Archive for September, 2007

Response to UCU cancelling academic boycott UK speaking tour

September 30, 2007 at 9:57 pm · Filed under Boycott and divestment, Israel, Palestine, South Africa, UK

Read complete letter here, excerpts below:

Dear Ms. Hunt,
We have received with dismay, although not entirely with surprise, your letter of September 28, 2007 to members of the delegation of Palestinian academic trade union members informing them of the decision by the University and College Union’s leadership to cancel their speaking tour to the UK to discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their colleagues at universities there. We wish to state clearly that we believe that our British colleagues have been deprived of an opportunity to better inform themselves about an issue which is of concern to conscientious academics and intellectuals the world over. Moreover, we are disappointed to see that the leadership of a prominent organization of academics such as yours has not defended the right of its members to engage in debate on this matter. Open debate and discussion are the foundations of academic freedom, and thus we cannot understand why the door to open consideration of controversial ideas has been so abruptly closed.

We shall continue to pursue other avenues to make our case heard in the academic community in the UK, and shall not be deterred by the cancellation of the invitation extended to us by the UCU. While we do not have the resources of the Israel lobby in the UK, we do think that fair-minded British academics will be willing to listen to our case and give it thoughtful consideration. Truth is stronger than power, and we trust in the integrity of British academics to know that instinctively.

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British Academics drop plans for boycott

September 29, 2007 at 9:48 pm · Filed under Apartheid, Boycott and divestment, Intifada, Israel, Palestine, occupation

A small set back to the global boycott movement against Apartheid Israel, but I’m sure it’ll only drive pro-justice groups to works harder.

 By the way, what happened to the anniversary of the Second Intifada?!  I don’t see/hear any mention of it anywhere?  Even if the recent internal struggle in Palestine has effectively put an end to the Intifada, why can’t we still remember it and remember the thousands who sacrificed their lives for freedom and dignity?

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A debacle by any other name

September 15, 2007 at 1:58 pm · Filed under Iraq, U.S., occupation

By Fawaz Turkey in the Gulf News

 If it looks like a debacle, plays out like a debacle and declares its own form of being as a debacle, then surely it must be one, and no amount of spin will make it otherwise. A debacle by any other name is still a debacle.

The testimony before a congressional committee last week by General David H. Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, the most eagerly awaited since General Westmoreland’s testimony on the “progress” of the war in Vietnam, yielded little beyond the kind of spin that even the most ardent Republican supporters of the American intervention in Iraq will not buy.

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Hezbollah presence in villages exaggerated – concludes HRW report

September 8, 2007 at 12:51 pm · Filed under Hizbullah, Israel, Lebanon, human rights, occupation

Below are excerpts from this article in the Globe and Mail:

Human Rights Watch has condemned Israel over the conduct of last summer’s war in southern Lebanon, saying hundreds of civilian deaths stemmed from its “indiscriminate” air strikes and that evidence of Hezbollah fighters hiding in villages was exaggerated.

In a report that followed a lengthy investigation during and after the war, in which researchers spoke with hundreds of villagers and local officials and even examined tombstones in graveyards, the human-rights organization said they found about 900 civilians died in the 34-day conflict, many of them while hiding in their homes or trying to escape.

Though officials credited Israel for warning civilians to flee ahead of air strikes, they said that was not enough to absolve the army from failing to double-check for a civilian presence in subsequent attacks.

“In pretending they had left, it then lowered the threshold for military attack. It was too ready to pull the trigger,” said the group’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, at a press conference in Jerusalem yesterday. “[It is] a pattern of killing that amounts to indiscriminate fire.”

…But he said the groups of dead brought to hospitals or found in crushed buildings tended to be either all civilians or all combatants, reinforcing the findings that Hezbollah rarely hid among villagers to fire their rockets.

Here to download full HRW report.

I do respect HWR for countering the Israeli myth that Hizbullah fighters were hiding amongst civilians.  However, I am not always fond of HRW (or Amnesty International for that matter) because I do not think the organization accurately depicts some of the conflicts it reports on (Darfur, Lebanon, and Palestine to begin with).  Instead I feel HRW takes a shallow approach and plays into the mainstream media’s biased narratives (knowingly or unknowingly). 

I still continue to read HRW reports; however, I do so with a critical eye.

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Iraqi resistance “Out of the Shadows”

September 5, 2007 at 8:16 pm · Filed under Iran, Iraq, occupation

Excellent article in The Guardian on the true egitimate Iraqi resistance (not the brain washed Al-Qaida supporters nor the instigators of sectarian violence) – excerpts below:

“For four years, the resistance has stayed in the shadows, without a public face and apparently leaderless, while delivering an ever more violent and devastating campaign that has brought the world’s most powerful army to the brink of defeat and changed the balance of global power. As al-Qaida-style suicide atrocities against civilians and Sunni-Shia sectarian death-squad killings have escalated in the past couple of years, they have tended to shift attention away from the guerrilla war against the US and British occupation forces and their client Iraqi army and police. But it is that growing war of attrition – there are now more than 5,000 attacks a month against US forces across Iraq and the past three months have been the bloodiest for US forces since the 2003 invasion (331 deaths and 2,029 wounded) – that has pushed the demand for withdrawal from Iraq to the top of the political agenda in Washington.

We are the only resistance movement in modern history that has received no help or support from any other country,” Omary declares. “The reason is that we are fighting America.” The 1920 Revolution Brigades spokesman is an articulate and sophisticated operator, who – if he survives the counterinsurgency and sectarian onslaught – clearly has the potential to become an influential voice in a future Iraq. “Our position is that there are two kinds of people in Iraq: not Sunni and Shia, Kurdish and Arab, Muslim and Christian, but those who are with the occupation and those who are against it.” Anyone who takes part in the institutions set up by the occupation, such as the government and parliament, army or police, are regarded as collaborators. “Our organisation began its operations in the first days after the invasion and wherever you find the occupation, you will find us: from Mosul, Baghdad and Samarra to Basra, Hillah and Kirkuk,” continues Omary. “Our group has also carried out attacks on British forces in Basra.” They are not a Sunni sectarian organisation, he insists: “The military leader of the Brigades is a Kurd. Iraq is for all Iraqis and we only distinguish between those who cooperate with the occupation and those who do not. If my brother cooperates with the occupation, I will kill him – but the innocent must not be touched.”

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