Thanks Iceland, Madonna for Disrupting Eurovision's Big Deception

22.05.2019 11:21 Updated: 11:22 AM, Haaretz https://www.haaretz.com (Israel)

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Odeh Bisharat

Some 360,000 people live in Iceland, whereas Germany’s population is over 80 million, 225-fold larger than Iceland’s. But in a test of morality, Iceland is a thousand-fold more decent than Germany, with its generations-long murderous history, particularly directed at Jews.

At this point in time, instead of playing a key role in bringing peace and justice to the Middle East, Germany is placing all its stocks in the Israeli occupation and the continued oppression of the Palestinian people. During the merry days of the Eurovision song contest, the Bundestag (the name still evokes chills among many, particularly in this country) saw fit to pass a resolution that defines the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as racist and anti-Semitic, no doubt to the dismay of MK Bezalel Smotrich, that shining knight of human rights.

Indeed, there are some anti-Semites in the BDS movement, but there are many people, including Jews, who see a boycott as a legitimate means of combating the wrongs inflicted by Israel on the Palestinians. Many boycott supporters see such action as a warning bell, a means of informing Israelis that occupation leads to a dictatorship, a regime in which normative government procedures are alien, as evident in the immunity law now taking shape.

Now, the hypocrites at the European Broadcasting Union are saying that the Eurovision competition is a “non-political event.” This statement came in response to the performance of two dancers who appeared while Madonna was singing – on their backs were painted the flags of Israel and Palestine. The Icelanders who waved Palestinian flags face penalties – the Union is talking about fines or a suspension from Eurovision. Occupying Israel, in; human-rights supporter Iceland, out. The anti-Semitic and racist Europe is marching backwards.

Nevertheless, we might ask, what’s political about a Palestinian flag? A flag is the flag of a people. Why are the Europeans so quick to embrace the narrative of the Israeli right wing with regard to the flag? This flag has fluttered repeatedly during bilateral meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

What was the crime committed by the dancers appearing during Madonna’s song, other than telling the world to note the “present absentee” missing in this gigantic celebration, sensed by everyone despite all the attempts to make him invisible? The overlords here are trying to convince the whole world that Palestine doesn’t exist, but a piece of cloth, in four colors, triggers an earthquake. Yes, that’s the power of Palestine, it makes the oppressors lose sleep.

Therefore, thanks are due to the two defiant dancers who, in the course of dancing and entertaining 200 million viewers, reminded everyone that the wrongdoing is occurring right in the backyard of the stage presented in all its glory to the world. Yes, there are more than two million Palestinians locked in hermetically in Gaza, a short distance from Tel Aviv. A remind to viewers that due to the glittering event, a further three million people were confined to the West Bank. Really, what’s so wrong with this innocent transmission of information, displayed on the backs of excellent dancers?

Icelanders deserve a thank you that’s 225-fold larger than the population of that beautiful country. They too decided to disrupt the big deception presented to the world. The guys from Iceland told 200 million viewers that while Israel was preparing to host visitors with a shining smile, it prevented the parents of a five-year-old girl from Gaza, called Aisha al-Lulu, from accompanying her to a hospital in East Jerusalem, where she underwent some very complicated surgery. Instead, she was accompanied by a woman she didn’t know to an event that was of apocalyptic proportions for her. Aisha was hospitalized alone in the al-Makassed Hospital, undergoing a complicated operation to remove a brain tumor, without her parents beside her. From there, she was moved to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem for a follow-up. She emerged from there all alone, with a sad smile on her face, on her lonely trip back to Gaza, and from there, on to her final journey.

Odeh Bisharat

URL https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/eurovision/.premium-israel-eurovision-thanks-iceland-madonna-for-disrupting-big-deception-1.7256774?v=E842C466851B0FAEEC63BBCE8E5FA76A

Brazil’s MST begins solidarity olive harvest

25 October 2016, Alternative Information Center http://www.alternativenews.org (Israel)

Written by Alternative Information Center (AIC)

A delegation from Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement joins the harvest to help Palestinian farmers pick olives and resist Israeli violence.

The Landless Rural Workers Movement, or Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), sent its yearly delegation to Palestine for the olive harvest in solidarity with farmers in the West Bank.

MST is a mass social movement in Brazil formed by rural workers and those who want to fight for land reform and against injustice in

Ben Ehrenreich Throws Stones at Conventional Wisdom About Israel

July 8, 2016,  פֿאָרווערטס Forward http://www.forward.com (US)

Sheerly Avni

 

In the classic American film noir “Out of the Past,” the wayward mob mistress and the private eye hired to drag her back home are, inevitably, flirting in a casino in Mexico. “Is there a way to win,” she asks, sultry and musical, pretending that she’s talking about the gambling tables. “No,” the doomed chump answers, “but there is a way to lose more slowly.” It’s hard not to read “The Way to the Spring,” journalist Ben Ehrenreich’s deeply reported new chronicle of Palestinian life and resistance in the West Bank and Hebron, with those dark words in mind. The men and women he grows close to lose almost every battle they fight — beaten down by Israel’s infinitely superior military force and the expansion of Jewish settlers operating with apparent government approval. And despite or, he might argue, because of his Jewish heritage, Ehrenreich makes no bones about siding with the losers.

 

 Courtesy of Ben Ehrenreich

Simple Pleasures: The daughter of artist 

Eid Suleiman al-Hathalin playing ball on her birthday.

The book has already been both lauded for its impassioned writing and criticized for the author’s explicit sympathy for his subjects (sometimes within the same review). Sheerly Avni spoke with Ehrenreich by phone from his home in Los Angeles, just as he was packing for a trip to the Palestinian Festival of Literature.

Sheerly Avni: You lived in the West Bank and spent some time there on and off, for about three years. How much did the amount of time you spent there impact your understanding of events?

Ben Ehrenreich: I know a lot of Americans and Europeans who visit the West Bank either as reporters or with delegations and return home filled with optimism and hope because they’ve met all these great and inspiring people who are engaged in inspiring acts of resistance. But actually living in the West Bank gives you a very different

The female conscientious objector who just made Israeli history

July 12, 2016, + 972 Magazine 972mag.com (Israel)

By Noam Sheizaf*

Following her sixth trial, Tair Kaminer has become the longest-serving female conscientious objector in Israel’s history. This is her story.

Young Israeli women Tair Kaminer and Tania Golan pose for a final photo outside the Tel Hashomer induction base where they announced their refusal to serve in the Israeli army, January 31, 2016. Kaminer was sentenced to prison.

DF military prison number 6 lies in one of the most picturesque spots in Israel, at the bottom of the Carmel Mountain, between green fields and banana plantations. The prisoners can see the mountains from the yard, but there is no view of the Mediterranean, less than a mile away.

The prison includes a separate unit for officers and, since 2011, a female unit as well. Prison life is boring and discipline is harsh. Most prisoners’

‘Arabs’ saved us, says settler boy whose father was slain

July 7, 2016, Mondoweiss http://mondoweiss.net (USA)             

In rare twist, Palestinian man rescues wounded Israelis

Rabbi Mark's car after he was killed 

in terror attack in occupied territories

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) 5 July — Just a few years ago, Islam al-Bayed spent seven months in an Israeli prison for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli troops. Now, the 26-year-old Palestinian man has become an unlikely symbol of tolerance after rescuing an Israeli family whose car crashed following a deadly roadside shooting by Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Last week’s shooting, along with the fatal stabbing of an Israeli girl as she slept in her bed, have ratcheted up tensions in the southern West Bank. Israel has responded by imposing a closure around the city of Hebron and beefed up its troop presence in the volatile area. But al-Bayed, a private security guard who lives in the al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, says his actions last Friday transcended politics. “This was a very human moment. I didn’t think of the occupation or

Hatred Unlimited

09/07/2016, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי*

A PALESTINIAN youngster breaks into a settlement, enters the nearest house, stabs a 13-year old girl in her sleep and is killed.

Three Israeli men kidnap a 12-year old Palestinian boy at random, take him to an open field and burn him alive.

Two Palestinians from a small town near Hebron enter Israel illegally, have coffee in a Tel Aviv amusement quarter and then shoot up everybody around before they are captured. They become national heroes.

An Israeli soldier sees a severely wounded Palestinian attacker lying on the ground, approaches him and shoots him in the head at point blank range. He is applauded by most Israelis.

These are not "normal" actions even in a guerrilla war. They are the manifestations of bottomless hatred, a hatred so terrible that it overcomes all norms of humanity.

THIS WAS not always so. A few days after the 1967 war, in which Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, I traveled alone though the newly occupied territories. I was welcomed almost everywhere, people were eager to sell me their goods, tell me their stories. They were curious about the Israelis, much as we

Netanyahu's Africa tour: A spit in the face of those Israel helps oppress

July 6, 2016, +972 Magazine http://972mag.com (Israel)

The Israeli public and its government need to internalize that ‘Israel’s pride,’ its wildly successful military export industry, has been an unending nightmare for the people of Africa. How can Netanyahu look the Rwandan and Ugandan people in the eyes?

By Itay Mack*

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently on a tour of African states of Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya.

For decades, Israel’s relationship with the African continent, from South Africa to the Sahara, has been almost entirely based on military and arms exports that have fueled oppression, civil wars and murderous

What Israelis Can Learn From Britain's Revolutionary Voters

29/06/2016, Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala-int.org (Mexico)

Tlaxcala, the international network of translators for linguistic diversity

Gideon Levy جدعون ليفي גדעון לוי*

 

The self-evident is self-evident: The result of the referendum in Britain was a victory for ultranationalism, xenophobia and isolation, and it could augur disaster. Its significance cannot be overstated. But after everyone said it, and since no one knows what tomorrow will bring, we can also applaud Britain’s revolutionary voters. They expressed a new and upsetting global trend. “A new zeitgeist in politics,” history professor Ilan Pappe calls it. This new spirit of the times holds not only clear dangers, but also great promise.

The referendum, the outcome of which no one prepared for seriously, must be examined in the wider context: as part of the growing revulsion to political institutions and the individuals who lead them. The electoral successes of Jeremy Corbyn (and of the winner of the referendum, Boris Johnson) in Britain, Alexis Tsipras in Greece and both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the United States foreshadowed this trend. Above all, they expressed the repulsion felt for the existing order, a global cry of

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

THE MANTRA of this round was Once And For All.

23 november 2012, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery

“We must put an end to this (the rockets, Hamas, the Palestinians, the Arabs?) Once and For All!” – this cry from the heart was heard dozens of times daily on TV from the harassed inhabitants of Israel’s battered towns and villages in the South.

It has displaced the slogan which dominated several decades: “Bang And Finish!”

It did not quite work.

THE BIG winner emerging from the cloud is Hamas.

Until this round, Hamas had a powerful presence in the Gaza Strip, but practically no international standing. The international face of the Palestinian people was Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian National Authority.

No more.

Operation Pillar of Cloud has given the Hamas mini-state in Gaza wide international recognition. (Pillar of Cloud is the official Hebrew name, though the army spokesman decreed that the English name, for foreign consumption, should be Pillar of Defense.) Heads of state and droves of other foreign dignitaries made their pilgrimage to the Strip.

First was the powerful and immensely rich Emir of Qatar, owner of Aljazeera. He was the first head of state ever to enter the Gaza strip. Then came the Egyptian prime minister, the Tunisian foreign minister, the secretary of the Arab League and the collected Arab foreign ministers (except the one from Ramallah.)

In all diplomatic deliberations, Gaza was treated as a de facto state, with a de facto government (Hamas). The Israeli media were no exception. It was clear to Israelis that any deal, to be effective, must be concluded with Hamas.

Within the Palestinian people, the standing of Hamas shot sky-high. The Gaza Strip alone, smaller than an average American county, has stood up to the mighty Israeli war machine, one of the largest and most efficient in the world. It has not succumbed. The military outcome will be at best a draw.

A draw between tiny Gaza and the powerful Israel means a victory for Gaza.

Who remembers now Ehud Barak’s proud declaration in the middle of the war: “We shall not stop until Hamas gets on its knees and begs for a cease-fire!”[*]

WHERE DOES that leave Mahmoud Abbas? Actually, nowhere.

For a simple Palestinian, whether in Nablus, Gaza or Beirut, the contrast is glaring. Hamas is courageous, proud, upright, while Fatah is helpless, submissive and despised. Pride and honor play a central role in Arab culture.

After more than half a century of humiliation, any Palestinian who stands up against the occupation is the hero of the Arab masses, in and outside the country. Abbas is identified only with the close cooperation of his security forces with the hated Israeli occupation army. And the most important fact: Abbas has nothing to show for it.

If Abbas could at least show a major political achievement for his pains, the situation might be different. The Palestinians are a sensible people, and if Abbas had come even one step closer to Palestinian statehood, most Palestinians would probably have said: he may not be glamorous, but he delivers the goods.

But the opposite is happening. The violent Hamas is achieving results, the non-violent Abbas is not. As a Palestinian told me: “He (Abbas) has given them (the Israelis) everything, quiet and security, and what did [or “does”] he get in return? They spit in his face!”

This round will only reinforce a basic Palestinian conviction: “Israelis understand only the language of force!” (Israelis, of course, say exactly the same about the Palestinians.)

If at least the US had allowed Abbas to achieve a UN resolution recognizing Palestine as a non-member state, he might have held his own against Hamas. But the Israeli government is determined to prevent this by all available means. Barack Obama’s decision, even after re-election, to block the Palestinian effort is a direct support for Hamas and a slap in the face of the “moderates”. Hillary Clinton’s perfunctory visit to Ramallah this week was seen in this context.

Looked at from the outside, this looks like sheer lunacy. Why undermine the “moderates” who want and are able to make peace? Why elevate the “extremists”, who are opposed to peace?

The answer is openly expressed by Avigdor Lieberman, now Netanyahu’s official political No. 2: he wants to destroy Abbas in order to annex the West Bank and clear the way for the settlers.

AFTER HAMAS, the big winner is Mohamed Morsi.

This is an almost incredible tale. When Morsi was elected as the president of Egypt, official Israel was in hysteria. How terrible! The Islamist extremists have taken over the most important Arab country! Our peace treaty with our largest neighbor is going down the drain!

US reactions were almost the same.

And now – less than four months later – we hang on every word Morsi utters. He is the man who has put an end to the mutual killing and destruction! He is the great peacemaker! He is the only person who can mediate between Israel and Hamas! He must guarantee the cease-fire agreement!

Can it be? Can this be the same Morsi? The same Muslim Brotherhood?

The 61 year old Morsi (the full name is Mohamed Morsi Isa al-Ayyad. Isa being the Arab form of Jesus, who is regarded in Islam as a prophet) is a complete novice on the world stage. Yet at this moment, all the world’s leaders rely on him.

When I wholeheartedly welcomed the Arab Spring, I had people like him in mind. Now almost all the Israeli commentators, ex-generals and politicians, who uttered dire warnings at the time, are lauding his success in achieving a cease-fire.

THROUGHOUT THE operation I did what I always do in such situations: I switched constantly between Israeli TV and Aljazeera. Sometimes, when my thoughts wander, I am unsure for a moment which of the two I am looking at.

Women weeping, wounded being carried away, homes in shambles, children’s shoes strewn around, families packing and fleeing. Here and there. Mirror images. Though, of course, Palestinian casualties were 30 times higher than the Israeli ones – partly because of the incredible success of the Iron Dome interception missiles and home shelters, while the Palestinians were practically defenseless.

On Wednesday I was invited to air my views on Israel’s Channel 2, the most popular (and patriotic) Israeli outlet. The invitation was of course withdrawn at the last moment. Had I been on air, I would have posed to my compatriots one simple question:

Was It Worthwhile?

All the suffering, the killed, the injured, the destruction, the hours and days of terror, the children in trauma?

And, I might add, the endless TV coverage around the clock, with legions of ex-generals appearing on the screen and declaiming the message sheet of the prime minister’s office. And the blood-curdling threats of politicians and other nincompoops, including the son of Ariel Sharon, who proposed flattening neighborhoods in Gaza City, or even better, the whole Strip.

Now that it is over, we are almost exactly where we were before. The operation, commonly referred to in Israel as “another round”, was indeed round – leading nowhere than to where it started.

Hamas will be firmly in control of the Gaza Strip, if not more firmly. The Gazans will hate Israel even more than before. Many of the inhabitants of the West Bank, who throughout the war came out in their thousands in demonstrations for Hamas, will vote in even greater numbers for Hamas in the next elections. Israeli voters will vote in two months as they intended to vote anyhow, before the whole thing started.

Each of the two sides is now celebrating its great victory. If they organized just one joint celebration, a lot of money could be saved.

WHAT ARE the political conclusions?

The most obvious one is: talk with Hamas. Directly. Face to face.

Yitzhak Rabin once told me how he came to the conclusion that he must talk with the PLO: after years of opposing it, he realized that they were the only force that counted. “So it was ridiculous to talk with them through intermediaries.”

The same is now true for Hamas. They are there. They will not go away. It is ridiculous for the Israeli negotiators to sit in one room at the Egyptian intelligence service HQ near Cairo, while the Hamas negotiators sit in another room, just a few meters away, with the courteous Egyptians going to and fro.

Concurrently, activate the effort towards peace. Seriously.

Save Abbas. As of now, he has no replacement. Give him an immediate victory to balance the Hamas achievements. Vote for the Palestinian application for statehood in the UN General Assembly.

Move towards peace with the entire Palestinian people, including Fatah and Hamas – so we can really put an end to the violence,

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

[*] “If Hamas goes down on its knees tomorrow and begs us to stop, we’ll consider stopping. It also depends on the other side. Meanwhile, as long as this is not happening we’re going ahead.” www.haaretz.com