The Flashlight, Jan. 20-26, 2007
THE FLASHLIGHT, Jan. 20-26, 2007
Lebanon
Guardian 1-23, Tuesday. Many thousands of demonstrators, led by Hizbollah staged a general strike They blocked the roads of Lebanon with the avowed intention of overthrowing the elected government. At crossroads and in traffic circles they burned old rubber tires, which sent up thick black smoke. The police and army sought to quiet them with negotiations. The next day the strike turned violent and there were scattered gun battles.
Then Hassan Nasrallah, general secretary of Hizbollah, called off the strike, saying that he could topple the government any time. But both sides feared a civil war. Lebanon had fought a fifteen--year civil war, 1976-1991, which most adults remembered. This time four died and over 150 were wounded before the two sides backed off.
NY Times 1-26. In Paris donor nations agreed to provide over seven billion dollars to pay for the rebuilding of Lebanon, which was badly damaged during the Israeli air attacks last summer. The Lebanese public debt is now at forty billion dollars. Unemployment is high (hence the availability of people to demonstrate) Public utilities frequently malfunction.
The political issues debated by the parties for almost two months remained unresolved.
Turkey
The funeral of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul was attended by an estimated crowd of 100,000. Dink was a symbol of freedom of speech, and personally popular. An Islamist newspaper headline: “Our Hrant is murdered.”
Israel
CNN 1-23. The President of Israel, Moshe Katsev, accused of rape and sexual harassment, took a three month leave of absence. There is talk of his impeachment.
US Politics
[Congressional committees held hearings. The President gave his State of the Union speech. The Libby trial for perjury was providing some clues to secret maneuvers in the White House in 2003-04. Nothing of great note happened in Washington this week.]
Neuroscience
NY Times 1-26. A study of 32 stroke patients revealed that damage by a stroke to the insula, a part of the brain near the ear, may instantly and permanently break a smoking habit. This indicated that addictions required that neural networks formed circuits which could be turned off suddenly. The insula connects the unconscious and conscious parts of the brain. This is a radically new development, offering hope of better treatments for many kinds of addicts. The discovery was made at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, headed by the famed neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.
Speech and Book Review
Speaker: Dr. Norman Finkelstein, professor of political science at DePaul University, Chicago. He is 53 years old, very tall, lean, and energetic. His parents survived the Holocaust. He grew up in New York city. His Ph.D at Princeton was on Zionism and he was a Marxist in his youth.
Noam Chomsky is Finkelstein’s friend and ally, while Alan Dershowitz, law professor at Harvard, is their bete noire. [black beast] Dershowitz is a leading defender of Israel, and of torture for political ends.
The Speech. Professor Finkelstein is one of the best public speakers I have ever heard, surpassing even Sen. John Edwards.
His lecture occurred on Jan 25, 2007, in Stanford’s Cubberly Auditorium. The auditorium, containing c. 500 seats, was full: The sponsor was the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, a Stanford student organization. Most of the people there looked like graduate students or older.
Finkelstein began by saying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, relatively speaking, is not controversial or complicated. He says that the controversy has been fabricated to divert attention from the facts in the documentary records and to produce confusion. It is intended to immunize Israel from criticism. But the facts and central issues are quiet clear.
The World Court has ruled that Israel has no title to the land it occupied during the l967 War. The Jewish settlements on that land are all in flagrant violation of international law. The occupation of East Jerusalem is also according to the Court. Dr. Finkelstein said that Pres. Carter’s conclusions in his recent book were also uncontroversial
The Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, et al. agree that Israel has had a terrible human rights record for the last twenty years. It has been in flagrant violation of international law.
To condemn two parties who violate a moral law is justice, said Finkelstein, but to condemn only one party is hypocrisy. Israel charges the Palestinians with terrorism, but many of its own acts deserve the label.
If terrorism is the indiscriminate killing of civilians, then Israel is guilty of terrorism against the Palestinians. The only difference is that Israeli terrorism is four times as lethal, according to statistics on the deaths of men, women, and children..
Israeli scholars now agree that there was an ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The only area of disagreement is whether or not it was premeditated. The scholar Ben Ami says it was premeditated. [So does Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006,]. They found Hebrew documents to support their position.
Instead of recognizing the Palestinian state, as agreed upon in peace negotiations in 2000, Israel is dismembering the Palestinian state.
Jewish claims of Holocaust uniqueness are used to exempt Israelis from moral examination according to ordinary standards. The aim is to avoid comparison of the Jewish case with other cases. The comparison of Israeli policies on the West Bank with South African apartheid is valid, said Finkelstein, except that the Jewish treatment of the Palestinians is worse than the Boer treatment of the blacks in South Africa.
Toward the end of the speech the dramatic tension built. The speaker released some tension by mocking the UN members who, besides the US and Israel, voted against censures of Israel These were the five island groups of the Pacific. Finkelstein mispronounced their names with glee. He talked about his: struggle with Alan Dershowitz, perhaps the most acclaimed Jewish defender of Israel in the last thirty years. Bursts of applause began.
Finkelstein ended with the assertion that “we” have the most powerful weapons, truth and justice, on “our” side. He received a standing ovation at the end. The audience was fighting mad and seemed happy to find this leader who shared their feelings. .
The Book: Beyond Chutzpah; On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005 was on sale.. I bought a copy but have not read it yet.
Lebanon
Guardian 1-23, Tuesday. Many thousands of demonstrators, led by Hizbollah staged a general strike They blocked the roads of Lebanon with the avowed intention of overthrowing the elected government. At crossroads and in traffic circles they burned old rubber tires, which sent up thick black smoke. The police and army sought to quiet them with negotiations. The next day the strike turned violent and there were scattered gun battles.
Then Hassan Nasrallah, general secretary of Hizbollah, called off the strike, saying that he could topple the government any time. But both sides feared a civil war. Lebanon had fought a fifteen--year civil war, 1976-1991, which most adults remembered. This time four died and over 150 were wounded before the two sides backed off.
NY Times 1-26. In Paris donor nations agreed to provide over seven billion dollars to pay for the rebuilding of Lebanon, which was badly damaged during the Israeli air attacks last summer. The Lebanese public debt is now at forty billion dollars. Unemployment is high (hence the availability of people to demonstrate) Public utilities frequently malfunction.
The political issues debated by the parties for almost two months remained unresolved.
Turkey
The funeral of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul was attended by an estimated crowd of 100,000. Dink was a symbol of freedom of speech, and personally popular. An Islamist newspaper headline: “Our Hrant is murdered.”
Israel
CNN 1-23. The President of Israel, Moshe Katsev, accused of rape and sexual harassment, took a three month leave of absence. There is talk of his impeachment.
US Politics
[Congressional committees held hearings. The President gave his State of the Union speech. The Libby trial for perjury was providing some clues to secret maneuvers in the White House in 2003-04. Nothing of great note happened in Washington this week.]
Neuroscience
NY Times 1-26. A study of 32 stroke patients revealed that damage by a stroke to the insula, a part of the brain near the ear, may instantly and permanently break a smoking habit. This indicated that addictions required that neural networks formed circuits which could be turned off suddenly. The insula connects the unconscious and conscious parts of the brain. This is a radically new development, offering hope of better treatments for many kinds of addicts. The discovery was made at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, headed by the famed neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.
Speech and Book Review
Speaker: Dr. Norman Finkelstein, professor of political science at DePaul University, Chicago. He is 53 years old, very tall, lean, and energetic. His parents survived the Holocaust. He grew up in New York city. His Ph.D at Princeton was on Zionism and he was a Marxist in his youth.
Noam Chomsky is Finkelstein’s friend and ally, while Alan Dershowitz, law professor at Harvard, is their bete noire. [black beast] Dershowitz is a leading defender of Israel, and of torture for political ends.
The Speech. Professor Finkelstein is one of the best public speakers I have ever heard, surpassing even Sen. John Edwards.
His lecture occurred on Jan 25, 2007, in Stanford’s Cubberly Auditorium. The auditorium, containing c. 500 seats, was full: The sponsor was the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, a Stanford student organization. Most of the people there looked like graduate students or older.
Finkelstein began by saying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, relatively speaking, is not controversial or complicated. He says that the controversy has been fabricated to divert attention from the facts in the documentary records and to produce confusion. It is intended to immunize Israel from criticism. But the facts and central issues are quiet clear.
The World Court has ruled that Israel has no title to the land it occupied during the l967 War. The Jewish settlements on that land are all in flagrant violation of international law. The occupation of East Jerusalem is also according to the Court. Dr. Finkelstein said that Pres. Carter’s conclusions in his recent book were also uncontroversial
The Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, et al. agree that Israel has had a terrible human rights record for the last twenty years. It has been in flagrant violation of international law.
To condemn two parties who violate a moral law is justice, said Finkelstein, but to condemn only one party is hypocrisy. Israel charges the Palestinians with terrorism, but many of its own acts deserve the label.
If terrorism is the indiscriminate killing of civilians, then Israel is guilty of terrorism against the Palestinians. The only difference is that Israeli terrorism is four times as lethal, according to statistics on the deaths of men, women, and children..
Israeli scholars now agree that there was an ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The only area of disagreement is whether or not it was premeditated. The scholar Ben Ami says it was premeditated. [So does Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006,]. They found Hebrew documents to support their position.
Instead of recognizing the Palestinian state, as agreed upon in peace negotiations in 2000, Israel is dismembering the Palestinian state.
Jewish claims of Holocaust uniqueness are used to exempt Israelis from moral examination according to ordinary standards. The aim is to avoid comparison of the Jewish case with other cases. The comparison of Israeli policies on the West Bank with South African apartheid is valid, said Finkelstein, except that the Jewish treatment of the Palestinians is worse than the Boer treatment of the blacks in South Africa.
Toward the end of the speech the dramatic tension built. The speaker released some tension by mocking the UN members who, besides the US and Israel, voted against censures of Israel These were the five island groups of the Pacific. Finkelstein mispronounced their names with glee. He talked about his: struggle with Alan Dershowitz, perhaps the most acclaimed Jewish defender of Israel in the last thirty years. Bursts of applause began.
Finkelstein ended with the assertion that “we” have the most powerful weapons, truth and justice, on “our” side. He received a standing ovation at the end. The audience was fighting mad and seemed happy to find this leader who shared their feelings. .
The Book: Beyond Chutzpah; On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005 was on sale.. I bought a copy but have not read it yet.
posted by THE FLASHLIGHT at 5:08 PM
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