Category Archives: Violence/Conflict

Centre watch, Frontiers, Government, Violence/Conflict

The Anatomy of a Massacre: The Mass Killings at Sailan, August 1998

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This was sent to us by Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

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On the night of 3-4 August 1998, 19 people including 11 children ranging in age from about 4 to 15 years old, and 5 women (including one woman in an advanced state of pregnancy) were shot at point blank range in their homes in Sailan, in the highly militarized ‘border district’ of Poonch, which is divided by the Line of Control between Pakistani and Indian Administered Kashmir. The bodies were thereafter mutilated with axes and sharp instruments. A total of thirteen female and six male members of three closely related families were killed by personnel of 9 Paratroopers, Indian army, and ‘SPOs’ (Special Police Officers) armed state back local operatives recruited to the police and affiliated to the 9 Para Army Camp. The police establishment was involved with attempting to bury the dead clandestinely, registration of a fabricated FIR, destruction of evidence, and the criminal cover up of the case. The Anatomy of a Massacre recounts the dismembered and silenced history of the Sailan Massacre through voices of family members, eye witnesses, local residents and the analysis of court, police and Right to Information documents. The legal and oral histories of Sailan illustrate how the Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir is made real, not just through the control of physical territory, but by deep social penetration, acts of spectacular violence and collective terrorisation, and the active collaboration of all state institutions in the illusion of legal procedures and rule of law. The Report is part of the struggle of all victims of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, to articulate their demands for truth and justice in their own words, when the very language to speak of the truth has been rendered anti-national, and therefore unspeakable. It commemorates the lives lost in the massacre at Sailan, and is dedicated to them, on the anniversary of their untimely deaths.

Read the statement about the release of the report in Srinagar, by JKCCS and the Survivors of the Sailan Massacres as well as the full text of the report here.

Politics, Violence/Conflict

Urgent Call: Bir Zeit University Institute of Women’s Studies, Palestine

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Statement from Bir Zeit University Institute of Women’s Studies, Palestine

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Gaza Under Attack

As we write this statement, 25 days after the brutal incursion on Gaza, over a thousand and four hundred of innocent civilian women, men and children have been butchered by Israel’s war machine and much more are threatened to be killed. The call for raping Palestinian women by the so-called “Bar-Illan University Arabic Literature Professor” teaches us, once again, that Israeli “scholars” and “academic institutions” are an organic and integral part of the Zionist colonial project. Also, the parliament member, who happens to be a woman, advocates the killing of all Palestinian women, a Rabbi calls for mass murder of Palestinians while taking their foreskins as trophies, in addition to the display of many rape references on banners and images (head covered woman from the top while indecent from the waist down with a very provocative statement below) in their neighborhoods that promotes a rape culture and misogyny at the least. Continue reading Urgent Call: Bir Zeit University Institute of Women’s Studies, Palestine →

Politics, Violence/Conflict

India’s solidarity with Palestine – from the pages of history

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Image from article by PRIYAMVADA GOPAL ‘India’s Forgotten Solidarity with Palestine’ on Aljazeera.

 

Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Spring in Israel? Internal voices of dissent grow

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Over 150,000 social justice protesters took to the streets of 11 cities across Israel.These protests, which some are calling part of an “Israeli Spring”, began initially in response to the country’s housing crisis. But since as they began gaining momentum, they have spread to a host of social and economic complaints, including overlap with the struggling Israeli peace movement.

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Bad ideas, Centre watch, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Need to re-enact Juvenile Justice Act – Myths and Realities: Kishore

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This is a guest post by KISHORE

In a significant move, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has decided to repeal and re-enact Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000. Along with its claims to streamline adoption and foster care procedures, it also proposes that juveniles above 16 years of age involved in heinous crimes should be tried as adults under the Indian Penal Code.

This is not first time that such an amendment has been advocated. One senior leader of ruling party had already gone to the Supreme Court last year with a petition for lowering the age under the law. However his petition was refused and the Supreme Court opined that there was no need for amendment as the present law (JJ act 2000) holds constitutional validity. Now this leader’s party is in power and they do not need to go to the judiciary for changes as they themselves can do it in Parliament. It is also believed that the government is not even waiting for the report of the expert committee appointed by the Law Commission of India to examine the issue. The proposal however, has always been contested by the premier child rights body NCPCR, which said there cannot be any “compromise” on the age of a child as defined by the UN and in other international conventions. We wonder if the governments’ desperation to change the law is based on popular “sentiments” and not on “facts”. Continue reading Need to re-enact Juvenile Justice Act – Myths and Realities: Kishore →

Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Gandhi, Palestine and Israel: Irfan Ahmad

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Guest post by IRFAN AHMAD

Amidst Israel’s recent deadly attacks on Gaza and what Venezuela’s President called ‘its policy of genocide’, many have invoked Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) on two counts. First, he opposed settler colonialism. One analyst in The Economic Times gave a quote, also shared on Facebook: ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France to the French’. Second, implicit in invoking Gandhi is the idea that he stood for non-violence and thus the indicting advice to the terrorised Palestinians to ‘choose peace’.

Both these positions linked to Gandhi, when analysed historically, are misleading, even incorrect and wrong. In 1921, Gandhi did oppose the imposition of Jews over the Arab land. However, later he subtly endorsed settler colonialism. As for Gandhi’s official preaching of non-violence and civil disobedience (satyagraha), they were at best tactical, contextual and temporary. Contrary to his deified mythology as apostle of non-violence, Gandhi indeed justified killing, even felt proud of violence, and opposed civil disobedience when both suited his political and national interests. Continue reading Gandhi, Palestine and Israel: Irfan Ahmad →

Frontiers, Identities, Language, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Breaking the Silence about Gaza from Israel: Yehuda Shaul

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Guest Post by YEHUDA SHAUL

In November 2012, Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip called “Amud Anan”, the literal English translation of which is, “Pillar of Clouds”. Though, the official name in English was deemed, “Pillar of Defense”. A few days ago we launched another operation named, “Mighty Cliff”, which is officially called, “Protective Edge”. Both chosen titles are highly defensive in their essence. When I hear the names given to military operations in Gaza – especially the versions chosen for an international audience – I am reminded of my military service as a combatant in the Israeli army, whose full name (both in Hebrew and English) is: the “Israel Defense Forces” (IDF).

Continue reading Breaking the Silence about Gaza from Israel: Yehuda Shaul →

Bad ideas, Culture, Feminism, Genders, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Women Have Been Branded Liars!

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Guest Post by ANUBHA SINGH and SURABHI SHUKLA

The recent Supreme Court judgment in the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar & Anr. (Criminal Appeal No. 1277 of 2014) has once again brought to light the concern shared by the larger society about the ‘misuse’ of Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter “IPC”) and the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. This concern has been raised many times in the past (and present) and the judiciary has gone to the length of labeling this ‘misuse’, especially that of Section 498-A, IPC,  ‘legal terrorism’ (in Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of India JT 2005 (6) SC 266.)

However, what has changed this time is that through this judgment the Supreme Court has endorsed and legitimized the common stereotype that women exaggerate and fabricate stories of violence to seek vengeance against their husbands and matrimonial families. Continue reading Women Have Been Branded Liars! →

Culture, Debates, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Anti-Semitism Cannot be the Response to Israeli Attacks on Gaza

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Extremely disturbing reports of anti-Israeli sentiments spilling over into generalized attacks in France have been coming in lately.  This is completely unacceptable. The just cause of the Palestinian people is about occupation of their land by Zionists and all Jews are by no means responsible for the brutality that Israel is exhibiting in its attacks on Gaza, sparing no one and even specifically targeting small children. This is not a religious or a racial issue but one of political justice. Let us make no mistake that any attempt to make it into either a religious or race issue will only harm the Palestinian cause in the long run. Here is an extract from a report in Huffington Post:

France’s politicians and community leaders have criticised the “intolerable” violence against Paris’ Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars.

It is the third time in a week where pro-Palestinian activists have clashed with the city’s Jewish residents. On Sunday, locals reported chats of “Gas the Jews” and “Kill the Jews”, as rioters attacked businesses in the Sarcelles district, known as “little Jerusalem”…

Religious leaders gathered for an interfaith service on Monday to call for calm, and Haim Korsia, the chief rabbi of France, and Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy shook hands on the steps of the synagogue.  Read the full report here

That said, it also needs to be underlined that in this no-holds-barred war, Zionists themselves have been keen and eager to see that the anti-Zionist feeling is transformed rapidly into an anti-Semitic one. Thus Mondoweiss published a Youtube video along with a report that showed that the attack on the synagogue was actually provoked by members of the Jewish Defense League. Mondoweiss’ story has since been confirmed by the President of the Synagogue de la Roquette. His words:

In an interview broadcast Friday on the 24-hour news channel i-Télé, Serge Benhaïm said that there was “not a single projectile thrown at the synagogue” and that “at no moment, were we ever physically in danger.” (“Pas un seul projectile lancé sur la synagogue”. “A aucun moment, nous n’avons été physiquement en danger.”)

While Benhaïm did not describe the street fight outside as resulting from a JDL “provocation”, he did say that the extremist group smashed up a cafe on Rue de la Roquette (“le président de la synagogue de la rue de la Roquette confirme également que la LDJ a ‘cassé des chaises et des tables’) in order to confront pro-Palestinian demonstrators (“pour aller livrer ce face-à-face”). He added that he did not condone the action, and described the JDL as having a “bad reputation” using a French phrase – “une renommée un peu sulfureuse — that is not done justice by a literal translation. Read the full Mondoweiss report here.

There will be – as there are – desperate attempts to drown the groundswell of anti-Israeli sentiment in a flood of outcries of anti-Semitism, by all interested quarters. There is need therefore to see that no quarter is yielded to those who wish to transform the present mood of anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism.

 

Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Concerned Public Health Professionals on the Israeli attack on Gaza

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The following is a statement issued by some concerned public health professionals in New Delhi, on 21st July, 2014

The world is once again witness to the macabre dance of death in Gaza unleashed by the Israeli aggressors, and once again the news of scores of innocent Palestinian deaths, including those of a number of women and children, is flooding in. The tragedy is compounded many-fold by the conspiracy of silence on this issue entered into by all the major powers of the world, who have singularly failed to take any effective measure to restrain the Israeli aggressors. The only exception to this silence is USA, Israel’s long time sponsor, which has once again blocked efforts at the United Nations to pass any motion of censure against Israel.

Israel’s alibi for the latest attack – to punish perpetrators of abduction and murder of three Israeli boys, holds little merit when Israel is the occupying force in first place and its leaders are belligerently calling for annihilation of ordinary Palestinian lives without discretion in accordance with their doctrine of ‘collective responsibility.’ The deputy speaker of Israeli Knesset, Moshe Feiglin has called Arab people “a gang of bandits” and has argued in favor of Israeli government cutting off electricity supply to Gaza in order to paralyze its hospitals. His reported statement is – “The blood of a dialysis patient in Gaza is not redder than the blood of our IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers who will, God forbid, need to enter Gaza.” Continue reading Concerned Public Health Professionals on the Israeli attack on Gaza →

Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Violence/Conflict

Last Night in Gaza: Mads Gilbert

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This correspondence has been received from Mads Gilbert

Dearest friends

The last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying – all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS! Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).

My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace – but we cannot afford that, nor can they. Continue reading Last Night in Gaza: Mads Gilbert →

Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Images, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Last of Warsaw Ghetto Survivors Calls for Rebellion Against Israeli Occupation

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Rebel against the Occupation. No–it is forbidden for us to rule over another people, to oppress another [people].  The most important thing is to achieve peace and an end to the cycle of blood[letting].  My generation dreamed of peace.  I so want to achieve it.  You have the power to help.  All my hopes are with you.  If only [you could]. – Chavka Fulman-Raban, arrested and imprisoned at Auschwitz, two of her family members died as resistance fighters.

Last year, long before this current round of blood-lust, Chavka Fulman-Raban, among the last of the Warsaw Ghetto survivors delivered, On Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), “a fierce denunciation of evil and injustice, including the Israeli Occupation. Her speech was offered to guests at the ceremony of Beit Lohamey Ha-Getaot (the Ghetto-Fighters House)”, says Richard Silverstein, who has translated the speech into English.

The once-invincible Nazism did not last. Zionazism too will not last, however invincible it might appear today. And we must say it loud and clear: Zionism is not about Jews and Judaism. To oppose Zionism is not anti-Semitism. As if this simple fact needs to be stated. But it seems it does, over and over again. Just as Judith Butler had to recently, contesting Lawrence Summers, President, Harvard University. So virulent is the mobilization of the Zionist fascists, especially inside Israel, that what David Shulman recently referred to as “lynch gangs” and “organized fascist groups”, have been on the prowl attacking, killing Palestinians and protestors against the bombings. And cheering the lynch mobs and fascists gangs are spectators of the kind we see below:

Israeli viewers enjoy the spectacle of Gaza
Israeli viewers enjoy the spectacle of Gaza

Continue reading Last of Warsaw Ghetto Survivors Calls for Rebellion Against Israeli Occupation →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Excavation, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Why its hard for me to accept the killing of Mohsin Sheikh in Pune: Sameer Khan

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Guest Post by SAMEER KHAN

The nation was outraged with the news of the murder of Mohsin Shaikh in Pune following the riots after the suspected defaming face book post. Many people were horrified by the killings of the young techie. The news media and the social media used the word Pune in a very generic manner but the fact was much of Pune remained unaffected with the violence. The initial protest that started on the day of FB rumors took place mainly in selected places and appeared to have been clearly organized by some group that was closely coordinating its cadres by use of social media and other communication by circulating fake planted stories and directing the mobs to target specific places.

The place Mohsin Shaikh was murdered, and where the worst damage occurred was the Hadapsar area of Pune which is actually on the outer limits of Pune towards the Sholapur road.Hadapsar was a sleepy town couple of decades ago. It is Hadapsar that is the native place of the author of this article. My father was raised in Hadapsar and completed his primary education from the local Bunter School, one of the oldest surviving schools in the region

I was born and raised in South Mumbai and my world came crashing down when my father decided to move back to his native Hadapsar in mid 1980’s. I was in 7th grade and my transition from a south Mumbai boy to sleepy Hadapsar town was a very painful one. It took my very long to reconcile the fact that Hadapsar the sleepy semi rural town was now my new home. Continue reading Why its hard for me to accept the killing of Mohsin Sheikh in Pune: Sameer Khan →

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Idiocy as Scholarship

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It was probably late sixties or early seventies – when this pen pusher was a school student – one came across an article by a gentleman called P N Oak in a Marathi magazine called ‘Amrit’. The article made a particular case about Taj Mahal which it termed as ‘Tejo Maha Aalay’ or hindu god Shiva’s abode. It tried to establish through various ‘explanations’ that a Shiva Temple was destroyed to build Taj Mahal and if we dig deep we can find ‘remnants’ of the earlier structure.

For someone who was taught in an ambience, where few of our teachers never lost any opportunity to fill our gullible minds about the ‘hated other’, it was rather difficult to immediately grasp the lie which was peddled by this soldier turned writer. Nobody could then have the premonition also that such false claims – that their places of worship were buried beneath the Mosques as a lame excuse to demolish them – would become order of the day, in Hindutva politics. Continue reading Idiocy as Scholarship →

Culture, Government, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

To Understand the Mind of NDA II, turn to Singhal and the Sangh: Teesta Setalvad

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Guest post by TEESTA SETALVAD

I do not expect there to be any outrage, comment or protest over the most recent rants of Ashok Singhal, senior RSS leader and patron of the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an RSS offshoot in an interview published in the July 17,2014 of The Hindustan Times  daily. We have as a nation and a polity become sinisterly and compliantly accustomed and accepting of aggressive hatred spilt by the majority and hypocritically touchy and outraged by similar rantings by so-called leaders of the minority. How deep this hypocrisy of majoritarianism has spread is evident in the coverage and depiction of hate speech by our electronic media that picks and chooses what to show, how often and when. So the hate ridden rantings of an Owaisi, or a Qader Rana will be run and re-run across networks and channels but equally insidious and as or more dangerous ravings of politicians who play on the identity of the majority are glossed over, hidden and remarkably, not even commented upon.

Singhal tells us through this interview today, that he welcomes with all his heart the first RSS pracharak as Prime Minister of India but, adding the proverbial sting to the tale, says that what is truly historical and remarkable about NDA II’s victory is that this electoral win was ensured without Muslim votes or support. Barefacedly lending voice to what more sophisticated faces in government including the now maun PM would presently rather leave unsaid, Singhal gloats on the disenfranchisement of India’s largest minority during democratically conducted elections. A time-tested tactic of the octopus-like sangh that generates terror and intimidation in the public sphere by the mutterings of a Singhal and a Togadia and allows the flag bearer beneficiaries of this hate-splitting in governance, the luxuries of convenient, intermittent,  silences.  The Advani-Vajpayee duo in the first NDA were a fine example of this. [Though,  Advani often relapsed into expressing well trained views especially after the brutal burning alive of Graham Staines and his sons (Orissa, January 1999).] NDA II has witnessed some interesting role reversals with many of the flag bearers of hate mongering now at the helm: a cabinet full of hate mongers are in the government’s driving seat. Singhal also emphasises and welcomes – undoubtedly for the reassurance of the sangh support base — all those being chosen for post of Governors are sanghis,  Ram Naik or a  Kesari Nath Tripathi. Continue reading To Understand the Mind of NDA II, turn to Singhal and the Sangh: Teesta Setalvad →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Life in a ‘Sterilized’ Zone, Hebron, Palestine: Ravinder Kaur

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Guest Post and Photograps by RAVINDER KAUR

Map of Hebron, Courtesy ‘Breaking the Silence‘

On 12th June, 2014, the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron resulted a massive military search operation in the area. Since 30th June when their dead bodies were found north of Hebron, a Palestinian teenager has been abducted and killed in a revenge attack in East Jerusalem, and concerted air strikes have been launched on Gaza by the Israeli forces as punishment to Hamas who Israel holds responsible for the abduction and murder of the teenagers. In ten days of Israeli air strikes more than 216 have been killed in Gaza, and rocket firing by Hamas has claimed one life in Israel. A ground invasion began yesterday evening. Even as talks of a possible ceasefire, and resuming normal life, take shape, one might consider what ‘normality’ constitutes in a place like Hebron that has been at the center of the current conflict. It is in the normal, the routine that the spectacular violence takes shape.

Continue reading Life in a ‘Sterilized’ Zone, Hebron, Palestine: Ravinder Kaur →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Everyday Life, Government, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Delhi Police Prevents Peaceful Protest in Front of Israeli Embassy – Students, Others, Injured and Detained

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A Tale of Two Protests, On Two Days.

Protests against the situation in Gaza have been held in Delhi yesterday, (Sunday, 13th July, and today, 14th July, in the morning). Yesterday, on Sunday morning, there was a peaceful protest in front of the Israeli Embassy – this came out of a call for protest by individuals. Yesterday, about a hundred odd people, including many young people, had gathered. I was present at this gathering. Some people made statements condemning the Israeli state’s aggression against the Palestinian people. The Delhi Police was present, but did not try to disrupt or disturb the protest. The protest happened right in front of the Israeli Embassy gates on Aurungzeb Road.

Protestor in front of the Israeli Embassy in Delhi on Sunday, 13th July 2014
Protestor in front of the Israeli Embassy in Delhi on Sunday, 13th July 2014
Protestors with Signs against Israeli State's Aggression on Gaza, in front of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, 13th July, 2014
Protestors with Signs against Israeli State’s Aggression on Gaza, in front of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, 13th July, 2014

Continue reading Delhi Police Prevents Peaceful Protest in Front of Israeli Embassy – Students, Others, Injured and Detained →

Frontiers, Government, Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Scholar David Shulman on the Gaza Bombings

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The following is a report from the indefatigable Prof David Shulman, who teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prof Shulman works on the history of religion in South India and poetry and poetics in Tamil, Telegu and Sanskrit. David Shulman writes as protests inside Israel increase, as do right-wing attacks on the protestors. This report has been circulated by Prof Louise Bethlehem of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Jews demonstrate in New York Against Bombings
Jews demonstrate in New York Against Bombings

July 12, 2014 Umm al-Ara’is, Susya, Bi’r al-‘Id, Ma’asara

Business as usual in the South Hebron hills. There’s a war on in Gaza, but that too is business as usual, the meaningless biannual ritual in which both sides gleefully smash one another before reverting to the status quo ante. The Israeli media are drowning us in words, a vast and raucous flood, and the government is putting out its familiar, mendacious statements; perhaps in recent days only Abu Mazen has spoken the truth. The only solution, he said, is a political one, and Netanyahu is no partner. Meanwhile, rockets are flying, the Air Force is bombing, children are dying, soldiers are doing what soldiers mostly do, that is, wait around, and in South Hebron the land-grab proceeds apace, as always. Nothing, it seems, can stop that.

But wait a minute, some things have changed. Since the horrible murder of three Israeli teenagers, followed by the equally abominable revenge killing of the Palestinian boy from Shuafat, Israel has witnessed a wave of racist hatred on a scale perhaps not known before. Part of it has to do with the near-infinite opportunities of the internet: tens of thousands of virulent hate messages sent by ordinary Israelis have clogged the major sites; thousands of them call openly for revenge. I remember a time somewhat like this one, in the summer and autumn of 1982, the days of the first Lebanon War; the nadir came when a hate-filled nationalist threw a grenade into a Peace Now demonstration, killing my student, Emil Grunzweig. Some of the internet sites these days have called for the execution of leftists. Perhaps most striking of all is the utter shamelessness of this wave. Probably people used to have these same feelings but were not so ready, or eager, to state them in public. Decades of demagoguery and xenophobic incitement by the right, including, famously, by Netanyahu himself, have had an effect. The sluices are open. Continue reading Scholar David Shulman on the Gaza Bombings →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The Memory of Fifty Seven Seconds: After Watching an Israeli Missile Strike in the Gaza Strip on Al-Jazeera

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A short fragment of video, fifty seven seconds long, taken from behind a window in a building in the Gaza Strip which was aired last night on Al Jazeera television brought home (once again) the sheer horror of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) brutal, ongoing offensive against the people of Palestine with devastating clarity.

Continue reading The Memory of Fifty Seven Seconds: After Watching an Israeli Missile Strike in the Gaza Strip on Al-Jazeera →

Law, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Pearls of Wisdom of A RSS Leader – ‘Elections equivalent to Independence Struggle’

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Suresh Soni, RSS’s point person with the BJP, who facilitated ‘anointment’ of fellow Pracharak as PM candidate last year and smoothly engineered the marginalisation of the senior Advani and proved his clout within the organisation, is in news these days albeit for wrong reasons.

News has come in that he along with his former supremo (the late) K S Sudarshan were also beneficiaries of the yet unfolding MPEB scam which has already claimed the head of a senior minister – another fellow Pracharak – in Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s cabinet. Laxmikant Sharma, the said minister, who earlier handled important portfolios like mining, culture, human resources had claimed at the time of his arrest that he has been made a sacrificial lamb and when time comes he would also ‘reveal the truth’. He allegedly facilitated appointment of Mihir, a personal assistant to the late Sudarshan, as a ‘Nap Taul Inspector’ at the behest of Suresh Soni. Continue reading Pearls of Wisdom of A RSS Leader – ‘Elections equivalent to Independence Struggle’ →

Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Information on Aluthgama – Fact Finding by a Women’s Collective

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A Fact Finding Report by a Women’s Collective on the Ethnic Riots in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka.

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On the 15th of June 2014 ethnic riots took place in Aluthgama following a rally organized by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Buddhist fundamentalist organization. Even though the police and state officials had been informed of the potential of the rally to turn violent, no steps were taken to stop the same, instead a large number of police and Special Task Forces (STF) personnel were deployed in the area. In the aftermath of the violence that shocked the country, a women’s team visited Aluthgama and met with several survivors with the objective of documenting the events that took place. Below is their report. Considering the safety of the survivors their names, location and other identities are not recorded.

“Around 12 midnight on 15/06/2014 the Welipitiya Mosque administration made an announcement that a large group of thugs were coming to destroy the Mosque. Upon the announcement the men from the village brought their families, left the women inside the mosque for their safety, and stood outside the mosque to protect the mosque. Around 2000 persons arrived in a procession at that time chanting slogans saying ‘we will destroy the Dharga Town mosque’, ‘we will change Dharga Town into a Sinhala village’ and started pelting stones from all sides,” said a mother whose son was attacked in this incident. She stated that she has four sons, she has been separated from her husband since the birth of her youngest son, and has brought them up single handedly amidst various challenges. “My two unmarried sons aged 20 and 17 heard the announcement from the mosque and left to guard the mosque. A few minutes after they left home I heard gun shots and ran outside to look for my sons but I could not locate them. I ran back home and prayed for their safety. I could hear the firing of gun shots for about 2 hours. Continue reading Information on Aluthgama – Fact Finding by a Women’s Collective →