Phyllis Bennis, Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, says that public discourse about Israeli war crimes is a breakthrough, as soldiers speak.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Anti-Zionist riots in Sweden
MALMO, Sweden -- Dozens of rock-throwing anti-Israel activists clashed with police Saturday [7 March] in an attempt to storm a closed arena where Sweden and Israel were playing a Davis Cup tennis match. More
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Russell Tribunal on Palestine launched
Press Release
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was launched today at a press conference chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators, Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg and Nurit Peled, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed the history and reasons on why they called for the creation of this Tribunal. Speaking for the Organising Committee, the former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand explained how it will work. Amongst more than a hundred international personalities who have given their support to this Tribunal, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Raji Surani, Jean Ziegler, François Rigaux, Jean Salmon and François Maspero were present to give encouragement.In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative that aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine will base its work on Experts’ and Witnesses’ Committees that will establish the facts and build up the legal arguments that will be presented to the Tribunal. National Support Committees will contribute to the preparation of experts’ reports, promote popular mobilisation and media coverage and participate in fundraising. We can already count on strong support from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Lebanon, Algeria, Australia, Italy, South Africa, Egypt and, of course, from Israel and Palestine. Further contacts are under way for the creation of such Committees in other countries and continents.
Once the accusation has been fully prepared and the witnesses summoned, the sessions of the Tribunal will be organised at the beginning of 2010 in several major capitals. A jury made up of well-known personalities who are respected for their high moral standing will consider the reports and hear the witnesses for and against.
The jury will announce its conclusions which, we are persuaded, will attract widespread international public and political support, thereby contributing to a just and durable peace in the Middle East.
Contact
Tel / fax: + 32 (0)2 2310174
Mobile: + 32 (0) 479 12 95 32
Email: trp_int@yahoo.com
Website: www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Announcement
Changes to Redress Information & Analysis
We would like to inform readers of Redress Information & Analysis that we have made the following changes to our website.(1) We have created a new section called "Stooges" to highlight the influence of Israel's lobbyists and agents of influence throughout the world, especially in Britain and the United States. You can access this section by clicking on the "Stooges" tab at the top of the website. The section brings together articles we have already published on the power of Israel's lobbyists, and we shall add to it as we receive new information to help us expose the influence of friends of Israel
worldwide.
(2) We have replaced our Alerts and Contacts sections with a new section called "About". Again, you can find this by clicking on the eponymous tab at the top of the website. The new "About" section contains information on the following:
- Who we are
- Coverage
- Editorial standards
- Our contributors
- How to submit material for publication
- Copyright
- Free subscription and
- Our contact details.
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Free Gaza Movement – breaking the medieval siege
The Free Gaza Movement is a human rights group that in August 2008 sent the first international boats to land in the port of Gaza in 41 years. We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
The 2009 elections: a new stage in the isolation of Israel
From Yossi Schwartz, an Israeli anti-Zionist left-wing activist:
Yossi Schwartz argues that the recent Israeli parliamentary elections marks the final death of the Israeli left, which has been one of the pillars of occupation and ethnic cleansing, and usher in a new stage in the isolation of Zionism and Israel.
The result of the elections in Israel signal the death of “left Zionism” and the victory of the right and the extreme right.
Accordong to Israeli journalist and “left-wing” commentator Gideon Levi,
What is Zionism nowadays? An archaic and outdated concept born in a different age, a vague and delusive ideology occupying a grey area between the permitted and the proscribed. Does Zionism mean settlement in the territories? Occupation? The legitimization of every act of violence and injustice? The left stammered. Any statement critical of Zionism, even the Zionism of the occupation, was considered a taboo that the left did not dare break. The right grabbed a monopoly on Zionism, leaving the left with its self-righteousness.
A Jewish and democratic state? The Zionist left said yes automatically, fudging the difference between the two and not daring to make either a priority. The legitimization of every war? The Zionist left stammered again -- yes to the beginning and no to the continuation, or something like that. Solving the refugee problem and the right of return? Acknowledgement of the wrongdoing of 1948? Unmentionable. This left has now, rightly, reached the end of its road
The point that Levi fails to grasp is that there was never a different left in Zionism. There was never a possibility to build in Palestine a Jewish state without expelling most of the Palestinians and stealing their land. Nor could a genuine left in Israel accept the concept of two states because two states would be based on the continuation of the evils of 1947-48.
The death of Meretz is ominous for the future of Hadash and Gush Shalom, both of which hold on to the Zionist state and thereby perform the role of loyal opposition.
There is a future for Palestinians who must struggle to survive. There is a future for the Jews who want to live in this country as equals and not as colonialists. It is a future of joining the Arab working class revolution that will form in this country a Palestinian workers’ republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East.
Zionism belongs to the dustbin of history. Yes, it can still make wars and kill many Palestinian children. But it is doomed, just as other, similar ideologies that existed in other places were doomed.
These days opposition to Zionism is growing all over the world. It is not any more the radicalized middle class alone that opposes Zionism but also a growing movement within the working classes, in the trade union movements in South Africa and Australia, Canada and Ireland.
The next government in Israel is likely to be of the right and the extreme fascist right. It will be a government that openly stands for a new war and more settlements, more stealing of the land and more brutality. It will a government that will isolate the Zionist state as never before.
On the surface, the recent elections make it look as if nothing new happened in the political landscape of Israel. Yet, they mark a new stage in the growing isolation of Israel in the region and in the entire world.
Yossi Schwartz argues that the recent Israeli parliamentary elections marks the final death of the Israeli left, which has been one of the pillars of occupation and ethnic cleansing, and usher in a new stage in the isolation of Zionism and Israel.
The result of the elections in Israel signal the death of “left Zionism” and the victory of the right and the extreme right.
Accordong to Israeli journalist and “left-wing” commentator Gideon Levi,
The Israeli left died in 2000. Since then its corpse has been lying around unburied until, finally, its death certificate was issued, signed, sealed and delivered on Tuesday [10 February]. The hangman of 2000 was also the gravedigger of 2009: Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The man who succeeded in spreading the lie about there being no partner for peace has reaped the fruit of his deeds in this election. The funeral was held two days ago.We can agree with Levi that the Zionist left, including Meretz, deserve their death; they brought it onto themselves, but not in the last decade as Gideon claims. The very concept of “left Zionism” was a fraud from the very beginning. It was the Zionist left who raised the racist slogans “Jewish Labour” and “Redemption of the land”, anti-Arab worker and peasant slogans aimed at expelling Arab workers and of stealing the land of the peasants. It was the Zionist left that helped the British break and destroy the 1936-39 Palestinian uprising. It was the Zionist left that committed as many massacres as the right against the Arabs in 1947-48 in the &&i&Nakba&. It was the Zionist left who planned the war and occupation of 1967.
The Israeli left is dead. For the past nine years it took the name of the peace camp in vain. The Labour Party, Meretz and Kadima had pretensions of speaking in its name, but that was trickery and deceit. Labour and Kadima made two wars and continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank; Meretz supported both wars. Peace has been left an orphan. The Israeli voters, who have been misled into thinking that there is no one to talk to and that the only answer to this is force -- wars, targeted killings and settlements -- have had their say clearly in the election: a closing-down sale for Labour and Meretz. It was only the force of inertia that gave these parties the few votes they won.
What is Zionism nowadays? An archaic and outdated concept born in a different age, a vague and delusive ideology occupying a grey area between the permitted and the proscribed. Does Zionism mean settlement in the territories? Occupation? The legitimization of every act of violence and injustice? The left stammered. Any statement critical of Zionism, even the Zionism of the occupation, was considered a taboo that the left did not dare break. The right grabbed a monopoly on Zionism, leaving the left with its self-righteousness.
A Jewish and democratic state? The Zionist left said yes automatically, fudging the difference between the two and not daring to make either a priority. The legitimization of every war? The Zionist left stammered again -- yes to the beginning and no to the continuation, or something like that. Solving the refugee problem and the right of return? Acknowledgement of the wrongdoing of 1948? Unmentionable. This left has now, rightly, reached the end of its road
The point that Levi fails to grasp is that there was never a different left in Zionism. There was never a possibility to build in Palestine a Jewish state without expelling most of the Palestinians and stealing their land. Nor could a genuine left in Israel accept the concept of two states because two states would be based on the continuation of the evils of 1947-48.
The death of Meretz is ominous for the future of Hadash and Gush Shalom, both of which hold on to the Zionist state and thereby perform the role of loyal opposition.
There is a future for Palestinians who must struggle to survive. There is a future for the Jews who want to live in this country as equals and not as colonialists. It is a future of joining the Arab working class revolution that will form in this country a Palestinian workers’ republic as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East.
Zionism belongs to the dustbin of history. Yes, it can still make wars and kill many Palestinian children. But it is doomed, just as other, similar ideologies that existed in other places were doomed.
These days opposition to Zionism is growing all over the world. It is not any more the radicalized middle class alone that opposes Zionism but also a growing movement within the working classes, in the trade union movements in South Africa and Australia, Canada and Ireland.
The next government in Israel is likely to be of the right and the extreme fascist right. It will be a government that openly stands for a new war and more settlements, more stealing of the land and more brutality. It will a government that will isolate the Zionist state as never before.
On the surface, the recent elections make it look as if nothing new happened in the political landscape of Israel. Yet, they mark a new stage in the growing isolation of Israel in the region and in the entire world.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Israel lobbyist Denis McShane passes wind
Labour MP Denis McShane has written a report attacking the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, for “demonstrat[ing] a preoccupation with humanizing Palestinian perspectives”. Click here to read further.
A rabid Zionist and shameless Israel lobbyist, McShane would rather the media dehumanize all victims of Israeli crimes, as if the media don't dehumanize them enough, presumably by labelling them "terrorists" or "targets".
For those who don't remember McShane's own colourful past, he used to be a BBC reporter but was sacked for dishonesty – fabricating an interview!
Not to worry, if he keeps up his warped Zionist tirade against Mr Bowen, there's a good chance that the BBC and its feeble, pro-Zionist director-general, Mark Thompson, would sack Mr Bowen and maybe even appoint the Zionist nincompoop McShane in his place.
A rabid Zionist and shameless Israel lobbyist, McShane would rather the media dehumanize all victims of Israeli crimes, as if the media don't dehumanize them enough, presumably by labelling them "terrorists" or "targets".
For those who don't remember McShane's own colourful past, he used to be a BBC reporter but was sacked for dishonesty – fabricating an interview!
Not to worry, if he keeps up his warped Zionist tirade against Mr Bowen, there's a good chance that the BBC and its feeble, pro-Zionist director-general, Mark Thompson, would sack Mr Bowen and maybe even appoint the Zionist nincompoop McShane in his place.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
