Israel's War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands
The board of directors of Al-Ahram, the most powerful media body in Egypt, has reportedly decided to boycott Israel and Israelis of all positions.
IOA Editor: It is encouraging that such an important Egyptian institution has taken a principled stand, refusing to reward Israel for its aggressive Gaza attack, and for continuing the Occupation, settlement program, and the subjugation of the Palestinian people. Al-Ahram is saying: No normalization under Occupation. Rightly so.
The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.
American policies in the average Lebanese voter’s mind are not exemplified by Obama’s pious pronouncements in Cairo on June 4th, but by a long record of unrestricted support for Israel’s meddling in internal Lebanese affairs and oppression of Palestinians, as well as American alliance with despotic Arab regimes, the devastation of Iraq, and aggressive interventions further East.
The prime minister’s speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush’s “axis of evil.” Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children.
While the Israel Defense Forces calculates how many calories Gaza residents need and strictly regulates the products allowed to enter the Strip, the blockade is giving some Israeli entrepreneurs an opportunity to turn big profits.
IOA Editor: An important investigative report uncovering the many ways in which the Israel economy, and Israeli companies, profit from the Gaza closure.
A large majority of Israeli Jews support military action aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to a survey sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.
Egyptian authorities invite local merchants to participate in auctions of goods confiscated before being smuggled into Gaza. Palestinians furious as they are paying for merchandise they will never receive… Egyptian business sources reported that most of the products offered in the auctions are food products, led by the rice, biscuits, beans, candy and salt. They are followed by household utensils and electrical appliances, including computer equipment.
An American professor has become the first Jew to win the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, popularly known as the ’Arab Nobel Prize.’
“Personally I believe it is better to deal with someone like Lieberman than it is to do deal with someone like [former foreign minister Tzipi] Livni,” Imad Moustapha told CNN on Sunday.
“At least Lieberman is candid. He exactly says what he believes in. Tzipi Livni and her colleagues were talking all the time about their desire to make peace while committing the atrocity in Gaza or doing other similar things in the Palestinian territories.”
Professor Shlomo Sand, the Tel Aviv University history professor and author of a controversial book on the genetic origins of the Jews, this week received a top critics prize from French journalists.
The film is applauded for its courage in confronting a complicity that has long been part of the historical record. This confrontation ends up leading to redemption much more than to condemnation. And hardly anyone suggests that Israel’s current military operations should also be bravely examined. I suppose that we will have to wait for another award-winning film, a quarter-century from now, to do that.
The film “Waltz with Bashir” belongs to the kvetch genre: “Oy, how traumatic that massacre in Sabra and Chatila was for us.” The Jewish Agency is afraid that the tender soul of American Jewry might be hurt by the film and therefore it is offering them psychological relief on the Internet (jewishculture.org).
The PR war being waged by Israel over coverage of its invasion of Gaza is a critical part of maintaining the US public, if not the US government, in a state of maximal ignorance and above all, indifference, to the meaning of what is taking place in Gaza.
Beirut is burning, hundreds of Lebanese die, hundreds of thousands lose all they ever owned and become refugees, and all the world is doing is rescuing the “foreign passport” residents of what was just two weeks ago “the Paris of the Middle East”. Lebanon must die now, because “Israel has the right to defend itself”, so goes the U.S. mantra, used to block any international attempt to impose a cease fire.
NOAM CHOMSKY:
