Tuesday, July 27, 2010 by Elie Nasrallah Daily Star

Photo: Tanya Traboulsi Sky over sea, Beirut, Lebanon.

Canada has always been a favorite destination for many Lebanese emigrants. However, the country is now changing its immigration policies and is beginning to resemble a club open to a chosen few who possess the required skills, education and selective criteria to enter.

Last June 26, Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister for citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, announced that to be eligible to apply as a federal skilled worker, immigrants must either have a job offer from a Canadian employer or experience in one of just 29 in-demand occupations.

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open letter from Palestinians, 29 July 2010

Photo Dome of the Rock at Al Aqsa mosque compound under open sky in Palestine.

The following open letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose elected mandate expired in July 2009 and who has remained in power under controversial emergency laws, was issued on 22 July 2010:

We are Palestinians of diverse perspectives and affiliations — scholars, intellectuals, artists, activists, trade unionists, human rights advocates and civil society leaders, inside historic Palestine and in exile — who are united in our commitment to the fulfillment of the fundamental rights of all Palestinians, particularly our inalienable right to self-determination. This universally sanctioned right encompasses, at a minimum, freedom from occupation and colonization in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem; full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

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Andrew Bacevich July 29th 2010 Huffington Post

Photo Palestinian UN school bombed by Israeli military in Gaza.

“In watching the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history.” This sentiment, introducing the essay that made Francis Fukuyama a household name, commands renewed attention today, albeit from a different perspective.

Developments during the 1980s, above all the winding down of the Cold War, had convinced Fukuyama that the “end of history” was at hand. “The triumph of the West, of the Western idea,” he wrote in 1989, “is evident… in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.”

Today the West no longer looks quite so triumphant. Yet events during the first decade of the present century have delivered history to another endpoint of sorts. Although Western liberalism may retain considerable appeal, the Western way of war has run its course.

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mondoweiss by Hatim Kanaaneh July, 2010

Photo Palestinian boy views photos of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

I have known Ameer Makhoul since the day he came to my office at the Galilee Society to be interviewed for the position of director of our then new and ambitious project called ITTIJAH, the Arabic acronym for Union of Community-Based Arab Associations. I knew of him before as another troubled Arab student at Haifa University who couldn’t square away Israel’s bogus claims to democracy, as in ‘the only democratic state in the Middle East,’ with his experience as a member of a minority gagged and shackled by draconian security-based regulations.

This had led at the time to his dismissal from his studies and banning from entering the university campus as another ‘trouble maker.’ Ameer went on to obtain his Bachelor’s degree through the accumulation of credits in after-hours and off-campus courses. Two decades later the administration of Haifa University was still formally advising its foreign students and other international guests against visiting Arab communities for their own safety. In1964-6, during my own university studies, I had rented a room in Vermillion, South Dakota from an old lady that warned me daily against the ‘wild Indians’ in the Prairies. I could relate to the deep-seated apprehensions of the aggressor.

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photos on Artists Anti Apartheid by Heri Rakotomalala, Anthony Côte & Khalil Allioui

Photo Kalmunity Jazz collective performs at Artists Against Apartheid, La Sala Rossa.

Artists in Montreal are uniting in unprecedented ways in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation, last winter 500 artists from Montreal signed a collective declaration to support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid.

Artists Against Apartheid concert series has featured many groundbreaking artists from Montreal and the thirteenth edition at La Sala Rossa on July 22nd featured Algonquin hip-hop artist Samian (featuring Nomadic Massive), Kalmunity Jazz collective and Amérythmes. Featured in this photo essay are images captured at Artists Against Apartheid by Heri Rakotomalala, Khalil Allioui and Anthony Cote.

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Hazem Jamjoum, Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2010

Photo Palestine Remembered Palestinian refugees fleeing ‘Imwas village in 1967 turned into Canada Park by the Jewish National Fund (JNF)

For anyone taking a road trip along the highways of the part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948, one is bound to spot a blue and green structure in the shape of a bird marked with the Hebrew letters KKL, which stands for Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael, the Hebrew name of the Israeli branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). All around the bird one will see expanses of forests planted sometime in the past few decades. A walk through one of these forests will take the visitor past fruit trees, cactus plants, terraced hillsides and the ruins of buildings. In some cases, these ruins are explained in a JNF brochure pointing to their ancient history; in other cases, one is left to the devices of one’s imagination. In all cases, these sites are what remains of some of the more than 500 villages depopulated and destroyed through the course of Israel’s establishment, the homes of millions of Palestinian refugees struggling to return to them for more than 60 years. By walking through a JNF park or forest, one inhales the fresh smell of the greenwashing of Palestine’s Nakba.

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Jimmy Johnson, Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2010

Photo: Women march against the Israeli wall in a scene from Budrus.

Event-based storytelling is an infamous form most prominent in the science fiction sub-genre of the Space Opera. The main failing of the style is the general inability of event progression to effectively substitute for character development. Budrus is an event-based story without all but the most minimal character development, yet it still succeeds by compellingly capturing a moment. Director Julia Bacha combines conventional point-and-shoot with in situ interviews, beautiful and sometimes chaotic footage of protests, maps, graphics and a bit of expository text to piece together a lovely film exploring the evolution of the West Bank village of Budrus’ resistance to Israel’s wall, and its reclaiming of its destiny.

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Max Blumenthal, Electronic Intifada, 22 July 2010

Photo Oren Ziv ActiveStills Haneen Zoabi speaking in Tel Aviv, July 2010.

On 13 July, the Israeli Knesset voted by a large margin to strip the parliamentary privileges of Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Palestinian Israeli party Balad. The measure was a punishment for Zoabi’s participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. As described in the Israeli daily Haaretz, during the raging debate, Member of Knesset (MK) Anasatassia Michaeli rushed toward Zoabi and handed her a mock Iranian passport with Zoabi’s photo on it.

“Ms. Zoabi, I take your loyalty to Iran seriously and I suggest you contact Ahmadinejad and ask him to give you an Iranian diplomatic passport that will assist you with all your diplomatic incitement tours, because your Israeli passport will be revoked this evening,” said Michaeli, who is a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s explicitly anti-Arab Yisrael Beiteinu party (“Knesset revokes Arab MK Zuabi’s privileges over Gaza flotilla,” 13 July 2010).

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guardian.co.uk Harriet Sherwood in Al Walaja Thursday 8 July 2010

Photo Israeli apartheid wall colonizing Palestinian lands.

Sixty-three-year-old Ahmed Bargouth sits in the shade of a walnut tree and contemplates the view before him.

Across the valley is Jerusalem’s zoo, which his grandchildren have never been able to visit, although they have watched animals through binoculars.

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18/07/2010 Dr. Salman Abou Sitta, As-Safir le 12 juillet 2010

Photo Travailleur palestinien à l’implantation d’entreprises.

Quelle est la situation d’”Israël” d’aujourd’hui ? Notons tout d’abord qu’”Israël” n’aurait pas été “Israël” si elle avait laissé tomber le sionisme ; elle serait restée la Palestine avec une minorité juive, aussi grande soit cette minorité. Il est alors inutile de chercher un chef israélien qui croirait aux droits des Palestiniens, il est inutile de chercher parmi la gauche ou parmi la droite israéliennes.

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