Ken O'Keefe: Samouni Family Responds to Justice Goldstone Backtrack on Israeli War Crimes

Juliano Mer-Khamis was murdered today in Jenin

Palestinian genius film maker,  actor and political activist Juliano Mer-Khamis, 53, was shot dead on Monday in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

According to Jenin police chief Mohammed Tayyim,  Mer-Khamis was shot five times by Palestinian militants, but that police were still investigating the circumstances of his murder. I would wait to learn more about the tragic incident; as we know, the IDF trains special units that are operating disguised as Palestinians militants.

Mer-Khamis was well-known as an actor for his film and theater roles, both in Israel and abroad, and had made a name for himself as a director and a political activist, as well.

Mer-Khamis was affiliated with the local theater in Jenin, established by his mother in the 1980s. In 2006, Mer-Khamis opened the Freedom Theater in Jenin, along with Zakariya Zubeidi, the former military leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades in that West Bank city.

Mer-Khamis' mother, Arna Mer, was an Israeli Jewish activist for Palestinian rights. His father, Saliba Khamis, was a Christian Palestinian. Mer-Khamis was born and raised in Nazareth.

 Watch Mer-Khamis' monumental Arna's Children:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6EXrA3UFwM



Gilad Atzmon: Goldstone’s U-Turn

If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,’ writes Richard Goldstone in an attempt to retract his own UN report.

And yet I wonder: how different would it be?  How different could it be? Goldstone is impressed with Israel dedicating some  “significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza’, but it somehow leaves me bewildered.

Let us assume that at the time Goldstone and his team looked into the cold blooded murder of more than 1400 Palestinians, they would also be aware of an Israeli enquiry. What difference would it make?


‘For example,’ says Goldstone, ‘the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently (according to the Israeli investigation) the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.’

For some peculiar reason, Goldstone allows Israel to reduce its institutional responsibility for a colossal war crime, into a chain of local errors, made by a few low rank officers who may, or may not, face criminal charges.

One should remind Goldstone that the decision to use artillery and carpet bombardment in Gaza wasn’t taken by ‘some’ military commanders on the ground: these decisions were taken by a democratically elected Israeli cabinet. Furthermore, these decisions were supported at the time by 94% of the Israeli Jewish population.

 The decision to rain barrages of white phosphorous over the most populated place on this planet was a strategic decision, and it was taken by Israeli military high command.  The fact that Israel (may) sacrifice the military career of one Moishe’le or two Yank’le doesn’t change the validity of Goldstone original report at all; it only proves that Israel fails to take responsibility for its actions.

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Anthony Lawson: Copyright or Censorship?

Gilad Atzmon: Taking Deborah Lipstadt Apart

In a recent article,  Shoa-logist Deborah Lipstadt  attempts to reinstate her argument against historical revisionism.

Lipstadt  is clearly opposing holocaust deniers whom she also identifies as anti Semites, yet, she fails to define what denial means. She also comes short of suggesting what anti Semitism stands for. I guess that for Lipstadt,  ‘deniers’ are those who insist that our past must be revisited, scrutinised and be told from different perspectives. People who hold such views are usually called historical revisionists or simply historians.  Yet, historical revisionists are clearly perceived by Lipstadt as anti Semites -- I guess that for Lipstadt , those who dare touch or fiddle with the Jewish past are nothing less than enemies.

The ‘deniers’, according to Lipstdat, are a lively  movement that is working vigorously to “distort history and inculcate anti-Semitism”.  Yet, it is far from being clear how anyone can ‘distort history’, for history is not a singular set of facts laid down and dictated by one group of people alone. Rather it is an attempt to transform the past into a story aspire to as full a narrative as is possible, drawn from as many points of view and from as wide a body of research as is available.  History is an attempt then, to build a narrative.  Different people should be entitled to hold different perspectives of their past.

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Youtube deleted Anthony Lawson's latest

but you can find it here

Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid? from SomberImperil on Vimeo.

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940)) is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

It seems as if we've learned nothing!!!

The Rise of Israel's Military Rabbis

Gilad Atzmon: Inside What Job? A film review

“There is definitely a fear among certain Jews in this industry…And it’s because it’s spreading past Wall Street now. There’s a growing animosity towards the wealthy, and especially the wealthy that have made money on Wall Street and real estate and finance, as so many Jews have—some legitimately, some not so. It’s very easy to generalise that it must be the entire Jewish people.”  Jewish employee with a top New York investment bank who asked that his name be withheld. Jewish Journal (October 7 2008)

“Inside Job”, The Academy Award documentary film about the current financial crisis is a worthy documentary, and it certainly delivers on many fronts. It explains the disastrous shift within the American financial industry over the last decade, exposing the elements, the decisions and the people who destabilised the global economy. In doing so, it provides an insight into the systematic, faulty structures that transformed American financial services industry markets into a risky bubble. And it also explains why the bubble eventually burst.

Charles H. Ferguson, the director of the film, managed to unveil the inherent malaise within a corrupted financial elite and within the American economy.  The film exposes a chain of disastrous cases of conflicts of interest. In America, credit rating agencies had been receiving huge funds from the financial institutions that they were supposed to critically asses. Clearly, America let the cat look after the milk. The cat failed to confess a conflict of interest. Seemingly, in most cases, the cat was rather corrupted, and as it happens, it still is.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

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Gilad Atzmon: To Call Zimmerman a Zimmerman (+video)

Singer-songwriter and harmonica owner Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) will perform at Israel's Ramat Gan Stadium in June.

The 69-year old folk legend seems to be impervious to Israel’s war crime record and the growing international movement calling for artists to boycott the rogue state.

Other international performers such as Elvis Costello, the Pixies and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters cancelled scheduled performances in Israel to protest the government's treatment of the Palestinians.

Let us hope that Zimmerman will change his mind.  However, for the time being you can enjoy yourself watching   Zimmerman’s take on Hava Nagila. It seems as if the poor guy doesn’t manage to hit a single note.

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