/foreigners

The 67th anniversary of the Nakba: Israel created a Jewish state and my grandmother was made homeless.
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/the_67th_anniversary_of_the_nakba_israel_created_a_jewish_state_and_my_grandm

"In 1948 Zionist militias depopulated and destroyed more than 530 Palestinian towns and villages. An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes, and many who were unable to flee were massacred. By the end of July 1948 hundreds of thousands of  Jewish immigrants from outside #palestine, many of whom were survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, had been housed in homes formerly belonging to Palestinian families like my grandmother’s. In December, the new Israeli state implemented a series of laws commonly referred to as the Absentees’ Property Law. These laws created a legal definition for non-Jews who, like my grandmother, had left or been forced to flee from Palestine. The laws allowed the newly created Israeli state to confiscate 2 million dunams (about 500,000 acres) of (...)

#israël

Je crois qu’on devrait toujours parler à un journaliste de la même façon que Seymour Hersh répond au téléphone… Seymour Hersh interview: On his Bin Laden story, the New Yorker, journalism, and his own bad mood.
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/05/seymour_hersh_interview_on_his_bin_laden_story_the_new_yorker_journalism.sing

Chotiner: If people here are turning down stories because of certain politics—you yourself said it was easier in Europe—that is a story that should be written.

Hersh: Now you said the first intelligent thing you have said. If you had asked whether he didn’t run this because he is in love with Obama and all that stuff that people think, no … It is a very good question. Although we have huge disagreements. My children and I have huge disagreements. I have a huge disagreement with my dog. We have a lot of disagreements and there are times when he will call me and I will not answer the call. Oh fuck hold on. He always has said to me he welcomes any information and it was I who said fuck it.

Chotiner: OK but you have talked about the New Yorker’s Americana and said my question was a good one, so is there something to it?

Hersh: I think it is a great question.

Little room for wartime dissent in Israeli media | Middle East | DW.DE | 21.07.2014
▻http://www.dw.de/little-room-for-wartime-dissent-in-israeli-media/a-17798805

It’s tough going in the Israeli media for those opposed to the offensive in the #Gaza Strip. They can generally get just one sentence out before being interrupted - often quite rudely. The interruptions don’t just come from co-panelists, but also from the anchors themselves. It’s become a frequent pattern recently.
That pattern was on display as a journalist and a radio presenter sat in a TV studio next to Yehuda Shaul from Breaking The Silence, a group of former soldiers who are against the Israeli occupation. Shaul was announcing a demonstration against the military offensive before being shouted down. “You are a Jew and should be ashamed. You should put on a uniform and go to the Gaza Strip instead of sitting in TV studios to organize demonstrations,” fumed radio presenter Sharon Gal.

Atef Abu Saif on life amid the bombing of #Gaza: Israel’s missiles are erasing lives in an instant.
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/07/atef_abu_saif_on_life_amid_the_bombing_of_gaza_israel_s_missiles_are_erasing.

Monday night was a terrible chapter in the history of Gaza—especially for the eastern part of Beit Hanoun. Tanks moved in from the border toward the residential areas, destroying everything in their paths, erasing every building, every school, every orchard. You do not know whether the next shell will fall on your head. When you will be reduced to another number in the news. You think about what it means to disappear from the world, to evaporate like a drop of water, leaving no sign of your existence, and the thought drives you mad.

#folie

Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s Sinai campaign: Egypt’s military is targeting civilians and militants in a brutal crackdown.

▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/10/abdel_fattah_al_sisi_s_sinai_campaign_egypt_s_military_is_targeting_civilians

NORTH SINAI, Egypt—The black, charcoaled remains of a cow’s dead body lies in a sandy field behind a shelled-out mansion. Washed-out blood stains the walls of an unpainted grey room where sons say their 80-year-old mother was killed by army tank fire. Bullet holes pockmark the house. A 9-year-old girl’s cheek is marked by a pink incision where a rock hit her face as her home was strafed by helicopter fire. A child’s sandal and burned Quran were among the rubble of a mosque that locals say was destroyed by ground and air military troops. I watched as an IED exploded under an armored personnel carrier as it turned a corner. Black smoke filled the air, and an olive tree was uprooted. Later, two soldiers were reported injured.

These are some of the casualties of the Egyptian army’s war on “terrorists” in the villages and towns that dot the north of the Sinai Peninsula close to the borders of Gaza and Israel.

In September, the military stepped up a two-month campaign to rid the area of militants by “taking action against terrorists, instead of merely reacting to terrorist attacks,” said army spokesman Ahmed Ali.

Egyptian security forces have been coming under increased attack after army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ousted President Mohamed Morsi in early July. Al-Qaida-inspired militants in Sinai have killed more than 100 members of the security forces since then, according to the Egyptian military.

United Nations caused #cholera outbreak in #Haiti: Its response violates international law. - Slate Magazine
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/0
/united_nations_caused_cholera_outbreak_in_haiti_its_response_violates_international.html?wpisrc=flyouts

Last week, a team of researchers (including myself) from the Transnational Development Clinic at Yale Law School and the Global Health Justice Partnership between the law school and Yale School of Public Health published a report concluding not only that the U.N. brought cholera to Haiti, but that by failing to take responsibility for its role in the outbreak, the United Nations violates both its contractual commitments to Haiti as well as its obligations under international law.

However, even in the face of irrefutable evidence, the U.N. continues to deny its role. Previously, the organization rejected claims for relief from more than 5,000 cholera victims, simply declaring that the claims were “not receivable.” This week, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky responded to renewed calls for accountability by asking the international community to donate money to help Haiti recover from the “double tragedy of earthquake and cholera” while saying nothing about the part the U.N. played in visiting this tragedy upon the country in the first place.

This response is shameful. The cholera epidemic is undoubtedly a tragedy of massive proportions. But by painting the earthquake and the epidemic with the same brushstroke, the U.N. plays into a dangerous conception of Haiti as pathology: a country that brings disease upon itself. This rhetoric is rooted in notions of disaster’s inevitability in Haiti, as though the cholera epidemic is just another manifestation of the ancient curse that has purportedly gripped the country since the days of Toussaint L’Ouverture.

#ONU #santé