tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post7925373228895462522..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: A very strong energy drinkUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4910425635264899562014-08-12T21:01:40.452-07:002014-08-12T21:01:40.452-07:00Our friend Aram Saroyan reminds us that the percep...Our friend Aram Saroyan reminds us that the perception of the historical relation between war making and business opportunity is not something that's been achieved solely by Haartez and me. <br /><br />The connection has been noted -- and in some sectors regretted, in others ignored, in others wilfully concealed -- for some time now.<br /><br />"Randolph Bourne, circa 1914: 'War is the health of the state.' It’s endless..."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-27407816744927698832014-08-12T15:31:12.778-07:002014-08-12T15:31:12.778-07:00[continues:]
A key turning point in the Peled nar...[continues:]<br /><br />A key turning point in the Peled narrative was a decision he made, as a burgeoning young activist and earnest student of karate, one night in 1983. To avoid missing his karate class, a young Peled decided to forgo attending a Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem. That night, a right-wing extremist threw a grenade at the crowd, killing activist Emil Grunzweig and injuring several others.<br /><br />Peled took this as a sign, and followed the path of karate – a practice of non-violence, he says, that teaches one to “overcome insurmountable obstacles” – one that took him to Japan and eventually to San Diego, where he settled with his wife and family.<br /><br />But the shock of his niece’s death jolted him back into Middle Eastern reality. “The activist side of me that I’d been suppressing,” he explains, “suddenly burst out. It became stronger than anything.”<br /><br />His sister Nurit’s adamant stance that the occupation was to blame for her daughter’s death was also a key factor.<br /><br />“She said, ‘no real mother would want this to happen to another mother,” recalls Peled, “and for me that crystallized how morally unjustifiable retaliation is.”<br /><br />He began to question many of the assumptions he grew up with, even in a relatively radical household where he came of age going to Land Day protests with his father, and defending him when schoolmates called him a “traitor.”<br /><br />Eventually he sought out and joined a Jewish/Arab discussion group in San Diego, and found that the Jewish Americans he met – with their “New York humor and deli food” – were more foreign than the hummus, tabouleh and warm hospitality offered by his new Palestinian friends. He was shocked by random anti-Arab venom spewed casually by Jewish Americans he met who assumed he shared their views, in an atmosphere of growing Islamophobia.<br /><br />In his San Diego dialogue group, he found a worthy partner in Nader Elbanna, a Palestinian from Nazareth who accompanied him on a dual lecture series at rotary clubs – one that led to organizing shipments of wheelchairs to Israel/Palestine. Soon frustrated by the limitations of humanitarianism, Peled gravitated toward activism. Despite his “deeply ingrained fears” of traveling alone in Palestinian areas, he found himself instead warmly welcomed by nonviolent protestors in Bil'in and then detained by Israeli soldiers for illegally entering Area A.<br /><br />When he was brought before an Israeli policeman, the policeman chided the soldiers saying, “Look, he's an Israeli citizen and has rights. It’s not a Palestinian that I can just beat up and throw in prison.”<br /><br />Peled went on to teach karate to Palestinian children in refugee camps, often overwhelmed by the brutality they faced under occupation but impressed by their resilience and “heroism.”<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/following-in-the-footsteps-of-his-father-a-zionist-hero-toward-a-free-and-democratic-palestine-1.514402?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.216%2C2.221%2C" rel="nofollow">Following in the footsteps of his father, a Zionist hero, toward a free and democratic Palestine (Hadani Ditmars: Haaretz, 8 April 2013)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91625171349330461982014-08-12T15:28:37.064-07:002014-08-12T15:28:37.064-07:00My partner in this microscopic nonprofit cottage i...My partner in this microscopic nonprofit cottage industry is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, so she's always interested in the news of the Israeli atrocities executed in the name of the sufferings of those who died or were displaced long before the invention of Total Hasbara (she, like others in a similar position who are fairminded, regrets the misuse and distortion of historical memories as pretext for apartheid and aggression). She found Miko Peled's testimony of interest, as, obviously, had our friend TR. And indeed the story is worth considering. But only if you have an open mind. If on the other hand you don't have the time, interest or patience to consider the truth, perhaps it would be better not to pretend to be interacting with those outside your personal / professional interest group.<br /><br />Maybe it's easier to ignore a video link than a bit of text.<br /><br />This from a Haaretz story last year about Miko Peled:<br />__<br /><br />If Miko Peled’s memoir "The General’s Son" were made into a movie, it would open with this scene: In his San Diego home in 1997, while casually watching CNN, he catches a glimpse of a young girl on a stretcher.<br /><br />There’s been a suicide bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. As if on cue, he receives a phone call from his mother in Israel saying that his 13-year-old niece Smadar, daughter of his sister Nurit, is missing. Somehow, he knows instinctively she’s the girl he saw on TV.<br /><br />This fear is confirmed several agonizing hours later, when her body is found at a morgue.<br /><br />He must fly back to Israel immediately, as the state funeral for the granddaughter of General Matti Peled, the Independence War hero who later became a far-left politician, awaits his return.<br /><br />Among those expressing condolences is Benjamin Netanyahu – a close childhood friend of his sister Nurit. His politics make him an unwelcome guest in the home where the family is sitting shiva. But among the mourners who greet his family is Ehud Barak, the newly elected leader of the opposition, who explains that in order to win votes he must disguise his real intentions as a “peacemaker.”<br /><br />Suddenly galvanized by his niece’s death into reviving the activism he [had] flirted with as a young IDF commando – disillusioned with the abuse of Palestinians he’d witnessed and the first Lebanon war – Peled blurts out to the future prime minister, “Why not tell the truth ... That this and similar tragedies are taking place because we are occupying another nation and that in order to save lives the right thing to do is to end the occupation and negotiate a just peace with our Palestinian partners?”<br /><br />Barak dismisses his outburst as political naivete.<br /><br />This moment in 1997 marks the beginning of a powerful personal and political journey...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12317078267893232632014-08-12T14:09:45.186-07:002014-08-12T14:09:45.186-07:00I think I see what you mean. You feel that your ta...I think I see what you mean. You feel that your taxes pay for this devastation. The adjective "pitiful" should modify your guilt if that is a contributing factor. But my point stands. That is, the questions I asked are not rhetorical, and the "we" is deliberate. I was not writing as a "tired cynical" enemy but as a citizen of the world.Lord Charliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00000494283344826691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26153980138664405632014-08-12T12:28:10.854-07:002014-08-12T12:28:10.854-07:00I’m relieved to hear Israel’s defense industry is ...I’m relieved to hear Israel’s defense industry is in a perpetual learning mode—makes me feel better knowing that the IDF is using its smarts working overtime finding smarter ways to wake up Gaza’s sleeping residents with a bang—and with nary a whimper from the likes of Obama, EU and Co Ltd. (Oh, but the Ukraine really hurts, dude.)<br /><br />vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82549420575140554052014-08-12T11:08:14.740-07:002014-08-12T11:08:14.740-07:00"How can anyone read the figures of the cost ..."How can anyone read the figures of the cost of this war and think anything has been 'won'?"<br /><br />Maureen, I had first titled this post "The side that wins in every war".<br /><br />The side I meant: that of the war profiteers who make and sell the weapons.<br />______________<br /><br /><br />Lord Charlie, among the tired cynical gambits repeatedly and cynically deployed by the Zionists -- and by this I mean Zionists of all nationalities, including the American citizens whose support for this unforgivable continuing atrocity, conducted against against a whole people, is the only thing making that atrocity possible -- is the suggestion that a massive wrong is somehow cancelled out by another massive wrong.<br /><br />This is illogical as well as insulting; the horror in Syria is not being done in my name, or with the support of my pitiful taxes.<br /><br />(When you say "we", I take it you mean "me"?)<br /><br />You can't possibly be referring to yourself, as it appears your attention never was on Gaza in the first place, any more than was the attention of the weapons makers, whose "patriotic" motive was profit -- for themselves.<br /><br />I take it you did not read this post.<br /><br />It is a document showing that the Israeli war profiteers are using living people and their society as guinea pigs in a weapons testing laboratory.<br /><br />The ideal classroom testing environment for a very strong energy drink.<br /><br />Thanks for the great attempt at stand-up Hasbara, but as they say in the business -- Get the Hook.<br /><br />__<br /><br />As it's plain that those who come here these days solely to quarrel never pause to consider the content of the posts before repeating the same automatic diversionary refrain, I expect that those who most need the enlightenment won't take the time to look at this contribution to the debate sent on this morning by the great British poet Tom Raworth:<br /><br />"I hadn't read this guy's book but I listened to bits of this as other important stuff like Obama mourning Mork went on..."<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ" rel="nofollow">An Honest Israeli Jew Tells the Real Truth about Israel</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66990993966669243822014-08-12T09:43:27.312-07:002014-08-12T09:43:27.312-07:00When there's a truce in Gaza, will we turn our...When there's a truce in Gaza, will we turn our attention to the mass genocide in Syria -- more than 100,000 killed? Or to the kidnapping and enslavement of women in Africa? Or to what sharia means? Lord Charliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00000494283344826691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58256916330271386572014-08-12T08:12:13.923-07:002014-08-12T08:12:13.923-07:00The devastation is overwhelming. How can anyone re...The devastation is overwhelming. How can anyone read the figures of the cost of this war and think anything has been "won"? That a defense budget is propped up by taking lives?! I'm at a loss for more words.Maureenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13290283101378474845noreply@blogger.com