Palestinians love their children and want them to live just like the rest of us.

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I feel it’s necessary following a New York Times piece by Jodi Rudoren critiquing the funeral held for members of the Dalou family killed in a single Israeli airstrike on Gaza, four of who were small children between the ages of one and six. Rudoren is the New York Times  Jerusalem bureau chief. While I have mad respect for all of the journalists risking their lives to report from Gaza while bombs are falling, her piece is totally unacceptable and I’m utterly shocked that her editors at the Times allowed it to be published.

From beginning to end, the piece is packed with racially loaded buzzwords that reflect common negative stereotypes westerners hold about arabs and muslims. The trouble begins in the opening sentence:

Sweat streamed through the beards of three men clutching the body of 7-year-old Jamal Dalu as they raced through the streets toward his final resting place here amid bursts from assault rifles fired into the air and shouts of “God is great.”

This immediately paints a picture of bearded, Islamic fundamentalists. You know, the people the media loves to show us setting fire to effigies of US presidents and American flags with AK-47s strapped across their shoulders as they chant, “Death to America.” The reason I know I’m not over reacting is because I’m an arab deeply aware of these dangerous stereotypes, yet that opening sentence still elicited those images in my mind. I imagine it was the same for readers far less aware than me. So already, the reader’s ability to empathize with Palestinians is compromised. The racial undertones continue in the second paragraph: Read More

More journalists were killed today by Israeli airstrikes that began pummeling the Gaza Strip last week. According to multiple reports, three journalists lost their lives in separate airstrikes targeting cars carrying members of the press. Ma’an reports:

Mahmoud al-Koumi and Husam Salameh, both cameramen for al-Aqsa TV, were killed in an airstrike on a car near al-Wihda towers in the Gaza City.

Both men were 30-years-old and the father of four children.

Palestinian press freedom group Mada said the journalists were traveling in an Al-Aqsa TV car marked with a press sign.Two others were injured in the strike, medics said.

Another airstrike killed Muhammad Abu Aisha, the director of Al-Quds Educational Radio, in his car in Deir al-Balah.

The fact that the journalists were local and worked for an Arabic media outlet is significant given the exchange that took place on Al Jazeera yesterday between Israeli spokesperson, Mark Regev, and the news anchor. They were discussing Israel’s repeated attacks on media buildings that on Sunday injured at least six journalists, one of whom lost his leg. Here is the conversation from the Huffington Post: [emphasis mine] Read More

The United States House and Senate unanimously passed a resolution in support of Isreal’s attack on Gaza, which has thus far killed 115 Palestinians and three Israelis. While the  unconditional bipartisan support of Israel isn’t unique (The U.S. government has made it painstakingly clear in the past  that no amount of dismembered Palestinians will affect their unwavering bipartisan support for Israel), this particular resolution is more sickening than usual.

As Laura Freidman points out at The Daily Beast,  it “contains no mention of any aspiration to see hostilities end and includes no exhortation for the President to in any way to engage to try to calm the violence or bring about a ceasefire.” Read More

In light of the horrific yet familiar images coming out of Gaza, I think we should all take a moment to listen to Lowkey’s “Long Live Palestine Part 2” (feat. Dam, The Narcicyst, Eslam Jawad, Hich-Kas, Reveal, Hasan Salaam, Shadia Mansour). For those unfamiliar with Lowkey, he’s an incredibly talented rapper from the UK, half Iraqi and half english. His music revolves around social justice, particularly war and imperialism in the middle east. “Long Live Palestine” isn’t just a song. It tells the story of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza  but still manages to leave you feeling hopeful and compelled to do something about it. Enjoy and be inspired.

It’s raining Israeli bombs in Gaza yet again and as the death toll mounts some people are having themselves a laugh at the expense of the dead. I’m talking about #HamasBumperStickers, a twitter hashtag that caught on like wildfire yesterday mostly among people who despise Palestinians (and Arabs in general) and think it’s funny when Israel kills them. While I’m not usually one to amplify the trolling rhetoric of heartless bigots, I feel it’s important that these particular individuals be shamed and ostracized for their sick jokes, especially since the hashtag they are using has apparently been trending worldwide. Here are just a few: Read More

The Good

It was a big night for marijuana legalization advocates as Washington and Colorado became the first political jurisdictions in the world to vote to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol. Both states will now allow the licensed cultivation and distribution of marijuana, a move that, if other states follow suit, would put certain drug cartels out of business.

While decriminalization of marijuana is an important first step in undoing the devastation wrought by decades of the drug war, the fight isn’t over for Washington and Colorado because these ballot initiatives do nothing to change federal law, which classifies cannabis as an illegal narcotic. As Reuters points out:

The Obama administration has recently pressed an enforcement crackdown against pot dispensaries and greenhouses deemed to be engaged in large-scale drug trade under the pretense of supplying medical cannabis patients in California and elsewhere.

Before Tuesday’s election, the administration had been largely silent on latest state ballot initiatives seeking to legalize recreational pot for adults.

Several former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration directors had urged Obama officials to come out forcefully against the measures, as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder did when he criticized a 2010 California pot legalization referendum that was soundly defeated by voters.

Furthermore, the Justice Department released a statement reminding the nation that “The Department of Justice’s enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged.” It continued, “We are reviewing the ballot initiative and have no additional comment at this time.”

So, as exciting as these new initiatives are, federal authorities are unlikely to respect them, meaning we’ll have to keep our eyes on these states to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts voted to scrap state criminal and civil penalties for medicinal marijuana, making it the 18th state in the country to approve the use of medical marijuana.

Read More

A man who has yet to identified was shot and critically wounded by Los Angeles police on October 12 after being stopped and questioned on suspicion of  gang-related graffiti vandalism with 23-year-old Kennedy Garcia. In a routine news release about the officer-involved shooting, the LAPD claimed that Garcia fled when police were attempting to handcuff him and others for the  graffiti.  They eventually found the unidentified suspect hiding under an SUV and pulled him out by his ankles at which point the officers allege that the suspect was holding a “metallic object” they believed to be a handgun, prompting them to shoot.

As it turns out, the LAPD version of events was incomplete. Joel Rubin of the Los Angeles Times reports that police withheld that the suspect was unarmed, handcuffed, and lying face down when he was shot. So not only was the suspect restrained but his back was facing the officers when they fired, raising important questions about whether or not police actions were justified, which is the whole point of investigating the incident.

Yet, in an explanation that defies common sense, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck swore to the Times that these glaring omissions were necessary “to preserve the integrity of the investigation and not taint potential witnesses.” Get it? The police couldn’t include key facts that make them look really bad because that would ruin any attempt to find out what actually happened.

Assuming for a moment that this argument makes any sense, it’s important to note that this isn’t the first time that the LAPD failed to present information that reflects poorly on its officers. According to the Times:

Last month, the department released an account of an incident in which a woman died after several officers forced her into the back seat of a police car. The news release made no mention of the fact that a female officer was under investigation for berating the woman and stomping on her genitals during the encounter. Police officials confirmed those details after the Times inquired about the case.

Read More

Despite Hurricane Sandy dominating headlines and airwaves with around-the-clock coverage, there is still so much that isn’t being reported.

Climate Change

The biggest elephant in the room is climate change. The cable news media, in keeping with Obama and Romney during the presidential debates, continues to ignore climate change, even when their New York offices are underwater because of it. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the increasing frequency of record droughts, floods, wildfires and heat waves hasn’t led to a conversation about climate change, so why should this?

Still, you would think that the flooding of major U.S. cities by a monster storm on fucking steroids would, at the very least, warrant a mention or two of climate change. Instead, hours have been devoted to displaying satellite images of the storm’s mutant-like reach coupled with sensational pictures of the aftermath, as though it’s some sort of mysterious anomaly.

Obviously, no one can say for certain that Hurricane Sandy is the direct result of climate change. What is clear is that global warming has caused a warming of the oceans and a rising sea levels, factors that increase the intensity of these storms. Democracy Now was one of the few outlets to cover the issue, devoting most of Monday’s show to addressing the connection between climate change and mega-storms like Hurricane Sandy.   Read More

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, John Errol Ferguson, an elderly Florida prisoner with paranoid schizophrenia, will be strapped to a gurney and intravenously injected with a lethal cocktail tonight at 6 pm EST by the state of Florida.

Last night the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in a divided ruling, lifted a stay of execution granted over the weekend by a U.S. District Court judge. His lawyers have since filed for a last-minute emergency reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since Florida Governor Rick Scott signed Ferguson’s death warrant last month, one Florida court after another has ruled that Ferguson is competent for execution, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits killing mentally ill prisoners who have no rational understanding of the reason for and effects of their execution. Ferguson clearly lacks that understanding, a conclusion reached by several state-appointed psychiatrists as well as nationally renowned experts. Read More