128. The Great Book Robbery - Witness - Al Jazeera English

The Great Book Robbery - Witness - Al Jazeera English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Promise (2011 TV serial)

Also: Gilad Atzmon author of the 'Wondering who?' :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bq6qsZ1poAI   

Interview with Norman Finkelstein:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TdKStHuOrZs

Contributed by two followers

127. THE PROMISE

A quite recent British TV drama series called "The Promise" was recently screened on TV in Britain, Australia, Canada, Scandinavia and Brazil (and on an online TV service in the US) - ....and in some cinemas in Israel.
It is about a young English woman travelling to Israel to-day, learning the real situation, and reading in her grandfather's diary (portrayed in flashbacks) how he served with the British army in Palestine during the Mandate period in the years up to the founding of Israel and how he becomes disgusted with the Zionist terrorism and mistreatment of Arabs. He then does his best to aid the Palestinians and witnesses the massacre at Deir Yassin. The young women ends up meeting the ancestors of the Arabs her grandfather tries to help.
Some leading British acting and writing talent involved such as Claire Foy (one of Britain's best young actresses of stage and screen) who described it as the most rewarding work she's ever done. She doesn't care about hostile reactions the series and her participation has attracted and is openly sympathetic with the Palestinian plight and is to be admired for that.
It was initially to be a BBC project but they chickened out and luckily Channel 4 in the UK took over with a French co-producer. It was filmed on location in Israel (without the authorities knowing what it was about probably!)
The film has predictably severely criticized as bias and anti-Israel/anti- Jewish etc by Jewish groups who laid official complaints in countries where it's screened.
"The Promise" can be watched on Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/yoahmed400/videos   or
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkUTxtwgNQ .                                                                       Interview with lead actor Claire Foy :                                                  http://bips.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/articles/all/interview-Claire-foy
Contributed by two followers.

126. ISRAEL'S HYPE ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR BOMB EMPTY

Netanyahu's hue and cry about Iran seeking to build nuclear weapons is hollow, according to Gary Sick, who served on the US National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.  More than 20 years ago already, Mr. Netanyahu informed us that, unless someone intervened, Iran would have a nuclear weapon within five years. Almost every year since we were assured that Iran would have the 'bomb' within three to five years, sometimes less, unless Iran "were forced to stop". However Israel's nuclear weapons program yielded nuclear bombs in absolute secrecy in only a few years. The Israeli nuclear weapons program was subsequently followed by South Africa, India and even poor Pakistan with virtually no industrial base and more recently North Korea.  Yet Iran which is endowed with a robust industrial base, exceptional engineering universities and a well educated population....has been unable to build a nuclear bomb within those 20 years ?
It is also worth mentioning that all US intelligence services have confirmed that Iran does not intend to build nuclear weapons. In 2007, a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) verified Iran was not after nuclear arms. The report, prepared by 16 US intelligence agencies, confirmed with "high confidence" the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. A similar report was published in 2011.
21 July 2013

 

125. PROPOSED GCSB BILL

An overwhelming majority last Friday (12/07/13) on the Cambelllive survey voted 'NO' on the proposed GCSB bill and gives us some indication what the overall opinion is amongst the public. In a democratic society a government takes notice of the will of the people it represents. In this case the government has clearly no mandate whatsoever for this bill. The bill, if accepted will eventually have fundamental ramifications, as rightly feared by human rights organisations and others. This bill is a dangerous retrograde step designed to bring us in line with the US and may eventually bring us down on a slippery slope into the abyss of the totalitarian police state. The disingenuous argument that  'as long as you are a law abiding citizen going about your daily business' is sheer bogus, as future governments by introducing new laws can easily shift the goalposts. To-day's activist or protester may then well be dubbed a 'terrorist' to-morrow. You'd better be warned !
(posted 14 July '13 rejected by the Press editor(s)

124. WORRYING TRENDS

During the recent inquiry into the Dotcom saga, PM John Key accused Dotcom of being a 'conspiracy theorist'. Such empty remarks are nothing new. The PM knows very well that the world of politics is full of conspiracies, as the 'Wikileaks' revelations and more recently the NSA surveillance on private citizens have so clearly brought to light. Also New Zealand was specifically mentioned in this respect, together with the US, Canada, UK and Australia. It is however no coincidence that these inroads on civil liberties go hand in hand with a simultaneously further radicalisation of our society effecting freedom of expression and debate on ground breaking events with far reaching consequences to all of us. The discerning reader cannot miss as far as our local Press is concerned that by far most articles on world affairs emanate from a few single sources and mainly from Murdoch's 'the Times'. The news paper industry in contemporary society has a purely political role to play by shaping public opinion and manufacturing consent. In the absence of any explanation, openness and transparency one can safely assume this to be the truth. John Cambell last night on TV3 'Cambelllife' is to congratulated on his attempts to highlight to some extent these worrying developments.
(submitted 11/07/13 rejected by the Press)

123 PRESS APPLYING DOUBLE STANDARDS IN REPORTING

Last Monday 1 July, 2013 a guest speaker form GAZA, by the name of Yusef Aljamal held a talk in the WEA in Christchurch for a packed audience. His talk was mainly about conditions in GAZA and his family's experiences over the years in the Israeli besieged enclave. I did notify The Press (one of the main local news papers in NZ) and asked for a reporter to attend the meeting. The meeting as well as the request (to send a reporter) were completely ignored. A similar thing happened a number of years ago when the Jewish Australian journalist and author of the book 'My Israel Question' delivered a talk on his book. Although the reporter rang me on that occasion and inquired about the venue, he never turned up. It's obvious that his boss had forbidden him to report on it. However, not long ago an Israeli women by the name of Eva Lavi delivered a series of talks on the Holocaust to a number of Christchurch schools. The Press devoted a full article on it. It is not very difficult from all this to guess where the sympathies of the Press lie, but at least The Press owes its readers an explanation. 'Nihil Utile Quod Non Honestum' has become an empty, out of date phrase, no longer relevant in to-day's politically selective reporting. I'll be genuinely surprised if this letter will find its way to the letter pages. I don't think so, but I'll give it a go anyway.
6th July 2013 rejected
 

122 FALSE ACCUSATIONS

The US accusations of the Syrian government using chemical weapons is simply a pretext - similar as we have seen before in Iraq at the time - to intervene in that war and incidentally comes at a time that Syrian government forces are gaining the upper hand. The accusation obviously emanates from growing frustrations by the US and its European allies over the failure of rebel forces to make any headway. There never has been any credible evidence of the Syrian army using chemical weapons and all these convoluted statements to that effect in past rather show the fraudulent character of these accusations that make no sense at all. There also have been accusations of rebels using chemical weapons and the small scale on which they are used make it more likely that they could well have been staged attacks by rebels or other outside proxies to invites intervention by western forces eager to perpetuate and widen the war into a sectarian conflict causing even more civilian casualties. The motives underlying and intervention have nothing to do with the qualms about chemical weapons, but rather concern definite geostrategic interests in which human life is subordinate.
15th June 2013

121 "HATE MUST BE STOPPED"

Reply to Lorne Kuehn (Weekend Press 25/05)
Come on Mr. Kuehn what do you expect ? The question how populations can be protected from excessive violence of the types recently displayed in London and Boston is not so difficult to answer. Stop all wars that we have not only brought onto ourselves, but also exacerbated by financing and arming Islamic rebels affiliated to al Qaida, currently in Syria and in the past also in Afghanistan including the Taliban during the Soviet occupation ! Judging from recent utterings from President Obama that it is time to "end the war on terror", the President apparently is also - hopefully - beginning to realize that the incessant indiscriminate killings of innocent men, women and children in Islamic countries is counter productive, invoking and fuelling hatred towards the west. It was reported quite recently that two US drone 'pilots' quit their jobs after watching on their screens the gruesome mutilated images of women and children in Yemen and Afghanistan. Mr. Kuehn should read Michael Chossudovski "America's War on Terror", a book that makes quite compelling reading.
(rejected)121