Paul D’Amato: The tale of two apartheids

January 30, 2009Leave a comment

Israeli leaders are usually loath to admit that Israel is an apartheid-style state. Yet there have been moments of candor.

‘Israel and [Apartheid] South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.’

29 January, 2009

IN APRIL 1976, John Vorster, president of the then-racist apartheid regime of South Africa, paid an official state visit to Israel, where he was given the red-carpet treatment.

Israeli television showed him on his first day, visiting the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. At an official state banquet held for Vorster, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin toasted the ‘ideals shared by Israel and South Africa.’

Continue reading →

Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement By Uri Blau

January 30, 2009Leave a comment

Just four years ago, the defense establishment decided to carry out a seemingly elementary task: establish a comprehensive database on the settlements. Brigadier General (res.) Baruch Spiegel, aide to then defense minister Shaul Mofaz, was put in charge of the project. For over two years, Spiegel and his staff, who all signed a special confidentiality agreement, went about systematically collecting data, primarily from the Civil Administration.

One of the main reasons for this effort was the need to have credible and accessible information at the ready to contend with legal actions brought by Palestinian residents, human rights organizations and leftist movements challenging the legality of construction in the settlements and the use of private lands to establish or expand them. The painstakingly amassed data was labeled political dynamite.

Continue reading →

Higher Ground By William Bowles

January 30, 20093 Comments

30 January 2009

I am a third generation lefty, my parents and grandparents on both sides were lefties of one flavour or another, but I think I am the first one to actually write pretty much full time about events from left field.

Throughout my three-score and some on this planet it’s gone from bad to better to worse to downright disastrous, the process propelled by the insane ‘logic’ of capital.

Trying to chart the ebb and flow of it all is not easy, it’s complex and contradictory, just as we human beings are and sometimes I just get sick and tired of the whole damn thing and wonder why I even bother. There’s no money it, exposure to an awful lot of grief, misery and injustice that I have absolutely no control over, so why do it?

Continue reading →