Yesterday saw some very large rallies across the world in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, including some very large ones here in Canada. Here is one report from Montreal, one from Toronto, with a video of the event produced by rabble.ca:
The following is a selective roundup of links, focusing on blogs to which this one is linked. What they also have in common is that they all published their respective posts on the same day, Sunday 4 January 2009, spread out as far as Australia, Denmark, the U.S. and Canada.
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Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land
Gilad Atzmon, 4 January 2009
DISSIDENT VOICE
Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London, and is an editor at Palestine Think Tank, where this essay first appeared…
Extract:
They [most Israelis] fail to grasp that for the Palestinians, Palestine is home. Miraculously, the Israelis manage to fail to grasp that Israel had been erected at the expense of the Palestinian people, on Palestinian land, on Palestinian villages, towns, fields and orchards. The Israelis do not realise that Palestinians in Gaza and in refugee camps in the region are actually dispossessed people from Ber Shive, Yafo, Tel Kabir, Shekh Munis, Lod, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more towns and villages. If you wonder how come the Israelis don’t know their history, the answer is pretty simple, they have never been told. The circumstances that led to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are well hidden within their culture. Traces of pre-1948 Palestinian civilisation on the land had been wiped out. Not only the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, is not part of the Israeli curriculum, it is not even mentioned or discussed in any Israeli official or academic forum.
In the very centre of almost every Israeli town one can a find a 1948 memorial statue displaying a very bizarre, almost abstract, pipe work. The plumbing feature is called Davidka and it is actually a 1948 Israeli mortar cannon. Interestingly enough, the Davidka was an extremely ineffective weapon. Its shells wouldn’t reach more than 300 meters and would cause very limited damage. Though the Davidika would cause just minimal harm, it produced a lot of noise. According to the Israeli official historical narrative, the Arabs i.e., Palestinians, simply ran away for their lives once they heard the Davidka from afar. According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews i.e., ‘new Israelis’ did a bit of fireworks and the ‘Arab cowards’ just ran off like idiots. In the Israeli official narrative there is no mention of the many orchestrated massacres conducted by the young IDF and the paramilitary units that preceded it. There is no mention also of the racist laws that stop Palestinians1 from returning to their homes and lands.
The meaning of the above is pretty simple. Israelis are totally unfamiliar with the Palestinian cause. Hence, they can only interpret the Palestinian struggle as a murderous irrational lunacy. …
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Gaza and the Fog of War
Sunday, 4 January, 2009
A VERY PUBLIC SOCIOLOGIST
Extract:
…What the media confusion attempts to do is extend the fog of war back before the conflict began. In an excellent post at Lenin’s Tomb explains, Hamas is not an organisation committed to permanent war with Israel. It has hinted at peace deals, offered cease fires, observed unilateral cease fires, and so on. And at every stage, Israel has interfered in internal Palestinian affairs, abducted activists, carried out assassinations, and turned Gaza into an open air internment camp. The rockets Hamas has launched against Israel prior to the present war did not happen without reason. There are material reasons for everything, and in this case, it’s in the years of low-level warfare Israel has subjected Gaza to. This is why, much to the exasperation of the Israeli state and its apologists, tens of thousand have marched, and millions across the world are turning against it….
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Gaza: A Frightening Anthropological Analogy
Sunday, 4 January, 2009
TEACHING ANTHROPOLOGY
Extract:
We all know the drubbing that British Social Anthropology took for writing the tribal story of Africa whilst the British Empire hacked its way through the continent. This American anthropologist doesn’t plan on following in their footsteps.
Sunday mornings is my time for catching up on the world’s events. I have been watching the live blog of the Israeli attack on Gaza at The Guardian (would Max Gluckman approve?). They have been updating regularly as events unfold. I have given up on the American coverage having watched the American morning T.V. news shows. I was appalled at the coverage. I think the high point was when Wolf Blitzer spent most of his time trying to pin Queen Noor into some sort of statement denouncing Muslim extremists as she was lamenting the humanitarian crises in Gaza. Hey, Wolf, there are children dying. Anyway, When there is coverage–and there is precious little of that–it is completely lacking in any objectivity or any actual discussion of the full totality of the situation. I heard next to no discussion of the Israel blockade of Gaza since their nominal pull-out some 3 years ago (and preceding the election of Hamas.) One of the leading watchdogs of the press by the press, Editor and Publisher, gives a good summary of the pro-Israel American press coverage….
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Rally for Gaza: Melbourne
Sunday, 4 January, 2009
Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua
This Australian blog has actually carried several posts since the Israeli attacks began, the one linked to here simply being the latest in a series.
Uniting discussion of Israeli occupation and land theft, with similar histories of anti-indigenous occupations and expropriations elsewhere in the world, is one of the sharper critiques raised on this blog that challenges the violent invention of so many nation-states.
Extract:
Depending on the circumstances, the Anti-Indigenous Movement led by the government of the United States deploys lethal force, as well as malicious harassment and psychological warfare against tribal peoples. F-16s used by the Israeli Air Force against Palestinians, M-16s used by the Colombian Army against Caucans, and Apache helicopters used by the Indonesian military against West Papuans, are all gifts from the United States Congress for the purpose of suppressing indigenous peoples.
As the acknowledged head of the group of four voting against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the United States also has the wherewithal to ensure that campaigns for indigenous freedom are met with both overt and covert opposition. The three declared US partners in opposing indigenous liberation Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may at present limit themselves to police harassment and judicial corruption in forcefully subverting international laws protecting indigenous peoples, but their militaries and intelligence agencies are nonetheless actively engaged in undermining indigenous sovereignty.
Under the rubric of the Global War on Terror, many governments around the world threaten, assault and murder indigenous leaders. As resource wars intensify between the First and the Fourth World, indigenous peoples unity and visibility becomes an essential survival strategy; strategically countering the propaganda of the Anti-Indigenous Movement remains a key element of that cohesion.
Video from an impassioned Melbourne demonstration with a great speaker:
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Report from Gaza
Sunday, 4 January, 2009
BLACKGIRL ON MARS
A recommendation from a Trinidadian friend and comrade that we read a report from A Mother in Gaza.
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WARMONGERS
Sunday, 4 January, 2009
GUANAGUANARE
Another Trinidadian friend and comrade has located one of the best calypsos there are for commenting on this and similar actions by the domineering war states of the world, well worth listening to, and following the lyrics transcribed on her blog. The song is “Warmongers” by calypsonian Gypsy (Winston Peters) of Trinidad.
ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 
Pamthropologist
Thanks for the link Max and, most importantly, thanks for the post. Sort this one out: my colleague is the daughter of first-generation Greek immigrants to America. Here in Houston, her mother has been following Gaza, on Greek cable news. She says the coverage is much better. Somewhere in there is an irony alert.
Maximilian Forte
…and the Greek protests against Israel, which they have taken time to do from their daily run of protests focused on the Greek state, have also been some of the most fiery and confrontational of all the ones in the world. Really, I might have to seek Greek citizenship at some point.
Having said that, I hope to have a video up this weekend of another protest about Gaza planned for Montreal on Saturday. It will be the third in two weeks I believe.