George Salzman

Straight talk 2, with Shamir and others

by George Salzman

The e-mails have been coming in like crazy -- I haven't even been able to sort them, let alone respond and prepare this follow-up post. But it's clear there's lots of interest. Many people who want to fix the world. And who are fed up with all the lying and cover-up efforts of the Israeli and U.S. governments. Not to speak of other governments and of course of so-called 'international organizations', like the United Nations, which was set up to be dominated by the 'big powers'.

On 8 June 1967, the USS Liberty, a high tech spy ship, was attacked and almost sunk by the Israeli air force. It was during the Six-Day War that Israel planned and was executing against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War]. Israel's pretext for war was Egyptian president Nasser's closing of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. The Liberty was monitoring the conflict.

Straight talk with Israel Shamir

Some things can't be fixed. Here in Oaxaca there are endless demands for 'justice' for people who we all know have been disappeared by government thugs, undoubtedly killed, most likely after having been brutally, excruciatingly tortured. Such victims are beyond justice. All we can do is try to prevent the continuation of such inhumane actions. This frightful photo is from an article by Nidal Sakr. It should be unthinkable that other human beings -- and they are always 'other', not infrequently with darker skins -- are starved, if not to death to a state of severely stunted development, prevented, at the least, from ever experiencing a healthy existence.

by George Salzman

A few weeks ago I'd never heard of Israel Shamir. Somehow or other his name came up, prompting a Google search. It quickly became clear that he was reviled by some of the most despicable of Israel's apologists. Which whetted my interest in learning more about him. So I wrote a letter, the first one, which follows the figure caption, on 24 May 2009. Much to my surprise, and pleasure, Shamir wrote back the same day (the 25th in Israel-Palestine), and so our exchange was under way.

Weavers of the fabric of truth

Dahr Jamail, John Pilger, Mohammed Omer

by George Salzman 

Telling the truth has always involved some risk. At the least, friends might be offended. At worst, as is ongoing now for some years here in Mexico, reporters have clearly been assassinated because they have told truths that expose terrible acts by powerful people.

Dahr Jamail (left) and Mohammed Omer (right), co-recipients of the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for journalism, being congratulated by John Pilger (center), a member of the Martha Gellhorn Prize judges panel, at the award ceremonies in London, 16 June 2008. The photo, by Paul de Rooij, is from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which gives a brief account of Omer's harrowing treatment by the Israeli Shin Bet agents as he was returning to his home in Rafah, in Gaza. A more detailed, extensive account of this ghoulish incident, by John Pilger is in The Guardian of 2 July 2008.

Zionist censorship at colleges and universities

U of Ottawa, Canada; U of Cal at Santa Barbara; De Paul Univ, Chicago; Bard College, NY State; Clark U, Worcester, Mass

by George Salzman

I first became 'actively aware' of the strenuous effort of Zionist groups in North America to suppress open public discussion of Israeli policy in universities about two years ago from an email sent by a friend in Egypt. That involved a campaign which successfully prevented Norman G. Finkelstein from gaining his well-deserved tenure at De Paul University in Chicago.[1]

Since then there has been no shortage of attacks on uncensored discussion in Canadian and U.S. colleges and universities. A particularly fierce instance of this widespread drive is the recent firing of a long-time tenured physics professor by the University of Ottawa.

Israeli Zionist Nazi Culture

A report from Rabbis for Human Rights

by George Salzman

Noga Eitan is a spokeswoman for the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights. She wrote about the conversation she heard between soldiers on a train in Israel the evening before the start of the Jewish high holidays, the days of Passover (seven in Israel, eight in the Diaspora). The executive director of the group, Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman, says in his introductory statement on the conversation Noga reports, “It is not quite as awful as the ‘disproved’ incidents alleged by the soldiers from the Rabin Academy, but awful enough”.[1] His introductory comments, which I omit, are of course within the framwork of his overall religious outlook. He is well-intentioned, a good person, a humane Zionist who so far as I can tell has not resolved in his mind the fundamental contradictions at the base of the Zionist conquest of the Palestinians. All religions, regardless of their particular dogma, always muddle what ought to be clear, critical thinking. A real intellectual curse.

On being human

Inspired by David Shulman

by George Salzman

I'm interrupting myself, temporarily setting aside my rereading of the terrifying chapter in Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization [1] in which he writes about the unbelievable atrocities against Algerians carried out by Algerians 'in the name of God'. It's a mammoth chapter (pp. 631-719) that horrified me some years ago when I first read it, because of the supposedly 'principled' killing of children. I love children. To me they are sacred, all of them, regardless of the ethnicities and nationalities that society forces on them. This note is different from my usual stuff -- nothing about capitalism, socialism, competition, greed -- just about love, real love. I'm reprinting an essay from a man I'd never heard of until a few days ago, David Shulman. When I read his essay, it recalled to me the almost final words of the great writer and human being, Bruno Traven, who, three weeks before his death forty years ago, in 1969, wrote:[2] 

This world, with all its troubles, shortcomings, disappointments, pains, problems, unwelcome events, occasional hailstorms is after all, still too beautiful to abandon even if you are sick, tired of life or close to a hopeless end. Stick it out. Keep on fighting, don't give up. Spit Death in its face and turn the other way. The sun is still in the sky surrounded by stars.[3]

Doing away with the Zionist state of Israel, an earned fate

by George Salzman

In writing the short piece that follows I hold no illusions that we, the millions, perhaps even billions, of ordinary people who are aghast at the demonstration of Israeli brutality towards Palestinians can do anything that will be immediately effective in halting the Israeli nation-state's ongoing conquest of the Palestinians under its control, a conquest fully supported by the U.S. and its craven ‘allies’. But in the long term I believe there is solid reason to be hopeful we can make a good world for all peoples. 

This iconic photograph is part of a powerful open letter ‘to the Jews’ that Khalid Amyreh wrote on 10 March 2008. Mr. Amyreh is a journalist I have come to trust, who writes about the harsh reality he is experiencing in Israel’s colonized territory.

An open letter to Mazin Qumsiyeh

by George Salzman

Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian American medical researcher born on the outskirts of Bethlehem. He was Assoc. Prof of Genetics at Duke Univ. and Yale Univ., is now Biology Prof at Bethlehem Univ. An active, passionate advocate of non-violence in the struggle for human rights, his effectiveness in efforts for the Palestinians is testified to by the scurrilous attempts to defame him mounted by misguided Jewish organizations. Info about him is in "The Cucumber and the Cactus", at

http://qumsiyeh.org/thecucumberandthecactus/.

 

Dear Mazin,

Today is 11 January, 15 days since the aerial bombing of Gaza began and the 8th day since Israeli ground troops attacked in a massive invasion. I am adding to my open letter an ‘iconic photograph ' used by Khalid Amayreh in an article.

Murdering children is unforgivable

by G.S. <george.salzman@umb.edu> 29 April 2008 to 13 June 2008 this page is at http://www.georgesalzman.org/1-2008-06-murdering-children-is- unforgivble.html on this 'new' website it is also at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/S2/2008-06-13.htm on the 'old' website in an 'old-fashioned' format Wading in the blood of Armageddon       Murdering children – in fact murdering anyone, but especially children – is equally unacceptable to me whether done by German Nazis of the Third Reich, by Palestinian ‘Freedom Fighters’, or by Jewish Nazis of the Israeli military or murderous Israeli fanatical settlers. One simply does not kill children if one is to be a humane being. The Jewish murderers are the product of Zionist ideology which appears to be overwhelmingly dominant in Israel. It is a deadly ideology that may well lead to the obliteration of Jewish people and of millions of others in the course of history.[1]

The source of threats to us all

Power, money and lying in the era of information  [NOTE: This is an earlier, somewhat shorter paper than my “Murderingchildren is unforgivable” at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/ salzman_g/S2/2008-06-13.htm. I think most if not all of it is included in the longer, later essay.] by G.S. <george.salzman@umb.edu>, 29 April 2008 this page is also at http://sit e.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/S2/2008-04-29.htm on the 'old' website in an 'old-fashioned' format Wading in the blood of Armageddon