US sanctions: Nervous Russian elite ‘realize Putin made a serious mistake’

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Hundreds of Russian oligarchs could be included on a list of potential US sanctions in the upcoming “Kremlin Report.” DW spoke to former US diplomat Daniel Fried about growing anxiety within the Russian elite.

Porn traffic before and after the missile alert in Hawaii

go figure

PornHub compared minute-to-minute traffic on their site before and after the missile alert to an average Saturday (okay for work). Right after the alert there was a dip as people rushed for shelter, but not long after the false alarm notice, traffic appears to spike.

Some interpret this as people rushed to porn after learning that a missile was not headed towards their home. Maybe that’s part of the reason, but my guess is that Saturday morning porn consumers woke earlier than usual.

Tags: missile, porn

Open Letter to Women’s March L.A.: Women for Palestine Calls for Genuine Intersectionality

Women for Palestine

Women for Palestine

2017 Women’s March in Los Angeles

We embrace and applaud the intersectional analysis that marks today’s social movements, and decry the absence of this perspective in outreach for the Women’s March Los Angeles.

In a shocking move, you announced that a “Special Guest” speaker at WMLA 2018 is Scarlett Johansson, who is unabashedly a supporter of Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. She served as a spokesperson, and indeed, was the face of the advertising campaign of SodaStream, whose factory was in a settlement built illegally on land stolen from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. As a result, she was forced to step down from her role as an ambassador for the humanitarian group Oxfam after working with the charity for eight years.

Johansson’s unapologetic support for Israel’s abuses of Palestinians confirms that she fully deserves the praise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heaped on her in his speech to the Israel lobby group AIPAC in Washington, several years ago. Netanyahu said Johansson should be “applauded” for opposing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights. Regardless of her claims to not be “political,” Johansson is now seen by Palestinians and their supporters as a defender of apartheid Israel.

While there are a host of OTHER examples that can be cited, here we want to focus on the impact on those of us who actively support the indigenous rights of the Palestinian people, especially in light of the recent international attention on women and child political prisoners, including 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, the young Palestinian Rosa Parks.

Once again, grassroot feminists who promote Palestinian human rights are concerned that a hostile environment is promoted by the organizers of WMLA — whether inadvertently, or not — by the choice of featured speakers, major donors, and major partners.

Once again, grassroot feminists who promote Palestinian human rights are concerned that a hostile environment is promoted by the organizers of WMLA — whether inadvertently, or not — by the choice of featured speakers, major donors, and major partners.

The organizers of the Women’s March LA are well aware of the issues the “Women 4 Palestine” contingent faced at last year’s “Women’s March LA.” We were verbally abused with racist remarks, and bullied, to the point that some of us are reticent to return out of concern for our personal safety. Our concerns were brushed off by your organizers, in fact one of you accused one of our members as being anti-semitic when she posted an announcement for our Women’s Rally to Free Ahed and All Palestinian Child Prisoners.

We also object to tone set as a result of the key role played by The National Council of Jewish Women LA, especially as a major donor to both the national and local Women’s March. When Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, said that “we didn’t want it to become an Israel-bashing fest…We got assurances that the march is not anti-Trump and not anti-Israel,” it was clear that they were determined to silence the voices of critics of Israel and supporters of Palestinian rights.

“We believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights.” – Mission Women’s March Mission. Apparently that does not include Palestinian Human Rights.

Renowned Black feminist poet, June Jordan’s poetry embodies the intersectionality of Black and Palestine liberation. “I was born a Black woman / and now / I am become a Palestinian / against the relentless laughter of evil / there is less and less living room / and where are my loved ones / It is time to make our way home.”

Last year’s Women’s March, DTLA looked like it was covered with a fresh coat of snow studded with pink caps. In no way did it reflect the wonderful diversity of Los Angeles County. Unfortunately, we never heard that was a concern for WMLA’s leaders, either before the march when several of us raised these issues, OR afterwards. What a shame and missed opportunity.

It’s well past time to be genuinely intersectional, inclusive, transparent, and welcoming of marginalized people, including the Palestinian community, an approach exemplified by the International Women’s Strike, which mobilized thousands of women in March of 2017 for gender, economic and social justice, while also centering the “Decolonization of Palestine,” anti-imperialism, and an end to gendered state violence. IWS organizers are once again mobilizing for March 2018 International Women’s Day marches and strikes.

In that spirit we invite you to join us, when many of us will participate in the International Women’s Day March & Rally 2018-Organized by AF3IRM, in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 3rd, 2018, noon to 3pm. This march is convened and led by transnational/women of color, but all people are welcome.

Women for Palestine L.A.

(List in formation; affiliations listed for identification only)

Amani Barakat, National Chair of Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Palestine Foundation; LA4Palestine

Mary Ellen Bennett, LA4Palestine and CodePink

Cathy Castro, founder, Threads of Peace, a 501c(3) dedicated to promoting peace, one thread at a time; Creator, #BlanketofLoveforGaza, a traveling peace and Gaza awareness exhibit

Estee Chandler, Founding Organizer, Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles; Producer/Host Middle East in Focus & Middle East Minute, KPFK-LA 90.7FM; SAG/AFTRA

Sherna Berger Gluck, Founding member, USACBI: Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel; HP Boycott-LA; Grassroots Community Radio Coalition; Women’s Studies Emerita, California State University, Long Beach, and feminist oral historian/author

Mary Hughes Thompson, co-founder, Free Gaza Movement; Women in Black-Los Angeles; International Solidarity Movement; Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation member; WGA

Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb, PhD., Professor
, Communication Studies, 
California State University, San Bernardino; Co-Director/Executive Producer, 1948: Creation & Catastrophe

Cindy Newman, artist; LA4Palestine

Karin Pally, MPH; founding member, Women in Black-LA; LA4Palestine

Karen R. Pomer, co-founder, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, LA4Palestine, March International, and the Rainbow Sisters Project for Rape Survivors; former producer/publicist, Democracy Now!; lifelong feminist activist/organizer

Marsha Steinberg, BDS Los Angeles for Justice in Palestine

Marcy Winograd, former congressional peace candidate; Jewish Voice for Peace; Secretary, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party (for identification purposes only)


Additional Initial Signers

Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, PhD, Director and Senior Scholar, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies, San Francisco State University

Suzanne Adely, International Women’s Strike US Coordinating Committee; US Palestine Community Network; Al-Awda-NY Palestine Right to Return Coalition, National Lawyers Guild, International Committee; Co-Chair, International Association of Democratic Lawyers

Kim Anno, Artist/filmmaker, Wildprojects.org

Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, MD, Palestinian-American human rights activist and humanitarian

Ellen Barfield, Board Member, War Resisters League; Director, Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter Veterans For Peace

Joanne Berlin, Coordinator, Committee for Racial Justice

Tithi Bhattacharya, National Organizer, International Women’s Strike; USACBI: Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

Maylei Blackwell, Associate Professor, Chicano and Chicana Studies and Gender Studies, UCLA; author ¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement

Renate Bridenthal, Professor of History (retired), Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Dena Chertoff, Jewish Voice for Peace

Rick Chertoff, Jewish Voice for Peace, Steering Committee LA Chapter

Julie Dad, Member, Democratic State Central Committee

Lamis J. Deek, J.D, International Women’s Strike US Coordinating Committee; Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Global Justice and Human Rights Law Network; Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad; US Palestine Community Network

Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, Irish Republican Socialist, feminist, and human rights activist

Frank Dorrel, longtime L.A. activist and blogger

Nada Elia, NWBDS; USACBI: Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

Dahlia Ferlito, White People 4 Black Lives

Nancy Gallagher, Research Professor and Professor Emerita, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

Irene Gendzier, Professor Emerita, Political Science Dept., Boston University

Ariel Gold, National Co-Director, CODEPINK Women for Peace

Trudy Goodwin, co-founder, Committee for Racial Justice Santa Monica, Justice Warriors for Black Lives, Los Angeles Community Action Network, Black Lives Matter, Los Angeles

Sondra Hale, Research Professor, UCLA and founder/Joint Coordinator, California Scholars for Academic Freedom

Kathleen Hernandez, Veterans For Peace, Los Angeles; co-founder, MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles

Jane Hirschmann, co-founder, Jews Say No!; U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope; Co-chair, NYS coalition to fight the anti-BDS bills

Ruth Jennison, UMass-Amherst; Massachusetts Society of Professors, MTA-NEA; Labor for Palestine

Charlotte Kates, International Coordinator, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Nerdeen Kiswani, NYC Students for Justice in Palestine

Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles; Fellow, University of Southern California, Institute for the Humanities; Chair, Board of the Office of the Americas

Cecelia Lavan, OP Justice Promoter, Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt, NY; WESPAC Middle East Committee

Kristina Lear, White People 4 Black Lives / SURJ Affiliate Los Angeles

Alita Z. Letwin, activist and educator

Michael Letwin, Labor for Palestine, Labor for Standing Rock, USACBI: Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel; Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW 2325; Red Tide, L.A. (1971-1975)

Julie Levine, Co-Chair, MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles

Linda Milazzo, Jewish Voice for Peace

Ruwayda Odeh, Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; NYC Students for Justice in Palestine

Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City University of New York (for identification purposes only); Coordinating Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City

Margaret Power, historian, Illinois Tech; Co-Chair, Historians for Peace and Democracy

Dorothy Reik, President, Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains

Rosalie G Riegle, Professor Emerita, Saginaw Valley State University; Su Casa Catholic Worker; War Resisters League; Jewish Voice for Peace

Lisa Rofel, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

Steven Salaita, Writer

Azalia Torres, Esq., Former Chair, Attorneys of Color of Legal Aid, ALAA/UAW 2325

Hussain Turk, Esq. Director, LA HIV Law & Policy Project

Devra Weber, Professor of History, UC Riverside

Souphe Widdi, Al-Awda-NY Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Michele A. Wittig, Professor Emerita, CSUN

Sherry Wolf, author, Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation; editorial board, International Socialist Review

The post Open Letter to Women’s March L.A.: Women for Palestine Calls for Genuine Intersectionality appeared first on LA Progressive.

..جنين…..التنسيق الامني

نادية حرحش

لم يمر الا اياما معدودة، لنرى بام اعيننا النتائج الحقيقية لتوصيات المجلس المركزي الفلسطيني الذي ندد وهدد واعلن ضمن اعلاناته التعبوية الكثيرة وقف التنسيق الامني مع الاحتلال.ليشهد المجتمع الفلسطيني وقياداته والعالم دبابات الاحتلال وجيشها والياتها تقتحم جنين وتهدم البيوت وتقتل وتشرد وتحاصر على مرأى ومسمع العالم بلا اي تردد . وكأن ابواب المدينة تفتح على مصراعيها من اجل عرضهم العسكري الاجرامي بترحاب امني منسق بجدارة.

ومقابل هذا ، في الجهة الاخرى من الحضيض الامني الفلسطيني ، الذي لم يعد حتى من داع للحديث او التأويل او تحليل في مدى التنسيق وفاعليته للاحتلال . كان هناك الاخفاق الاعلامي الفلسطيني الذي فشل بجدارة عن نقل الحدث بشفافية او وضوح او حتى معلومة حقيقية . كان الاعلام الفلسطيني مرة اخرى ، مجرد كربونة قد اعيد استهلاكها عن الاعلام الاسرائيلي ، فتناقل الحدث بمأساوية تضاهي الحدث نفسه.

في نهاية الامر تبين ان التنسيق الامني بلا ادنى شك ، هو تنسيق لخدمة الاحتلال ، وان…

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US sanctions have Russian oligarchs lobbying hard — Quartz

Anxiety in Moscow is deepening over an imminent new US sanctions list. A leading Russian paper estimates that 300 oligarchs could be named. To avoid inclusion on the list, some are reportedly changing their schedules to avoid being seen with president Vladimir Putin. Others are liquidating holdings that might be exposed. Mikhail Fridman, head of…

Source: US sanctions have Russian oligarchs lobbying hard — Quartz

ArabLit in Australia: A Conversation with Amal Awad

To help inaugurate Hend Saeed’s new venture, Arabic Literature in Australia, we’re featuring a conversation between Saeed and Palestinian-Australian author Amal Awad:

Hend Saeed: A new generation was born in Australia, or any other Western countries, from Arab Parents (Muslims) and some of them, face the identity issues, especially women. You were born in Australia from Palestinian parents; how do you identify yourself?  How did you find balance between the two worlds?

Amal Awad: That’s an important question. One of the major differences I perceived in my research was how different the Arab women in the Middle East were compared to women like me, who are of Arab heritage but grew up in the west. The women in the Arab world weren’t afflicted with identity issues; religion and culture were often quite blended. In Australia, however, a lot of us have experienced identity confusion. We have one foot in Australia, one in the homeland of our parents.

I identify as being Palestinian-Australian in a Muslim family. I prefer not to use these labels as much nowadays. I have at different times in my life identified very strongly as Palestinian; I’ve identified very strongly as a Muslim woman; and while I am still those things, I don’t want to be defined by them. There is so much more to us than our identity labels.

HS: From Courting Samira (2010) to Beyond Veiled Clichés (2016), did you find any change in Arab women’s situations from the time you wrote Courting Samira to writing Beyond Veiled Clichés and does it make a difference if women are living in an Arab or Western country?

AA: Well Courting Samira is a fiction book, more specifically chick-lit. It’s a light-hearted exploration of a young Muslim woman in Australia looking for love, but also purpose in her life, when she has spent most of her life being a people-pleaser and thinking she doesn’t have the same options as everyone else. I wrote it in my 20s, at a time when I was trying to make sense of what’s it like to be that fish out of water – a religious woman in a western society, and the balancing act this involves. But really, it’s a very universal story about learning to love yourself, explore your own life potential, and find joy in it.

Beyond Veiled Clichés is a very different kind of exploration. It’s non-fiction and features the voices of many women from around the world, sharing their real-life experiences. The similarity is that, although it’s non-fiction and a serious book, it’s also about trying to make sense of life and how you fit into it, as part of a culture and/or religion, and as an individual.

I think Arab people in general are only under greater scrutiny and criticism over time, so writing Beyond Veiled Clichés was important to me. I wanted the real-life stories of Arab women to be out in the world, to have a place amid all of the negativity.

But at the heart of all of my writing is a desire to deep-dive into human experiences, ideas and pathways. How do we live and what makes us feel whole?

HS: How does Beyond Veiled Clichés deal with the veil?

AA: It’s funny, the book is called Beyond Veiled Clichés because I was very focused on writing about the lives of Arab women more generally, beyond the veil that seems to define us in the eyes of many. I have been critical of the focus on the veil but it became clear that it needed to be covered in depth, so I have included a chapter on this.

The women I met with usually had opinions on hijab and niqab, both variations of the veil many Muslim women wear. For the Muslim women in Australia who wear hijab, it was clear that for many of them, it was an important aspect of their faith, and that they felt it was part of their identity as Muslim women in the west. For women overseas, there was a similar commitment to hijab, but those who don’t wear it for whatever reason often expressed concern about what the rise in conservative dress meant for their societies. More than one woman talked about a grandmother or other elder who refused to wear hijab, seeing it as a step backwards.

The interesting thing is how interchangeable the veil is; it can be at once a form of liberation or a source of oppression. The conditions of the society, its attitude towards women, and how women themselves see their place in society all shape the energy of that moment. This is why, in history, the veil – which itself doesn’t change much beyond being something that can be either very trendy or deeply forbidding in its nature – can symbolise different things.

For the women in Australia, the veil was their choice. More often than not this would be the case, generally speaking. But the same can’t be said for the Arab world where there would be greater pressure in some societies to dress conservatively.

So it’s not a simple case of liberation or oppression. And the question is, how much is the embrace of the veil a barometer for where a society sits? There is just too much emphasis on women as barometers for society.

HS: In one your interviews you said, “I do think it is up to Arab women themselves to tell their stories, they don’t need a westerner to come in and save the day and say I am going to give you a voice”.  And based on your book Beyond Veiled Clichés there are amazing women. Wwhy do you think this is happening? Does the western media want to keep Arab Muslim women in a particular image?

AA: I’m not sure if the media is creating the image or mirroring what people believe about Arab women – it’s a combination of both. The prevalent image of the ‘Arab woman’ is that of a veiled woman, kohl-lined eyes peeking out from a heavily veiled face, looking frightened or enticingly exotic. These are extreme images and both exist and both define how people around the world view Arab women.

Not all Arab women wear a veil, and those who do don’t necessarily wear the veil the same way. Many Arab women aren’t Muslim; those who are Muslim are not necessarily religious, in the same way a lot of Christian or Jewish women might not be religious even if they identify as being in those faiths.

A major issue is how we are not perceived as fully-functioning, fully human beings. Whether we’re perceived as victims or heroines, we seem to exist in extremes in the minds of others, devoid of normal lives, depth of feeling, desires that don’t revolve around men and wider culture and society.

Amal Awad is journalist, screenwriter and author. She is a columnist for SBS Life and The New Arab and has written for ELLE, Frankie, Daily Life, Sheilas and Junkee. Amal has also worked as a producer for ABC Radio National. Amal is the author of four books. Her latest is a non-fiction book called Beyond Veiled Clichés – The Real Lives of Arab Women. You can read an excerpt online. 

Hend Saeed loves books and has a special interest in Arabic literature. She had published a collection of short stories and recently started “Arabic Literature in English – Australia.” She is also a translatore, life consultant, and book reviewer.