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Resources
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Immigration rights/May 1/Day without Mexicans |
Lebanon resources Electronic Lebanon. www.electroniclebanon.net The best email news service I know of on the Middle East is Abunimah's News Service. You can see archives and subscribe to daily emails, consisting of articles from the world press, including US and British, Arab and Israeli newspapers, as well as commentary and analysis from Electronic Intifada, Electronic Iraq and Electronic Lebanon. Ali Abunimah prefaces his list of articles with his own headlines which may anger, amuse or annoy, but which can also be read as a sarcastic and often insighful commentary on media bias. Abunimah is a prominent commentator on the Middle East who has been interviewed on WBEZ, NPR, CNN, and his op-eds have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the NY Times. He debated Yossi Olmert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at SAIC, with a detailed report in May 2003 F Newsmagazine. Some of the more useful alternative political websites have extensive coverage of Lebanon: Z Magazine's ZNet, one of the largest progressive websites, featuring articles by Chomsky and prominent progressive activists, journalists and scholars from the US, Europe and developing world. Democracy Now is my pick for the best alternative news program, with consistent hard-hitting and independent reporting and analysis of issues of interest to activists and progressives. The website features excellent critical reporting on Lebanon, with transcripts of key segments, including recent reporting by Robert Fisk from Beirut and Qana, or Chomsky, or Arab journalists and scholars, and reporting on human rights organizations that doesn't appear in the mainstream media. The official Israeli statements are on the website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A leading Israeli newspaper in English is Haaretz. Their reporting reflects the Israeli consensus supporting an invasion of Lebanon but there are occasional dissents, such as Ze'ev Sternhell's, "The most unsuccessful war," in which he argues that "a campaign of collective punishment that was begun in haste, without proper judgment and on the basis of incorrect assessments, including promises that the army is incapable of fulfilling, turned into a war of life and death, if not some kind of second War of Independence." An even stronger statement is Gideon Levy's "Days of Darkness" (Aug. 5, 2006). It is worth a few minutes to read the responses to the article at the bottom of the web page. Other Israeli media: The Jerusalem Post and Ynetnews.com, featuring articles from Yedioth Ahronoth. The Angry Arab News Service: A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art. The author, As'ad AbuKhalil, a scholar who has written a Historical Dictionary of Lebanon as well as excellent short books on Saudi Arabia and Islam and the war on terror, is Lebanese. His comments are angry, sarcastic, bitter, and sharp argument. He also prints some fine poetry from the Middle East. His lists of the mistakes of US reporters on the Middle East is a good reminder that you can't rely on people who don't know Arabic, haven't lived in the region and immersed themselves in the cultures, and haven't made a serious study of the abundant scholarship on the Middle East available in English. Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion. The blog of Juan Cole, U of Michigan Prof. of History at University of Michigan and an authority on Shi'a religion and politics, has become widely known since 9/11 for his blog. You will find links to news articles often with his comments and background—this blog could, for its excellent background commentary and arguument, as well as all its links to news coverage, be your one source on the War in Iraq. Especially valuable is his summaries of articles from the Arab press. The blog follows the Lebanon war closely. Articles There is so much available now it seems strange to mention a few articles, --but you might find these commentaries and backgrounders useful. Background Five myths that sanction Israel's war crimes Lebanon War Question and Answer, by Stephen R. Shalom. ZNet, 8/7/06. Incisive organization of key facts and quotes around "talking points" such as "Doesn't Israel have the right to defend itself?" Two articles by SAIC philosophy prof. Rajah Halwani: Media critique Hezbollah "Ground to a Halt," by Robert Pape. New York Times op-ed, 8/3/06. Available also through LexisNexis. The author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Bombing argues that as Israel has conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah, "it will learn that ground power won't work either." Israel "misunderstands the nature of the enemy," which is "principaly neither a political party nor an Islamist militia," but "a broad movement." "...in structure and hierarhy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil rights movement of the 1960's." Pape identified 38 of the 41 Hezbollah suicide terrorists since 1982. "Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon." The suicide bombers shared "not a religious or political ideology, but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation." Israel is making Hezbollah stronger and can't defeat it militarily—the only thing that has ever ended suicide attacks has been "withdrawal by the occupying force." Israel must withdraw, end the bombing, take the initiative in diplomacy since ending supplies to Heabollah across the Syrian border is crucial, and the United States could build an ad hoc coalition against Hezbollah made up of Sunni-led nations that want stability in the region. "Israel set war plan more than a year ago: Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon," by Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service. San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, July 21, 2006.Israel's 'New Middle East'" by Tanya Reinhart, Electronic Lebanon, 26 July 2006. Reinhart, author of Israel/Palestine: How to end the 1948 war, explains why Israel invaded Lebanon instead of using diplomacy for the return of its soldiers: "As I argued in Israel/Palestine, already when the Israeli army left southern Lebanon in 2000, the plans to return were ready.[12] But in Israel's military vision, in the next round, the land should be first "cleaned" of its residents, as Israel did when it occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967, and as it is doing now in southern Lebanon. To enable Israel's eventual realization of Ben Gurion's vision, it is necessary to establish a "friendly regime" in Lebanon, one that will collaborate in crushing any resistance. To do this, it is necessary first to destroy the country, as in the U.S. model of Iraq. These were precisely Sharon's declared aims in the first Lebanon war. Israel and the U.S. believe that now conditions have ripened enough that these aims can finally be realized." Uri Avnery, "America's Rottweiler." Gush Shalom, 8/26/06. The Lebanon war in historical context by a peace activist, journalist, former Knesset member, and, once, member of the Irgun. His take on history, on Israel's ultimate objectives in the region is provocative and powerfully expressed. "Our Zionist Fathers" had the choice of entering the Middle East either as the European conqueror, "a bridge-head of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives'," as the Crusaders; or as "an Asian nation returning to its home - a nation that sees itself as an heir to the political and cultural heritage of the Semitic race, and which is prepared to join the peoples of the Semitic region in their war of liberation from European exploitation." Avnery places his argument in the context of the "clash of civilizations," US preparations for war against Iran, and the global competition for oil, concluding that Israel's interests lies with allince with Arab and Muslim neighbors, not as the Rottweiler for US interests. US role FPIF Commentary: Who's Arming Israel? By Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 26, 2006. Details US military aid, over $17 billion over the past decade. Chomsky
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