Tuesday, May 04, 2004

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Israel and Iraq

Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations special envoy to Iraq who composed the UN plan for the handover of power to an Iraqi caretaker government, has come under fire. Reason for this are statements by Brahimi that the mysery in Iraq are linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an interview with a French radio station, Brahimi said that "The problems [Iraq and Israel-Palestinians] are connected. There is no doubt that the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians, as well as the perception of the body of the population in the region and beyond of the injustice of this policy and the equally-unjust support of the UN for this policy." Brahimi stressed that there is a clear connection between the situation in Iraq and Israel's policy.

It is remarkable and revealing that an UN official draws those links and comments on them in a public interview. Of course his remarks were met with scorn by other UN officials, but Brahimi's statements are encouraging for the anti-war movement which has been making those links all along.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

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Israeli Nuke Whistleblower Freed from Prison

Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician who blew the whistle on Israel's secret bomb program, has been freed from prison.

How he was caught.

Monday, March 08, 2004

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March 16 National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie

March 16, 2004 is the one year anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie. Rachel was a 23 year-old U.S. peace activist who was killed by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer while trying to prevent nonviolently the demolition of a Palestinian house in the Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is calling for a national day of action on March 16 to commemorate Rachel, the ideals for which she stood, and the policies that she protested. For more information on Rachel, please see: http://www.rachelcorrie.org.

Monday, December 08, 2003

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The Politics of Anti-Semitism

In the US, there is very little ideological space to criticize the policies of the Israeli government without being labelled anti-Semitic. HIPJ rediscovered this fact some time ago. Apparently, this plague extends to Canada also.

A few months ago, Counterpunch published a book called 'The Politics of Anti-Semitism'. This book contains essays written by Edward Said, Norman Finklestein, Robert Fisk, Alexander Cockburn etc. A self-hating Jew called Jason Sherman reviewed this book for the Toronto Globe and Mail. He reviewed the book favourably. He also reviewed another book called 'The New Anti-Semitism' and slammed it as hysterical because it included statements like:
certain Arab-Muslims are barbaric and primitive; they do not hide their joy when they kill but I do not think that most American or many Jews delight in the death of their enemies in quite the same wa

The editors refused to publish this review. According to Jason, this is the first time a review of his has been turned down.

You can find the entire story here

Saturday, November 22, 2003

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Zmag Article: Letter to a Zionist

In this article, Justin Podur points out that the Occupied Territories are on the verge of a humanitarian disaster as a result of Israel's actions . He speaks about the tremendous human cost of colonialism and argues that we will be responsible for the catastrophe that will take place if the world turns its eyes away from the horrors of the occupation of Palestine.