Archive for August 10, 2008
Our Country is a Graveyard by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):“Gentlemen, you have transformedour country into a graveyardYou have planted bullets in our heads,and organized massacresGentlemen, nothing passes like thatwithout accountAll what you have doneto our people isregistered in notebooks”
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
From a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):“Oh, my proud woundmy homeland is not a briefcaseAnd I am not a travelerI am the lover, and the land is my beloved!…The archeologist is busy with stone analysishe is looking for his eyes in the burial of mythsto prove that I am:a passerby in the [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
“We helped in bombing Iraq, now help us as we are being bombed,” beg Georgians.
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
You need to read this account of Mahmud Darwish by his friend `Abdul-Bari `Atwan: 1) he describes his fury at the U.S. as his visa to the U.S. was delayed for four months despite the intervention of U.S. puppet, Abu Mazen; 2) he describes how he reached poverty after Oslo, when `Arafat punished him for [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
” From a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):“We shall meet in a little whilein a yearin two yearsand a generation….I sip the kissfrom the edge of knives..I am the one in whose skinchains are carvinga shape of the homeland.””
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
“The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.” (thanks FLC)
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
New TV found evidence of Israeli weapons flowing into Tripoli during the recent clashes.
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
U.S. “Charities” for Dahlan.
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
Mahmud Darwish. I should write something about Mahmud Darwish. I have translated quite a few of his poems here. I like his oldest Diwan very much and have read it repeatedly over the years. My taste in Arabic poetry is rather old-fashioned: I like the classical ones, and I like the modern Iraqi poets, but [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
Maybe Georgia should not have sent its troops to Iraq, after all. I read that they have put a special request to the U.S. to allow them to bring home their troops. But it seems that the Israeli-trained Georgian troops are as effective as the Dahlan army (seen above in a graduation ceremony).
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
From a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):“Oh, my proud woundmy homeland is not a briefcaseAnd I am not a travelerI am the lover, and the land is my beloved!…The archeologist is busy with stone analysishe is looking for his eyes in the burial of mythsto prove that I am:a passerby in the [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
The Impossibility of Democracy: the case of Mauritania. I have written an article in Arabic with that title. I will not summarize for you but I will say that in the age of Bush/Clinton U.S. empire it is not possible to have a democracy in the world today as the U.S. will use its military [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
Did you see the U.S. ambassador at the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, lecturing the Russian ambassador about the protection of civilian lives in Georgia? And did you see how the Russian ambassador responded to him? He said: we don’t want lectures about civilians in Georgia as we see your own record vis-a-vis the civilians of Iraq [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
The Russian-Georgian war in Arab media. Saudi media are predictably following the American line in supporting the Georgian government. In fact, Saudi media are so comically copying propaganda talking points of U.S. media that today they seem celebrating U.S. victories in the Olympics. A special ticker flash on Al-Arabiya TV announced that an American player [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
This is the “democratically-elected” government of Georgia: “Rubber bullets were fired indiscriminately, and also directly at fleeing demonstrators. Heavily armed police and security personnel stormed a private television station, Imedi, threatening and ejecting the staff as well as damaging and destroying much of the station’s equipment, forcing the station off the air. While the Georgian [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
Israeli media seem to be bragging. “Jewish Georgian Minister Temur Yakobshvili on Sunday praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio. “Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers,” Yakobashvili told Army [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
I want to make it very clear: while I don’t recommend Thomas Friedman on foreign affairs, I highly recommend him on toilet affairs: “Our toilet even had two different flushing powers depending on — how do I say this delicately — what exactly you’re flushing. A two-gear toilet! I’ve never found any of this at [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
“Renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s family would like to see him laid to rest in the western Galilee village of al-Jadida, family members told Ynet Sunday.” (thanks Marcy)
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
It is official: the PFLP organization in West Bank and Gaza has been bought off by Abu Mazen. And this is why Israel keeps PFLP’s secretary-general, Ahmad Sa`dat, in jail: because he would have steered the organization in a different direction.
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad
Watching and reading U.S. media coverage about the Russian-Georgian conflict is almost comical. U.S. media are just puzzled over Russian arguments about its vital interests in its neighbor to the south. The U.S. of course can go all the way to Iraq and Afghanistan and not feel the need to justify arguments about vital interests [...]
Posted on August 10, 2008 by As'ad