Israel and Palestine
revere | January 9, 2010My little ones now have little ones of their own, just barely out of their cradles. When this song was written, the prospect of global nuclear annihilation wasn't far fetched. Each side had massive overkill. There are still nuclear weapons so the threat isn't gone. But it's not a threat of nuclear winter. There are several reasons for this, including a world wide anti-nuclear movement. What would have happened had there been no opposition to nuclear weapons? I'm glad to say we'll never know. Unfortunately even without nuclear weapons the words of this song are still applicable to cradles…
revere | January 7, 2010When I was growing up "world music" didn't exist as a genre and didn't exist for me in any form. Now it's just a keystroke away. This is a different world for the younger generation, not just musically. Despite all the wars and the problems in the headlines, I think it's a better one.
Chanda Mama is a folk tune from Chennai, India. Like a lot of music, it's also from Argentina and Lisbon and Toulouse and South Africa and on and on. Here it is from Playing for Change via musicians from four continents:
revere | January 6, 2010If you don't share the sentiments, just enjoy the music. But why wouldn't you share the sentiments?
revere | January 5, 2010Conscientious refusal to participate in acts which are immoral although legal is a world wide phenomenon. It isn't new. We don't hear about the brave souls in highly repressive countries that risk death or imprisonment, but they exist. We celebrate them when they resist regimes we don't like, as in Iran. But we have our own prisoners of conscience. We know more about the ones in freer societies and their voices also deserve to be heard.
There are thousands in Israel. One group are the Shministim, "twelth graders":
On April 28, 1970, a group of high school seniors about to be drafted sent a…
revere | March 15, 2009Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the death of peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by a caterpillar tractor driven by the Israeli Defense Forces in occupied Palestine. She was trying to negotiate with the driver not to destroy the homes of Palestinians being subjected to collective punishment for demonstrating against the occupation (see our posts here, here, here). What makes this year's anniversary even more painful is fresh news: 37 year old Tristan Anderson from Oakland, California, a dedicated pacifist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), is on life-support…
revere | January 25, 2009Our weekly feature:
So we had a joyous inauguration, although the obligatory religious bookends were a bit hard to take. The Invocation by Pastor Rick (Warren) was a real piece of work, typically self-righteous and obnoxiously exclusionary. It goes without saying he alienated atheists, but then he went on to do the same for non-Christians (invoking Jesus as his Lord and Saviour) and then Catholics (by reciting the Protestant version of the Our Father). Obama, at least, had the courtesy to include non-believers in a short list of religious affiliations. I agree with PZ that it was a small…
revere | January 12, 2009Some people complain the news about the Gaza massacre is one sided or incomplete. And it is both. This is one reason it appears one sided. Because it is. And it's incomplete. In the US we don't see this (h/t The Brain Police):
revere | January 4, 2009This is about the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Because it cannot be ignored. Let me be clear at the outset: I think the assault on Gaza is brutal, vicious and cruel, the act of a notorious regional bully. Israeli leaders (Olmert, Barak, Livni and probably others) are war criminals in a class with Bushes Jr. and Sr., Kissinger, Nixon, Pinochet, Putin, Saddam, MiloÅ¡eviÄ, Karadzic, Charles Taylor and a number of others. I wanted to get that out of the way because I don't want this to be misunderstood as a defense of Israeli actions. Far from it. It is a condemnation of the kind of action that has…
revere | January 4, 2009It's time once again for the inimitable Marcus Brigstocke on The Abrahamic Religions. Yes, I know we've done it before, but some of you may have missed it and those who have seen it will get to see it again because you can't see stuff like this too often. Especially when two of the main Abrahamic religions are duking it out and doing their best to kill innocent people because they are of a different tribe:
Kudos to Firedog Lake and Huffington Post for keeping the brutal slaughter in Gaza in front of us where we have to see it.
revere | December 27, 2008Israel, a state entity, is committing war crimes in Gaza. They have blockaded and imprisoned an entire civilian population in the Gaza strip, over a million people, and have now launched air strikes against civilian targets with the expected results: the deaths of hundreds, among them women and children and innocent men. The Israeli attacks are the disproportionate response to escalating firing of rockets into Israel from the Gaza strip. The Israelis claim they will continue their brutality until it "changes [the] behavior" of those they blame for the rocket attacks. Any person with more than…
revere | November 14, 2008Reader JJ reminds me that while we celebrate Obama's victory and a new mood of hope and optimism in the US, the people of the Gaza strip have little to celebrate and even less reason for hope and optimism:
The UN has no more food to distribute in the Gaza Strip, the head of relief efforts in the area has warned.
John Ging said handouts for 750,000 Gazans would have to be suspended until Saturday at the earliest, and called Gaza's economic situation "a disaster".
Israel earlier denied entry to a convoy carrying humanitarian supplies.
It has prevented the transfer of all goods into Gaza for…
revere | August 24, 2008I belong to a number of professional societies and one of them is the American Mathematical Society. The September issue of one of their publications, the Notices, just arrived and I read with interest a statement by one of the world's most distinguished mathematicians, Brown University's David Mumford. While most members of the public have never heard of him, Mumford has been a famous in mathematical circles for many years, having received the Fields Medal in 1974 for his work in algebraic geometry. The Fields Medal is an extraordinary recognition, perhaps the most prestigious in mathematics…
revere | March 24, 2008The other day, as I was bemoaning the tanking of the dollar versus the Euro (yes, my European friends are not crying in their beer over it; I'm glad for them. Now they can visit), I mentioned that it wasn't just the dollar that had taken a bath since GWB but also the US reputation as a force for Good in the world. Now the BBC World Service has put some numbers on this in a survey of 26,000 people from 25 different countries:
As the United States government prepares to send a further 21,500 troops to Iraq, the survey reveals that three in four (73%) disapprove of how the US government has…
revere | February 22, 2007This has been going on for years but it doesn't make it more acceptable:
More than 3,000 Jewish settlement housing units are being built in the occupied West Bank where the Jewish population is growing steadily, Israel's anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said Wednesday.
In its annual report on settlements -- considered illegal under international law -- the organisation said the largest sites of construction were in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, Modiin Illit and Beitar Illit.
In addition, another 90 caravans were added to wildcat outposts -- which unlike full settlements are not…
revere | November 18, 2006Yet another urgent cry for help concerning the dire medical care catastrophe in the Israeli occupied territories of Palestine. Israel has cut off tax revenues they have collected, essentially confiscating Palestinian wages for work done. At the same time international donors have cut-off aid in an unconscionable act allegedly protesting an unwanted outcome to a democratic election in January 2006. The targets may have been Palestinian leaders, but it is ordinary people that have been hit.
As a consequence of these measures, the PA [Palestinian Authority] has been unable to pay regular…
revere | September 10, 2006There are many ways to kill innocent people. Suicide bombings against Israeli and Iraqi citizens we hear about. The starvation and strangulation of a whole population is one we don't. From The Independent:
Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily…
revere | August 12, 2006There can be no doubt that the combatants in the battle between Hezbollah and Israel engulfing southern Lebanon have lost all moral credibility. Both sides are waging a war without any regard for innocent human life, except insofar as it is regard for the public relations problems it causes.
The conflict across the border between Lebanon and Israel has now displaced up to 1 million people in Lebanon, of which nearly 700 000 are living in temporary accommodations, and another 220 000 are in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus and the Gulf area. Addressing the vital needs of the displaced and other affected…
revere | July 31, 2006A reminder it's not just bombs and bullets in Lebanon:
BEIRUT. July 29 (Interfax) - The World Health Organization (WHO) fears an eminent humanitarian disaster in Lebanon, and the quality of drinking water is among its greatest concerns in the current situation, a WHO official in Beirut told Interfax Saturday.
"There is also the threat of epidemics, as there could be people under the ruins," the WHO official said.
"All this, as well as the terrible sanitary conditions in the refugee camps, could further provoke outbreaks of various epidemics," he said.
The WHO is…
revere | July 18, 2006If you are a US citizen unfortunate enough to get caught in a war zone, don't expect much from the US State Department. Or at least don't expect anything if you can't pay for it:
A message to the American citizens in Lebanon:
The Department of State continues to work with the Department of Defense on a plan to help American citizens depart Lebanon. As of the morning of July 15, we are looking at how we might transport Americans to Cyprus. Once in Cyprus, Americans can then board commercial aircraft for onward travel. Commercial airlines provide the safest and most efficient repatriation…