What good may a boycott bring? It can expose human rights violations otherwise ignored. Many members of academia are joining together, bringing attention to a little-known school via a boycott. This past Monday (14 March 2016) a thousand protesting professors announced their stand on Ariel University
In all fairness though I am providing an opposing viewpoint for your convenience, Anne’s Opinions: a WordPress site that explains every Israeli human rights abuse as somehow explicable. See if Anne adopts a certain insular perspective.
Does Anne know that her society lives and thrives on Palestinian soil? Is Ariel a university of Israel? Or is it another foothold in Occupied Palestine? Does it benefit Palestine or does it serve the 500,000 settlers on occupied land?
Successful revolutions are the everlasting bane of the colonizer. Control the narrative and image becomes reality. This kind of reality: Freedom is Slavery.
Did you know that Colonialism ethnically cleansed the First Peoples of Cuba? Land was found sticking up from the sea circa 1492. Did the Spanish make plans for a thanksgiving dinner or did they brutally subjugate and enslave the locals? Empires prefer the latter. They may miss pockets of resistance during clean up operations but it’s not from want of trying. Native Peoples either become victims of genocide or they are gathered and placed in camps like Gaza, more geographically appropriate: Guantanamo.
Caption for the cartoon and the bulleted text below are at Boundless.com:
The end of the 1800s was known as the ‘Age of Imperialism,’ a time when the United States and other major world powers rapidly expanded their territorial possessions.
American Imperialism is partly based on American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States is different from other countries because of its specific world mission to spread liberty and democracy.
One of the most notable instances of American Imperialism was the Annexation of Hawaii in 1898, in which the United States gained the control and possession of all ports, buildings, harbors, military equipment, and public property that had belonged to the Government of the Hawaiian Islands.
1959: heads rolled at “Concerned Citizens for Answering the Question Who Lost Cuba” when Fidel and Che pushed back against occupation. Empires do not like being embarrassed by nightmarish headlines: “Inhabitants of a 1,000 mile-long island expel American Empire.”
A large faction in the British Mandate for Palestine expelled 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, all but pockets of resistance remained. Possession is 9 points of the law, so the remaining Palestinians obtained citizenship by default. But of those 3/4 of a million refugees? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has a reply: they retain the right to return. Syrian refugees retain that right.
When the British Empire imploded, their imperial “Mandate for Palestine” disappeared.
Dr. Laurence G. Wolf, no small voice for humanity, was my mentor from 1965 to 1969 at the University of Cincinnati: formative years. I last talked to him in a service of two local Unitarian churches a summer or two ago. Wolf introduced me to the geography of the Middle East.
Lisa Chieco brought up Thailand the other day. It’s the only South-East Asian country not colonized by the British or the French. The British left their tongue in India. Indian literature suffers profoundly from imposition of English over many generations.
Foreign policy wisdom does not spring from imperial ambition. Lisa and I were among many of you who may have read this far. We earned a collective memory of the day before the disaster of 2003. A catastrophe (Nakba) for Iraq.
The four divided sectors of Kurdistan are occupied by four authorities. The Kurds’ ancient home is inhabited by Kurds.
Saddam did not gas his own people, he gassed the Kurds. Lines were not drawn in the sand, they were drawn with a straight-edge, but not at random. They used the strategy divide and conquer, i.e. let the Sunnis and Shias fight each other and we save bullets and we save time. Kurdistan is already inhabited by the Kurds but modern-day boundaries place them among foreign peoples in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
This morning our friends at Google returned replies to my inquiry “What is a Vegan Diet?”:
About 11,500,000 results (0.54 seconds).
Return here after reading those there.
What happens to your body at the molecular level as it recovers from animal fat? Eating animal byproducts such as cheese just keeps clogging up your entire system. Cleansing takes time but it’s worth the investment. IMO it’s a better return than the perfunctory “You’ve got to die from something” explanation for the inexplicable.
Source claiming that “it was for a good cause though.”
Dairy products may not kill a cow, but its life in a factory-farm-fresh environment starts at her first milking and ends…RIP. Advanced technology makes pink slime a reality.
What about craving and sluggishness?
Craving steak, cheese and calf milk is temporary, that sluggish feeling is your body going through withdrawal. Don’t blame it on organic fruits and vegetables.
I visited a mega supermarket just up US 27 It’s like a laboratory facility for headquarter employees conducting research at Cincinnati’s new magnet for the Ohio Valley of Freneticism: the brilliantly located Newport Pavilion in Kentucky. About a mile from the headquarter building, but on the other side of the Ohio River.
I took notes for billziegler1947 in order to get my facts straight and not stray from the vegan theme or become overwhelmed by enormity.
billziegler1947 does not have ads with creepy gifs on the 7 foods you should never…, so here is an unpaid PSA.
At the top of my notes for 5 March 2016 I wrote “Department of What-Gives?”
What gives with those 400 tons of palletized and borg-sized sugar fluids that extend for 30 yards in the middle of the store? Bordered in this case by a cooler case of energy drinks to one side of the sculpture that commemorates the discovery of sugar water flavorings and high-fructose corn syrups.
Here we have a mash-up of images on a theme of the wonderful world of sugar-water flavors.
What gives with those plastic SUVs with a freely spinning steering wheel? It is also not steerable by the shopper tailgating from behind. The shopping cart is physically attached to a theme in plastic. I saw one flanked on both sides by two, perhaps three, toddlers.
What gives with plastic crap-toys on a peg, strategically located so a future shopper in the cart can push the peg downward and watch the crap drop right into the cart.
I searched Google for images to accompany this post and arrived at this rather brilliant article through pure serendipity. Its theme: Why am I so sluggish? Is it the fruit, the vegetables or both?
sad woman sitting near plate with vegetables and tired from diet
Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition: Upcoming Events. Unfortunately there are no events to announce right now (30 January 2017).
The Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition is a group worth following, now you can do that right here on billziegler1947. CPSC is speaking with a peaceful voice, in solidarity with everyone who finds hope in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed in 1948: proclaimed in the same year as the Nakba.
A good starting point is the CPSC Facebook page, it’s worth visiting even if you are not anywhere near the southwest corner of Ohio. And here is a shout-out of appreciation to readers every continent: 53 countries in 2016 so far. The idea is to make ideas available and not to impose them upon people.
(Already Happened) March 16 (Wednesday) Poetry Night with Remi Kanazi takes place at the University of Dayton this Wednesday March 16 at 8:00 PM. Event link here.
A protest timed to coincide with a large AIPAC conference in Washington DC. CSPC is participating with a contingent. Timing is also critical since AIPAC can no longer depend on an automatic lockstep bipartisan support of Israel, dependable as clockwork.
Why Peter F. Cohen is Going to DC on March 20. On Mondoweiss.
(Already happened) March 29 (Tuesday) A teach-in on Rasmea Odeh takes place March 29. Details to follow. Here is a picture of Rasmea marching for another people who share her experience. In solidarity.
(Already happened) March 31 (Thursday) The fifth of five teach-ins is on March 31 at the Clifton Mosque. The theme: economic and military ties between the U.S. and Israel.
(Already happened) 3 (SUNDAY) 1:30 to 4:00 at the Clifton Mosque. An event sponsored by CPSC and Black Lives Matter Cincinnati (BLM:C)
This group is including Cincinnati on its itinerary. From their website:
“Mariam, now 85 years old and respectfully known as Umm Akram, has spent the last 68 years in crowded, makeshift refugee camps in Lebanon. She has raised three generations in the same camps, all waiting to return to their home in Palestine. She has lived through five Israeli invasions of Lebanon, as well as the 1976 Tel al-Zaatar camp massacre that killed more than 2000 of the refugees there.”
Taft Research Center, University of Cincinnati, Edwards One, 45-51 Cory Boulevard, Cincinnati, OH 45221
A Presentation by Dr. Jeff Halper about Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification. In the wake of the publication of his latest book, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification (Pluto Press/University of Chicago, 2015), Jeff Halper is embarking on a five-week tour of the US. The tour is sponsored by The People Yes! Network (TPYN), a new initiative with which he is involved, which seeks to advance critical political analysis, combine campaigns across the range of global issues and generate effective political advocacy. Jeff continues to be a leading member of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). His talks address the situation in Israel/Palestine and the possibilities of a one-state solution. But as his new book indicates, Jeff is also moving on to what he calls “global Palestine,” a wide range of global issues including Israel and Palestine.
I am reading his latest book War against the People, just published in 2015. One very clear mark of genuine scholarship: the notes section at the back of the book is 44 pages long!
Halper is well known internationally for his ardent work on the difficult but important task of stopping home demolitions in the occupied territories. Synchronicity is best enjoyed when unexpected, we both graduated from college in the same year: 1969.
Does Anne know that her society lives and thrives on Palestinian soil? Is Ariel a university of Israel? Or is it another foothold in Occupied Palestine? Does it benefit Palestine or does it serve the 500,000 settlers on occupied land?
billziegler1947 