Keith talks to Jonathan Turley about the ACLU’s request to release the torture memos and on Eric Holder’s supposed assurances to Republican Senators.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
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Countdown: Wiretapping, Torture and Rove Subpoena + Ghost Detainees (updated)
By Geoff McMaster
01.23.2009 | Express News
January 23, 2009 – Edmonton-Israel’s attack on Gaza had little to do with self-defense and everything to do with instilling fear among Palestinian people, says political scientist Norman Finkelstein.
Invited to speak on campus by the Edmonton chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Network, Finkelstein accused Israel of deliberately killing Gaza civilians in order to cement their control over the occupied territory.
He said the incursion was only the latest in a more than 60-year history of “terrorizing the Arab world periodically into submission, and reminding them who is in charge in the Middle East.”
Following its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, Israel was waiting for an opportunity to seek revenge, Finkelstein claimed. It turned to Gaza when “the feebly armed resistance, Hamas, had defiantly resisted Israeli dictate.
[…]
via Controversial scholar slams Israeli ‘massacre’ of Gaza civilians : Information Clearing House – ICH.
Hugo Chavez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Bolivia Rising
Caracas, Jan 27, 2009
The Yes vote triumphed in Bolivia. That is to say, the Bolivian people approved the new political Constitution of the State. I was fortunate to speak with comrade President Evo Morales the same night of the victory.
Evo achieved victory again; and he really deserves it. He has been a great leader; he has withstood all kind of aggressions and conspiracies promoted by the imperialist Bush government, which has used an unpatriotic bourgeoisie and a fascist right-wing movement as its tools.
The vote of the humble people, the indigenous people, and the people excluded for 500 years, prevailed.
However, it is necessary to say that this victory goes beyond Bolivia to enter the historical process described by comrade Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa as a change of time.
In my opinion, this process carries in its backbone a deep social revolution, powerfully expressed in the fields of politics and laws.
This is how a new constitutional doctrine has been emerging in South America, a doctrine based on the original constituent power of our people.
In Venezuela, as we know, once the constituent power was activated, it approved our advanced Bolivarian Constitution on December 15th, 1999, almost ten years ago, thus starting the refoundation of the Republic and the Simon Bolivar National Project and the transition towards socialism.
via Bolivia Rising: Hugo Chavez on Bolivia: The Yes Vote Triumphed.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Wednesday Jan. 28, 2009 05:01 EST
(updated below – Update II)
The Jerusalem Post today reports that, according to a newly released study by Peace Now, “the number of new structures in the West Bank settlements and outposts increased by 69 percent in 2008, compared to 2007” and “the settler population grew from 270,000 in 2007 to 285,000 in 2008.” Earlier this week, the leading candidate to be Israel’s next Prime Minister, Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, said that while he “has no intention of building new settlements in the West Bank,” he “would let Jewish settlements expand in the West Bank if he’s elected prime minister.”
When it comes to explanations about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Americans are typically inundated with reports about the indiscriminate, civilian-targeting violence engaged in by Palestinian religious fanatics and other extremists who oppose the very existence of Israel. But they hear little about their Israeli counterparts — the religious extremists and radical nationalists who, with the tacit and sometimes active support of the Israeli Government and military (funded and armed by the U.S.), continue to take over more and more land in the West Bank, imposing ever-harsher and more oppressive conditions on West Bank Palestinians. All of that is making a two-state solution increasingly difficult to envision, if not close to impossible.
[…]
via The 60 Minutes report on growing West Bank settlements – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
see
60 Minutes: Is Peace Out Of Reach? (video)
Jewish Peace News: Cooperative resistance and criminal repression
The Final Solution is a No-State Solution, by William Bowles
Crossposted with permission from Jewish Peace News
Jewish Peace News
1.28.09
In this posting:
1) Refusing to serve the killing wall and the killing fields;
2) Israeli leaders preparing for possible charges for war crimes
——————————
Refusing to serve the killing wall and the killing fields
In many cases, the English version of Haaretz fails to feature even the highly selective and watered down reports that the Hebrew paper or website carry on oppositional actions inside Israel. The following item, however, according to New Profile activist Haggai Matar, who is quoted in it, was published in English only and will not be printed in Hebrew.
Less visible at present than the recent wholesale killing of children by Israel’s military in Gaza is the ongoing shooting and, often, killing, of activists– including youth and children–in the occupied West Bank. Many such shootings occur in the context of forceful military suppression of resistance to the separation wall, which continues to protect the theft of Palestinian lands, to deny Palestinian livelihoods and basic rights. And yet, in face of violent repression, the movement resisting the wall continues to create and maintain close ties and cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis.
Many of the younger Israeli activists against the wall are also draft resisters, refusing to comply with the law requiring them to serve in the military that forcefully imposes the policies and measures they are struggling to stop. Some of these young people are imprisoned for their refusal and JPN has reported on the most recent group of high school seniors (“Shministim”) who are currently taking this stand.
Warning
.
This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute
“Time for Palestinians and Israelis to Make Peace,” IBA TV, Israel
“Why Did Obama Choose Al Arabiya TV for 1st Official Interview,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“George Mitchel Arrives in Cairo,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Attacks Flare Up Between Hamas & Israel,” Saudi TV, Saudi Arabia
“Canadians Demonstrate for Gaza,” Al-Alam TV, Iran
“Israel Prepares for Legal Battle Over War Crimes,” New TV, Lebanon
“Iran’s New Budget Depends Less on Oil Revenues,”Press TV, Iran
“A Look at Al Qaeda in Maghreb,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“Palestinian Artists Overcome Disability,” Qatar TV, Qatar
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.
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Barack Obama on Dandelion Salad
By William Bowles
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
28 January 2009
It was either in 1941 or maybe 1942 that the Nazis implemented the ‘Final Solution’, the extermination of all ‘non-Aryan’ peoples that included not only the Jews but also the Roma and the Serbs. So the term Holocaust is not copyright © the Jewish ‘race’ in spite of their appropriation of the Upper case.
The numbers are not important, let the historians and researchers argue over whether it was five or six million Jews or whether it was half-a-million or two million Roma who ‘went up the chimney’[1] (I don’t have a number for the Serbs, but perhaps a million died at the hands of the Croatian Ustase, the local Nazis in the then Yugoslavia, as well as at the hands of German Nazi occupiers).
What is important about the ‘Final Solution’ is that it was a state-sponsored project to not only entirely eradicate ‘non-Aryans’ but to erase all traces of their existence; their history, their cultures and languages, what today we call genocide. An apt lesson for the creation of the state of Israel, that for its creation, also required the total removal of all things non-Jewish.
The parallels with the Nazi state are so obvious yet not alluded to at all in the current tragedy of the Palestinian people, but Eretz (Greater) Israel flows from the same source, the imperial urge to expand and subdue, to exterminate all that is non ‘Jewish’ in the land that is Palestine.
Medical Aid for Palestinians – (MAP)
27 January 2009
Watch at: Medical Aid for Palestinians
At a high profile dinner in London on the 25th of January MAP launched an ‘Emergency Gaza Appeal’ advert.
Compiled from footage taken on the ground in Gaza during the recent crisis, the film shows us glimpses of hope amid scenes of devestation, bleakness and despair.
To use this video please contact us on 0207 226 4114 or email James@map-uk.org
Juliet Stevenson (Narrator); David Foster (Editor); Tomo Brody (Director); Tamara Ben-Halim (Assistant Director).
We would like to thank Al-Jazeera for providing us with video footage.
h/t: Creative-i
see
Banned from the BBC – Gaza Aid Appeal Video + George Galloway at Protest for Gaza
Jewish Peace News: Henry Siegman: “Israel’s Lies”
Gaza: The Facts Are Insufficiently Impartial + Tony Benn DEC appeal on News 24
Dandelion Salad 