RACISM & NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS | NEWS/COMMENTARY


Report finds Israel still torturing Palestinians | Mel Frykberg

26 June 2009

Source: Electronic Intifada

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) – The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.

The report, “Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse,” based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, 26 June.

It follows a report published in May by the UN Committee Against Torture that had criticized the continued mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.

The UN report also condemned Israel’s refusal to allow access to a secret detention centre known only as Facility 1391.

The report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) states that Israel’s various security agencies, chiefly the (more…)

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Hamas’ political immaturity | Haidar Eid

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25 June 2009

Soruce: Electronic Intifada

When Hamas, unexpectedly, won the 2006 parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the message from the one-third of the Palestinian people living in those territories was clear: no more of the “peace process” facade — with its untiring “two-state solution” slogan that never materialized, and no more of the bread crumbs offered to the new inauthentic NGOized, Osloized leadership classes. (In the years since the 1993 Oslo accords, funding NGOs — nongovernmental organizations — has been a major means for foreign governments to influence, co-opt and neutralize Palestinian politics. This process of “Osloization” made some Palestinian organizations more loyal to their funders than to their principles.)

Many of those who voted Hamas into power were not, in fact, supporters of the organization, but rather disgruntled Palestinians looking for change and reform after 13 years of futile, meaningless negotiations that did huge damage to the Palestinian cause and transformed it from a liberation struggle supported by millions all over the world into a (more…)

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Iranian Elections: The ‘Stolen Elections’ Hoax | Prof. James Petras

18 June 2009

Source: Global Research

“Change for the poor means food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation… Politics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion.”

- Financial Times Editorial, June 15 2009

Introduction

There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite. In the most recent period, the White House and its camp followers cried foul following the free (and monitored) elections in Venezuela and Gaza, while joyously fabricating an ‘electoral success’ in Lebanon despite the fact that the Hezbollah-led coalition received over 53% of the vote.

The recently concluded, June 12, 2009 elections in Iran are a classic case: The incumbent nationalist-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (MA) received 63.3% of the vote (or 24.5 million votes), while the leading Western-backed liberal opposition candidate Hossein Mousavi (HM) received 34.2% or (13.2 million votes).

Iran’s presidential election drew a record turnout of more than 80% of the electorate, including an unprecedented overseas vote of 234,812, in which HM won 111,792 to MA’s 78,300. The opposition led by HM did not accept their defeat and organized a series of mass demonstrations that turned violent, resulting in the burning and destruction of automobiles, banks, public building and armed confrontations with the police and other authorities. Almost the entire spectrum of Western opinion makers, including all the major electronic and print media, the major liberal, radical, libertarian and conservative web-sites, echoed the opposition’s claim of rampant election fraud. Neo-conservatives, libertarian conservatives and Trotskyites joined the Zionists in hailing the opposition protestors as the advance guard of a democratic revolution. Democrats and Republicans condemned the incumbent regime, refused to recognize the result of the vote and praised the demonstrators’ efforts to overturn the (more…)

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Iran’s Election and US – Iranian Relations | Stephen Lendman

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18 June 2009

Source: Global Research

In the run-up to Iran’s June 12 presidential election, early indications suggested the media’s reaction if the wrong candidate won. On June 7, New York Times writer Robert Worth reported “a surge of energy (for) Mir Hussein Mousavi, a reformist who is the leading contender to defeat Mr. Ahmadinejad (and) a new unofficial poll (has him well ahead) with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad.” No mention of who conducted the poll, how it was done, what interests they represented, or if Mousavi winning might be the wrong result. More on that below.

Writing for the influential far right Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Fariborz Ghadar described the contest as “pit(ting) the hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against two relatively moderate and one conservative challenger.” In spite of one or more independent polls showing Ahmadinejad way ahead, he suggested that “the outcome (isn’t) (more…)

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Partitioned Selves, Partitioned Pasts: A Commentary on Ashis Nandy’s “Death of an Empire” | Vinay Lal

india-pakistan-partition-genocide

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Source: Manas

Outside South Asia, the partition of India evokes little recognition. As the British left India, the largest single migration in history took place: well over ten million, and perhaps as many as fifteen million, people crossed borders, and a million or more became the victims of murderous assaults. Both the Governments of India and Pakistan established commissions for the “recovery” of abducted women who numbered in several tens of thousands. Numbing as these figures are, they barely register in world histories: perhaps that indifference to the calamity that afflicted India and Pakistan betokens the view that (more…)

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The Song of War and Pain: Gaza Will Survive – Subcomandante MARCOS

30 January 2009

Source: Counterpunch

Two days ago, the same day we discussed  violence, the ineffable Condoleezza Rice, a US  official, declared that what was happening in  Gaza was the Palestinians’ fault, due to their violent nature.

The underground rivers that crisscross the world  can change their geography, but they sing the same song.

And the one we hear now is one of war and pain.

Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in  Palestine, in the Middle East, right here next  to us, the Israeli government’s heavily trained  and armed military continues its march of death and destruction.

The steps it has taken are those of (more…)

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George Galloway Speaks on the Zionist Massacre in Gaza – 8 January 2009

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White Phosphorus and its Use in Gaza

White Phosphorus being used by the Zionist Occupation Forces on the central UN compound in Gaza, Palestine - 15 January 2009.

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11 January 2009

Source: Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ)

White Phosphorus (P4) is a waxy fat soluble colorless or slightly yellow solid with a garlic smell that is not naturally occurring but is produced in the laboratory.  It is highly reactive with oxygen (ignites spontaneously upon drying and exposure to air) producing compounds like P4O6 (phosphorus pentoxide) and P4O10 which upon contact with water becomes oxophosphoric
acids (alternatively direct reaction with water can lead to phosphoric acid H2PO4 through some intermediate compounds)

These properties have given it both civilian and military uses.  Its civilian uses include production of phosphoric acid and phosphate based fertilizers.  It is used by the military because it interacts with oxygen producing fire and smoke and can act both as a smokescreen, marking enemy areas and also to terrorize enemy combatants to leave fox holes and tunnels into more open areas where standard ammunition can be used on them. White phosphorous is a member of a class of incendiary weapons that includes such things as (more…)

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Gaza massacre: security measure or capitalist venture? – Omar Kalinge Nnyago

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16 January 2009

Source: Sunday Monitor

Israel’s invasion on Gaza could be the most significant event yet on the global political calendar. It overshadowed the Christmas festivities of the past year, blurred the New Year celebrations and threatens to diminish the most anticipated Obama inauguration on January 20. Indeed, the only item to look for in Obama’s inaugural speech is likely to be his views on the massacre of Palestinians.

His legendary oratory notwithstanding, Obama will have a tough time telling the world and the American people that the change he promised was around the corner. The world looks much gloomier than that night when he accepted his election.

By 2p.m. on Wednesday this week, 879 Palestinians, largely women and children had been confirmed dead by official sources. Another 4,698 had been injured in the continuing Israeli bombardment that started on December 19, 2008.

The Diplomatic footwork that was initiated by (more…)

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Solidarity with Palestine: Crisis Responses and Movement Building – Kole Kilibarda

Free P

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9 January 2009

Source: The Bullet

As the number of deaths from Israel’s carnage in Gaza mounts, more and more people in Canada are being moved to take action. Of course, the question quickly becomes: “What can I do?” Among the countless petitions, creative actions, protests, media alerts, letter writing campaigns, public statements and fundraising drives, how can we make the biggest collective impact on Israeli policies as people living in Canada? How can we build a movement that respects all of our different experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and understandings and at the same time effectively responds to Palestinian calls for solidarity?

Each contribution to stop the killing immediately helps, but as Naomi Klein has recently pointed out in The Nation magazine, there’s a way of focusing our energies on a campaign that comes directly from Palestine and that directly addresses Israel’s ability to kill with impunity. The fact is that (more…)

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