Angry White Kid

The New Statue of Baghdad

I came across this over at Free Iraq.  I liked it, so I put it up here.  I think Imad drew it himself.  An artistic nuclear scientist - who knew?  Click here for a full size image.

Over at Anti-Zionist Notes, I came across a new link.  Seems those Electronic Intifada and Electronic Iraq folks are trying to keep ahead of the curve and have already put together a preliminary Electronic Iran.  Along with the rest of us they're hoping it won't have to become a full-scale website.

Jewish Groups that Support Divestment from Israel

None of these announcements are new except for New Profile, but I thought it would be useful to list them here.  Please let me know if there are others that you know of. 

New Profile: A Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society, released a statement yesterday calling for selective divestment from Israel.

We therefore seek non-violent means of ending this catastrophic Occupation. One such means is using economic sanctions to pressure the government to change its policy. To this end New Profile welcomes and supports selective divestment aimed at divesting from companies that contribute to the continuation of the Occupation by supplying arms, other equipment, or staff.

Jewish Voice for Peace announced their support for selective divestment in December.

At JVP, we fully support selective divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. This includes American companies like Caterpillar who profit from the wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards. It also includes Israeli companies who depend on settlements for materials or labor or who produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights.

Just last month, on January 15, Not In My Name issued a call for divestment.

Therefore, NIMN supports selective divestment and/or selective boycott campaigns that target corporations that profit from the Occupation.

Jewish Friends of Palestine supports full divestment, and finally, European Jews for a Just Peace supports a total boycott of settlement products, all commerce with the Israeli military  industrial complex, suspending the EU-Israel Association Trade Agreement and artistic, academic, and political collaboration with Israelis that are not opposed to the occupation.

Putting Things in Perspective

From The Meaning of "Calm": Relativity, LA Times Style:

The headline proclaims: “Palestinian Suicide bomber Shatters Calm of late.” The lead sentence then goes on to state that this bomber “shattered a months-long period of relative calm...”

The fact is, however, that the truce and this “calm” were shattered long before this. The last suicide bombing against Israeli civilians was Nov. 1, 2004. It took three Israeli lives. Since that time, while Israelis have basked in “relative calm,” 170 Palestinian men, women, and children have been killed [and 379 injured].

Also, of course, during this “calm” over 8,000 Palestinians have been sitting in Israeli prison cells, routinely abused and grotesquely humiliated; over 300 of them children.

None of this mattered to the editor I talked to. He explained that the story said relative calm. When I tried to question this adjective, he hung up the phone. So I guess I’ll just have to explain this word for myself.

Maybe he means that relative to 7 Israeli deaths, 170 Palestinian deaths are insignificant. Maybe he means that relative to Israeli grief, Palestinian grief is basically unmentionable. Maybe he means that relative to the weeping of Israeli mothers and fathers, the weeping of Palestinian mothers and fathers – multitudes more of them – is negligible.

And, as a colleague of mine noted in a letter to the editor:

It appears that only Palestinians have the power to end the cease-fire that began on February 8 (front page, Feb. 26 issue).  Since that date, Israel has killed 8 Palestinians and wounded 36, and yet I saw no headlines indicating that the cease-fire had ended.

Finally, conveniently left out of news reports on the bombing, three of the five victims were soldiers who "carried out virtually every single mission in the territories."  Some will say this is irrelevant or even wrong of me to point out, but the point is that they are not civilians but soldiers who have taken part in the repeated invasion and occupation of Palestinian civilian neighborhoods and are responsible for the deaths and maiming of numerous Palestinian civilians.  The does not justify the bombing nor take the sting out of the deaths, but as the saying goes, "you reap what you sow."

Bombing in Tel Aviv

Though I normally don't address individual acts of violence in Israel/Palestine as they happen, I figured I should talk about the suicide bombing that occurred in Tel Aviv a few hours ago.  I'm already getting nasty emails and comments about it from the childish right.  I'm glad that leaving moronic comments assuages their bereft existence. 

In brief, at least four Israelis were killed and 50 injured when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside of the "Stage" karaoke club in Tel Aviv.  While I'm sure there are those so jaded that they would doubt my sincerity, I fully condemn such an attack.  Plain and simple, it is terrorism.  There is no excuse for killing innocents, be they Israeli, Arab, American, Iraqi, whomever. 

Rafah Pundits has a good summary of reactions from the various players in the conflict.  While assigning blame is not the most important thing, I believe that the attack was probably the work of Hezbollah.  Normally, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and others are very quick to accept responsibility.  It is notable that all have denied any involvement and stated their intent to observe the agreed to "period of quiet."  On the other hand, Jadon Ezra, the Israeli internal security minister, has stated:

Israel does not have other choices now.  The only choice is to resume the military operations as the Palestinian Authority failed to prevent terrorism and achieve security.

Needless to say, a resumption of military operations (as if they ever really stopped) is not Israel's only choice.  There are parties on both sides of this issue who would like to see the "ceasefire" fail.  If Israel cancels it now, in my opinion it shows they are only too ready and willing to give up.  On Saturday morning, while politicians and media roundly and loudly condemn the attack, as they should, let them not ignore the fact that since the "ceasefire" started, eight Palestinians have been killed and 36 wounded.  Ask them where the condemnations of the killings of Palestinians are. 

A relative calm may have been broken on one side, but in Palestine the relative calm never even started.  If Israel uses this tragic attack as a reason to cancel the ceasefire, remember that the Palestinians could have canceled it twofold already.  However, like I said before, the blame game is not the issue, reaching a just peace is. 

In closing, a just peace, or even the "Road Map" peace, cannot be reached while settlement expansion continues, one of the reasons Michael Neumann predicted less than a week ago that a devastating event such as this evening's would occur.

In the next while a certain pattern of events is likely to repeat itself in Palestine.

Various peace moves and negotiations will continue.   

Israel will make various good-will gestures.  Mahmoud Abbas will make various gratifying responses, and come into conflict with various people called militants or extremists.  Last but far from least, there will be Palestinian attacks on Israelis--soldiers, settlers, perhaps civilians within Israel.

As the bulldozers and the soldiers who already prevent Jerusalem Palestinians from traveling to Ramallah tell us, Israel is following her plan: East Jerusalem will be separated from Ramallah, and of course from Bethlehem.  The route of Israel's 'separation wall', originally along the 1967 border, now snakes into the West Bank, not only around Jerusalem, and makes the settler land grab a heavily fortified fact on the ground.       

From this it follows that anything represented as a pause in the conflict is really a situation in which the Palestinians are to sit on their hands, while the deadly encroachment continues at the same pace as before.

Do Kops own Tasers, or Does TASER Own the Kops?

In a rare glimmer of investigative journalism today on behalf of the San Francisco Chronicle, a reporter revealed that at a press conference yesterday regarding a man who died after being shot 10 times with Tasers in Salinas, CA, that the Salinas Chief of Police quoted "directly from promotional materials from the gun's maker  --  in some cases word for word  --  and statements from its founder defending the weapon's safety."

Tasers have come under fire after more than 90 people have died in the US and Canada since kops have started using them.  Police are supposed to independently review any weapons they use.  Apparently for Salinas, independent review means reading the promo materials from the company trying to get you to buy their stuff.  Some examples from Chief Ortega:

"It is, therefore, inevitable that police officers will be called to scenes to deal with individuals who have already consumed toxic doses of illegal or legal drugs. These officers are charged to protect other citizens and property from the dangerous and violent behavior associated with excited delirium in the early stages of the chemical reactions from a drug overdose that may inevitably lead to the death of a subject.''  --  Chief Ortega.

"It is, therefore, inevitable that police officers will be called to scenes to deal with individuals who have already consumed toxic doses of illegal (or legal) drugs. These officers are charged to protect other citizens and property from the dangerous and violent behavior associated with excited delirium in the early stages of the chemical reactions from a drug overdose that may inevitably lead to the death of the subject.''  --  Taser International briefing paper

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"Therefore, it is simply not reasonable to draw a casual relationship between the use of Taser energy weapons and a drug-related fatality.''  --  Chief Ortega.

"Therefore, it is simply not reasonable to draw a causal relationship between the use of Taser energy weapons and a drug related fatality.''  --  Taser International briefing paper "TASER® Non-Lethal Systems: Reducing Injuries and Saving Lives"

Iraq and the Anti-War movement

Though this piece is titled Iraq's Right to Resistance and Self-Determination, it mainly focuses on the puniness of the anti-war movement in the West.  It's pretty right on and points out what's been evidently clear since even before February 15, 2003.  While I've certainly been guilty of some of his claims, albeit for largely different reasons, I've thought a lot about the alternatives to the anti-war movement, which I'll try to post about later.

The only way to end the US Occupation of Iraq is popular resistance against it. The Iraqi Resistance knows that it is on its own, and that it has to depend on its own resources. The Resistance should make no illusions about the leaders of the “anti-war” movement, and the Left/Liberal elites “opposition” to the War and Occupation. Their “activism” is an empty slogan; it is merely a way “to salve people’s consciences without having to think or do anything”. They are imperialism’s tools of propaganda. Without their “feel-good” life-style activism, Western “democracy” is a form of naked tyranny. They provide sugar-coated delusion and tranquilliser for the disfranchised masses.

Despite the unpopularity of the US Occupation, and the violence and the havoc wrought upon the Iraqi society, opposition to it in the West, particularly in the US remains mute and passive. The continuing US atrocities in Iraq are greeted with yawns in the West. As Bertrand Russell once wrote, “It is the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know and care about circumstances in the colonies”.

So That's What All Those Helicopters Were Doing

New info from last summer's Republican National Convention in NYC.

While they were supposed to be monitoring from above as their coworkers beat down some Critical Mass protesters below, the crew of this NYPD helicopter with its state-of-the-art equipment was checking out something else.  Watch the news segment here to find out what. (Note: won't work in Firefox.)

Big ol' Israel/Palestine News Review

This week, Israel voted to democratically steal 7% more of the West Bank from the Palestinians.  As an email from the Council for the National Interest states,

Hiding behind a 17-5 decision announced today to evacuate all Israeli settlements from Gaza, the Israeli Cabinet also officially signaled its intent by a vote of 20-1 to annex another 7% of Palestinian territory.  On February 21, the cabinet published the new route of the Apartheid Wall, indicating that the huge settlements of Maale Aduminim and a large cluster of settlements called Gush Etzion lying east and south of Jerusalem would enclosed by the Wall and thus become part of Israel.

Under the new route, it is reckoned that 10,000 Palestinians, not 93,000 as originally envisaged, would be put under direct Israeli rule. But the 177,000 or more Palestinians living in East Jerusalem will be cut off from the rest of the West Bank.  The Palestinians are still expecting to name their capital in Jerusalem.

To see a map of the official version of the path of the wall, click here.  (Click on the map at the bottom to enlarge it.)  Since the Legend of the map is only in Hebrew, here are some rough translations (from Sam):

Brown: Area A   

Tan: Area B   

Green stripes: Nature reserve   

Blue line: [Route as per] Gov't decision August 2003   

Connected black dots: Unknown Hebrew acronym [best guess: some kind of security strip or barrier]   

Connected purple X's: Deep fence or [depth fence] to be cancelled   

Dotted purple line: Temporary route   

Thin purple line: The route for the completion of detailed [unknown abbreviation]  Yellow-brownish line: Defense for a road or Defense on a road [exact meaning not clear]   

Red line: Revised route   

Blue dot: Israeli town/village 

Red dot: Palestinian town/village

After the Israeli vote on the Wall, the PLO announced it will be taking Israel to the UN Security Council for it's continued violations of international law and for ignoring the ruling of the International Court of Justice, which found the Wall the be illegal and demanded its demolition.  (Wait on the edge of your seat while the US vetoes another resolution critical of Israel, proclaiming yet again that countries like Iraq have to follow the rules, but Israel gets a free pass.)

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has slammed the Israeli cabinet's decision on Sunday to resume the construction of the expansionist Wall as having "very dangerous strategic consequences," while it called for US and international intervention and said it will approach the UN Security Council "to stop this capital crime."

Want to know where your Congressmembers stand on the issue?  Check out the US Campaign to End the Occupation's newly revised Congressional Report Cards.  (There isn't much info for the 2005 session yet, but you can look at the 2004 votes as well.

International Solidarity Movement activist Brian Avery arrived in Israel today to attend a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court on his petition to have an criminal investigation opened into his shooting last year. 

Nearly two years after being shot in the face by Israeli soldiers, Chapel Hill activist Brian Avery is heading back today to argue before the Israeli Supreme Court that the accused assailants should be brought to justice.

Avery, 26, is an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, a nonviolent organization that supports the Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation. On April 5, 2003, he says, he was shot by Israeli soldiers while standing with his hands in the air on a street in the West Bank town of Jenin.

A bullet pierced Avery's face, shattering his jaw and nose. He spent nine weeks in an Israeli hospital before coming home to recuperate. He said he has endured numerous facial reconstruction surgeries.

Dozens of people rallied outside a Florida jail to support Dr. Sami al-Arian, who has been imprisoned without trial for two years now.

Singing protest songs and reading poetry written by Sami Al-Arian, about 60 people on Sunday commemorated the former professor's two-year anniversary in jail.

"The American People will not stand for this injustice,"' University of South Florida professor Peter Erlinder said.  "We will not allow people at the top to tell us who we can associate with and who we cannot."

Finally, Link TV has a unique program called Mosaic that features daily news clips from stations in North Africa and the Middle East.  Even better, you don't need a satellite to see it, you can watch the segments on the internet here.

Divestment from Israel Update

The World Council of Churches, which compromises 342 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, has called for divestment from Israel.

The World Council of Churches, the main global body uniting non-Catholic Christians, encouraged members Tuesday to sell off investments in companies profiting from Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Student Government Senate of the University of Michigan-Dearborn voted unanimously to recommend that the UM Regents divest from Israel.

On Tuesday February 22, 2005, the Student Government Senate of the University of Michigan-Dearborn voted without opposition to adopt Senate Resolution (SR) # 2005-009 calling on the "University of Michigan Board of Regents [to] create an advisory committee to investigate the moral and ethical implications of the University's investments in companies which directly support and benefit from the ongoing illegal Israeli occupation."

Did ya hear? We're all one big network!

I know bigger blogs and such have already talked about this, but I wanted to as well.  Just when you thought David Horowitz couldn't get any stranger or further off the deep end, he manages to do just that.  Apparently he wasn't satisfied enough with the laughable, lackluster and libelous "journalism" at his joke of a news site, FrontPageMag, that he went on to create the Discover the Network website. 

If nothing else, you gotta check out the individuals page.  Who knew that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Sharpton were in cahoots with Barack Obama and Ayatollah Khomeini?  In these listings, Horowitz shows his own incredible lack of political understanding.  I didn't think anyone in their right (no pun intended) mind would consider Zarqawi a leftist, but Horowitz is always one to surprise ya. 

Numerous friends of mine are also listed on the Anti-Israel page.  I'm kind of disappointed I'm not on there.  As we did with Daniel Pipes and he neo-McCarthyist website, perhaps we should all start emailing Horowitz and asking to be put on his various lists.

UPDATE: I just noticed that I am alluded to in the profile on Hatem Bazian, about a demo at which he spoke.  "A smiling student marched carried a sign saying 'Long Live Fallujah.'"

A couple final thoughts to display hapless Horowitz's looniness.  In the World According to David, being a Muslim makes you a leftist!  And, as you can see by the fancy charts that don't display very well, every single leftist is connected to every other leftist through a vast network of various affiliations.

Drats!  Horowitz has cracked our conspiracy!  I guess we'll just have to declare defeat and become Republicans.