Irish Cluster Bomb Protestors' Site & updates on their trial

Posted: 30 May 2008 06:46 AM CDT

The trial against the Raytheon 9 is underway in Belfast. In this video, Eamonn McCann and others give background into the role that Raytheon played in the bunker buster bombs that were dropped on Qana in Lebanon. These bombs were the direct cause of the massacres in which large numbers of civiliansincluding infants, were slaughtered. Please watch the video, visit the site where you can read the day to day trial proceedings, and send a letter of solidarity and support to these brave people who decided to sabotage efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. If you are in the Belfast area, show your support by appearing outside the courthouse and asking media people to cover the trial.

ilan pappe on mega prison sytem

Ilan Pappe is one of Israel's leading historians, although now forced to live and work in Britain due to the harrassement following the publication of his controversial latest book especially, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."

This is the firt book to make a great use of previously unaobtainable military and political documents relating especially to the early years of the State of Israel.

On previous blogs, I've linked to or presented talks and interviews by/with him.

The mega prison of Palestine
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 5 March 2008 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9370.shtml

Mourners stand beside the body of Salsabeel Abu Jalhoumm, a 21-month-old girl who was killed early on Sunday when an Israeli air strike hit near her home in the northern Gaza Strip, 2 March 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political and military elites do not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killing of citizens whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest by force their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians -- more than one hundred in the first days of March 2008, unfortunately validating the adjective "genocidal" I and others attached to these policies. But it was not yet a strategy.

However, in recent weeks a clearer Israeli strategy towards the Gaza Strip's future has emerged and it is part of the overall new thinking about the fate of the occupied territories in general. It is in essence, a refinement of the unilateralism adopted by Israel ever since the collapse of the Camp David "peace talks" in the summer of 2000. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his party Kadima, and his successor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, delineated very clearly what unilateralism entailed: Israel would annex about 50 percent of the West Bank, not as a homogeneous chunk of it, but as the total space of the settlement blocs, the apartheid roads, the military bases and the "national park reserves" (which are no-go areas for Palestinians). This was more or less implemented in the last eight years. These purely Jewish entities cut the West Bank into 11 small cantons and sub-cantons. They are all separated from each other by this complex colonial Jewish presence. The most important part of this encroachment is the greater Jerusalem wedge that divides the West Bank into two discrete regions with no land connection for the Palestinians.

The wall thus is stretched and reincarnated in various forms all over the West Bank, encircling at times individual villages, neighborhoods or towns. The cartographic picture of this new edifice gives a clue to the new strategy both towards the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The 21st century Jewish state is about to complete the construction of two mega prisons, the largest of their kind in human history.

They are different in shape: the West Bank is made of small ghettos and the one in Gaza is a huge mega ghetto of its own. There is another difference: the Gaza Strip is now, in the twisted perception of the Israelis, the ward where the "most dangerous inmates" are kept. The West Bank, on the other hand, is still run as a huge complex of open air prisons in the form of normal human habitations such as a village or a town interconnected and supervised by a prison authority of immense military and violent power.

As far as the Israelis are concerned, the mega prison of the West Bank can be called a state. Advisor to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, in the last days of February 2008, threatened the Israelis with a unilateral declaration of independence, inspired by recent events in Kosovo. However, it seemed that nobody on the Israeli side objected to the idea very much. This is more or less the message a bewildered Ahmed Qurei, the Abbas-appointed Palestinian negotiator, received from Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, when he phoned to assure her that Abed Rabbo was not speaking in the name of the PA. He got the impression that her main worry was is in fact quite the opposite: that the PA would not agree to call the mega prisons a state in the near future.

This unwillingness, together with Hamas' insistence of resisting the mega prison system by a war of liberation, forced the Israelis to rethink their strategy towards the Gaza Strip. It transpires that not even the most cooperative members of the PA are willing to accept the mega prison reality as "peace" or even as a "two state settlement." And Hamas and Islamic Jihad even translate this unwillingness into Qassam attacks on Israel. So the model of the most dangerous ward developed: the leading strategists in the army and the government embrace themselves for a very long-term "management" of the system they have built, while pledging commitment to a vacuous "peace process," with very little global interest in it, and a continued struggle from within, against it.

The Gaza Strip is now seen as the most dangerous ward in this complex and thus the one against which the most brutal punitive means have to be employed. Killing the "inmates" by aerial or artillery bombing, or by economic strangulation, are not just inevitable results of the punitive action chosen, but also desirable ones. The bombing of Sderot is also the inevitable and in a way desirable consequence of this strategy. Inevitable, as the punitive action cannot destroy the resistance and quite often generates a retaliation. The retaliation in its turn provides the logic and basis for the next punitive action, should someone in domestic public opinion doubt the wisdom of the new strategy.

In the near future, any similar resistance from parts of the West Bank mega prison would be dealt with in a similar way. And these actions are very likely to take place in the very near future. Indeed, the third intifada is on its way and the Israeli response would be a further elaboration of the mega prison system. Downsizing the number of "inmates" in both mega prisons would be still a very high priority in this strategy by means of ethnic cleansing, systematic killings and economic strangulation.

But there are wedges that prevent the destructive machine from rolling. It seems that a growing number of Jews in Israel (a majority according to a recent CNN poll) wish their government to begin negotiations with Hamas. A mega prison is fine, but if the wardens' residential areas are likely to come under fire in the future then the system fails. Alas, I doubt whether the CNN poll represents accurately the present Israeli mood; but it does indicate a hopeful trend that vindicates the Hamas insistence that Israel only understands the language of force. But it may not be enough and the perfection of the mega prison system in the meantime continues unabated and the punitive measures of its authority are claiming the lives of many more children, women and men in the Gaza Strip.

As always it is important to be reminded that the west can put an end to this unprecedented inhumanity and criminality, tomorrow. But so far this is not happening. Although the efforts to make Israel a pariah state continue with full force, they are still limited to civil society. Hopefully, this energy will one day be translated into governmental policies on the ground. We can only pray it will not be too late for the victims of this horrific Zionist invention: the mega prison of Palestine.

Ilan Pappe is chair in the Department of History at the University of Exeter.

 

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Presence of Absences---

Presence of Absences: Poems without Poets, Reels without Films

The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) has created a special on-line resource to commemorate the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.

Institute for Palestine Studies commemorates Nakba on the Web
Announcement, Institute for Palestine Studies, 22 May 2008

The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) has created a special on-line resource to commemorate the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948.

"1948: Sixty Years On ..." draws on the Institute's rich archives and its flagship Journal of Palestine Studies to provide wide public access to incisive articles, analyses, memoirs, detailed maps, and chronologies. These materials illuminate the events leading up to and culminating in the establishment of the state of Israel and the beginning of the Palestinian tragedy.

Readers can download PDF versions of landmark articles, such as Walid Khalidi's 1961 documentation of "Plan Dalet: the Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine," and a rare memoir of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser focusing on the cataclysmic events of 1948. Scholars, journalists, policy makers and educators will find this on-line resource timely and useful. The articles, essays, and debates are grouped in seven categories. Memoirs and reflections

In addition to the memories of 1948 by historical personages such as Gamal Abdel Nasser and Fauzi al-Qawuqji, the section includes eye-witness accounts of the fall of Lydda, the conquest of Nazareth and its aftermath, the Tantura massacre, among other tragic events.

Exodus and Refugees

The genesis of the Palestinian exodus is laid out with different emphases by a number of authors, including Ilan Pappe, Simha Flapan, Donald Neff, and Amnon Kapeliouk.

History and Analysis

Scholars address the historiography of 1948 and the crux of the conflict from different perspectives. Read articles by Walid Khalidi, Nur-eldeen Masalha, Tarif Khalidi, and Benny Morris.

Legal Dimensions

Thomas and Sally Mallison on the right or return; Henry Cattan on the status of Jerusalem and Michael Fischbach on refugee compensation.

Military Dimensions

Walid Khalidi's 1961 landmark piece on Plan Dalet was the first revelation to the broader public that there were Zionist plans to expel the non-Jewish population of Palestine. Other pieces include Benny Morris on Operation Hiram and Nafez Nazzal on the occupation of Western Galilee.

Diplomacy

The renowned Egyptian writer and journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal reflects on the impact of the Nakba on Egypt. This section also features Walid Khalidi's clear and comprehensive discussion of the UN partition plan, and broad analyses of the diplomatic background to the war by Sabri Jiryis and Michael Adams. Kathleen Christison and Avi Shlaim examine specific dimensions of the diplomacy after 1948.

Debates

Today's ongoing debates about the Palestinian tragedy began immediately after 1948 and picked up steam in the 1980s and 1990s with the advent of Israel's "new historians." Read Benny Morris' various restatements of his position and well-argued rejoinders by Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Norman Finkelstein, Walid Khalidi, and Nur-eldeen Masalha.


Related Links

* "1948: Sixty Years On ..."

RIP: : Bruce Duncan ( Utah) Phillips, 73, IWW Folk Singer (video link)-----Jimmy Griff Jazz Organist Obituary

Jimmy McGriff, Jazz and Blues Organist, Dies at 72 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

t

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/arts/music/28mcgriff.html?ref=arts ---

Utah Phillips--
Democracy Now had an inspiring  tribute program yesterday , with Amy Goodman's interviews of Utah Phillips

saw him perform several times--
a great voice for Anarchism, Peace & the IWW

    The "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest": Legendary Folk Musician, Activist Utah Phillips, 1935-2008

• Utah Phillips, the legendary folk musician and peace and labor activist, has died at the age of seventy-three. Over the span of nearly four decades, Utah Phillips worked in what he referred to as "the Trade," performing tirelessly throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. The son of labor organizers, Phillips was a lifelong member of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies. As a teenager, he ran away from home and started living as a hobo who rode the rails and wrote songs about his experiences. In 1956, he joined the Army and served in the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. In 1968, he ran for the US Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. For the past twenty-one years he lived in Nevada City, where he started a nationally syndicated folk music radio show. He also helped found the Hospitality House homeless shelter and the Peace and Justice Center. We spend the hour with an interview with Phillips from January 2004. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/arts/music/27phillips.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin ---

Reminder: CALL FOR WORK: REPUGNO SELECTS NO.1 opens June 1

CALL FOR WORK: REPUGNO SELECTS NO.1


http://repugnoselects.blogspot.com/
ATTENTION VISUAL POETS
* submission window opens on: June 1st, 2008 - i am out of town a lot between now and then, so hold off if you can please
* the few postings below and additional text on this page should give you ideas of what i like and want for this magazine. note; there is no magazine that i have found doing quite what i want to do, my hypothetical issue has much page-based stuff, but i really want something more...
* SO, i must stress that i favor above all else visual poetry placed in the world somehow, work that shows the effort of the hand more than the computer screen, poem objects and found work. (the images of my stuff in the right column give some indication)
* guidelines for what to send can be found to the right on this page under heading SENDING TO THIS MAG
* PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD - especially to any lists you know...
thank you,
REPUGNO

2008 Release of Poets For Palestine

from Remi Kanazi:

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to let the listserv know about an anthology of poetry I've been working on for the last two years, Poets For Palestine.

 

This is the first anthology to bring together poetry, hip hop, spoken word, and art to pay tribute to Palestine; included are: Mahmoud Darwish, Amiri Baraka, Suheir Hammad, Patricia Smith, Naomi Shihab Nye, D. H. Melhem, Nathalie Handal, Lisa Suhair Majaj, E. Ethelbert Miller, Tahani Salah, Ragtop from the Philistines, the N.O.M.A.D.S., Fawzia Afzal Khan, Annemarie Jacir, Ibtisam Barakat, Kathy Engel, Junichi P. Semitsu, Melissa Hotchkiss, Alicia Ostriker, Marilyn Hacker and many more!

 

Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the dispossession of the Palestinian people, this collection presents 48 poems and includes 31 powerful images created by Palestinian artists. As important, this anthology features a array of ethnically diverse voices who use their words to elevate the consciousness of humanity.

 

All the proceeds from the book will go toward funding future cultural projects that highlight Arab artistry in the US.

Please visit the website for excerpts, sample art, and to pre-order your copy today at www.PoetsForPalestine.com!
 
Thanks!

 

Remi Kanazi

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Iqbal Tamimi---The Ministry of Prisoners

Iqbal Tamimi - The Ministry of Prisoners

Posted: 30 May 2008 04:20 AM CDT

In the UK, where I am living, there is a Ministry of Justice, but in Palestine, where my home country is, there is a Ministry of Prisoners. Does this make any sense?

Well, it seems that it does, after all, states create Ministries to solve the problems affecting a large sector of their citizens. It is common sense to have a Ministry of Education because almost half of the country will be students at different levels, and many people work in the education system. This sector faces many obstacles that need to be resolved, and that’s why there is a ministry of Education in every country. But why is Palestine is the only country in the universe that has a Ministry of Prisoners?

When you read about a Ministry of Justice you will feel hope, it tells you that there is justice, and there are laws, and being requested to report there for any reason does not make you a criminal, it is just a system that investigates to find out the truth, there is even no indication of punishment when you read its name.

While when you see the Ministry of Prisoners, you will discover immediately that you are dealing with something totally different. You are starting at the other end of the system. You are starting from where other democracies end. You are at the punishment side without having to go through the fair proceedings. What is dealt with here is prisons and prisoners’ issues only, no mentioning of justice since justice is not the issue.

Becoming a prisoner in Palestine does not necessarily happen because you are found guilty. You might be there without a trial, you might end up in a cell when you are innocent, and this is why you need a Ministry at least to fight for your rights

A man might be imprisoned if his child throws a stone at an Israeli military vehicle. A woman might end up imprisoned to pressure her brother or husband to confess or to cooperate. A child can end up imprisoned for being mentally retarded, thus not obeying the curfew orders called upon by the occupation authorities.

The shocking fact that most Palestinians have been or are imprisoned by the Israeli occupation at one time or another, and here I am not talking about imprisoning one and a half million people in the Gaza Strip, or the people imprisoned behind the apartheid wall, what I am talking about is real prisons in which no one would argue about their definition. Twenty percent of the Palestinian people have been imprisoned in the last decade by the Israeli occupation, and this is the highest percentage of citizens worldwide. Palestinians are the only people where imprisonment is a word in every family’s vocabulary.

According to statistics of the Ministry of Prisoners, there are more than 11,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons, distributed over 23 Israeli prisons and detention centres. 1,705 are detained from the city of Nablus. This makes them 14.5% of the total percentage of detainees in the West Bank.

A report by The Public Committee against Torture in Israel reported six cases of Israeli forces threatening Palestinian prisoners through detaining their innocent family members this year (April 2008). There are documented reports of detaining members of families of Palestinian prisoners without any legal reason to do so. This report has been submitted to the Knesset itself. The president of the Israeli General security Service (Shin Bet) confirmed that one incident at least was proven by the Investigation Unit during the hearing of the case.

Such phenomenon might explain the need for a Ministry of Prisoners.

References
Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners
Director of Bureau of Statistics Awni Farawana
Public Committee against Torture in Israel
Reporter Ahmad Budairy BBC- Jerusalem
Arab Media Internet Network / Amin

"Los Desaparecidos" exhibition travels to Guatemala /"Aesthetics of Disappearance" of lands & people/Luc Fierens //Botero's Abu Ghraib

Thank you to Reed Altemus who sent me a note that the exhibition The Disappeared is now opening in Guatemala--

This is a blog entry that first appeared 10 June 2007--
when the exhibition, which first opened in North Dakota, was being shown at El Museo de Bario in NYC--

there's a poster/flyer here (not part of the exhibit--sent by an artist friend)-- calling for the prosecution of General Rios Mont, brother of Guatemalan President--who is wanted for Crimes Against Humanity


An excellent book on the recent history of Guatemala is Franceso Goldman's The Art of Political Murder--Rios Mont among many other murderers large and small scale, makes his bloody appearance in this book--

Hundreds of Thousands displaced, homes and neighborhoods completely gone--
refugees in "Homeland" without "Security" for the poor who are ever more and more of its citizens--



A population vanishes from outside view--





graffiti "hidden" & "illegal"--and a view of legal corporate graffiti "out in the open": billboard







Berlin Wall 1968

collage d-b chirot


Today and Tomorrow





Protest & house demolished in three minutes

disappearance and displacements of people--

American citizen political prisoners









"The Screaming Ones Vanish but the Screams Do Not"

d-b chirot








from Botero's Abu Ghraib series
















Wall being built at Night in Baghdad by American Occupation



Now you see someone--
and then you don't--
you never did--






Graffiti Occupied Hebron



a homeless & stateless person--
disappearing from "counting"
("being counted")
as a person--
"There never was such a thing as a Palestinian."--
Golda Meier
BBC Interview 1969





Removal of Bedouin village
since Bedouins are Nomads--
why do they need a village?

(actually this really is the reason given for Bedouin villages removals--
they're Nomads--they don't mind being homeless--they'll survive, "get by"--Somewhere Else)




Deniz Turcel, Turkey

"There is no 'Here' Anymore"


From the Exhibition LOS DESAPARECIDOS (The Disappeareds)

El Museo del Barrio
http://www.elmuseo.org
info@elmuseo.org
Heckscher Building
1230 Fifth Ave @104th Street
New York City, NY 10029
Open 11 a.m.--5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday
Exposition through 17 June 2007

This traveling Exhibition curated by Laurel Reuter and shown originally at North Dakota Museum of Art

I will be putting up more works from the Exhibition in next days--these today are only about half of the artists included in the show.





Luis Palma
B. Guatemala, lives Argentina

"Between Roots and Air" series
(A Mayan woman--Mayans never look at strangers directly--looks straight at the viewer--a confrontation--with next to her things which speak of the mass murders and disappearances of Mayans during Civil War)





Identity Collective Argentina
Photos of Disappeared Persons under Dictatorship




Oscar Munoz, Colombia
"Breath"
a steel plate upon which the viewer breathes to see their own image appear and then disappear




Photo of Rendition Plane at British Airport on its way, taking American held/seized "suspects" to torture centers outside the USA








more from "LOS DESAPARECIDOS"
"Memorium"
--Antonio Frasconi, Uruguay
Antonio Frasconi
"Cell"
--Antonio Frasconi


by Juan Manuel Echevarra, Chile


"Los Desaparecidos"
--Antonio Frasconi


by Argentine Identity Collective


--Luis Camnitzer
born Germany, raised Uruguay, lives in NYC


"Between Roots and Air"
--Luis Gonzalez Palma


Arturo Duclos, Chile
Cilean flag made of 75 human femurs and screws


by Nicholas Guagnini
b. Argentina, lives NYC



One of my heroes--Luc Fierens at Bau Fluxus
Luc is a Visual Poet/Mail Artist/performer/activist who also works often with children
He lives in Belgium
his links are here at this site, to your left