contributor feels that I unfairly compared Burg with Norman Finkelstein. But I stand by that comparison and I will now make one more.
Petra recommends this “interview” with Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism. Whether or not historical exercises like these are your cup of tea, it’s hard to disagree with “Herzl” on the social agenda.
Over at Open Democracy there’s a good piece by John C. Hulsman recommending some practical steps Barack Obama could take to bring about a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The gist of his argument is that the sort of negotiations that have been dragging on between the parties since Oslo are unlikely to get anywhere and that what are required now are fairly rapid and largely secret negotiations aimed at producing a deal that takes care of all the crunch issues in one go.
There’s an excellent article by Alejandro Baer in today’s El País about the contrasting treatment given to the news of Kristallnacht on the Francoist and Republican sides during the Spanish Civil War. Baer, a social anthropologist at Madrid’s Complutense University, sets out in detail the approval and indeed glee with which the news was greeted on the Francoist side and compares this with the condemnations expressed by the media on the Republican side, as well as noting the solidarity expressed with the victims by Spain’s legitimate government and the support offered to them, even as the Republic’s own death agony approached.
If you look here you’ll find an interesting letter in today’s Guardian. It’s from Professor Shindler of the School of Oreiental and African Studies of the University of London and succintly deals with certain aspects of the relationship between some Palestinian nationalists and Nazi Germany.
Over at Normblog you’ll find the latest installment of Sam Fleischacker’s series “A Cool Hour on the Israel-Palestine Conflict”. On this occasion Fleischacker deals with “Self-Determination: The Case for Arab Sovereignty over All of Palestine.” I think that though Sam makes many telling points along the way, the overall conclusion he draws is not correct and in the following remarks I will try to show why.
Continue reading ‘A Response To “A Cool Hour on the Israel-Palestine Conflict 8″’
I’ve already looked at a theory about what might be delaying the beatification of Pope Pius XII and I have now come across an even more advanced example of it here. The theory, briefly but not unfairly put, holds that the only thing that is holding the former Pope back from beatification and later becoming a saint is the antipathy of the Jews towards him and their over influence the Vatican.
Is the recent agreement between North Korea and the United States, whereby the latter took the former off its list of countries that support terrorism in exchange for the former reopening access to its nuclear facilities, a model for a future settlement of the nuclear standoff between Iran and those countries who don’t want it to develop nuclear weapons? The answer is no, because the two countries are very different from each other and they have very different aims in their negotiations with the outside world.
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