talino.org

For multiple reasons, I’ve always been opposed to people attaching historically-charged terms such as “Nazi” to Israeli policy. However, this little gem published on the very popular Israeli news portal ynet (which also maintains an English version) is so dramatic that it made me question the validity of my traditional arguments.

The item in question is one of those “opinion polls” that ynet — like other sites — publishes on a regular basis. Now, these usually aren’t what you might describe as left-leaning. I’ve often been shocked by the wordings chosen for some of them. This one, however, is an example of a state of mind which can very safely be described as exterminatory. Because of their web-based and random nature, these polls are obviously not representative of the true state of Israeli opinion, and the ynet staff dutifully mentions this in their results. However, the very fact that something like that gets published is no small cause for alarm, especially when it concerns a highly popular news portal which likes to present itself as a serious and unbiased source of information.

In connection with the recent takeover of the Gaza strip by the Islamic militants of Hamas, ynet asks its readers: “What should we do with Gaza?”. Here are the (only) three possible solutions:

1. Go into that nest of vipers for an unlimited time and clean it up.
2. Attack from the air with only a few pinpoint ground strikes.
3. What can we do? As long as they kill each other, everything’s for the best.

I can only assume that some subversive element in ynet is trying to see how far he or she can promote fascist thinking in the mainstream media without getting noticed. Very far indeed, it would seem. If it’s a serious poll — and it very well might be — then it’s also an interesting insight into the Israeli collective consciousness: we either burn everything around us with the help of an oversized military machine, or raise our powerless arms in the air with the hope of seeing the problem disappear by itself. It’s a depressing illustration of what Doron Rosenblum, the ingenious Israeli commentator and writer, once wrote about the Israeli soldiers in the first Palestinian Intifada: on foreign TV it looks like we’re beating teenagers with bludgeons, whereas in reality we’re being led like lambs to the slaughter.

By the way, last time I checked, the third option got 60 percent of the votes.

The assault of corporate copyright on the free circulation of information continues with the recent demand by the National Music Publisher’s Association to basically shut down Guitar Tabs, a site which offers free guitar tablatures of popular music. These tablatures are transcribed by passionate lovers and players of music, who listen time and time again to favorite licks and riffs in the hope of figuring out the magic performed by an inspiring guitarist. Peter Allen, the publisher of Guitar Tabs, has posted the letter sent to him by the NMPA which essentially treats as a criminal any teenager who patiently discovers the introduction to Stairway to Heaven and posts his or her interpretation of it on the Internet.

Information is still sketchy, but it seems that intelligence-related website cryptome.org has been shut down by its Internet Service Provider, Verio (a company owned by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation). The website, which has been given two weeks to find another ISP, has posted a copy of Verio’s termination letter.

An article published today on Macworld has been given the inadequate headline “Verio to shut off controversial Web site” (the controversy only concerns the right of individuals to publish material which their governments would prefer keeping secret). Macworld quotes Steve Bellovin, a Columbia University professor, as saying: “If you wanted to go down the conspiracy theory route, you’d say some government agency pressured [Verio], but we don’t know this”. If this is indeed the case, the words of Bill Moyers seem even more uncannily prophetic than before.

Probably the most important geopolitical analysis I’ve read this month: Thelma and Louise Imperialism by Tom Engelhardt.

Most people in the world don’t know anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Really, anything. It’s a fact. For many, the lives and deaths of several million people are nothing more than a daily dose of fragmented TV reports and unintelligible newspaper headlines. The conflict is over a hundred years old; it’s persistent, passionate, omnipresent in the public debate and yet unfamiliar and incomprehensible for many. The most disquieting aspect of it is that most of those involved – the people living in the Middle East, directly and personally implicated by the seemingly inexhaustible violence surrounding them – don’t seem to know a lot about it, either. This is because knowledge and information is – like everywhere else – the victim of a relentless passion for self-justification, trampled by political manipulation and assisted by utterly prejudiced mass media outlets.

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These snapshots show a courageous, subversive and often hilarious political graffiti fight which decorates some walls in Tel Aviv, Israel. Except for the last shot, you obviously need to understand Hebrew in order to grasp what’s going on here, but I’ll do my best to translate.

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