9 December 2011, Shalom Rav http://rabbibrant.com (USA)
By Rabbi Brant Rosen
This past week I had the pleasure of visiting the Muslim Community Center school (MCC) in Morton Grove, IL to witness an inspiring session of Poetry Pals in action.
PP is a non-profit that brings children together from diverse and interfaith communities for partnership, expression and friendship through poetry, spoken word, music and art. At this particular workshop, fourth graders from MCC, Solomon Schecter Jewish Day School and Sacred Heart Catholic School gathered together in the MCC gym. After a brief learning session and tour from the principal, they came back together to get to know one another by engaging in a variety of creative poetry writing exercises.
So simple and yet so very powerful. With news about religious intolerance blaring at us from every corner, I wish I could start every day this way: watching children wearing hijabs, kippot and Catholic school uniforms talking, playing, laughing and writing poetry together. I am so grateful to PP founder (and JRC member) Donna Yates for inviting me to witness their sacred handiwork.
Local efforts such as Poetry Pals are eminently worthy of our support. Click here to do so.
Mostrando postagens com marcador Christianism. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador Christianism. Mostrar todas as postagens
sexta-feira, 9 de dezembro de 2011
quarta-feira, 30 de novembro de 2011
THE ZIONIST ULTRA-ORTHODOX ARE CASHING IN THEIR I.O.U.
30 November 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
Those spending their Saturdays having fun rather than defending shepherds and farmers should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.
By Amira Hass
The Haredim and Hardalim, as the non-Zionist and Zionist ultra-Orthodox are respectively known, are now cashing in their promissory note from Israeli society. Their bitterness at an ungrateful secular-nationalist public is certainly justified. For what is doing without women's singing in comparison to the direct line to God they offer us? And what are advertisements featuring men only compared to the blank check God gave all of us to be the masters of the entire Promised Land?
Haredi and Hardali Judaism sold three assets on credit to the Israel that desecrates the Sabbath and loves the charming, Arab-free views from the Galilee kibbutzim and the West Bank outposts. These are the assets that enable Israel to be indifferent to both the history that was and the history now in the making, and to live as an armed, gilded ghetto, a beloved outpost of the "developed" and "civilized" Christian West in the Muslim East.
We could have clung to the historical, secular explanations for our ingathering in this land (briefly, the "final solution" of that same civilized Christian West, which also expelled us from the countries of the Diaspora ). This would have committed us to the humanitarian and earthly values and perceptions that have emerged from every struggle against ethnic persecution and oppression. But the historical explanation would also have obliged us to admit our similarity to other colonialist movements, and to understand that what was possible in the 18th and 19th centuries in America and Australia is not possible here and now.
To escape the contradictions created by history and its lessons, we chose to buy the meta-historical explanation of our armed, fortified presence here: no more and no less than God's promise to Abraham, from whom all of us are directly descended. This promise is what permits us, in our view, to do whatever we please to the people that dwells here, the natives of this land: to expel, to concentrate, to divide, to blockade, to impoverish, to dry out, to bomb, to uproot, to dispossess.
This same divine promise grants all Jews everywhere - even those who have never set foot in Israel - more rights in this land than any Palestinian who was born here. This land is ruled by a state that refuses to be a state of its actual citizens and thinks only of potential citizens from the Diaspora.
Ethnic head-counting is second nature to this state. Thus the Haredim and Hardalim know that the second asset they are selling is beyond price: their high birthrate. In the Haredi view, this high birthrate is worth more than any military service or tax payment could ever be.
The Hardalim, in contrast, combine this with a third asset for sale: lust for battle, and for ascending the military ranks, and a willingness to "die for our country" - all of which have been on the wane, relatively speaking, among other sectors of the population. In a state that has done everything in its power over the last several decades to miss any opportunity for peace, this military enthusiasm is a vital asset - especially as good neighborly relations in this region now seem more unachievable than ever before.
Hardalim and Haredim see that most of the Israeli Jewish public has eagerly bought these inexhaustible assets, so now they are continuing down the same consistent path. The Haredim and Hardalim simply long for wholeness: the divine promise and the laws of kashrut. They are offering soldiers in the demographic warfare in exchange for the non-mixing of women and men in the army.
The problem then is not the sellers but the buyers. The secular Jews who allow or even encourage the expulsion of Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, Al-Arakib and Safed, should not complain if tomorrow, theaters and concert halls are required to set up separate sections for the female portion of the audience. And those who spend their holy Saturdays having fun rather than going out to defend shepherds and farmers from skullcap-wearing Salafists should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.
Read this article in Hebrew: לגרש פלסטינים, ולהדיר נשים
Those spending their Saturdays having fun rather than defending shepherds and farmers should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.
By Amira Hass
The Haredim and Hardalim, as the non-Zionist and Zionist ultra-Orthodox are respectively known, are now cashing in their promissory note from Israeli society. Their bitterness at an ungrateful secular-nationalist public is certainly justified. For what is doing without women's singing in comparison to the direct line to God they offer us? And what are advertisements featuring men only compared to the blank check God gave all of us to be the masters of the entire Promised Land?
Haredi and Hardali Judaism sold three assets on credit to the Israel that desecrates the Sabbath and loves the charming, Arab-free views from the Galilee kibbutzim and the West Bank outposts. These are the assets that enable Israel to be indifferent to both the history that was and the history now in the making, and to live as an armed, gilded ghetto, a beloved outpost of the "developed" and "civilized" Christian West in the Muslim East.
We could have clung to the historical, secular explanations for our ingathering in this land (briefly, the "final solution" of that same civilized Christian West, which also expelled us from the countries of the Diaspora ). This would have committed us to the humanitarian and earthly values and perceptions that have emerged from every struggle against ethnic persecution and oppression. But the historical explanation would also have obliged us to admit our similarity to other colonialist movements, and to understand that what was possible in the 18th and 19th centuries in America and Australia is not possible here and now.
To escape the contradictions created by history and its lessons, we chose to buy the meta-historical explanation of our armed, fortified presence here: no more and no less than God's promise to Abraham, from whom all of us are directly descended. This promise is what permits us, in our view, to do whatever we please to the people that dwells here, the natives of this land: to expel, to concentrate, to divide, to blockade, to impoverish, to dry out, to bomb, to uproot, to dispossess.
This same divine promise grants all Jews everywhere - even those who have never set foot in Israel - more rights in this land than any Palestinian who was born here. This land is ruled by a state that refuses to be a state of its actual citizens and thinks only of potential citizens from the Diaspora.
Ethnic head-counting is second nature to this state. Thus the Haredim and Hardalim know that the second asset they are selling is beyond price: their high birthrate. In the Haredi view, this high birthrate is worth more than any military service or tax payment could ever be.
The Hardalim, in contrast, combine this with a third asset for sale: lust for battle, and for ascending the military ranks, and a willingness to "die for our country" - all of which have been on the wane, relatively speaking, among other sectors of the population. In a state that has done everything in its power over the last several decades to miss any opportunity for peace, this military enthusiasm is a vital asset - especially as good neighborly relations in this region now seem more unachievable than ever before.
Hardalim and Haredim see that most of the Israeli Jewish public has eagerly bought these inexhaustible assets, so now they are continuing down the same consistent path. The Haredim and Hardalim simply long for wholeness: the divine promise and the laws of kashrut. They are offering soldiers in the demographic warfare in exchange for the non-mixing of women and men in the army.
The problem then is not the sellers but the buyers. The secular Jews who allow or even encourage the expulsion of Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, Al-Arakib and Safed, should not complain if tomorrow, theaters and concert halls are required to set up separate sections for the female portion of the audience. And those who spend their holy Saturdays having fun rather than going out to defend shepherds and farmers from skullcap-wearing Salafists should not be surprised if the day after, Jewish fundamentalism even invades their bedrooms.
Read this article in Hebrew: לגרש פלסטינים, ולהדיר נשים
segunda-feira, 1 de agosto de 2011
Organized Political Terrorism: The Norwegian Massacre, the State, the Media and Israel
By Prof. James Petras
31 July 2011, Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca (Canada)
“So let us fight together with Israel , with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/Multiculturalists”. Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto
“. . . two more cells exist in my organization”. . . Ander Behring Breivik in police custody (Reuters 7/25/11)
Introduction:
The July 22, 2011, bombing of the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Labor Party Jen Stoltenberg, which killed 8 civilians, and the subsequent political assassination of 68 unarmed activists of the Labor Party Youth on Utoeya Island, just 20 minutes from Oslo, by militant neo-fascist Christian-Zionists, raises fundamental questions about the growing links between the legal Far-Right, the ‘mainstream media’, the Norwegian police, Israel and rightwing terrorism.
The Mass Media and the Rise of Rightwing Terrorism:
The leading English language newspapers, The New York Times (NYT), the Washington Post (WP), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the Financial Times (FT), as well as President Obama, blamed “Islamic extremists”, upon the first police reports of the killings, publishing a series of incendiary (and false) headlines and reports, labeling the event as ‘Norway’s 9-11’,in terms, which echoed the ideological motivation and justifications cited by the Norwegian Christian-Zionist political assassin, Anders Behring Breivik himself,. The July 23/24 front page of the Financial Times (of London ), read “Islamist extremism fears: Worst Europe strike since 2005”. Obama immediately cited the terrorist attack in Norway to further justify his overseas wars against Muslim countries. The FT, NYT, WP and WSJ trotted out their self-styled “experts” who debated over which Arab/Islamic leaders or movements were responsible – despite Norwegian press reports of ‘the arrest of a Nordic man in police uniform’.
Clearly, the US mass media and political elite were eager to use the bombing and assassinations to justify ongoing overseas imperial wars, ignoring the burgeoning domestic extremist rightwing organizations and violent individuals who are the outgrowth of official Islamophobic hate propaganda.
When Anders Breivik, a known neo-fascist extremist, handed his weapons over to Norwegian police without resistance and claimed credit for the bombing and massacre, the second phase of the official cover-up took place: He was immediately described as “a lone wolf assassin”, who “acted alone” (BBC July 24, 2011) or as mentally deranged, downplaying his political networks, his American, European and Israeli ideological mentors and commitments, which led to his acts of terrorism. Even more outrageous, the media and officials ignored the fact that this complex, multiphase terrorist attack was beyond the capacity of one ‘deranged’ person.
Anders Behring Breivik had been a dues-paying member of a Far-Right political party, The Progress Party and a collaborator and contributor to an overtly neo-Nazi web site. He frequently focused his hatred on the ruling Labor Party for its relative tolerance of immigrants. He despised immigrants especially, Muslims, and was an ardent Christian-Zionist supporter of Israeli repression and terror against the Palestinian people. His criminal action was political in essence and embedded in a much wider political network.
The political elite and media have scrambled to deny the overlapping links between ‘legal’ ideological Islamophobes, like the American Zionists Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Dutch far-right Party of Freedom led by the hate-monger Geert Wilders and their counterparts in the Norwegian Progress Party who rail against the “Muslim threat”. The “direct action” terrorists take their cues from electoral parties, like the Progress Party, who recruit and indoctrinate activists, like Behring Breivik, who then leave the ‘electoral road’ to carry out their bloody carnage, allowing the ‘respectable’ hate-mongers to hypocritically condemn him… after the outrage.
The Lone Assassin: A Fascist Superman Travels Faster than a Speeding Bullet Versus the Police Moving Slower than an Arthritic Turtle:
The case for the “lone wolf terrorist” defies credence. It is a tissue of lies used to cover up state complicity, intelligence malfeasance, and the sharp right-turn in the domestic and foreign policies of NATO countries.
There is no basis to accept Breivik’s initial claim that he acted alone for several outstanding reasons: First, the car bomb, which devastated downtown Oslo, was a highly complex weapon requiring expertise and coordination – the kind available to state or intelligence services, like the Mossad, which specialize in devastating car bombs. Amateurs, like Breivik, with no training in explosives, usually blow themselves up or lack the skill required to connect the electronic timing devices or remote detonators (like the unsuccessful ‘shoe’, ‘underpants’ and ‘Times Square’ bombers have proved) .
Secondly, the details of (a) moving the bomb, (b) obtaining (stealing) a vehicle, (c) placing the device at the strategic site, (d) successfully detonating it and (e) then gowning up in an elaborate special police uniform with an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of ammunition and driving off in another vehicle to Utoeya Island, (f) waiting patiently while armed to the teeth for a ferry boat, g) crossing with other passengers in his police uniform, (h) rounding up the Labor youth activists and commencing the massacre of scores of unarmed youth and finally (i) finishing off the wounded and hunting for those trying to hide or swim away - is not the activity of a lone zealot. Even the combination of Superman, Einstein and a world class marksman could not perform those tasks.
The media and NATO leaders must view the public as passive morons to expect them to believe that Anders Behring Breivik “acted alone”. He is willing to take a 20 year prison sentence if it means, as he maintains, that their collective action is the spark that ignites his comrades and advances the agenda of the violent and legal far rightwing parties. Facing a Norwegian judge on July 25, he publicly declared the existence of “two more cells in my organization”. According to witness testimony on Utoeya Island shots from two distinct weapons were heard from different directions during the massacre. The police say they are… “investigating”. Needless to say the police have found nothing; instead they put on a “show” to cover their inaction by raiding two houses far from the massacre and quickly released the suspects.
The most serious political implication of the terrorist action, however, is the conspicuous complicity of top police officials. The police took 90 minutes to arrive at Utoeya Island , located less than 20 miles from Oslo , 12 minutes by helicopter and 25 to 30 minutes by car and boat. The delay allowed the right wing assassins to use up the ammunition, maximizing the death toll of young, anti-fascist activists and devastating the Labor youth movement. The police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, made the feeblest excuse and cover-up, claiming “problems with transport”. Sponheim argued that a helicopter “wasn’t on standby” and they “could not find a boat” (Associated Press, July 24, 2011).
Yet a helicopter was available; it managed to fly to Utoeya and film the ongoing slaughter, and over half of Norwegians, a seafaring people for millennia, own or have access to a boat. A police force, faced with what the Prime Minister calls the ‘worst atrocity since the Nazi occupation’, moving at the pace of an arthritic turtle to rescue youth activists, raises the suspicion of some level of complicity. The obvious question arises as to the degree to which the ideology of right wing extremism – neo-fascism – has penetrated the police and security forces, especially the upper echelons? This level of “inactivity” raises more questions than it answers. What it suggests is that the Social Democrats only control part of the Government – the legislative, while the neo-fascists influence the state apparatus.
The plain fact is that the police did not save a single life. When they finally arrived, Anders Behring Breivik had run out of ammunition and surrendered turning himself over to the police. The police literally did not fire a single shot; they did not even have to hunt or capture the assassin. An almost choreographed scenario: Hundreds wounded, 68 unarmed, peaceful activists killed and the Labor youth movement decimated.
The police can claim “crime solved” while the mass media prattles about a “lone assassin”. The far right has a “martyr” to mask a further advance in their anti-Muslim, pro Israel crusade. (It is reminiscent of the celebrated Israeli-American fascist mass murderer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered dozens of unarmed Palestinian men and boys at prayer in 1994).
Only two days before the political murders, the head of the Labor Party Youth Movement, Eskil Pederson, gave an interview to the Dagbladet, Norway’s second largest tabloid, in which he announced a “unilateral economic embargo of Israel from the Norwegian side” (Gilad Atzmon, July 24, 2011).
The fact of the matter is that the Norwegian military has no problem promptly dispatching 500 troops to Afghanistan, half way around the world and providing six Norwegian Air Force jets and pilots to bomb and terrorize Libya . And yet they can’t find a helicopter or a row boat to transport their police a couple hundred yards to stop a domestic right wing terrorist – whose murderous rampage was being described second by second by the terrorized young victims on their cell phones to their frantic parents?
The Imperial Roots of Domestic Fascism: Conclusion
Clearly, the decisions of Norway and other Scandinavian nations to participate in the US imperial crusades against Muslim and especially Arab people in the Middle East have aroused and energized the neo-fascist right. They now want to “bring the war home”; they want Norway to go further, to ‘cleanse the nation’ by expelling Muslims. They want to “send a message” to the Labor Party: Either it must accept a full neo-fascist pro-Israeli agenda or expect more massacres, more elected fascists, more followers of Anders Behring Breivik.
The “Progress Party” is now the second largest political party in Norway . If a “conservative” coalition defeats Labor, neo-fascists will probably sit in the Government. Who knows, after a few years of good behavior, they might find an excuse to commute their ex-comrade's sentence . . . or proclaim him mentally rehabilitated and freed.
Clearly what is needed is the immediate withdrawal of all troops from imperial wars and a systematic, coherent and organized fight against domestic right-wing terrorists and their intellectual godparents, in America , Israel and Europe . Labor youth must go press on with their demand that the Labor Government, under Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg, recognize the nation of Palestine and implement a total boycott of Israeli goods and services. A national and international political-educational campaign must be organized to expose the links between respectable electoral fascists and violent terrorists. The Labor Youth martyrs of Utoeya Island should be cherished and their ideals taught in all the schools. Their far-right enemies and supporters whether overt, covert or directly complicit, should be exposed and condemned. The best weapon against the renewed neo-fascist onslaught is a political and educational offensive, taking up the anti-fascist, anti-Quisling (Norway ’s notorious Nazi collaborator) fighting traditions of their grandparents’ era. It’s not too late – if the Labor Party, the Norwegian trade unions and the anti-fascist youth act now before the flood of resurgent fascism.
31 July 2011, Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca (Canada)
“So let us fight together with Israel , with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/Multiculturalists”. Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto
“. . . two more cells exist in my organization”. . . Ander Behring Breivik in police custody (Reuters 7/25/11)
Introduction:
The July 22, 2011, bombing of the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Labor Party Jen Stoltenberg, which killed 8 civilians, and the subsequent political assassination of 68 unarmed activists of the Labor Party Youth on Utoeya Island, just 20 minutes from Oslo, by militant neo-fascist Christian-Zionists, raises fundamental questions about the growing links between the legal Far-Right, the ‘mainstream media’, the Norwegian police, Israel and rightwing terrorism.
The Mass Media and the Rise of Rightwing Terrorism:
The leading English language newspapers, The New York Times (NYT), the Washington Post (WP), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the Financial Times (FT), as well as President Obama, blamed “Islamic extremists”, upon the first police reports of the killings, publishing a series of incendiary (and false) headlines and reports, labeling the event as ‘Norway’s 9-11’,in terms, which echoed the ideological motivation and justifications cited by the Norwegian Christian-Zionist political assassin, Anders Behring Breivik himself,. The July 23/24 front page of the Financial Times (of London ), read “Islamist extremism fears: Worst Europe strike since 2005”. Obama immediately cited the terrorist attack in Norway to further justify his overseas wars against Muslim countries. The FT, NYT, WP and WSJ trotted out their self-styled “experts” who debated over which Arab/Islamic leaders or movements were responsible – despite Norwegian press reports of ‘the arrest of a Nordic man in police uniform’.
Clearly, the US mass media and political elite were eager to use the bombing and assassinations to justify ongoing overseas imperial wars, ignoring the burgeoning domestic extremist rightwing organizations and violent individuals who are the outgrowth of official Islamophobic hate propaganda.
When Anders Breivik, a known neo-fascist extremist, handed his weapons over to Norwegian police without resistance and claimed credit for the bombing and massacre, the second phase of the official cover-up took place: He was immediately described as “a lone wolf assassin”, who “acted alone” (BBC July 24, 2011) or as mentally deranged, downplaying his political networks, his American, European and Israeli ideological mentors and commitments, which led to his acts of terrorism. Even more outrageous, the media and officials ignored the fact that this complex, multiphase terrorist attack was beyond the capacity of one ‘deranged’ person.
Anders Behring Breivik had been a dues-paying member of a Far-Right political party, The Progress Party and a collaborator and contributor to an overtly neo-Nazi web site. He frequently focused his hatred on the ruling Labor Party for its relative tolerance of immigrants. He despised immigrants especially, Muslims, and was an ardent Christian-Zionist supporter of Israeli repression and terror against the Palestinian people. His criminal action was political in essence and embedded in a much wider political network.
The political elite and media have scrambled to deny the overlapping links between ‘legal’ ideological Islamophobes, like the American Zionists Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Dutch far-right Party of Freedom led by the hate-monger Geert Wilders and their counterparts in the Norwegian Progress Party who rail against the “Muslim threat”. The “direct action” terrorists take their cues from electoral parties, like the Progress Party, who recruit and indoctrinate activists, like Behring Breivik, who then leave the ‘electoral road’ to carry out their bloody carnage, allowing the ‘respectable’ hate-mongers to hypocritically condemn him… after the outrage.
The Lone Assassin: A Fascist Superman Travels Faster than a Speeding Bullet Versus the Police Moving Slower than an Arthritic Turtle:
The case for the “lone wolf terrorist” defies credence. It is a tissue of lies used to cover up state complicity, intelligence malfeasance, and the sharp right-turn in the domestic and foreign policies of NATO countries.
There is no basis to accept Breivik’s initial claim that he acted alone for several outstanding reasons: First, the car bomb, which devastated downtown Oslo, was a highly complex weapon requiring expertise and coordination – the kind available to state or intelligence services, like the Mossad, which specialize in devastating car bombs. Amateurs, like Breivik, with no training in explosives, usually blow themselves up or lack the skill required to connect the electronic timing devices or remote detonators (like the unsuccessful ‘shoe’, ‘underpants’ and ‘Times Square’ bombers have proved) .
Secondly, the details of (a) moving the bomb, (b) obtaining (stealing) a vehicle, (c) placing the device at the strategic site, (d) successfully detonating it and (e) then gowning up in an elaborate special police uniform with an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of ammunition and driving off in another vehicle to Utoeya Island, (f) waiting patiently while armed to the teeth for a ferry boat, g) crossing with other passengers in his police uniform, (h) rounding up the Labor youth activists and commencing the massacre of scores of unarmed youth and finally (i) finishing off the wounded and hunting for those trying to hide or swim away - is not the activity of a lone zealot. Even the combination of Superman, Einstein and a world class marksman could not perform those tasks.
The media and NATO leaders must view the public as passive morons to expect them to believe that Anders Behring Breivik “acted alone”. He is willing to take a 20 year prison sentence if it means, as he maintains, that their collective action is the spark that ignites his comrades and advances the agenda of the violent and legal far rightwing parties. Facing a Norwegian judge on July 25, he publicly declared the existence of “two more cells in my organization”. According to witness testimony on Utoeya Island shots from two distinct weapons were heard from different directions during the massacre. The police say they are… “investigating”. Needless to say the police have found nothing; instead they put on a “show” to cover their inaction by raiding two houses far from the massacre and quickly released the suspects.
The most serious political implication of the terrorist action, however, is the conspicuous complicity of top police officials. The police took 90 minutes to arrive at Utoeya Island , located less than 20 miles from Oslo , 12 minutes by helicopter and 25 to 30 minutes by car and boat. The delay allowed the right wing assassins to use up the ammunition, maximizing the death toll of young, anti-fascist activists and devastating the Labor youth movement. The police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, made the feeblest excuse and cover-up, claiming “problems with transport”. Sponheim argued that a helicopter “wasn’t on standby” and they “could not find a boat” (Associated Press, July 24, 2011).
Yet a helicopter was available; it managed to fly to Utoeya and film the ongoing slaughter, and over half of Norwegians, a seafaring people for millennia, own or have access to a boat. A police force, faced with what the Prime Minister calls the ‘worst atrocity since the Nazi occupation’, moving at the pace of an arthritic turtle to rescue youth activists, raises the suspicion of some level of complicity. The obvious question arises as to the degree to which the ideology of right wing extremism – neo-fascism – has penetrated the police and security forces, especially the upper echelons? This level of “inactivity” raises more questions than it answers. What it suggests is that the Social Democrats only control part of the Government – the legislative, while the neo-fascists influence the state apparatus.
The plain fact is that the police did not save a single life. When they finally arrived, Anders Behring Breivik had run out of ammunition and surrendered turning himself over to the police. The police literally did not fire a single shot; they did not even have to hunt or capture the assassin. An almost choreographed scenario: Hundreds wounded, 68 unarmed, peaceful activists killed and the Labor youth movement decimated.
The police can claim “crime solved” while the mass media prattles about a “lone assassin”. The far right has a “martyr” to mask a further advance in their anti-Muslim, pro Israel crusade. (It is reminiscent of the celebrated Israeli-American fascist mass murderer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered dozens of unarmed Palestinian men and boys at prayer in 1994).
Only two days before the political murders, the head of the Labor Party Youth Movement, Eskil Pederson, gave an interview to the Dagbladet, Norway’s second largest tabloid, in which he announced a “unilateral economic embargo of Israel from the Norwegian side” (Gilad Atzmon, July 24, 2011).
The fact of the matter is that the Norwegian military has no problem promptly dispatching 500 troops to Afghanistan, half way around the world and providing six Norwegian Air Force jets and pilots to bomb and terrorize Libya . And yet they can’t find a helicopter or a row boat to transport their police a couple hundred yards to stop a domestic right wing terrorist – whose murderous rampage was being described second by second by the terrorized young victims on their cell phones to their frantic parents?
The Imperial Roots of Domestic Fascism: Conclusion
Clearly, the decisions of Norway and other Scandinavian nations to participate in the US imperial crusades against Muslim and especially Arab people in the Middle East have aroused and energized the neo-fascist right. They now want to “bring the war home”; they want Norway to go further, to ‘cleanse the nation’ by expelling Muslims. They want to “send a message” to the Labor Party: Either it must accept a full neo-fascist pro-Israeli agenda or expect more massacres, more elected fascists, more followers of Anders Behring Breivik.
The “Progress Party” is now the second largest political party in Norway . If a “conservative” coalition defeats Labor, neo-fascists will probably sit in the Government. Who knows, after a few years of good behavior, they might find an excuse to commute their ex-comrade's sentence . . . or proclaim him mentally rehabilitated and freed.
Clearly what is needed is the immediate withdrawal of all troops from imperial wars and a systematic, coherent and organized fight against domestic right-wing terrorists and their intellectual godparents, in America , Israel and Europe . Labor youth must go press on with their demand that the Labor Government, under Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg, recognize the nation of Palestine and implement a total boycott of Israeli goods and services. A national and international political-educational campaign must be organized to expose the links between respectable electoral fascists and violent terrorists. The Labor Youth martyrs of Utoeya Island should be cherished and their ideals taught in all the schools. Their far-right enemies and supporters whether overt, covert or directly complicit, should be exposed and condemned. The best weapon against the renewed neo-fascist onslaught is a political and educational offensive, taking up the anti-fascist, anti-Quisling (Norway ’s notorious Nazi collaborator) fighting traditions of their grandparents’ era. It’s not too late – if the Labor Party, the Norwegian trade unions and the anti-fascist youth act now before the flood of resurgent fascism.
domingo, 15 de maio de 2011
Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk asks court to cancel his 'Jewish' status
15 may 2011, Haaretz
Earlier request to Interior Ministry was turned down, with Kaniuk explaining in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a 'Jewish Iran.'
By Mazal Mualem
The author Yoram Kaniuk is expected to ask the Tel Aviv District Court this morning to order the Interior Ministry to permit him to "leave the Jewish religion" by altering his entry under the heading "religion" in the Population Registry. Kaniuk wants any official state document on which he appears as "Jewish" to be changed to "Without Religion."
An earlier request to the Interior Ministry was turned down and Kaniuk explains in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a "Jewish Iran" or belong to "what is today called the religion of Israel."
Kaniuk, 81, would like to equate his standing to that of his 10-month-old grandchild, who is registered as "Without Religion" at the Population Registry.
The unusual request by Kaniuk, one of the more important and prolific authors of the War of Independence generation, from the court, so close to the date commemorating Israel's independence, reflects his continued revulsion at the way the Jewish religion has lately rebelled against the values of the Declaration of Independence. This feeling has intensified recently as he became a grandfather and learned that his grandchild is defined in the Population Registry as an "American Christian." The child's mother, Kaniuk's daughter, who was born in Israel and served in the IDF is also defined this way because of the fact that her mother, Kaniuk's wife Miranda, is American and a Christian.
Following an exchange with officials at the Population Registry, authorization was given to change the way his grandchild is defined to "Without Religion," and subsequently Kaniuk asked to equate his status with that of his grandchild. When he was turned down, the author turned to the courts.
This past year has been one of the best for Kaniuk, with the birth of his first grandchild and winning the prestigious Sapir Prize two months ago for his book 1948, a memoir of his experience in the War of Independence, when he was injured. Yesterday he received an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University for his literary contribution in which he encapsulated the Israeli and Jewish experience.
In his petition to the court, filed by attorney Yael Katz-Mastbaum, Kaniuk explains that he is asking to be part of the Jewish or Israeli nation, but since in Israel there is no definition of nationality beside that based on religion, he is demanding the status of "Without Religion," like his grandchild.
He explains that he was never religious and never kept the religious obligations, and even though he was born to a Jewish mother he is asking not to be registered as a Jew. The petition states that "the plaintiff would prefer to be registered as an Israeli under the 'nationality' heading, but this is still not possible since the plaintiff cannot present a document showing change of religion since he is not changing his religion."
Kaniuk told Haaretz yesterday that "the son of my daughter, who was born in Israel and served in the army, is my grandchild, and I was born and lived in Israel and my mother Sarah came here in 1910. Because my wife Miranda is not Jewish my two daughters and grandchild, who were born here, are a non-Jewish minority in my house. I am so terrified by these gentiles that I want to be exactly what they are, to only be part of the Jewish nation. Because the State of Israel does not recognize the Jewish nationality they suggested at the Interior Ministry that I convert to Christianity or Islam, but to be a member of the Jewish nation without the religion is impossible. If that is so, I want to be without religion so that at the age of 81 I can share this classification with my grandchild."
Earlier request to Interior Ministry was turned down, with Kaniuk explaining in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a 'Jewish Iran.'
By Mazal Mualem
The author Yoram Kaniuk is expected to ask the Tel Aviv District Court this morning to order the Interior Ministry to permit him to "leave the Jewish religion" by altering his entry under the heading "religion" in the Population Registry. Kaniuk wants any official state document on which he appears as "Jewish" to be changed to "Without Religion."
An earlier request to the Interior Ministry was turned down and Kaniuk explains in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a "Jewish Iran" or belong to "what is today called the religion of Israel."
Kaniuk, 81, would like to equate his standing to that of his 10-month-old grandchild, who is registered as "Without Religion" at the Population Registry.
The unusual request by Kaniuk, one of the more important and prolific authors of the War of Independence generation, from the court, so close to the date commemorating Israel's independence, reflects his continued revulsion at the way the Jewish religion has lately rebelled against the values of the Declaration of Independence. This feeling has intensified recently as he became a grandfather and learned that his grandchild is defined in the Population Registry as an "American Christian." The child's mother, Kaniuk's daughter, who was born in Israel and served in the IDF is also defined this way because of the fact that her mother, Kaniuk's wife Miranda, is American and a Christian.
Following an exchange with officials at the Population Registry, authorization was given to change the way his grandchild is defined to "Without Religion," and subsequently Kaniuk asked to equate his status with that of his grandchild. When he was turned down, the author turned to the courts.
This past year has been one of the best for Kaniuk, with the birth of his first grandchild and winning the prestigious Sapir Prize two months ago for his book 1948, a memoir of his experience in the War of Independence, when he was injured. Yesterday he received an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University for his literary contribution in which he encapsulated the Israeli and Jewish experience.
In his petition to the court, filed by attorney Yael Katz-Mastbaum, Kaniuk explains that he is asking to be part of the Jewish or Israeli nation, but since in Israel there is no definition of nationality beside that based on religion, he is demanding the status of "Without Religion," like his grandchild.
He explains that he was never religious and never kept the religious obligations, and even though he was born to a Jewish mother he is asking not to be registered as a Jew. The petition states that "the plaintiff would prefer to be registered as an Israeli under the 'nationality' heading, but this is still not possible since the plaintiff cannot present a document showing change of religion since he is not changing his religion."
Kaniuk told Haaretz yesterday that "the son of my daughter, who was born in Israel and served in the army, is my grandchild, and I was born and lived in Israel and my mother Sarah came here in 1910. Because my wife Miranda is not Jewish my two daughters and grandchild, who were born here, are a non-Jewish minority in my house. I am so terrified by these gentiles that I want to be exactly what they are, to only be part of the Jewish nation. Because the State of Israel does not recognize the Jewish nationality they suggested at the Interior Ministry that I convert to Christianity or Islam, but to be a member of the Jewish nation without the religion is impossible. If that is so, I want to be without religion so that at the age of 81 I can share this classification with my grandchild."
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