Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 12. August 2006 / Timeline August 12, 2006
Version 3.511. August 2006, 13. August 2006
08/12/2006
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land -- U.S. Media &
the Israeli Palestinian Conflict
By: Ida Hakim
The International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) hopes your colleagues and you will
share this documentary by Media Foundation Education with
others.
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land -- U.S. Media & the
Israeli Palestinian Conflict
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7828123714384920696
08/12/2006
Ceasefire on paper, fire on the ground
TOI-Billboard, August 12, 2006
--The Other Israel's weekly comment
--Overview of this week's
Occupation Magazine's daily picks attached
So, it goes on.
For the past week and more we had lived under the illusion that
when the UN Security Council solemnly resolves to cease the fire,
the fire will indeed cease. The media certainly helped create this
feeling, reporting extensively and minutely on the the ups and
downs of the negotiations between the French and the Americans. And
when on Friday the news from New York told of an approaching
breakthrough, commentators started talking of the war as if it
already were a thing of the past. And a great variety of
nationalists and demagogues started crying and howling over "the
surrender" and "the betrayal".
They could have saved their breath. Olmert and his Defence Minister
Amir Peretz heard last night's news from New York while closeted in
the Army's Supreme Headquarters, with the generals making the final
preparations for what seems the biggest ground offensive in this
war. And after midnight the headlines on the internet websites
seemed taken directly from Orwell: "Government to approve UN
Ceasefire resolution, major ground offensive into Lebanon goes
ahead on schedule".
Looking carefully at the text approved at that hallowed hall of
international diplomacy, things become a bit clearer. For the
framers of that new UN Security Council Resolution, 1701 (a number
which we will undoubtedly hear quoted ad nauseam in the coming
weeks and months) - have left a loophole in their "cessation of
hostilities". Or rather a gaping opening wide enough to allow the
passage of hundreds of tanks and fighter airplanes and tens of
thousands of soldiers, the full four divisions reported to be now
charging northwards.
The fifteen members of the Security Council have solemnly and
unanimously determined that "the situation in Lebanon constitutes a
threat to international peace and security" and therefore called
for "the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military
operations". However, as anybody knows who had ever attended a
lesson in Basic Civics at a Tel-Aviv elementary school, the Israeli
Defence Forces never have and never will conduct any offensive
military operation. Each and every one of their operations, in this
war as in its predecessors, is purely defensive and is conducted
solely in order to defend a peace-loving population against
unprovoked aggression, for which reason the IDF coat of arms is the
Sword and Olive Branch, and third grade pupils are required to
paste that coat of arms in their copybooks and write under it the
caption "our army hates war and wants only peace".
So, it continues. The number of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon has
tripled in the past twenty-four hours, according to Chief of Staff
Halutz, all of course involved in the purely defensive race to
conquer all the territory up to the Litani River, which the
generals expect to take "four days to a week" and then involve
"several weeks of mopping up" (not that the army was very effective
in "mopping up" the limited parts of Lebanon which it already
invaded two and three weeks ago). So far, at least 19 people are
reported killed since the diplomats affixed their signatures to
that solemn document, and a Lebanese contact just informed us that
the villages east of Saida, left untouched since the war broke out,
had today gotten a lethal "visit" from the Israeli Air Force.
And so, we must continue as well. A few hours from now, there will
be hundreds of us answering the call of Yesh Gvul to climb the hill
overlooking Military Prison 6 at Atlit, shouting words of greetings
and solidarity and warm support into the plainly visible prison
courtyard - to the five soldiers who preferred imprisonment over
participation in the Lebanese folly and madness, and also for their
fellow-prisoners and guards. Climbing that hill is a tradition
dating back to the First Lebanon War, a tradition which it seems we
need to revive, like so much else.
At least, the stifling atmosphere of "national unity" which
characterized the past weeks seems to have decisively dissipated.
"The Big Three" of Israeli literature - "Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and
David Grossman - have come out against the war, three weeks after
they had endorsed it in public. (Some 60 younger authors, who
opposed the war from the first minute, had been constantly snapping
at these three's heels). Also, the magnitude of the Lebanon
invasion and its similarity to the fiasco of 1982 (except that the
guerrillas now seem much better organized and armed...) at last
nudged mainstream groups such as Peace Now and the Meretz Party out
of their complacency and the "support from the left" which many of
their leaders gave to this vicious war on its inception. On
Thursday they were in their hundreds in front of the Ministry of
Defence, with big signs reading "There is No Military Solution!",
and cracks start to appear in the Labor Party support for the mad
careering of Party Leader and Defence Minister Amir Peretz - once a
staunch dove and militant trade unionist, now the the most hawkish
of hawks.
As things stand, it seems that all of us - radicals and moderates,
those who opposed the madness from its inception and the latecomers
- will still have to go and protest again and again. And meanwhile,
the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians are still there,
to any who tended to forget. Yesterday afternoon, the weekly
anti-Wall procession at Bil'in was viciously attacked by the army
and Border Guard troops. Limor, a young Israeli activist, was hit
in the head by one of the misnamed "rubber bullets" - which is
actually made of metal. After emergency surgery at Tel-Hashomer
hospital, he is now under medically induced coma, and only when he
wakes up will it be possible to asses the permanent damage. Due to
Lebanon, the case got very meagre media attention; updates will
appear on the International Solidarity Movement website
http://www.palsolidarity.org
Occupation Magazine
http://www.kibush.co.il/ (articles and action news, look at it
daily - includes a useful archive)
ISM website
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ (informing especially about
joint Palestinian-Israeli-international anti-Wall struggle in the
villages)
Robert Rosenberg's summary of "peace" issues in the Israeli
media
http://www.ariga.com/ (on workdays)
http://www.theheadlines.org/ (a variety of papers, followed dayly
by Shadi Fadda)
http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml (Palestinian press agency,
including own research)
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php
(Palestinian on-line News agency that publishes news and articles
in English from it's own as well as other sources, including from
the Hebrew press) TOI-Billboard current issue
http://toibillboard.info/index.htm TOI-Billboard archive
http://archives.zinester.com/93796
TOI-Billboard is the 'ezine' of the independent THE OTHER ISRAEL
bi-monthly peace newsletter, existing since 1983, and published by
its editors Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt.
NB: The Other Israel May issue is now online with a selection of
the articles:
http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/
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