Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Check Out Our New Format | Truth on Syria | Hamas: Israel will Pay | Netanyahu vs. UNESCO | Your Mark on Palestine | More ..



Palestine Chronicle -
Daily News and Commentary on Palestine. Your Trusted news agency since 1999. 

DONATE TODAY TO THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE
Make Your Mark on the Map of Palestine
 
As you are well aware, the Palestine Chronicle has 17 years of solid, unhindered and objective news under its belt. This has resulted in it becoming a fast-growing and innovative news agency.
 
Despite various attempts to thwart the Chronicle's messages, it continues to contend with other major news providers.
 
And all this has continued with your enduring support and commitment to the truth - and of course with your financial support which is so necessary to keep an organization of this caliber running and efficient.
 
Your support has allowed the Chronicle to employ the expertise of 2 other editors, as well as a French edition. Albeit still a small contingency of only 5 members, we continue to bring you the highest level of information on Palestine.
 
And again we make an appeal to you - financial support for the Palestine Chronicle is all it takes to allow you access to the latest ground-breaking news on Palestine.
 
Your help can keep the Palestinian cause alive - making the voices of silenced Palestinians heard around the globe. For 17 years we have been determined in our cause, and your help is all that's needed to allow the Chronicle to prevail.
 
DONATE TODAY TO THE PALESTINE CHRONICLE - make your mark on the map of Palestine.
 
To make a contribution using your paypal account or credit card, please click HERE
 
Or kindly send your contribution to:
PO Box 196
Mountlake Terrace
WA, 98043
USA

Why is the Truth on Syria Difficult to Decipher?


By Ramzy Baroud
"The United States has the power to decree the death of nations," wrote Stephen Kinzer in the Boston Globe.
Kinzer's article was entitled: "The media are misleading the public on Syria." In his piece, the scholar at a Brown University Institute contested that his country's media misinformation on Syria is leading to the kind of ignorance which is enabling the American government to pursue any policy, however imprudent, in the war-torn Arab country.
The US government can 'decree the death of nations' with "popular support because many Americans - and many journalists - are content with the official story," he wrote.
Kinzer, in principle makes a strong point. His article, however, was particularly popular among those who sees the Syrian government entirely innocent of any culpability in the ongoing war, and that Iran and Russia are at no fault whatsoever; better yet, their intervention in Syria is entirely morally-guided and altruistic.
That said, Kinzer's assertion regarding the US government's dangerous meddling in Syria's affairs, renewed Cold War with Russia and ill-defined military mission in that country, is all true.
Neither is the US, nor its western and other allies, following rules of war nor adhering to a particularly noble set of principles aimed at ending that most devastating war, which has killed well over 300,000 people, rendered millions displaced and destroyed the country's wealth and infrastructure.
So what is the truth on Syria?  
Read more ..

Netayahu and UNESCO: Peanut Butter and Jelly - and Ketchup


Like his predecessors, the incumbent Prime Minister of the Israeli colonial state Benjamin Netanyahu never fails to cause a twitch in one's face.
In response to the UNESCO draft resolution that emphasizes the indissoluble connection between Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) and Islam and criticizes the Israeli belligerent practices in Jerusalem, especially in its holy sites; Netanyahu commented that the vote-the resolution was adopted by twenty-four countries and opposed by six (including the U.S., the U.K., and Germany)-was a scene from "the theater of the absurd."
He went on to say: "Today UNESCO [with which Israel has severed its ties as a result of the resolution] adopted its second decision denying the Jewish people's connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site for more than 3,000 years...What's next? A UNESCO decision denying the connection between peanut butter and jelly? Batman and Robin? Rock 'n' roll?"
Linguists must find Netanyahu's language games a rich material for analysis, as the phrases joined by "and" all exemplify what is generally called collocations, namely words or phrases that are conventionally placed together. But Netanyahu's examples may not cause any twitch in their faces if their analysis stops there.
If one goes beyond that step, then dealing with twitches is a must. One will notice that Netanyahu mixes up mundane or popular objects such as "peanut butter and jelly" with what is typically thought of as higher art; that is, "the theater of the absurd."
That mix-up might cause a slight twitch, specifically because it conjures up and exemplifies, as always, the theater of the absurd: Recall his histrionic display of a cartoon drawing of a bomb symbolizing the Iranian nuclear program at the UN assembly or the 45-second silence during which he glowered down at the delegates in the same forum.
Another absurd, twitch-inducing rhetorical gesture is his combining aggressively capitalistic and imperialistic language with religion and spirituality.
By using the pronoun "our" in the phrase "our holiest site," Netanyahu arrogates Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al-Sharif to Zionists to further implement on the ground the myth of Greater Israel. That arrogation should not be surprising, as it is typical of colonizers and imperialists who never hesitate to claim what belongs to "Others" as theirs.
Indeed, Netanyahu's absurd claim, and Israel's for that matter, flies in the face of historical facts-which Netanyahu obdurately ignores. Nadia Abu El Haj's Facts on the Ground and John James Moscrop's Measuring Palestine both refute his spurious claims, as they suggest that the connection between the "findings" of the archaeological excavations in Palestine-which were inaugurated by the Palestine Exploration Fund in the nineteenth century and have continued for more than a century and a half now-and Zionism is baseless.
The most absurd-although not very absurd for anybody who follows Netanyahu's rhetoric and absurdities-part of Netanyahu's statement are the collocations at the end of the quotation. The twitches this time could either be caused by laughter or shock, depending on whether one is accustomed to Netanyahu's rhetoric or not.
Netanyahu here describes the UN agency's emphasis on the Islamic character of Al-Aqsa Mosque and its refuting Zionist claims as akin to delinking peanut butter from jelly. His intention is undeniably clear: He wants to make fun of and trivialize the resolution. But his words also trivialize peoples, religions, and cultures.
By comparing the issue of Jerusalem to popular objects, Netanyahu underestimates the suffering of Palestinians and the theft and atrocities perpetrated by the colonizing power. He also trivializes Judaism and Jewish suffering, making a statement with which anti-Semites would have no problem in automatically agreeing: The connection between Jews and Jerusalem is-according to Netanyahu-akin to the one between peanut butter and jelly!
Ironically, the references to popular American culture here were first made in Hebrew, not in English. Netanyahu does not mind Americanizing his rhetoric, even when it comes to defending the ethnocentric Israeli state.
Perhaps heeding either the cultural references or the affinity between the Israeli state and the U.S. in subjugating and negating the presence of Palestinians and "Others," both U.S. presidential candidates Clinton and Trump condemned the resolution.
Trump even went so far as to point out what he calls "anti-Israel bias of the UN," a claim that is disproved by many U.N. practices complicit with the Israeli state and directly taken from Israeli hasbara (propaganda), an exemplary of which is the Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennet, who-as a reaction to the resolution-accused the UN of denying Jewish history.
The last type of twitch that Netanyahu's statement provokes is a twitch of déjà vu. In 2007, the Rand Corporation published a document-commissioned by the Pentagon-entitled "Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation."
The first link between Netanyahu's rhetoric and the report is theatricality. The second is its aggressively capitalistic language.
But the third and most telling is clear in this quotation about changing the brand of the War on Terror: "The slow pour of Heinz ketchup once embodied the brand's positioning of the ketchup as having a thick, rich consistency. Possibly reflecting a new societal focus on speed and efficiency, Heinz still maintains that its ketchup is 'thick and rich,' but the positioning now focuses more on its new upside-down squeeze packaging that is 'always ready when you are.'"
They follow this with the example of McDonald's.
Please remember that the two examples, Heinz ketchup and McDonald's, appear in a report that was supposed to help the then American administration formulate its foreign policies, including marketing its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Rand Corporation's report and Netanyahu's words are uncannily similar: The combination of burger and ketchup is not a far cry from that of peanut butter and jelly.
It is these resemblances that represent the theater of the absurd rather than the recent resolution. That theater, among whose actors are Netanyahu, the Rand Corporation and company, never fails to cause twitches in people's faces, but it goes further: Its main purpose is to banalize "Others'" lives and suffering and literally damage their faces.
- Professor Mahmoud Zidan lives in Jordan. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Hamas' Abu Obeida: Israel Will 'Pay'


A spokesperson for the Hamas movement's military wing said during a speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Gilad Shalit deal on Tuesday that Israel would be made to release Palestinian prisoners as part of a future deal.
Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said on Tuesday that Israel was "evading paying for a new deal," but that it would "pay," willingly or not, in any new exchange deal.
He added that the world, the Palestinian people, and Palestinian prisoners would be surprised "when the time comes for the Brigades to reveal the entire truth on what the resistance has in store to obtain the freedom of prisoners."
Read More

UNESCO Resolution on Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Death of Shimon Peres - An Interview with Ramzy Baroud

'While the resolution will unlikely alter the nature of the conflict fundamentally, it rejects - legally and morally - all Israeli efforts aimed at denying the rights of Muslims - and Christians - in their city, which they aspire to make their future capital,' said Ramzy Baroud, the editor of Palestine Chronicle.
In an interview with Muslim Press, Dr. Ramzy Baroud discusses Israeli Palestinian conflict and UNESCO's latest resolution that strongly condemn the Israeli regime, as well as Shimon Peres' legacy for the Palestinians.
In what follows, full transcription of the interview has been provided.
Muslim Press: Dr. Ramzy Baroud, What's your take on UNESCO's latest resolution that strongly condemns Israel and its aggression against Palestinians? How would this measure change Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Ramzy Baroud: First, let me clarify some misunderstanding regarding the UNESCO resolution.
The resolution, as Israel and its supporters claim, didn't deny Jewish links to Jerusalem. To the contrary, it emphasized the spiritual and religious important of Jerusalem to the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
What it did, however, is that it emphasized the Muslim Arabic heritage of al-Aqsa Mosque, using the Arabic wording for it - Al-Aqsa Mosque, not the 'Temple Mount' as Jews prefer to call it.
This is important. Why? Because, Israel - the government in Tel Aviv, the municipality of the Israeli occupation in the city itself, and well-funded religious extremist groups - have constantly plotted to achieve the opposite of what UNESCO resolved:
- Deny Muslim worshipers access to their holy sites in Haram al-Sharif compound - which includes, among numerous religious sites, the Dome of the Rock Mosque and al-Aqsa Mosque.
- Facilitate 'visits' for religious Jewish fanatics, joined by armed Israeli army and police forces to the Muslim sites.
- Reject the obvious Muslim connection to that holy place, and emphasize religious myths that propagate the existence of a third Jewish temple under the Mosque; the ultimate objective being to demolish the Mosque and rebuild the alleged temple.
- Continue to dig under al-Haram and other parts of historic Jerusalem in search for any evidence that supports the 'Third Temple' claims.
Hundreds of Muslims were killed while trying to defend the mosque over the years, and al-Aqsa in particular has become a symbol of Palestinian Resistance.
The UNESCO resolution - which also insists on the illegality of the Israeli occupation and annexation of Arab East Jerusalem - was a blow to Israeli efforts aimed at the complete judaization of the Palestinian city.
While the resolution will unlikely alter the nature of the conflict fundamentally, it rejects - legally and morally - all Israeli efforts aimed at denying the rights of Muslims - and Christians - in their city, which they aspire to make their future capital.
Read more...
Name | Company | Phone | Email | Website
STAY CONNECTED:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
The Palestine Chronicle, PO Box 196, Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
Sent by info@palestinechronicle.com in collaboration with
Constant Contact

No comments:

Post a Comment