The music of Tariq Shadid, a Palestinian surgeon, who goes by the nom de web of Doc Jazz, is quite varied.  A self-taught musician, his unique take on aspects of the Palestinian diaspora is gaining traction on the web, and in the Low Countries.  Although recently primarily based in the Netherlands, Doc Jazz has worked in the Gulf States, and was in the USA this fall, performing benefits.  Here is what Doc Jazz wrote about a benefit in Anaheim on October 18, 2012, for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund:

I ended this sweet little concert with the song I had written especially for PCRF’s amazing efforts: ‘Healing Hands.’ By then, it was time to move on with the other parts of the program, most importantly the reason for holding this annual gala: to raise funds for providing medical treatment for the children of Palestine.

While the impressive efforts of PCRF’s medical projects were being shown on slideshows on two large screens, the generous crowd started making its donations. I was extremely impressed to hear that when it was all over, more than a hundred thousand dollars had been raised, with expectations being expressed of reaching almost double that amount at the closing of the fundraiser.

Knowing that PCRF translates all these finances into direct medical assistance to Palestinian children, was absolutely humbling. I know that words are of enormous importance, in creating awareness for the injustice that befalls these children, but you can’t help but feel forced into a modest attitude when you see the direct relief resulting from real-life medical and surgical treatment of Palestinian children in need.

In an interview by activist author, organizer and blogger, Heather Wokusch, Doc Jazz described his musical beginnings and impetus:

Next to my full-time job as a surgeon, I devoted the larger part of my spare time to supporting the Palestinian cause in any legal way I could think of. I started writing articles for the Palestine Chronicle in 2001, the same year in which I started a website called the ‘Musical Intifadah’. Being a self-taught hobbyist musician, I wrote and recorded, in my home-studio, songs about the Palestinian situation, and published them online, and made an online collection of songs, also by other artists, about Palestine. At that time, I did not believe that speaking up for the Palestinian cause was a feasible or useful thing to do in the Netherlands, so I saw the internet as a useful means to reach out on a more global level. However, then Gretta Duisenberg, wife of the then president of the European Central Bank, did a very courageous thing here. She hung a Palestinian flag from her balcony for several weeks, which caused a small international row, so I started believing there was yet hope for the Dutch situation. I wrote a song about her brave deed in Dutch (my first song in Dutch ever), which brought me into contact with her. When I joined her on her delegation to Palestine, a visit that was followed by the Dutch media on a day-to-day basis, it threw me right in the middle of the Dutch discourse on matters of the Middle East.

Dr. Shadid goes on to describe the role of artists, particularly protest artists, in this discourse:

The interesting thing we see in our modern societies, is that the corporations that finance (control) the media and entertainment business are very aware of the importance of artistic expression. They are always sure to propel their own symbolisms and stereotypes into the minds of people, whenever they get a chance to. Hollywood is one of the best examples of this, and who can deny its world-wide influence?  On the opposition side however, the disagreeing side, you find that many people lose themselves in angry discourse, and make themselves victims in the discussion, by falling into the defensive position. I believe art is one of the ways to reverse this dynamic, since art makes a statement that can not easily be responded to by verbal discourse. If those who are unhappy about the statement in your art try to attack it with their rhetoric, they often unwillingly aid in enlarging the message it is sending out. This way, I believe, art can be more powerful for a cause than any intellectual form of expression, be it a speech or an article. Nevertheless, I have noticed that people who propagate human rights causes often underestimate this effect, and don’t utilize it enough. They should support the efforts of artists who engage in ‘Creative Resistance’, more than they already do. [emphasis added]

From my own experience, I couldn’t agree more.  Doc Jazz’s concern expressed above about “speaking up for the Palestinian cause [being] a feasible or useful thing to do in the Netherlands,” came to my mind this morning, reading this (retweeted by Doc Jazz):

On the night a ceasefire came into effect ending eight days of Israeli slaughter that left 162 people, the vast majority unarmed civilians, dead in Gaza, Dutch columnist and author Leon de Winter proposed adding chemicals to Gaza’s water supply to sterilize the population.

The website PowNed reported that de Winter “made his proposal for forced eugenics yesterday evening in Amsterdam at a solidarity meeting of Dutch Jews,” and that the speech by de Winter was broadcast this morning by Dutch mainstream and publicly-funded Radio 1.

Troubling, but even more troubling:

de Winter responded in his speech to the accusations of genocide leveled against Israel, saying that the population of Gaza had only increased over the last few years. “Maybe we should secretly add some means of birth control to Gaza’s drinking water,” De Winter proceeded to propose.

The suggestion was met with roaring laughter by the public. Among the participants that evening were the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Hiam Devon, and the cheerful leader of the [religious ultra-conservative] SGP party, Kees van der Staaij. [emphasis added]

So, as the Israeli war crimes in Gaza were winding down, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands was attending a RWNJ (right-wing nut job) event in the Netherlands, recommending another war crime – genocide!  Why am I not surprised.  Hopefully, somebody will write a song about this.

Here are two performances by Doc Jazz.
Read the rest of this entry →

I.  As the civilian death toll in Gaza mushroomed Sunday, the son of long comatose Ariel Sharon invoked mushroom clouds, in a stark metaphor of eliminationism toward the people of Gaza:

The son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on Israel to escalate its current military assault and “flatten all of Gaza”.

In an inflammatory op-ed article for The Jerusalem Post,  Gilad Sharon dismisses any concern over the deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians as a result.

“The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas,” he writes.

“We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.”

Sharon was far from alone.  A line was crossed Saturday when Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai called for a Holocaust against Palestinians:

“The more qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” he said.

Anonymous has been claiming since shortly after the November 6th election that they foiled a nefarious plot by Karl Rove to steal enough of the electronic vote in key swing states to have given the presidency to George Mitt Romney.

Before the election, Anonymous warned Rove’s people:

After the election, they claim that they did act:

We began following the digital traffic of one Karl Rove, a disrespecter of the Rule of Law, knowing that he claimed to be Kingmaker while grifting vast wealth from barons who gladly handed him gold to anoint another king while looking the other way.

After a rather short time, we identified the digital structure of Karl’s operation and even that of his ORCA. This was an easy task in that barn doors were left open and his wind swept us inside.

We coded and created, what we call The Great Oz. A targeted password protected firewall that we tested and refined over the past weeks. We placed this code on more than one of the digital tunnels and their destination that Karl’s not so smart worker bees planned to use on election night. We noticed that these tunnels were strategically placed to allow tunnel rats to race to the server sewers from three different states.  Ah yes, Karl tried to make it look like there were more than three but we quickly saw the folly of his ploy.

We watched as Karl’s weak corrupters repeatedly tried to penetrate The Great Oz.  These children of his were at a loss-how many times and how many passwords did they try-exactly 105.

There have been several articles on the web about Anonymous’s claim.  I am not claiming that they actually did what they purport to having done.  However, Friday, I watched as Anonymous claimed to be bringing down one key Israeli web site after another.  Checking their work as it was announced and described on twitter, they appeared to be doing what they claimed:

As the conflict in Gaza escalated this week, hacker group Anonymous launched a series of attacks on websites owned by the Israeli military, government and other institutions within Israel.

Dubbed “OpIsrael,” the mass disruption began early Thursday with hundreds of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, in which websites are flooded with traffic until they crash.

Since then, the scope of attacks has widened to include the deletion of government and financial databases, and the posting of more than 2,000 email addresses and passwords from an Israeli real estate website.

A series of tweets from @YourAnonNews, a Twitter account associated with the hacktivist group, claimed that databases belonging to Bank Jerusalem and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been deleted.

Late Saturday, Anonymous appears to have upped the ante by posting this video:

I wrote earlier in the week about how the intensity of the cyber war aspects of the widening Gaza campaign appear to be a new element.  The implications of what this anonymous worldwide campaign against a state war machine may imply are somewhat stunning, especially if they can actually influence how the campaign develops in any meaningful way.  If Anonymous, in a matter of weeks, can change the outcome of the American presidential election and influence the conduct of a war a third of the way around the world, we are indeed in a new world.

Israel Defense Forces in Staging Areas Around Gaza

As the Israeli state mobilizes 75,000 reservists, that country’s active military units are building staging areas quite close to their Sinai border with Egypt.

Early Saturday Joseph Dana tweeted:

The south of Israel is transforming from civilian areas in a sea of military bases to one large military base.

This must concern the Egyptian government, which, by its peace treaty with Israel, is limited to what kinds or quality of military forces it can station in the Sinai peninsula of its own country.  The Egyptian Sinai is 23,000 square miles. Israel is somewhere between 8,019 and 8,522 sq miles.

Friday, the new prime minister of Egypt, Hashim Kandil, visited Gaza, meeting with Hamas leaders:

Anyone hoping that Friday morning’s visit to Gaza City by Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil might ease the growing conflict between Israel and Hamas was sorely disappointed. In a brief two-hour trip, Kandil made no public mention of a cease-fire or ending the violence that has so far killed 23 people on both sides. Instead, he said Egypt’s loyalty rested squarely with Gaza’s people.

“The cause of Palestinians is the cause of all Arabs and Muslims,”’ he said during a visit to Shifa Hospital. “Palestinians are heroes.”

His presence failed to bring even a temporary lull in the fighting. Though Israel had agreed to halt airstrikes during the visit if militants also held their fire, rockets from Gaza struck Israeli towns almost as soon as Kandil arrived.

After PM Kandil left Gaza, the Israeli air force blew up the place where the head of the Egyptian government had just been:

Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas headquarters before dawn on Saturday, including the office of Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, as conflict in the region entered its fourth day.

As Israeli mobilization infrastructure grows along the Egyptian-Israeli border, Kandil will be tested by his constituency on how to respond to a military buildup along a vulnerable border that has been violated before.

The Gaza operation seems to me to be a 2013 election campaign ploy by Netanyahu and Lieberman that might backfire badly.  The bubble those two guys are trapped inside of keeps them from realizing how much the environment for a gratuitous campaign season war has changed in four years.

Photo by Israel Defense Forces under Creative Commons license.

Photo: Ron Almog / Flickr

The response to the October 5th letter to Congress from fifteen mainline, somewhat liberal, and very large Christian denominations or groups, by various Zionist Jewish organizations, is rapidly escalating into something serious.  In an article at the Jewish Telegraph Agency, posted an hour ago, Ethan Felson,vice president and general counsel of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, appears to be threatening to have Congress investigate the Churches, or the signatories of the letter:

Felson said JCPA is considering as a response asking Congress to investigate delegitimizers of Israel and to issue a resolution against their efforts. He said he has not yet decided if he will attend the roundtable.

“We feel strongly that if you want the parties to reconcile, we should model reconciliation,” Felson said. “But that’s difficult to do when we’re up against this brand of antipathy.”

Suggesting that American Jewish groups could retaliate by advocating against U.S. aid to the Palestinians, Felson said the signers of the letter are “opening up a Pandora’s box.” [emphases added]

In an op-ed, posted an hour ago in the Jerusalem Post, commentator Isi Leibler invokes some pretty serious imagery:

The signatories include leaders of the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and National Council of Churches. Although many of the rank-and-file members of these churches are supporters of Israel and unaware of these activities, their radical anti-Israel leaders were obviously not inhibited from taking such action despite being aware of the role of their churches in demonizing, persecuting and murdering Jews over the past 2,000 years.

One is tempted to suggest that some of the current Lutheran leaders have inherited the anti-Semitic poison of their 16th-century founder, Martin Luther, who after failing to convert the Jews called on his followers to murder these “poisonous envenomed worms” and set fire to their synagogues and schools. [emphasis added]

They have simply redirected his anti-Semitic obsessions toward the Jewish state in lieu of individual Jews.

Leibler is referring to this 1543 pamphlet by Luther:  Von den Juden und ihren Lügen

In the JTA article, there is no reference to this morning’s action by the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (disclaimer – my wife is a member of JVP), in support of the stance of the Christian leaders who wrote to Congress:

Read the rest of this entry →

Back on October 5th, the leaders of several American Christian churches sent a joint letter to Congress [PDF]:

We urge an immediate investigation into possible violations by Israel of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act which respectively prohibit assistance to any country which engages in a consistent pattern of human rights violations and limit the use of U.S. weapons to “internal security” or “legitimate self-defense.”

More broadly, we urge Congress to undertake careful scrutiny to ensure that our aid is not supporting actions by the government of Israel that undermine prospects for peace. We urge Congress to hold hearings to examine Israel’s compliance, and we request regular reporting on compliance and the withholding of military aid for non-compliance.

Here’s the list of signatories:

Rev. Gradye Parsons Stated Clerk of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church (USA)

Mark S. Hanson Presiding Bishop Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Bishop Rosemarie Wenner President, Council of Bishops United Methodist Church

Peg Birk Transitional General Secretary National Council of Churches USA

Shan Cretin General Secretary American Friends Service Committee

J Ron Byler Executive Director Mennonite Central Committee U.S.

Alexander Patico North American Secretary Orthodox Peace Fellowship

Diane Randall Executive Secretary Friends Committee on National Legislation

Dr. A. Roy Medley General Secretary American Baptist Churches, U.S.A.

Rev. Geoffrey A. Black General Minister and President United Church of Christ

Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins General Minister and President Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Rev. Julia Brown Karimu President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Division of Overseas Ministries Co-Executive, Global Ministries (UCC and Disciples)

Rev. Dr. James A. Moos Executive Minister, United Church of Christ, Wider Church Ministries Co-Executive, Global Ministries (UCC and Disciples)

Kathy McKneely Acting Director Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Eli S. McCarthy, PhD Justice and Peace Director Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM)

Some of these religious leaders issued supplementary statements from the offices of their own faith.  The United Church of Christ, representing over a million people, issued a statement:

The UCC has sought to constrain the militarization of the Middle Area after the passage of a 2005 General Synod resolution, said Dr. Peter Makari, area executive to the Middle East and Europe for Global Ministries.

“The UCC has been consistent in its condemnation of violence, regardless of its source,” Makari said.

The UCC joins its ecumenical partners “in expressing the concern that U.S. assistance to Israel has been and remains unconditional, is in violation of U.S. law on foreign assistance, and contributes toward the continuation of a military occupation of Palestinian lands, which is antithetical to efforts to promote peace between the Palestinians and Israelis,” Makari said.

The churches and religious organizations, committed to seeking a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis, also point to what they write is a “troubling and consistent pattern of disregard by the government of Israel for U.S. policies that support a just and lasting peace. Specifically, repeated demands by the U.S. government that Israel halt all settlement activity have been ignored.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, representing over 3.4 million parishioners, issued a long statement regarding the letter to congress, quoting the head of the church,the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop:

“When as Lutherans we say that all the baptized will strive for justice and peace in all the earth, it means that we will be immersed in complex issues. While we do not all agree on the best way to establish justice and bring peace, we will be involved in lively, respectful, passionate conversations,” said Hanson.

“From Palestinian Lutherans, I hear discouragement about the lack of progress and questions about where the voice is of American Christians,” said Hanson. “Our letter seeks to be a partial answer to such questions, that we are clear in our resolve to continue to work for a just and lasting solution for Israelis and Palestinians.”

Together, the signatory churches represent more people than live in Israel of all faiths.  Yet there were almost no news articles about the letter in the American press, outside of some Jewish community news outlets and sites, when the investigation request was sent and announced.  There were a number of them in the Israeli press.

Late this past week, though, the story gained more notice, when Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League protested the letter, and then announced he is pulling out of an upcoming National Council of Churches meeting:

The Anti-Defamation League said Thursday (Oct. 11) it has withdrawn from an Oct. 22 U.S. Jewish-Christian interfaith meeting to protest a letter from some Protestant participants that urged Congress to rethink U.S. funding to Israel.

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said the signatories’ actions — without first informing Jewish groups — have “seriously damaged the foundation for mutual respect” necessary for interfaith dialogue.

Daniel S. Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International, called the letter “a thinly veiled attempt to try to harm Israel, and U.S.-Israel relations.” The Reform movement’s Washington-based Religious Action Center said the letter “mischaracterizes” the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “wrongly holds only Israel accountable” for regional problems “and does not advance the regional and security interests of the U.S.”

Interestingly, J Street, the lobbying group formed in April, 2008, as a liberal alternative to AIPAC (I hosted J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami here at firedoglake in 2011, for a book salon on his work, A New Voice for Israel), has condemned the Christians’ letter:

It was inevitable. Constantly under pressure from the Jewish center-right (Reform rabbis, for instance), J Street has thrown in the towel. Read its document of surrender. 

In response to the letter from Christian denominations urging that aid to Israel be compliant with U.S. law, J Street has joined Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation league and the half-million a year hacks that run the other Jewish organizations to blast the Christians. (See Foxman letter).

J Street agrees with them that aid to Israel is an entitlement. It must never be questioned unless you also add ” criticism of Israel’s behavior with appropriate criticism of, for instance, rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas.” You must also  ”put the present situation into a historical or political context that might provide a fuller appreciation for the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over many decades.”

Each new month brings another Christian group to question what its relationship should be with the increasingly hostile, increasingly racist and overtly apartheid state of Israel.  And increasingly, Jewish groups in America are being asked to be openly critical of  these moves, whether it be this one, or votes to consider divesting from businesses in Israel, or with firms which enable the occupation and colonization of the West Bank.

Rather than inquire as to why these spiritually-founded religious bodies feel impelled to sanction Israel, many Jewish organizations, commentators and public figures are likening these moves to anti-Semitism, which it most certainly is not.  These Jewish protesters seem to fail to understand that these labels, thrown around like they are in such cases, not only will not stick or sting, they will further alienate Christians who are already committed to courses of action they have tied to the doctrines of their beliefs.

Marc Ellis observed the following, while covering the debate during the Presbyterian assembly vote on divestment, last summer:

When it became clear that Israel as a state wasn’t interested in justice for Palestinians and that Jewish leadership in America was only interested in silencing Christian misgivings about Israeli occupation policies, it was only a matter of time before the Jewish-Christian love fest came to an end.

Among the liberal Christian denominations, Christian support for Israel is on life support. The back-up oxygen tanks, already in use, are running empty. There isn’t any way of resurrecting the interfaith ecumenical deal. The “Christians are evil/Jews are innocent” genie is out of the bottle, never to return.

Indeed, it is out of the bottle.  Here is a comment to an article on Foxman’s announcement in Arutz Sheva:

If you really respected the other guy’s faith, you’d be practicing it. Just as is said about gays, you can hate the sin and love the person, there is nothing to love about religions that have persecuted and murdered millions of Jews for the past 2,000 years.

The bottom line is that Christian-Jewish ecumenical relations have entered a new phase over the past two years.  I expect these actions protesting Israeli and American policies will grow more acute, rather than less.

Rachel and the bulldozer, March 16 2003 (photo: Joe Carr / wikimedia)

Photo of Rachel Corrie covered with her flag in a Palestinian morgue, ©pinky_again.

On August 28th, Israeli judge Oded Gorshen will read the verdict in the civil lawsuit brought against the Israeli government for wrongful death, when young Rachel Corrie was killed in Gaza by an Israeli army bulldozer:

The lawsuit, filed in 2005 on behalf of the Corrie family by attorney Hussein abu Hussein, charges the State of Israel with responsibility for Rachel’s killing and failure to conduct a full and credible investigation in the case.

The lawsuit is just a small step in our family’s nearly decade-long search for truth and justice,” said Craig Corrie, Rachel’s father. “The mounting evidence presented before the court underscores a broken system of accountability – tolerated by the United States in spite of its conclusions that Israel’s military investigation was not ‘thorough, credible, or transparent.’”

Yesterday, the American ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, restated a position that the US Government has long held:

Israel’s investigation into the death of American activist Rachel Corrie was not satisfactory, and wasn’t as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told the Corrie family this week.

The U.S. government’s position is not new to the Corries, but their attorneys said that hearing it only a few days before the verdict was “important and encouraging,” because it signals to the Corrie family that the U.S. government will continue to demand a full accounting from Israel about their daughter’s killing, regardless of how Judge Oded Gershon rules.

Throughout the trial, which has lasted about a year and a half, Israeli government witnesses have brought out disturbing aspects of why ambassador Shapiro might be so concerned.  The Israeli government has withheld key video and audio evidence from the operational area at which Corrie was killed.  The coroner assigned by the IDF to perform the autopsy on Corrie’s body turned out to be a character from a panel in a Hieronymus Bosch painting.  All of the non-IDF witnesses clearly testified to what appears to have been gross negligence on the part of the Israeli soldiers and commanders that morning.

Here are the trial archives at the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.  The archives contain most of the important articles and press releases through the course of the trial.

Here’s my diary at MyFiredoglake at the conclusion of trial testimony, which gives a short history of important aspects of the proceeding.

I’m not optimistic about the verdict.  Israel is rapidly descending into a pit of racist hatred, military hubris and religious weirdness that is even worse than what is going on in our own country.

Mass murderer, Anders Breivik, who had already admitted his guilt in the killing of 77 people in Norway last summer, has been convicted and sentenced:

There are many reasons to welcome the verdict in the trial of Anders Behring Breivik: that he is sane and legally responsible for the murder of 77 people – mostly members of the Norwegian Labour party – on 22 July last year.

The guilty verdict recognises the monstrosity of Breivik’s acts, carried out in pursuit of his political beliefs. It also delivers the outcome wanted by the majority of Norwegians, in particular because it means he will spend no fewer than 21 years – and most likely life – in jail. Justice has been done to the fullest extent possible under Norwegian law.

Breivik, who gave strange Nazi-like salutes and smiled a lot today, said in his closing statement that he only wished he had killed more:

In his final words, Breivik regretted not killing more people, apologizing to other “militant nationalists” for not achieving an even higher death toll. He said he wouldn’t appeal the ruling because that would “legitimize” a court he said got its mandate from a political system that supports multiculturalism.

Breivik is a hero to many Islamophobes and white supremacists.  His philosophy, clearly explained in the “sickening but coherent 1,500-page manifesto” he left behind after his arrest, takes its ideas freely, almost wantonly from everyone from right-wing uber Zionists Pamela Geller and Daniel Pipes, to Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell.  His fervent desire to fully restore Western civilization to a mandatory patriarchy might have gotten him a prime time speaking spot at next week’s Republican Convention, were they uttered by a GOP Senator.  His belief that Israel is some sort of utopian ideal, rather than an increasingly mean, apartheid, racist society, is not only common on the far right, but almost as common among Democrats elected to our national Congress in the USA.  Some European Islamaphobes still have trouble distancing themselves from Breivik:

From Europe’s far right, the reaction was mixed. Some argued that Friday’s verdict played into their core beliefs, though they have spoken out against his violent rampage.

“It was obviously wrong what he did, but there was logic to all of it,” said Stephen Lennon, the 29-year-old leader of the English Defense League, an anti-Muslim group. “By saying that he was sane, it gives a certain credibility to what he had been saying. And that is, that Islam is a threat to Europe and to the world.”

To a certain degree, one of the reports issued by the Norwegian court looking into Breivik’s mental state found a bit of insanity in the ideas he adopted, not in Breivik himself:

The main form this depoliticisation took was the medicalisation of Breivik’s actions in terms of psychological or psychiatric pathology. Within days, everyone from forensic psychiatrists to the London mayor, Boris Johnson, felt the need to put Breivik in a diagnostic box. Occasionally, even reportage of his personal history and psychology went to ludicrous extremes to seek his motives in anything but what he actually said. This reached its pinnacle with the first court-ordered psychiatric report, which found him to be suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia” on the basis of clumsy and inappropriate interpretation of ideas and behaviours common in far-right and online gaming subcultures.

Outrage over the findings led the court to take the unusual step of commissioning a second report. This one paid more attention to his political milieu, as well as his behaviour in jail, and found him sane – at most exhibiting signs of a personality disorder. Friday’s verdict confirms this conclusion and denies to Islamophobic ideologues the comfort of a clear line of sanity separating their influence from Breivik’s actions.

There have been many examples of shooters running amok, inspired by their readings of far right fearmongers.  Whether a shooter has been inspired by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes or some other purveyor of racial hatred, the men or women who inspire such lunacy almost always get away with denying linkage, and get to keep on spreading their ferociously malignant ideas.

There was a bit of an exception to that rule today.  One prominent and up-and-coming Islamophobe, Josh Treviño, was fired today by the British news outlet, The Guardian.  Treviño had been hired recently to offset The Guardian‘s hire of columnist Glenn Greenwald.  Several activist writers quickly raised a number of issues about Treviño, most notably Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah.

Treviño is a twitter addict, and had left behind a long history of venom toward Palestinians, Americans who support Palestinian rights, and those who don’t show proper deference to the state of Israel.  Once again, here we have somebody who could easily swap brews with Anders Breivik, or take the podium at the GOP Convention.

Here’s Henry Norr, writing about Treviño for Mondoweiss:

Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada responded with a post reproducing tweets from last summer in which Treviño declared that it would be “cool” with him if the Israelis shot the participants in the 2011 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, then went on to observe that the flotilla was “not morally different from a Nazi convoy”

Not surprisingly, several participants in that flotilla, including me – and, no doubt, scores of other Guardian readers – immediately protested to Janine Gibson, editor in chief of the Guardian US, who was quoted in the press release about her pleasure at bringing Treviño’s “important perspective” to readers. We acknowledged the Guardian’s desire to present diverse points of view, but questioned the choice of someone whose approach to political debate is to call for gunning down those he disagrees with.

More tweets were found, all the way up to Wednesday of this week.  One in particular, offended me, as I’ve covered the story of Rachel Corrie in many ways, and am a close friend of her family.  In the tweet, he gleefully referred to Corrie as a “pancake,” after being killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer.

Josh Treviño is like Anders Breivik, in reveling in violence against innocents who seek justice for people being oppressed.  And, like Breivik, Treviño has seen a bit of justice today.

The Guardian, ostensibly has fired Josh Treviño for violating their code of ethics.  Here is the “joint statement” announcing the columnist’s demise Friday:

Joshua Treviño wrote a piece for the Guardian on February 28, 2011 titled “Peter King has hearings, but is he listening?” The Guardian recently learned that shortly before writing this article the author was a consultant for an agency that had Malaysian business interests and that he ran a website called Malaysia Matters. In keeping with the Guardian’s editorial code this should have been disclosed.

“Under our guidelines, the relationship between Joshua and the agency should have been disclosed before the piece was published in order to give full clarity to our readers,” said Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief, Guardian US.

“I vigorously affirm that nothing unethical was done and I have been open with the Guardian in this matter. Nevertheless, the Guardian’s guidelines are necessarily broad, and I agree that they must be respected as such,” said Joshua Treviño.

We have therefore mutually agreed to go our separate ways and wish each other the best of luck.

It is too bad that he was given this kind of cover, but it is more balls than many of us had thought The Guardian would be able to muster.

There are a lot of gigs out there for people like Josh, most of them very well-paid.  No doubt, he will be offered a new job soon, perhaps writing speeches behind the scenes for Mitt Romney.  Let us hope, though, that somewhere down the line, the hatred in some future essay by  Treviño doesn’t inspire another Anders Breivik.

The last Olympics at which the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics competed under that name was the XXIV Olympiad of 1988, in Seoul, South Korea.  That was also the last Olympics at which the East and West German teams competed separately.

In 1992, 12 of the 15 republics of what was by then the former USSR, competed as the Unified Team of the Commonwealth of Independent States.  The three Baltic Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not join those unified states then, but competed by themselves.

Had the Soviet Union somehow held together until 2012, they would have been the dominant sports power in this competition.  Here is the final medal count for the top three countries, weighted toward favoring gold medals:

USA:    45 Gold – 29 Silver – 29 Bronze — 103 medals
PRC:    38 Gold – 27 Silver – 22 Bronze —   87 medals
UK:      29 Gold – 16 Silver – 19 Bronze —   64 medals

Former republics of the USSR:    47 Gold – 43 Silver – 73 Bronze — 163 medals

Those of us old enough to remember Olympiads back into the 1950s may also remember the intense rivalry between the USA and the USSR, and between East and West Germany, perhaps best exemplified by the hockey semi-final of the 1980 Winter Games, between the USA and USSR, sometimes called “The Miracle on Ice.”

That winter games was the first at which the Peoples Republic of China competed without prejudice in relationship to Taiwan, in terms of full recognition of the PRC as being the real China.

The 1980s saw an intensification of rivalry between the USA and USSR, as the Soviet-Afghan War and deployment of a new generation of medium range ballistic missiles in Europe brought Cold War confrontation to the fore.  The confrontations, especially the instability brought on by mobile IRBMs such as the Pershing II Missile, were very troubling, and nuclear war fears escalated to their highest since the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 20 years earlier.

The Soviet-Afghan War spawned – with U.S. money and weapons - the Mujahideen.  This, in turn, supposedly led to Al Qaeda, and many current problems for the USA.

And now, 20 years after the Seoul Olympics, the most dangerous confrontation which could easily lead to war is the push by the Israelis to attack Iran, so as to keep the latter from obtaining a “nuclear weapon capability,” an ambiguous term at best.  Interesting that in the Olympiad that concludes today, The Islamic Republic of Iran had four Gold, five Silver and three Bronze medals; the Jewish State of Israel – for the first time since 1988, had no medals at all.  But there were Jewish athletes on the teams of many Western nations, including that of the USA.  And there were Muslim athletes on the teams of many Western nations.

Perhaps some day in the future we will see an Olympiad at which the Iranian national team contains Jewish athletes from their vibrant Jewish population, and the Israeli team contains many Palestinian Israelis, from their non-Jewish Christian and Muslim population.

Hopefully, we can avoid an insane war between Israel and Iran, just as in the 1980s we avoided an insane war between the USSR and the USA.

In a recent development in the ongoing lawsuit against Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp,  for the wrongful discharge of Steven Jacobs, onetime President of Adelson’s Macau casinos, it was revealed that Adelson’s attorneys may have lied repeatedly to various authorities in China-Macau and in the United States.  The lies, which were probably criminal acts, covered up even more serious criminal violations in both countries.

Adelson’s attorneys presently are trying to put their best face forward lie their asses off to Nevada District Judge Elizabeth Gonzales:

On June 28, Judge Gonzalez convened a hearing on the matter.

“Mr. Peek, I’ve got a question,” she began, addressing the Holland & Hart lawyer who had read Jacobs’ emails on Kostrinsky’s laptop.

“Why didn’t somebody tell me 11 months ago or so that the Macau Data Privacy Protection Act wasn’t going to be an issue because somehow the Read the rest of this entry →