Tag: independence

The Ties that Bind America and Israel

Where a half-truth is a full-lie and a decimated truth is an epic.

do.economic.ties.corrupt.789.001

The AIPAC Conference in Washington D.C. this week demonstrates that America is not only shoulder-to-shoulder in the ties that bind. America and Israel are shoulder-to-shoulder at both shoulders now. It’s beginning to resemble that iconic Brezhnev/Honecker image burned into my, and now your, memory.

Perhaps Banksy might paint a similar theme on the Apartheid Wall.
Perhaps Banksy might paint a similar theme on the Apartheid Wall.

Wealth is publicly flaunted in 2016. The party of the big tent is becoming the party of the wide wallet. Before AIPAC met I held slight hopes that despite Clinton’s roots in political dynasty and Realpolitik she might take note of Palestine on Monday. Not a hint. Without Bernie Sanders it is the party of little hope for 2017.

I wonder if the New York Times would reject my headline suggestion:

“PACers pleased at remaining appeased.”

Just wondering.

Meanwhile 2.5 million Palestinians living in Palestine and 3.5 million Palestinians in diaspora live without independence but with a stolen homeland. Palestine was around a hundred years ago. Israel was not.

Photographs and films from 1948. Traditions, culture, family, livelihoods, fashions, ethnic recipes, hectic markets, crowded schools, beautiful sea of middle earth. Literally the middle of the known world during another failed empire: Roman Empire.
Photographs, films. traditions, culture, family, livelihoods, fashions, art, authentic cuisine, markets, schools, beautiful sea for beach lovers of Jaffa (renamed Tel-Aviv) Unfortunately it was Paradise (Mahmoud Darwish)

 

The Palestinian Authority directs attention from the sleight of hand played by Israel. Abbas is useful for diverting your eye from everyday ethnic cleansing.

The parties at the Oslo Accords of 1993 let pass a largely unknown legal restriction: requiring the labelling of goods manufactured in the West Bank, the occupied territories. A small negotiating point and legally binding, but the powers that be know the difference between de jure and de facto. Some negotiator did not recognize that BDS would happen.

The Gaza Strip is the most densely populated political unit on Earth. I wonder where the Palestinians now living in Gaza lived before they lived in Gaza?

It’s not a trick question. They lived in Palestine.

Here is where they used to live before the Nakba of 1948:

 

Refugee genesis and exodus.
Refugee genesis and exodus. From Visualizing Palestine

The rocks thrown by Palestinian youth are Made in the USA: created with weapons of modern technology. On July 12, 2014 Israelis showed up with lawn chairs (and a sofa) to witness rock manufacturing.

Israeli residents, mostly from the southern Israeli city of Sderot, sit on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip, on July 12, 2014, to watch the fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants. The world implored Israel and Hamas on July 12 to end hostilities as warplanes pounded Gaza for a fifth straight day, killing at least 30 Palestinians, and militants replied with rockets. AFP PHOTO / MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)
Israeli residents, mostly from the southern Israeli city of Sderot, sit on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip, on July 12, 2014,

Bonus dollars for the military-industrial complex: an exploded bomb no longer exists after the explosion and must be replaced by an unexploded bomb. The destroyed homes are not replaced. But if they are replaced bombs are available to destroy them again.

Operation Protective Edge was just the most recent of many catastrophic assaults on Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel’s Justice System imprisons 12-year-old rock throwers. Death by sniper on Palestinians of any age thought to hold a knife. Actual knife-wielding/rock throwing optional.

The common response in the USA: shrug that shoulder.

Another lucrative industry for Israel: prisons. It’s where 12-year-olds are sent for throwing rocks, where they are housed. During a daily patrol IDF soldiers follow “suspected” youth to their homes. They enter homes at will and locate the suspect’s bedroom. At 2:00 in the morning a knock comes on the bedroom door. Bedwetting is common. I wonder why.

It’s called Stone Cold Justice. The unemployment rate in Gaza is +40%. Disaffected youth talk to their grandparents about memories of life before Nakba. My two grandchildren are not disaffected youth without hope. They have a grandfather who was born 8 months before Nakba. Their grandfather was not born in Jaffa.

Maybe we can look to the Ministry of Justice in Israel for justice, so let’s check there. Ayelet Shaked is Justice Minister.

ayeletshaked

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How it feels.

stone.cold.justice

What it’s like.

 

Junior Chills Tribute, Cambrian Explosion and the Mercator Projection

I am blessed to live among my fellow curious creatures on this orb, trotting about this world alongside ants with societies much like ours, to dolphins who exceed our intelligence and do not declare war.

Shakespeare may now be paraphrased, “let slip the dolphins of war.” The Defense Dept. discovered they could train gentle seagoing mammals for military missions. These shine a warm light upon an institution that needs better PR perhaps. Eisenhower in January 1961 recognized the dark side of the MIC.

I think our enormapendous “Defense” budget is too large by many orders of magnitude. Just saying. 

Yes it really is cool to be a citizen of our singular planet and I’m grateful for every soul reading these words with eyes or ears developed in the Cambrian Explosion.

cambrian_explosion
http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/160/160S14_16.html

Todays visitors are from Australia, Philippines and United States. Another day when visitors from over the many seas outnumber those in the country of my present geography.

Here is the local geography. Cincinnati rests on a fluvioglacial terrace, i.e. the latest glacier passing by crunched a flat space. A great geologic arch extended from central Ohio to central Kentucky. Take a 360-degree look from a hill overlooking our downtown and you see accordant summits: all the hills surrounding the central city are at the same elevation above sea level. By the way, that link for accordant summits shows you why this blog has no click-bait: the choice for me: to be ad-free!

cincinnati.arch

Recently I discovered a fellow traveler on WordPress who has morphed the music and theme of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees” with lyrics that blend the Palestinian spirit of the indomitable with a tragically deferred dream, Junior Chills for Palestine. The Palestinian people have not allowed humiliation by colonizers to wipe away their joy. 

Damien of Junior Chills is a fellow denizen of Earth. He lives, writes and performs in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland,  identified by map makers as the United Kingdom and borders what the world globe tells us is the Republic of Ireland. Two of the three monotheist faiths share a common isle that unites and separates, but they work hard at achieving peace. Belfast used to make the headlines here every day.

Junior Chills tugs at values I try to express and organize in my mind. Music combined with what it is to be Palestinian today. what.it.is.to.be.palestinianThose same Palestinians were around when Woody Guthrie was hard traveling, Palestinian refugees are still living in diaspora.The American Empire is unquenchable in its appetite for domination, a thirst handily hidden under the ugly name American Exceptionalism. Be fruitful, multiply and conquer.

it.was.wrong.in.auschwitzSo much do we learn from music and photography where images share humanity. People who live in those places defined by Empire. The British Empire thought themselves bestower of blessings upon the colonized.

Why is the Mercator Projection still the default standard for maps? It’s only practical use is as a navigation aid for mariners crossing oceans. Long ago. Centuries before GPS. Greenland has about the same square kilometers as Mexico. Peel an orange and you’ll recognize how well that crap map deceives the viewer. The Mercator method takes a sphere and infinitely stretches it along a tall cylinder: every line of longitude must parallel every other line of longitude.mercator.projectionThis places the North Pole at infinity and the South Pole at infinity. The only accurately described line is the equator. It may be poetically keen to imagine Santa’s Workshop as infinitely large, but it doesn’t help us relate to our fellow citizens with their geographic relationships.


When Maps Lie by Andrew Wiseman: Tips from a geographer on how to avoid being fooled.

It’s the method of Procrustes to force things until they fit. Empires have too much on their minds to allow people to live their lives without an overlord deciding where you belong, where you don’t belong and how to enclose different peoples in the same country. The reason: just let the natives fight it out, they matters of empire to attend.

John Cleese has an answer to a question “Why does English food suck?” “I don’t know. We had an empire to run.” So they brought back somewhat more edible fare from the colonies.

At Ariel University a Boycott Begins

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.

https://boycottzionism.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/carlos-latuff-images-for-bds-activists/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?

Anne’s blog post on the Ariel action: Let’s see you boycott this, idiots.

Just for the record, Ariel University is not in Israel.

At Ariel University, only Zionists need apply
Professors Amir Hetsroni (pictured) and Steve Salaita have much in common.

Here is a different perspective on Ariel:

At Ariel University, only Zionists need apply

The list of reasons for this BDS action: Israeli Academics for Peace.

Martha in Cuba, Palestinians in Palestine and Kurds in Kurdistan

A Crucified Cuba — Still Lives!

cubapeoples-art

Martha Stephens’ eyewitness report from the real Cuba.

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.

boundless.american.empire.school

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.

kurdistan
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.

.