Nov

28

Around the Corner…The Annapolis Summit

November 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Annapolis is “around the corner” from Alexandria, Virginia– where I live. For some reason, I don’t think I’ll be telling my children one day that I lived only miles away from where a historic peace deal was signed. Excuse my cynicism please, but I would rather not see a Palestinian state than see Bushboy claim that not only did he help “invent” the WWW, but the modern Palestinian state as well.

Let’s be a little realistic here, what kind of state are we talking about? A patchy piece of land with flimsy borders and no state security force to protect it? A “state” that has no control over its own water resources and no access to its historic capital city? A “state” whose population is living outside its borders waiting for the international community to recognize their right to go back home?

I consider myself open minded. Can one convince me that Israel will halt settlement activity after such an agreement is signed? Can one assure me that walls will not be extended and land will not be stolen anymore? Can one convince me that Israel will respect the sovereignty of a Palestinian ’state’ and put an end to decades of occupation and humiliation? I really would love to be convinced.

Bushboy talked about democracy quite a bit in Annapolis. He must’ve chocked on another pretzel and temporarily lost his memory. He forgot that Palestinians, despite having no ’state’, went to the polls last January and voted for change. Bushboy and the international community decided that those darn Palestinians simply crossed the line by deciding to vote out the corrupt cronies of Fatah. They deserved to be starved.

In Annapolis, Olmert came to make peace…”We want peace. We demand an end to terror, an end to incitement and to hatred. We are prepared to make a painful compromise, rife with risks, in order to realize these aspirations...”

What compromises do you speak of, Mr. Olmert? Giving back the land the whole international community says you are illegally occupying? You come to Annapolis with nothing to lose, everything to gain. As your countryman Gideon Levy says, “just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.” Please Mr. Olmert, spare us, this speech has been recycled ad nauseum.

For more interesting commentary on Annapolis, here is Laila El-Haddad from Gaza:

So then what are people’s expectations in Gaza from all of this?

In short, not much. But then, if history has taught them anything, it’s that they never have much of a say in anything that involves their destiny, be it Madrid or Oslo or the Road Map. And the moment they do attempt to take control, the repercussions are to “teach” them never to attempt to do so again.

To quote Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, “The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!”

The stage has been set, the roles are the same, but the actors have been switched. That is the feeling of many in Gaza.

[full article]

And Gideon Levy’s piece is definitely worth a read:

No one is talking about morality anymore. Justice is also an archaic concept, a taboo that has deliberately been erased from all negotiations. Two and a half million people - farmers, merchants, lawyers, drivers, daydreaming teenage girls, love-smitten men, old people, women, children and combatants using violent means for a just cause - have all been living under a brutal boot for 40 years. Meanwhile, in our cafes and living rooms the conversation is over giving or not giving.

[full article]

Nov

20

Palestinian Cancer Patient, Prevented from Crossing Border, Dies

November 20, 2007 | 2 Comments

Straight from “the only democracy in the Middle East”, with the best human rights record:

This past weekend, a Gaza cancer patient named Nail al-Kurdi, 20, waiting since July for permission to cross into Israel for treatment, died of his illness. For five months, officials of the Shin Bet security service received request after request from Physicians for Human Rights, asking that they grant al-Kurdi a permit to be treated in Israel.

Request after request was denied. The stated reason? Security. In July, he was referred to Ichilov hospital for urgent diagnostic procedures. As the refusals mounted, his cancer spread. In a case involving al-Kurdi and a number of other seriously ailing Palestinians denied travel requests for treatment, the physicians group appealed the Shin Bet refusals to the High Court. The court allowed prosecutors an extension in the case to allow them to study it further. Al-Kurdi did not survive the extension.

Maybe if al-Kurdi had some juicy info for Shin Beit, he would’ve been allowed to cross…or wait, that doesn’t help either…

Consider the case of Y.H., a 37-year-old Gazan in need of open-heart surgery. By contrast to al-Kurdi, the Shin Bet granted Y.H. an exit permit, so that he could travel to the West Bank city of Nablus for the operation. According to the physicians group, when he came to Erez Crossing to leave Gaza, Shin Bet agents called him aside for interrogation.

“If you help us we will help you,” Y.H. quoted the agent as telling him, adding that the Shin Bet man asked him to provide information about his acquaintances.

The physicians group said that when Y.H. replied that he had no such information, “the interrogator said ‘If you don’t help up we won’t help you. Go and die in Gaza.’ He sent him back home, promising that he would never leave Gaza.” [full article]

If your heart is still rock hard and this story didn’t move you, maybe putting a face on this name would help.

[h/t: Sabbah]

Nov

11

Seriously Now, NO to Guiliani

November 11, 2007 | 3 Comments

Jokes aside (re my last post), Guiliani should be a serious concern for any American who believes in the values and ideals of this country. He contradicts all of them, and will only take our country down a more horrifying path than Dubya (I know it’s hard to imagine something worse).

I stand in solidarity with the “United Against a Presidential Nightmare” blog campaign…”NeO to Guiliani”… because this is what he’s really all about:

  1. All Americans can agree on this, regardless of your political leanings. Rudy is not a true conservative, and he is definitely not a liberal. He jumps into any camp that befits his political expediency.
  2. He is a one-issue candidate: 9/11. He has exploited this tragedy beyond human decency and using it to cover up his lack of solid credentials and qualifications to be an effective President.
  3. He has surrounded himself with the neoconservative click that is bent on world domination via unilateralism.
  4. His team consists of the same people responsible for the Iraqi war and will likely take us to war in Iran soon if Giuliani takes over.
  5. His neocon team are constitution-phobes and Islamophobes. They will hastily discard constitutional rights of people in the name of “protecting” Americans.
  6. His team is more right-wing and more hawkish than even the right-wing Likud party of Israel, and will make every effort to destroy any chance of achieving lasting peace in the Middle East.

If you believe that America deserves better than this, please blog this post.

Nov

9

All Hail Giuliani

November 9, 2007 | 3 Comments

Did I ever mention how much I love elections in the US? No, not because I’m a student of politics and international affairs and I believe in the power of the people. Because they’re so freakin’ entertaining! I mean, who needs reality TV when you have an election between a member of the Clinton royal family, Barack Osama Obama, Mr. War on Islam Terror, and Mr. Vietnam Victim Hero?! Can someone sponsor this so it can commercial-free?

You definitely don’t want to miss the latest episode:

Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson?

…

Yesterday, Robertson said that America’s Mayor had won him over because “to me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.” (So much for judicial activism.) “Our second goal should be the control of massive government waste and crushing federal deficits.”

Now this is the part that I have never been able to get. When did government spending become part of the divine agenda? Is there something in the Bible about smiting down federal bureaucrats?

fulll article

Nov

8

“Mushy” and the Pakistan Chaos

November 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I don’t know if I can say anything that hasn’t already been said about the state of chaos in Pakistan that was declared by Dictator Mushy this past week. It just seems like a bad rerun.

Dictator comes to power by force. 9/11 attacks. US invades Afghanistan. US befriends and props foreign dictator (a la Cold War ‘anti-Communist’ dictators) against will of the people. Dictator becomes more ruthless, seeks US support (to the tune of $10 billion). US provides money for crackdown on “terrorists”. Unusual wave of “random” violence in foreign country. Dictator holds on to power with all his might. Dictator imposes martial law so he won’t have to step down. Citizens protest, demands for freedom and rights fall on deaf ears. US says “bad boy, dont’ do that Mushy…now we’ll have to take away that money (for a day) just to show the world that we really do care about democracy“.

Yes, it’s just a rerun of a really badly produced 100 year old freak show. Nothing new here. Moving right along.

For some real entertainment though, check out Bush’s latest speech in regards to Musharraf’s recent state of emergency declaration courtesy of the brilliant Maureen Dowd at the NYT:

Once I thought my daddy was a wimp for cuddlin’ up real close with dictators, tradin’ stability for freedom. But now I gotta admit, that’s a darn fair trade. As I told Mushy last night on that cool, high-tech videophone I got in the Sit Room, the best hope for expanding peace is expanding dictators.

In America’s ideal of freedom, we are ennobled by a heart for the weak. But we must also have a heart for the strongmen.

Sometimes when the soul of a nation speaks, we must listen. But if that soul is housed in a bunch of trial lawyers wearing identical dark suits and calling my man Mushy a “dog,” I say, bring on the batons. Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform, which I support.

Those lawyers should be in jail. Mushy told me they were reckonin’ to represent Osama when General-General catches him. Which will be any day now. He’s a man of his word.

I don’t blame Mushy for dissolving that disloyal Supreme Court. When I needed to subvert the democratic process during the 2000 recount, my Supreme Court was totally supportive.

House arrest for that fired chief justice sounds very relaxin’, especially if he’s got a feather pillow.

full article

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