Blah, blah, blah

Obama is a friend of Palestine? So says an article on the front page of the L.A. Times.

The Nation implies it is poor and misleading reporting on the LA Times part, and I agree. By hyping up the article and catering to Anti-Palestinian groups, the author confounds the facts and obscures the truth.

The author apparently just ripped off an article by Debbi Schlussel, an ultra-conservative blogger known for “racist hate speech.”

The evidence that Obama supports Palestine? He attended events with prominent literature professors and scholars of Arab history - Edward Said [an influential critical theorist and major contributer to the founding of postcolonial theory] and Rashid Khalidi [the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University].

From left to right, Michelle Obama, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama, Columbia University Professor Edward Said and Mariam Said at a May 1998 [TEN YEARS AGO] Arab community event in Chicago at which Edward Said gave the keynote speech. Electronic Intifada

I think it’s great that Obama heard lectures from the late Edward Said - I wish I could have! Said as “a Palestinian and a leading American intellectual” wrote one of the most important critiques of Western constructions of the East - Orientalism.
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While U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Clinton in the polls, Palestinians in Gaza are launching their own attempt to boost his campaign.

Isn’t this support a bit bizarre? Obama has made considerable effort over the last year to demonstrate his allegiance to Israel. And in his appeal to U.S. Jewish communities, the deputy speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Josh Shapiro proclaimed Obama’s “100 percent voting record on Israel issues.”

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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Israel is increasingly turning away sick Gazans who seek medical treatment. Several Palestinians die each month because Israel refuses to let them leave Gaza for necessary medical care.

In the last five months, 32 people have died while waiting for travel permits. “All these tragedies could have been easily avoided,” said Ambrogio Maneti, WHO’s head of office for the West Bank and Gaza.

Egypt has allowed some Gazans in for treatment but has agreed with Israel to keep its border largely closed.

A Palestinian carries his sick son as they make their way to Egypt after crossing the destroyed section of the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt January 24, 2008. Reuters

Palestinian medical officials in Gaza say more than 100 Gazan patients have died since June after Israel denied them permits to seek medical treatment. That’s really sick.

A medical officer points to a wound on the head of a newborn Palestinian baby, who Palestinian medics said was killed by Israeli forces gunfire, in the central Gaza Strip March 4, 2008. Reuters

Doesn’t it make you want to cry?

Obama’s Latest “Beautiful Speech”
By Paul Street
March 22, 2008

“Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity Unity Church of Christ.” — Barbara Ehrenreich, March 2008

“It’s hard sometimes for me to understand how Obama is able to milk so much reaction out of speeches that are not only pedestrian, but which contain truly startling statements. The speech he made yesterday, for example: how can he manage to dedicate a whole address to the importance of overcoming racism, and in the middle of that talk not only essentially smear his pastor with the ‘Angry Black’ stereotype, but also endorse the ongoing US policy of racism and injustice towards the Palestinians, and then somehow come out of the whole thing smelling like roses, sending hyperventilating progressives all over the country to their smelling salts, believing that they’ve heard the ‘greatest speech’ of modern times!” — “epppie,” an e-mail correspondent, March 19, 2008

——–

I just read Barack Obama’s Latest Greatest Speech – his celebrated address on race, titled “A More Perfect Union” [1], yesterday (I am writing on the morning of March 19 2008), in Philadelphia. Sparked by recent broadcasts of his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright’s angry denunciations of U.S. imperialism and racism, the speech changes nothing for me.

Deluded Obamanists can stop sending me e-mails saying (to quote one this morning) “wow he really knocked them dead in Philly telling it like it is on Race. Now will you please finally get on board with the Great Barack?”

As his most recent Grand Oration shows, the Chosen One is not about to sacrifice political ambition for the sake of truth and justice.

Yesterday’s address was all about Obama using his former pastor as a pretext for yet more triangulation [2]. Wright was employed as a foil for Obama to pose as reasonable on race and racism while he continued his project of deepening public confusion on racist and other United States oppression structures at the heart of American society.

And Obama ain’t “telling it like it is.”
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“‘America’s chickens are coming home to roost,’… a white diplomat said that y’all, not a black militant.”

God damn America, for its racism.

wright makes me like obama more.

First Clinton’s campaign fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro says Obama is “lucky” to be Black and the accuses his campaign of “racism:” “I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white.” Reverse racism cannot exist. Racism is about oppression; it is a power relationship.

Now Obama is condemning the comments made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, about white privilege. Saying they are “inflammatory and appalling.”

Wright told his congregation the reason why “so many folks are hating on Barack Obama” is because he doesn’t “fit the model: He ain’t white, he ain’t rich and he ain’t privileged.”

“Hillary [Clinton] fits the mold,” Wright said, delivering a fiery tirade on how “Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color,” and how “Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over as a black man driving” and how “Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home.”

Yeah, all of that is true. Clinton does have white skin privilege. You can’t deny that.

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The IDF injured more than 20 people and shot a person from the US in the head. From 1000-2500 people attended the protest marking the third year of resistance to the apartheid wall in Bil’in, Palestine.

Yesterday Palestinian farmers burned flowers in protest of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. The blockade has severely limited the flow of goods to and from the Strip, and it has prevented the farmers from exporting their product to Europe for Valentines Day. Since they couldn’t sell them, the growers dumped two truckloads of flowers at a border crossing; they fed some of the flowers to sheep and the rest they burned in protest of Israel’s oppressive restrictions.

“It is a black Valentine’s Day,” said farmer Majed Hadayed, estimating his seasonal losses at $2.5 million.

“Evangelical donations to Israel are disturbing.” From Haartz

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein efforts have contributed to the increased donations from US conservative Christians. He founded International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), which now boasts a $74 million budget to support Israel and Jewish immigration to Israel.

Evangelicals support Israel because they believe that the second coming of jesus cannot happen without a Jewish state. Despite all the propaganda about Israel in media, the influential televangelist Pat Robertson admitted, “[M]ere political rhetoric does not account for the profound devotion to Israel that exists in the hearts of tens of millions of evangelical Christians.”

Robertson said, “We believe that the emergence of a Jewish state in the land promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was ordained by God.”

Not every Israeli is comfortable with their donations:

Yet I find the idea of evangelicals donating large sums of money to Israel disturbing, both because of their belief in the “Second Coming” and because of their stated mission: “We know that we must wait for God to bring about the fullness of the kingdom at Christ’s return.”

Why exactly would that be disturbing?
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al Jazeera:

Shots have been fired at the Rafah crossing where Palestinians have been demanding that the crossing into Egypt be opened to ease the blockade imposed on the territory by Israel. Several police were injured in the skirmishes, as well as protesters. Gaza has been under lockdown for five days now, although the blockade was eased earlier when Israel allowed a fuel shipment through.

Jan 18, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement on Israel’s closing of the Gaza borders: “Such action cuts off the population from much-needed fuel supplies used to pump water and generate electricity to homes and hospitals. If this situation endures, the closure will also cause further shortages of food, medical and relief items in the Gaza Strip.”

Food will run out by midweek.

Palestinians queue to buy bread from a bakery in Gaza City,Monday, Jan. 21, 2008.

Hospitals cannot function.

“We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms,” said Health Ministry official Moaiya Hassanain.

After international outcry, Israel is allowing a one-time shipment of fuel and medical supplies, but not without Olmert making a stupid assertion: “As far as I’m concerned, Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn’t let people in southern Israel live in peace.” Walk without cars, he says. Or is it: die without medicine, starve without bread, become ill without sanitation…

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israel closes the gaza borders and strikes from the air. now trapped without medical supplies. at least 32 palestinians have died this week.

Israel’s raid on Tuesday killed at least 19 palestinians. In response, Hamas fought back by firing rockets into Israel–they have not fired any rockets fired into Israel for months. Israel closes the borders, cutting off their supply of food and medical supplies.

“Gaza is completely shut down. This will only add to an already dire situation,” said Christopher Gunness of UN Relief and Works Agency.
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Hawk Quits Israeli Coalition. NYT

Mr. Lieberman, who espouses a hard line toward the Palestinians, said on Wednesday that he advocated a solution based on “exchanges of territory and populations,” adding that Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population, presented more of a danger to the Jewish state than the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. One veteran Arab Israeli legislator, Ahmed Tibi, said that Mr. Lieberman “gives racists around the world a bad name.”

The “demographic threat” is a racist fear borne from the racism fundamental to zionism–establishing and maintaining a jewish majority at all costs.

Harpers

This is a brief comparison of how different news outlets covered the recent violence in Gaza.

• Who were affected? [Characterizations of the Palestinian victims.]

BBC: “At least 18 Palestinians, including at least 13 militants, have died in an Israeli raid… Reports say 48 people were also injured.”

CNN: “…an Israeli raid on eastern Gaza City left at least 17 dead and more than 20 wounded.”

The New York Times: “At least 18 Palestinians, including 13 members of the military wing of Hamas, were killed in Gaza early Tuesday by Israeli Army fire, the highest death toll there in half a year.”

Palestinians looked at a Hamas vehicle destroyed in Israeli raids in Gaza on Tuesday.

Haaretz: “Israel Defense Forces troops on Tuesday killed at least 19 Palestinians, including three civilians, in ground and air operations on the Gaza Strip.”

al Jazeera: “At least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops… At least 50 people have been injured.”

Fox: “Israeli troops killed a son of Gaza’s most powerful leader along with 18 other Palestinians…”

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“The Arabs should stop whining.” Zvi Bar’el. Haaretz.

Palestinian families and Israeli soldier

Zvi Bar’el addresses an article by Mamoun Fandy (“The Cards are in the Hands of the Arabs”) that was published in Saudi Arabian newspaper Asharq Alawsat on the eve of Bush’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

Fandy argues that Arabs should take advantage of Bush and his media’s attention and have Saudi Arabia call together Syria and Israel to meet with Bush to negotiate a deal between Israel and Syria in order to isolate Iran (like Bush wants). By aligning themselves with Bush through Saudi Arabia, all Arabs would be well-received in the west: “This dramatic move could change public opinion in the West, the United States, and Israel about the seriousness of the Arabs for peace and could change the entire dialogue.” Is he saying that the only way to show you want peace is to surrender the struggle for justice and accept domination? How can domination ever be peace?

Palestinian farmer trying to prevent Israeli soldiers from destroying his land.

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Bush: “Israeli politics is like karate, you never know when the next chop will come.” Haartz

“In Prospero’s words, ‘the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.’ There could be few pageants less substantial than a belated trip by a discredited US president to the Middle East.” The Guardian. “Bush’s Middle East tour: Insubstantial pageant”

Common interests, if not common faith. Bush comments on his friend, the dictator of Saudi Arabia:

“My faith, I strongly believe, has help me establish personal relations with other leaders of faith,” Bush said. “I think of my friend, the King of Saudi Arabia. We share a different faith. But I’ve made it clear to him we share the same God. And I believe we do.”

[bush and abdullah sitting in a tree, k-i-l-l-i-n-g (images from 2005)]

King Abdullah is one of the only Muslim leaders that would consent to such a characterization, but then again, a $20 billion weapons deal can provide an army of friends, bearing in mind, that they have common interests. Like Israel, who of course will get $30 billion in the same bill (an arab country can’t get more!)
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During his first trip to the West Bank, “Gaffe overshadows Bush visit.”

“You’ll be happy to know, my whole motorcade of a mere 45 cars was able to make it through without being stopped,” Bush said after being asked about the 30-minute journey from Jerusalem and Ramallah. “I’m not so exactly sure that’s what happens to the average person.”

“I remember once in Hawara, one of the checkpoints outside Nablus, and I was doing the story of a family who lost their main loved one … he was a cancer patient and he was told to get out of his car and walk across the checkpoint, and that killed him,” said Al Jazeera’s David Chater in west Jerusalem.

• The Poor Get Diabetes; The Rich Get Local and Organic.



• Wealthier people can also grow organic food; did you know that organophosphorus pesticides kill 200,000 people every year?

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oh, gloria steinem. clinton sucks because she loves corporate handouts–look at her health care policy, too.

but is obama better than clinton? if at all, only slightly. well, he is on palestine but just because he hasn’t been around long enough, so he hasn’t risen above ambiguous.

After trying hard to court Israel, Obama only received a response that was hesitant and cautious: “He is an unknown,” said Diane Dubey, a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Pro-Israel Lobby.

then is it about sex-identity? perhaps, or it may just be that very ambiguity that makes obama attractive to many people–so young and fresh and curious. he’ll talk to anyone (that’s good!).
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in case you were wondering what norman finkelstein is up to: “U.S. academic Finkelstein meets top Hezbollah official in Lebanon” from haaretz.

apparently, finkelstein was denied tenure at depaul u. largely because of the efforts of dershowitz. facing such calumny, finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for a year before he decided to quit in september 2007: “the atmosphere had become so poisoned that it was virtually impossible for me to carry on at DePaul.” now he’s meeting with Nabil Kaouk, Hizbullah’s commander in south Lebanon. wonder if he’s doing research for a new book? sounds interesting.

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The candidates:
Rudy Giuliani, 8.37
Hillary Clinton, 7.62
Michael Bloomberg, 7.25
John McCain, 7.12
Bill Richardson, 6.75
Fred Thompson, 6.5
Mitt Romney, 6.5
Mike Huckabee, 6
John Edwards, 5.87
Joseph Biden, 5.62
Christopher Dodd, 5.62
Barack Obama, 5
from Haaretz

We already know that Clinton and Richardson are the most right of the democrats, and we now learn that they’re also the best for Israel. Coincidence?
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