IMPORTANT: OUR WEBSITE IS CHANGING

From: Nureddin Sabir
Editor, Redress Information & Analysis
19 September 2012

Redress Information & Analysis is changing. Some of you will have noticed that we are currently running two websites with the same name: the one you are familiar with  www.redress.cc – and a new site at www.redressonline.com. This is because we are moving to www.redressonline.com. The reasons for the move are many but improved security and better user experience are among the main ones.

Over the coming weeks we will be transferring the main articles that have a long shelf life from www.redress.cc to the new site at www.redressonline.com. This is a time consuming task and therefore we expect to be running both sites in parallel for many months.

What the change means for you

The change to the new website means two things, depending on whether you are a reader, or a website administrator or blogger.

If you are just interested in reading our latest articles, then you need only visit www.redressonline.com. However, if you want to search for older material that has not yet been transferred to the new site, then you will find it at our old site at www.redress.cc.

After we have moved over to the new website all the important long-shelf-life material, we will redirect www.redress.cc to our new domain at www.redressonline.com so that we could be reached via both domain names – www.redress.cc and www.redressonline.com.

If, on the other hand, you are a website administrator or blogger and your site or blog carries an RSS feed from our old website, please change the feed address to: http://www.redressonline.com/feed/

What will happen when

From today (Wednesday 19 September) we will no longer update www.redress.cc Instead, all new articles will be published on the new website only – www.redressonline.com. So, as stated above, if you are just interested in reading our latest articles, then you need only visit www.redressonline.com. But if you want to search for older material that has not yet been transferred to the new site, then you will find it at our old site at www.redress.cc.

We have already started transferring important articles that have a long-shelf-life from www.redress.cc to www.redressonline.com. When we have finished transferring all of this type of articles, we will redirect www.redress.cc to our new domain at www.redressonline.com so that we could be reached via both domain names – www.redress.cc and www.redressonline.com.

How do the two websites differ?

Apart from the different domain name (www.redressonline.com), our new website is clearer and more user friendly, and it will have more pictures and videos than our old site did. It also contains within it the editor’s blog, which in the old site was hosted separately and linked to from a tab at the top of the site.

However, we have retained some features of the old site. The most important of these are presentational clarity and simplicity, absence of clutter and logical navigation.

In addition, as with the old site, the new site does not have reader comments. One reason for this is that a responsible website must moderate all comments in order to avoid libel and incitement, and to prevent the dissemination of falsehoods, especially from organized groups, such as the pro-Zionist lobbies and Israel’s paid internet disinformers. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to moderate comments, so these will have to stay out, at least for the time being.

Will our email address change?

No. You can still contact us on redress@redress.cc or, preferably, via the Contact form on our new website - http://www.redressonline.com/contact/

How you can help us

Our new site is funded entirely by the site owners. However, we are continuously coming under organized denial of service attacks and attempts at hacking by those who thrive on deception and lies – this means that we have to devote significant resources to security. So, your continued donations – no matter how small – will be much appreciated.

If you wish to help us in our fight for truth and justice, please make a donation via Paypal . If you would prefer to donate by direct bank transfer, then please email us at redress@redress.cc and let us know.

While Syria’s doomed Assad teeters, “anti-imperialist” pretenders make their last stand

From Nureddin Sabir
Editor, Redress Information & Analysis

The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly denounced the Syrian regime's crackdown on the people's revolution.

The resolution, passed today by 133 in favour, with 12 against and 31 abstentions, says "the first step in the cessation of violence has to be made by the Syrian authorities".

Before the vote, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminded the assembly of the fresh violence in the city of Aleppo and drew comparisons between the failure to act in Syria and past genocide in Srebrenica and Rwanda.

"The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes," he said of the Aleppo fighting. "Such acts must be investigated and the perpetrators held to account."

Meanwhile, a tiny but vociferous group of ultra-reactionaries and racists masquerading as "leftists" and "anti-imperialists" continues to poison and disinform on behalf of the doomed sectarian regime of Bashar Assad.

Obsessed with imaginary conspiracies, ridden with empty slogans and determined to fight their armchair pseudo-ideological battles until the last drop of Syrian and other Arab blood, these pretenders are now completely at one with the sectarian Alawite clique that has sold the Syrian Golan Heights to its soulmates in Israel.

In 1967 Bashar Assad's father, Hafez – the butcher of Hama and Tal al-Zaatar – abandoned the Golan Heights to the Israelis without a fight. Now Bashar – the butcher of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and all of Syria – has told the Israelis they can keep the Golan in return for convincing the Americans that his regime is the best guarantor of Israel's security on the northern border.

But no more. The Assad regime is doomed. Just as the light of day is sure to follow the darkness of night, it will fall and with it the self-styled "leftist" and "anti-imperialist" pretenders will be exposed for the ultra-reactionary fascists that they are.

The Arab people has erupted and there is no rolling back of their intifada.

But freedom and justice have never been cheap. Along our path to liberation there will be many rivers of blood to cross and mountains of propaganda, disinformation and lies to demolish – the fossilized scum of the ultra-reactionay pretenders and their Russian, Chinese and regional sectarian godfathers.

Soon Aleppo, Homs, Hama and all of Syria will be liberated.

The Syrian people will be free – free to exrcise their inalienable civil and political rights and free at last to liberate the Golan Heights from the terrorists and colonists of the Zionist entity.

And beyond Syria, progressive forces all over the world will be free to build genuine grassroots movements with justice and democracy at their core, unshackled and cleansed from the Stalinists, reactionaries and fascists.

For more information, see:

• Henry Lowi, "Storming the Bastille in Syria"
• Phan Binh, "Libya and Syria: when anti-imperialism goes wrong"
• Nureddin Sabir, "Cynicism and black propaganda: the left's reactions to the Libyan and Syrian revolutions"

The last days of Syrian butcher Assad's regime – and of his Western supporters!

From Nureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis:

We are witnessing the last days of Bashar "The Butcher" Assad, the Alawite sectarian dictator ruling Syria. Slowly but surely, the revolutionaries of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are closing in on his vipers’ nests.

Three days ago a massive bomb, pre-positioned by FSA fighters, exploded during a meeting of Assad's top henchmen – Defence Minister Dawud Rajiha, Deputy Defence Minister and Assad brother-in-law Asif Shawkat, Deputy Vice-President Hassan Turkmani and security services chief Hisham Ikhtiar.

For nearly a week now, the revolutionaries have been fighting regime forces and Shabiha thugs in Damascus. The fact that they have been able to sustain the fight right in the centre of the capital is a clear sign that the noose is tightening around the butcher Assad's neck.

Any day, any week, any month now, it will be over and Assad will be all over our television screens – a pathetic, lifeless corpse or sliming his way down the steps of a plane in Moscow or Beijing.

Yet, here in the West, lurking in the darkest corners of ignorance – on the internet and on the English-language propaganda television channels of Russia and Iran, RT and Press TV, cynics and self-styled "anti-imperialists" and some "leftists" continue to pour out their bile and poisonous disinformation in defence of Syria's doomed dictator.

They know who they – we won't waste our time engaging with them in interminable, futile debates. But very soon history will judge them, and the inexorable march of the Arab Awakening will expose them and confine them to the dustbin of history, forever.

Below we bring to your attention three important articles that analyse the delusions and motives behind these reactionary, self-serving enemies of the Arab people:

• Henry Lowi, "Storming the Bastille in Syria"
• Phan Binh, "Libya and Syria: when anti-imperialism goes wrong"
• Nureddin Sabir, "Cynicism and black propaganda: the left's reactions to the Libyan and Syrian revolutions"

Syrian army executes prisoners, desecrates their corpses

This graphic footage, purportedly filmed by Syrian security forces loyal to Bashar al-Asad in March 2012, depicts what appears to be a field execution of 15 men in the Idlib countryside. The living are bound and shot; the corpses are then dragged, shot again, and exploded for the entertainment of the troops filming this video. It was leaked and uploaded by Syrian democracy activists on 7 June 2012.

Living without your name

From Neve Gordon:

My friend’s wife was accepted to a PhD program at McGill University in Montreal. They decided to move to Canada with their two children at about the same time that I was offered a fellowship at Princeton and decided to move with my family to New Jersey for a year. Hoping to rent out our apartments while we’re away, we both posted ads on the most popular website in Israel. I received about five calls a day and found a tenant within a couple of weeks. My friend received only three calls in four weeks, and none of the people who called came to look at his flat.

A few days ago he removed his ad from the website and posted a new one, only this time he changed his name from Hussein to Rami. Rami is an ethnically indeterminate name – it can be either Jewish or Palestinian – but there are no Jews called Hussein. Within three days ‘Rami’ received about thirty phone calls, and six people came to look at the flat. He expects to sign a lease with one of them tomorrow. In Israel, if you are a Palestinian and want to rent a flat, at times, to misquote Arthur Miller, you have to live without your name.
First published in London Review of Books

Poster of Jewish settler who shoots Palestinian children

This criminal Jewish settler specializes in shooting Palestinian children. Please share the picture widely.

US academic Ali Abunimah on history and culture

From Gilad Atzmon:



In the above clip I elaborate on US academic Ali Abunimah’s attitude towards history and culture.

I contend that since Israel defines itself as the Jewish state and its tanks are decorated with Jewish symbols, we are entitled to ask ourselves who are the Jews and what is Judaism and Jewishness? In my work I try to understand the role and the impact of Jewish culture on Israeli and Jewish politics – something I believe is necessary to bring peace to the region and beyond.

But Ali Abunimah doesn’t agree. In reference to a talk I gave at the Stuttgart One State Conference in Decemebr 2010, he suggested that history and politics are detached from culture – an unusual approach which contradicts all recognized, intellectual and philosophical understandings of humanity, history, politics as well as culture.

Abunimah says “Talking about Jewish culture is wrong because such arguments can be made about anyone. We could blame German culture for the history of Germany...”

Someone should tell Abunimah that this is exactly what intellectuals, historian and political scientists do. They search for the origins of political thoughts in culture, ideology, religion and heritage. For instance, those who study the Nazi era try to comprehend the impact of Wagner, the German symphony, Protestant culture, German philosophy, Martin Luther’s The Jews and their lies, Hegel and the German spirit, German early romanticism, Lebensphilosophie, Heine, Athens versus Jerusalem, and so on. It is obvious to me that, Abunimah hasn’t thought it through. However, it is never too late to admit a mistake and put it right.

To view Atzmon’s Stuttgart presentation click here.

Palestinian children held in Israeli military detention

Bound, Blindfolded and Convicted: Children held in military detention
Source: Defence for Children International - Palestine Section

Hurt and abused children in Ethiopia - 2

This is the second part of a two-part article. Part-1 can be found here.

What happened to Palestine's steam railways?

From Stuart Littlewood:

Not all is doom and gloom here in the UK. The North Norfolk Railway (Poppy Line) put on its Spring Steam Gala last weekend and a good time was had by young and old.

Their cute little J15 was celebrating her 100th birthday, dwarfed by wildlife artist David Shepherd's mighty 'Black Prince'. The B12, which had been undergoing a major overhaul, emerged into the sunlight looking as brand spanking new as she did the day she was built in 1928. And two visitors joined the proceedings - the Great Western 'Kinlet Hall', 83 years old but absolutely immaculate, and a Black Five - to round off this steam spectacular.


North Norfolk Railway's Spring Steam Gala

As I snapped these snorting, chuffing, hissing beauties and basked in waves of nostalgia I couldn't help wondering what happened to Palestine's steam railways. In the days of the British Mandate there was an extensive rail network in the Holy Land with Lydda the hub.

When Britain quit Palestine in 1948 it left behind a considerable steam rail legacy. Does anyone have memories? But Lydda was renamed Lod after the Israelis attacked and annexed it. The same fate befell other Palestinian towns. Did anything survive? What happened to the trackbeds, locomotives and rolling stock? Are some hidden away in old  sheds or did the Israelis steal everything that was moveable and destroy everything they could carry away?

In Britain the government discarded our fine steam locomotives in its unseemly rush for diesel in the 1960s. It was nothing short of criminal to treat our priceless heritage so carelessly. Enthusiasts scraped some money together and rescued what they could, and today there are well over 100 resurrected railways and tramways with more than 500 miles of track and some 400 stations. They carry about 7 million passengers a year and play a valuable role in tourism.

It is believed that nearly 3000 locomotives have been preserved or are restoration projects. The 120-ton 'Black Prince' is a class 9F heavy freight locomotive and one of the last to be build in the UK for main line use. David Shepherd paid just £3000 to save it from the scrap yard in 1967. "She was eight years old, she'd just had an overhaul and they were going to just chuck her away and cut her up," he said. "I managed to save her and thank God I did.

"You can have all sorts of emotional feelings on an engine when it's in steam! I just love this engine for the pleasure it gives."

In Palestine, as a consequence of the UN's daft Partition plan, key bridges and other rail infrastructure were destroyed in the 1948 war. Had the Palestinians been left in peace their steam railways would no doubt have played a major role in building the nation's economy and bringing prosperity.

By now they'd probably have a number of steam preservation lines in their coastal resorts and population centres like Jerusalem and Ramallah to excite the children, charm their parents and celebrate the romance of the steam age.

What a different world it could have been.

Hurt and abused children in Ethiopia

Israel’s criminal demolitions in the occupied Palestinian territories

By Graham Peebles

A night of powerful and personal conversation, poetry and music featuring Gilad Atzmon

Despite relentless attempts by the bigots of the Zionist "Anti-Defamation League", as well as self-styled "anti-Zionist" Zionists, to cancel this crucial meeting, the event is going ahead!  If you happen to be in the Bay area, please come and stand with us – and demonstrate your right to free speech.

Protests in Syria

Unsettled, unlawful, unresolved: Israeli settlers in a foreign land

By Graham Peebles, Director, the Create Trust

The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory

New book by Nur Masalha: The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (London: Zed Books, January 2012). 288 pp. Hardback. ISBN: 978-1848139718



2012 marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba - the most traumatic catastrophe that ever befell Palestinians. This book explores new ways of remembering and commemorating the Nakba. In the context of Palestinian oral history, it explores 'social history from below', subaltern narratives of memory and the formation of collective identity. Masalha argues that to write more truthfully about the Nakba is not just to practise a professional historiography but an ethical imperative. The struggles of ordinary refugees to recover and publicly assert the truth about the Nakba is a vital way of protecting their rights and keeping the hope for peace with justice alive.

This book is essential for understanding the place of the Palestine Nakba at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the vital role of memory in narratives of truth and reconciliation.

Reviews

'As a meticulous scholar, historian and above all Palestinian, Nur Masalha is eminently suited to write this excellent book. He has produced a marvellous history of the Nakba which should be essential reading for all those concerned with the origins of the conflict over Palestine.' (Ghada Karmi, author of 'Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine')

'Nur Masalha has a distinguished and deserved reputation for scholarship on the Nakba and Palestinian refugees. Now, with his latest book, his searching analysis of past and present makes for a powerful combination of remembrance and resistance.'(Ben White, journalist and author of 'Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide')

'Nur Masalha's 'The Palestinian Nakba' is a tour de force examining the process of transformation of Palestine over the last century. One outstanding feature of this study is the systematic manner in which it investigates the accumulated scholarship on the erasure of Palestinian society and culture, including a critical assessment of the work of the new historians. In what he calls 'reclaiming the memory' he goes on to survey and build on an emergent narrative. Masalha's work is essential and crucial for any scholar seeking this alternate narrative.' (Salim Tamari, Visiting Professor of History, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University)

'This book is the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis available of the catastrophe that befell Arab Palestine and its people in 1948, known as the nakba. It shows how the expulsion and physical obliteration of the material traces of a people was followed by what Masalha calls 'memoricide': the effacement of their history, their archives, and their place-names, and a denial that they had ever existed.' (Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies Department of History, Columbia University)

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Zionism and European Settler-Colonialism

2. The Memoricide of the Nakba: Zionist-Hebrew Toponymy and the De-Arabisation of Palestine

3. Fashioning a European Landscape, Erasure and Amnesia: The Jewish National Fund, Afforestation, and Green-washing the Nakba

4. Appropriating History: The Looting of Palestinian Records, Archives and Library Collections (1948-2011)

5. New History, Post-Zionism, the Liberal Coloniser and Hegemonic Narratives: A Critique of the Israeli 'New Historians'

6. Decolonising History and Narrating the Subaltern: Palestinian Oral History, Indigenous and Gendered Memories

7. Resisting Memoricide and Reclaiming Memory: The Politics of Nakba Commemoration among Palestinians inside Israel
Epilogue: The Continuity of Trauma 


About the Author
Nur Masalha is Professor of Religion and Politics and Director of the Centre for Religion and History at St. Mary's University College, London, and Professorial Research Associate, Department of History, SOAS. He is also Editor of 'Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal' (published by Edinburgh University Press).