Wednesday, December 31, 2014



1. There has been no suicide bombings by occupied Palestinians against the occupier Israel since 2008.

During the entire 21st century the total number of Israeli civilians killed directly or indirectly (including heart attacks from shock etc) from both rocket and mortar attacks is less than 40. During this year alone Israel has killed over 2300 Palestinians, highest number since 1982 and the highest number of Palestinians killed in historical Palestine by Israel since 1967.

During the last quarter of a century, since the beginning of the First Intifada, the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel is over 11 000 and the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians is less than 1500.

2. Because United States government wants to control the all peaceful negotiations, knowing that if the peace process is moved into an arena which it itself doesn't control, then Israel's territorial demands and demand of future control of all borders of a Palestinian state will be pushed aside, as they have no standing in international law and accepting them would just legitimize actions of other states, like Russia with Crimea.
If you are not a heterosexual Anglo-Saxon(ized) Jewish male of at least lower middle class social-standing, you are not among the target audience to whom Philip Roth wrote his work.

It's also the reason why Philip Roth will never win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Not many members of his target audience are deciding who gets it, unlike in the Anglo-Saxon cultural circles, which have given him his fame and the prices he has won.

Like Norman Mailer, he's a misogynist, but at least Norman Mailer had a vision large enough to embrace people and societies (but not really the other gender) which he did not identify with. He was a universal writer. Philip Roth, to put it ugly, is a niche writer who doesn't want to get out of the ghetto of his own making, because he doesn't like the people outside it.

Philip Roth can write a novel about racism set in the 1930s without bringing up racism towards African-Americans, Philip Roth thinks that an African-American man who gets educated is envious of Jews and wants to become one of them, enough to lose his own identity.

And Philip Roth, like one critic put it, has only three subjects: The young male sexual beast, the middle-aged male sexual beast and the old male sexual beast.

To this we could add that his subjects are also WASMJs, White Anglo-Saxon Male Jews. Most of them are Philip Roth or had their seeds in particular character straits of Philip Roth as seen by himself. He is, in the end, a writer who made a small circle around himself early in his career and never crossed it.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Saturday, December 27, 2014

To be developed:

Jesus was a heresiarch, perhaps unknowingly so coming outside the established religious order and perhaps stranger to it's codes. Certainly we can see his fate as a result of failing to observe and follow existing religious hierarchies, channels and positions available to a man of his rank - lower class man from a recently (forcefully) converted area, with no claim to heritage in the priestly caste and thus lacking any chance of advancing among the hierarchy, finding no accepted way of channeling his religiosity after refusing to accept the role of a humble pious man, a hermit in the desert -figure.

Deciding to take up religious calling, to make sermons in the open and take up and teach followers was, in it's essence, his death sentence. Everything else was just following the path ordained at that month, the typical story of a heresiarch in conflict with established religion and those who controlled it and drew their social position from it.

But, Jesus as a man from recently converted area came outside the core of hierachical, deep-rooted Judaism in more than one way. He represented the forces in Judaism at that moment that sought (more or less) universality instead of closed status quo. We might make the claim that he was a representative of a Hellenistic working class Judaism, driven by insticts and needs alien to the priestly caste and the Jewish elite.

The needs of the individual, in this life and the next, microhistory of one's own soul, were being in place of the grand macrohistorical drama where the Jewish people - and especially it's leaders, political and especially religious (guardians of the legacy of the mythical political rulers of the supposed past golden age of Judaism) went through their dysfunctional relationship with their god with the world they know as the stage.

Although the New Testament makes claim of royal descent for Jesus, we can disregard any thought of authencity for these. These are the usual claims made for a hidden link to the sources of the religion, typical of heresies (in Christianity heresies and reformers have always claimed theirs to be true Christian religion and both them and the inquisitors coming up with unlikely historical links spanning centuries), and in the aftermath of a major religious figure's passing they are always made into scions of royal houses, no matter the religion in question. We can look at Buddha, Boddhidharma and the Irish monks establishing monasteries in heathen lands during the darkest Middle Age. A century after their deaths and each and everyone was a prince in death, although probably not in life.

It's unlikely that Jesus would have made such a claim, as it would have moved him directly into political arena where only armed rebellion would have been an option. Herodean kings and priestly caste would have seen any Davidian pretender as a threat extraordinaire and he would have been put to death immediately. So, such claim comes after his death, from among believers exalting their lost master.

So, the role Jesus chose for himself was a religious one. We can see him as the "voice of the people", the people being outsiders from the fringes of Jewish society of the time in Palestine: The recently converted, the underclass, the ones lacking 'proper' religious training and thus a right to teach in public. So typical of heresies of later times in Christianity.

Jesus was an outsider, but probably more to the priestly hierarchy than in his own eyes. We can assume the typical naivety of the heresiarch, expecting to be praised and accepted by the priestly elite, at least at some point was his mindset and possibly until almost to the end. The heresiarch, after all, starts, in his or her own eyes, as an insider or someone at least wanting to be an insider, seeking both a channel to pour out their religious devotion and to seek the acceptance (and perhaps social uplifting by) of their supposed 'superiors', both in religion and society.

Thursday, December 04, 2014

My two connected posts for I am Palestinian I am not a terrorist made on 28 November 2014:

ITALIAN ACTIVIST SHOT, CRITICALLY INJURED ON WEST BANK PROTEST RALLY BY ISRAEL'S OCCUPATION FORCES

In today's weekly Kufr Qaddum protest against the occupation and closing of the main local road for Palestinians, an Italian activist has been shot in the stomach and critically injured by Israel's occupation forces.

The Italian activist, member of International Solidarity Movement, has been identified in Palestinian sources as Prodo Corsi, 30, but the first name appears to be wrong based on online comments. Italian articles so far either use no name or only the last name. (EDIT: The victim's name has been confirmed to be Patrick Corsi.)

According to differing accounts in the media the injured activist has been taken either to Nablus or Ramallah hospital and is described to be in a "critical, but stable" condition.

Several other people have been injured with rubber bullets in today's protests and many others suffer from tear gas inhalation.

Sources:

Israeli soldiers shoot Italian in the stomach at Kafr Qaddum rally

Attivista italiano ferito in scontri con l'esercito israeliano in Cisgiordania

Italiano é ferido na Cisjordânia

Nablus: italiano ferito dal fuoco di soldati israeliani

M. O., attivista italiano ferito in Cisgiordania. È fuori pericolo




FURTHER DEVELOPMENT IN THE KUFR QADDUM SHOOTING STORY AND ANOTHER SHOOTING INCIDENT AT NABI SALEH

As reported earlier today, an Italian International Solitary Movement activist identified as "Prodo Corsi" by Maan News Agency and now named as Patrick Corsi, 30, was shot and severely injured in the Kufr Qaddum weekly protest by Israel's occupation forces.

At first it was reported he was shot in the stomach, but later reports correct that he was shot in the chest from a distance of 40 meters and that the bullet remains in his chest cavity. The bullet narrowly missed a major blood vessel. He was critically injured, but is in a stable condition according to Ramallah hospital director Ahmad Bitawi.

ISM article describing the shooting quotes an eye-witness: "The military had fired three rounds of tear gas, and then a shot rang out an Patrick stumbled back. There was between five and ten minutes from the last tear gas canister fired and the bullet that shot Patrick. He was just standing there, peacefully protesting, wearing a hi-viz jacket, he wasn’t doing anything and they just decided to shoot him.”

Another victim, 18 y/o Sami Jumma was shot twice with live ammunition by the Israeli occupation forces which were clearly trying to cause casualties among the protesters. The Israeli bullets hit Sami in hand and chest and he is in a stable condition after surgery to remove the bullet.

In Nabi Saleh weekly protest 14 y/o Ahmed Barghouti was shot in a leg with live ammunition by Israeli occupation forces soldier, as was reported by ISM and shown in the TAMIMI PRESS photographs.

Sources:

18-year-old Palestinian and ISM volunteer both shot in the chest with .22 live ammunition

Israeli army shoots Italian activist, Palestinian teen with live ammo

Italian wounded during protest in West Bank






I think we constantly under-estimate the intellectual capacities of the hominids - and over-estimate the level of intelligence needed to produce for example these geometrical forms. We should remember that these were humans and although they would not have been able to construct spaceships, abstract thinking at some level probably was attainable to them. Too often we think that everything that made us human happened during the last stretch to us, instead of incremental development of what now makes us what we are today as species.

Wednesday, December 03, 2014


FRANCE LAWMAKERS VOTE 339-151 IN SUPPORT OF RECOGNIZING PALESTINE

Following similar votes in several other European countries including Spain, the United Kingdom and the senate of Ireland, the French parliament has voted in support of recognizing Palestine.

339 French lawmakers voted in support of recognizing Palestine and 151 against.

The vote doesn't officially bind the government - which has talked about recognizing Palestine unilaterally only if yet another future round of peace negotiations would fail - but shows that even the politicians in European Union countries are following their voters in finally supporting the occupied against the occupier instead of hiding behind the endless calls of more "peace talks" which just buy more time for Israel to build more illegal settlements on occupied land.

This vote will encourage politicians in other countries to follow and the next step will be governments officially adopting these non-binding resolutions and making them official, as Sweden has done.

Sources:

En direct : le vote sur la reconnaissance de la Palestine

French lawmakers vote in favour of symbolic motion to recognise Palestine as state

French MPs vote to recognize Palestine as a state

Monday, December 01, 2014


23 y/o young woman is dead after having been denied medical care by Israel's occupation forces. Resistance against occupation is a right enshrined in international law and not "terrorism". Israel has been offered peace many times on pre-1967 lines but refuses and illegally sends "civilians" as illegal settlers on the occupied areas, putting them deliberately in danger in it's attempt to steal more and more land.