Archive for October, 2008
This is Zionism: “In light of the rise in settler violence in the last year, the olive-picking is accompanied by fear of settlers attacking Palestinian farmers. In a grove belonging to Burin, for instance, near which the Yitzhar settlement has been built, settlers threw stones at farmers picking olives for over an hour, while soldiers [...]
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish Regional Government, told The Times on Wednesday evening that he would be happy to host U.S. troops if the central government in Baghdad refuses to do so.” I bet he would be happy to host. (thanks Raed)
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket.”
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“”I know that the US has an interest in getting the detainees off their hands, and I know that Iraqis want to have detention powers,” the executive director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division, Sarah Leah Whitson, told IPS. “I also know that [the Iraqi authorities] don’t feel equipped [to deal with a [...]
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has issued its weekly report for the week of October 23 – 29, 2008, documenting a number of human rights violations by Israeli troops operating in the Palestinian Territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). In the last week, Israeli forces killed one elderly Palestinian and wounded 4 civilians, [...]
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“Apparently Gen. David Petraeus does not agree with the Bush administration that the road to Damascus is a dead end.” (thanks Marcy)
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“”I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over.”” But the idiot wind will not blow over. It is part and parcel of the American political culture.
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
“Syria’s sentencing of a dozen leading democracy advocates to more than two years in prison is the latest evidence of Syria’s repression of opposition groups, Human Rights Watch said today. The democracy activists, including doctors, lawyers, writers, and an artist, were sentenced on October 29, 2008 to 30 months in prison on politically motivated charges.” [...]
Posted on October 31, 2008 by As'ad
If you live in the West as long as I have lived, you realize a major paradox regarding Arabs. Nobody is more insulted and more humiliated in Western societies than moderate Arabs. It would be easier to be a self-identified radical–as I am.
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“According to a poll by Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies, 52 per cent of Iranians have an unfavourable view of the United States. But that figure is down from 63 per cent in 2001. And it’s significantly lower than the degree of antipathy towards the United States felt in Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Two [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
An American student in Syria sent me this (I cite with his/her permission): ” im still in damascus. so apparently the cultural center and american school are still open and running, as the order for their closing has not been “carried out” yet! ha. there was a masira in the city center today, but it [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“Colombia’s government, the Bush administration’s top ally in Latin America, has been buffeted by the killings of Mr. Oviedo and dozens of other young, impoverished men and women whose cases have come to light in recent weeks. Some were vagrants, others street vendors or manual laborers. But their fates were often the same: being catalogued [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“Israel removed cloths and shoes from the list of goods that were allowed into Gaza Strip.” Don’t be outraged, please. Shoes have been used by Arabs in the past as a deadly weapon agaisnt the Israeli state. The very survival of the Israeli state is threatened by Arab shoes.
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“To whom could she go for help? Her family turned its back on her when she chose to divorce her ultra-Orthodox husband; her children were taken away from her; and the neighbors in her building cold shoulder her. Now it transpires that the authorities can’t help either. The investigation that began with a great deal [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
One of the most nauseating news item today is a brief statement that was released by the office of Not-Grand-at-All Ayatullah Sistani in which he expressed his attachment to Iraq’s sovereignty. For Sistani to feign care about Iraqi sovereignty is like Bush expressing concern for civil liberties and peace.
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“A survey conducted by the Palestinian central bureau for statistics revealed that the demographic impact of Israel’s apartheid wall have doubled in the last three years, asserting that the wall led to the displacement of about 3,880 Palestinian families composed of approximately 28,000 people.”
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“In response, Ross described Khalidi as “a Palestinian-American who has a strong set of views” who doesn’t advise Obama or influence his views.” What about you, Mr. Ross. Do you have “strong set of views”? All those who have illusions about Barack Obama should note that this fellow (just read his long tedious memoirs to [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“”All Mickey Mouse films are founded on the motif of leaving home in order to learn what fear is,” he wrote in an unpublished fragment of 1931. A shrewd observer of pop culture, who showed by turns sympathy and suspicion, Benjamin could see in Mickey Mouse what others would be more apt to attribute to [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“Muslim authorities expressed outrage on Thursday after the Israeli High Court gave the go-ahead for the construction of a Museum of Tolerance on the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.”
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad
“In the activity of the Peres Center for Peace there is no evident effort being made to change the political and socioeconomic status quo in the occupied territories, but just the opposite: Efforts are being made to train the Palestinian population to accept its inferiority and prepare it to survive under the arbitrary constraints imposed [...]
Posted on October 30, 2008 by As'ad