MUST SEE VIDEO

Listen to the refuseniks, the activists and the great people of honour who are opposed to occupation. An amazing video!

صمود

لو يذكر الزيتون غارسهُ
لصار الزيت دمعا!
يا حكمة الأجدادِ
لو من لحمنا نعطيك درعا!
لكن سهل الريح،
لا يعطي عبيد الريح زرعا!
إنا سنقلع بالرموشِ
الشوك والأحزان.. قلعا!
وإلام نحمل عارنا وصليبنا!
والكون يسعى..
سنظل في الزيتون خضرته،
وحول الأرض درعا!!

محمود درويش

مرة ثانية: نموت كالكلاب والذباب

نموتُ مجَّاناً .. كما الذُّبابُ في إفْريقيا
نموتُ كالذُبَابْ.
ويدخلُ الموتُ علينا ضاحكاً
ويُقفِلُ الأبوابْ.
نموتُ بالجُمْلة في فراشنا
ويرفضُ المسؤولُ عن ثلاجة الموتى
نموتُ .. في حرب الإشاعاتِ..
وفي حرب الإذاعاتِ..
وفي حرب التشابيهِ..
وفي حرب الكِنَاياتِ..
وفي خديعة السَّرابْ .
نموتُ.. مَقْهورينَ، مَنْبُوذينَ ، ملْعُونينَ..
مَنْسيِّينَ كالكلابْ ..
يُفَلْسِفُ الخَرَابْ…
…
يا وطني الغارقَ في دمائهِ
يا أيها المَطْعُونُ في إبائهِ
مدينةً مدينةً..
نافذةً نافذةً ..
غمامةً غمامةً..
حمامةً حمامةً ..
مئذنةً مئذنةً ..
أخافُ أن أُقرِئَكَ السلامْ ..يُسافر الخنجرُ في عروبتي
يسافر الخِنجرُ في رُجولتي
هل هذه هزيمةٌ قُطْريَّةٌ ؟
أم هذه هزيمةٌ قوميّةٌ ؟
أم هذه هزيمتي ؟؟

i cried today with him – نعم بكيت معه ومعهم

مذيع قناة الجزيرة  جمال ريان لم يستطع منع نفسه من البكاء وهو يستمع لتقرير حول مقتل أربعة أطفال أخوة من أسرة واحدة. وبكيت معه

Al Jazeera reporter Jamal Rayan could not take the images and report on the murder of 4 little brothers in Gaza. He cried. So did I. Watch the video:

songs for palestine – أغانى لفلسطين

مترجمة للعربية

suffer the children…

All those children dead.. blown away, burried under the rubble, shot and killed or wounded.

All that murder.. and Congress passes a resolution in support of Israel.. a unanimous  resolution with the exception of Kucinich – brave, courageous Kucinich who said ‘Wake up America’.

Wake up America indeed! you are supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing. And you just don’t get it. You just don’t get it because ‘they have eyes but cannot see, mouths but cannot speak.’

I am appalled!!

operation ‘create more fundamentalism’

Uri Avnery wrote an excellent article today called Molten Lead in Gaza. The key points:

1- it was not Hamas that broke the truce as is commonly reported in US media following the spin of the Israelis.

As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets.

Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.

2- the timing of the attack is perfect

The timing was chosen meticulously from another angle too. The attack started two days after Christmas, when American and European leaders are on holiday until after New Year. The calculation: even if somebody wanted to try and stop the war, no one would give up his holiday. That ensured several days free from outside pressures.

Another reason for the timing: these are George Bush’s last days in the White House. This blood-soaked moron could be expected to support the war enthusiastically, as indeed he did. Barack Obama has not yet entered office and had a ready made pretext for keeping silent: “there is only one President”. The silence does not bode well for the term of president Obama.

3- how this exposes Arab leaders:

another thing that is being imprinted on the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive Arab regimes.

As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others: the wall of shame.

4- how this will yet again remove and marginalize the moderates in the Arab World and simply give rise to fundamentalistic ideology:

This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.

This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand.

Could anyone have said it better?

spin doctors

“In the war of the pictures we lose, so you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways,” said Aviv Shir-On, foreign ministry deputy director-general for public affairs. “Support doesn’t mean the world is standing behind us, but it does mean people understand what we are doing and why.”

Need we say more? The following is Orwellian or Huxleyian to the extreme:

The body, known as the National Information Directorate, was set up eight months ago following recommendations from an Israeli inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war. Its role is to deal with hasbara – meaning, in Hebrew, “explanation”, and referring variously to information, spin, and propaganda. [link]