Musings by Shahidul Alam
Israel and Hamas have significantly moderated their attitudes towards one another despite official denials. Indirect talks in Cairo designed to achieve a lasting ceasefire between the two war weary parties effectively constitute negotiations about the parameters of a potential future peace agreement. Continue reading “Behind the Gaza ceasefire Israel and Hamas talk potential peace”
You take my water
Burn my olive tree
Destroy my house
Take my job
Steal my land
Imprison my father
Kill my mother
Bomb my country
Starve us all
Humiliate us all
BUT
I am to blame: I shot a rocket back
All forms of political media — in print, on line, on the air — have been awash in recent weeks with retrospectives on the tenth anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Amidst the mountainous heap of drivel and falsehood such an occasion inevitably produces among the vast and vapid army of analysts who happily spend their days chewing the cud of whatever happens to be the conventional wisdom of the day, there have been a few outstanding pieces that put this continuing war crime in stark perspective. Continue reading “Barbarian Rhapsody: Ten Years Deeper Into Hell: Iraq”
Ramallah, occupied Palestinian territories –?A dirty mattress fills up a space barely two metres long and?one metre wide. A suffocating stench emanating from the toilet hovers over the windowless room, and a light turned on 24/7 means sleep is a distant dream. This is the infamous Cell 36 in Al Jalameh Prison in Israel. It’s one of the cells that many Palestinian children have either heard of or, worse, been inside when placed in solitary confinement.
Continue reading “Palestinian children 'abused' in Israeli jail”
The first thing I saw last month when I walked into the belly of the dark grey C-17 Air Force cargo plane was a void — something missing. A missing left arm, to be exact, severed at the shoulder, temporarily patched and held together.? Thick, pale flesh, flecked with bright red at the edges. It looked like meat sliced open. The face and what remained of the rest of the man were obscured by blankets, an American flag quilt, and a jumble of tubes and tape, wires, drip bags, and medical monitors.
That man and two other critically wounded soldiers — one with two stumps where legs had been, the other missing a leg below the thigh — were intubated, unconscious, and lying on stretchers hooked to the walls of the plane that had just landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. A tattoo on the soldier?s remaining arm read, ?DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.?
Continue reading “The Lily-Pad Strategy”
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits.
Today, my body was a TV’d massacre that had to fit into sound-bites and word limits filled enough with statistics to counter measured response.
And I perfected my English and I learned my UN resolutions.
But still, he asked me, Ms. Ziadah, don’t you think that everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?
Pause. Continue reading “'We teach life, sir'”
Ikhras, the Arabic word for “shut up”, is the name of a website http://ikhras.com/ which nominates a House Arab or a House Muslim every month, for having earned the glory of receiving the hurled at shoe, so that he does… well, precisely that. Shuts up.
Exactly what Muntadhar al-Zaidi had done to former US president George W. Bush Jr to get him to Ikhras!
Bush, while on his fourth visit to Iraq as the sitting president, was addressing a press conference at the prime minister’s palace in Baghdad (December 14, 2008). He spoke of having built “a freer, safer, and more hopeful world.” Of having shown the people in the Middle East that “America stands firmly for liberty and justice and peace.” Of having ensured that the next US president would inherit a “stable foundation for the future.”?Whoosh. “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog,” al-Zaidi yelled, as he flung the first shoe.
The second followed, within split seconds. “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”
But Ikhras’ monthly shoe awards, as its mission statement pronounces,? is not for white oppressors but for House Arabs and House Muslims. Its editors draw on Malcolm X, Black American revolutionary leader, who, in these memorable words had distinguished between Field Negroes and House Negroes in a powerful speech in 1964 (the video has been uploaded on Ikhras’ website):
“Back during slavery, when Black people like me talked to the slaves, they didn’t kill ’em, they sent some old house Negro along behind him to undo what he said. You have to read the history of slavery to understand this. There were two kinds of Negroes. There was that old house Negro and the field Negro.? The house Negro always looked out for his master. When the field Negroes got too much out of line, he held them back in check. He put them back on the plantation. The house Negro lived better than the field Negro. He ate better, he dressed better, and he lived in a better house. He ate the same food as his master and wore his same clothes. And he could talk just like his master — good diction. And he loved his master more than his master loved himself. If the master got hurt, he’d say: “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” When the master’s house caught afire, he’d try and put out the fire. He didn’t want his master’s house burnt. He never wanted his master’s property threatened. And he was more defensive of it than his master was. That was the house Negro. Continue reading “'Ikhras', inspired by Muntadhar al-Zaidi, Malcolm X”
Photo Accurate, Israel Lied Says French News Agency
Editor?s Note: Israel Caught Lying About Apartheid Abuse:
?Following the surfacing of the photos, the Israeli Embassy in Washington had asked all American newspapers ?to consider ceasing to publish the photographs of Hazem Bader,? claiming both the caption and the photo of the injured worker were untrue and ?perhaps staged.?
AFP (Agence France-Presse) agency responded to criticism over a Jan. 25 photo showing an Israeli Army soldier driving a truck over the leg of an injured Palestinian construction worker, saying both the story and photo were valid.
A recent press release by the news agency said ?after several days of thorough research […] AFP wishes to confirm the veracity of both the picture and the accompanying photo caption.?
Confirmed as Accurate, Evidence of Criminal Assault Continue reading “Israel, Suppressed Story Verified”