POLITICS, POETRY & SATIRE
Randa Abdel-Fattah makes convincing points to the Sydney crowd demonstrating Israeli PM Netanyahu’s visit to Australia on February 23, 2017.
Aboriginal playwright Ken Canning addresses the rally.
The following day Randa tackles Mark Leibler and Stan Grant on ABC News.
After a solid campaign by concerned groups and Indigenous people, Natalie Imbruglia has cancelled her gig in Israel which was scheduled for March 1, 2017. The campaign was co-ordinated by Don’t Play Apartheid Israel with an accompanying Facebook page.
Natalie’s decision to refrain from playing in Israel is much appreciated, following the passing of a criminal “law” by Israel’s Knesset retrospectively “legalizing” theft of private Palestinian lands for illegal Jewish-only settlements. Recently, in concert with renewed bombing, Israel prevented anaesthetic gas from reaching Gaza, yet after international pressure, one shipment of anaesthetic was permitted before Israel slammed the Gaza prison gates shut for all imports and exports. Gaza’s civilian population has lived under brutal siege by Israel since 2006. Of 2 million Gazan civilians persecuted by Israel’s military Occupation, over half are children.
Let’s hope Australian band Pond, UK-based Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Fat Boy Slim and Radiohead similarly revise their tour plans to exclude the apartheid state of Israel and respect the principled Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS).
Sign the petition to persuade Radiohead to respect the boycott.
Contact Radiohead
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/radiohead
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/Radiohead
Contact Pond
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pondling
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/Pondband
Contact Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nickcaveandthebadseeds
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/nickcave
Contact Fat Boy Slim
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fatboyslim
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/FatboySlim
In the JPost (12 February, 2017), event organisers are quoted saying Natalie cancelled because of “logistic constraints”, that she apologises and will reschedule.
Nevertheless, “Concert producers said refunds would be given to all ticket holders” and thus a reschedule is not expected in the near future.
The Israeli promoters of Natalie Imbruglia are said to claim, but not Natalie Imbruglia herself (who removed apartheid Israel from her tour without any comment on it being cancelled):
“Imbruglia apologized for disappointing her fans in Israel and vowed to schedule a show in country at a future date.”
No new concert in Israel appears on Natalie’s tour program or the promoter’s events.
For updates see DPAI Page:
“Natalie Imbruglia, Playing Apartheid is a Big Mistake”
Clearly, by claiming the concert will be rescheduled the promoters facilitate the Israeli anti-BDS propaganda. This tactic has been used rather frequently. For example, when Pharrell Williams cancelled his July 2016 gig due to “scheduling problems”, it was claimed falsely by JPost he would reschedule.
Similarly, the JPost published in August 2014:
“American pop singer Lana Del Rey announced on Friday that her Tel Aviv concert scheduled for August 20 has been pushed back to another date due to the ongoing crisis in the south.”
“Those who purchased tickets for the concert will be notified of an alternate date. Organizers for the show said that the original tickets will be honored.”
However, two and half years later Lana Del Rey has not rescheduled.
For updates see DPAI Page:
Lana Del Rey, Don’t Endorse Apartheid Israel’s Violence
At Walla (Hebrew), “industry sources” allegedly are blaming poor ticket sales for Natalie’s cancellation. “Industry sources” also claimed Pharrell Williams’ concert was cancelled due to low ticket sales. Are “low ticket sales” yet another repeat excuse deployed to disguise cancellations made by musicians who decide to refrain from crossing the boycott picket line?
The promoters, 3A Productions, are now claiming “she just couldn’t make it” and “she is busy, really busy“, not low ticket sales, for Natalie’s cancellation.
“Palestinian artists, cultural organizations and human rights supporters welcome the Australian-British singer Natalie Imbruglia’s cancellation of her March performance in Tel Aviv.”
You market racism
inbuilt in capitalism
you sell division
you hawk your tools
so i can on-sell
fear’s smell
complicit with
your smug, private
accumulation
stolen nations
down the multi-level
marketing pyramid
intimate and bigoted
this colonial poison
mass death enjoyment
this ponzi scheme
which only benefits you
i refuse to shill
your septic poo
drowning the planet
in trickling inequality
your squalid legacy
and strategy.
Jinjirrie,
May 2016
Did you cheer when NATO boots smashed into the face of Afghanistan?
those evil Taliban, hate hate hate, such primitives, more sanctions
and the wall came down, Brzezsinski crowed.
Did you party when US bombs destroyed the Koranic library in Baghdad,
because democracy is messy? So Cheney gloated.
Saddam is gone, pushed off the long drop.
Aren’t they better off now? history is a sweet crude encumbrance.
Did you share a joke or two when Gaddafi was clubbed in a culvert,
raped with a knife – all hail NATO, such zealot humanitarians,
AFRICOM, civilised pointy ends over means,
millions of liquidated lives afri-forgotten beyond trothawk triumph at chaos.
Great white saviours! power vacuum cleaners armed with fake incubator Saudi sat pics
sarin barrel WMDs chemical Putin Niger uranium Lockerbie Russian attacks.
Empire gives notice to the latest demon of infinite malevolence, Assad,
usurps the right to protect us all from remembering,
betrays landlocked Kurds again already.
Do you recall Halabja, Amiriyah, Fallujah?
The price, Madeline snarled, was worth it, and who paid?
not nationalist PR agents in their recliner rockers, hunched over lethal keyboards.
Your pillars of wisdom are mirages of multi-imperialism,
Syriabara buttressed by indifference to brown people squatting on our oil,
may they buy our weapons as penance.
Once venerated as obedient dancers, dictatorships topple dramatically when they stand on imperial toes.
Like Alice, the last thing you remember is the cat’s grin above the chess board,
then repeat after me, “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care” as you disappear.
October 2015
“For the last year-and-a-half we have said Assad has to go, but how long and what the modality is … that’s a decision that has to be made in the context of the Geneva process and negotiation,” Mr Kerry said.’ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-20/kerry-calls-for-renwed-effort-on-syria-conflict/6789582
Assad ‘part of solution in Syria’ — Julie Bishop signals policy change http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/assad-part-of-solution-in-syria-julie-bishop-signals-policy-change/story-fn59nm2j-1227544502722?sv=73a358828d8d737433cc8b39f524c09f
The Red Line and the Rat Line http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/kurds/cron.html
A Great Analysis of the Neocon BS the Guardian Has Been Selling Lately
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
http://www.authorama.com/alice-in-wonderland-10.html
“Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/
racist brands take a stand
with oppression hand in hand
capitalist charities affirm disparities
freedom and the bantustans
the moneygoround grinds
in sordid imperial embrace
and your silence is assent
your bullying, self-defence
while others realise dreams
resist the Beast’s foul schemes
and your wall’s stacked
solid with sycophancy
praising white supremacy
your struggle, your sacrifice
brandished wares to sell
a Great Man or two
say they’re worth a look
have you read the book?
on besieged Gaza beach
a young boy flies a kite
unseen above, Israel tests
new drones for the US
and its predatory National Interest
July 2015
