If we have to pretend states have birthdays, we have to take the metaphor to its logical conclusion…

Apparently, Israel is turning 60.

You know what that means? Israel is only two years away from reaching the legal retirement age!

That’s right, maybe when it turns 62, Israel will finally pack its bags, move to Florida, and let the Palestinians return to their homes and live in peace.

If you want to know what all the fanfare is about, why Israel out of all countries in the world is the only one that has to mobilize a multi-million dollar campaign to celebrate its “birthday” in places that are… not Israel… read up about some of complications that accompanied Israel’s birth: namely, a little problem called “the Palestinian people,” who were dispossessed of their lands, homes, rights, and security in 1947 and 1948, and continue to live mostly under military law (aka, brute force) in the West Bank and Gaza, thanks to billions of dollars of birthday gifts that the United States gives Israel every year.

Editorial in the SF Chronicle: Mayor Newsom’s Israel trip is ill-advised on the 60th anniversary of the Nakbah

On May 15, my family will commemorate an-Nakba, Arabic for “the catastrophe,” which is the dark underbelly of Israel’s foundation. Sixty years ago, Jewish militants and, later, the Israeli army, forced 2 out of every 3 Palestinians - more than 700,000 people - to flee their homes. Many Palestinians who resisted expulsion or were unable to leave were massacred in cold blood, as were those who returned to harvest food from their orchards or gather personal belongings left behind. The Palestinians who fled now constitute the oldest unresolved refugee population in the world, despite their internationally recognized right to return. Meanwhile, Israel permits any Jew from anywhere in the world to immigrate and obtain citizenship.

General Resources about the Nakbah: Electronic Intifada’s Nakbah page.

I’m afraid Israel can’t wish that problem away when it blows out the candles next week.

Tags: Tags: israel at 60 // 3 Comments »

For some reason, the Daily Californian yesterday printed an advertisement, shown above, by the “David Horowitz Freedom Center” that alleged Muslim students around the country were “waging” a “stealth jihad on America’s college campuses.”

While the advertisement does contain a disclaimer “PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT,” probably to distance the views expressed from the newspaper itself, it’s difficult to see why this classification was chosen: the advertisement does not support nor oppose any specific political candidate, legislation, action, or issue. All it does is bash Muslims. Since the Daily Cal is under no obligation whatsoever to print all advertisements, it retains full discretion over what it does and does not agree to print. Why it did agree to print this is still unanswered.

[Read more →]

Tags: Tags: daily californian, david horowitz, david horowitz freedom center, muslim student association // 2 Comments »

When it comes to Iran, Barack Obama says that the US needs to be careful about the use of force and must pursue other avenues, invoking George Bush and Iraq as foils to his “new foreign policy.”

When it comes to Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama says that Americans should not be quick to judge the man, and should make an attempt to understand his statements, sentiments, and beliefs within the context of his experience in a racist America.

But when it comes to the Palestinians, Barack Obama rejects any such nuanced approach. Instead, he, Hillary Clinton, and every other Democrat try to the best of their abilities to sound as much like George Bush as possible. Deviation from the norm here is not called ‘debate’ or an ‘exchange of ideas,’ it’s downright sedition.

For those who would claim that he might be “concealing” his true opinions: I don’t believe in trojan horse politics; I don’t believe a trojan horse democracy is democracy; the only trick trojan horse candidates play are on those who might support them on that premise. [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: barack obama // 8 Comments »

Too much anti-war sentiment in the United States focuses on the disastrous consequences wrought by American violence on the Iraqi people. Not enough pays attention to the sickening extortion of Iraqis’ natural and material resources to cover the cost of crippling, starving, invading, occupying, and destroying their country.

This is the democracy racket: a fraudulent enterprise that offers freedom, in exchange for occupation; human rights, in exchange for Abu Ghurayb; security, in exchange for bribed militants; and a parliament, in exchange for the oversight of an embassy-fortress.

America’s debt to Iraq will never be paid.

Tags: Tags: iraq // 5 Comments »

In the back and forth between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I generally have had little to say. It is only today, with Clinton’s sneaky remarks about the so-called “controversy” regarding Obama’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that I feel impelled to write about one way race has entered this campaign. It is only now, with Reverend Wright’s comments in the spotlight and the associated discomfort most Americans feel upon hearing them, that we are finally beginning to recognize what it means to potentially have a president who is different. More accurately, it is a clarification of the real nature of that “difference” that so far has not been properly appreciated, having been relegated to the mere fact that Barack Obama has black skin. [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: barack obama, bill o'reilly, hillary clinton, reverend jeremiah wright // 7 Comments »

I received a report today that the letter on the left has been appearing on the footsteps of fraternity houses near UC Berkeley.

Attending perhaps their first protest ever, Berkeley frat boys will be gathering around the tree near Wheeler Hall on Friday to denigrate Fresh, the protester who has been living in the tree for nearly two weeks to support the Free the UC campaign.

The notice contains a “nota bene:” first, these crusaders for a better world will be screaming “Fuck Schuck.” They claim that Fresh’s real name is Michael Schuck. Second, if they run into Zachary Running Wolf, they will call him “Running Mouth.” [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: fresh, uc berkeley // 1 Comment »

A peculiar phenomenon plagues many political engagements in this world, and talk about, from, and within Israel and Palestine is certainly no exception. Here I am referring specifically to the dumbfounded gaze many people are guilty of giving, perhaps unwillingly, when they are confronted with an incident in which the wrong people have–rather inconveniently–died. [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: civilian deaths in israel and palestine, jerusalem yeshiva shooting // 51 Comments »

Gee thanks Daily Cal, this really helped me understand what people were protesting about yesterday. It’s nice to know that students oppose “conflict.”

Actually, Daily Cal, yesterday students participated in a die-in in solidarity with the 116 Palestinians that the Israeli army killed over the weekend in Gaza. We did not stand against “conflict,” but the Israeli occupation. Can you say those words, or is that a little too informative?

Tags: Tags: daily californian, students for justice in palestine // 24 Comments »

Yesterday, members of Students for Justice in Palestine held a die-in on campus in solidarity with the people of Gaza, 116 of whom were killed by Israeli attacks over the past few days.

In typical fashion, a small number of people from the new organization Tikvah: Students for Israel appeared to counter-protest. Their counter-protest consisted of a sign displayed ahead of our protest that read, “Victims of Palestinian Terror,” meant to confuse passers-by as to the purpose of our action.

Tikvah’s actions are consistent with Israel advocacy campaigns in this country. They rely upon introducing a false binary. If Palestinian deaths at the hands of a state army are mentioned or acted upon, members of Tikvah and other such groups will instead attempt to draw attention to Israeli civilian deaths–as if it were impossible for both to be repugnant, and as if it weren’t the case that all of SJP’s events over the past 3 years that did not revolve around a specific incident mentioned both Israeli and Palestinian civilian deaths. Rather than recognize the deaths of all people, Tikvah instead engages in a competition to prove that the Palestinians are in fact “more evil” and thus that their deaths should be overlooked or ignored in favor of Israeli deaths. [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: tikvah: students for israel // 14 Comments »

Playing off of a recent UC Berkeley marketing campaign, two students have commenced a tree-sit on campus, pictured to the left, asking: can UC change?

The answer to one variation of that question answers the second. If you can see change, UC can change.

While I doubt it will be longer than a few days before the obsessively “moderate” voices on campus begin to toss epithets at the tree-sitters for being “ineffective,” it should be asked: does anybody really think that those who took to the trees believe that their actions alone are going to change the UC?

I doubt it. Rather than paint out the obvious, other students on campus, in the ASUC, writing for the campus paper, and participating on campus in other ways, should take this opportunity to stand by the student activists in the trees and to support their message. UC won’t change as long as its greatest dreams–that the student body will itself abandon and isolate any effort to reform the UC–remain fulfilled. [Read more →]

Tags: Tags: free the uc, uc berkeley, uc berkeley change // 5 Comments »