Mahler's Prodigal Son

Gideon Levy has never held back in expressing a forthright view about the Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the attacks on Gaza, the inequalities in Israelis society (that is, between Jews and Arabs) and the "lie" about Israel seeking a peace with the Palestinians. He once again challenges the alleged desire of Israel to have peace with the Palestinians in his latest op-ed in Haaretz .   Levy is right - as "history" has shown those who look past the Israel and Jewish Lobby PR machine - and events in Israel, the West and Gaza in the last days make one fear that another intifada is in the offing. "Israel does not want peace. There is nothing I have ever written that I would be happier to be proved wrong about. But the evidence is piling up. In fact, it can be said that Israel has never wanted peace – a just peace, that is, one based on a just compromise for both sides. It’s true that the routine greeting in Hebrew is Shalom (peace) – shalom when one ...

From Democracy Now (always worth following and supporting): "In the latest revelations from documents leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Washington Post has revealed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly gave the National Security Agency sweeping power to intercept information "concerning" all but four countries around the world. A classified 2010 document lists 193 countries that would be of valid interest for U.S. intelligence. Only four were protected from NSA spying — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The NSA was also given permission to gather intelligence about the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency.  As we broadcast from Bonn, Germany, we are joined by Sarah Harrison, investigative editor of WikiLeaks, who accompanied Snowden on his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow last June. She now lives in exile in Germany because she fears bei...

The US makes great play of its Fourth of July celebrations.    Sad to say, as this piece on CommonDreams so clearly spells out, there isn't much to celebrate for some 65 million Americans. "Over sixty five million people in the US, perhaps a fifth of our sisters and brothers, are not enjoying the “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” promised when the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776.  They are about twenty percent of our US population.  This July 4th can be an opportunity to remember them and rededicate ourselves and our country to making these promises real for all people in the US. More than two million people are in our jails and prisons making the US the world leader in incarceration, according to the Sentencing Project, a 500% increase in the last 30 years. Four million more people are on probation and parole, reports the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. On the night of July 4 and on any given nigh...

Half of Australia's cabinet is made up of religious men, primarily of the Catholic faith.   It's no attack on the Church as such to question the Christian values and integrity of these so-called leaders, when one reads and hears about the desperate plight of asylum seekers, especially the children.   Wide-spread incidents of children in detention self-harming?   Children being denied glasses in order to be able to read?     Exhibit #1 - of the total abrogation of Christian values, integrity, decency and abiding by international law - in this radio report on ABC's The World Today : "At the human rights inquiry into children in immigration detention, the provider of health services to the centres has struggled to explain why so many children there are harming themselves. The commission says 128 of the 780 children in detention have self-harmed in the last year. A child psychiatrist told the inquiry earlier that children are more traum...

MPS was being driven to the airport the other day by a man in his early seventies.   Turns out he was a Holocaust survivor, having been born in Poland in 1939, and shipped out to Russia with his family during the war. Just imagine the trauma, and the after-shock, the taxi driver has carried with him all his life when he relates how he, and his family, returned to Poland in 1945 to their village, close to Auschwitz.   In an effort to locate missing family Jack's parents and he fronted at the notorious camp.    There they found piles of bodies and an "unbelievable" stench.       It's hard to imagine the effect the "scene" would have had on a 6 year old - who had already had his life turned upside down........ 

Fury, revenge and pay-back ought not play any role in a civilised society.  And an eye-for-an-eye certainly not!   What to make of the Israeli response , then, to the kidnapping and murder of 3 teenagers? "Israel vowed revenge for the murder of three abducted teens, and swiftly, fiercely they have taken it: Within days and sometimes hours, they have killed at least eight young Palestinians, demolished the homes of the families of two Hamas suspects, announced sweeping new settlements, and pounded Gaza in over 30 missile attacks. Amnesty International has called for justice for the teens, not random, illegal collective punishment. Many others have called out a selective sympathy that more deeply feels, mourns and condemns the unfathomable loss of one child, any child - tragically, a pain many Israeli and Palestinian families share - over another. "While everyone will remember Gilad, Naftali and Eyal, no one will remember Ali, Mohammad or Mustafa," writes one observer. ...