“Tehran denies any involvement and accused Israel of attacking its own embassies as part of a “psychological war” against Iran.”

In class yesterday, I came up with what I thought was the zaniest possible conspiracy theory about the recent bombings in India, Georgia, and elsewhere … only to have a student immediately point out that the Iranian government was way ahead of me. (via kohenari)

I want to remind you all of the great Mossad shark conspiracy,

Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, the governor of South Sinai, told the state news websiteegynews.net: “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm.” Egyptian television broadcast claims that Israeli divers had captured a shark with a GPS unit planted on its back. Describing the theory as “sad”, Professor Mahmoud Hanafy of the Suez Canal University pointed out that GPS devices are used by marine biologists to track sharks, not to remote-control them.

Wasn’t that part of the plot to Austin Powers?

(via kohenari)

“[Netanyahu] is so trapped within his paranoid way of seeing reality. Don’t get me wrong: there are dangers to Israel. We are surrounded by countries who are hostile to us, and until today most countries—not most, all Arab countries I can say—have not accepted our right to be here and they absolutely do not understand the deep affinity and belonging that we feel toward this country. So some of our fears are true and concrete. But Netanyahu is unable to distinguish between the real dangers and the echoes of his fears and the echoes of past traumas. This is not a leader who can change reality, who can generate a new reality. If he continues to act like this and to think like this, he can only doom us to repeat our tragedies and bring to life our worst fears.”
— Israeli novelist David Grossman’s chilling assessment of the danger Netanyahu presents for Israel. Goosebumps. h/t: Sullivan

israelfacts:

The Human Swap: How a single Israeli came to be worth 1,027 Palestinians

Israel and Hamas agreed a prisoner swap last month that saw 1,027 Palestinians freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. This week, New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren had illustrator Tim Enthoven draw every last one of them by hand for the cover.

(via respirification-deactivated2013)

“Iran wins because of what many Israelis now see that Israel is turning itself into: Iran.”

Iran Wins [Haaretz]

Whoa.

Hypothetical situation but assume you’re a blogger for The Washington Post, you have a Twitter account because who doesn’t in this journalism world? Well let’s say you’re close friends with someone, or just a follower, and retweet their work. Maybe it’s done absentmindedly, maybe it’s an endorsement, maybe it’s just to include the ideas into a conversation but you have your reasons and let’s face it, you’re limited to a minute amount of characters. Ergo you can’t always include your thoughts. Well let’s take the situation above and let’s say the post you retweet includes the following,

He’s free and he’s home in the bosom of his family and his country.

Celebrate, Israel, with all the joyous gratitude that fills your hearts, as we all do along with you.

Then round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women-those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others-and their offspring-those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god-as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose. [emphasis mine]

Some say that this RT is promoting something akin to a genocide or at least, mass murder of Palestinians. With all of this said, my general question is simply…

Are you, the blogger who may have absentmindedly retweeted this link, a bit responsible for the material in this retweet?

  • If not, and let’s say you fail to clarify or question the opinion expressed at the link, should a simple deletion suffice? 
  • If yes, should you be fired? (with knowledge that people have been fired for much less)

I don’t have any answers, what do you think?

h/t: Samia

“Indeed, such a strategy has worried Israel enough that it has enlisted the U.S. in the fight against what Israeli leaders term “delegitimization.” “Delegitimizers” are supposedly not seeking justice and full human and political rights for Palestinians, but rather seeking the collapse of Israel — much like East Germany or apartheid South Africa — through political and legal assaults. According to Israel and groups supporting it in the United States, virtually all Palestine solidarity activism, especially BDS, is “delegitimization.” Some Israelis, including even former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have warned that fighting a movement calling for universal civil and political rights would only make Israel look more, not less, like an apartheid state, worsening its situation. But Israeli elites have come up with no plausible response to the reality that within a few short years — because of Palestinian population growth and Israeli settlement construction — a Jewish minority will be ruling over a disenfranchised and subordinated Palestinian majority in a country that cannot be partitioned.”

Palestinian children’s artwork that was banned by MOCHA. The artwork depicted the Israeli assault during the 2008-09 Gaza conflict through the eyes of Palestinian youth.

View a few more pieces of art here.