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05.29.09 - 1:07 PM
The Power of Culture vs. The Culture of Power
For the second time, the Israeli Army has tried to shut down the week-long Palestine Festival of Literature, a self-described "traveling cultural roadshow" touring across the West Bank with internationally known Palestinian and European writers. After armed forces closed down opening night in East Jerusalem's Palestinian National Theater, the French came in to host the events; last night, when troops arrived again, the British did.
"Talking about what literature is and what it means in a fraught political situation is the most honest thing we can do," said British writer Jeremy Harding. "They didn't like that."
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14 Comments so far
Show AllIt is one thing for a people to "defend" themselves against rocket attacks but the actions by the Israeli military disclose the clear and unmistakable signs of ethnic cleansing.
The zionists are insane. Period.
q
Insane? I don't know about that but they certainly are acting like inhuman vermin.
At this rate almost any human being will be willing to spred the insecticide.
The monstrous crimes of the murdering and destroying thing which is the state that hides behind the name "Israel", come from a belief in he idea of us and them, The enormity of those crimes makes it easy, looking at those who call themselves israelis, to fall into the same error and say "us and them". We americans have left over a million dead iraqis, millions of widows and orphans, millions of refugees, for power and oil.- Again, from a belief in us as opposed to them...rather let us all say to the palestinians "you are our brothers and sisters", ..Rachel Corrie and others have given their lives to say just that.,,to say so and then to realize that we are all of us together passengers on spaceship earth, as r.buckminster fuller pointed out...
I am very proud that my granddaughter's godmother is on the team that put together this festival. She sent out a little film of how the police closed them down. The fact that Uzi holding police toughs would close down a literature festival is another indication of the anti-human path the Israeli government is taking. We are talking about literature here, not missiles. It is pure hatred of anything Palestinian.
Joe
I hope one of the Zionists will explain to us why Israel does things like this. What is the point?
The only explanation I can think of is that Israel hopes to provoke Palestinian resistance, so that Israel can claim "self defense" and carry out another killing spree, as they did in the Gaza Ghetto.
One of you Israel defenders, please explain this to us.
They are afraid of high speed truth missiles.
Israel managed for 2 decades to fool the world that there were no such beings as Palestinians. I can remember my 5th grade teacher, the stupidest and most ignorant man on Earth (who was, unbelievably, married to a Syrian woman who surely could have educated him better). When we had religious education (every morning--this wasn't America!) he would hang up an ancient map, drawn up during the British Mandate, labeled PALESTINE--and then tell us that "It's called Israel now." This was in 1955-56 and only a part of that land was even claimed as Israel; the larger part was by then annexed to Jordan. Naturally, the religious instruction we got kept talking about the Jews and Jerusalem so we were, ipso-facto, indoctrinated into the belief that the Jews owned Jerusalem and so we looked on the 1967 war as simply the Jews reclaiming what was always theirs. (Interestingly, I made that comment to my mother and she quietly said I was wrong.)
Anyway, the Israelis, with the help of the Jordanians had managed in less than 20 years to erase the noun "Palestine" and the adjective "Palestinian." I first heard those words late in the 1960s, after the West Bank had been seized by Israel and when Palestinians began hijacking airplanes (non-violently) to draw attention to their plight.
Rainborowe
What a lovely testament to humanity.
I remember talking to a friend of mine on a really down day, when the Bush regime was at its height. I said, "Do you think they will win?" He said, "Oh, they've already lost, and they know it. Why do you think they are doing the things they are doing? It's the sign of desperate people."
I hope every day he is right. Things like this make me think that goodness will prevail.
It's obvious this group (fundamentalists of every stripe) are insane, and it's up to educated, intelligent, freedom loving people to stand together and not give up. Long live the Palestinian Literature Festival!
It is crucial that the Zionists keep the facade that the Palestinians are uncultured animals.
Israel is an illegal and immoral invasion, and those oppressed by this genocidal monstrosity have every right to resist.
But, Israel is a democracy.
--Letto, massud
Israel is a "democracy" of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews; in other words, to paraphrase Orwell's "Animal Farm", all Israelis may be created equal, but the overwhelming majority of Israelis are more equal than others.
Besides, since when are "democracies" without sin?
I'm sure this event will be da bomb!
I am trying to understand why the Israelis would shut down this event...but apparently because the event was in Jerusalem it has special significance for a religion that has the phrase "next year in Jerusalem" recited in synagogues for more than a thousand years.
This article in Haaretz helps to clarify:
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088955.html
"Israel says the entire city is and always will be its capital, a point stressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week on the 42nd anniversary of Israel's capture of Arab East Jerusalem.
For their part, Palestinians want their capital to be in the city.
Since a February election that brought the right-wing Likud leader to power, Israeli authorities have also banned events marking Jerusalem becoming the Arab League's Capital of Arab Culture for 2009 and closed down a media centre set up in East Jerusalem for this month's visit to the city by Pope Benedict.
Palestinians, who make up about a third of the population of Israel's municipality of Jerusalem, complain of a campaign to drive them out.
Israeli officials deny any discrimination in policies that range from the demolition of homes built without permits to the provision of municipal services in Arab areas.
Amal Nashashibi, attending the literature festival, said: "Because of the drive to make the city purely Jewish, they're trying to black out anything that is related to Arab culture." "
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Israel under Netanyahu is isolating itself and it will be disastrous. Most imo Americans will not want to get involved with this unless they are Jewish and sympathetic to Israel or influenced by far right wing thought.
There may be Israelis who think that they are "realists" and will negotiate and fight based upon their view of an anti Semitic and viciously dangerous world...but the actions of the Likud Party are a looming disaster for Israel....and these right wing Zionists will claim the results they will produce is anti Semitism...and they will not see the true reality of what their own actions have produced
But the reality is that most people will not support this kind of a land grab based in a religious view that was formed two thousand years ago.
Many people were sympathetic to the formation of Israel because of the Holocaust and the anti Semitic views that Jews have had to face with the diaspora...that sympathy will be lost as Israel becomes more aggressive and as it becomes apparent that innocent people are being harmed.
Do these Zionists think God will protect them? What is their end game? A fortified Israel in the middle of its enemies? Do they envisions an Israel using nuclear weapons? What happens when other nations in the ME develop nuclear capacity? What then?
And they think they are realists...while these right wing Zionists endanger us all.
I believe what is happening is that people are not criticizing Israel because they do not want to deal with the backlash of being called anti Semitic or a self hating Jew...but Israel is losing support and that loss of support will endanger Israel further. Meanwhile the people who caused this erosion of support for Israel will claim that this was a hidden anti Semitism that has emerged...
I am hoping that the US will be able to rein in this Israeli aggression for the good of all of us...and choose more successful strategies for solving the Isralei/Palestinian conflict.
Bring America Back !!!!.....Last week's articles here in CD, about 'Loyalty Oaths' required to be sworn by Arabs to the fielty of Zion, are also very pertinent to this topic.
*****It is ironic in the halls of Capitol Hill how Israel gets described as the only 'Democracy' in the Middle East !
*****Bulldozing homes; building unsurmountable Walls;
starvation & medical Blockades; censorship and loyalty rules and regulations; pre-emptive military attacks; are true markers of their 'democracy'.
*****JStreet.org made a poll of US Jews which found that the vast preponderance of American Jews favored the Attacks on Gaza by Israel.
*****So that, the democracy within the US democracy does advocate the Genocide which left 1500 dead innocent Gazans--including 300 to 400 children. Could that be why not one word of protest against the Genocide was uttered by former King George, or present Saviour Barak Obama ????
**Is that why former Pres Jimmy Carter became very unpopular in Zion when he wrote his book about Apartheid in Israel ?? Now that would be a direct tie into this festival of Literature which also is unpopular in Zion. Some Democracy, Huh ???