Archive for the ‘israel’ Category
Three South American Nations Recognize Independent Palestine
8:31 am By Maegan La Mala · Argentina|Brazil|Chile|israel|Palestine|Uruguay · 4 Comments
7 Dec 2010Yesterday, both Argentina and Uruguay announced that they recognized Palestine as an independent state, following Brazil’s lead, who recognized Palestine on Friday. The countries recognize Palestine as it was in 1967 , before the so-called “Six-day War” between Israel and Palestine when Israel took Gaza and the West Bank.
“The Argentine government recognizes Palestine as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967,” Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said, adding that this decision was made after a general agreement between the South American and Mercosur trade blocs.
Uruguay went a step forward as its Deputy Foreign Minister Roberto Conde vowed to open a diplomatic representation in Palestinians’ Ramallah region after announcing to recognize it as a state next year.
Israel Takes a Page from U.S. Immigration Policy
10:21 am By Maegan La Mala · children|Immigration|israel|Labor|language · 1 Comment
4 Aug 2010The relationship between the U.S. and Israel is now extending to immigrant policy. Last weekend, Israel moved to deport the children of migrant workers, children born and Israel and children who do not know their parents’ country of origin. Peep the rhetoric coming from the Prime Minister and see if you can make the connection.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move was made because the country faced increasing illegal migration, which was a threat to its Jewish character,” the BBC reported. Netanyahu also implied that the children were a drain on state-funded education and health care benefits, according to the Los Angeles Times. For years, the country encouraged foreign workers to cross its borders and take the low-paying jobs that Israelis wouldn’t do. Now that the government is looking to reduce its dependence on foreign labor, Israel is kicking out those workers who came to the country legally—and the families they’ve been raising. “It’s unfair and unjust,” said one parent of the deportation plan. “These children are born here and speak the language. Israel should recognize their birthright.”
My Memorial Day Will Not Be the Same As Yours
8:04 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Gaza|holidays|israel|military|Palestine|Violence · 2 Comments
31 May 2010For some, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. I know I have been taking advantage of the warm weather and feeling how the summer heat burns away through winter depression and doubt. Others, take the day, a holiday set aside to remember those who have lost their lives in the name of the United States. I have flipped through the television watching flags placed on the graves of fallen soldiers.
I count myself as among the somewhat lucky, that with a few family members in the military, I have not lost anyone. So maybe that’s why my memorial day will not be the same as yours. My mind will not wrap itself in red white and blue when so many soldiers who die do so because they were promised a piece of ownership over the U.S. flag via coveted citizenship or residence for their familias.
I will light candles for los muertos hoy, pero I do that everyday. Maybe of equal importance is lighting candles for those who are still alive and struggling with the choices that appear before them. Today, Free Speech Radio News is highlighting a report that they did on military recruitment in Brooklyn. Hearing young people of color speak about how their options are presented to them is nothing new for me. I, like the youth featured in the report, see military recruiters in the busy subway stations. I walk by, holding my three year old daughter’s hand, feeling a little more than helpless as a mouth “don’t do it” to the young people being sweet talked. I make loud comments as I walk to catch my train to work about how youth are being manipulated.
Read more…
Venezuelan Synagogue Attack an Inside Job and a Sign of Wider Attacks on Latin Am. Left
7:23 am By Maegan La Mala · israel|Latin America|Religion|Venezuela · 5 Comments
6 Sep 2009I’m often attacked and accused of being anti-Semitic, usually by one person, because I write about Palestine and draw connections among various occupied territories including Puerto Rico. Even when I wrote about the attack on a synagogue in Venezuela early this year, I was accused of not covering the story, or at least not in a way that some agreed with. Turns out that there was more to the story than met the eye. From NACLA:
In the early morning hours of January 31, vandals broke into Tiferet Israel, a Sephardic synagogue in Caracas. They strewed sacred scrolls on the floor and scribbled “Death to the Jews” and other anti-Semitic epithets on the walls, before making off with computer equipment and historical artifacts. Understandably, the incident frightened and upset many in the Venezuelan Jewish community. Right away, U.S. news outlets, including The New York Times and The Miami Herald, linked the incident to Venezuela’s increasingly strained relations with Israel, after the two countries suspended diplomatic relations two weeks earlier over Israel’s bombing of Gaza, then still under way.
A Herald editorial went so far as to describe an “official policy of anti-Semitism” in Venezuela and implied that Chávez’s foreign policy had unleashed a wave of anti-Semitic violence in the country, culminating in the assault on the synagogue.1 Some international NGOs were no more nuanced. Just hours after the break-in, the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was already implicitly comparing the Chávez government to the Nazis, calling the synagogue attack “a modern-day Kristallnacht.”2
But the Caracas police investigation bore out a different story. Authorities quickly realized that the synagogue’s security fence had been cut from the inside, prompting detectives to investigate the break-in as an inside job. Within the week it became clear that the attack had in fact been a robbery disguised as anti-Semitic vandalism, carried out by the synagogue’s privately contracted security team. Eleven men were arrested for their role in the plot, and their statements to the police indicated that the graffiti and desecration were intended to throw off investigators.3
The Pope Supports Palestinian State
1:15 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Gaza|israel|Politics|Religion · Comments Off
13 May 2009My posts regarding the Pope normally criticize whatever brand of hate, divisiveness and false morality he happens to be brewing up for us at the moment. But this one won’t, simply because I don’t know what to make of his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. While the previous Pope spoke about importance of peace in the region, this one is outright supporting Palestine’s right to exist, which seems crazy coming from such a conservative figure. This week on a trip to Israel, Pope Benedict addressed the Palestinian people in Bethlehem:
“In a special way, my heart goes out to the pilgrims from war-torn Gaza. I ask you to bring back to your families and your communities my warm embrace, and my sorrow for the loss, the hardship, and the hardship, and the suffering you have had to endure,” he said.Israel granted permits to about 100 Christians to leave the Gaza Strip and attend the Mass in Bethlehem.
The enclave is under tight restrictions imposed by Israel and Egypt on the movement of people and goods, by land, air, and sea. The embargo, which Israel says is due to security reasons, has resulted in shortages of supplies, including construction materials needed to rebuild from the recent war.
In his homily, the pope said he is praying for an end to the closure.
“Please be assured of my solidarity with you in the immense work of rebuilding which now lies ahead, and my prayers that the embargo will soon be lifted,” he said.
Israel Dubs Swine Flu “Mexican Flu”
7:40 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · israel|language|mexico|Religion · 4 Comments
28 Apr 2009
There has been one reported case of the swine flu in Israel so far, but Israeli officials aren’t calling it that. Ultra-orthodox Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman says that calling the disease by its name is “religiously sensitive”:
“We will call it Mexican flu. We won’t call it swine flu,” said Mr Litzman, who belongs to the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party.Pigs are considered unclean under Jewish dietary laws. Muslims also do not eat pork for similar reasons.
That’s all well and good, but calling it Mexican is no good either. The BBC reports that scientists in Israel are concerned that the term will “stigmatize Mexico”.
Via / BBC News
Israel : What is the Purpose…..
9:49 pm By Maegan La Mala · israel|Palestine · 6 Comments
13 Jan 2009…in bombing a neonatal clinic? So that Palestinian babies who need medical care can’t get it. So that will die and not tell the story of you are doing?
The charity Christian Aid says a clinic for mothers and babies in Gaza, which it funds along with the EU, has been destroyed in an Israeli air strike.
The clinic, which was run by the Near East Council of Churches, was struck by a missile after a 15-minute warning was sent to the building’s owners.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of medical equipment was destroyed by the strike, which happened on Saturday.
Christian Aid said the destroyed clinic, which was located in a two-storey building in the Shujaiya district of Gaza City, provided free primary healthcare to the local community, including mother and child clinics, neo-natal care, family planning.
The family living in the apartment on the floor above the clinic managed to get out just before a warning shot was fired by an Israeli air force jet, it added.
Moments later, the building – which the charity said was clearly marked with the insignia of the Red Cross and had ambulances parked outside – was struck by a missile fired by the aircraft.
The clinic was completely destroyed in the attack, along with valuable medical equipment, including ultrasound machines, laboratory apparatus, and computers, which are not freely available in Gaza.
Constantine Dabbagh, executive director of the NECC in Gaza, said another of its clinics had been closed for two weeks because the owners of a neighbouring building had received repeated warnings from the Israeli military that it was about to be bombed.
Via / The Philistine
Justify This : Israel bombs UN School
10:29 am By Maegan La Mala · Gaza|israel|Palestine · 8 Comments
7 Jan 2009
While the message that many are parroting, even in comments here and everywhere in the mainstream media, is that the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza is an act of self-defense. As if a nation who is propped up gracias to the patronage of the United States needs that much defense against hand made rockets from people who right now are burying their children. Explain to me how bombing a United Nation school full of refugee children is an act of self defense and not an act of showing extreme power, of sending the message to the people of Gaza that “We will kill your children”.
Hugo Chavez Kicks Out Israeli Ambassador to Venezuela
8:19 am By Maegan La Mala · Gaza|israel|Venezuela · 13 Comments
7 Jan 2009
So much for the restraint Jen yesterday wrote about Hugo Chavez showing. Venezuela yesterday expelled the Israeli Ambassador, saying it was an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
From an official statement:
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela expresses, yet again, together with people across the world, horror at the death of innocent women and children—a product of the Gaza Strip’s invasion by Israeli troops and the continual aereal and ground bombardment systematically unloaded by the State of Israel on the Palestinian Territory.At this tragic and indignant hour, the People of Venezuela manifests its unrestricted solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people; share the pain that has overcome the thousands of families for the loss of their loved ones; and standing with them, the Venezuelan government affirms that it will not rest until those responsible for these criminal atrocities are severely punished.
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sharply condemns the flagrant violations of the international law which the State of Israel has incurred, and denounces its planned use of State terrorism, with which this State has positioned itself at the margins of National order.
For the reasons outlined above, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has decided to expel the Israeli Ambassador and part of its personnel at the Israeli Embassy in Venezuela, reaffirming its vocation of peace and its existence that international law be respected.
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has prepared its mission in accordance to the UN so that, together with the majority of governments who require it, pressure is put on the Security Council to apply urgent and necessary measures to stop the current invasion of the State of Israel against the Palestinian Territory.
President Hugo Chávez, who has supported encounters with high representatives from the World Jewish Congress and has always opposed all anti-Semitism as he has all types of discrimination and racism, makes a brotherly plea to the Jewish community throughout the world to oppose the State of Israel’s criminal policies that serve as a reminder of the worst pages in the history of the twentieth century. With the genocide of the Palestinian people, the State of Israel will never be able to offer its own people a prospect toward a necessary and long lasting peace.
Via / Kabobfest
Image Via / Inca Kola
Israel’s Assault on the People of Gaza: Cluster Bombs, White Phosphorous, and Depleted Uranium
11:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Gaza|israel|Palestine · Comments Off
6 Jan 2009
Israel, with United States sponsorship is now using chemical weapons against the people of Gaza, including white phosphorous.
From Kabobfest:
What did Saddam Hussein use in his Halabja poison gas attack, along with other chemical weapons?White phosphorous.
The US used this very same chemical weapon in the attack on Falluja in 2004.
The Geneva Conventions make the use of white phosphorous as a chemical weapon illegal and when you read the effects of it, it’s easy to see why.
It ignites on contact with oxygen. Particles on a person can be temporarily extinguished with water, but as soon as they are dry they will recombust. Longer-term exposure causes poisoning, which leads to wounds of the mouth and eventual destruction of the whole jawbone.
Exposure to white phosphorus smoke in the air can also cause liver, kidney, heart, lung or bone damage and even death.
Israel insists that it is using white phosphorous as a smoke screen.
Hola!
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