Topic(s): Palestine / Israel
Date Posted: 08.27.05

The remaining 99.5 percent
By Amira Hass
"I want to ask you as a Jew to a Jewess," the young man said a few days ago. In these days, a beginning such as this invites a dialogue of the kind in which we have been drowning for several weeks now - a dialogue in which the definition "Jew" has been appropriated to describe some type of unique entity, one that is set apart from the other human species, a superior one. Sometimes it's the Jewish boy with his arms raised from the Warsaw Ghetto; sometimes it's the young girl whose orange shirt bears the slogan, "We won't forget and we won't forgive;" and sometimes it's the soldier who refuses to evacuate a Jew. A unique entity of ties of blood, sacredness and land.
"As a Jew to a Jewess," said the young man, who turned out to be a tourist from South America who has family in Israel and also understands Hebrew. It was at the Erez crossing, among the barbed-wire fencing, the locked gates, the revolving gates, the intimidating guard towers, the soldiers using special cameras to keep an eye on the handful of individuals passing through, and the booming loudspeakers through which they bark out their orders in Hebrew to women who have been waiting in the heat for five hours to go visit their sons imprisoned at the Be'er Sheva jail.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Palestine / Israel
Date Posted: 08.27.05

Conscientious Objectors to serving the occupation
in/out of military prison update

Orwa Zidan was released from military jail # 4 last week after finishing his imprisonment term. A few days later, on Sunday August 21 he presented himself at the national conscription center near Tel Aviv and announced again that he refuses to be enlisted for regular mandatory service in the IDF.
Orwa was sentenced to another term of 21 days in military jail and was sent to prison # 4 where he met briefly with refusers Shaul Mograbi-Berger and Alex Cohn. This is Orwa’s second round in military prison.
Wissam Qablan who was in military jail # 6 was also released having finished his imprisonment term. When leaving jail Wissam was ordered to present himself at the national conscription center in order to be enlisted to the IDF.
Until this update Wissam has already been imprisoned for more than ??? days for refusing to be enlisted.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Intellectual Property
Date Posted: 08.23.05

[via: commons Law ]

Monday, August 15, 2005
by: Mohamad Mova Al 'Afghani

One important matter contained within fatwas (edicts) recently issued
Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) is the judgment that Intellectual Property
(IP) violations are haram. This conclusion means that utilizing IP without a
right is a violation of God's prescribed law and thus a sinful thing to do
for a Muslim. MUI's argument is that Islamic law protects the rights and
property of individuals and that Intellectual Property is also a form of
property that is protected under Islamic law.

This is exactly the point at which MUI's argument could be mistaken.

Prior to issuing such an edict, the MUI should have investigated whether the
concept of Intellectual Property is in fact a sui generis (unique, peculiar)
Islamic concept. This is done by finding justifications in primary sources of
Islamic law, which are the Koranic verses and hadith. It is certain that the
MUI will find abundant verses and hadith stating that an individual's
property must be protected.

However, it is quite certain that they will hardly find any verses or hadith
that states that knowledge or ideas are protected under Islamic law. What
they will surely find in those sources is that all knowledge belongs to God
and that knowledge seeking and knowledge sharing is an obligation for all
Muslims.

Under old Islamic customs there was a system of knowledge acknowledgement
known as ijaza (certificate). If a person is to teach, quote or reproduce a
certain knowledge, then he or she must obtain an ijaza from the author. This
system of a chain of authority is designed to ensure authenticity in the
passing of knowledge from one person to another, and also as a form of
respect for authors.

Certainly, this kind of system was not created for financial benefit but
rather for the sanctity of science. It only protects the moral right of an
author to a certain degree. The knowledge itself belongs to God, not to any
individual. The ijaza system certainly is not a form of copyright.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Palestine / Israel
Date Posted: 08.23.05

The Palestinian-Israeli peace process and transnational issue networks: The
complicated place of the Israeli NGO.

By Richard Rogers and Anat Ben-David

The study investigates the potential consequences of the predominance of the
human rights frame in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The human rights
framing of issues is increasingly prevalent amongst actors working in
transnational advocacy networks, often collaborating or aligned with
Palestinian groups. Indeed, especially on the Internet, official Palestinian
bodies have assumed a style of communication of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), blurring the Palestinian official positioning (and its
styling, or "formatting") with that of the transnational advocacy stance
(and its look).

On the Israeli side, there is little blurring of the line between the
official and the unofficial, albeit with a pitched terminological (and
policy-related) battle underway between the left and the right to frame the
purpose of particular measures, such as the "security fence" (to the
right-of-center actors) and the "separation fence" (to the left-of-center).
Whether it is for security or for separation (a distinction that is
crucial), the term "fence," it is argued, stands in for a regional approach
to conflict mitigation, where the connotation could be 'neighborly.' To use
the term "wall" is to frame the conflict in the language of human rights.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Interviews
Date Posted: 08.22.05

Paul Virilio, urbanist and militant, lives in Paris. He has published, among other works, Speed and Politics, War and Cinema, Pure War (with Sylvère Lotringer), Popular Defense & Ecological Struggles, The Aesthetics of Disappearance, The Vision Machine, The Art of the Motor, Open Sky, and The Politics of the Very Worst. Reviews of The Art of the Motor and Open Sky by James Der Derian and Ian R. Douglas respectively appear in the dialogues directory of this site. Virilio is currently working on two projects: a book his notion of "the accident", and a book on media and Kosovo. He is best known as the protagonist of what he calls "dromology"; the science of, and study of speed.

by Jérôme Sans

JÉRÔME SANS: The contemporary world is witnessing a great evolution of the society of leisure. With home shopping and Pay TV, video games and virtual reality, we are developing a full-fledged aesthetics of play.

PAUL VIRILIO: Two attitudes are possible with respect to these new technologies: one declares them a miracle; the other—mine—recognizes that they are interesting while maintaining a critical attitude. The imminent home installation of domestic simulators and virtual space rooms for game-playing, poses many questions, and in particular this one: "What is a game once the virtual invades reality?"

There are two ways of understanding the notion of play: playing cards, dominos, checkers; or the play of a mechanical part when it is loose in its housing. I think, in fact, that the second is the angle from which we should envision play today. Play is not something that brings pleasure; on the contrary, it expresses a shift in reality, an unaccustomed mobility with respect to reality. To play today, in a certain sense, means to choose between two realities. A concrete factual reality: meet someone, love that person, make love to that person. Or, the game reality: use the technologies of cybersex to meet that person from a distance, without touching or risk of contamination, contact without contact.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Iran
Date Posted: 08.20.05

More Media Lies About Iran
by Gordon Prather

August 16, 2005
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=6961

According to Reuters' Louis Charbonneau – a neo-crazy media sycophant
if ever there was one – those despicable Iranians "broke UN seals at
a uranium processing plant" last week.

According to Charbonneau, the International Atomic Energy Agency
"put on the seals after Tehran agreed with the European Union's
biggest powers to halt all nuclear fuel work last November to ease
tensions after the IAEA found Iran had hidden weapons-grade highly
enriched uranium."

"Tehran defied EU warnings [that] it could now be referred to the UN
Security Council for possible sanctions for having kept its uranium
enrichment work secret for years – until it was found out in 2002 –
breaking the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Iran
Date Posted: 08.20.05

Comment & Analysis: How Bush would gain from war with Iran: The US has the capability and reasons for an assault - and it is hard to see Britain uninvolved
By DAN PLESCH

The Guardian - United Kingdom; Aug 15, 2005

President Bush has reminded us that he is prepared to take military
action to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. On Israeli television
this weekend, he declared that "all options are on the table" if
Tehran doesn't comply with international demands.

In private his officials deride EU and UN diplomacy with Iran. US
officials have been preparing pre-emptive war since Bush marked
Iran out as a member of the "axis of evil" back in 2002. Once again,
this war is likely to have British support.

A plausible spin could be that America and Britain must act where
the international community has failed, and that their action is
the responsible alternative to an Israeli attack. The conventional
wisdom is that, even if diplomacy fails, the US is so bogged down
in Iraq that it could not take on Iran. However, this misunderstands
the capabilities and intentions of the Bush administration.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Iran
Date Posted: 08.20.05

Ed. Note: The operative response to a question of how, in the most "benign" way war gets mobilized!
-rg

The military strike option against Iran

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0817/dailyUpdate.html

The military strike option against Iran

Experts disagree about possible effect of US or Israeli preemptive strike on
Iranian nuclear facilities.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Iran once again says it will resume its nuclear program, despite
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)concerns. Iran claims its
interest in nuclear power is entirely for peaceful purposes.

Last week US President George Bush said during an interview on Israeli
TV that "all options are on the table," including a possible military
strike against Iran's nuclear facilities by US or Israeli forces,
if Iran doesn't "comply with international standards."

When it comes to relations between Iran and the US, an editorial in
the Daily Times of Pakistan notes that "the normal rules don't apply"
because of the acrimonious history that stretches over the past 26
years, when Iranian militants held US diplomats hostage for more than
a year.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): 
Date Posted: 08.20.05

Help /leftbooks.com/ Support
Camp Casey!

Action Alert!!
All /leftbooks.com/ proceeds from now until
Saturday, August 21st go towards Camp Casey -/ /Ouch!!

One woman after another was thrown off the bus in Montgomery, Alabama
because they dared rest their weary muscles while a white person stood
waiting for their seat. In Jim Crow Montgomery this was a white person's
birth right. But, one too many insults against Black women turned a stir
into a rolling boil and forced one woman to represent and open up a
struggle that was a powerful spark for the civil rights movement. Her
name was Rosa Parks.

They say that history repeats itself, does it?

One working class woman after another has a son or daughter that gets
killed in U.S. wars for profit year after year. This is decided in the
capitalist Capitol of Washington, DC, where the giant monopoly owners
are the real decision makers of life, death and war - it is their birth
right. But, one too many deaths of a woman's child turned a stir into a
rolling boil, forcing one woman here in the U.S. to represent and open
up a struggle that is becoming a powerful spark for the anti-war
movement. Her name is Cindy Sheehan.

*We're so inspired by the Parks-like action of Cindy Sheehan that we
want to send all proceeds from now until August 21st to support Camp
Casey. That's right, every dollar you spend at **/leftbooks.com/
**from now until August 21st goes towards
two things only: 1) our selling costs and 2) Camp Casey - Period!: Not
overhead, salaries, electricity - none of it. Ouch!!

*This is how we're using the money:

A number of activists from various progressive organizations will be
sponsored by /leftbooks.com/ to head on to
Crawford, Texas to stand with Cindy Sheehan and bring supplies for the
camp.* *Although your money at /leftbooks.com
/ already goes towards building the movement,
these three days make it go even further./*
*/
We got inspired for this email by reading this featured book about the
Montgomery bus boycott. It will inspire you too, and like us, you'll
want to put your inspiration into action. Check it out!:

The Montgomery Bus Boycott
and the Women Who Started It
The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson
Edited, with a foreword, by David J. Garrow

Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women who Started it - The Memoir of Jo
Ann Gibson Robinson

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Interviews
Date Posted: 08.11.05 LOOKING OUT FROM THE MARGINS interview with Brian Holmes http://www.transeuropicnic.org/e_event.htm Q: For the second time we are witnessing the phenomenon of enlargement and unification of the European Union. From one point of view, many people tend to equate the term... [Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Palestine / Israel
Date Posted: 08.05.05

Support those who Refuse the Occupation!

Help conscientious objection be heard!

On Wednesday, 10.8.05, our son Shaul Mograbi-Berger will arrive at the army's induction centre and announce his refusal to be drafted in an army of occupation. He's expected to be sent immediately to military prison, where he'd join Wissam Kablan and Alex Kohn, who have already spent long periods of imprisonment as a result of their refusal to the draft.
Behind the smoke-screen of the disengagement plan, Israel continues its brutal occupation and oppression of the Palestinian People. The 'orange-ribbon' right-wing protesters cynically abuse human rights jargon and speak about their refusal to "drive Jews out of their homes" as a conscientious objection. Within this incessant loud noise, the voice of those brave draft-resisters who refuse to take military orders from the right reasons is hardly heard.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Zapatistas
Date Posted: 08.04.05

Marcos: A penguin in the Selva Lacandona, Part 1 Originally published in
Spanish by the EZLN ************************************* Translated by
irlandesa

A Penguin in the Selva Lacandona I/II

(The zapatista is just a little house, perhaps the smallest, on a street
called "Mexico," in a barrio called "Latin America," in a city called the
"World.")

You're not going to believe me, but there's a penguin in the Ezeta
Headquarters. You'll say "Hey, Sup, what's up? You already blew the fuses
with the Red Alert," but it's true. In fact, while I'm writing this to you,
he (the penguin) is right here next to me, eating the same hard, stale bread
(it has so much mold that it's just one degree away from being penicillin),
which, along with coffee, were my rations for today. Yes, a penguin. But
I'll tell you more about this later, because first we must talk a bit about
the Sixth Declaration.

We have carefully read some of your doubts, criticism, advice and debates
about what we posited in the Sixth. Not all of them, it's true, but you can
chalk that up, not to laziness, but to the rain and mud that's lengthening
the roads even more in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. Although
there are many points, I'm only going to refer to some of them in this text.

Some of the primary points of criticism refer to the so-called new
intercontinental, to the national Mexican nature of the Sixth, and, along
with this, to the proposal (it's still just that, a proposal) of joining the
indigenous struggle with that of other social sectors, notably with workers
in the countryside and the city. Others refer to the definition of the
anti-capitalist left and to the Sixth's dealing with "old issues" or using
"worn out" concepts. A few others warn of dangers: the displacement of the
indigenous issue by others and, consequently, the Indian peoples being
excluded as the subjects of transformation. The vanguardism and centralism
that could arise in the politics of alliances with organizations of the
left. The replacement of social leadership by political leadership. That
the right would use zapatismo in order to strike a blow at López Obrador, in
other words, at the political center (I know that those observations speak
of AMLO's being on the left, but he says he's in the center, so here we're
going to take what he says, not what they say about him). The majority of
these observations are well intended, and they seek to help, rightly warning
of obstacles in the path, or rightly providing opinions as to how the
movement which the Sixth is trying to arouse might grow.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Venezuela
Date Posted: 08.04.05

VENEZUELA: U.S. PLANS PROPAGANDA WAR, CAMPESINOS MARCH

http://www.ww4report.com/node/855

News | Syndicated Content | The Andean Front
from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Two stories from Venezuela this month exemplify the pressures faced by
President Hugo Chavez: on one hand, an increased push from Washington
and the bourgeois opposition to capitulate in his populist programs or
face destabilization; on the other, a powerful campesino movement is
demanding an extension and faster pace of populist reforms, especially
land redistribution. And reports of local military commanders taking
a hard line with campesino protesters points to continuing divisions
within Venezuela's armed forces.--WW4 REPORT

U.S. TO LAUNCH PROPAGANDA BLITZ?

On July 20 the US House of Representatives approved appropriations
of $9 million in 2006 and $9 million in 2007 for groups opposing
the government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, according
to information minister Andres Izarra, who complained that
the beneficiaries of the aid are promoting abstention in the
country's Aug. 7 municipal council elections and encouraging civil
disobedience. The same day, the House passed an amendment authorizing
the broadcasting of radio and television signals into Venezuela to
provide "precise, objective and complete" information to Venezuelans
and counter "the anti-Americanism" of a new regional television
network, Televisora del Sur (Telesur). "Chavez is an enemy of freedom
and of those who support it and promote it," said Rep. Connie Mack
(R-FL), who introduced the amendment.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Media
Date Posted: 08.04.05

Truth, Death and Media In Iraq

http://www.ww4report.com/node/849

Commentary | Syndicated Content | The Iraq Front
Part Two in an Unfortunately Continuing Series

by Michael I. Niman

Earlier this year the media reported on "The Salvador Option,"
referring to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's stated intent to
train and employ Salvadoran-style death squads to hunt down and kill
or "disappear" suspected Iraqi resistance fighters and their alleged
supporters. Such wholesale execution of political opponents resulted
in approximately 70,000 deaths in El Salvador during Ronald Reagan's
reign in the White House.

Knight Ridder correspondent Yasser Salihee also covered this
story. Unlike stateside journalists doing research online, Salihee
was on the ground in Iraq, compiling primary data--including damning
evidence about extra-judicial killings. Knight Ridder, on June 27,
published Salihee's preliminary findings. Working less than a week,
Salihee and another Knight Ridder journalist turned up over 30 cases of
suspected extra-judicial executions by U.S.-backed Iraqi death squads.

In the article, Salihee and his co-author document how victims show
up at the morgue blindfolded, with their hands tied or cuffed behind
their backs. Most showed signs of Abu Ghraib-style torture. Many were
last seen in police custody. They were usually killed with a singe
shot to the head.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Guantanamo Bay
Date Posted: 08.04.05

'One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony'

Tuesday August 2, 2005
The Guardian

Benyam Mohammed travelled from London to Afghanistan in July 2001, but after September 11 he fled to Pakistan. He was arrested at Karachi airport on April 10 2002, and describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. These are extracts from his diary.
They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor's scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they'd electrocute me. Maybe castrate me.

They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed ... I was just shocked, I wasn't expecting ... Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn't want to scream because I knew it was coming.

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Central Asia
Date Posted: 08.01.05

Asia Times
Central Asia
Jul 13, 2005

Foul play in the Great Game
By M K Bhadrakumar

In a landmark speech at Johns Hopkins University in 1997, the then-US
deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, said: "For the last several
years, it has been fashionable to proclaim or at least to predict, a
replay of the 'Great Game' in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The
implication of course is that the driving dynamic of the region,
fueled and lubricated by oil, will be the competition of great powers
to the disadvantage of the people who live there.

"Our goal is to avoid and to actively discourage that atavistic
outcome. In pondering and practicing the geopolitics of oil, let's
make sure that we are thinking in terms appropriate to the 21st
century and not the 19th century. Let's leave Rudyard Kipling and
George McDonald Fraser where they belong - on the shelves of
historical fiction. The Great Game, which starred Kipling's Kim and
Fraser's Flashman, was very much of the zero-sum variety. What we
want to help bring about is just the opposite, we want to see all
responsible players in the Caucasus and Central Asia be winners."

[Continue Reading]

Topic(s): Guantanamo Bay
Date Posted: 08.01.05

Guantanamo Degradation Revealed
by Rupert Cornwell

Friday, July 15, 2005 by the Independent (UK)

A Pentagon investigation has provided the clearest proof yet that the
prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib which shocked the world was in largely
"road-tested" at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The
investigation report, delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee,
found that techniques used at Guantanamo which had drawn complaints
from FBI agents at the centre, did not constitute torture. And
Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the prison in 2002 and
2003, who later went to Iraq to oversee detainee operations, escaped
reprimand because his superiors ruled that prisoner interrogations
during his tenure at Guantanamo did not breach US laws and regulations.

[Continue Reading]