a Dear John Letter to blogger

Dear Blogger (and the millions who have followed us),

We have found someone better: http://qtdn.wordpress.com/

Take care,

QDN

the unforgiven II

a definitely middle eastern script

here is some critical analysis:

laura flanders is dumb. I base this involved observation on one thing she says in the very first minute of the video below, which pretty much renders the entire discussion pointless. also based on that one thing, I do not sympathize with anyone who is offended by anything of this sort (including myself), nor do I agree with people who say sacha baron cohen's performance is somehow analytical and "only for smart people to understand." once again a single fuck up is sufficient in order for me to lose all hope in humanity (for the day).

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2009/07/17/bruno-panel/

although richard kim does say one thing that is worth thinking about; that these movies are not critiquing homophobia or racism or whatever but tolerance.

My favorite art of the year

Honors papers need mixtape style covers.

Drink a Sake on Suzuki

This:

Victor Serge’s personality and life were typical in an extreme way, almost improbably so. From the middle of the last century onwards the Russian revolutionary movement produced a great many men who spent a considerable part of their lives as exiles abroad, as deportees in Siberia, as prison-inmates. Their ideas and personalities differed in many ways, but one thing they had in common: to be true to themselves was for most of them an obligation. They despised those personal advantages which are gained by accommodation to the existing order.

[...]

Of course, profound historical understanding and real revolutionary activity are impossible within the terms of bureaucratism or romanticism. One of the main hypocrisies of Stalinism was the creation of a system in which bureaucrats posed as revolutionary romantics, and employed romantics, who for their part posed as theorists. (The ideological amalgam of Stalinism combined the vulgarized Marxism of the German Social Democrats with the romanticism of the Russian narodniki.) Serge’s diametrical antiposition to this hypocrisy makes him—in a certain social and anthropological sense—the “anti-stalinist” par excellence. The monstrosity of Stalinism—and at the same time its positive historical significance in a certain period—lay in its formally conservative nature: Stalinist “centrism”—as opposed to Trotskyist “leftism” and Bukharinist “rightism”—was concerned with the conservation of Party and Power; principles and human beings were regarded as of secondary importance. Serge’s outlook was just the opposite. His absolute, emotional opposition to Stalinism produced an understanding which was most remarkable as a corrective (it was certainly not in itself sufficient to provide a historical interpretation).

X

this,
=
How I'm writing my Chechnya essay.

new Zizek, old Lenin

For some reason Zizek's essay in NLR feels dated.

The footnotes,

[1] V. I. Lenin, ‘Notes of a Publicist’, published posthumously in Pravda, 16 April 1924; Collected Works, vol. 33, Moscow 1966, pp. 204–7.

[2] Samuel Beckett, ‘Worstward Ho’, Nohow On, London 1992, p. 101.

[3] Lenin, ‘Eleventh Congress of the RCP(B)’, Collected Works, vol. 33, pp. 281–3.

[4] Sándor Márai, Memoir of Hungary: 1944–1948, Budapest 1996.

[5] Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle [1968], Ann Arbor, MI 2005. pp. 131–2.

[6] Quoted in Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, Appendix 1, pp. 146–7.

[7] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 84.

[8] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 133.

[9] Lenin, ‘Better Fewer, But Better’, Collected Works, vol. 33, p. 495.

[10] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 125.

[11] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 124.

[12] Alain Badiou, The Meaning of Sarkozy, London and New York 2008, p. 115.

David Simon Murders Everything

The Wire's creator recently got the chance to eviscerate his enemies in front of the United States Congress. Not surprisingly, the casualties from Simon's testimony include just about everyone and everything.

The internet:

it leeches that reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from aggregators and abandon its point of origin, namely the newspapers themselves. In short, the parasite is slowly killing the host.

Capitalism:

Second, Wall Street and free market logic, having been a destructive force in journalism over the last few decades, is now not suddenly the answer.

Citizens:

Indeed, the very phrase “citizen journalist” strikes my ear as Orwellian. A neighbor who is a good listener and cares about people is a good neighbor; he is not in any sense a citizen social worker, just as a neighbor with a garden hose and good intentions is not a citizen firefighter. To say so is a heedless insult to trained social workers and firefighters.

Himself:

Well, so much for new media. But what about old media? Well, anyone listening carefully may have noted that—I’m sorry. Cut that part. Anyone listening carefully may have noted that I was brought out of my reporting position in 1995.

Winning:

They had arrived from somewhere else, and they—if they won a prize or two, they would be moving on to bigger and better opportunities within the chain[...]The self-gratification in my profession does not come, you see, from covering a city and covering it well, from explaining an increasingly complex and interconnected world to citizens, from holding basic institutions accountable. It comes from someone handing you a plaque and taking your picture.

I'm sure that after hearing all of this all present members of Congress packed their bags and killed themselves in despair.

back like cooked crack

of course Zizek is on Twitter. what did you think it was gonna be?

in other worrisome news, we might be running out of ready-to-wear zizek iconography on the web and might have to resort to our own labor in the near future. damn it.

the roof vamoose, like a magic show

Illusions


Clipse & Kanye West: "Kind of Like a Big Deal"

so cool you might have to zip your jacket up

n+1: He's always billed as "Slavoj Zizek, Philosopher and Psychoanalyst." That made me wonder, is he really a psychoanalyst in the sense that I could be his patient?

AT: Absolutely not. And he's never successfully gone through analysis. He tells this story about how he lied his way through a few sessions with Jacques-Alain Miller, Lacan's son-in-law. He would invent dreams, tell Miller he was having sexual fantasies that he was making up.

and I still don't know if I want to see Examined Life or not

Carnegie Corp of NY's Scholarships Promote Sharia Law, Islam

This is an actual headline that appeared on Campus Watch. The title links to an article from something called Creeping Sharia. This is the type of thing that appears on Campus Watch all the time and no one seems to care, but I think its important that we stop for a second and think about how ridiculous it is. Money quote,

Two other topics funded: "What's Missing When We Say Shari'a" and "Islamic Law and Legal Change". Get the idea?

Remember when there was a concern that Campus Watch was the beginning of a serious attempt to run critical scholars out of business? It's great to see that now its purpose has been reduced to reposting articles from slightly crazier blogs. Also, the image which perfectly matches the message of the Campus Watch/Creeping Sharia article is from the website of the "Whites only" British National Party.

ati alan ortadogu'yu gecmis sen hala komplodasin pc'desin

from Visa for top Netenyahu aide in question

U.S. officials are also likely to find Arad, a long-time Netanyahu loyalist, difficult to deal with, apart from his intelligence past. Like Netanyahu, he opposed Israel's pullout from Gaza and as recently as last month suggested that he was against any territorial compromise with Palestinians, telling one television interviewer, "We want to relieve ourselves of the burden of Palestinian populations, not the territories."

...

For all of his academic and professional accomplishments, however, Arad showed remarkably poor judgment in his meeting with Franklin at the cafeteria in the Pentagon "on or about February 20, 2004," (...) In that meeting, according to the indictment, Arad ("...a person previously associated with an intelligence agency of Foreign Nation A") and Franklin discussed "...a Middle Eastern country's nuclear program."

In 2003-04, Lawrence Franklin had been the Iran specialist in the Department of Defense Policy Division headed by Undersecretary Douglas Feith, himself a long-time Likud supporter. Franklin worked in a unit called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which was tasked, among other things, to make the case that Iraq posed a major - and soon-to-be-nuclear - threat to the U.S.

As that case fell apart in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion, Israel began warning about Iran's alleged nuclear-weapons programme, which was apparently the subject of Arad's tete-a-tete with Franklin, who was under covert surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Reading a Crappy Book on the Subway

Today, on my way out to work I was browsing my bookshelf for something to read on the subway. I needed something literary, since reading anything theoretical/academic at that hour is a proven way of putting me to sleep, and I decided to give a shot to Reading Lolita in Tehran, purchased not by me - thank Allah.

I say that because right now I am on page 16, and somewhere around page 10 I started contemplating whether I have to actually finish this book to be able to opine on how self-congratulatory, blah and almost carelessly malicious it is, all at the same time. While I am tempted to think that Oberlin trained me well, this is so blatantly a pile of orientalist bullshit (so much that it excuses employing the otherwise exhausted o-word) that its lack of sincerity should be clear to all, save for white book club ladies and Christopher Hitchens.

You and the people you write about say "Islamic Republic of Iran" every time you refer to your country, really?

Here's the extreme Hamid Dabashi critique:
Native Informers and the Making of American Empire

Here's the idiotic Christopher Hitchens critique:
The Captive Mind Now (I want to believe the whole essay is an exercise in sarcasm, but it might not be)

Here's the one I tend to agree with, mostly because Dabashi's anger is very similar to Finkelstein's too careful study of "Of Time Immemorial"; the book is dishonest alright, but it is also so horrible as literary work that the anger is not worth it:
Pawn of the neocons?

Note that in life reaching total happiness is impossible and thus the last article too manages to fuck up in its last sentence. Which makes me go full circle and end up with Dabashi.

Lastly, for our following immersed in academia:
Reading Nafisi in the West: Authenticity, Orientalism, and "Liberating" Iranian Women

Hamish: New York Times Bestseller don't mean shit.

For the record

I said that I want you all to know that my pariticpation was at the invitation of the University of San Francisco and that I strictly adhere to the boycott of Israel and I call on them all to boycott Israel at all levels. I told them that I met I(armed) Israelis first under occuapation in South Lebanon in 1982, and I resolved then that I would meet them only on my terms. I explained to them that I am strict against terrorists and terrorism: that I am opposed to any deal or negotiations with Al-Qa`idah or with Bin Laden and accordingly, I am opposed to any deal or compromise with the state that pioneered the practice of terrorism in the region.

-As'ad AbuKhalil

I thought we had an international court now..

Spanish judge accuses six top Bush officials of torture

from the article:

If Garzón decided to go further and issued arrest warrants against the six, it would mean they would risk detention and extradition if they travelled outside the US. It would also present President Barack Obama with a serious dilemma. He would have either to open proceedings against the accused or tackle an extradition request from Spain.

This is what we call "sahalarımızda görmek istediğimiz hareketler" in Turkish. But it only makes Spain look good. This investigation could easily fall under ICC's jurisdiction, either via nationalities of the victims, detention centers in Poland and Romania, both of which are parties, or through a security council resolution if the Obama administration had the courage to hold itself up to the same standards they don't miss any opportunity to preach for others. Are the American courts "unable or unwilling" to try their own criminals? Well so are the Sudanese. But we have an international criminal court for those. Inspiring.

Thats the Point of Selling Crack

Mos Def reciting MF Doom. 

find five differences between israel and turkey*

IHD 2008 Turkiye Insan Haklari Raporu/Turkey's 2008 Human Rights Report

I am currently on page 50 of 696. It's a fascinating read, gets better by the page**.

On page 49, I came across the incident I talked about
here. Or rather, I was talking shit about the reporting of the incident and the lack of clarity in terms of what's what and who's who. There are only so many W questions a reporter needs to answer, it shouldn't take a human rights report to do the job.

IHD: 30 Eylül'de Balıkesir'in Ayvalık Ilçesi'nin Altınova Beldesi'nde Murat Aygün, husumetli olduğu Oğuz Dörtkardes'le (23) “yüksek sesle müzik dinlediği” için baslayan tartısmanın kavgaya dönmesinin ardından, Dörtkardes ve yanındakilerin üzerine kamyonetini sürdü. Aracın altında sürüklenen Dörtkardes ile Ezer Kırcalı (31) adlı iki kisi öldü, 6 kisi yaralandı. Olayı duyanlar ise Murat Aksu'nun Kürt olmasını bahane ederek Altınova'da oturan Kürtlerin evlerini ve isyerlerini tahrip etti, bir ev ve minibüs atese verildi. Çıkan olaylarda 36 ev ve isyerinin hasar gördü. Güvenlik güçleri önlem aldığı Altınova'ya gelen Balıkesir Valisi Selahattin Hatipoğlu ise kalabalığı sakinlestirmeye çalısarak Kürtlerin evlerinin ve isyerlerinin tahrip edilmesinin anlayısla karsıladıklarını açıkladı. Saldırılar esnasında gruba herhangi bir müdahalede bulunmayan güvenlik güçleri 37 kisiyi gözaltına aldı ve aralarında Murat Aygün'ün de bulunduğu 10 kisi tutuklandı. Öte yandan Balıkesir Valiliği, bölgeye inceleme yapmak için bir heyet gönderen Demokratik Toplum Partisi'ne, heyetin “halkı kıskırtabilecekleri” gerekçesiyle izin vermedi.


some other things I learned from this report:
-legal institutions think The Republic of Turkey has so much extra time and money that they start a process for investigating Ocalan's 28 lawyers for addressing him "many times" using the word 'Sayin' in their faxes, which for all practical purposes means "Mr."
-following the above, investigation was started for 40 PKK member inmates in Adiyaman's high security prison who filed a petition saying "we call Ocalan 'Sayin' and hereby give ourselves in".
-within that investigation the Kurdish inmates gave their depositions in Kurdish. following this a second investigation was started about them.
-it kinda goes on likes this for 50 pages. I am bored.


*try harder
**no access to those who only speak a little Spanish

Hardliner Avigdor Lieberman set to become Israel's foreign minister

Let me make a prediction: This fascist is going to help Palestinians in the long run, involuntarily of course.

I spoke too soon about Dershowitz. Here's to a day without bullies.

The Brooklyn of the Middle East

Honestly, I'd rather be friends with the mountains.

Christopher Hitchens finds himself in Beirut this week. Yeah, I know, but it gets even better. The first report about what Hitch's Lawrence of Arabia type mission was that he provided decisively less gully* than some SSNP members. From AngryArab:

At the invitation of Hariri-Saudi group, Hitchens is visiting Lebanon. A source sent me this: "I dont know if you find this as news worthy or not, but Christopher Hitchens is currently in Beirut sponsored by the same group that owns that crap NOW Lebanon. He got in a few nights ago and surprisingly went out drinking. On his way out of the bar he saw an SSNP poster and wrote on it "Fuck the SSNP". There just happened to be some SSNP thugs near by--most likely asking people for their ID, and most likely to no avail--and saw him write on the poster and kicked his ass. He is still walking with a limp."

Theres lots of intellectuals who QDN would support the slapping up of**. Hitchens isn't one of them. Still, you think afterbeing waterboarded a few fists wouldn't be a problem for him. Then again, like some of Hitchens' other experiences this slapping may not have even happened. AngryArab again,

After spending two days in Lebanon, Christopher Hitchens now poses as an expert on Lebanese developments. I wonder if he will claim that he interviewed (the dead) Abu Nidal, as he once did in the 1980s.

A report on some of the less emasculating experiences Hitchens had in Beirut can be found here

* I know you don't know what this means.
** They know who they are.

oh Dersh...

I know that the recent accomplishment of our comrades at Hampshire's SJP deserves its own post, but rest assured that I will be congratulating them in person.

This all has been very moving and inspiring to follow. Meanwhile here's something funny from SJP's website:

Alan Dershowitz has just called SJP members and has threatened to start an international campaign to divest from Hampshire College.

Read the comments too.

Happy Valentine's Day Dersh!

sömürgeci yengeç*

And here we thought acting on your xenophobia was a habit of the backwards peoples from non-EU countries.

Indian immigrant set on fire in Italy

A homeless Indian immigrant has been beaten up and set on fire near Rome. The victim, who has been admitted to hospital with serious burns, was sleeping at the train station in the town of Nettuno when he was attacked by three young men. They beat him brutally and set him on fire using petrol. A police official said the attack was apparently not motivated by xenophobia. The three had been drinking and using drugs, and wanted to make "a powerful gesture".

Both opposition leader Walter Veltroni and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini have strongly condemned the attack. Italian migrant organisations have announced they will hold an anti-racism demonstration on Monday.

*lyrics from Ceza song Kim Neden Öldü, which I thought of upon stumbling on this story.

New History

What Uri Dromi says about Hamas is pure and poisonous Israeli propaganda (This Hamas hallucination, 23 January). In every respect his article is almost the exact opposite of the truth. Dromi claims that: "The Orwellian mindset of the organisation is as much a barrier to peace as the rockets it fires." But it is the newspeak of Israeli propagandists like Dromi that is truly Orwellian.

Over the last four weeks the powerful Israeli propaganda machine has been churning out lie after lie about Hamas in order to excuse its own inexcusable onslaught. Israel stopped journalists going into Gaza, preventing any independent reporting on the war crimes its forces were committing. Truth is usually the first casualty in war. Gaza was not even a war in the conventional sense of the word; it was one-sided carnage.

Here are some of the facts Dromi ignores or wilfully misrepresents. First, Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people, not the corrupt regime led by Mahmoud Abbas. Second, Hamas spokesmen have repeatedly declared their readiness for a long-term ceasefire. Khalid Mish'al recently did so on these pages (Comment, 6 January). Third, Hamas has a solid record of observing ceasefires, while Israel has a consistent record of sabotaging them. Fourth, even during the ceasefire Israel did not lift its economic blockade of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza, a form of collective punishment forbidden by international law. Fifth, the offensive unleashed in Gaza was illegal, immoral and unnecessary. If all Israel wanted was to stop rocket attacks from Gaza, all it had to do was to observe the ceasefire brokered by Egypt in June 2008.
Professor Avi Shlaim
Oxford

Two things. 1) Its very encouraging to see how outspoken Avi Shlaim has become since the assault on Gaza started. 2) It used to take decades for Israeli propaganda to be debunked. Even though Walid Khalidi proved in 1960 that there were no "Arab Radio Broadcasts" only in the 1980's when the Israeli archives on 1948 were opened to scholars did it become mainstream to speak of the expulsion of the Palestinians. Now what happened in 1948 is correctly seen as an Ethnic Cleansing. Today Israel's lies are so transparently contrived and in contradiction with common sense that everything that their spokespeople say is almost immediately disproved. I actually think that their propaganda efforts are even less successful than their military ones.

LSE

To the Students of the LSE

These are very dark days for the long-suffering Palestinians. Israel's savage assault on the defenceless people of Gaza pushed them to the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. The one-sided carnage has temporarily stopped but the economic blockade, the oppression, and the occupation continue. Only sustained international pressure, including trade sanctions and an arms embargo, can put an end to Israel's criminal conduct.
But there is no leadership worthy of the name. Our government is morally bankrupt. It is pusillanimous and feeble and completely out of touch with public opinion. If there was ever a time for direct action, this is the time. And if there was ever an issue that called for a firm moral stand, Gaza is that issue.
I salute you on the brave and altruistic stand that you have taken on behalf of the people of Gaza. I admire your courage and your commitment.
You have my unqualified sympathy and support in your struggle for justice for the Palestinian people.

Avi Shlaim, Oxford

Posted on the LSE 'Occupation Group' blog

Waltz with us

At Sabra and Chatila the first journalist to find out about the massacre was an Israeli and he desperately tried to get it stopped. This would not happen today because Israeli journalists, along with all foreign journalists, were banned from entering Gaza before the Israeli bombardment started. This has made it far easier for the government to sell the official line about what a great success the operation has been.

Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch.

EJH

Like the war in Lebanon in 2006, Gaza has darkened the outlook for the future of Israel. It has also darkened the outlook for the nine million Jews who live in the diaspora. Let me not beat about the bush: criticism of Israel does not imply anti-semitism, but the actions of the government of Israel occasion shame among Jews and, more than anything else, they give rise to anti-semitism today. Since 1945 the Jews, inside and outside Israel, have enormously benefited from the bad conscience of a Western world that had refused Jewish immigration in the 1930s before committing or failing to resist genocide. How much of that bad conscience, which virtually eliminated anti-semitism in the West for sixty years and produced a golden era for its diaspora, is left today?

This is in the responses compiled by LRB.

Mao, Mao, Mao!

Finkelstein: 

The fundamental motives behind the latest Israeli attack on Gaza lie elsewhere: (1) in the need to restore Israel's "deterrence capacity," and (2) in the threat posed by a new Palestinian "peace offensive."

Israel's "larger concern" in the current offensive, New York Times Middle East correspondent Ethan Bronner reported, quoting Israeli sources, was to "re-establish Israeli deterrence," because "its enemies are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be."[5] Preserving its deterrence capacity has always loomed large in Israeli strategic doctrine. Indeed, it was the main impetus behind Israel's first-strike against Egypt in June 1967 that resulted in Israel's occupation of Gaza (and the West Bank). To justify the onslaught on Gaza, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote that "[m]any Israelis feel that the walls...are closing in...much as they felt in early June 1967."[6] Ordinary Israelis no doubt felt threatened in June 1967, but -- as Morris surely knows -- the Israeli leadership experienced no such trepidation.
[...]
The expulsion of the Israeli occupying army by Hezbollah in May 2000 posed a major new challenge to Israel's deterrence capacity. The fact that Israel suffered a humiliating defeat, one celebrated throughout the Arab world, made another war well-nigh inevitable. Israel almost immediately began planning for the next round, and in summer 2006 found a pretext when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers (several others were killed in the firefight) and demanded in exchange the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. Although Israel unleashed the fury of its air force and geared up for a ground invasion, it suffered yet another ignominious defeat.
[...]
After the 2006 Lebanon war Israel was itching to take on Hezbollah again, but did not yet have a military option against it.


Its stuff like this that makes the injunction to 'Love Israel' or to see the Israeli state as the manifestation of some "Birthright' of mine either laughable or offensive. What's lovable here? What 'rights' does anyone think I want to lay claim to? Between 1982 and 2006 Israel lost two wars against what is arguably one of the best guerrilla armies in history. It has no real interests in Lebanon and no strategic reason to perpetuate its conflicts with Hezbollah and Syria. Arguably it could decisively end these conflict by entering into a peace agreement with Syria that would require it to relinquish the Golan Heights. But this is unacceptable to the people of the "the only democracy in the Middle East" and their leaders so the war must go on. If you start from such a batshit crazy position you can only really go to crazier and crazier places. So when you get embarrassed by a well trained, experienced, and armed guerrilla army you fret about your lack of 'deterrence capability' (remember its not at all clear what is being deterred at this point, other than a peace agreement based on international law) so then you conspire to kill a large amount of defenseless people so as to restore this magical deterrence.

I'm sure Hassan Nasrallah is pissing himself in fear now that Israel has seized back its 'deterrence'.

I also think that if this were Paris in 1967 Tzip Livni would be trying to give us copies of the little red book.

the point of going to protests, writing letters, debating, boycotting

Great article from Ali Abunimah, as usual:

Israel's "military deterrent" has now been repeatedly discredited as a means to force Palestinians and other Arabs to accept Zionist supremacy as inevitable and permanent. Now, the other pillar of Israeli power -- Western support and complicity -- is starting to crack. We must do all we can to push it over.

your henhouse could be next

Hamas did this to him

Here is an article proving just how successful IDF's Operation Cast Lead has been:

Despite ceasefire declared by Israel, Sunday sees Palestinian gunmen fire at least 15 rockets, three mortar shells from Gaza. Rockets land in Sderot, Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon, Ashdod and western Negev kibbutzim. Man moderately injured, Woman lightly wounded by shrapnel, several people suffers shock, building damaged. One rocket hits henhouse, killing dozens of chickens


that's right. the chicken of Ashkelon are in grave danger, their just plight obviously being ignored, and here are the anti-Zionist pundits crying over 400 Palestinian children dead. Not to mention people 'in shock.' By those standards I should be classified as a victim and compensated for my Israel-induced bulimia.

something about this time is indeed different

Three simple proposals

1. Get rid of the illusion that Israel is "useful" to the West.
2. Allow non-Jews to speak their mind about Israel
3. The practical initiatives are summed up in three letters : BDS- Boycott, disinvestment, sanctions

what's the use?

Of Sowing and Harvests: Subcomandante Marcos' Speech on Gaza

Maybe our thinking is very simple, and we're lacking the nuances and annotations that are always so necessary in analyses, but to the Zapatistas it looks like there's a professional army murdering a defenseless population.

Who from below and to the left can remain silent?

Is it useful to say something? Do our cries stop even one bomb? Does our word save the life of even one Palestinian?

We think that yes, it is useful. Maybe we don't stop a bomb and our word won't turn into an armored shield so that that 5.56 mm or 9 mm caliber bullet with the letters "IMI" or "Israeli Military Industry" etched into the base of the cartridge won't hit the chest of a girl or boy, but perhaps our word can manage to join forces with others in Mexico and the world and perhaps first it's heard as a murmur, then out loud, and then a scream that they hear in Gaza.

We don't know about you, but we Zapatistas from the EZLN, we know how important it is, in the middle of destruction and death, to hear some words of encouragement.
I don't know how to explain it, but it turns out that yes, words from afar might not stop a bomb, but it's as if a crack were opened in the black room of death and a tiny ray of light slips in.

it was about time I used my transcribing skills

I just watched the press conference in Tel Aviv by Ban Ki-Moon and Livni. Here are the major points:

Ban Ki Moon for the UN: I come here with a mission. rocket attacks are horrible, we have always condemned them and still do. Israelis have to be secure. We understand Israel. We're also kind of sad about the bombardment of the UN compound a few hours ago, but I just talked to Barak about it and he said it was a mistake so I was like ok. Oh and there is this thing called a humanitarian crisis, and we are so very thankful to Israel for setting up a humanitarian center, they are so great. Thanks.

Livni for Israel: How many times do I have to say that we do not give a flying fuck about any of this? Oh also, this is not about Palestinians versus Israel, but about the free world versus the bad people, and this means that we are on the same side with the UN, the West and the legitimate Palestinian government of Abbas. Hamas does not share the same values we share here in the free world*. The humanitarian crisis is also important, but not so much. We just won't allow a situation where our citizens can't go to school in comfort, so yeah. We will continue to bomb the shit out of Gaza until the very end because that's what they deserve.

Watch the video if you don't believe me.
*This one is a direct quote. I think she means values like freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom to elect representatives, human rights, children's rights, ET CETERA.

it's an unfair world

let's see here. these people are lying, the Red Cross is lying, the kids surviving the massacre are lying, the UN is lying, Al Jazeera is lying, this person made this story up, Human Rights Watch is lying, fuck, even this person from Haaretzis lying. they are ALL lying anti-Semites, including this one, no matter how much he denies it.

and all of those pictures of dead babies were done on the latest Adobe Photoshop by Hamas militants sitting in their Mac labs, like this one here:


lies just don't stop, because the whole world is against Israel. this dude I listened to today on Al Jazeera, who said that his 3 year old daughter's favorite game is to lie still on a blanket pretending to be killed and ask her siblings to carry her, was lying as well. very clever story though, I must say.

settler shoots palestinian who threw rocks at his car

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055208.html

West Bankers should be thankful it wasn't 10 Palestinians per usual calculations.

Of course, neither this particular story, nor others of Palestinians in the West Bank shot and killed by the Israeli police forces, beaten, arrested and detained in hundreds, intimidated, evacuated from their homes, and caged with checkpoints are reported by any of the major news networks.

examplary journalists, human beings

... or just people doing their jobs. except it shouldn't take much to come off as a symbol of dignity when interviewing Mark Regev thanks to what he represents.

BBC: regarding the bombing of the UN school

Alex Thomson: regarding the Zeitun massacre and the Red Cross not being allowed in

Al Jazeera, with guest appearance by the major woman who is apparently put on TV all the time because she is a woman and that's supposed to be sympathetic. she is especially fuzzy in this one: regarding the use of white phophorus

I got to see one of these live on Al Jazeera regarding the Zeitun massacre, in which Mark Regev first said nothing of that sort happened, and later had to change that to "I actually don't know" because the journalist did his job. Since this seems to be his standard conduct, and since he is the official spokesman, the question naturally comes to mind, what the fuck do you know?

and just in case somebody thinks this is somehow a random or novel occurance, here the blatant lies making even the CNN look good, from 2006: Israeli spokeswoman apologizes for bombing the shit out of civilian centers while still trying to justify it, promises investigation

I will confess to not being able to watch any of these videos till the very end, especially the last one, because it literally makes me want to throw up. as in my dinner wants to get out. I kid you not.

(regarding the STILL going on youtube ban, dear Turkish state, sana bişey derdim ama hadi neyse)

greek balls

US cancels Israel arms shipment over Greek objections

"I think the Greek government had some issue with the offloading of some of that shipment in their country and so we are finding alternative means of getting that entire shipment to its proper destination in Israel," spokesman Geoff Morrell told a news conference.

Oh I know, how about Egypt?

QDN co-founder, beautiful person, our light of hope within this darkness turns 21

Happy birthday. The rest of us here at QDN wish you a year better than the last one. May you remain as awesome to the end of your time.

Subjectivity

From a recent article in MERIP.

football is life, Kanoute is the man

Kanoute after scoring for Sevilla against Deportivo. He got a yellow card and a 3000 euro fine.

Jewish women occupy Israeli Embassy in Toronto

Below is their press release that got circulated. As I make this post they have already been arrested.

Toronto: Wednesday January 8, 2009 Time: 10:25 am

A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women are currently occupying the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.

The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.

Protesters are outraged at Israel′s latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government′s refusal to condemn these massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel′s violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.

The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, an Canadian Israeli peace activist and others.


Spokespersons for the group will be outside the Israeli consulate.


For more information contact:
Dr. Miriam Garfinkle
Phone: 416-731-6605

Cathy Gulkin
Phone: 416-697-0768
Email: cgulkin@rogers.com

Judy Rebick
Phone: 647-388-1053

pigs on the wing

The truce was broken on November 4th. How many more times does this need to be said before criminals like livni and barak can appear before the world and lie with their bold faces on?

spirit of QDN well and alive out in academia

from the listserv of sociologists I am on:

Ex post facto sociological musings deconstructing particular slices of the past can hardly bring us to the peaceful constructivism necessary for a more desirable future.

wise words

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends," uttered by Martin Luther King, quoted by Cynthia McKinney, aimed at Barack Obama, but surely not just that.

from the latest BBC story

"Palestinian medical sources say the death toll stands at more than 500, with some 2,500 people wounded. These figures cannot be independently verified. Five Israelis have been killed in Palestinian militant rocket attacks since the start of the Israeli incursion, which is now in its 10th day.

Ehud Barak said the offensive would continue until "peace and tranquility" was secured for Israeli civilians."

I don't know what to say.

Queering The Nation

It's good to see that this guy is on our side 

From a NYT story on yesterday's Times Square protest

if you hear something say everything

and one dude abides
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/02/family.grounded/index.html

all peoples are equal, but some have PR Directorates to make their war look prettier

A little from the story of PR success from The Jewish Community Online. Sounds to me like they didn't just decide to get up and go one day when the rocket attacks became overwhelming:

The international media were directed to a press centre set up by the Foreign Ministry in Sderot itself so that foreign reporters would spend as much time as possible in the main civilian area affected by Hamas rockets. When the IDF was represented on the international TV networks, it was by Major Avital Leibovich to project a feminine and softer image.

Ministers have been ordered by the Cabinet Secretary not to give interviews without authorisation so as not to repeat the PR disaster of a year ago, when Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened the Palestinians with a “holocaust”.

For the first time, sufficient numbers of spokespeople in a range of languages were appointed and briefed in advance. Mr Pazner gave close to 100 interviews in the first three days of the operation, in English, French, Spanish and Italian.

In his view, the toughest and most hostile questioning was “definitely by the Spanish interviewers, and also the French, especially the Canadian French”.

Israeli diplomats and spokespeople working with the British media have said that so far “most of the hostility has been in the print media, especially in The Guardian and The Independent. The electronic media, including also the BBC, have made more of an effort to seem even-handed.

“The coverage is definitely less hostile to Israel than what we saw during the Second Lebanon War two-and-a-half years ago.”

Both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry ran monitoring services to view foreign media coverage and pass the results back to press officers to enable them to address the claims being put forward by reporters and Palestinian interviewees.

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Here is what you won't find in the mainstream media: photos from Gaza

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BBC does stuff to please us, deny accusations above
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7809371.stm

the media needs to stop blatantly lying

At least the Guardian has stopped feeding into the false causality and fooling people by repeating that Hamas has broken the truce and Israel is answering the latest rocket attacks. If one more person reiterates this point to me I will smack them in the face.