There exist, to my knowledge, two excellent pro-Palestinian sources that try to make known to the world the various brutalities and political outrages committed by the Israeli state against the Palestinians.
One is the high-brow Washington Review of Middle East Affairs, (WRMEA) whose website you can access at www.washington-report.org I have recommended that magazine to my ZGram readers several times before. It runs some stunningly written and well-researched articles and has much valuable statistical information - such as, which of our senators and congressmen are in the pockets of the Israeli Lobby, how much America doles out to Israel, actual case studies of children's brains rubber-bulleted by Israeli sodiers, political torture happening in that so-called "democracy" even as we speak etc.
The other source is called Middle East Report - MER abbreviated. It can be found in cyber space as well at http://www.MiddleEast.Org
Sadly, these two are at odds with each other and seem to fight and smear each other. If I were to choose one of the two, my vote would go to WRMEA because they seem to be more up-front ideologically and less divisive than MER. Their write-ups are first class.
I have to say, however, that WRMEA stays away from the Holocaust issue whenever it can and grovels all over the place when it cannot avoid it. I find that disconcerting, because these folks know better.
Their counterpart, MER, on the other hand, has written articles, such as the one below, that I consider excellent and absolutely to the point, with the exception of a minor bow in the politically correct direction. On the other hand, their front man is a person who, if you ask me, seems extraordinarily evasive. Some in our camp have tried to sound him out and have been given royal runarounds. Does anybody have some solid information on this outfit?
I don't know what to make of either one of these sources, but I consider them both helpful in doing at least part of the work of political sleuthing and exposing what is being done to Palestinians in Israel and by Israel to its neighbors and world-wide.
With that in mind, I post one of the MER e-mails, with copyright waived by them as long as the posts stay intact:
>>WASHINGTON SCENE:
>>ANALOGIES WITH KOSOVO:
>>MORE LIKE PALESTINE THAN THE HOLOCAUST
>>MER - Washington - 4/12/99: Last week the total front page of The Washington Jewish Week loudly compared today's Kosovo tragedy with "the Holocaust". But that's not really the appropriate comparison. And at first blush it's a bit surprising it comes from Jews who usually prefer to think of "their Holocaust" as uniquely terrible and inexplicable -- which in many ways it actually was.
>>But then maybe part of what's going on with this "Holocaust" analogy is to create a kind of comparison diversion. Maybe this is a kind of pre- emptive strike designed to divert attention, twist perceptions, and confuse the situation. Maybe in fact we could have used a headline like: "More Jewish Lobby Lies and Deceptions" -- for there is such a lengthy history of deceptions and distortions coming from that quarter.
>>The far closer analogy to what we see happening in Kosovo today is really what happened to the Palestinians in 1948. What is known throughout the Arabic-speaking world as the "Nakbah", "the Disaster", was in fact similar treatment of the Palestinians by the nascent Israelis to what we today see the Serbs doing to the "ethnic Albanians."
>>If there would have been satellite TV back in 1948 to show the world what was happening then in the area also known as the Holy Land, the pictures and images of shocked Palestinian refugees fleeing their homeland (which everyone then called Palestine) would indeed have looked very much like the flood of refugees pouring out of Kosovo today.
>>But then this is not the "politically correct" analogy, however much closer it actually is to what we see happening today than is that of "the Holocaust."
>>Neither the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby which has such a sway over the major media, nor the American Empire and its European allies, want to remind the world these days about the Palestinian refugees -- a situation they helped create, but never right. Nearly 2 million strong and still languishing in refugee camps throughout the Middle East after half a century, you don't see anyone being allowed on the major TV programs to discuss this far more appropriate analogy.
>>After all, if what the Americans now have in mind is bombing Yugoslavia into submission, and then "escorting home" the Kosovar refugees with a "protective" NATO force, one wouldn't want to start giving anyone any ideas about how to justly and finally settle things in the Middle East...would they?
>>**************************************************************** If anyone in the "establishment media" is daring enough to be willing to discuss this comparison in public, just give MER a call. We have many experts; professors and otherwise, Jewish, Muslim and Christian; all ready, able, and willing.
>>M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
>>(202) 362-5266 (202) 362-6965 Fax
>>Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org
>>**************************************************************** ___________________________________________________________________ To receive MER regularly email to INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org © Copyright 1999
>>Contact MER 24-hours daily with your comments and suggestions: Phone: 1800 724-6644, ID: 202 362-5266
Thought for the Day:
"I am Canadian citizen, taxpayer, teacher, husband and father trying to fathom exactly what Lloyd Axworthy and other NATO talking-heads mean by 'humanitarian bombing.'"
(Letter to a Canadian Member of Parliament)