I expect you need to be on Facebook to go to this link:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679
The Guardian published their manifesto yesterday. It may be superfluous but I nonetheless think it should be repeated as widely as possible:
GAZA YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE: “We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream…” – read more below!
Contact us: [email protected]
Pls consider supporting us by taking one or more of the following actions:
1) Promoting our manifesto by sharing it on your profile on Facebook
2) Sending an email to your friends asking them to like our page FB
3) Translating the manifesto to your language and sending it to us (we have it in Arabic, Hebrew, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Chinese, Russian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish)
4) Sending the manifesto to journalists in your country
5) Making organizations in your countries that are concerned with the Palestinian issue and/or youth rights know about our existence
6) Posting links about violation of youth’s rights in Gaza on our wall
7) Suggesting us ideas for reaching out to a greater number of people
???|__
@tony_opmoc – your streams of rambling consciousness are creative and poetic, but would you post them on your own website? Unfortunately they are quite disruptive, and don’t seem to have much to do with the ongoing thread topics. You can sign up for a free blog very easily these days, at blogger.com or wordpress.com.
You’re welcome to post stuff on the topics we generally cover on this blog, though. Thanks.
@crab, that’s a good point – no single definition of Sharia. I’m open to the suggestion that a liberal version is possible.
Questions re-authenticity of the Gaza Youth document and the reason why it appears to have “gone viral” across the controlled media need to be asked.
Tellingly independent sources do not appear to be taking half as much interest in this “breaking story” as corporate and gatekeeper sources.
NED funding and the sudden interest of the Observer in the plight of young Gazans reads like another WikiReeks psy-op to me.
Wayne Madsen made the point recently that the a new neo-con infowar blitz using Facebook and other social networking sites was in the pipeline.
Looks like he was spot on.
Good sceptical view plus excellent comment board here:
http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2011/01/02/the-gaza-youth-breaks-out-manifesto-how-genuine-is-it/
“Julian [Assange]’s Swedish case has been moved to the “terrorism” court at Belmarsh Jan 11″:
http://twitter.com/wikileaks
Anyone know any more about this? There’s a BBC article linked from WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed, but it’s an old, 2004 article about Belmarsh in general.
Whoever removed Tony_opmoc’s post, could they please also remove the anonymous reply at January 4, 2011 5:29 AM? My guess is that it gives a distorted impression of what Tony_opmoc actually posted; it doesn’t seem right to remove the original but to leave the (probably exaggerated) criticism of it.
Apostate I had already posted that firedoglake link yesterday afternoon!
Interesting about Facebook. I expect you heard that Goldman Sachs have put $500 million into it and that its worth is estimated by the BBC (ZBC)to be $50 billion. Hasn’t Mr Zuckerberg done well?
PS Does Jon run this blog? ….You’re welcome to post stuff on the topics we generally cover on this blog, though. Thanks…. sounds rather proprietorial.
Arundhati Roy video on Palestine conflict here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vnaf8R_SJo
Includes Churchill 1927 speech worth quoting at length because it explains much re-the brutal ethno-supremacist subjugation of “lesser races” Zionism takes as its raison d’etre.
“I do not agree that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have remained there for a very long time. I do not admit that right.
“I do not admit for instance that a great wrong hs been done to the Red Indians (sic) of America or to the black people of Australia.
“I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken that place.”
That Zionism is an extension of the same Rothschild imperialism behind the British Empire seems clearly borne out by these remarks.
Churchill was but one in a long line of Zionists drawn from the ranks of the British upper class. He was heir to an elite line which includes Cromwell, Victoria, Disraeli, Balfour and Lloyd George.
British-Israel or Anglo-Israel, as Zionism styles itself among this elite, posits the view that the hardy Anglo-Saxon elite are directly descended from the lost ten northern tribes of Israel and that the British royals are descendants of King David.
Henry Rowlands argued in 1723 that the Ancient Druids-of which modern day order Churchill himself was a member- were descendants from Noah.
How do we explain why Zionism has been endemic among the British ruling class when there was never a large Jewish population in England as a whole?
As Christopher John Bjerknes argues here:
http://www.jewishracism.com/Jewish_Genocide_Enlarged.pdf
the oddity is explained by the grossly disproportionate influence enjoyed in England by Cabalistic Jews and Jewish bankers.
These were the people for whom Churchill spoke in 1927.
My mate dcdave’s excellent review of Nur Mashala’s Expulsion of the Palestinians:Transfer in Zionist Political Thought is characteristically acute:
http://www.dcdave.com/article5/101220.htm
The plan of Edward A Norman an NY multi-millionaire to trick Iraq into accepting a large migration of Palestinian Arabs by pretending the Zionists opposed the idea was abetted by Zionist banker Felix Warburg and militia leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
As dave says though the deceit failed and ethnic cleansing was adopted instead the duplicity of the Zionists is still abundantly evident today.
I’m not at all sure that Israel’s government is that much more liberal than Hamas’ even towards Israeli Jews (it’s certainly not to Israeli Arabs or Palestinians) – they’ve even jailed a fair number of Israeli Jewish citizens for protesting against the Gaza blockade – including one given 3 months in jail for leading a protest of 30 people cycling.
Fatah – often presented as “moderate” siezed power in the West Bank by force, murdered civilians suspected of supporting Hamas (just as Hamas did with Fatah supporters), has an armed wing that has made just as many rocket and suicide attacks as Hamas’ armed wing – and has Salaam Fayed recognised as unelected “Prime Minister” (President abbas appointed him – something he has no power to do under the Palestinian constitution)
On the evolution of the Transfer concept including the aforementioned Norman plan this website is invaluable:
http://www.1948.org.uk/population-transfer-committee/
Curiously enough, Hugh Dalton Churchill’s wartime Minister of Economic Warfare at the controls of Britain’s subversive warfare in Nazi-occupied Europe, is described here at the Labour Conference of 1944 as being in favour of “maximillist” Zionist plans for the transfer of Palestinian Arabs.
As overseer of SOE Dalton had been tasked by Churchill with “setting Europe ablaze” to throw off the Nazi yoke.
Weizmann is described as anticipating WW2 population shifts across Europe as likely to create the need for an influx of 3-4m Jewish immigrants to Palestine from Europe.
Curiously, in coming to such figures for Jewish refugees after the war, Weizmann seems not have made any allowance for the Nazi extermination plans for European Jewry.
Duncan, happy new year to you!
“I’m not at all sure that Israel’s government is that much more liberal than Hamas’ even towards Israeli Jews (it’s certainly not to Israeli Arabs or Palestinians)”
I agree. I should have pointed out that Israel has liberal mechanisms, such as courts and a democracy, but I agree that the end result is seriously illiberal.
Happy New Year Jon – i agree with you there. You could have the best courts and the fairest, most representative electoral system possible and it’ll still end up undemocratic if the majority don’t believe everyone should have the same rights any more – or are badlu misinformed
Since it seems that the most recent crumbled madeleine of tony_opmoc’s a la recherche has disappeared, does that mean that you are now moderating, Jon?
Vronsky, jon began to moderate yesterday evening, I think.
@ Steelback and Apostate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQguBUUXtD0&NR=1
@Vronsky – yep, but only very lightly.
@clark – agreed, done.
Well, it is time I wished everyone here Happy New Year. I had a rather dreadful New Year, and didn’t have kind wishes to spare at the time, so I’ll correct that now:-
Happy New year!
I’d like to welcome Jon as a moderator; I think he will do a good job of it, and moderation certainly seems to have become necessary. I was involved in organising dance parties in the ’80s. We wanted to do without “security” (ie bouncers), but we found it to be a necessity for a pleasant evening. However, bent security was worse than none at all, as we discovered at one disastrous gig in Huddersfield.
This is the only msm article i find:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/
02/free-gaza-youth-manifesto-palestinian
In lieu of more details, this seems to be a genuine grass root effort.
good luck GYBO!
hello Clark, really sorry to hear that it was not a good transition. Hope year resets and goes ahead in the best way.
Jon, some thoughts occur to me: (1) if you’re going to be moderating, shouldn’t there be a way of sending you private messages? (2) I hope that you be taking some action against impersonation.
Technicolour, hello, and thanks. That e-mail address you (?) posted should have one from me in the Inbox.
Rich tosser. You have no idea how real people live. You’re a fucking political backpacker.
Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but this is worth reading:
http://www.truth-out.org/2011-a-brave-new-dystopia66307
The opening paragraph, to whet your appetite:
—start
The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.
—end
I also welcome you Jon.
Clark, just think of a nice warm late summer afternoon, when everthing went right and worked like clockwork, that should pull you though.
I was involved in doing H&S at the BGG for donkeys years, i.e. daily liasion with local officers/councillors, we used to invite the local into the fair for an afternoon and put a gliutzy show on, but boy was it hard work, up from 7am to 11pm, unpaid, but its was a good idea and a rewarding job.
The BGG is struggling after being shut down by noLabours mongering in the local affairs of the council in Somerset.
Three days before the fair was to happen, with everything being agreed for month, police, firebrigade and council all came up with last minute changes and demands, serious one’s, that could not be rectified within a very short timespan, so they had to stop the fair and lost a bo,b.
There once was a movement to start an Eastern BGG but that never came to anything much.
happy new year Clark.
The best for your next year Clark – you deserve it.
All good wishes to you, Clark. Hope the rest of 2011 will be better for you.
I agree with you Joe Kane – “The real challange is to get the British Government to stop supporting the apartheid Israeli state, the real source of the problems of all Palestinian people and not just Gazans.”
I note the Brooking Institute opinion poll you referred to show another dramatic shift in public opinion regarding Iran’s potential nuclear weapons status, a country that supports Hamas.
In 2009, only 29% of those polled said that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would be “positive” for the Middle East; in 2010, 57% of those polled indicate that such an outcome would be “positive” for the Middle East.
Iran does not aspire to nuclear weapons although it has the knowledge (blueprints) to build a fission bomb using enriched uranium. According to Reuters Iran said on Tuesday it had invited some envoys accredited to the U.N. nuclear watchdog to visit important nuclear facilities this month, shortly before a second round of talks between Tehran and major powers on 16th January this year.
Iran expert Ali Ansari from St Andrews University in Scotland said,
“I think it definitely suggests that (caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Akbar) Salehi is trying to make his mark and to improve PR, but I am not sure it will do much more than that. After all it will be a guided tour. However, it is a move away from all the confrontational rhetoric.”
I hope Britain can apply his wisdom towards the people of Hamas by applying pressure by condemning Israel’s “open aggression and disregard for International Law” in the same way as Sterling Council’s brave stand to boycott ‘apartheid’ Israel.
http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/Press-Releases/stirling-council-to-boycott-apartheid-israel.html
Ingo – You were asking who owns the gas offshore Gaza/Israel and I don’t think anyone answered.
This FT article has been posted on medialens.
Israel seeks bigger share of gas profits
Posted by The Editors on January 4, 2011, 6:07 pm
Israel seeks bigger share of gas profits
By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem
Published: January 3 2011 20:08 | Last updated: January 3 2011 20:08
Financial Times
The Israeli government is poised to raise sharply its cut of the expected profits, likely to run into billions of dollars, from a spate of offshore discoveries of natural gas.
A state-appointed committee on Monday recommended lifting the overall “government take” from the current 30 per cent of net profits to 52-62 per cent. This would leave Israel with a smaller share of oil and gas profits than is taken by Norway and the Netherlands but a higher cut than demanded by the US and Britain.
Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli finance minister, said he was convinced the new regime would “encourage energy corporations to proceed with their activities ?” not just to produce but also to explore”.
Israel has emerged as a source of potentially huge hydrocarbon riches, after the discovery of several large gasfields in the waters off the northern coast.
/…
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1294164468.html
Grab, grab, grab, anything which rightly and originally belonged to the Palestinians…. land, villages, towns, olive groves, mountains, deserts, and now even the gas which lies under the sea upon which the fishermen of Gaza are fired on by Israeli gunships.
Gazan Youth: well done. Can you build allegiances across the wall – with the Shminitsim, for example?
ingo, thanks, that was a lovely image. works for me! it was disgraceful about the Big Green Gathering, totally. I know people who’ve worked there for years too. And they did the same to Strawberry Fair. And that was the last government, merrily paving the way for this one…
Clark, thanks – got it! Will be in touch.
Glenn, thanks too, Chris Hedges is a great writer.
And thanks Craig (not that he read this far, of course, so it feels rather redundant) for posting this.
Sorry to hear you had a bad New Year, Clark. All the best for 2011.
And Jon, yes, I wonder how you’ll manage impersonations … Best of luck with it anyway.
I came across this yesterday, via Twitter. Article on Iran in the WSJ, which commences
“Since Iran announced its intention to build a nuclear bomb …”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203525404576049911567747094.html
(needs subscription)
@clark – good point on contacting me, I’ll have a think about that. For now, if you need to send me a PM just say so in the comments – I should pick it up.
@Gaza_Youth_Breaks_Out – well done. Often, the international community is not sure how to best help. Please do make suggestions if you think there’s things that people can do. I’m sure British organisations like MAP (www.map-uk.org) and PSC (www.palestinecampaign.org) would help coordinate efforts in the UK.