tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-384701822024-03-05T12:47:02.407-03:00The Stupid LeftColetânea de artigos e textos contra o "pensamento" esquerdista e seu imbecilizante politicamente corretoUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger252125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-79209902741016796172012-11-15T22:52:00.001-02:002012-11-15T22:52:02.786-02:00Normas de reportagem para o Oriente Médio<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Da próxima vez que acompanhar o noticiário sobre Israel, assegure-se de saber ler nas entrelinhas.</span><br />
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Todos os meios de comunicação têm seu manual de estilo, elaborado de maneira tão clara e imparcial quanto possível. Hoje em dia, contudo, parece que o Ministério de Comunicação Palestino é quem publica e distribui seu manual a dezenas de jornais e outros veículos de comunicação.<br />Desde setembro de 2000, surgiu um novo “manual de estilo” de fato para os repórteres que cobrem a violência palestina contra Israel. Em alguns casos, as novas “normas de reportagem” são definidas pela própria linha editorial dos órgãos de informação.</div>
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Apesar do aspecto evidente de “jornalismo de encomenda”, é pouco provável que mãos conspiratórias estejam por trás de um desses manuais de estilo de fato. Na maioria das vezes, repórteres e correspondentes os adotam de modo informal, talvez até, de certa forma, sem plena consciência do que estão fazendo.</div>
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Invariavelmente, as novas regras são tendenciosas contra Israel.<br />Até agora, a tendenciosidade parece ter causado um impacto pequeno na opinião pública americana sobre Israel. Já na Europa, onde o tom antiisraelense é mais forte, mais estridente, o efeito é outro.<br />Seguem-se oito “normas” de reportagem sobre o Oriente Médio, extraídas de centenas de artigos e noticiários:</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 1</span> – Sensacionalize a intensidade e o alcance das ações militares israelenses.</div>
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Chame-as de “agressivas”, “devastadoras” ou “intensas”. Refira-se às incursões aos territórios palestinos como “de grande extensão”, mesmo quando se trata de apenas 250 metros.<br />Por outro lado, refira-se a ataques de morteiros palestinos como “ineficazes” ou “sem vítimas”, embora a intenção dos que atiram com os morteiros seja malévola.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 2 –</span> Suavize a violência palestina.</div>
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Não rotule as explosões de bombas e os tiroteios contra civis judeus como “terrorismo”, nem os perpetradores de “terroristas”. Diga “militantes” ou “ativistas”. Bombas plantadas no meio de mercados públicos israelenses não são “terrorismo”.</div>
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Manifestação de palestinos.</div>
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Justifique diferenças na abordagem. Por exemplo, ao referir-se a atentados do IRA como “terroristas”, a BBC News Online alegou: “Nosso noticiário doméstico sempre usou ‘terroristas’ para a Irlanda do Norte… mas a política do noticiário internacional é a de não qualificar ninguém nesses termos”. Segundo a editora da BBC Newshour, Maya Fish, “a palavra ‘terrorista’ nunca é usada em nosso noticiário internacional, não importa quem plante bombas, destrua ou mate.”</span><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.75em;">
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 3 –</span> Culpe os assentamentos judeus.</div>
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Atenue a agressão palestina chamando as vítimas israelenses de “colonos” e os locais dos atentados de “assentamentos” ou “territórios ocupados”. Designe os arredores de Jerusalém, como Gilo ou French Hill, por “assentamentos” e “enclaves de colonos” – ainda que esses locais sejam parte de Jerusalém há trinta anos e abriguem dezenas de milhares de famílias judias de classe média. Quando possível, também chame de “assentamentos” as cidades localizadas na Linha Verde*, como Sderot.</div>
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Vá além e refira-se a todas as vítimas judias como “colonos” – quer se trate de um garoto de quatorze anos ou de um bebê de dez meses.</div>
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Desumanize os residentes judeus de Jerusalém, da Cisjordânia e de Gaza reunindo-os em uma entidade civil ampla, como faz o The New York Times ao se referir a “soldados, colonos e civis israelenses”.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 4 –</span> Condene os líderes israelenses; solidarize-se com o Fatah e o Hamas.</div>
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Diga sempre de Netanyahu: “linha-dura”, “criminoso de guerra”, “repudiado pelos árabes” ou “demolidor”.</div>
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Nunca diga de dos políticos palestinos: “ex-terrorista”, “belicoso”, “corrupto” ou “despótico”.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 5 –</span> Culpe Israel por todas as mortes palestinas.<br />Culpe Israel, seja por “acidentes de trabalho” em fábricas de bombas palestinas, manifestantes atingidos por tiros palestinos destinados a soldados israelenses, ou feridos durante tumultos gerados por um atentado suicida ou uma explosão de ônibus.</div>
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Crianças israelenses que foram mortas em sua casa, enquanto dormiam, por um terrorista palestino.</div>
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Árabes mortos em acidentes automobilísticos também podem ser creditados a Israel. No começo de outubro de 2000, muitas versões culpavam os israelenses pelo espancamento seguido de morte de Issam Judeh Mustafa Hamed. Em 2 de novembro, patologistas indicados pela Autoridade Palestina concluíram que Issam Judeh havia morrido em um acidente de trânsito. É desconhecido o número de “mártires” que tiveram morte natural, ou foram mortos em acidentes e disputas internas.</div>
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Além disso, refira-se a crianças palestinas como traumatizadas, órfãs, assassinadas ou gravemente feridas – mesmo que pelas próprias balas ou bombas palestinas. Nunca mencione as crianças israelenses vitimadas pelos ataques palestinos.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 6 –</span> Empregue os verbos da maneira adequada.</div>
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Use a voz passiva para descrever as mortes palestinas – “foi morto a tiros” ou “foi abatido” por soldados israelenses.</div>
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Por outro lado, use o intransitivo para não evidenciar a culpa palestina. Diga que o tiroteio “irrompeu”. A manchete sobre a morte de Shalhevet Pass, o bebê de dez meses assassinado por um atirador palestino, dizia: “Criança judia morre na Cisjordânia”.</div>
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Quando possível, justaponha duas mortes, responsabilizando os israelenses por uma delas e deixando a outra sem autoria. Por exemplo: “Durante confrontos perto da aldeia de Dura, na Cisjordânia, um menino palestino de onze anos foi morto pelas tropas israelenses. Testemunhas dizem que o menino observava a troca de tiros entre soldados israelenses e atiradores palestinos, quando foi atingido no peito. Na segunda-feira, um bebê israelense de dez meses foi morto em tiroteio nas proximidades de Hebron”.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 7 –</span> Compense uma morte israelense, mencionando uma morte palestina sem qualquer relação com a primeira.</div>
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Compense uma atrocidade dos terroristas, como a explosão de um ônibus, com a morte de uma mulher idosa ou de uma criança palestina, mesmo que esta tenha ocorrido muito tempo antes da outra.<br />Noticiando a chocante carnificina de dois adolescentes israelenses perto de Tekoa, a CNN deu à matéria o título “Encontrados mortos dois adolescentes israelenses” e colocou logo embaixo a foto de um bebê palestino morto uma semana antes.</div>
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Em outra reportagem, a CNN noticiou: “Um israelense foi morto e outros ficaram feridos em atentados nas estradas da Cisjordânia nesta terça-feira. Os ataques aconteceram em seguida a explosões e confrontos em Gaza e na Cisjordânia que tiraram sete vidas palestinas”. Esse foi o relato, apesar das explosões em Gaza terem sido um “acidente de trabalho” em uma fábrica de bombas palestina.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 8 –</span> Invoque nomes árabes para os lugares santos.</div>
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Use termos árabes para os locais sagrados, mesmo quando o termo em hebraico for o padrão em qualquer enciclopédia, texto acadêmico, documento diplomático ou outra fonte aceitável no Ocidente.</div>
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<a href="http://politicageral.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/novasnormas03.jpg" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: initial;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-1538" src="http://politicageral.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/novasnormas03.jpg?w=645" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" title="novasnormas03" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.75em;">
Vista do Monte do Templo, que os árabes e grande parte da mídia chama de "Esplanada das Mesquitas".</div>
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Evite chamar o Monte do Templo de “o local mais sagrado do judaísmo”, ou Jerusalém de “a capital dos judeus há três mil anos”. Referências ao Monte do Templo devem ser qualificadas como meras pretensões: “que Israel reivindica ser o local do Primeiro e do Segundo Templos”.</div>
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De preferência, o Monte do Templo é “Haram al Sharif, o terceiro local mais sagrado dos muçulmanos”, ou “o lugar mais santo para os muçulmanos em Jerusalém”. Por contraste, nunca diga que Hebron, onde estão as tumbas dos patriarcas judeus, é “o segundo local mais sagrado do judaísmo”, nem que o sepulcro de Raquel, perto de Belém, é “o terceiro local mais sagrado para os judeus”.</div>
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Quando necessário, descubra um termo árabe bem obscuro, para aplicá-lo, por exemplo, à Porta de Jaffa, a entrada principal para a Cidade Velha de Jerusalém: “Bab al-Khalil”.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Regra nº 9 –</span> Omita fatos que não se encaixem na narrativa "Árabes oprimidos, israelenses opressores" e não contextualize as informações.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">Do início de 2011 até 17 de julho, </span><a href="http://www.idf.il/1283-12441-en/Dover.aspx" style="color: #999999; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: initial;">mais de 160 foguetes foram disparados contra Israel</a><span style="font-weight: normal;"> - inclusive durante o peírodo de cessar-fogo e causando várias vítimas fatais. De 2001 até final de 2008 mais de 8600 foguetes foram lançados por palestinos.</span><span class="st"></span></div>
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No dia 11 de março de 2011 dois palestinos invadiram a casa da família Fogel no meio da noite e mataram a facadas pai, mãe e três filhos - um menino de 11 anos, outro de três e um bebê de 3 meses. <span style="font-weight: bold;">O bebê foi decapitado</span> (<a class="l vst" href="http://neworientemedio.blogspot.com/2011/03/massacre-em-itamar.html" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: initial;">New Oriente Médio: <em>Massacre</em> em <em>Itamar</em></a>).</div>
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No dia 28 de setembro, durante o ano novo judaico, Asher Palmer (25) e seu bebê Yonatan morreram depois que o carro em que estavam perdeu o controle ao ser apedrejado por palestinos. Depois de morto o homem ainda teve seus objetos roubados pelos assassinos. (<a class="l" href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/israeli-father-baby-killed-in-terrorist-attack-after-palestinians-threw-rocks-at-their-car-causing-it-to-overturn/" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: initial;">Israeli Father <em>Asher Palmer</em>, Baby Killed in Terrorist Attack</a>)</div>
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Depois dos assassinatos os paletinos distribuíram doces nas ruas de Gaza comemorando o ocorrido (<a class="l" href="http://www.solomonia.com/wp/2011/03/gaza-residents-hand-out-candy-to-celebrate-itamar-massacre/" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: initial;">Gaza Residents Hand Out <em>Candy</em> to Celebrate <em>Itamar Massacre</em></a>).</div>
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Nenhum desses fatos foi publicado na grande imprensa brasileira. Mas quando jovens israelenses, revoltados com a violência palestina e a falta de resposta de seu governo, picharam "guerra" no muro de uma mesquita, o Jornal Nacional noticiou com estardalhaço os fatos. Sem informar a causa das manifestações ou motivo da escalada do setimento anti-árabe. Como se fosse apenas mais uma demonstração gratuita de intolerância e racismo.</div>
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Conclusão</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Mesmo que não seja uma “conspiração”, estabeleceu-se uma “convenção” antiisraelense nos meios de comunicação. Como esse “manual de estilo” se desenvolverá nos próximos tempos? Tudo depende dos resultados dessa batalha que está sendo travada na mídia.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-85655011941335161642012-10-22T23:23:00.001-02:002012-10-22T23:24:27.556-02:00African Refugees Say Arab Muslims More Racist than Europeans <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Under liberal dogma, the world is divided between the evil European colonialist exploiters of doom and the Oppressed masses of the Third World. In <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201210171258.html" style="color: maroon; text-decoration: none;">the real world, things are very different</a>.</div>
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This is Morocco, one of the few moderate Arab countries, though not for long with the victory of an Islamist party. It’s fairly tolerant by Muslim standards, which is still wildly intolerant by European standards.</div>
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<ins style="border: none; display: inline-table; height: 250px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; visibility: visible; width: 300px;"><ins id="aswift_0_anchor" style="border: none; display: block; height: 250px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; visibility: visible; width: 300px;"><iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="250" hspace="0" id="aswift_0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="aswift_0" scrolling="no" style="left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px;" vspace="0" width="300"></iframe><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;">“Be careful, those blacks might eat you,” a Moroccan juice seller in the little border town of Fnideq warned us. They might what? “Yes, really,” he replies. “They can do anything.”</span></ins></ins></div>
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“Arabs hate black people. And that is not from today, it is in their blood,” says Aboubakr, a young man from Senegal who is hoping eventually to cross over into Europe. He spent almost a year in Morocco’s capital Rabat before coming to this forest camp near the Spanish border and his experiences there left him feeling bitter.</div>
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“Friends of mine were attacked with a knife. Bandits target us because they know we cannot go to the police, even if we are robbed and hurt. Having no papers, we will be caught instead. Blacks have no rights here.”</div>
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American liberals like to compare the plight of Muslims to the segregation of black people in the United States, in fact it’s Muslims who practice segregation of Africans.</div>
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Aboubakr is also insulted that Moroccans “cannot believe many of us are Muslims too”. According to him, people are surprised when they see him kneeling for prayer. “They don’t think a black can be Muslim.”</div>
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The migrants are reluctant to believe that they might meet more racism in Europe than in Morocco. If they finally manage to cross the border “Black and white people are good together,” claims Aboubakr. “In Holland, there are many blacks on the national soccer team. Moroccans are just jealous.”</div>
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And that’s part of why you have a flood of African refugees to Europe, not into the Muslim world. And <a href="http://atlantablackstar.com/2012/10/17/blacks-in-north-africa-and-middle-east-often-face-virulent-racism-from-arabs/" style="color: maroon; text-decoration: none;">here’s a little view of life </a>for Africans in Iraq.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-22152142479094573172012-10-04T16:33:00.001-03:002012-10-04T16:33:11.108-03:00A imperdoável cegueira ideológica de Eric Hobsbawm <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<img alt="Faleceu hoje Eric Hobsbawm, aos 95 anos de idade" src="http://veja2.abrilm.com.br/assets/images/2012/10/100216/historiador-Eric-Hobsbawm-20121001-size-598.jpg?1349098095" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Faleceu hoje Eric Hobsbawm, aos 95 anos de idade" width="598" /><div class="t-smaller-darkgray" style="border: 0px; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 5px;">
O historiador Eric Hobsbawm <span class="t-smaller-lightgray" style="border: 0px; color: #b2b2b0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">( Roland Schlager/EFE)</span></div>
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Maior historiador esquerdista de língua inglesa, Eric Hobsbawn, <a href="http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/celebridades/morre-aos-95-anos-o-historiador-eric-hobsbawm" style="border: 0px; color: #dca80b; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">morto na última segunda-feira, aos 95 anos</a>, foi um idiota moral. Essa é a verdade incômoda que os necrológios, publicados em profusão, quase sempre fizeram questão de ignorar. Marxista irredutível, Hobsbawn chegou a defender o indefensável: numa entrevista que chocou leitores, críticos e colegas, alegou que o assassinato de milhões orquestrado por Stalin na União Soviética teria valido a pena se dele tivesse resultado uma "genuína sociedade comunista". Hobsbawn foi de fato um historiador talentoso. Nunca fez doutrinação rasteira em suas obras. Mas o talento de historiador, é forçoso dizer, ficará para sempre manchado pela cegueira com que ele se agarrou a uma posição ideológica insustentável.</div>
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Essa posição lança sombras sobre uma de suas obras mais famosas, <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Era dos Extremos</em>, livro de 1994 que, depois da trilogia sobre o século XIX composta pelos livros<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> A Era das Revoluções</em>,<em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Era do Capital</em> e <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Era dos Impérios</em>, lançados entre 1962 e 1987, se dedica a investigar a história do século XX – quando Hitler matou milhões em seus campos de concentração e os regimes comunistas empreenderam os seus próprios extermínios. Hobsbawm se abstém de condenar os crimes soviéticos, embora o faça, com toda a ênfase, com relação aos nazistas.<br /><br />Outro eminente historiador de origem britânica, Tony Judt (1948-2010), professor de história da New York University que fez uma longa resenha do livro de memórias de Hobsbawm, <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tempos Interessantes</em>, advertia já em 2008 que o colega ficaria marcado por sua posição política. “Ele pagará um preço: ser lembrado não como ‘o’ historiador, mas como o historiador comunista”, disse em entrevista ao jornal <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New York Times</em>. Em texto publicado pela revista <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New Criterion</em>, o escritor David Pryce-Jones também apontou o prejuízo da ligação de Hobsbawm com o pensamento marxista. “A devoção ao comunismo destruiu o historiador como um pensador ou um intérprete de fatos.”<br /><br />O entusiasmo com a revolução bolchevique, aliás, não foi a única fonte de tropeços morais para Hobsbawm. A conflituosa relação com as raízes judaicas – seu sobrenome deriva de Hobsbaum, modificado por um erro de grafia – o levou a apoiar o nacionalismo palestino e, ao mesmo tempo, a negar igual tratamento a Israel.<br /><br /><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Biografia –</strong> A história pessoal de Hobsbawm ajuda a entender sua adesão ao marxismo. Nascido no ano da Revolução Russa, 1917, em Alexandria, no Egito, ele se mudou na infância para Viena, terra natal materna, onde perdeu ainda adolescente tanto a mãe quanto o pai, um fracassado negociante inglês que permitiu a ele ter desde cedo o passaporte britânico. Criado por parentes em Berlim na época em que Hitler ascendia ao poder, ele viu no comunismo uma contrapartida ao nazismo.<br /><br />Da Alemanha, Hobsbawn seguiu para a Inglaterra. Durante a guerra, serviu numa unidade de sapeadores quase que inteiramente formada por soldados de origem operária - e daí viria, mais que a simpatia, uma espécie de identificação com aquela que, segundo Marx, era a classe revolucionária. Ele estudou em Cambridge, e se filiou ao Partido Comunista, ao qual se aferraria por anos. Nem mesmo após a denúncia das atrocidades stalinistas feita por Nikita Khrushchov em 1956, quando diversos intelectuais romperam com o comunismo, ele deixou o partido.<br /><br />Hobsbawm só desistiu de defender com unhas e dentes o sistema após a queda do Muro de Berlim, em 1989. “Eu não queria romper com a tradição que era a minha vida e com o que eu pensava quando me envolvi com ela. Ainda acho que era uma grande causa, a causa da emancipação da humanidade. Talvez nós tenhamos ido pelo caminho errado, talvez tenhamos montado o cavalo errado, mas você tem de permanecer na corrida, caso contrário, a vida não vale a pena ser vivida”, disse ele ao <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New York Times</em>, em 2003, em uma das poucas declarações em que admitia as falhas do comunismo – porém, sem dar o braço verdadeiramente a torcer.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-987398324021034812012-02-15T08:30:00.002-02:002012-02-15T08:30:50.349-02:00Sean Penn should return his Malibu estate to the Mexicans<p><br /></p> <div class="entry"> <div id="attachment_100137523" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 470px"><a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100137521/sean-penn-should-return-his-malibu-estate-to-the-mexicans/penn/" rel="attachment wp-att-100137523"><img class="size-full wp-image-100137523" title="penn" src="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2012/02/penn.jpg" alt="" height="287" width="460" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-size:85%;">Ignore the hippie visuals: Sean Penn is an imperialist lackey</span></p><p class="wp-caption-text"><br /></p></div> <p>I’d like to make a statement about the growing crisis in the Americas. It’s time for justice. It’s time for liberty. It’s time to end the ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology. It’s time Sean Penn handed his Malibu estate back to the Mexicans.</p> <p>Sean Penn pretends to be a friend of the developing world, but really he is not. To be fair, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/9080473/Sean-Penn-accuses-Britain-of-colonialism-over-Falklands.html">his recent call for the Falkland Islands to be returned to Argentina was an admirable strike against capitalist imperialism</a>. Moreover, I and the entire North Korean press corps cheered him on when he flew to Iraq to parley with Saddam Hussein, or when he spoke about Hugo Chavez in such glowing terms. But there have always been hints that his sympathy isn’t really with the workers at all. Aside from that time that <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sean-penn-facing-jail-time-20876">he spent 32 days in prison</a> for hitting an extra, <a href="http://www.famenetworth.com/2010/06/sean-penn-net-worth.html">his net worth of an estimated $150 million</a> is a bit of a giveaway.</p> <p>His continued occupation of Malibu is an unacceptable mockery of national self-determination. The Mexicans owned that stretch of real estate well into the early 19th century and it was stolen by the Americans in a naked act of imperialist aggression. America’s claim over Malibu is tenuous and rooted in patriarchy. Sean Penn’s house is a mocking reminder of that brute chauvinism, with its high white walls and spacious interiors. Its swimming pool is an insult to the honour of the Mexican people.</p> <p>Now, I know that some will say that the Mexicans never actually <em>lived </em>on Sean Penn’s estate. But how many of them have worked there? Think of the maids, the cleaners, the butlers, the pool boys, the cooks, the gardeners. Think of the sweat that has dripped pouring Martinis, or the blood that was spilt pruning the roses. Truly, Sean Penn’s estate is part of Aztlan.</p> <p>If diplomatic discussions break down, who could blame Mexico for resorting to military action to reclaim Mr Penn’s estate? Not I. Some might say that it would be an act without legal sanction or genuine historical cause. But that’s not the point. The people of Mexico want Sean Penn’s estate, so they should have it. Because stealing stuff from the rightful owners is the only way to combat colonialism.</p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-69196207274382536152012-01-22T15:57:00.001-02:002012-01-22T16:21:18.422-02:00“Um tom radical, de direita mesmo.”<span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >Começou o processo de escolha do candidato republicano que enfrentará Barack Obama em novembro. Significa que o Comitê do Partido Democrata para o Brasil (vulgo “escritório da Globo nos Estados Unidos”) tem pela frente grandes oportunidades para desinformar os seus telespectadores e fazê-los acreditar que os direitistas americanos são um bando de idiotas.</span> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >Não deixa de ser um avanço. Um ano atrás, os correspondentes da Globo, altamente capacitados no ofício de ler o esquerdista New York Times e repetir a coisa para o público brasileiro, estavam insinuando que certos direitistas lá, além de serem idiotas, incitam o assassinato de adversários políticos. Vocês devem se lembrar da deputada baleada na cabeça por um transtornado mental no estacionamento de um mercantil no Arizona.</span><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" ><img style="margin: 7px auto; display: block;" alt="homoglobalis usa msm" src="http://www.midiasemmascara.org/images/homoglobalis_usa_msm.jpg" width="501" height="392" /></span></p> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >Gabrielle Giffords é deputada pelo Partido Democrata. Com base nisso, seus correligionários na imprensa elucidaram o caso em menos de vinte minutos: ela foi vítima de um atentado tramado pela venenosa Sarah Palin, alçada ao posto de líder de um grupo de extremistas determinados a derrubar o governo do santo Obama, a quem se opõem por puro racismo.</span></p> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >O Jornal Nacional foi logo reproduzindo: “Muita gente está acusando o grupo extremamente conservador Tea Party, da ex-candidata a vice-presidente Sarah Palin, por incitar o confronto com os democratas”, comunicou o apresentador. Não foi informado quem era essa “muita gente”. Algumas horas depois, no Jornal da Globo, o correspondente Rodrigo Bocardi reiterou que “o Tea Party, liderado por Sarah Palin, é formado por conservadores extremos”.</span></p> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >É norma da redação: tudo que envolva a direita deve vir acompanhado de adjetivos como "extremista", "radical" e sobretudo "ultraconservador" (este último sempre enfatizado pelos locutores). Já a esquerda nunca leva adjetivo nenhum. Ela nem mesmo é identificada como tal. Na cabeça dos jornalistas, ser de esquerda é apenas ser normal. </span></p> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" >Pois bem. Fui ouvir o que a Globo News está falando sobre as primárias republicanas. <a href="http://g1.globo.com/videos/globo-news/jornal-das-dez/t/todos-os-videos/v/pre-candidatos-republicanos-participam-de-primaria-em-iowa/1754126/">No Jornal das Dez</a>, um dos apresentadores, ao chamar a correspondente, disse que os candidatos adotam “um tom radical, de direita mesmo” (portanto, não ser de esquerda já é radicalismo). A correspondente, Sandra Coutinho, concordou e ilustrou com uma informação apresentada em discreto tom de reprovação: Rick Perry, governador do Texas, “andou dizendo que a teoria da evolução é só uma teoria, e também disse que não acredita nessa história de aquecimento global”. Bem que me avisaram, esses conservadores são uns imbecis mesmo! Como ousam questionar duas verdades cujas provas de veracidade ainda não apareceram?</span></p> <p><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" ><br /></span></p> <p><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" ><a href="http://brunopontes.blogspot.com/">Bruno Pontes</a></span></b><span style=" ;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';font-size:10pt;" > é jornalista.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-38199446192418419952011-12-08T06:04:00.002-02:002011-12-08T06:07:08.912-02:00Aplausos para ONGsPresidente do "Viva Rio": que tal assumir de vez o nome "Viva Bandido"?<br /><br />por Peter Hof em 15 de fevereiro de 2007<br /><br /><br />Resumo: Qual seria a reação do Viva Rio se em vez do menino João Hélio a vítima fosse um "di menor", armado, que tivesse sido morto a tiros ao invadir uma residência?<br /><br />© 2007 MidiaSemMascara.org<br /><br /><br />Qualquer pessoa de bom senso, que leia quotidianamente os jornais, certamente já terá observado a relação, para se dizer no mínimo estranha, entre ONGs como a Viva Rio, do Rio de Janeiro, e a Sou da Paz, de São Paulo, e as forças da marginalidade que atormentam a vida do cidadão de bem. Essas instituições vivem às custas de gordas contribuições de governos estrangeiros - a Viva Rio recebe, de acordo com o Embaixador Inglês em Brasília, 2,5 milhões de reais por ano, fora as doações de fundações estrangeiras como a Soros, Ford e Rockfeller.<br /><br />A coisa chega a tal ponto que por ocasião do Referendo sobre o Comércio de Armas, de outubro de 2005, a Justiça Eleitoral proibiu que essas duas ONGs se envolvessem nas campanhas, que antecederam o referendo, devido às suas relações com entidades de outros países. E a coisa não fica por aí: as arcas do Tesouro Nacional despejam, sem nenhum tipo de controle, imensas somas de dinheiro para essas ONGs. Sempre é bom lembrar que essa dinheirama tem origem na carga tributária de quase 40% que a população brasileira, exaurida, carrega nos ombros.<br /><br />Para exemplificar o que está escrito acima pincei quatro exemplos recentes:<br />Caso 1: Os leitores deste Mídia Sem Máscara, que também me honram com sua leitura, devem estar lembrados de um artigo intitulado " E agora, senhor Rubem César Fernandes?" em que eu manifestava minha indignação pela apaixonada defesa que o senhor Fernandes, dirigente da ONG Viva Rio, fazia do dirigente comunitário William de Oliveira. Oliveira, dirigente comunitário na favela da Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, e protegé do senhor Fernandes, estava atolado em acusações de ligações espúrias com o tráfico que domina aquela favela.<br /><br />Indignado com a "injusta perseguição" que a polícia vinha fazendo a um inocente dirigente comunitário, o sociólogo (Deus deu cangurus para a Austrália e sociólogos para o Brasil) Rubem César saiu-se com esta cândida explicação sobre as mentiras do dirigente comunitário à polícia, publicada no jornal O Globo de 5/3/05: "Mentira não chega a ser crime". E a turma da patifaria resolveu levar a sério e ampliar o âmbito da declaração do doutor Fernandes: acrescentaram que também não chega a ser crime receber dinheiro para votar matérias de interesse do governo no caso do mensalão que, por extensão, também não chega a ser crime receber propina em negociatas com ambulâncias. Não chega a ser crime receber veículos Land-Rover de fornecedores do governo. E comprar dossiês falsos sobre candidatos da oposição? Crime? Nem pensar, quando muito é um escorregão de bem intencionados aloprados. Como se viu, "bons exemplos" são facilmente absorvidos por uma significativa parcela da população...<br />Para azar do sociólogo e do líder comunitário, o jornal O Dia - que pelo visto não concordava com o final que queriam dar à história - publicou uma série de cinco arrasadoras reportagens mostrando que acobertar roubo de armas do Exército e entregar aos traficantes rádios de comunicação comprados pela associação comunitária (muito provavelmente com dinheiro doado pelo Viva Rio), podiam ser considerados "apenas" como "pequenos desvios de conduta" só para o pessoal do Viva Rio, o que resultou na prisão de William de Oliveira.<br /><br />Caso 2: Ano passado, admitam ou não as "autoridades competentes", o crime organizado efetuou uma verdadeira ação de guerrilha urbana em São Paulo. Um grande número de policiais civis, PMs e até bombeiros foram cruelmente chacinados no decorrer de poucas horas. Alguém viu ou leu alguma declaração do Sou da Paz condenando a chacina de agentes da lei? Se alguém leu por favor me escreva. Agora, bastou a polícia começar a responder ao ataque e matar alguns bandidos para que todo mundo caísse de pau nas "desumanidades" cometidas pela polícia. Não se trata aqui de negar a existência de exageros por parte de alguns maus policiais, ações essas que devem ser severamente punidas. O que não se pode aceitar é a forma como as coisas foram colocadas por uma parte da imprensa. Só faltaram dizer que um grupo de pobres desafortunados, vítimas de uma sociedade cruel e excludente, foi barbaramente trucidado por infames policiais.<br /><br />Caso três: Em 8/10/2006 uma viúva de 67 anos, moradora no bairro do Flamengo, Rio, cansada de ser ameaçada por ladrões, deu um tiro em um vagabundo que tentava assaltá-la. O mundo quase veio abaixo. Um integrante do Viva Rio declarou que ela merecia apodrecer na cadeia; o senhor Antonio Rangel Bandeira, outro "especialista" do Viva Rio ouvido pelo jornal O Globo - para esse jornal, "especialista" é qualquer pessoa de uma ONG contrária ao direito de autodefesa - criticou o fato de um juiz ter soltado a viúva. Suas palavras publicadas no jornal da Família Marinho: - "A gente fica com pena, mas leis devem ser cumpridas". Pablo Dreyfus, também do sempre presente Viva Rio, declarou que o caso abre um precedente perigoso quando se solta alguém que infringe a lei, embora o tenha feito em defesa da própria vida. Para o senhor Dreyfus e o senhor Bandeira a única lei por eles aceita é da total submissão dos cidadãos de bem aos desmandos da bandidagem.<br /><br />Caso quatro: O Rio de Janeiro e o Brasil assistiram horrorizados a um ato de barbárie que nem os carrascos nazistas, os mais insensíveis dos seres humanos, seriam capazes de perpetrar: uma criança de seis anos foi arrastada por mais de sete quilômetros por um carro dirigido por marginais. Um policial que chegou ao local contou que chorou ao ver o estado do corpo da criança, completamente dilacerado e não conseguiu transmitir pelo rádio a mensagem. A revolta atingiu níveis nunca vistos neste desgraçado país. O jornal O Globo recebeu em 12 horas mais de 2.500 e-mails de cidadãos revoltados contra um ato que ultrapassa todos os limites até então imaginados da selvageria. Entre essas milhares de manifestações, pincei uma do leitor Jader<br />Neiva Mello, publicada em 10/2/2007:<br /><br />"Até agora não vi, ouvi nem li notícia que algum órgão de direitos humanos tenha ido prestar solidariedade à família do menino João. Porém já li sobre a preocupação da ONG Viva Rio para com os bandidos. É sempre assim: vamos defender os facínoras".<br /><br />Tem toda a razão o referido leitor. Vejam o que declarou o amigo do marginal William de Oliveira, o sociólogo (lembram-se da história da Austrália e dos cangurus?) e dirigente do Viva Rio sobre o caso, em entrevista ao Globo (sempre ele...):<br /><br />"É uma coisa sem nome, totalmente insuportável. As pessoas de meu trabalho comentaram o assunto durante todo o dia. A violência chegou ao limite da insensibilidade. O perigo é a sociedade entrar nesse clima de violência, ser dragada (sic) por esse sentimento e querer fazer justiça com as próprias mãos".<br /><br />Perceberam qual a maior preocupação do sociólogo Fernandes? É de a sociedade chegar ao limite da paciência e da capacidade de suportar os golpes que leva diariamente, de ver corrupção e desvio do dinheiro que deveria ser investido em sua segurança parar nos bolsos de mensaleiros e sanguessugas e resolver fazer justiça com as próprias mãos! Para os membros do Viva Rio o que importa é que, acima de tudo, animais que executam mulheres nas ruas, que incendeiam famílias inteiras dentro de carros, que praticam tiro ao alvo em policiais e extorquem e aterrorizam toda uma sociedade, tenham seus direitos humanos respeitados. Será que para variar um pouco, e talvez conseguir mais verbas de fundações e governos estrangeiros, o Viva Rio não pode mudar a cantilena e se preocupar também com os direitos humanos das vítimas? Eles podem começar dando assistência à família de Rônei Cândido Resende, 32 anos, escrivão da Polícia Federal, que em 11/2/2007, ao ser descoberto que era policial foi executado com 9 tiros de fuzil, seu corpo foi colocado na mala de seu próprio carro que foi incendiado pelos perpetrantes, um grupo de vítimas da exclusão social.<br /><br />Não lembro de ter visto durante toda minha vida uma manifestação de solidariedade e indignação como agora no caso do menino João Hélio. Reunidos na mesma dor e na mesma revolta lá estavam o Governo do Estado, o Governo da Cidade, A Cúria Metropolitana, a Sociedade de Pediatria do Rio de Janeiro, comerciantes como a Confeitaria Colombo que distribuiu fitas pretas aos clientes e pilotos de asa-delta. O site Orkut reuniu 22.255 membros protestando contra o fato. Até mesmo uma escola de samba pretende fazer uma homenagem a João Hélio no desfile de carnaval. Tudo isto não foi suficiente para fazer com que um membro sequer do Viva Rio juntasse sua voz à de milhares de pessoas em uma das raras e contundentes manifestações de uma sociedade entorpecida pela violência que a tem afligido por décadas.<br /><br />Deixo aos leitores uma pergunta: Qual o ilustre leitor (a) acredita que seria a reação do Viva Rio se em vez do menino João Hélio a vítima fosse um "di menor", armado, que tivesse sido morto a tiros ao invadir uma residência?<br /><br />O leitor que teve a paciência de ler este texto até aqui deve estar se perguntando a razão para o título desse artigo: Viva quem? Creio que a melhor reposta está contida na carta do leitor Rodrigo Dardeau Vieira, publicada no Globo de 12/10/2006, comentando o caso da idosa que atirou no bandido:<br /><br />"Quer dizer então que a turma do Viva Rio revogou o direito de legítima defesa, quer a prisão daquela senhora que reagiu a um assalto e a considera uma ameaça à sociedade? Diante disso, proponho a imediata mudança de nome da referida ONG para VIVA BANDIDO! Fica bem mais de acordo".<br /><br />Ah, a velha, mas sempre bela sabedoria popular!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-53687053778090178812011-12-08T06:03:00.000-02:002011-12-08T06:04:20.397-02:00E agora, senhor Rubem César Fernandes?<p class="articleinfo"> <span class="author"> Escrito por Peter Hof </span> <span class="created"> | 31 Março 2005 </span> <br /> <span style="color:#be4238"> Arquivo </span> </p> <p align="justify">Em <a href="http://www.midiasemmascara.org/artigo.php?sid=3473">artigo</a> publicado aqui no <b>MÍDIA SEM MÁSCARA</b> de 09/03/05 eu citei uma entrevista dada pelo senhor Rubem César Fernandes, diretor do <i>Movimento Viva Rio, </i>à jornalista Taís Mendes, publicada em <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> de 05/03/05, pág. 21. Na referida matéria ele fazia uma apaixonada defesa de William de Oliveira, presidente de uma organização de moradores da favela da Rocinha e acusado de ligações com o tráfico. Para defender seu <i>protégé</i>, o senhor Fernandes comete verdadeiros absurdos e afrontas ao bom-senso ao declarar que o dirigente comunitário, que em vez de chamar as autoridades joga, ou manda jogar no mato fuzis que haviam sido furtados das Forças Armadas, <i>é coerente com o William que conheci</i>. E que: <i>Mentira não chega a ser crime.</i></p><p align="justify">Tudo indica que até para o jornal da família Marinho, que publica num mesmo dia anúncios de prostituição e reportagens contra o lenocínio, o destempero verbal do senhor Fernandes, fiel escudeiro do jornal <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> na campanha do desarmamento, foi longe demais.</p><p align="justify">A impressão que ficou é que para consertar as coisas, a direção do jornal escalou um jornalista respeitado: Zuenir Ventura, que na quarta-feira, 09/03/05, publicou em sua coluna semanal de 1/3 de página um artigo intitulado <b>Versão Polêmica</b>, onde procurou livrar a cara do dirigente da comunidade da Rocinha. Interessante que um jornalista tarimbado como Zuenir cometa um erro básico e mortal para quem pretende bem informar seus leitores: o de dar voz somente a um lado interessado, “<i>por acaso</i>”, o do senhor William de Oliveira. Zuenir baseia seu artigo em uma entrevista que o dirigente comunitário deu a uma outra pessoa (Xico Vargas) em um <i>site</i> chamado <i>Nominimo</i>. Entretanto nada o impediria, em nome de um jornalismo isento, que Zuenir telefonasse para o secretário de Justiça e ouvisse sua versão dos fatos, de vez que as acusações eram graves e incluíam o próprio titular daquela pasta. </p><p align="justify">Aproveitando a oportunidade única que lhe era oferecida, o dirigente comunitário posou de vítima do sistema e de uma armação da Polícia. Segundo ele, o doutor Marcelo Itagiba, secretário de Segurança Pública do estado do Rio de Janeiro não queria que o Ministro Edson Vidigal do STJ, que tinha uma visita planejada à favela da Rocinha, se encontrasse ‘<i>com um dirigente de nada, um preto favelado’</i> (<b>Atenção</b>: isto é transcrição literal do que foi dito na matéria escrita por Zuenir)<i>. </i>William reiterou que tudo o que querem é arruinar sua ilibada reputação e Zuenir encerra a matéria com as seguintes palavras: “<i>Há informações que William diz só fornecer à Justiça. A ela caberá decidir se houve de fato armação política</i>.”</p><p align="justify">A matéria de Zuenir teve pronta resposta do doutor Itagiba, publicada na seção de cartas de <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> de 10/03/05 que negou categoricamente a frase racista a ele atribuída, e mostrou fatos e ações da PM e da Polícia Civil na verdadeira Zona de Guerra que é a favela da Rocinha.</p><p align="justify">Por uma dessas ironias da vida, no domingo seguinte, a revista <i>Veja</i> de 16/03/05, trouxe uma extensa reportagem intitulada <b>O Fio da navalha</b>, com transcrições de conversas do líder comunitário onde fica exposto todo o envolvimento de William de Oliveira com o crime organizado. Ao contrário das unilaterais afirmações de Rubem César Fernandes e Zuenir Ventura, a matéria de mais de três páginas da <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Veja</i> traz testemunhos de pessoas com vasto conhecimento dos problemas das favelas: a antropóloga Alba Zaluar, que há 25 anos estuda a violência nas favelas e o domínio do tráfico, e do deputado Carlos Minc, que comprovam as espúrias ligações entre o tráfico e um substancial número de lideranças comunitárias em favelas.</p><p align="justify">O capítulo seguinte da emocionante novela aconteceu no dia 17/03/05 quando o Secretário de Segurança Pública e o senhor Rubem César Fernandes foram solicitados pelo <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Globo</i> a expressar suas opiniões sobre <b>O Caso Rocinha</b>. Não vale a pena aqui fazer uma análise profunda do artigo do doutor Itagiba, uma vez que este se concentra em demonstrar com números a ação da polícia em comunidades como a Rocinha e outras. Do que ele escreveu discordo apenas quando diz que nos últimos dois anos mais de 30 mil armas foram retiradas das mãos de criminosos. A razão de minha discordância é a matéria publicada em <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> que informa que a polícia apreendeu, em 2004, 880 armas (18/01/05, pág. 10). Se a afirmação do doutor Itagiba é correta, no ano de 2003 foram apreendidas 29.120 armas, o que me parece um pouco exagerado, se comparado com 2004.</p><p align="justify">O senhor Rubem César Fernandes em sua matéria (quem sabe, devido a ajuda de um <i>ghost-writer</i>) foi bem mais moderado do que quando faz declarações aos jornais. Até aí nada demais: ele está na <i>boa</i> companhia do Presidente da República que quando fala de improviso faz inveja aos melhores autores de <i>besteirol</i>. Ele abriu a matéria, intitulada <b>Insurreição pela cidadania,</b> relatando que em 2004 o <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i> desenvolveu 1.134 projetos em favelas e periferias pobres. Segue dizendo que estas ações foram desenvolvidas com 1.380 instituições parceiras. Ele só “<i>esqueceu</i>” de dizer, ou de contestar as afirmações contidas em <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Veja</i>, que daquele total apenas 73 (5,3%) ações foram em parceria com entidades de moradores. Que explicação teria o dirigente do <i>Viva Rio</i> para o fato? Teria sido também muito interessante se o senhor Fernandes, um dos paladinos da nefanda <i>Campanha do Desarmamento</i>, nos dissesse quantas atividades para o recolhimento de armas, do mesmo tipo que o <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i> leva a cabo quase que em caráter permanente na sua própria sede, em igrejas e em outros locais da cidade, foram também desenvolvidas nas comunidades onde o <i>Viva Rio</i> atua, e quantas armas foram entregues pelos moradores dessas comunidades.</p><p align="justify">Outro ponto interessante no artigo do senhor Fernandes é a seguinte frase: <b><i>Não fazemos contato direto com bandidos, nem com a polícia mineira</i></b>. Está aí uma coisa que não entendi: contato direto o pessoal do <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i> não faz, isto pressup&oti lde;e que eles fazem <b>contatos indiretos?</b> Talvez seja este o papel do senhor William de Oliveira. Fazer a parte dura do trabalho para que o pessoal do <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i> continue recebendo generosas doações tanto do Brasil como do exterior, sem a necessidade de sujar as mãos nem correr riscos. Mais adiante o senhor Fernandes escreve: <b><i>Preservamos nossa segurança (alguém diria “integridade”) à custa do risco de nossos parceiros</i></b>. Como alguém pode defender alguém a quem está usando como bucha de canhão? Ainda segundo o senhor Fernandes: <b><i>os integrantes do Viva Rio</i></b> <b><i>receberam a graça de não ter nenhuma só pessoa nossa ferida ou morta em conflito</i></b> . Enquanto isso 350 líderes comunitários foram assassinados no município do Rio de Janeiro entre 1992 e 2001 (<i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> 20/03/05, pág.17). Como o senhor Ruben César Fernandes está tão orgulhoso das estatísticas das ações do <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Viva Rio</i> pode acrescentar mais uma: com a segurança e a integridade dos membros do <i>Viva Rio</i> devidamente assegurada, a cada 32 ações comunitárias de sua ONG morre <b><i>Um</i></b> dirigente comunitário! Preservar sua própria segurança e integridade às custas do risco de parceiros, senhor Fernandes, tem um nome: <b>COVARDIA</b>.</p><p align="justify">A pá de cal sobre a pacotilha montada por <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i>, com a participação do senhor Rubem César Fernandes e do jornalista Zuenir Ventura, foi dada pela série de reportagens do jornal <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, que se iniciou em 24/03/05, página 3 e se prolongou pelos quatro dias seguintes. Na primeira das reportagens, em uma matéria de página inteira com direito a transcrições das conversas de William com o traficante <i>Bem-Te-Vi</i> e outros marginais da favela da Rocinha, a história inteira é contada. Além de celulares, o amigo querido do dirigente do <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i>, também usava rádiotransmissores para alertar seus parceiros do crime sobre a chegada de policiais. Estes rádios era comprados pela associação de moradores e repassados aos traficantes. Será que alguém tem uma idéia de quem fornecia dinheiro para a associação dos moradores comprar tais equipamentos?</p><p align="justify">No caso dos três fuzis roubados em 27/07/04 do Forte Copacabana, e comprados por <i>Bem-Te-Vi</i> por 24 mil reais, William Oliveira orientou o traficante a se desfazer das armas, jogando-os na mata junto à vizinha favela do morro do Vidigal. William fora informado de que o Exército estava preparando uma operação na favela para recuperar as armas.</p><p align="justify">Para julgamento dos leitores transcrevo a seguir o que disse William de Oliveira ao traficante: “<i>Se liga, eu menti pros caras do Exército, disse que as armas não estavam aqui. Agora, se aparecer as peças (fuzis), até eu vou ser preso</i>” (<i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, 24/03/05, pág. 3). Interessante que o próprio William reconheceu que a mentira poderia levá-lo para a cadeia. Já o senhor Rubem César Fernandes, com a inocência das almas puras, afirmou sobre o caso: “<b>Mentir não é crime</b>”.</p><p align="justify">Na sexta-feira, dia 25/03/05 o mesmo repórter, Sérgio Ramalho, publica em <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, pág.12 outra extensa reportagem onde transcreve mais fitas mostrando toda extensão do envolvimento do líder comunitário e <i>darling</i> do senhor Rubem César com os traficantes da favela da Rocinha. Chega a ser repulsivo o trecho onde William manda um funcionário da União Pró-Melhoramentos ligar para o comandante do batalhão da PM e denunciar policiais militares que faziam uma blitz no morro (<i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, 27/03/05, pág. 18). O crime desses policiais? Serem honestos e estarem atrapalhando os negócios dos traficantes.</p><p align="justify">As fitas com as gravações das conversas entre o líder comunitário e os traficantes foram enviadas pela 16ª DP (Barra da Tijuca) ao Instituto de Criminalística Carlos Eboli a fim de serem periciadas. Esta providência é importante, não só do ponto de vista da justiça como também para que os leitores de <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i>, que leram na coluna do jornalista Zuenir Ventura, que <i>“ele (William de Oliveira) afirma que gravações foram adulteradas para comprometê-lo”, s</i>aibam que a verdade é bem diferente daquilo que o líder comunitário afirma a seus amigos e defensores.</p><p align="justify">Depois disso tudo o que fez o jornal da família Marinho, tão rápido em mandar ou aceitar que um de seus mais conceituados articulistas fizesse a defesa de um marginal? Nada! Sobre o assunto o jornal <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> mergulhou no mais profundo silêncio. </p><p align="justify">Infelizmente para William de Oliveira, presidente da União Pró-Melhoramentos da Rocinha, a Justiça tem um entendimento a respeito de “<b>coerência</b>” e “<b>mentir não é crime</b>” diferente daquele do seu protetor, senhor Rubem César Fernandes. Em 17/03/05 William teve sua prisão preventiva decretada novamente. Os agentes da Polinter, encarregados de executar a prisão, foram recebidos na favela com tiros e bombas de fabricação artesanal. Ao que tudo indica o dirigente comunitário, ao desaparecer, perdeu uma oportunidade única de ser <b>coerente</b> com o que sobre ele havia escrito o jornalista Zuenir Ventura: usar aquela oportunidade para fornecer à Justiça as tais informações que diz possuir.</p><p align="justify">Na madrugada de 29/3/05, quando tentava evadir-se da favela da Rocinha no banco traseiro de um carro, William foi reconhecido por policiais e preso. Ironicamente, William de Oliveira vestia uma camiseta com a inscrição <i>“A Gente Faz Paz”,</i> camiseta esta distribuída pelo “<i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Movimento Viva Rio</i>”. Quem leu as matérias de <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">Veja</i> e a devastadora série de reportagens sobre o assunto publicadas pelo jornal <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, há de achar pouco ortodoxa a maneira que o líder comunitário tem de fazer paz.</p><p align="justify">Ao manifestar-se sobre o assunto <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> foi bastante moderado, talvez porque seus leitores já houvessem assistido na véspera as declarações dadas por William ao Jornal Nacional. Ao contrário de <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Dia</i>, o jornal da família Marinho não explicou a seus leitores que a inscrição <i>“A Gente Faz Paz</i>”, estampada na camiseta de William, e<i> </i>claramente visível na foto do dirigente comunitário na página 20 de sua edição de 30/03/05, era patrocinada por sua ONG parceira, o <i>Movimento Viva Rio</i>.</p><p align="justify">Em “<i>defesa” </i>de <i style=""mso-bidi-font-style:">O Globo</i> é preciso dizer-se: desta vez, escaldados com a ri dícula reportagem de 05/03/05, a direção do jornal não correu a ouvir a opinião do seu interlocutor favorito, o senhor Rubem César Fernandes, <b>O Coerente.</b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-65473726487346631412011-08-24T01:09:00.001-03:002011-08-24T01:11:29.097-03:00Israel’s immoral novelists<span dir="right"><span class="text16g" dir="ltr"><b>Op-ed: Italian journalist says likes of David Grossman, Amoz Oz promote vicious distortions about Israel
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<br /></b></span></span><span class="text14"><span>Israeli authors have never been shy. They have always commented on their governments and always speak about politics in their novels. But the best-selling Israeli writers are now captives of a dangerous syndrome. One can legitimately criticize Israeli governments, their errors and deafness. But a dark malaise is now driving these authors to toe the line with the worst emotions of global public opinion. <div style="float:right;" align="right"><div style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:10px;overflow:hidden;width:268px"><table style="width:268px;table-layout:fixed" dir="ltr" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td class="text16w" style="padding-right:5px;padding-left:5px;background-color:#669ACC" align="center"><b>Peaceful Gesture?</b></td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#E5F0F4" height="9"><td>
<br /></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E5F0F4"> <td> <table dir="rtl" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center"><table dir="ltr" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="240"> <tbody><tr> <td class="text16" align="left"><b>Amos Oz sends book to jailed Barghouti / </b>Zvika Brut</td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="#E5F0F4" height="7"><td>
<br /></td></tr> <tr><td class="text13"><div style="text-align : justify;">Acclaimed Israeli author sends Palestinian prisoner convicted of several terror attacks book with personal dedication: 'Hope to meet soon in peace and freedom'</div></td></tr> <tr><td align="right"><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043248,00.html" class="bluelink">Full Story</a></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#E5F0F4" height="15"><td>
<br /></td></tr> </tbody></table></td> </tr> </tbody></table></td> </tr> </tbody></table></div></div><p> </p>This is the same public opinion that in essence boycotted the tragic news about a large, beautiful and caring Jewish family destroyed in a minute, when terrorists burst into their home in Itamar with one aim in mind: To murder as many Israelis as possible. <p> </p>There is now a deep chasm between the pretension of the "good conscience" of these writers and the crude realism of history. This is even sander and more significant because we are not talking about writers who hate Israel or novelists who pontificate against the Jewish State from abroad, but rather, about locals. <p> </p>Amos Oz and David Grossman, Israel’s most popular authors, have a track record of genuine Zionist endeavor. But Oz just got in touch with Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian terrorist leader convicted of murdering five Israelis and planning several terrorist attacks. The Israel Prize recipient sent the Palestinian prisoner one of his books with a personal inscription wishing him a speedy release from prison: “This story is our story. I hope you read it and understand us better, as we attempt to understand you. Hoping to meet soon in peace and freedom.” <p> </p>Indeed, the gap between these authors and the guillotine threatening Israel grows larger every day. David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed in the Second Lebanon War, was the first Israeli writer to explore the psychology of the Israeli occupation after 1967. Since then, Grossman’s paradigm, simply put, was always the same: Israel must end its role of occupier and oppressor if the horror of terrorism is to end. <p> </p> <h3 class="pHeader">Israel deserves better</h3> <p>It seems as though Grossman’s conscience as an intellectual hasn't been shaken by the Twin Towers attack, by the 1,600 Israeli civilians killed in terror attacks, by a decade of rockets on southern Israeli cities or by Iran’s atomic death cult. </p> <p> </p>Shortly after the Gaza war, Grossman called for an independent inquiry into the conduct of the IDF, paving the way for the biased Goldstone’s report. He also urged dialogue with Hamas. When Grossman went to collect a cash prize funded by the Israeli state, he refused to shake hands with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. <p> </p>After the flotilla incident, Grossman charged that Israel behaves like “a band of pirates.” He said the blockade on Gaza was “despicable,” attacking the Israeli government “which is prepared to embitter the lives of a million innocent people in the Gaza Strip, in order to obtain the release of one imprisoned soldier.” <p> </p>Indeed, the morality of Israeli writers is not longer in tune with reality and its contradictions, Israel’s security, very existence, identity and memory. These authors’ publications attract so much attention abroad because of the baleful influence they have on Israel’s reputation, as they promulgate the most vicious distortions about Israel. </span></span>
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<br /><span class="text14"><span>When Ariel Sharon sent forces into the West Bank to defeat the terrorists, both Grossman and Oz went to help the Palestinians with their olive harvest. Their noble generosity didn’t stop Hamas from slaughtering two Jewish girls in a nearby settlement, Linoy Sarussi and Hadas Turgeman. Now, again, after a new Jewish family was destroyed in Itamar, the writers chose to send postcards and books to the terrorists. Israel deserves better bards. </span></span>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-33746056880437559322011-08-08T03:53:00.001-03:002011-08-08T03:55:01.833-03:00Uribe descreve Lula como hipócrita e covarde<p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: normal;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><em>Álvaro Uribe</em> também assegurou que <i>“Lula combatia (o presidente da Venezuela, Hugo) Chávez ausente e tremia frente a Chávez presente”</i>.</span></p><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1WT7DKWMzgML_Ugymwuv3D3P99ty3TsLmgrDX7HBbLUQYg19sIz4TWBXVW2DxNVZ4CHC2ezlLe_efqIMERO2plG7qX77s67953TU_r4HHnSO8b75aGX6jEHjJU5hyelQFdcAbcQ/s1600/01.12-%20ALVARO%20URIBE%20V%C3%89LEZ-%20microsThumb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 470px; height: 627px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1WT7DKWMzgML_Ugymwuv3D3P99ty3TsLmgrDX7HBbLUQYg19sIz4TWBXVW2DxNVZ4CHC2ezlLe_efqIMERO2plG7qX77s67953TU_r4HHnSO8b75aGX6jEHjJU5hyelQFdcAbcQ/s1600/01.12-%20ALVARO%20URIBE%20V%C3%89LEZ-%20microsThumb.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O ex-presidente colombiano Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) respondeu através de sua conta Twitter (<a href="http://www.midiasemmascara.org/artigos/internacional/america-latina/12302-uribe-descreve-lula-como-hipocrita-e-covarde.html#%21/alvarouribevel">@alvarouribevel</a>) ao ex-presidente brasileiro Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), depois que este revelou em Bogotá, em um encontro com o presidente Juan Manuel Santos que, quando foram governantes, <i>“Não havia confiança entre Uribe e eu”</i>.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“Lula nos maltrata e no governo fingia ser o melhor amigo”</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">, escreveu Uribe através de sua conta no Twitter, e acusou Lula de ser “mal perdedor”, porque a Colômbia ganhou do Brasil a presidência do Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID).<br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Em outra mensagem, Uribe disse: <b><i>“Lula incapaz de declarar a narcofarc de terroristas”</i></b>, em alusão à insistência do governo de Uribe de que os países vizinhos declarassem como grupo terroristas às Forças Armadas Revolucionárias da Colômbia (FARC, comunista). Uribe acrescentou que <b><i>“Lula foi incapaz de extraditar o padre Camilo, terrorista refugiado no Brasil”</i></b>, que segundo as autoridades colombianas era o representante das FARC nesse país.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Além disso, Uribe assegurou em outra mensagem que <i>“Lula combatia (o presidente da Venezuela, Hugo) Chávez ausente e tremia frente a Chávez presente”</i>. Finalmente, o ex-presidente colombiano afirmou que <i>“hoje Lula confessa que me teve desconfiança, porém o investimento do Brasil teve toda a confiança”</i>.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O que Lula disse? </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O ex-mandatário do Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, de visita a Bogotá, afirmou que acredita que os presidentes Juan Manuel Santos e Dilma Rousseff podem fazer muito mais <i>“do que fizemos eu e Uribe. Não confiávamos inteiramente entre os dois</i> (sic)”, anotou.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O ex-presidente propôs ao governo colombiano criar um fundo de garantia para investir no desenvolvimento estratégico do Sul, de maneira que se avance em novas hidrelétricas, portos e vias.<i> “há que aproveitar o gasto para a riqueza do continente. Projetos estratégicos para daqui a 10 anos. Isto é o melhor que está acontecendo entre Brasil e Colômbia”</i>, acrescentou Lula.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O ex-presidente do Brasil pediu para dar importância ao crédito. <i>“Presidente Santos, você não deve ter medo de emprestar dinheiro aos pobres. Os pobres pagam”</i>, disse Lula ao fazer um chamado à “bancarização”. Ele destacou a gestão do presidente colombiano, Juan Manuel Santos e disse que o país <i>“está vivendo um momento de tranqüilidade extraordinária com alguns vizinhos polêmicos”</i>.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Lula assegurou que Santos está marcando na UnaSul uma política muito importante. Segundo Lula, a lição que o mandatário colombiano deu é de que não dedicou seu tempo em brigar com os demais vizinhos, senão em fazer a paz com eles.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">O ex-mandatário brasileiro ressaltou a presença de empresas do Brasil como a Petrobras, Odebrecht, Grupo Sinergy, entre outras. <i>“Este é um sinal muito promissor das relações bi-nacionais”</i>, disse Lula.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br />Publicado no <em><span style="color: #3100b0;"><a href="http://www.lapatilla.com/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue;">La Patilla.</span></b></a></span></em></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1WT7DKWMzgML_Ugymwuv3D3P99ty3TsLmgrDX7HBbLUQYg19sIz4TWBXVW2DxNVZ4CHC2ezlLe_efqIMERO2plG7qX77s67953TU_r4HHnSO8b75aGX6jEHjJU5hyelQFdcAbcQ/s1600/01.12-%20ALVARO%20URIBE%20V%C3%89LEZ-%20microsThumb.jpg"><br /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-73392715990041185572011-07-19T13:34:00.001-03:002011-07-19T13:37:13.330-03:00Thank you, Edward Saïd: Wikileaks, Linkage, and the Appalling State of Western Understanding of the Arab World<div class="entry-meta"> <span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author"></span><a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2011/05/24/3028/" title="6:29 pm" rel="bookmark"><span class="entry-date"></span></a><span class="meta-sep">by</span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/author/rl/" title="View all posts by Richard Landes">Richard Landes</a></span> </div> <div class="entry-content"> <p><br /></p><p>This is an essay I wrote back at the time of Wikileaks, and it got rejected from two different journals. I got distracted by my book, and forgot about it. I just got a nice email from a fan who asked me where I wrote the following:</p> <blockquote><p>The problem with middle eastern studies in the USA (a fortiori in Europe) is that it’s been colonized by Muslim and Arab scholars who have politicized the field and intimidated western scholars into ”respecting” Islam (which means giving it the honor that they feel it deserves). this hegemonic discourse makes it impossible to speak of honor-shame, the very hegemonic principle that has made Islamic studies such a retarded field.</p> <p>If Western academics had done this with their own culture and religion, we’d have no academics. The appalling propaganda that passes for scholarship today — Finkelstein and abu el-Haj come immediately to mind — that would get tenured from faculty and administrators in thrall to a political correct discourse that is, to use the Marxist term, “objectively” a form of cowardice and dhimmitude, is what drives sound people to take extraordinary measures.</p> <p>Today’s middle eastern studies more closely resembles the kind of atmosphere that dominated the late medieval university (inquisitorial) than a free and meritocratic culture commited to honesty. the only difference is that in pursuing this oppressive and ultimately dishonest form of “academic discourse” the people who admire “scholars” like F and e-H, actually betray the very culture they pretend to uphold.”)</p></blockquote> <p>It was in response to an article about <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/23/freedom">tenure in Middle Eastern Studies</a> in <em>Inside Higher Ed</em>. He also asked me if I’ve developed those thoughts, and I wrote back that in addition to <a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/conspiracy-theory-article/">my essay on Edward Said</a>, there’s the following essay, which I post here.</p> <p><strong>Wikileaks, the Middle East and Edward’s Said’s Legacy</strong></p> <p>One of the most interesting revelations in the cache of recently released Wikileaks documents concerned Obama’s Middle East policy. Remarks from several and varied Arab countries confirmed in a rather dramatic way, what some experts had claimed earlier: that the Arabs wanted the US to “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/150519">cut off the head of the snake</a>,” and that for these <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html#report/iran-09MANAMA642">Arab leaders</a> the head was Iran.</p> <p>On one level, this wasn’t groundbreaking news; anyone paying attention knew that Sunni Arab leaders were terrified of the power of Shiite Iran. But somehow this awareness had failed to penetrate Obama’s policy circle, which had consistently argued that in order to gain the support of the Arab world to move against Iran, the US had to “solve” the Palestinian problem. Obama <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/29/the-iran-push-backfires.html">explained this policy</a> of linkage to Netanyahu in their April meeting of 2009: by swiftly reaching a “two-state solution” that gives the Palestinians a viable state, Obama could win the favor of the Arab world and the global community, enabling him to tackle problems like Iran.</p> <p>Linkage had widespread approval not only in <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/06/the_myth_of_linkage/">academic and policy circles</a>, and among global “elders” like <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-gardels/jimmy-carter-takes-on-isr_b_36134.html">Jimmy Carter</a>, but also among newspundits like Tom Friedman, who considers it “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/opinion/20friedman.html">very logical</a>.” A cynic might call this the narcissistic messianic approach: let’s make everyone love us, have peace prizes all around in Denmark, and then calmly and collectively tell the Iranians: <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/gbc/578047-austin-powers-oh-behave/images/box-52325">“Oh, behave!”</a></p> <p>Of course others have argued against this Rube Goldberg machine (<a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/06/the_myth_of_linkage/">Kramer</a>, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/wikileaks-exposed-the-true-mideast-conflict-1.328500">Shavit</a>, <a href="http://www.mererhetoric.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-anti-israel-foreign-policy-experts-got-saudi-arabia-other-arab-countries-100-backward-on-iran-attack/">Ceren</a>, <a href="http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/05/still-a-fantasy.html">Rubin</a>, <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6504799/a-lethal-leak-or-a-boomerang.thtml">Phillips</a>, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/254040/according-wikileaks-israel-was-right-benjamin-weinthal">Weinthal</a>). What strategy would hold urgent diplomacy (Iranian nuclear ambitions) hostage to solving a problem that has resisted the most energetic diplomatic efforts for generations? And just what kind of solution to the Palestinian problem could Obama come up with that would a) leave even a diminished Israel in peace and security and b) so enthuse the Arab world that they’d now rally around America’s banner? It’s one thing to think you can squeeze some kind of grudging truce out of that adamantine conflict; it’s quite another to think you can, in a couple of years, produce a peace that will inspire the Arab world to renounce its resentment of American hegemony.</p> <p>And (<a href="http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/05/still-a-fantasy.html">predictably</a>) as soon as Obama implemented linkage, it backfired; indeed the Palestinians saw linkage as a reason to become intransigent: no direct talks without total settlement freeze. Asked why they insisted on this, if the Palestinians had earlier negotiated peace agreements while settlement construction went on throughout the West Bank, Nabil Shaath didn’t claim they said yes (as the MSNM would have us believe), but rather responded, “We have to say ‘no’ sometime” (<a href="http://www.seconddraft.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=623:bbc-hardtalks-steven-sackur-interviews-nabil-shaath&catid=57:see-section-msm-what-they-say-a-how-they-say-it&Itemid=134">5:15</a>).</p> <p>And why just now? Because, as Shaath went on to explain, with linkage the Palestinians saw themselves in a position of strength and Israel in a position of alienating Obama:</p> <blockquote><p>Isn’t President Obama impatient with what the Israelis have done? …Wasn’t Mr. [sic] Obama’s strategy that, [by] starting with the Palestinian-Israeli peace, [he] will really get America a better image in our area, will help America achieve what it really wants to do, disentangling itself from Iraq, resolving problems in Pakistan and in Iran and in Lebanon? Isn’t that what he said? Doesn’t that make him impatient of what Mr. Netanyahu has done to him? (6:57-7:30).</p></blockquote> <p>Did Obama and his advisors really think that everyone in the Middle East was just waiting for the right gesture, the positive-sum magic that will make everyone happy? Have they contemplated the opposite possibility: that Arab leaders <em>do not </em>want an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and that <em>our</em> linkage may play right into <em>their</em> version of linkage: Blame Israel for <a href="http://www.arab-hdr.org/">the misery</a> they <a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/palestinian-suffering/">themselves inflict</a>. Our linkage – Israeli concessions before and in place of Palestinian concessions – enables and empowers Arab <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/12/3/how-much-land-is-enough-before">scape-goating</a>; it aggravates the <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2248142/">belligerent forces in the region</a>.</p> <p>Some accordingly <a href="http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/obama_s_got_it_exactly">argued that Obama should reverse the sequence</a>: If he really wants peace (rather than a quick take-down of Israel) then taking care of the critical problem – Iran – <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/wikileaks-exposed-the-true-mideast-conflict-1.328500">will make it easier for Israel</a> to make the highly risky concessions Obama wants from them. Put the pressure on the most radical and, by the standards of a community committed to peace, the least “rational” actor on the scene, undermine the culture of apocalyptic violence they encourage among their proxies in the region (Hamas, Hizbullah), so that Palestinian moderates, who want to put an end to their own people’s suffering can rally support for the difficult concessions necessary for peace.</p> <p>So when the Wikileaks documents revealed no hint among the Arab leaders of a Palestinian state as a prerequisite for dealing with Iran, many noted how they undermined the rationale behind Obama’s insistence on a linkage that went, via Israeli concessions, to Arab and world cooperation against Iran. On the contrary, these cables give the impression that Obama had a strong hand to play against Arab intransigence: “if you want me to attack Iran, then these are the things I want from you.”</p> <p>One might imagine that Obama had his strong hand in mind when, a day before his speech in Egypt, he visited King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, asking for a gesture towards Israel in response to their concession on settlements. Such a Saudi concession might have a powerful impact on the mood in the Arab and Muslim world; it certainly would have added dramatic luster to his Cairo speech. And yet, when King Abdullah went into a tirade at the mere suggestion, Obama played none of his strong cards. Instead he went to Cairo <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/17/revisiting_obamas_riyadh_meeting">empty-handed and disgruntled</a>. Tough cop is not a role Obama seems comfortable playing.</p> <p>Those who follow the honor-shame dynamics here understand that <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2248142/">the weaker the Israelis look to the Arabs</a>, the more intransigent they become. One need not be an insider with access to high-level intelligence to understand the basic pattern that the last two decades of peace diplomacy have revealed: Israeli concessions elicit no hint of reciprocity towards a positive-sum solution. On the contrary…</p> <p>And yet none of this had even a slightly sobering effect on the giddy optimism of the administration. Only two months after Abdulla’s tantrum, in August of 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0810/A_year_to_peace_in_the_Middle_East.html">peace settlement within a year</a>, and in January 2010, after four further fruitless months, Presidential envoy George Mitchell prognosticated “<a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10796">within two years</a>.” Either these folks were pulling some clever feint (the predominant belief in the Arab world), or they are genuinely <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-obama-aide-palestinians-receptive-to-gradual-peace-deal-1.326132">clueless</a> (the most generous reading).</p> <p>Others, more knowledgeable about the political players can try to figure out why neither Obama nor Clinton (who’s husband got burned by this Peace debacle in a most spectacular fashion in 2000) permitted any of these developments – the Arab urgency about Iran, the king’s temper tantrum about Israel, the backfiring of Israeli concessions – to disturb the main lines of their version of linkage.</p> <p>Having just reread with students Edward Said’s <em>Orientalism</em> and some of his critics, I was struck by the role that his epigones have played in formulating this counter-intuitive strategy. In <em>The Ivory Tower,</em> <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/IvoryTowers.pdf">Martin Kramer</a> writes about the strong impact the book had on a generation of Western students, eager to dissociate themselves from any participation in American imperialistic hegemony, to <em>empathize with</em>, rather than “<em>other</em>” Arabs.</p> <p>After all, had not Said, even as he illustrated the point, insisted that to “other” necessarily involves invidious comparison, “either in self congratulation (when one discusses one’s own) or hostility and aggression (when one discusses the “other”)…” Saïd appealed to our “common humanity” to do away with this us-them mentality to shift our attention from “cultural, religious and racial differences” towards “socio-economic categories [and] politico-historical ones (p. 325):</p> <blockquote><p>At all costs the, the goal of Orientalizing the Orient [what post-colonialists more generally call “othering” someone, RL] again and again is to be avoided, with consequences that cannot help but refine knowledge and reduce the scholar’s conceit. Without “the Orient” there would be scholars, critics, intellectuals, human beings, for whom the racial, ethnic, and national distinctions were less important than the common enterprise of promoting human community (328).</p></blockquote> <p>Never mind that most Oriental scholars had a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lust-Knowing-Orientalists-Their-Enemies/dp/0713994150">passion for their subjects</a> and extended far more empathic effort in understanding the objects of their study than did Saïd did in critiquing the Orientalists themselves. And never mind that <a href="http://www.meforum.org/1854/culture-and-conflict-in-the-middle-east">Arabs tend to “other”</a> on a scale the beggars Saïd’s complaints about Western tendencies. On the contrary, Saïd, demonstrating his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah"><em>asabiyya</em></a>, his loyalty and solidarity with the Arab cause, had no problem “othering” those he accused of the sin:</p> <blockquote><p>It is therefore correct [sic] that every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric (p.68).</p></blockquote> <p>But these flaws had no discernable effect on the enthusiasm with which the field of Middle Eastern studies embraced his critique of its forebears, and remade itself along post-colonial lines. A pervasively flawed book became canonical for a generation, inspiring a paradigm shift that shaped Middle Eastern Studies in the USA. As a result, the field virtually became committed to not seeing what was before them. They could thus see <a href="http://people.bu.edu/arn/civilsociety%20in%20hall.pdf">vibrant civil societies</a> everywhere (<a href="http://www.muse.uq.edu.au/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_democracy/v011/11.3kubba.pdf">Syria</a>!), even in <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Vn2uneOVaKoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Islamist NGOs</a> (<a href="http://conflictsforum.org/2006/hamas-democratic-government-or-terrorist-organization/">Hamas</a>!), that promised democracy soon. After all, if they were humans like us, why not?</p> <p>It greatly assisted all these scholars who hailed the thriving proto-democratic, civil-society movements in the Middle East, men and women who could proudly claim they were not Orientalists, that they, like their mentor Saïd, detected few traces of the <a href="http://books.google.co.il/books?id=8Rw0NokDdzkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=islamic+imperialism&source=bl&ots=dHSJRgL-Lw&sig=w4sA0CihKsTUkAsLYqIwwXz-0pM&hl=en&ei=DEgQTfWfD9SChQe8m5i3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ">imperialism</a> that so marks the first thirteen centuries of Islam. It made sense that those who could ignore or downplay the patriarchal ferocity so dominant in the Middle East, could also turn a blind eye the enduring culture of Muslim imperialism, and the strong odor of frustrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ressentiment"><em>ressentiment</em></a> in the Arab discontent with modernity. For the Saïd’s post-colonial epigones, the Arabs were the innocent subaltern victims of our imperialism; not exasperated failures at implementing their own. History may have gone wrong, but post-Orientalist scholars made a profession of believing that the wrong turn was when Western imperialism prevented Arab societies from being (naturally) free, not that the Arabs had failed to maintain and expand their empire.<em></em></p> <p>This approach, divorced from reality even as it spoke of the “variegated” and “layered” phenomena it tried to represent, ended up anticipating developments and concocting strategies so fantastic, that just contemplating their spread and acceptance in policy circles gives insight into the dynamics of how a certain legendary emperor could parade before his people naked. As “I will make a lot of peace in the Middle East,” the <a href="http://www.mererhetoric.com/blog/arab-and-muslim-world/saudi-arabia/">spoof animation</a> inspired by Wikileaks– has the US spokesman say in defense of linkage, “We have consulted with many foreign policy experts, they have many Ph.D.s about the Middle East.” Along with the spectacle of Europeans acclaiming <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/18/books.highereducation">Noam Chomsky as the great American intellectual</a>, few things better illustrate the failings of this generation of Western intelligentsia than <em>Orientalism</em>’s profound <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Postcolonial-Theory-Arab-Israel-Conflict-Salzman/dp/0415443253">impact on Middle Eastern studies</a> and <a href="http://wisc.academia.edu/HerbertLewis/Papers/79825/The_Influence_of_Edward_Said_and_Orientalism_on_Anthropology">beyond</a>.</p> <p>Amongst the many noxious effects of <em>Orientalism</em> on our scholars’ ability to understand the Arab world, was the ban it put on discussing “honor-shame” culture, so strong an elective affinity in Arab culture that even Islam’s disapproval has failed to prune back the <a href="http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html">“honor-killings” of daughters and sisters by their family</a>. Said’s moral scorn for the patent racism involved in this cultural approach made “honor-shame” itself a shameful discourse to hold in academic circles. As <a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-16076113.html">Jerrold Green noted</a> “the mere recognition that cultural factors matter labels specialists as anti-scientific heretics by their more dogmatic colleagues.” According to a reliable source, this singularly successful political correctness has even invaded intelligence services, where one had to refrain from suggesting honor-shame motivations in analyzing the data!</p> <p>The greatest irony of this accomplishment comes from the fact that <a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/conspiracy-theory-article/">Saïd himself illustrates the honor-shame dynamic</a>. The second half of his career embodies the very “oriental” traits that he forbade us to discuss. On a very basic level, <em>Orientalism </em>represents an aggressive effort to “save face”: Westerners have no right to look critically at the Arab world. <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/IvoryTowers.pdf">Noted Kramer</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>Instead [of serious analysis], Said skimmed across its [Oriental scholarship’s] surface in search of the most offensive quotes, presented as the core or essence of orientalism, whose gravitational field no Westerner could hope to escape.</p></blockquote> <p>And the offenses were precisely those that were most wounding to Arab pride. On some level, <em>Orientalism</em> is a <em>cri de coeur</em> of someone whose <em>amour propre</em> has been wounded by the opinion outsiders have of his people. And the generation of scholars who adopted that book as the Bible (as one of my students described another professor’s attitude), considered their most important task not to upset those for whom honor and shame meant everything.</p> <p>And yet, if we don’t understand that some cultures (not only Arabic or Islamic ones) <em>accept, expect, even require that one shed someone’s blood for the sake of one’s honor</em>, then we don’t understand how people in those cultures “reason.” Our initial (and abiding) response, coming from a culture that has <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-dBqwJO8ZZsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=appiah+honor+code&source=bl&ots=zcD7vN1JQW&sig=EPD6ChNqx7IOcqBoOuSsybCgKuo&hl=en&ei=qM38TLT4I8P78Aaaovz1Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=the%20duel%20dies&f=false">fought a long hard battle</a> with the tendency towards violent retaliation for insult, views this behavior as irrational, as self-destructive – “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0521639573">their own worst enemies</a>.” But to think along these lines turns us into “<a href="http://www.ricorso.net/tx/ENG312/Teaching/Resources/Criticcs/Said_Edw/Orientalism/Oriental_2.htm">the apogee of Orientalist confidence</a>,” guilty of the “racism” Saïd so despised.</p> <p>For Westerners aspiring to study the Arab world without becoming colonial collaborators, that meant an <em>anti</em>-Orientalism every bit as distorting as the Orientalism Saïd condemned among the scholars. The new, <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/IvoryTowers.pdf">non-“othering” dogma</a> insisted that Arabs can and would behave rationally (i.e., positive-sum), in roughly the same way the Europeans did in creating the European Union.</p> <p>So why not “land for peace”? It makes sense. This conflict, the “very logical” argument goes, like all others, is about “rational” grievances. Presumably it will respond to the appeal of positive-sum solutions that call for mutual self-sacrifice in order to achieve mutual gain, and bury the hatchet. Israel gives land and the Arabs give recognition and an end to the state of war produces “peace.” Win-win.</p> <p>In a Saidian conversation, one cannot, without heavy moral opprobrium, suggest that it’s not about boundaries but existence, not about rational grievances, but much more about honor and shame, about the humiliation of a tiny Israel fighting off the combined might of the Arab empire, about the blasphemy of a dhimmi people, throwing off their yoke and daring to be “a free people in our own land,” in the heart of <em>Dar al Islam</em>. I mean, how can you solve a problem like <em>that</em>?</p> <p>It’s a lot easier to believe that poverty causes terror (rather than vice-versa): at least we know how to generate wealth… and we dare not think about the way some cultures <em>generate</em> poverty. And we certainly dare not ask the obvious question: If they will <a href="http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/cul_death.htm">kill their daughters</a> for <a href="http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/cul_death.htm">shaming them in their communities</a>, and <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20101120134121.htm">they burn dozens of homes</a> of dhimmi Copts when one of them dates a Muslim woman, imagine what they want to do to Israel for blackening their face and shaming their religion before the eyes of the world community and of history?</p> <p>Thus we end up with a foreign policy based on fantasy, mired in denial, a community of experts that refuses to process feedback that contradicts cherished truths, people who cling to PC “grand” narratives with the ferocity of true believers. Of course, they might say off the public record, everyone knows about touchy Arab honor, especially when it comes to Israel! Arabs themselves admit that Israel is a psychological problem “<a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/395/an-interview-with-al-jazeera-editor-in-chief-ahmed-sheikh">in the genes of every Arab</a>.” The very notion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most fundamental issue in the Middle East, constitutes a acknowledgment of that massive Arab “hang-up” on an area that is a mere .002 of their own, <a href="http://www.arab-hdr.org/">deeply troubled portion</a> of the globe.</p> <p>Our experts and academics understand this, and even have policy solutions: do everything to avoid situations where it becomes a problem. That, of course, means leaving Israel out of as many situations as possible. In other words, whenever honor-shame dynamics rear their ugly head, back down. Like <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2225504/">Yale University Press</a> or the <a href="http://www.newser.com/story/77879/met-yanks-mohammed-art.html">New York Met</a>, don’t confront, don’t provoke violence.</p> <p>Similarly, we never confront them on their double speak: When the positive-sum, peace oriented <a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/cognitive-egocentrism/">liberal cognitive egocentrists</a> hear Palestinians complain about the occupation, they think “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Armistice_Agreements">Green line</a>,” while the zero-sum, honor-comes-from-revenge oriented Palestinian spokesmen think “<a href="http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Palestine_Liberation_Organization">shoreline</a>.” (NB: I’m not essentializing, not talking about “the Arabs,” but specifically about those who are in thrall to an irredentist mind-set that we have difficulty imagining.) If we knew this, and worked around it without confronting it, that might make sense; but to ignore it, to make plans based on our projected understanding, to pressure Israel into concessions based on these fantasies, is either criminal negligence or malice.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, with such anti-Orientalist flaws at the base of their thinking, the Obama administration’s <a href="http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2010/11/has-obama-administration-failed-again.html">Middle East foreign policy team got everything wrong</a>. They expected long-term rationality in solving the Arab Israeli conflict (a quick positive-sum solution), and short-term irrationality (we won’t do anything about Iranian nuclear weapons until something is done about Israel). Instead we encountered the opposite: short-term rationality on Iran, long-term irrationality on Israel. Indeed, the take-home message of Arab behavior is that the Arab-Israeli lies at the heart of their most self-defeating behavior: it is <em>the hardest and last thing we’ll resolve</em>, not the first. And the idea that, if only Israel were gone, the self-destructive belligerence of Arab political culture would disappear is as loopy a messianic hope as being carried off by aliens on December 21, 2012 by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8217001/French-village-which-will-survive-2012-Armageddon-plagued-by-visitors.html">hanging out in Bugarach, France</a>.</p> <p>Maybe the cultural relativists are right: Who says Westerners behave rationally?</p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-47188079903984288282010-10-16T18:28:00.000-03:002010-10-16T18:29:19.086-03:00Dando truque nos evangélicos: um dia depois do 1º turno, governo prorroga convênio com grupo que quer legalizar o abortoPor Leandro Colon, no Estadão:<br />A postura da candidata Dilma Rousseff (PT) em prometer aos eleitores não mudar a lei do aborto contradiz a atuação do próprio governo que representa. O Ministério da Saúde publicou, em 4 de outubro, um dia depois do primeiro turno, a prorrogação de um convênio que estuda mudanças na sua legislação. O projeto, segundo o contrato publicado no Diário Oficial da União, chama-se “Estudo e Pesquisa - Despenalizar o Aborto no Brasil”.<br /><br />Dilma divulgou ontem uma carta em que diz ser contra o aborto e promete não tomar “iniciativa de propor alterações de pontos que tratem da legislação” sobre o assunto. O objetivo dela é diminuir a resistência de grupos religiosos que pregam voto contra a petista, por ter defendido no passado a descriminalização do aborto.<br /><br />Só que a promessa vai na contramão da atuação do Ministério da Saúde nos últimos anos e tem incomodado entidades que atuam em parceria com o governo. Esse recente convênio, prorrogado até fevereiro de 2011, foi fechado no ano passado com a Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, do Rio, e faz parte do Grupo de Estudo sobre o Aborto, que reúne desde 2007 entidades civis dispostas a debater o assunto com o Executivo, o Judiciário e o Legislativo. O governo desembolsou, só para a Fiocruz, R$ 121 mil para incentivar a discussão.<br /><br />Coordenador desse grupo de estudos em todo o País, o médico Thomaz Gollop lamenta a carta de Dilma e o rumo da discussão sobre o tema no segundo turno. “O enfoque está errado, inadequado, seja para qual for o candidato. O Brasil precisa se informar. Nas alturas dos acontecimentos, isso virou uma discussão de posicionamento radical”, diz. “Acho muito ruim que esse tema seja motivo de barganha. É completamente inadequado que o candidato diga o que vai ser feito.”<br /><br />O projeto apoiado pelo governo trata, segundo extrato do Diário Oficial, de estudo para “despenalizar” o aborto, ou seja, não aplicar penas às mulheres que adotam essa prática, condenada por lei. Mas, segudo o coordenador, a idéia é ir mais longe e não fazer mais do aborto um crime.<br />(…)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-69098256390438091892010-10-15T18:05:00.001-03:002010-10-15T18:12:24.661-03:00Dilma defende aborto em Sabatina da FolhaDurante sabatina realizada pela Folha de São Paulo em outubro de 2007, Dilma Rousseff defendeu a desciminalização do aborto.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TdjN9Lk67Io?fs=1&hl=pt_BR"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TdjN9Lk67Io?fs=1&hl=pt_BR" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br />Aqui, a verdade sobre Dilma e o aborto. Não é um boato anônimo da Internet. Ela defendeu a legalização<br /><br />Se a página não for tirada do ar, a entrevista em que a candidata petista à Presidência, Dilma Rousseff, defende a legalização do aborto está<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><a href="http://revistamarieclaire.globo.com/Marieclaire/0,6993,EML1697826-1739-3,00.html" target="_blank">aqui</a></span></strong></span>. Foi concedida a Carla Gullo e Maria Laura Nevesm da revista Marie Claire. O título é “A mulher do presidente”. Eu cometi um engano aqui. Havia escrito que a entrevista era de 2007. Não é, não! É de abril de 2009, há pouco mais de um ano.<br /><br />Dali a alguns meses, a Casa Civil tornaria publico o decreto com o Programa Nacional dos Direitos Humanos, que trazia a legalização do aborto como um… “direito humano”, o que certamente assombra as áreas da política, da filosofia, da religião, da moral e da lógica. E Dilma estava muito à vontade porque, como se nota, falava com interlocutoras que concordavam com ela.<br /><br />Quando as tais “pesquisas qualitativas” indicaram que essa opinião poderia não trazer votos e até tirar, então a “mulher do Lula” resolver mudar de idéia e se comportar como “a mulher do pastor” — não dá pra dizer “mulher do padre” porque não fica bem…<br /><br />Então não venham agora alguns coleguinhas escrever coisas como: “O PT combate o boato de que Dilma defende a legalização do aborto…” Ou: “Há uma corrente na Internet segundo a qual Dilma defenderia a legalização do aborto”…<br /><br />Calma lá!<br /><br />Em abril do ano passado, já candidata oficiosa, Dilma defendeu a legalização do aborto. Não é boato! O futuro do pretérito, a depender do caso, pode ser só o tempo verbal da história reescrita.<br /><br />Trecho da revista:<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">MC Uma das bandeiras da Marie Claire é defender a legalização do aborto. Fizemos uma pesquisa com leitoras e 60% delas se posicionaram favoravelmente, mesmo o aborto não sendo uma escolha fácil. O que a senhora pensa sobre isso?</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">DR - Abortar não é fácil pra mulher alguma. Duvido que alguém se sinta confortável em fazer um aborto. Agora, isso não pode ser justificativa para que não haja a legalização. O aborto é uma questão de saúde pública. Há uma quantidade enorme de mulheres brasileiras que morre porque tenta abortar em condições precárias. Se a gente tratar o assunto de forma séria e respeitosa, evitará toda sorte de preconceitos. Essa é uma questão grave que causa muitos mal-entendidos.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-91756319390747392782010-07-30T18:47:00.000-03:002010-07-30T18:49:11.784-03:00White Liberals and Politically Correct Racism<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><strong>This is a cross-post by <a href="http://edmundstanding.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/white-liberals-and-politically-correct-racism/">Edmund Standing</a></strong></em></span></p> <p>The white liberal is an unhealthy type of creature that you will undoubtedly have encountered, if not in real life, certainly via the media. By ‘liberal’, I do not mean simply someone who has a generally liberal outlook, in the sense of a ‘live and let live’ philosophy, nor do I mean liberals in the sense of the classical liberals of the conservative tradition. By ‘white liberal’, I mean a white Western individual who is likely to come from a middle class background and have a university education, considers him or herself to be both ‘left-wing’ and socially ‘liberal’, and almost certainly reads <em>The Guardian</em> or <em>The Independent</em>. White liberals espouse an artificial and pretentious form of ‘egalitarianism’, a patronising and hypocritical approach to ethnic minorities and non-Western cultures, and – in a re-hash of the notion of the ‘white man’s burden’ – devote themselves to a delusional Messianism in which they seek to ‘save the world’ through protesting against war (in real terms, protesting against non-white people having a chance at freedom and democracy), Israel (the one truly liberal society in the Middle East), globalisation (thereby opposing the one great vehicle by which <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5633239795464137680">poorer nations can develop</a>), and so on, while making themselves feel and look ‘good’ by flaunting their pious support for campaigns to end poverty in the Third World (which will do no such thing, as <a href="http://www.dambisamoyo.com/deadaid.html">Dambisa Moyo</a>, <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article525509.ece">Stephen Pollard</a>, <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11712">Marian L. Tupy</a>, and others rightly point out ), and boasting about how ‘progressive’ they are by showing ‘solidarity’ with genocidal Islamists in Gaza.<br /><span id="more-36971"></span><br />White liberals, despite viewing themselves as intelligent and open-minded, are actually some of the most illiberal and narrow-minded people in society today. Their reactions to the idea that anyone might think differently to them range from gut-wrenching despair to pure hatred of the kind seen in the most fanatical of ‘true believers’. White liberals are, by and large, incapable of serious adult debate (preferring innuendo and accusations of bigotry), or of dealing with the fact that not everyone will agree with them (despite their supposed love of pluralism and a multiplicity of different ‘voices’), and tend to see any view which deviates from their cultic leftist script as a form of irredeemable moral evil. White liberals do not base their world-view on rational analysis and sensible argument, but instead on an almost religious faith that they possess the ‘truth’, and just as we see in so many fundamentalist religious cults and sects, the devotees of the white liberal faith burn with hatred for the ‘sin’ that surrounds them, and indeed, all too often for the ‘sinners’ themselves. White liberals, who are the intellectual equivalent of stroppy, rebellious teenagers, have sought to subvert and undermine Western civilisation, and some offer support for authoritarian and even terrorist movements as part of their attack on ‘racism’ and ‘colonialism’.</p> <p>White liberals approach issues of race and racism from an essentially irrational, moralistic standpoint. White liberals do not simply judge racism to be based on bad thinking and criticise it for its illogical collectivism. Instead, white liberals make the issue of racism, as with other issues, all about <em>them</em>. White liberals have colonised the discourse of racism and anti-racism because it offers them an opportunity to boast of the superiority of their virtue and to demonstrate their purity and holiness through ostentatious and vacuous public displays of self-flagellation. Just as early Christianity imbued adherents with a deep sense of guilt and sinfulness, so the white liberal finds in reflecting on the history of white racism the opportunity to both revel in the guilt of the sinner and to make atonement through ‘anti-racist’ initiatives, thereby offering them the opportunity to further present themselves as a holy elite tasked with saving the world. And just as at various points in the history of Christianity an overarching sense of guilt derived from an intense awareness of, and obsession with, the supposedly inherent sinfulness of human beings and of the ‘world’ led ‘holy’ men and women to conclude that the path to holiness is found in the hatred of self, world, and the human condition, white liberals indulge in a form of self-hatred which is designed to project the image of penitence and sanctity, while actually being transparently pretentious, self-aggrandising, and destructive.</p> <p>Ideological white racists are collectivists who adopt the irrational position that white people form some kind of world-wide ‘brotherhood’ with a unified history and culture. The huge variations in the historical and cultural experiences and manifestations of the various majority white nations is seen to be of little importance in the bigger picture. Ideological white racists are frequently people who have made little or no personal contribution to the development and advancement of Western civilisation. You won’t find many ground-breaking inventors and innovators, great scientists, artists, composers, and so on in the ranks of the modern white supremacist movement, but you will find many bitter and insecure individuals who make themselves feel important by piggy-backing on the achievements of others. When white racist activists and ideologues talk of ‘white unity’ and ‘white pride’, they almost always claim to be ‘proud’ of the ‘superior’ achievements of white people throughout history. Ideological white racists will point to great men and women of the past and present who happen to share their skin colour and state how great the ‘white race’ is. So, you will find the absurd phenomenon of drug dealing, dole scrounging morons who somehow feel Shakespeare and Mozart can be claimed by them as great men of ‘their race’. Clearly, stating yourself ‘proud’ of things that you have not made or done just because they were made or done by people who look or looked similar to you has no rational basis.</p> <p>On this point, white liberals will agree. However, at the same time, white liberals advocate an inverse form of the same collectivist nonsense by proposing that whites should feel collective guilt for the <em>negative</em> actions of white people of the past. It’s clearly stupid for a skinhead thug to claim to feel ‘proud’ of the works of Beethoven, yet it is also equally stupid for a white liberal to claim to feel ‘guilty’ for the actions of white slave traders or marauding white colonialists. But the white liberal simply will not accept this. White liberals hold an almost universally negative view of the history of Western civilisation and claim that modern Western whites should apologise and make amends for the actions of whites of previous generations and even previous centuries. If a Mayor of London made a public speech tearfully extolling the superior virtues of white people who happened to live in London in the past most people would be shocked by this act of collectivist posturing and irrational bigotry. However, when the tables are turned and a Mayor of London makes a tearful ‘apology’ for long dead Londoners’ involvement in the slave trade, this is seen by white liberals to be a moral and righteous act.</p> <p>Here’s how <em>The Guardian</em> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/aug/24/london.humanrights">reported</a> a 2007 case of exactly this collectivist irrationality:</p> <blockquote><p>Ken Livingstone yesterday marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade with an emotional and tearful ceremonial apology on behalf of the capital city and its institutions. The London mayor wept as he told a commemorative service of the cruelties inflicted on the millions transported from Africa and the legacy that confronts them today.</p> <p>Before an audience of politicians, writers and dignitaries, he twice paused during his address. As he voiced the apology, the US civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson walked over and placed his arm around the mayor. Mr Livingstone completed the long awaited statement, dabbing tears from his eyes, his voice shaky.</p></blockquote> <p>Ken Livingstone – known as ‘Red Ken’ for the far-left views he espoused for many years of his political career – took it upon himself to express collective guilt on behalf of an entire city in his role as Mayor of London. In doing so, he acted as the archetypal masochistic white liberal idiot.</p> <p>As is so often the case with white liberals, Livingstone’s pathological sense of white guilt has also affected his ability to think rationally about people who happen to have a darker shade of skin than him. For white liberals like Red Ken, criticism of any non-white person is suspected to be a cover for ‘racism’, ‘imperialism’, and so on. Consequently, when Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi – an Islamist ‘scholar’ who advocates the death penalty for gay people, the beating of wives by their husbands, and calls Hamas terrorists ‘martyrs’ – came to London in 2004, Livingstone, acting in his official capacity of Mayor of London, publicly welcomed him and went so far as to embrace him before the cameras of the media.</p> <p>Rational criticism of this disgusting act of grovelling to a retrograde theocratic ideologue had no effect on Livingstone. Taking white liberal idiocy to its logical conclusion, he went so far as issuing yet another of his vacuous apologies, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3888419.stm">stating</a> that ‘On behalf of the people of London, I would like to apologise to the Sheikh for the outburst of xenophobia in sections of the media’. Livingstone’s decision to ignore Al-Qaradawi’s reactionary views was typical of the kind of double standard adopted by many white liberals. Livingstone seems to be one of the white liberal drones who thinks that while white people have been – and continue to be – somehow collectively responsible for an endless list of crimes and transgressions, the same cannot possibly be said for someone of another ethnicity. If a white leader advocated the same things as Al-Qaradawi, white liberals like Livingstone would be up in arms, denouncing the evils of homophobia, sexism, and any other ‘ism’ that could be thrown at them, and would probably go on to issue tearful apologies and dredge up issues like slavery.</p> <p>Speaking of the similar attitudes of white liberals in Canada, liberal Muslim author Tarek Fatah <a href="http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16381&Itemid=86">nailed it</a> when he told the <em>Canadian Jewish News</em>:</p> <blockquote><p>there is a tremendous amount of white guilt. The intelligentsia in this country in a selfish way tries to assuage this guilt. It caters to the most idiosyncratic behaviour of the immigrant and practices the racism of lower expectations. It sets standards of behaviour for our community, but when dealing with immigrants and especially the Muslim community, it does not expect them to live by the same standards.</p></blockquote> <p>Meanwhile, the Syrian-born Muslim scholar Bassam Tibi has <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,440340,00.html">told</a> Germany’s <em>Der Spiegel</em> magazine that ‘Europeans have stopped defending the values of their civilization’ because ‘they confuse tolerance with relativism’. White guilt is an irrational, intellectually and culturally crippling pathology, yet white liberals who embrace this nonsense have a huge influence in almost all the powerful and influential sectors of our society.</p> <p>For white liberals, the fear of being accused of racism is a matter of constant concern. The idea that someone might be a racist has taken second place only to the idea that someone might be a paedophile. Racism continues to be a highly contentious issue, and one in which white liberals take a particularly keen interest. However, as with everything else, most white liberals get this issue completely wrong and in doing so greatly hinder the development of an intellectually honest and rational society, and a society in which racial collectivism and prejudice is eradicated.</p> <p>A good working definition of racism would be that it is the belief that one or more ethnic groups are inherently, biologically inferior to another. Racists work on the deterministic assumption that people can be collectively viewed as a single group based on ethnic ancestry alone and that membership of this group connotes certain fixed, unchanging, and unchangeable factors, such as intelligence, character, and aspirations. Racists are race essentialists – they do not see individuals but rather view ethnic groups as monolithic groups whose cultures, traditions, religions, and so on in some sense spring from their genetic make-up. While I’m far from an Ayn Rand acolyte, her analysis of racism in <a href="http://www.uc.edu/nationfamilystate/Authors/Ayn%20Rand/ARVirtueSelfishness17.pdf"><em>The Virtue of Selfishness</em></a> is spot-on:</p> <blockquote><p>Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.</p> <p>Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas — or of inherited knowledge — which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.</p> <p>Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.</p></blockquote> <p>When it comes to racism, a sensible approach would be to say that as the central assumptions which underpin it are false, racism is irrational and consequently a belief system that is of no value and is positively harmful. Many white people are hard-working and make a positive contribution to society; however, many do not. The same applies across all ethnic groups. A sensible approach to the issue of race is to judge individuals on their personal merits, not on the colour of their skin or their country of ethnic ancestry. The white racist would prefer to live next to a white dole scrounger than a hard-working Asian. This fact illustrates the fundamental irrationality of racism, and the indiscriminate collectivism upon which it is based. Racists are often seen as people who ‘discriminate’. In reality, they show themselves to be fundamentally incapable of discrimination, given the fact they see only undifferentiated masses termed ‘races’, instead of vastly differing <em>individuals</em>.</p> <p>White liberals take a very different approach to the issue of racism than the one outlined above. White liberals do not predominantly base their positions on reason, but rather on emotions, moralism, and an almost religious devotion to concepts such as egalitarianism and ‘human rights’ (although their support for human rights varies according to whose rights are at stake). As moralists, white liberals see racism as evil and essentially ‘sinful’, and for them racism violates the holy precepts of ‘rights’ and ‘humanity’. White liberals are incapable of logically and adequately addressing issues of race and racism, because their moralism is not rationally founded.</p> <p>In the Hebrew Bible, we find the idea of generational curses, in which God punishes the descendants of transgressors. For example, in Exodus 20:5, God is said to have stated: ‘I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation’. White liberals approach racism from a similar perspective. As we have seen, white liberals feel an almost pathological sense of guilt over the white racism of the past and this is central to their overwhelmingly negative assessment of the West and its history.</p> <p>This combination of moralism and guilt has resulted in white liberals going from one extreme to the other. In attempting to avoid the mistakes of the past and to somehow atone for the sins of their forefathers, white liberals have adopted a position towards ethnic minorities and non-Western cultures in which they feel that it is not morally permissible for white people to criticise any non-white groups, belief systems, cultural phenomena, and so on. Consequently, white liberals are – for example – wholly opposed to asserting the superior values of Western modernity over the comparative backwardness of the so-called Islamic world, and indeed devote much of their time to promoting the idea that the West is in fact grossly deficient and shot through with ‘racism’.</p> <p>Multiculturalism is the inevitable result of this white liberal outlook. Unable to assert the particular value of Western civilisation and the developments of modernity, white liberals have encouraged multiculturalism because a large part of their flawed ‘anti-racist’ strategy is the promotion of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the irrational position that no culture – or aspect of cultural belief or practice – can in any sense be stated to be better than another, and it is an important aspect of the pseudo-religion of ‘equality’. The simplistic idea underpinning cultural relativism is the view that if all cultures are seen as equal, then all races will be seen to be equal, and never again can whites assert racial superiority over non-whites. However, the white liberal approach to racism is wrong on two fundamental levels: firstly, it is irrational, and secondly, it is actually based on racist ideas.</p> <p>The white liberal notion that ‘discrimination’ is an intrinsic evil involves an abuse of the concept of discrimination and the application of a moral principle that makes no sense, and is not even consistently followed by white liberals. Despite the fact the word is now so loaded it automatically conjures up images of bigotry and injustice, discrimination is a perfectly normal and legitimate concept. To discriminate is simply to choose one option from a series of options. The fact that railway companies no longer build steam locomotives is the result of superior advances in rail technology. When building new trains, rail companies <em>could</em> choose to build a new fleet of steam locomotives. Of course, they do not do this as to do so would be a step backwards and would be commercially harmful. In choosing to build trains using the latest technology, rail companies are using a process of discrimination. Go and see the managers of a rail company and try telling them that all trains are ‘equal’ and that they should not ‘discriminate’ against steam locomotives, but should rather use equal numbers of steam and electric locomotives. They would probably laugh in your face and call you an idiot. And they would be right. Even white liberals would find the notion of railway locomotive ‘equality’ completely absurd and irrational. However, when it comes to looking at beliefs, cultural practices, ways of ordering society, and so on, white liberals suddenly adopt the same irrational argument as used in my train example. All cultures are ‘equal’, they assert. To think otherwise is immoral and bigoted and shows that you are a ‘racist’.</p> <p>In reality, white liberals do not really consider all cultures to be equal. They may say they do, but even white liberals are not actually that stupid. White liberals to do not want to live in a society ruled on theocratic lines; they don’t want to be enslaved to following ancient writings of ignorant men; they don’t want their daughters to be genitally mutilated; they don’t want to be forced into arranged marriages; they don’t believe men should be in a position of ‘authority’ over women; they don’t accept sexism, misogyny, and anti-gay prejudice; they don’t think the answer to criminality is to enact barbaric laws involving public whippings, amputation, stoning, and beheading; they don’t think people should be executed for ‘crimes’ such as homosexuality and ‘sorcery’. The West was once based around all these principles, however, a slow development away from rule by religious authority and unelected leaders, and a society ordered along brutal feudal lines and permeated with superstition, took place in the West over a number of centuries, and was particularly accelerated thanks to the Enlightenment. The often hysterical reaction to Christian fundamentalists exhibited by white liberals, and their support for the notion that harshly criticising and even ridiculing Christianity is admirable and ‘progressive’, shows where they stand when it comes to traditional Western religion and religious authority. Because of its long history in the West, white liberals tend to perceive Christianity as somehow a ‘white’ religion (despite the majority of practising Christians in the world today being non-white and non-European), and as a result are more than happy to see it dissected, neutered, and pilloried. Naturally, white liberals do not consider criticism of Christianity and theocratic Christian groups to be a form of ‘anti-white racism’, and they are right, as it isn’t, and has nothing to do with race.</p> <p>Given white liberals are very clear about the way in which they wish to live, and the rights they consider essential – free speech and expression, freedom from sexism, freedom from homophobia, democratic rights, individual rights, freedom from religious authority, freedom from State oppression, and so on – you might expect them to take the position that every citizen in the West (and indeed the whole world) should share a respect for, and enjoy the benefits of, these freedoms. However, because of white liberals’ bizarre misunderstanding of what racism is, they suddenly throw out any universal commitment to such values when they find that non-white societies and ethnic minority groups in majority-white societies do not respect these freedoms. The clearest example of this bizarre and hypocritical attitude is currently found in the way white liberals approach Islam and Muslims. According to the white liberal anti-racist creed, to criticise Islam, to state that Muslims living in the West should abide by the social mores of the West, and even to criticise political Islam (Islamism) is an act of ‘racism’. How can this be perceived to be racism? According to white liberals, criticism of Islam is ‘racist’ because the majority of Muslims in the world – and in the West – are non-white, and Islam is a religion that emerged in a non-white land (the Arabian peninsula). For the white liberal, criticism of Islam, because it is a predominantly non-white belief system, must by definition in fact be based on racist contempt for non-white people, because Islam is ‘their culture’ and to criticise ‘their culture’ is to criticise ‘them’. White liberals, haunted by memories of slavery, colonialism, and white supremacist ideologies of the past, have concluded that cultures and races are integrally intertwined. Islam, they believe, is a non-white and ethnic minority belief system, which is therefore an extension of the non-white and ethnic minority communities that adhere to it. In the light of the white colonialism and racism of the past, white liberals claim, white people have no right to pass judgement on other cultures, and to do so is to engage in a racist ‘cultural imperialism’.</p> <p>The notion that criticism of a culture, cultural practice, or ideology is a form of racism is, ironically enough, actually predicated on a racist outlook. When white liberals cry ‘cultural racism’, they are merely engaging in a politically correct form of a racist idea which originally formed the basis of many theories of white supremacy. Early Western proponents of notions of the inferiority of non-white people, racial hierarchies, and so on, initially based their beliefs on assumptions derived from anthropology, before going on to create full-blown pseudo-scientific racial theories that drew on such bogus ‘scientific’ methods as craniology and phrenology. These anthropological racists came into contact with various non-white peoples through exploration and colonialism. Upon finding that many non-European peoples were living in societies bereft of the technological and philosophical advances found in the West, white supremacists concluded that the reason these peoples lived in primitive conditions which lacked any evidence of modernity was not that they – for various geographical and sociological reasons – had yet to go through the radical changes from living in pre-modern societies to living in modern technological and industrialised nations that had recently occurred in the West, but rather was a result of an inherent intellectual and sociological deficiency in their ‘race’ that derived from their genetic make-up. According to the Western theorists of white supremacy, the cultures of non-white peoples were external manifestations of an innate racial essence, and it was quite impossible to hope that these peoples would ever advance from the state in which they were found, because they were biologically incapable of ever advancing or developing. Such thinking provided an ‘intellectual’ justification for slavery, for example, in that it adjudged black people to be a lesser form of being, lacking intellectual potential and aspirations, and consequently a being whose ‘natural’ role was to live in subservience to white people. When white liberals claim that criticism of Islam or Islamic politics – so-called ‘Islamophobia’ – is a form of racism, they are making exactly the same connection between culture and race. In this white liberal form of racism – the racism of lower expectations – it is seen to be bigoted to suggest that non-white people should leave behind the very same primitive ideas that once held sway in the West (fanatical devotion to religion, intolerance of critical thinking and other beliefs, persecution of gay people, and so on). Yet the true bigot here is the white liberal, who assumes that cultural ideas that have developed in non-white societies are somehow integrally intertwined with, and innately derived from, the racial groups in those societies. The racism of lower expectations views non-white people as inferior to white Westerners, but masks this racist assumption in politically correct language about ‘diversity’ and ‘respect’ for cultures.</p> <p>If white liberals really believed that all cultures are ‘equal’, you would expect to see them spreading out across the world, queuing up to gain entry to countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia. In fact, most white liberals certainly do not hike off around the world, seeking to make their homes in Islamic States. The major traffic between Islamic States and the West comes in the form of a steady flow of immigrants trying to gain entry to the West because they know they will have a better life here. Societies that attempt to organise themselves using Islam as their foundational philosophical basis are demonstrably vastly inferior to the West. One need only glance at the human rights records of Islamic States such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran to see that this is the case. None of these States has a properly functioning democracy or the freedoms we take for granted in the West such as freedom of speech and expression, freedom of belief and religious adherence, freedom of association, gender equality, and freedom of choice in personal and sexual relationships. The legal systems in these States are barbaric, prejudiced, and corrupt. Law enforcement does not adhere to any proper system of due process. Saudi Arabia is ruled with an iron fist and is marked by institutional superstition, as seen, for example, in its execution of people accused of <a href="http://www.hrw.org/ar/news/2009/11/24/saudi-arabia-witchcraft-and-sorcery-cases-rise">‘witchcraft’ and ‘sorcery’</a>. Yemen fiercely clamps down both on individual freedom and the rights of political groups. Arbitrary house searches and arrests are common, and capital ‘crimes’ include homosexuality. Child marriage, meanwhile, is <a href="http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article33440.ece">promoted</a> by Yemeni clerics, who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/world/middleeast/29marriage.html">cite</a> Muhammad’s marriage of a child as the authoritative precedent for this practice. Iran is governed by a Holocaust-denying Islamist lunatic who incites hatred of the West and grants police the right to detain individuals for such bogus ‘crimes’ as <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Iran-Satan-Worshippers-Arrested-In-Iran-After-Blood-Sucking-Rock-Party/Article/200905415289837">‘Satanism’</a> or having the <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Iran-Crackdown-On-Western-Influences-In-Clothes-And-Haircuts-49-Arrested/Article/200812115172559">wrong hairstyle</a>. Iran also executes gay men, including teenagers.</p> <p>To state that life in Western democracies is demonstrably better than life in Islamic States should hardly be controversial, yet many white liberals cannot bring themselves to acknowledge what they must logically believe to be the case, because to do so would be to ‘discriminate’ and to engage in ‘cultural imperialism’, ‘Islamophobia’, and ‘racism’. Yet who is the racist here? – The honest individual who notes that modern Western civilisation is superior to that of Islamic States, or the white liberal who enjoys the freedoms of the West but claims that we cannot ‘impose’ our ‘Eurocentric’ perspective on others, because to do so would be to claim that peoples and races living in Islamic States are <em>themselves</em> inferior? The subtext is rather clear in the white liberal’s cultural relativism: Islamic States are the way they are because they are the creation of non-white peoples, and therefore to criticise political Islam is to pass judgement on the ethnic groups in those States. A sensible person who is not clouded by racial prejudice should be able to see that Islam and Islamic States have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with culture. Culture does not derive from race, and therefore to criticise a culture cannot be seen as a <em>racial</em> criticism (unless that criticism is articulated in the language of genuine ideological racism). To assume that it <em>can</em> be seen as that is actually to endorse the view that culture <em>does</em> derive from race and that therefore the backward, superstitious, and authoritarian nature of Islamic societies is actually the result of non-white peoples being inherently backward and superstitious.</p> <p>The same issue applies to white liberals’ approach to Islamists living in the West. When Islam, Islamism, and Islamists are criticised, many white liberals work themselves into a frenzy, frothing at the mouth about supposed ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘racism’. In doing so, white liberals seem to be seriously proposing that non-white immigrants and children of immigrants are inherently predisposed towards theocratic and illiberal outlooks. White liberals practice the racism of lower expectations in their dealings with immigrant communities. When Islamic groups are shown to be sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-freedom, and anti-Western, white liberals do not oppose them – instead they support the bigotry and backwardness of Islamic extremists in immigrant communities by announcing that such prejudices and anti-freedom views and ideologies are ‘their’ culture and are no better or worse than the predominant culture in the West. The fact that white liberals are being racist in doing this is easily illustrated by the fact that when white racist parties and organisations promote anti-democratic views and hatred for minorities such as gay people, white liberals immediately condemn them. When the Christian Right comes out with views that are backward, superstitious, and opposed to personal freedom, white liberals start ranting about theocracy and ‘fascism’. White liberals are happy to attack bigotry, irrationalism, and extremism when it comes with a white face – they don’t claim that ‘far-right’ homophobia and anti-Semitism is somehow ‘different but equal’ to white liberal views, nor do they start making excuses about ‘understandable grievances’ when white supremacists rave about Jewish conspiracies or Christian extremists bomb abortion clinics. If virulent criticism of white racist ideologies and religiously conservative Christianity is not seen by white liberals to constitute a form of ‘anti-white racism’, then why on earth should criticism of political Islam be seen as a form of ‘racism’? The only way in which opposing political Islam can be spun as a form of ‘racism’ is to claim that Islam constitutes an expression of a racial ‘essence’, as opposed to being one cultural form among many. To claim that criticism of Islam is ‘racist’ is to claim that Islam is derived from biology. This is nonsense. It is the same as the white supremacist claim that Western civilisation is great because the ethnicity of its progenitors is great. When white liberals claim criticism of Islam or any other non-white belief or culture is racist they show themselves to be racist to the core. White liberals have a condescending approach to non-white people because in actual fact they do not view them as equals at all. White liberals are the true racists, and their ‘tolerance’, relativism, and obsession with calling other people racists is in fact an attempt at covering up this very fact.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-90740593344686887572010-06-25T13:10:00.006-03:002010-11-04T19:21:25.151-02:00KURDS VS ARAB 'PALESTINIANS'<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">IT PAYS TO BE ILLEGITIMATE & MURDEROUS "PALESTINIAN" THAN TO BE A LIGITIMATE PEACEFUL KURD<br /><br /></span></strong><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><strong><br /></strong><div align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;">As the world's about to give yet another state [Jordan ain't enough?] for the [group of immigrant Arabs into Israel that call themselves as] "Palestinians", that have never behaved and do not merely fight for a 'homeland' which Israel was never theirs anyhow, but have their goal of eliminating Israel, ethnic cleansing and racist genocide, the poor Kurds still sink under oppression by Turkey, by Arab racism in: Syria, Iraq, and by Islamic fascists regime of Iran.<br /><br /><br /></span><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">THE KURDS</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">REAL PEOPLE, WITH REAL ASPIRATION OF A HOMELAND - THE LEGITIMATE </span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">VICTIMS OF OPPRESSION & ARAB RACISM</span></strong></div><br /></div><i><div align="left">Hiding Arab Racism, May 1, 2005<br />By Adel Makhoul </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br /><br />This book, like Culture and Imperialism, is essentially about Western prejudice against Islam. Said condemns intellectuals in the West who in his eyes are "agents of exploitation". Yet Said himself is an agent of racism: Arab Racism. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />A Pan Arabist, he always supported Arab unity and "Islam" at the expense of non-Arab and non-Moslem peoples. Said directs and manipulates the Western taste for self criticim, and all that does is deflect the world's attention from Arab and Moslem attrocities committed against Christians, Kurds, Jews, Israelis, Coptic Christians, non-Arab Sudanese, etc. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />Thus, reading Said, you would never realize that Sadam Hussein's poisoning of the Kurds has never been condemned by one Arab intellectual or leader. This is because a racist prevalent attitude in the Arab mind is that the entire Middle East should be Arab. This also explains the attitude towards Israel, a country that is predominantly non-Moslem and speaks a Middle Eastern language other than Arabic. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />The pity is that Said himself is a Christian, yet he never spoke on behalf of Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the right of Christians to practice their faith in Saudi Arabia and probably other places in the Arab World. He is facilitating the overall aim of PanArab Nationalists by distracting the West from what is happening in the Arab world. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />For a better understanding of relations between the West and Islam, I recommend books by Bernard Lewis, such as "The Moslem Discovery of Europe" and the "Jews of Islam". I also recommend books by the Egyptian scholar and Jewish refugee Yael Bat Yeor, such as "The Dhimmi".<br /></div><div align="left"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R1FZS0RYTC94JP">http://www.amazon.com/review/R1FZS0RYTC94JP</a></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />Idea Portal: Kurds under oppression in Iran, Kurds under oppression in Iran. You can easily find more than ten top film festivals around the world from Italy to Chicago...<br /><a href="http://shauheen.ngareh.com/archives/000146.html">http://shauheen.ngareh.com/archives/000146.html</a></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />The Unknown Oppression of the Kurds, The Unknown Oppression of the Kurds .... Iran had used the Kurdish parties of northern Iraq during its war with Iraq. So, all these countries benefit from ...<br /><a href="http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v12/2/kurds.html">http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v12/2/kurds.html</a> - </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />Kurdish Oppression in Turkey Goes On; Short-Lived Republic - New ...Kurdish Oppression in Turkey Goes On; Short-Lived Republic ... The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in northern Iran survived only from December 1945 to December ...<br /><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED61539F934A35757C0A967958260">http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED61539F934A35757C0A967958260</a></div><div align="left"></div><div class="g" align="left"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,204)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><br />What Really has happened in Halabja and The Racism of so-called Arab Intellectuals towards Kurds and the Kurdistan: The case of Mr. Mohammed Al Obaidi ...</span><br /><a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan5/3-1-05-opinion-hadi-halabja-arabs-racism.html">http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan5/3-1-05-opinion-hadi-halabja-arabs-racism.html</a> </span></div><div align="left"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="j"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div align="left">He Has Gassed His Own People<br />"Saddam Hussein is a man who is willing to gas his own people, willing to use ... and Iran--were responsible perhaps for the gassing of civilian Kurds. ...<br /><a href="http://hnn.us/articles/862.html">http://hnn.us/articles/862.html</a> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />Iran: Kurdish journalists face executionT his case provides yet another example of the current climate of severe oppression in the Kurdish region of Iran. Mr Butimar wrote articles for agricultural ...<br /><a href="http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/articles/2007/3/iran-kurdish-journalists-face-execution.shtml">http://www.indexonline.org/en/news/articles/2007/3/iran-kurdish-journalists-face-execution.shtml</a> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />Kurds in Syria is between 2 to 2.5 million. ... murder, torture, discrimination and terror to keep the Kurds under control. ...<br /><a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan2/14-3-04-opinion-badrakhan-freedom-for-kurds-w-kurdistan.html">http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan2/14-3-04-opinion-badrakhan-freedom-for-kurds-w-kurdistan.html</a></div><br /><br />Stop the Syrian Violence against the Kurds in Syria - Reform Party ...The Kurds are for the Autonomy within Syria framework, is explained by the ... Islamic Barbarism, colonialism and national oppression, our people call on ...<br /><a href="http://www.reformsyria.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296&Itemid=67">http://www.reformsyria.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296&Itemid=67</a><br /><br />Second- Citizens...<br />For Many, Not Citizens at All<br /><br />Erasing Ethnic Identity.<br /><br />Syrian Kurds were banned from giving their children names reflecting their ethnic identity.<br />Pary Karadaghi, Director of Kurdish Human Rights Watch in Washington, says one of the most basic ways of showing Kurdish identity was taken away. "The campaign of 'Arabization' actually replaced the Kurdish names," she says. "People could not have Kurdish names on cities, buildings [and] businesses. Children's names could not be Kurdish."<br /><br />Syria's Kurds struggled for years to survive despite government oppression on many fronts. They closely watched their Iraqi counterparts, who achieved a measure of autonomy in the 1990s, and pressed Damascus for their own rights. Their demands were ignored or sometimes met with waves of repression.<br /><a href="http://www.khrw.org/advocate/2005/syrias_kurds_struggle_for_rights.htm">http://www.khrw.org/advocate/2005/syrias_kurds_struggle_for_rights.htm</a><br /></i><br />_____________<br /><br /><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:100%;">THE FAKE 'NATION' CALLED: "PALESTINIANS" THE ILLEGAL GROUP SINCE THEY THAT DEFIED UN'S PARTITION PLAN IN 1948 WITH GENOCIDAL GOALS</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong></strong></div><div align="center"><strong></strong></div><br /><u><strong>ROOTS</strong></u><br /><i><br />Who Are the Palestinians? At DePaul, Don't Ask and Don't Tell September 1, 2005 Historically, Palestinian Arabs were not a distinct nationality. Though not all Muslims are terrorists, most major international terrorism today is committed by Muslims. .<br /><a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=22&x_article=1028">http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=22&x_article=1028</a><br /><br /><br />Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian People, there is no Palestinian entity ...<br /><a href="http://www.peacefaq.com/palestinians.html">http://www.peacefaq.com/palestinians.html</a><br /><br /><br />What is a Palestinian? Arabs have been flocking to Israel ever since it was created and even before, coinciding with the wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1948. ...<br /><a href="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=22564">http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=22564</a><br /><br /><br />Illegal Arab immigration into "Palestine" - part of OsloT, he Arab Legion never allowed a census of Palestinian refugees. .... Israel doesn't enforce immigration laws (and other laws) in Arab communities. ...<br /><a href="http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/immigration-oslo.html">http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/immigration-oslo.html</a><br /><br /><br />How the Israel-Palestine Problem Came to Pass Trying to force Britain to convert Palestine immediately into an Arab state, ... Jewish immigration into Palestine was going to be limited to a total of ...<br /><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/02/how_the_israelpalestine_proble.html">http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/02/how_the_israelpalestine_proble.html</a><br /><br /><br />History of Israel and Palestine in VERY Easy To Understand Maps The Arab countries occupy 640 times the land mass as does Israel and ... The Jews had already begun mass immigration into Palestine in the 1880's in an ...<br /><a href="http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html">http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Is Jordan Palestine? That homeland is Trans-Jordan, or Eastern Palestine.... A second Palestinian state to the west of the River is a prescription for anarchy.<br /><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/article/298">http://www.danielpipes.org/article/298</a><br /><br /><br />Jordan, Transjordan - The Peace FAQ Transjordan being to the east of the River Jordan, it formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine." - King Hussein, writing in his Memoirs ...<br /><a href="http://www.peacefaq.com/jordan.html">http://www.peacefaq.com/jordan.html</a><br /><br /><br />1950 - Transjordan changes its name to Jordan and begins to call Judea and Samaria the West Bank. 1964 - The Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) is ...<br /><a href="http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=3/b/050820021">http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=3/b/050820021</a><br /><br /><br />American Thinker: Palestine - Partition and Propaganda, It was then called Trans-Jordan, it comprised 77% of the territory administered by Great Britain under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine<br /><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/palestine_partition_and_propag.html">http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/palestine_partition_and_propag.html</a><br /><br /><br />Jordan is Palestine In other words, Jordan is Palestine. Arab Palestine. There is absolutely no difference between Jordan and Palestine, nor between Jordanians and...<br /><a href="http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/janfeb04/jordan.html">http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/janfeb04/jordan.html</a><br /><br /><br />Jordan is Palestine In other words, Jordan is Palestine. Arab Palestine. There is absolutely no difference between Jordan and Palestine, nor between Jordanians and...<br /><a href="http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/janfeb04/jordan.html">http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/janfeb04/jordan.html</a><br /><br /><br />Palestinian people do not exist, In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, ... the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand ...<br /><a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28222">http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28222</a><br /><br /><br />"PALESTINIAN" IDENTITY AS PROPAGANDA DEVICE In deference to this non-assertion of "Palestinian" Arab ethnic identity, the League of .... In reality, Today, there is no difference between Jordanians, ... ...<br /><a href="http://www.rosenblit.com/Palestine.htm">http://www.rosenblit.com/Palestine.htm</a><br /></i><br /><br />-----<br /><br /><strong><u><br />GOAL</u></strong><br /><br /><i>Israel Has Always Faced Arab Genocide<br /><a href="http://www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/beres/sept02-03.htm">http://www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/beres/sept02-03.htm</a><br /><br /><br />Israel not only has the moral right to do so, but legal rights as well. ... that the resolution "was an invitation to genocide against the Jewish people. ...<br /><a href="http://www.freeman.org/m_online/dec97/shustef1.htm">http://www.freeman.org/m_online/dec97/shustef1.htm</a><br /><br /><br />Israel's Survival... Historically, the Islamic world's orientation to genocide against the Jews has not been limited to idle phrasemaking. Even before Israel came into existence ...<br /><a href="http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun00/beres.htm">http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun00/beres.htm</a><br /><br /><br />Teach Kids Peace – Sharansky: ‘PA Promotes Genocide’But are such depictions laying the groundwork for genocide? Natan Sharansky, Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, called a news conference<br /><a href="http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc1015.php">http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc1015.php</a><br /><br /><br />Hamas Issues Islamic Call For Genocide on PA Television - Defense …Israeli news covered by the Arutz Sheva news team bringing news briefs and in-depth stories covering Israeli politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, …<br /><a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122094">http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122094</a><br /><br /><br />The Palestinian War of Annihilation of the Jewish State The PLO mission is “the elimination of Zionism in Palestine! ... accommodation with Israel; only a renewed war of annihilation - the combined PLO-Arab state ...<br /><a href="http://www.ortzion.org/archnws07_2.html">http://www.ortzion.org/archnws07_2.html</a><br /><br /><br />February poll 75 of palestinians don't give Israel a right to exist... IMRA - Friday, February 16, 2007 NEC 12-15 February Poll: 75% of Palestinians do not think that Israel has the right to exist ...<br /><a href="http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=33100">http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=33100</a><br /><br /><br />Fatah-Controlled TV Promises Elimination of Israel - Inside Israel ...The lyrics of the latest PA video calling for Israel's elimination, as recorded from PA TV on October 23, 2007 and translated by PMW, are as follows: ...<br /><a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124079">http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124079</a><br /></i><br /><br /><strong></strong></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-12237375359598572042010-06-01T12:17:00.001-03:002010-06-01T12:17:45.346-03:00The Gaza Flotilla Op<div class="article_body"> <span><span style=";font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Special_Alert_Flotilla_Battle_Unleashes_Anti-Israel_Wave.asp">Special Alert: Flotilla Battle Unleashes Anti-Israel Wave</a></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="home_author"><br />Thomas Lifson</span><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;" >The latest elaborate operation put into effect to marginalize Israel, as a predicate to destroying it, has succeeded. William A. Jacobson of </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/05/useful-idiots-condemn-israel.html"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;">Legal Insurrection</span></a></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;" > puts it all into perspective<br /><br /></span><blockquote><div><span style=";font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;" >The left-wing blogosphere is full of useful idiots, who pretend that the flotilla which just was stopped by Israel was a humanitarian mission.<br /><br />The flotilla was organized by the Islamist government in Turkey to aid Hamas with the goal of opening up shipping channels for Turkey's new friend, Iran, to ship more and better weapons as it is doing to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran is busy turning Lebanon and Syria into one large missile launching pad against Israel, and a southern base in Gaza will complete the encirclement of Israel for the coming crisis over Iran's nuclear program.<br /><br />The Europeans on the ships were cover, and the placement of an 18-month old child on these ships was the utmost cynical use of a human shield.<br /><br />If getting humanitarian supplies to Gaza really was the goal, this flotilla was not necessary. The supplies would have been off-loaded in Eqypt or Israel and then shipped in by land after being checked for hidden weapons.<br /><br />And that is the rub, only sea-based shipping would provide Iran with the mechanism for almost unlimited armament of Hamas. There is a limit to the quantity and size of missiles and other armaments which can be smuggled through tunnels from Egypt. That is why the sea blockade must be broken for Iran to get what it wants.<br /><br />But the useful idiots (no offense to idiots) in the left-wing blogosphere ignore this reality, and use the incident for their ultimate goal, which is the cut off of U.S. support for Israel.</span></div></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><div><span style=";font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;" >The Op must be counted a success, for the world is blaming the Israelis, who did not initiate violence but were rather victims of it. This will increase pressure on Israel to stop enforcing its legitimate blockade to prevent the instruments of its destruction being positioned on its borders. There will another Gaza flotilla to test the defenses of Israel. Her enemies feel the wind at their back.<br /><br />Richard Baehr adds:<br /><br /><div>Facts:</div><br /><div>From <a href="http://tinyurl.com/24j3ams">Memri</a>: some on the flotilla were looking for martyrdom. </div><div><br /><a href="http://tinyurl.com/27ugv9p">Bookworm</a><strong> </strong>with video of what happened.</div><br /><div>An <a href="http://tinyurl.com/238jw8g">eyewitness account</a>.</div><br /><div>From <a href="http://tinyurl.com/25fc967">Haaretz</a> -- note the charming "peace activist" with the knife, and the camera crew behind him, ready to record bad deeds by Israel.</div><br /><div>From the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/27un3da">Israel Project</a>, the facts on Israel's provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza. </div><br /><div>This was an ambush, which the flotilla crowd planned, and wanted to happen. They were ready to record any injuries or death to their shipmates from any Israeli military actions (which in this case, occurred ENTIRELY in self defense), for a ready and willing international media circus on board, and at the ready at their desks. </div><br /><div>Despite all the facts, it won't likely matter in the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/29xer4x">court of international opinion</a>. My guess is that President Barack Obama, who never utters a critical word about Islamic radicals, or jihad, or the Muslim Brotherhood (which now effectively runs not only Gaza, but Turkey), probably sympathizes with the flotilla protestors far more than with Israel.<br /></div></span></div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-11667491054327223092010-06-01T12:05:00.000-03:002010-06-01T12:06:20.648-03:00Gaza Clash: Turkish Charity’s Terror Links<p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">T</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">he United Nations Security Council can’t decide how to sanction Iran or punish North Korea over killing 46 South Korean Sailors in last month’s unprovoked attack on one of its submarines. But on Monday, the UN called an emergency session to take Israel to task over the boarding of a Turkish registered boat on its way to deliver aid to Gaza which led to at least nine deaths following violent altercations between Israeli forces and a significant number of armed protestors.</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Yet the Turkish group that funded and ran the boat the Mavi Marmara, where the confrontation occurred is documented as having ties to terrorists, was named in federal court papers as playing a role in the failed millennium bomb plot and is named in a C.I.A. report in 1996 as having links to terrorist groups. The Foundation for Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) is a Muslim charity and non-government organization (NGO) that was formed in 1992 with the goal of assisting Muslims in Bosnia. Since then it has branched out to many places including Lebanon, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia and the Palestinian territories.</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">According to a report by the Israeli based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, IHH is a “radical Islamic Organization with an anti-Western orientation.” Written by Jonathan Fighel, the report says “besides its legitimate philanthropic activities, it supports radical Islamic networks, including Hamas, and that at least in the past, even global jihad networks.”</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Fighel’s report also notes that the C.I.A. report that was declassified in 2001 and titled “International Islamic NGOs and Links to Terrorism” states that the IHH had links with extremist groups in Iran and Algeria and was either active or facilitating activities of terrorist groups operating in Bosnia.</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">IHH's Oguzan Ulas, told Fox News from its headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey that his organization has “no relation to radical Islamic groups,” and that it was “a rubbish accusation.” Ulas blamed this on a smear campaign by the Israelis against his group. As to his organization’s support of Hamas he said that it disagrees with the U.S. government’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist group and that IHH “openly accepts Hamas.”</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Steve Emerson, a leading terrorism expert, tells Fox News that IHH was banned by Israel in 2008 for its affiliation with Hamas and the so-called “Union of Good.” The Union of Good is a coalition of Islamic groups led by Muslim Brotherhood leader Yousef Al Qaradawi who has issued Fatwas calling for the killing of Americans and Jews.</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Emerson who heads the Investigative Project on Terrorism points to U.S. Court documents which reveal IHH played “an important role” in the Millennium bomb plot. The Millennium bomb plot was foiled following the arrest of Ahmed Ressam who had planned to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport.</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;">During Ressam’s trial, federal prosecutors called Jean Louis Brugiere, a French counter-terrorism expert and Magistrate, to testify. As part of his testimony he told the court that “The IHH is an NGO (non-governmental organization), but it was kind of a type of cover-up in order to obtain forged documents and also to obtain different forms of infiltration for Mujahideen in combat. And also to go and gather these Mujahideens. And finally, one of the last responsibilities that they had was also to be implicated or involved in weapons trafficking.”</p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">According to court documents, he went on to say when talking about the cell involved in the Millennium plot that the apartment they used was “a conspiratorial flat.” All this was based on phone calls placed from that apartment “particularly to Turkey and Istanbul and I am talking about the IHH.”</span></p> <p style="font-size: 12px;">IHH has offices in Gaza and the West Bank and according to reports in Israel has transferred money to Hamas in support of its goals. IHH leadership has also met with Hamas Chairman Khaled Mashal and other top Hamas leaders. Hamas is on the U.S. State Department list of designated terrorist organizations.</p> <p style="font-size: 12px;">Emerson says IHH’s financial and political support for Hamas is “very troubling” and told Fox News that “it’s surprising that IHH has not been designated (as a terrorist group) by the U.S. government.”</p> <p style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Late last night the U.N. Security Council issued a Presidential Statement which condemned yesterday's action and called for an investigation into yesterday's events.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-29593097635450416372009-10-10T15:08:00.002-03:002009-10-10T15:10:58.591-03:00The Politicization of PeaceBy <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/bruce_walker/">Bruce Walker</a><br /><br /><br />Few spectacles so clearly show the politicization of life than the surreally silly award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama. The Nobel Prize has long been a reflection of the whims of those who run political correctness. The politicization of peace extends beyond just the Nobel Prize. The very day that the Nobel Committee announced its choice of Obama, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin miraculously "discovered," eight years after American forces invaded Afghanistan that "If the U.S. troops left - the country would collapse. We'd go into civil war." The about face on our domestic peace movement reflects only who now commands American forces. Benjamin likes Obama, so her doctrinaire commitment to peace goes wobbly when Obama is Commander-in-Chief.<br /><br /><br />Many people have noted the total disconnect between Peace Prize winners, like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, and world peace. Gore, of course, supported our undeclared war against Serbia ten years ago. Before that, Gore supported "Operation Just Cause," the insertion by Clinton of American troops into Haiti to impose our will on that nation's politics. He voted for Operation Desert Storm, but most notably, he pandered his vote on that crucial question based upon how it would help him politically. Gore does not even seem to care about world peace.<br /><br /><br />The politicization stretches back earlier. Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned in 1916 with the slogan "He kept us out of war," and five months after his re-election, shortly after his inauguration, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, plunging us into an utterly unnecessary war whose ultimate end almost ensured a Second World War. Wilson, the vile racist bigot who lied to the American people about going into war, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Terrorists like Yasser Arafat, Communist apparatchiks like Michael Gorbachev and Le Duc Tho, have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Willy Brandt, the socialist chancellor of West Germany who left office under a scandal when it was revealed that his closest aide was a Communist spy, won the Nobel Peace Prize. What is the common thread that links Obama, Arafat, Carter, Gorbachev, Tho, Wilson, and Gore? All are planted firmly on the left of the political spectrum.<br /><br /><br />Even when the winner is a truly decent man, like Andrei Sakharov, if the candidate does not support the left, he does not win and if he supports the left then he can win the Peace Prize no matter what. Sakharov, after all, won the Stalin Prize and the Lenin Prize for helping the Soviet Union build an Atomic Bomb and then masterminding the Soviet development of the Hydrogen Bomb. The greatest nuclear explosion in human history, a 25 megaton blast, occurred in 1961 under the guidance of Sakharov. When Sakharov began to worry about the nuclear weapons he built, his attitude was traditionally leftist: he called, specifically, for an end to anti-ballistic defenses. Sakharov opposed building weapons which could make nuclear missiles useless.<br /><br /><br />Just as revealing are all the people who did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, the greatest triumph for peace in world history. Pope John Paul II boldly reached out to end the historic distrust between the Catholic Church and Jews; he also showed how passive resistance could work in Poland; he also went around the world preaching peace and love; he also forgave the Moslem who tried to assassinate him. Alexander Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but not for Peace, even though he proved, perhaps more courageously than any man in modern history, that the pen could be mightier than the sword. Konrad Adenauer worked hard for a peaceful Germany at the end of the First World War; he opposed the Nazis and spent time in a concentration camp for that; after the Second World War ended, Adenauer reunited the three western sectors of Germany and reached out to Israel and offered, without being asked, for the Federal Republic of Germany to pay reparations to Israel. None of these magnificent champions of peace won the Nobel Peace Prize.<br /><br /><br />The Nobel Peace Prize, like the support of Code Pink is based upon ideology and nothing else. So Obama, Gore, Carter, and Wilson have won the Peace Prize, but Reagan, who dedicated his last term in office to ridding the world of nuclear weapons and who actually won a world war without violence, does not. Willy Brandt, a thoroughly unlikable socialist West German chancellor, who left office in scandal, wins the award, while a magnificently noble conservative West German chancellor does not. So two Soviets who buy the rhetoric of the chic left - Gorbachev and Sakharov - win the award, while a much braver and clear voice for peace, Solzhenitsyn, does not?<br /><br /><br />We should know by now, if we ever needed to know, that the awards, compliments, and honors which the establishment of the world offers is offered only to those who have first paid homage to the ideology of the left. Awards given to communist terrorists, like Le Duc Tho, or anti-Semitic ogres like Jimmy Carter, are no badges of achievement: such awards are evidence of moral surrender.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-26433774341126473692009-09-24T22:23:00.003-03:002009-09-24T22:26:54.158-03:00HONDURAS: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ISSUES<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >This report discusses the legal basis under the Honduran Constitution for</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" > President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales’s removal from office</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">. </span>http://www.elheraldo.hn/var/elheraldo_site/storage/original/application/48519cf8ceca6f1fffd32ee9aa0c5dd8.pdf<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" class="middlecopy" ><span class="middlecopy"><span class="middleheadline">Schock Releases Report Contradicting State Department on Honduras</span> </span></span><br /><br /><p><span class="middlecopy">Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) today released a report written by the Library of Congress which concludes that the removal of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was legal and Constitutional.</span></p> <p><span class="middlecopy">“The bottom line is one of the most basic foundations of the world community is the rule of law,” said Schock. “The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that the removal of former President Zelaya was Constitutional, and we must respect that. It’s unconscionable that our Administration would attempt to force Honduras to violate its own Constitution by cutting off foreign aid.”</span></p> <p><span class="middlecopy">Schock is offering a compromise to resolve the situation by:</span></p> <p><span class="middlecopy">1. Resuming US aid, international aid and ending the VISA sanctions.</span></p> <p><span class="middlecopy">2. Cooperating with the Honduran government by sending normal election observers to ensure the fairness of the regularly scheduled November election and recognizing the legitimacy of that election, so long as it is conducted in a fair and accurate manner. </span></p> <p><span class="middlecopy">3. While the Library of Congress report found the removal from power of former President Zelaya legal and constitutional, they also found Zelaya’s removal from the country to be explicitly unconstitutional. Schock is calling for the Honduran government to allow Zelaya out of the Brazilian Embassy, recognize that his punishment for what led to his removal from power IS his removal from power, drop plans to prosecute him and issue a general amnesty for everyone involved in his removal from power. As a private citizen, Zelaya would have the right to campaign for his choice in the upcoming presidential election. However if he resorts to the incitement of violence, or advocates the violent overthrow of the Honduran government, then he should be arrested and put on trial as the government would do with any other citizen.</span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span class="middlecopy">The report was written by Norma C. Gutierrez, a Senior Foreign Law Specialist in Central America. Among its conclusions is that: "The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings."</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-52575460012484329232009-09-13T19:45:00.004-03:002009-09-13T19:58:41.956-03:00Just Don’t Touch their Symbol: Ben-Dror Yemini tackles the al Durah affair in the pages of Maariv<a href="http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/749/524.html">Just Don’t Touch their Symbol</a><br /><br />(Article by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, 20.6.08, Weekend Supplement, pp. 18-19)<br /><a href="http://www.upjf.org/actualitees-upjf/article-14441-145-7-quon-touche-surtout-pas-symbole-ben-dror-yemini.html">En français</a> au site de l’UPJF.<br /><br />Everyone remembers the death of Muhammad Al-Dura. France 2 accused the IDF; the Israeli media went along. One Frenchman dared to doubt and began a kulturkampf; the Israeli media was silent. It has now become clear that he was right. Israel is still silent.<br /><br />The Muhammad Al-Dura affair refuses to die. In Israel, it is mainly the first part that is recognized. In France, in recent weeks, there are those who are already calling it a new Dreyfus Affair.<br /><br />The beginning is well-known. The pictures that were broadcast seven and a half years ago shocked public opinion in the country and around the world. They saw a father and boy hiding behind a barrel. They shout for their lives as the bullets strike them. The father tries to protect his son. Unsuccessfully. Tal Abu-Rahma, the France 2 cameramen, delivered the material to the network’s well known and veteran Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin. From the raw material, the latter filtered less than 60 seconds of harsh and horrifying footage, and added commentary that cast the responsibility on IDF soldiers. Within a few days, this item became the harshest propaganda ever against the State of Israel. Whoever tried to cast doubts then was considered a heretic. After all, there was photographic evidence and there is nothing higher.<br /><br />Muhammad Al-Dura became a symbol. Public squares have been named after him. Stamps have been issued in his honor. The Palestinian poet Muhammad Darwish dedicated a poem to him. His pictures became much better known than that of the Jewish boy raising his hands opposite a Nazi soldier. Already, one can no longer count the number of times Al-Dura has been cited in articles written against Israel around the world. And not just against Israel. For some of the writers, well-known authors, Nobel laureates, Israel became a Nazi, child-murdering country.<br /><br />This did not happen solely due to Muhammad Al-Dura’s 60 seconds. But the weight of that short clip was very high. This was biting, ultimate evidence of Israel’s murderous character.<br />But there were a few among us, and around the world as well, who thought that something was amiss in those 58 seconds that became a global sensation. Among those was Israeli physicist Nahum Shahaf, who was a member of the committee of inquiry that was appointed shortly afterwards. There was also Esther Schapira from German television, who came to curse because she was convinced that the IDF had killed the boy, but it became clear to her that France 2’s version had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. There was also Luc Rosenzweig, a respected French journalist, formerly of Le Monde, who had prepared his own investigation. His editor did not believe what he saw. They went together, along with another journalist, to the heads of France 2 in order to view all of the footage that was filmed that bitter and hasty day. They saw and were surprised. Their doubts only grew. The investigation was published in L’Express.<br /><br />Among Charles Enderlin’s and France 2’s most outspoken critics was Philippe Karsenty, a young and successful Jew, who set up a media criticism internet site (”Media-Ratings”). Karsenty claimed that Enderlin had lied and that he and the channel had to draw conclusions.<br />France 2 is not just another television station. It is a superpower. It is a flagship and establishment channel in one. The channel and Enderlin sued Karsenty for libel. Karsenty demanded one thing: Show the full film that was shot of the event. The court refused. Karsenty lost and was convicted of libel. He did not give up.<br /><br />In the appeals court, Karsenty reiterated his demand. This time his demand was met. It was a turning point. The full film, to all those who have seen it, leaves no room for doubt. The verdict was handed down four weeks ago on May 22. It was determined that Karsenty is not guilty of libel. The verdict analyzes the item that was broadcast, the full film, the evidence, the contradictions. The conclusion is unequivocal. The plaintiffs, Enderlin and France 2, come out not well at all.<br /><br />The verdict did not cause many reverberations. In France, there was scant mention. In Israel, the affair came up against the Olmert affair and the talks with Syria, so that the story received very little coverage. What could have been a great achievement for Israel was about to go out with nary a whisper. But this is not what happened.<br /><br />Before we continue, it would be worthwhile to recall the Israeli side. Articles appeared in Israel that were critical of Karsenty. What does it matter who killed him, wrote Arad Nir on Ynet. Gideon Levy went further and wrote that it did not matter since it is known that Israel kills children. It is certainly known. There is an old hobby to this effect. Jews. Children. It is a matter of history. Even journalist and historian Tom Segev mocked the inquiry of German journalist Esther Shapiro, who prepared a report for German television. It was not really proper on her part to exonerate the IDF soldiers of blame for the killing. She is not serious.<br />A series of prominent Israeli journalists were recruited not only to enshrine the libel that it was Israeli soldiers who killed or murdered Al-Dura. They were against the very idea of an inquiry. After all, they are energetic journalists. They had vigorous conclusions. Why confuse them with facts?<br /><br />Let us return to France. Just as the affair was due to expire, Enderlin’s supporters decided to organize a petition of support for him. True, Enderlin said that the full footage included harsh segments of Al-Dura dying and it became clear that this was a lie. True, the verdict is unequivocal regarding the lack of credibility of those who were involved in broadcasting the doubtful segment. True, that Enderlin himself was nowhere near the scene when the events took place. But Enderlin’s friends, or those who believe that their enlightened state finds expression in besmirching Israel, lined up alongside one of their own. After all, he belongs to ‘the vanguard.’<br /><br />The initiative for the petition came from Le Nouvel Observateur, an important and prestigious weekly, founded by Jean Daniel. His daughter is Sarah Daniel, a journalist in her own right. We will return to her. Nobody among the signatories is familiar with the affair. But all of the signatories, without exception, are identified, to one degree or another, with the anti-Israeli line.<br /><br />Most, like Daniel and his daughter, are Jews. And this is strange because Daniel himself, as a leftist, has criticized the French media in the past for exaggerated hostility towards Israel. It is interesting when he will write the article against himself.<br /><br />Among the signatories are Hubert Védrine, former French Foreign Minister, and Theo Klein, former president of CRIF, the French Jewish umbrella organization. The petitioners also succeeded in recruiting an Israeli supporting player, who is only a millimeter away from comparing Israel to the Nazis. He is Avraham Burg, the former Speaker of the Knesset.<br /><br />What is strange is that the petition is not only a defense of Enderlin’s impugned integrity. The petition, in a precise manner, supports the first version, on Israel’s guilt: “Seven years. For seven years a despicable campaign of hate has been trying to stain the professional honor of Charles Enderlin. For seven years, there have been those who have tried to present as ‘fabricated’ and as a ’staged scene’ his report that shows how a twelve-year-old boy was killed by shots fired from an Israeli position.” Yes, that is their one-sided conclusion despite the court’s verdict. Like the anti-Dreyfusards, who also stubbornly clung to the first version.<br /><br />The signatories are correct about one thing. For seven years, in their words, “A despicable campaign of hate has been conducted”. But the campaign has been waged against Israel, not against Enderlin. The many and the prominent were on Enderlin’s side. The few and the negligible came out against him. The French system of justice, after entering into details, after viewing the entire footage, after having heard expert testimony, after uncovering the lies, arrived at a sound verdict. It was a victory of David vs. Goliath. One stubborn, unknown young man forced the large network and the celebrity journalist to reveal the truth. The libel was refuted. The verdict leaves no room for doubts.<br /><br />So how exactly did the signatories reach the conclusion, which has already been refuted in court? As usual, hostility against Israel forced the hand. It is possible to assume that none of the signatories were well versed in the details. But they all share one thing in common: They all belong to the same loathsome and fashionable anti-Zionist stream, in France as well as in Israel. Not all are on the same level of hostility. But they are all in the same direction.<br /><br />Among the signatories, as we have mentioned, another name pops up, unknown to most Israelis:<br />The journalist Sarah Daniel. In November 2001, this same Sarah Daniel wrote about Muslim girls murdered for reasons of family honor. Except that she added one paragraph: “Palestinian women raped by Israeli soldiers are systematically murdered by their own families. The rape, in practice, is a war crime, because the Israeli soldiers act in full awareness of the consequence of their deed”.<br /><br />From where did Daniel take this fabrication? That is it. From nowhere. In fact, this is another libel disseminated in very marginal circles. And where was it published? In Le Nouvel Observateur, the journal of her father, Jean Daniel. The same paper and the same people who just sponsored the petition for Enderlin.<br /><br />The petition took flight. In the last two weeks, it has become the focus of conflict between opposing camps in France. The defensive text of the signatories, against journalists in service of the truth, recalls the text of the anti-Dreyfusards, against officers working in the service of the state. One must not criticize them. The truth is theirs. Harming them is harming the holiest of holies. Then they were anti-Semites. Today they are anti-Israelis.<br /><br />In the wake of the petition, a courageous and important verdict, that almost foundered in deep water, received a new lease on life. The debate on the petition put the Al-Dura affair back on center stage, in France, not in Israel. The historian, Professor Richard Landes from Boston, who followed the affair and even testified himself, wrote a comprehensive and very un-complimentary article about the signatories. Landes is the one who coined the phrase “Pallywood”, about the media of Arab and Palestinian propaganda. He also investigated the Al-Dura affair in depth. He came to Karsenty’s side.<br /><br />The argument also spread to France’s leading newspapers. Professor Eli Bar-Navi, former [Israeli] Ambassador to France, wrote a scathing article against the signatories. “Since Deir Yassin,” he wrote “there has not been an affair which has caused so much damage to Israel.” Afterwards, additional articles appeared, most in the same vein. An editorial appeared in Le Figaro this week asking the signatories whether media personnel are beyond criticism. Also the big guns, like philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, expressed serious doubts about the petition, and the CRIF has already announced that it has joined the appeal for a commission of inquiry into the entire affair.<br /><br />Enderlin’s supporters are trying to paint him as the new Dreyfus. Poor guy. It is a little hard for him on Devil’s Island. He made a nice little career for himself out of the Muhammad Al-Dura story. Now the achievement has become a stain. Enderlin is not an Israel-hater. He is no different than most of the foreign journalists in Israel, and he is even an Israeli citizen. He is part of the herd. A herd which is also well-represented in the Israeli media.<br /><br />And where is Israel? It does not exist. It is the Dreyfus in this affair, but a strange Dreyfus. A Dreyfus who has had a libel stuck to it, but who remains nonchalant. Others fight for it. Official Israel has never bothered to thank Karsenty, or others who have fought to dispel the libel. Regarding assistance, there is nothing to even discuss; on the contrary. Unofficial Israel was on Enderlin’s side. Most of the articles, mind you, were against Karsenty and for Enderlin.<br />Justice came to light, in France, not in Israel. This is not by chance. If the trial had been held in Israel, there is concern, only concern, that the result would have been different. Freedom of speech is indeed a supreme value but on one condition: That it is found in the hands of very specific people. But that is the subject of a different article.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/category/al-durah-affair/"><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">http://www.theaugeanstables.com/category/al-durah-affair/</span></strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-1802622637526353282009-07-08T16:48:00.006-03:002009-09-24T22:29:16.957-03:00Barack Fidel Che Obama, the Bolivarian Revolution's useful idiot, reverses the Monroe Doctrine<div class="entry"><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gerald Warner</span> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/geraldwarner </span><br /></p><p>Barack Obama has now made a statement far more significant than any of the stale rhetoric of his Inauguration Address. It is both a major upheaval in US foreign policy and a frightening insight into Obama’s total incapacity for office. If you are American, read it and weep. If you are not an American, but have concerns about freedom, be very afraid.</p><p>In response to the crisis in Honduras and the growing turmoil in Latin America, the President of the United States has now said: “The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies. But over the last several years I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, <em>even if the results don’t always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States.”</em></p><p>My emphasis, as the convention phrases it. And it deserves emphasis because, in that brief statement, Obama has just reversed the Monroe Doctrine, dating from 1823, and the later Roosevelt Corollary. The principle that European influence would not be permitted in Latin America gradually translated into a recognition that Latin America was a US sphere of influence. Since Marxism is a European influence, surely it is important to exclude that poison, so far as is practicable, from Latin America.</p><p>Yet Obama has aligned himself with the so-called Bolivarian Alliance of Marxist fruitcakes, led by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. To both men “democracy” is a useful slogan while they pursue its elimination in their own back yards. Ortega, now the chief backer of ousted president Manual Zelaya of Honduras, is the old Sandinista tyrant who only escaped prosecution for child abuse of his adopted stepdaughter from age 11 due to a statute of limitations and parliamentary immunity. Last year he successfully falsified the municipal elections in Nicaragua by fraud and intimidation.</p><p>Obama should have welcomed the removal of Zelaya from Honduras. Zelaya had recently sided with the Iranian ayatollahs in their suppression of a democratic election: no wonder he demanded readmission to Honduras in the name of God. His illegal attempt to defy the constitution through a plebiscite his supporters were tooled-up to rig was condemned by the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the chief Electoral Tribunal. Many of his own party had turned against him, alarmed by his attempt to prolong his rule on the Chavez model. His so-called referendum was an attempted coup; the army’s intervention against him, on the orders of all the constitutional organs of state, was a counter-coup.</p><p>But the Obama administration got it hopelessly wrong. Hillary Clinton denounced this reassertion of constitutional law as a crisis that “has evolved into a coup”. In this she was echoing Obama. Zelaya was given every encouragement in Washington, when he should have been told he was “on the wrong side of history”, as Obama expressed it in his Inauguration Address.</p><p>But Obama has a soft spot for socialists, hence his insane cosying-up to the Bolivarian fruitcakes. He has invented a brand new kind of foreign policy: supporting regimes that are violently anti-American. Call it neo-masochism. Obama has reversed the Monroe Doctrine as well as the definition of “democracy”. In supporting the megalomaniac dictators who are trying to drag Latin America into the year 1917, he is mouthing the same claptrap as Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly and former lieutenant of Ortega in the Sandinista dictatorship, and Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) and Fidel Castro’s champion.</p><p>Washington could have done much to dampen down the Honduran crisis that the Latin American Reds are prolonging. The Honduran government’s successful prevention of Zelaya’s attempted landing yesterday was a hopeful sign of resolution on the part of pro-Western forces, but the new government should by now have been recognised by the United States. The Reds need to be presented with an irreversible <em>fait accompli.</em> But Latin American Marxism has a new best friend: Barack Che Fidel Obama, the Bolivarian Revolution’s latest useful idiot.</p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-78169416220471125932009-03-30T18:14:00.000-03:002009-03-30T18:16:15.226-03:00PETA and the killing of Animals<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="home_author">William D. Zeranski</span><br /> <span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;"><br />The images of sad-eyed dogs and filthy kittens flash across the TV screen, especially before, during and after those heart-warming family cable movies, and then there's the plea for money along with a phone number, and for that fast guilt-relieving donation, express credit card use is available.<br /><br /></span><div><a href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/pressRelease_detail.cfm/release/258"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">PETA has no cash flow problem</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">, but the organization's handling of the welfare of animals in its care is grim:</span></div><br /><blockquote><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">"Despite having a $32 million budget, PETA does not operate an adoption shelter. PETA employees make no discernible effort to find homes for the thousands of pets they kill every year. Last year, the Center for Consumer Freedom petitioned Virginia's State Veterinarian to reclassify PETA as a slaughterhouse."</span></div></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">On the PETA website there are a lot of cute, fussy and doe-eyed pictures, and </span><a href="http://www.peta.org/about/index.asp"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">PETA focuses</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;"> on "the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other "pests," and the abuse of backyard dogs." But with PETA words and deeds don't have to mesh.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">Organizations exhibiting hypocritical behavior, and money grubbing, must be called on to the carpet:</span></div><br /><blockquote><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">That's exactly why the Center for Consumer Freedom petitioned Virginia's State Veterinarian last year </span><a href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3535"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">to reclassify PETA as a slaughterhouse</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">In addition to exposing PETA's hypocritical record of killing defenseless animals, we've been tirelessly publicizing </span><a href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2339"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">the animal rights group's ties to violent activists</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">, and putting the spotlight on </span><a href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm?headline=3852"><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">its aggressive and grossly inappropriate message-marketing to children</span></a><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">. </span></div></blockquote><br /><div><span style="font-family:times new roman,times;font-size:100%;">All part of PETA's modus operandi, and committed animal lovers should see what the slaughter of house pets really is, and by animal rights standards, it's mass murder.</span> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-46110451605598760722009-01-06T11:51:00.003-02:002009-01-06T11:56:14.269-02:00HUDNA: A SUPREMA DISSIMULAÇÃO<em>Heitor De Paola</em><br />02/06/2003<br /><br /><br />Ao se referir ao Road Map to Peace, a atual panacéia pacifista para o conflito entre o Estado de Israel e os grupos terroristas palestinos, nossa mídia mascarada tem evitado usar o termo hudna, o lado palestino da pantomima. Que vem a ser hudna? É uma palavra Árabe para designar aquilo que qualquer general, desde a Antigüidade, conhece e que todo adversário preparado não aceita e aproveita para atacar. Mas como foi um termo utilizado pelo Profeta Maomé adquire uma espécie de aura respeitosa que aumenta o despistamento.<br /><br />Geralmente é traduzido, na imprensa ocidental, como trégua de duração temporária pré-determinada – nos jornais em Inglês truce - para entabular negociações visando à paz. Mas esta tradução deixa de lado o significado religioso, histórico e mesmo o sentido atual dado ao termo pelos chefes das quadrilhas de guerrilheiros e terroristas.<br /><br />O Profeta Maomé, então exilado em Medina, era constantemente ameaçado pelos membros de sua tribo Coraixita que não reconheciam sua liderança espiritual nem aceitavam seu monoteísmo, e que controlavam Meca, a cidade mais sagrada para os Árabes. Após várias escaramuças, no ano de 628, ofereceu-lhes paz, prometendo a segurança de suas caravanas em troca da permissão de realizar os ritos de peregrinação anual à Caaba (1). Os Coraixitas responderam que um ano de paz deveria preceder o acordo. Maomé declarou então uma trégua – que denominou hudna - de 10 anos, conhecida como acordo de Hodaibiah. Para consolar seus guerreiros o Profeta atacou e saqueou os judeus Khaibar em sua colônia a nordeste de Medina: noventa e três foram chacinados e os demais, para sobreviver, entregaram suas propriedades e metade de suas futuras colheitas.<br /><br />Durante os dois anos seguintes, Maomé reforçou seu exército e – como mestre do despistamento que era - usou a desculpa de uma infração menor qualquer cometida pelos Coraixitas para lançar um ataque devastador, com 10.000 homens, e retomou Meca.<br /><br />Este o verdadeiro significado de hudna: acenar falsamente com uma trégua que não serve para o fim expresso – preparar a paz – mas para o fim secreto de descansar, reforçar e ampliar suas forças quando a situação é desesperadora e a derrota está próxima.<br /><br />Historicamente este tem sido sempre o sentido dado pelas forças Árabes em luta: acumular forças para o próximo round. Não é mais do que uma trapaça, “veneno com cobertura de mel”, como disse há pouco Gideon Meir, Vice-Ministro do Exterior de Israel.<br /><br /><br /><strong>O PAPEL DA HUDNA NO ATUAL CONFLITO<br /><br /></strong>Numa entrevista na TV Palestina, Abd Al-Malek, Membro Árabe do Knesset (Parlamento de Israel) – é, lá no “território ocupado pelos sionistas” tem disto! – ao responder a uma afirmativa de um expectador de que “nosso problema com Israel não é um problema de fronteira, mas de existência...”, respondeu: “É, nós exageramos quando falamos de ‘paz’ .... quando o que nós realmente queremos dizer é hudna”. E aqui é que vem o “pulo do gato” que quem entende Árabe já percebeu há muito. Quando as autoridades palestinas falam em seu idioma para seu próprio povo, mas não nas entrevistas em Inglês em fóruns internacionais, eles usam hudna e deixam claro que não há nenhuma paz à vista mas apenas um cessar-fogo temporário que, além da finalidade tradicional já exposta, tem outra: a de iludir a tal “comunidade internacional” – até mesmo alguns israelenses como os do movimento ”Paz Agora” - de que os Palestinos querem a verdadeira paz. Mas que fazer se os “ocupantes sionistas” traiçoeiramente os atacam? E nisto os grupos terroristas estão de pleno acordo com a própria “Autoridade Palestina”.<br /><br />Todos os acordos assinados por eles são pura farsa em Inglês e conseguem enganar direitinho aos trouxas que neles acreditam, com direito até a Prêmio Nobel da Paz. Assim foi em 1994, quando Yasser Arafat explicou, em Árabe, para os palestinos que os acordos de Oslo eram uma hudna no caminho para Jerusalém. Depois, em 2000, seguindo o próprio Profeta, seu mestre de despistamento, usando como pretexto a visita de Ariel Sharon à Esplanada das Mesquitas, criou a tal da "pequena infração inimiga" quebrando a hudna e se lançando à nova guerra, conhecida como Intifada de Al Aqsa.<br /><br />Principalmente nas mensagens educacionais para os jovens e nos livros textos editados ainda neste último mês, Israel é visto como uma potência colonizadora que roubou a terra do povo Palestino e expulsou os residentes – portanto Israel não tem direito de existir. O acordo de Hodaibiah é sempre mencionado como modelo para todo e qualquer ato de cessar-fogo assinado pelas autoridades, compreendidos como simplesmente parte de um processo estratégico final: a libertação da Palestina e a expulsão dos Judeus para o mar. Estes acordos são sempre assinados quando o balanço de força do momento está desfavorável às suas hostes, como agora que o Presidente Bush, que já mostrou que não está para brincadeiras – ver Afeganistão e Iraque - não acreditou na anunciada trégua e exigiu o desmantelamento do Hamas.<br /><br /><strong>ALGUNS EXEMPLOS DA “SINCERIDADE” PALESTINA – EM ÁRABE, EVIDENTEMENTE<br /><br /></strong>Ministro do Abastecimento da Autoridade Palestina (AP), Abd El-Aziz Shahian: “Oslo é apenas o primeiro passo na destruição de Israel, não um acordo permanente”.<br /><br />Pregador Dr Ahmed Yousuf Abu Halbiah, da AP: “A Nação Palestina é a vanguarda de Allah contra os Judeus, até a ressurreição dos mortos (...) até que o destino de Allah seja cumprido”.<br /><br />Othman Abu Arbiah, Assessor Político e Educacional de Arafat: ”O Estado Palestino com capital em Al Quds (Jerusalém, em Árabe) é apenas o primeiro estágio (...) na destruição dos colonizadores sionistas”.<br /><br />Sheik Yousuf Abi Snina, pregador da Mesquita Al Aqsa: “A terra Palestina é terra Waqf que pertence aos fiéis do Islam desde o início dos tempos e ninguém tem o direito de (...) fazer concessões ou de abandona-la. (...) São traidores e criminosos que merecem o Inferno todos os que aceitam a existência de Israel, que inclui ceder Haifa, Lod, Nazareth e Ashkelon”. No mesmo sermão concede a Arafat um Selo de Aprovação Shariático (Lei Islâmica) para estabelecer uma hudna!.<br /><br />Salim Alwadia Abu Salem, Supervisor para Assuntos Políticos da AP: “Quando nós pegamos em armas em 1965 e teve início a moderna revolução Palestina, nós tínhamos um único objetivo, que não mudou e não mudará nunca: a libertação da Palestina (da ocupação sionista)”.<br /><br /><br />Os milhares de exemplos são todos a repetição ad nauseam, da mesma cantilena.<br /><br /><br /><strong>CONCLUSÕES</strong><br /><br />As mensagens de paz das lideranças israelenses e palestinas aos seus respectivos povos são exatamente o oposto uma da outra (2).<br /><br />Os líderes israelenses estão dizendo: o acordo permanente será doloroso, mas devemos aceita-lo porque ele marcará o fim do conflito.<br /><br />Os líderes palestinos, por sua vez, dizem: o acordo permanente será doloroso, mas devemos aceita-lo porque não significa o fim do conflito, mas é apenas uma fase do mesmo.<br /><br /><br /><br />Dá para acreditar em Paz, com ou sem Road Map?<br /><br /><br />(1) Para mais detalhes históricos, ver meus artigos<br /><a class="" href="http://www.heitordepaola.com/publicacoes_materia.asp?id_artigo=61" target="_blank">Fatos sobre o Islam</a><br /><a class="" href="http://www.heitordepaola.com/publicacoes_materia.asp?id_artigo=62" target="_blank">Islam: a conexão nazista</a><br /><br />(2) <a href="http://www.pmw.org.il/report-31.html">http://www.pmw.org.il/report-31.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-80956598683437937782009-01-05T15:33:00.003-02:002009-01-05T15:39:18.462-02:00A MIDIA, GAZA E ISRAEL<strong>Luis Milman<br /></strong><strong></strong><br />Desde o início da ofensiva de Israel contra o Hamas, na Faixa de Gaza, no último sábado, dia 27 de dezembro, a mídia ocidental vem relatando as operações israelenses com base em pressupostos flagrantemente aparvalhados. Coincidentemente, estes pressupostos são os mesmos que pautaram as primeiras manifestações oficiais de condenação moderada lançadas contra Israel, por governos de nações importantes, logo no primeiro dia ofensiva, quando pouca ou quase nenhuma informação sobre a real dimensão das operações israelenses eram conhecidas”.<br /><br />As manifestações da França, Rússia, Japão e China, exortavam Israel a interromper suas ações em Gaza. Ao invés de condenarem os ataques do Hamas, que iniciaram ainda em novembro e quebraram o cessar-fogo, a retórica destes países partia de duas premissas equivocadas: Israel estava respondendo aos ataques de forma desproporcional e, por isso, elevando o número de vítimas civis. Assim, a linguagem protocolar criava o mantra da desproporcionalidade, adotado também pelo Secretário Geral da ONU, o senhor Ban Ki-moon, na última segunda-feira, dia 29.<br /><br />Ki-moon convocou a imprensa mundial para expressar seu repúdio ao uso da “força excessiva” por parte de Israel em seus ataques à Faixa de Gaza. O secretário-geral da ONU foi mais longe: ele apelou “às partes” para que interrompessem as hostilidades e reiniciassem negociações para um novo cessar-fogo. O coro foi reforçado pelo primeiro-ministro inglês Gordon Brown, também no dia 29. “Estou horrorizado (ênfase aqui) com a violência dos bombardeios”, disse. “Reiteramos nosso apelo a Israel e ao Hamas (ênfase aqui) para que declarem o imediato cessar-fogo e previnam a perda de mais vidas inocentes. Não há uma solução militar para esta situação. É preciso redobrar os esforços internacionais para assegurar que tanto Israel quanto a Palestina tenham terra, direitos e segurança para viverem em paz”, finalizou Brown. Ao mesmo tempo, seguiram-se manifestações de repúdio previsivelmente mais radicais, vindas de países muçulmanos e grupos extremistas, como o Hezbollah, que passaram a percorrer o planeta: massacre, genocídio, holocausto, crimes de guerra, crimes contra a humanidade. Enfim, surradas acusações disputavam espaço na mídia internacional com cenas de passeatas e aglomerações de rua pipocando na Europa e no mundo islâmico, em protesto contra a nova “barbárie” cometida por Israel.<br /><br />Enquanto isto, a quantidade de vítimas dos bombardeios parecia dar a impressão de amparar a fórmula da desproporcionalidade: já passam de 150 mortos, muitos deles civis, já ultrapassam os duzentos, entre eles mulheres e crianças agora são mais de 300, entre os quais inúmeros inocentes. Agora, quando escrevo (terça-feira, 30 de dezembro), os mortos chegavam a 360. Horrível. A mídia apropriou-se do mantra protocolar, tomando-o como axioma para sua cobertura. E, por mídia, não estou nomeando nenhuma abstração. Refiro-me à CNN, à BBC, à Sky News, à France 24, para não mencionar a Al-Jazirah em Inglês e os diários New York Times, The Guardian e Le Figaro, que podem ser todos acessados on-line.<br /><br />Também não estou me referindo aos analistas de prontidão, sempre rápidos no gatilho quando se trata de comparar o “desproporcional” confronto entre a potência militar israelense e a pobre capacidade de resistência dos palestinos. Restrinjo-me ao que se chama de “noticiário”, aquele texto informativo que, recomenda-se, deve ser feito com imparcialidade e um mínimo de cautela e caldo de galinha. Pois é nele que constato a desproposital incursão, em nome do imediatismo, no domínio da estupidez e da má fé.<br /><br />Ora, o que se espera de um noticiário é que ele informe e não desinforme ou deforme os fatos. E quais são os fatos? Um: no primeiro dia da ofensiva, Israel apenas reiterou publicamente uma decisão que vinha sendo anunciada desde o final do frágil cessar-fogo de seis meses, mediado pelos egípcios, que entrara em vigor em junho último e se encerrara em 19 de dezembro.<br /><br />Por que frágil? Porque o Hamas, há oito anos, vinha despejando diariamente seus foguetes contra Israel. Os ataques diários haviam matado nove pessoas, ferido outras tantas, danificado prédios e vinham configurando uma situação de permanente insegurança nas cidades que se encontram num raio de 20 quilometro da fronteira com Gaza.<br /><br />Durante oito anos, Israel tentou tratar do problema de modo restrito: incursões rápidas de comandos no norte de Gaza para destruir bases de lançamentos de foguetes, bloqueio marítimo para evitar a entrada de armamento enviado pelo Irã e pela Síria ao Hamas e Jihad Islâmica bloqueio terrestre, para impedir a infiltração de terroristas suicidas nas grandes cidades israelenses cortes esporádicos no suprimento de energia elétrica para a Faixa de Gaza (70% desta energia é fornecida por Israel até hoje) com a finalidade de retardar a fabricação dos tais foguetes “caseiros” (na verdade, são foguetes produzidos em fábricas erguidas em meio a bairros densamente povoados da Cidade de Gaza, Dayir al Balah, Khan Yunis e Rafah).<br /><br />De qualquer modo, findo o cessar-fogo - e diante das saraivadas diárias dos foguetes contra o sul de Israel -, o governo israelense anunciou que terminaria definitivamente com os ataques que ameaçavam seus cidadãos. Esta decisão foi, inclusive, comunicada, no dia 23 de dezembro, pela ministra do exterior israelense, Tzipi Livni, no Cairo, após um encontro com o presidente Hosni Mubarak. Livni, ainda no Cairo, não deixou dúvidas: Israel desencadearia a operação militar necessária para destruir a capacidade do Hamas de atingir Israel.<br /><br />Nos últimos dez anos, o Hamas construiu, com o apoio logístico e financeiro do Hesbollah, da Irmandade Muçulmana (baseada no Egito), da Síria e, sobretudo do Irã, uma estrutura policial e militar na Faixa de Gaza, a tal ponto organizada, que lhe permitiu, no primeiro semestre de 2007, dizimar completamente as forças do Fatah (o braço armado da Autoridade Palestina) que ainda restavam no território palestino. Com isso, ele consolidou suas instalações militares, estocagem de armas e munição, seus campos de treinamento e suas bases de ataque contra Israel em toda a Faixa de Gaza. Hoje, o Hamas (que é sunita) conta com 15 mil homens no seu “exército regular”, e ainda com cinco mil membros armados da milícia xiita Jihad Islâmica. Esse pequeno exército dispõe, além de armamento pessoal pesado, de mísseis antiaéreos, mísseis antitanques, mísseis de médio alcance do tipo Katiusha e minas espalhadas por toda a fronteira com Israel.<br /><br />Tudo isto é do conhecimento dos chefes de governo que emitiram o mantra protocolar da desproporcionalidade. Os senhores Gordon Brown e Nicholas Sarkozy sabem disto, certamente. Mas a mídia faz de conta que não sabe.<br /><br />Ora, o panorama é bem nítido: Israel desencadeou a ofensiva para defender a integridade de seus habitantes, ameaçados constantemente pelo movimento fundamentalista militarmente organizado que controla toda a Faixa de Gaza desde junho de 2007. Mais ainda, o Hamas e seus associados menores, como a Jihad Islâmica e outros grupelhos, não representam a Autoridade Nacional Palestina (AP). Eles são terroristas, não aceitam a existência do Estado de Israel e estão comprometidos explicitamente com a sua extinção total.<br /><br />Como então podem os líderes da Inglaterra e da França, ou o Secretário-geral da ONU, apelarem para que “as partes” retornem a um cessar fogo. Que partes? Israel, um estado nacional soberano e membro da ONU, por um lado, e o Hamas, um movimento terrorista que usurpou à força, da Autoridade Palestina, o controle sobre a Faixa de Gaza, por outro? Se a China não conversa sequer com o Dalai Lama, líder político e espiritual do Tibet ocupado (exilado, obviamente), por que Israel deve dialogar com o Hamas? Pelo que se sabe, o Dalai Lama defende apenas uma autonomia para o Tibet e jamais pregou a extinção da China. Por que Israel deveria “dialogar” com um movimento que objetiva abertamente a sua destruição? Ou por que o senhor Ban Ki-moon não apela para que a Espanha dialogue com o ETA, a Colômbia dialogue com as FARC, a Turquia dialogue com o PKK curdo, que quer criar um estado independente no Curdistão? Ou para que os Estados Unidos da América deixem o Afeganistão e dialoguem com o Talibã? Ou para que os senhores muçulmanos da guerra que governam o Sudão interrompam imediatamente a carnificina que já matou 300 mil cristãos e animistas e deslocou quase três milhões de refugiados para a zona de Darfour? Onde estão as passeatas na Europa contra esse massacre? Ou os protestos contra a tirania assassina de Ruanda? Onde estão os apelos para o diálogo entre as trezentas tribos que se entredevoram na muçulmana Somália?<br /><br />O termo médio de comparação é suficiente, para quem possui mais de dois neurônios. Talvez, dois neurônios e meio. Por isso paro por aqui. Dois: Israel não está, como apregoa aos berros Hassan Nasrallah (em vídeo e de seu bunker em Beirute), cometendo um “genocídio” em Gaza. Ao contrário, é o líder do Hesbollah (Partido de Deus, em português), hoje quase um segundo exército dentro do Líbano, abastecido e financiado pelo Irã, que repete incansavelmente o objetivo político de seu partido: destruir Israel, sem deixar pedra sobre pedra. A voz de Nasrallah é amplificada nas ruas de todo mundo árabe e encontra acolhida em alguns analistas ocidentais procurados pela mídia para que “possamos (nós, o público) entender o trágico cenário da Faixa de Gaza”. Pensemos: se desejasse destruir a população de Gaza (isto é um despropósito descomunal naturalmente, mas só assim teríamos base para falarmos em genocídio) - e estou admitindo essa possibilidade apenas (ênfase aqui) para argumentar-, Israel o teria feito durante a Guerra dos Seis Dias, em 1967, (lembram, ela ocorreu!), ou durante a Guerra do Yom Kypur, em 1973 (lembram, ela também ocorreu), ou durante a ocupação israelense de Gaza, que se estendeu de 1967 a 2000, ano em que unilateralmente (ou seja, sem qualquer pré-condição) Israel deixou a Faixa de Gaza na sua totalidade. O que é fato: a ofensiva israelense tem objetivos militares e políticos definidos. Os militares estão sendo plenamente atingidos, até agora. E com um baixíssimo custo em termos de vidas humanas. É isso mesmo. Baixíssimo! Afinal, depois de quatro dias de centenas de incursões aéreas e marítimas, depois de ter despejado sobre Gaza mais de 500 toneladas de explosivos, apenas, repito, apenas, 360 pessoas morreram! E destas, cerca de 60, segundo as informações do próprio Hamas e da ONU, são civis.<br /><br />Ora, isto quer dizer que o restante fazia parte do exército terrorista, logo um alvo militar. A operação israelense impressiona, mas não pelas razões do senhor Nasrallah ou dos desavisados apedeutas de boa fé (admitamos), que usam a palavra “genocídio” sem saber o que ela significa. O conceito se aplica quando um governo deliberadamente promove o extermínio de povos ou populações inteiras, encontrem-se elas em seu próprio país ou em outros.<br /><br />Os turcos foram genocidas com relação aos armênios os nazistas, com relação aos judeus os comunistas stalinistas com relação aos russos os maoístas com relação aos chineses os japoneses com relação aos chineses e, hoje, os sudaneses muçulmanos com relação aos sudaneses não muçulmanos.<br /><br />Nem os cubanos castristas, que nos primeiros cinco anos após a revolução de 59, exterminaram 95 mil pessoas, praticaram um genocídio. Eles cometeram assassinatos em massa, uma ação sem dúvida abjeta e execrável, um crime contra a humanidade. Mas, não cometeram genocídio. E atentarmos para as diferenças ainda é fundamental.<br /><br />Por que a operação israelense impressiona? Por duas constatações que saltam aos olhos. A primeira: a ofensiva está se processando na área mais densamente povoada do planeta (1,5 milhão de habitantes em 360 quilômetros quadrados) a segunda: o Hamas ergueu intencionalmente toda a sua infra-estrutura policial e militar nos centros urbanos, justamente os locais mais densamente povoados deste território já muito densamente povoado (a hipérbole é proposital).<br /><br />Ora, se é para destruir alvos militares, é preciso atingi-los onde se encontram. E Israel está fazendo isto, de forma quase milimétrica, cirúrgica, mesmo correndo o risco, inevitável nesta situação, de atingir civis. Repito: e o faz de forma impressionante, pois as baixas civis, nesse contexto, são aquém de mínimas. Como a aviação e a marinha israelenses conseguem fazer isto? Empregando altíssima tecnologia, mísseis inteligentes e alvos previamente selecionados. Caso contrário, estaríamos diante de um massacre. E é necessário que se reafirme: não estamos sequer a milhões de milhas próximos disto. O Secretário-Geral da ONU, que jamais reuniu uma conferência de imprensa para falar sobre a situação no Sudão, deveria saber disto. Ele, desta forma, ficaria calado. Obviamente, eu não esperaria que o senhor Ki-moon aplaudisse a operação de Israel. O Secretário-geral da ONU deve, por princípio, lamentar todas as guerras. Mas ele deveria, também por obrigação, calar-se, porque esta é uma guerra legítima, sobretudo defensiva, com objetivos militares e políticos claros, de um país soberano contra um grupo terrorista que prega o seu aniquilamento e contra os governos que apóiam este grupo. Três: Falei que a guerra possui objetivos políticos claros. Ei-los: Israel quer expulsar o Irã da Faixa de Gaza. O Irã? Isso mesmo, o Irã. O Hamas e a Jihad Islâmica nada mais são do que uma extensão do governo de Teerã e de seu potencial bélico virtualmente no interior de Israel. E todos sabem o quê mais almejam os aiatolás iranianos: destruir o que eles chamam de entidade sionista. Assim, ao eliminar a capacidade do Hamas de atacar seu território, Israel, além de retomar o controle sobre sua segurança imediata, desfere também um golpe mortal nas pretensões iranianas de penetrar em sua fronteira sul. Com isso ainda pretende isolar política e militarmente o Irã, travestido de Hezbollah, na sua fronteira norte. Ao mesmo tempo, forja uma situação mais favorável para negociar com a Síria, também enfraquecida com a derrota do Hamas, um tratado de paz entre os dois paises. Esta é uma meta de médio prazo. Por essa razão o senhor Nasrallah esbraveja contra o Egito de Mubarak e a Autoridade Palestina, de Machmud Abas, chamando-os de traidores do Islã. Nasrallah sabe que, sem o Hamas e a Jihad Islâmica em Gaza, o Hezbollah, ou seja, o Irã, se enfraquece, enquanto o Egito, a Autoridade Palestina e a Jordânia se fortalecem e, pior (para o Irã), Israel recupera a posição geopolítica decisiva para sua existência na região.<br /><br />A ofensiva ainda torna explicita a disposição de Israel de não tolerar que o iranianos consigam obter armamento nuclear. Ou seja, Israel está preparando o terreno para uma intervenção direta no Irã.<br /><br />Como Barak Obama assume a presidência dos Estados Unidos em janeiro, Israel envia uma mensagem inequívoca para Washington: não há diálogo com o Hamas, nem com Teerã. Os Estados Unidos devem se preparar para apoiar irrestritamente a ação militar direta de Israel contra os iranianos. E essa ação não deve tardar, pelo que se depreende do palco desenhado por Jerusalém. Quer dizer: trata-se de uma ação já planejada e montada pela inteligência militar israelense, que deve ser deflagrada em breve. Pergunta oportuna: o que é “breve”? Resposta: Israel certamente sabe. E, creio agora, Barak Obama também. No fim das contas, Israel não está fazendo mais do que colocar seu destino em suas próprias mãos. E isto ele sempre fez, sob o preço de simplesmente deixar de existir. Dúvidas? Consultem a História.<br /><br />Finalizando: e a mídia com relação a esse quadro? Nada informa, nada analisa, nada investiga. Pelo contrário, submete-se ao superficialismo, mistifica, embrulha-se toda no mantra da desproporcionalidade e mergulha de cabeça no noticiarismo demagógico e pretensamente humanitário. É um crime contra a lucidez e a razão. Mas, que diabos, isso lá importa?<br /><br /><br />_________<br />Luis Milman é Jornalista e doutor em Filosofia, professor da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, preocupado e abismado com as reações de governos e da mídia internacional a partir da ação desenvolvida por Israel na Faixa de Gaza, território controlado pela organização terrorista Hamas, desde o ano passado, escreve o artigo a seguir para esclarecer aspectos importantes da questão, que não são considerados.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-41058131800594281452008-12-13T22:22:00.002-02:002008-12-13T22:42:37.482-02:00Not Raping = Rape ... If You Are an Israeli Soldier<strong>Paper Proves Once Again that Academics Never Outgrow Their Need for Bullshit<br /></strong><br /><strong>Prize Winning Sociology Thesis at Hebrew U.: Lack of Rape Among Israeli Soldiers Achieves Same Aims as Rape</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><br />"A Hebrew University Sociology department M.A. thesis entitled "Controlled Occupation: The Lack of Military Rape in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict" notes that the relative absence of instances of rape by Israeli soldiers is an alternate method of achieving the same kind of degradation of Palestinian Arabs that would be achieved through a directed policy of raping Arab women."<br /><br /><br />Via <a title=" " href="http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/02/14/157599.aspx">Barbara Kay on the 'Lack of rape among Israeli soldiers'</a> who notes, "This pinch-me item just crossed my desk and of course I assumed it was a spoof. But I Googled the names of the academics involved and to my astonishment they are real."<br /><br />More from this steaming clod of manure:<br /><br />"In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done." -- <a title="Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping - Politics & Government - Israel News - Arutz Sheva" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124674">Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping </a><br /><br />I look forward to the Olmert government responding forcefully to the revelations of this research and issuing an apology to all unraped Palestinian women for not being raped. He should also note that until Israel can manage to train its soldiers own to the level of Hamas or United Nations troops that, sadly, the not-raping will continue.<br /><br />** "I have now read the entire thesis (in Hebrew). [You can also, if you read Hebrew] It is not a serious piece of research. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment for all of Israeli academia." --- The complete text of an article by a man who has read the full-text of the Hebrew paper follows:<br /><br />Thursday, January 3, 2008<br />Complete Story of “No Rape = Racism” Essay<br />Author: Steven Plaut in Israel<br />An abridged version of a longer article about the cover-up scandal at the Hebrew University, with relation to the “Abstaining From Rape of Arabs is Jewish Racism” thesis, came out this evening at the NY Jewish Press under the title Guilty By Reason Of Innocence: New Insanity From Israel’s Academic Leftists By: Steven Plaut and can be read there.<br /><br />Below is the longer FULL version of the article, which has not yet been published in full length form, but is presented here.<br /><br />SCOPUSGATE<br />By Steven Plaut<br /><br />It began as just another <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=84CB185F-DEDD-4FEC-8631-D5CCA75921F5" target="_blank">exercise in political academic wackiness</a> at the Hebrew University.<br /><br />A graduate student claimed that the absence of any history of rapes of Arab women by Israeli Jewish soldiers proves that the Jews are racists and oppressors, people who do not even regard Arab women as sexually desirable. <a href="http://www.israel-academia-monitor.com/index.php?type=get_page&page_data%5bid%5d=173&page_type=4&cookie_lang=en&the_session_id=36680c6372b020a883cc213880c6b495&PHPSESSID=89eca27f833a8f8880bd708344fd706" target="_blank">Such silliness is commonplace these days in academia</a>, and ordinarily no one would have taken much notice. But the student at the Mount Scopus campus and her “research” were then awarded a university honor for her impressive “discoveries.” That drew media attention.<br /><br />The matter has now become the worst <a href="http://www.israel-academia-monitor.com/index.php?type=large_advic&advice_id=3090&page_data%5bid%5d=173&cookie_lang=en&the_session_id=36680c6372b020a883cc213880c6b495" target="_blank">recent scandal</a> in Israeli academia because of the attempt by the heads of the Hebrew University to cover it up, in a manner a bit reminiscent of the worst days of Watergate. Maybe it should be dubbed Scopusgate. The scandal now rivals the “Toaff Affair” in Israel last year, in which a now-retired professor at Bar-Ilan University published “research” in which he claimed that medieval Jews used gentile blood for ceremonial purposes.<br /><br />The very highest officials of the Hebrew University are themselves now implicated in a dishonest cover-up! The President of the Hebrew University, Professor Menachem Magidor, and the Rector Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch jointly issued a deliberately false “spin” announcement regarding the MA thesis of the student, claiming that the media had incorrectly described what was in it. Instead of repudiating the student and her “academic advisors,” Magidor and Rabinowitch closed ranks with them and insisted that Nitzan’s “research” represents serious scholarship. The Nitzan Affair simply shows how completely devoid of serious academic standards and quality controls parts of Israeli academia are today.<br /><br />Hebrew University apologists tried to defuse the cries of outrage over the “research” by claiming that reports about it were all part of some sort of vast right-wing conspiracy. The first two media reports appeared on web sites, <a href="http://www.makor1.co.il/makor/Article.faces;.e34Mc3aTbNiTby0LaxmNbxqRchmMe0?articleId=27530&channel=1&subchannel=2" target="_blank">Hebrew</a> and one <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124674" target="_blank">English</a>, both associated with those on the Israeli Right. The <a href="http://www.yourish.com/2007/12/31/4189" target="_blank">apologists suggested</a> that these were misrepresenting the thesis for political reasons. Then Magidor and Rabinovitch proclaimed that reading the entire thesis would show that it is a serious piece of scholarship. They obviously did not read it.<br /><br />Well, I have now read the entire thesis (in Hebrew). [<a href="http://www.upfree.net/3100688" target="_blank">You can also, if you read Hebrew</a>] It is not a serious piece of research. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment for all of Israeli academia. The descriptions of it on the two “rightwing” web sites were entirely accurate, and the heads of the Hebrew University simply lied about its contents, in a pathetic attempt at cover-up. While University <a href="http://tinycatpants.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/oh-right-wing-blogosphere-how-" target="_blank">apologists dismissed complaints</a> about the thesis as tendentious misrepresentation of it by a vast rightwing conspiracy, the rallying in defense of the thesis by the Hebrew University administration and some professors looks a whole lot like a leftwing conspiracy to cover up.<br /><br />Tal Nitzan was a graduate student in anthropology at the Hebrew University. Her thesis was supervised by anthropology Professor Eyal Ben Ari and by Dr. Edna Lomsky-Feder, from the Hebrew University’s school of education, a leftist with a history of denouncing Israel for its supposed “militarism.” The thesis was evidently also supported by anthropology Prof. Zali Gurevitch, the head of the Shaine Center (and himself an anti-Israel leftist radical), who defended it to the media and made the decision to award it a prize of honors.<br /><br />Nitzan’s “thesis” is largely a collection of tiresome feminist rhetoric and postmodernist gibberish, not all of it related to rape. The thesis is 206 pages long and tries to appear scholarly by including many long “citations” taken from the fever swamps of radical anthropology and leftist sociology. One has to wade through it with suppressed nausea to get to its main points, and all of the main points are exactly as they were represented in the early media reports; they are at complete odds with the cover-up attempt by the Hebrew University.<br /><br />Nitzan begins by noting that one should distinguish between organized military rape directly ordered by authorities as a matter of policy, such as in the Bosnian wars, and individual acts of rape by soldiers, which she labels with the nonsensical term “symptomatic rape.” She calls it that I guess because she wants us to think it is a symptom the “racist Zionist system” that is responsible for such crimes. She asserts that the first kind of rape is a form of political policy, whereas the latter kind (the “symptomatic”) is a “direct result of the blurring of social divisions and ethnic-gender barriers” (bear with me here! — SP). She confirms that the first form of organized rape has never been the policy of the Israeli army. She then says that the second form, individual “symptomatic rape,” has replaced the former as a method of humiliation and oppression of Arabs, even when - and especially when - Israeli Jewish soldiers do not do it at all! Hence, she concludes, NOT raping Arab women shows how racist the Jews are.<br /><br />Nitzan cannot conceive of any rape that is not in and itself a form of establishing political control and defining political power. “Symptomatic rape” for Nitzan is a reflection of the intolerant distancing of the “dominant” group (Jewish men) from the “oppressed” group (Arab men and women). But she then completely turns this “thought” on its head by arguing that abstaining from rape is just as inhumane and oppressive as “symptomatically raping,” and in fact replaces it, because it just serves to reinforce the intolerant attitudes towards Arabs by Jewish soldiers, who think of Arabs as so inferior and horrid that they do not even feel a drive to rape them. Really. “Absence of rape is explained by the social condition in which there is blurring of attitudes towards gender power relations while at the same time social limits… are unambiguous and solid. (page 183)” While giving some shallow lip service to how the “question” of rape refusal is “very complex,” Nitzan’s own “answer” is quite simple and straightforward. And numbingly stupid.<br /><br />Rape for Nitzan is not violent crime at all but rather is always a manifestation of political plotting by elites. She contradicts herself by noting that, come to think of it, Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women as individuals either. She then contradicts her own contradictions and claims that the absence of rape by Israeli soldiers is “designed” to achieve the same goals as organized mass rape in other countries and in other wars.<br /><br />Her “conclusions” are that Israel is so racist and intolerably anti-Arab that abstaining from rape is part and parcel of its way to enforce rigid “lines of division.” She asserts that individual soldiers abstaining from rape represent an intentional policy of oppression roughly similar to when governments order mass rape, because in both cases the “policy” serves to subordinate and dehumanize the oppressed victim population.<br /><br />The main significance of the thesis as an academic work is in the fact that it illustrates the <a href="http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msyberg/Higher_Education/HU_Shame.pdf" target="_blank">total collapse of any semblance of academic</a> standards at the Hebrew University. The “thesis” is not worth the disk space on which it is printed. Yet it was not only accepted by the <a href="http://www.israel-academia-monitor.com/index.php?type=large_advic&advice_id=5209&page_data%5bid%5d=173&cookie_lang=en&the_session_id=36680c6372b020a883cc213880c6b495" target="_blank">Department of Sociology and Anthropology</a> at the Hebrew University, the department in which the <a href="http://www.aisisraelstudies.org/syllabi/HL/Kimmerling-Jewish%20Palestinian%20Vertigo.pdf" target="_blank">late pro-terror anti-Zionist extremist Baruch Kimmerling</a> spent his career <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=%7bACD6E53E-72E9-4E0D-88E9-BD0B6D87995F%7d" target="_blank">fabricating “Palestinian history”</a>, but was even awarded a prestigious award, one evidently financed with contributions from the Shaine family. (I doubt the Shaines have any idea how their generosity was misused by the university!) Atrociously written and constantly contradicting herself, Nitzan would have been laughed out of any university maintaining serious standards, EVEN if she had been writing about a valid and legitimate subject.<br /><br />The thesis draws its “scientific” conclusions from open interviews with 25 reserve soldiers, ages 23-32, who served as combat troops in the “occupied territories” during the “intifada.” None of the comments by any of these soldiers support or provide any confirmation, even the most indirect, to any of the lunatic “conclusions” by Nitzan. Most of the interview comments concern the day-to-day tactics and experiences of the soldiers. Nitzan then asked the soldiers why no Arab women were raped by Israeli troops. Their responses varied, ranging from assertions of ethical awareness of soldiers to effective disciple. Some noted the presence of media reporters or of NGO groups in the areas of conflict.<br /><br />Nitzan constantly disregards what the soldiers actually say and instead attributes to them irrational fears and feelings of disgust and snotty superiority when they interact with Arabs (for example, page 53 and following). Long segments of the thesis are rants about how Israel brutally exercises control and suppression of the poor Palestinians.<br /><br />But since when is asking 25 random soldiers why no rapes take place a scientific way to go about answering the question? The soldiers are not social scientists and are not criminologists. How any MA degree could be awarded to anyone on the basis of having conducted 25 interviews is one of the mysteries that the Hebrew University authorities have yet to explain. The thesis is totally devoid of statistical analysis or empirical testing, even using the rather primitive methodologies popular among some sociologists. At no serious academic institution would such a superficial exercise in baseless long-winded verbiage be accepted as a “research thesis.”<br /><br />Nitzan’s anti-Israel political bias is also evident throughout. On page 23 she declares that “Imposing control and instilling fear is a frequent practice (by Israel in the ‘Palestinian-Israeli’ conflict) and so it would be expected that military rape should be used as an efficient method for ensuring the security and survival of a Jewish Israel.” On page 53 she asserts that “de-humanization amidst avoiding demonization is one of the most blatant features of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” [She means by the Jews.] The words “terror” and “terrorist” do not appear even once in the entire thesis. Neither does “bomb,” “bomber,” or “suicide murderer.” No one reading the thesis would have any idea that Israeli military actions in the “territories” have anything to do with suicide bombers and terrorist murderers. The political bias and open political propagandizing should have been more than enough for the thesis to be rejected altogether as pseudo-research. Instead, it got a prize.<br /><br />The possibility that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women because they are simply decent and honorable people, or under effective command by decent and honorable people, is automatically dismissed by Nitzan. After all, there are acts of criminal rape in Israeli civilian society, citing a radical feminist group claiming such sexual abuse is common in Israel, so this could not possibly explain the mystery. How the incidence of such civilian crimes rules out the obvious real explanation for the absence of rape by soldiers is not even the worst logical inconsistency by Nitzan and her supervisors.<br /><br />Nitzan’s thesis contains the Arab “narrative” about just about everything, including such things as the battle of Deir Yassin. The claims of Bash-Israel “historians” are accepted at face value. Arab propaganda is accepted as “scholarship.” Nevertheless, even these confirm that virtually no rapes of Arab women by Jewish soldiers ever occurred. [One of the few people claiming that a few such rape cases did take place is anti-Israel propagandist Uri Avnery, who is not an academic and is hardly a credible source, although one Nitzan on which is willing to rely.]<br /><br />Once reports about the Nitzan “research” claiming Jews were racist for NOT raping Arabs began to circulate, the heads of the Hebrew University (the President and Rector together) evidently heard outraged complaints and so issued their own statement concerning it, dated December 30, 2007. It reads, in part: “Thank you for your concern about the thesis of the student Ms. Tal Nitzan. In her thesis, Ms. Nitzan examined a number of explanations for the question why the Israeli army is not involved in rapes, as was so widely done by the Japanese in Korea and more recently by the Europeans in Kosovo and by the Americans in Iraq, just to name a few. IDF soldiers are not involved in raping and other atrocities common to other armies, and Ms. Nitzan examined a number of explanations for this proper behavior. It seems that the source, on which the media reports were based, either did not read the thesis or used sentences that were taken out of context (emphasis in original statement). Below please find excerpts from her work (both in the original Hebrew and the English translation, side by side), providing possible explanations for the question why the Israeli army is not involved in rapes.”<br /><br />This was followed by three brief citations from the Nitzan thesis in Hebrew with English translation. Sure enough, nothing in the three selections, all taken out of context, is particularly outrageous or anti-Israel. But that is only because in 206 pages of babble, it is unsurprisingly possible to find a handful of sentences that are not offensive. Indeed, Nitzan did mention in passing the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Korea, but nearly the entire thesis is dedicated single-mindedly to proving that Jews are racists for NOT raping Arabs. The President and Rector of the Hebrew University did exactly what they disingenuously claimed the media had been doing, selecting non-representative sentences to misrepresent the thesis and make it appear harmless.<br /><br />Meanwhile not a single feminist organization anywhere has spoken up about this thesis claiming that it is racist when Jews do not rape Arabs. This past spring a gang of Arabs terrorized the Galilee by raping Jewish women for political motives and was apprehended. Some of their victims were children. Nitzan and her professors have nothing to say about THAT wave of politically-motivated rapes. According to Nitzan’s own thesis logic, if a Jewish woman were to be raped by Hamas terrorists, this would pretty much prove that the Hamas are egalitarian and progressive seekers of peace and justice, not treating Jews as the inferior “Other.”<br /><br />But the most outrageous aspect of this entire scandal is the behavior of the heads of the Hebrew University, defending and endorsing this “research” with a cover-up, and proving that the Hebrew University today, despite one of its retired professors having won a Nobel Prize, has jettisoned academic standards and has lost interest in seeking academic excellence.<br /><br /><a href="http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/tinfoil_brigade/not_raping_the.php">http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/tinfoil_brigade/not_raping_the.php</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38470182.post-89416831217771143112008-10-30T01:41:00.004-02:002008-10-30T02:06:47.069-02:00Quem noticia isso?O texto que segue com toda a certeza não é notícia, mas uma soldado-modelo israelense receber permissão para não carregar um rifle por este ferir suas pernas e prejudicar sua carreira é (<a href="http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/0,,MTM1823-5602,00.html" target="_blank">http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/0,,MTM1823-5602,00.html</a>).<br /><br />Despite the recent riots in Acco, <strong>there is good news about the Israeli Arab situation. The IDF is reporting that the number of Arab recruits is up dramatically this yuear</strong>. It is slightly unclear when they are including Christian Arab, Muslim Arab, and Bedouin Israelis in their figures and when they are referring to the populations separately. Israeli Arabs serve almost exclusively in the 585, the desert reconnaisance battalion (the article below calls it a brigade, but it is not). Bedouins serve in a variety of regular units. The 585 is split almost evenly between Arabs and Bedouins, and they do not get along. Historical rivalries are not far below the surface in the battalion, resulting in fights, thefts, and taunting. The army is aggressively pursuing Christian Arab recruits, as they do not have the connection to Islam that make it less likely for Muslim Arabs to enlist. Towns such as Daburiyya have had residents murder local soldiers, and recruits from such communities have to return home without their uniforms.<br /><br />Bedouin towns are far more supportive, and communities such as Beit Zarzir and Hujirat, almost all young men serve in the army.<br />It should be noted that I commanded the officer interviewed below during his basic training.<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1027745.html"> Haaretz</a> reports:<br /><br /><br />The number of Israeli Arab recruits to the IDF has increased dramatically in the first nine months of 2008, official figures obtained by Haaretz indicate.<br /><br />The rise in the Bedouin recruitment rate is attributed to Bedouin’s difficulty in finding well-paid jobs outside the military and problems with the local authorities. The IDF has also improved its treatment of Bedouin army veterans and is helping them find employment.<br /><a class="more-link" href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/10/10/good-news-about-israels-arabs/#more-1498"><strong>(more…)</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1