Arab News Blog

Another ‘Moderate’ GZ Mosque Supporter Can’t Bring Himself to Call Hamas a Terrorist Organization – The Corner – National Review Online

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AFP – The United States said Monday it is “mindful” of the Palestinian call for Israel to halt settlements, but stopped short of saying it will back such a demand at new peace talks here next month.

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AFP – Hours after Israel and the Palestinians accepted a call to restart direct peace talks, politicians on both sides spoke of pitfalls ahead, warning that negotiations would be stillborn unless Israel stopped building in West Bank settlements.

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alarabiya.net, Cairo mosques begin unified call to prayer, 12 Aug 2010: "The $175,000 project will equip each mosque with a receiver that will broadcast a single call to prayer from a downtown studio. Abdul Galil said every one of the city’s mosques should be on the system by the end of Ramadan."’We are in the age of laptops and computers, technology is advanced and it is better regulated than
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Syria’s president and the Saudi king call on Lebanon’s rival factions to avoid turning to violence amid mounting political tensions in the country.
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AFP – Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Saturday slammed a UN call for aid bound for the Palestinian enclave to be delivered over land rather than by sea.

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Hundreds of doctors in the UAE have responded to the call of a hospital to treat patients abroad as part of a humanitarian mission.
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AP – Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday that included a call to end U.S. aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories.

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Israeli troops dance to K$sha’s “Tik Tok.”:

Some comments on the semiotics. The piece begins with the Muslim call to prayer in al-Khalil, a Palestinian city in the Palestinian West Bank, which Israelis call Hebron. Some 30,000 Palestinians are being kept in an urban prison for the sake of 600 far-right armed Jewish colonists who have squatted on Palestinian property in the city. Al-Khalil (“Hebron”), like the 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank, has been militarily occupied by Israel since 1967. Israeli squatters have stolen private Palestinian land and control 42% of the West Bank, according to B’Tselem. It is illegal in international law for Occupying powers to transfer their own populations into occupied territories or for them to usurp property from the occupied.

The video depicts Hebron as mired in tradition and virtually empty, which mirrors the Israeli Orientalist view of Palestinians more generally. The soldiers are depicted as playful, fun-loving and hyper-modern, gyrating to the music of the most recent blonde valley-girl top 40 phenomenon.

In fact, militarily occupying other people is a sign of backward, 19th-century-style imperialist ideology. The 600 Israeli colonists these troops are supporting include people far more fundamentalist and mired in tradition than most Palestinians.

Israeli settlers, Al-Khalil/Hebron

And struggling for local independence versus globalizing oppression, whether it is BP destroying the Gulf of Mexico, coal companies causing global warming and destroying human habitat, or neo-imperial schemes to steal local resources on the part of global bullies, is actually the avant-garde of the 21st century.

Palestinian youth dancing to Shakira at the Cosmos dance club in the West Bank Courtesy McClatchy

Here is a video of the more usual activities of the Israeli army in al-Khalil: “On Feb. 25, 2010, Palestinian and international activists held a march in Hebron/Al Khalil to demand the opening of Shuhada Street, open to Israelis but closed to Palestinians for the last ten years. Marchers attempted to walk onto Shuhada Street, once a primary street for Palestinian business and markets, but Israeli military prevented them from entering. The man detained in this clip was released late that evening.”

And here is a B’tselem video of what life is like for al-Khalil residents trapped among aggressive Israeli squatters determined to drive them out:

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AFP – The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Tuesday issued a fresh call to lift the Gaza blockade for the sake of its residents, saying it was too early to assess Israel’s decision to ease the siege.

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