Novel gets to truth of Sabra and Shatila

Israel's invasion of Lebanon and subsequent 22-year-long occupation has been the focus of three acclaimed Israeli films in recent years: Lebanon, Waltz with Bashir and Beaufort tell the story of this era from the perspective of the occupiers. All young men serving in the Israeli army, the films' protagonists question their roles in Lebanon.

However, this narrative perspective leads the viewer to empathize with the occupier and thus do little other than reinforce a simplistic falsification of Israel's history as a country always conflicted when waging necessary wars of self-defense. This is the narrative that continues to dominate the Western media.

Not one of these films makes the slightest attempt to humanize Israel's victims or tell the story from their perspective. In contrast, UK author Mischa Hiller's first novel, Sabra Zoo is told through the eyes of a young man named Ivan. Sabra Zoo follows the adventures of this son of a Dutch mother and Palestinian father who serves as an officer in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut during the most intense period of Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

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Unspoken Alliance between Israel and Apartheid South Africa

I found book review of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. Read on, buddies. I don’t know whether this book available in Malaysia or not. The apartheid Israel is the real terrorist!

In The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, historian and Foreign Affairs editor Sasha Polakow-Suransky explores the rise and fall of the Cold War-era alliance between Israel and apartheid South Africa. Polakow-Suransky demonstrates that the relationship was a strategic and ideological pairing bound largely by Cold War posturing and international isolation. The Unspoken Alliance provides a fascinating and well-documented history of a pair of pariah nations and their love affair.

What makes The Unspoken Alliance "unspoken" today is more the -- largely Western -- short-term memory that has an Oslo-era image of Israel in mind. Dozens of nations established ties with Israel after the start of the Oslo process and this, combined with the fall of apartheid in South Africa, led to the notion that both nations were abandoning their oppressive regimes. In its own way, The Unspoken Alliance is a return to literature of the earlier anti-apartheid era. If this is indeed the case, and with the current movement against Israeli apartheid producing vibrations large enough to be reflected in popular and scholarly works, it may well portend the coming end of yet another apartheid state.

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Hamas is not terrorist, Israel is the REAL TERRORIST!

Last week I was in Gaza. While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police officers who were undergoing a course in conflict management. They were eager to know whether foreigners felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government? Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18 months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings. They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye.

Less than a week later all of these men were dead, killed by an Israeli rocket at a graduation ceremony. Were they “dangerous Hamas militant gunmen”? No, they were unarmed police officers, public servants killed not in a “militant training camp” but in the same police station in the middle of Gaza City that had been used by the British, the Israelis and Fatah during their periods of rule there.

This distinction is crucial because while the horrific scenes in Gaza and Israel play themselves out on our television screens, a war of words is being fought that is clouding our understanding of the realities on the ground.

Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments’ misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.
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The Bush-Blair response to the Hamas victory in 2006 is the key to today’s horror. Instead of accepting the democratically elected Government, they funded an attempt to remove it by force; training and arming groups of Fatah fighters to unseat Hamas militarily and impose a new, unelected government on the Palestinians. Further, 45 Hamas MPs are still being held in Israeli jails.

Read more here. Related: Hamas: A Beginner's Guide at Malaysiakini

Meniti Maut and Mikhail – Watch out this two Malay novel

I believe these two books will bring new experience in Malay novel genre. Watch out folks!

Info on an Economic Hitman

Economic Hitman is “a highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.

Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.” (Source: WantToKnow)

First comment on Meniti Maut, a Malay novel that will rock the nation!

This comment is not mine, just copy from another blog. Read on!

After reading the novel, I can't help but smile. There was an eagerness to discuss the recently read novel with someone. Being the only one beside me in the family that has read the novel to the finish; I discussed with my mother on the novel.

Meniti Maut is finally completed from cover to cover. I received my autographed copy from my father a few days back, and finished reading it the day after. Quite an accomplishment I can say, with all other things that I have to do; I can still finish the adventure. The novel itself is a page turner. I was immersed in a world not quite different with my surrounding, and the realness of it might be one of the factors that I can't put down the novel.

Lucky I have to put it down, because I have classes to attend and food to eat.

I remembered last semester break, Abah was still struggling to finish that story. For Abah, the story was already perfect, but since the editors did not quite happy with how many pages that novel had, Abah still had to add something in. Along the way to UTP to pick up my little brother for the semester break, Abah told me the what the story is all about. True I had already known the flow, and the general idea on the story, (I also know the ending already at that time) but I can still enjoy the novel.

I do not want to make a review on Meniti Maut, since the novel is not yet out, (I might not make a review even after you already received your copy in the next KL International Book Fair, LOL) but I think it is enough to say a few sentences to describe how delicious it was.

I saw a scene where Jet Li is fighting with people inside a bar.
I saw a scene where James Bond was trudging through a crowd of tourists.
I saw a scene where a surveillance truck is parked near a bank just like the movie "The Inside Man"
I even saw a scene where Monkey D. Luffy pick up his strawhat and puts it back on his head!

However, given my limited imagination, I can state many Hollywood movies resemblances (plus one anime), but not of local movies. But the novel managed to bring local cultures to life. Also of local administration. If before we can see movies putting together their CIAs and FBIs to solve cases, the novel picture how the local administration handles critical situations we usually see in the movies (Hollywood again).

But, I was not satisfied at the ending. Because I knew it already before reading it!

~Its my pleasure not to reveal many things so that you can enjoy every page of the book!

And of course! Congratulations, Abah! For completing another marathon run! (Original entry at http://hilmannordin.blogspot.com)

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Hamas: A Beginner's Guide at Malaysiakini

The United States calls Hamas a terrorist organisation. Yet Hamas swept to victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Why did Hamas win? This one-stop guide to Hamas tells you everything you need to know.

The author, a leading Al-Jazeera journalist and Cambridge-based scholar, analyses Hamas's history and its agenda. This book covers all the key issues, including Hamas's attitudes to Israel and the PLO, religious beliefs, suicide bombings and its programme of grassroots social work within Palestine.

The reality of Hamas's victory means that the West will now have to engage with it more seriously if there is to be peace in the Middle East. This book provides the first essential step towards a better understanding of the challenges and surprises that the future may hod.

Khaled Hroub was born in a refugee camp in Bethlehem and is one of the foremost experts on Hamas. He is currently director of the Arab Media Project at Cambridge University and hosts a book review programme for Al-Jazeera TV. He is the author of Hamas: Political Thought and Practice and writes for major Arab newspapers and academic journals.

This book is published by The Other Press (2008) and priced at RM25.00. You can buy this book at Malaysiakini’s Kinibooks, here.

Related:
Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement
Book review: Cycles of violence, US media and Palestine
Islam and the problem of Israel THE TERRORIST!
From Beirut to Jerusalem and Blind Spot
Who’s the “real” George Herbert Walker Bush?

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Book review: Cycles of violence, US media and Palestine

In a brilliant new book, Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Marda Dunsky analyzes the politics, culture and theory of coverage of the conflict in the United States.

Dunsky, a former Arab affairs reporter for The Jerusalem Post and editor at the national/foreign desk of The Chicago Tribune, examines a wide array of news reports from television and print media, focusing on the recent history of the conflict from the Camp David peace talks in the summer of 2000 to the April 2004 meeting between then US President George W. Bush and then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The time frame was chosen because it allows an opportunity to examine what could be a typical pattern in the conflict -- beginning with intensive negotiations between the parties, followed by an escalation of violence, and then initial efforts to renew diplomacy.

Pens and Swords argues that "mainstream reporting of the conflict itself rarely goes much beyond superficial details of failed diplomatic initiatives and intercommunal violence in the field -- leaving the American public without important contextual information about why the conflict remains so intractable."

Dunsky presents a detailed content analysis of media reports in order to demonstrate "how, time and again, the media bypass important contextual aspects of organic issues, such as the US role in the peace process, the Palestinian refugee question, and Israeli settlements."

The study is driven by the central conviction "that if Americans had a fuller contextual understanding of the key issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via the mainstream media, they would be better equipped to challenge US Mideast policy."

Dunsky begins the analysis by examining the contradiction of the US often being portrayed as an "honest broker" in much of the reporting with the regular updates on shuttle diplomacy missions and negotiations aimed at crisis management, while in practical terms US foreign policy itself is overwhelmingly tilted toward Israel.

The US has provided more than 100 billion dollars in military and foreign aid to Israel since 1949 -- and significant diplomatic cover at the United Nations, vetoing 31 UN Security Council Resolutions critical of Israel between 1970 and 2006. However, Dunsky contends that the mainstream coverage does not account for the extent of the US bias nor does it examine how the US bias affects the trajectory of the conflict over time.

Read full article here.
Related: Islam and the problem of Israel THE TERRORIST!

Islam and the problem of Israel THE TERRORIST!

The problem of Israel confronting the Muslim world today has neither precedent nor parallel in Islamic history. The Muslim world has tended to regard it as another instance of modern colonialism, or at best, a repetition of the Crusades.

The author shows how Israel is neither one of these; but that it is both and more. The book goes into the nature of Zionism, its history, what has kept it alive, Islam's verdict concerning Israel today, the question on whether a secular Palestinian state is an answer to the problem of Israel, and many other topics.

Author is Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, 130 pages and the price is RM19.00. Available at Islamic Book Trust.

Related book: Party of God: An Islamic Movement Perspective. You can buy this book at Islamic Book Trust or Malaysiakini’s Kinibooks.

Related 1: JOM BOIKOT DAN JIHAD: Mark and Spencer, Loreal, Tesco, McDonalds, KFC, Nestle, Coke
Related 2: Let’s BOYCOTT and ALL DEAD, including five months old baby

Party of God: An Islamic Movement Perspective (Ref: Malaysiakini)

From a rag-tag band of guerrillas in the 1980S, the Hizbullah have become a near-professional army capable of resisting the Israelis on several fronts for prolonged periods.

But they are far more than simply a military force. They are also a popular political movement in Lebanon, capable of transcending the country’s fractured communal politics, and the main providers of education and welfare services to Lebanon’s poorest people.

It is not only for their military strength that they are massively popular with Arab and Muslim peoples everywhere – and regarded with fear by Israel, the West and Arab governments alike.

This volume brings together essays and features on what is perhaps the most successful non-government social, political and military movement in the world today.

Publisher: TOP, in association with Crescent International
Price: RM19.00 (142 pages)
Click here to buy.

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Is Iran emerging as a global power?

It ranks second in global natural gas reserves and has substantial oil reserves with plenty of growth potential in both energy sectors. This guarantees that the Islamic Republic will play a key long-term role in the world's increasingly important energy equation.

The United States has also been engaged in talks with Tehran over how to stabilise Iraq - an acknowledgment that Iran could hold the key to regional security. What does Iran's growing influence mean for its neighbours? Send your opinion to Aljazeera.net.

My opinion is, yes Iran will be a major world’s power, with its Islamic root. That’s why United States (especially George Bush) uses every effort and power at their disposal to restrain Iran from being a nuclear power with Iran’s nuclear program. For George Bush, only America and Israel will have the right to own nuclear weapons. Such an arrogant head!

On June 21, 2008 the Iranian envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh as reported by Voice of America (http://voanews.com) says, “Iran's envoy to the United Nations nuclear agency says Iran is continuing with its nuclear program despite a multination offer of an incentives package if Tehran stops atomic activity." He says “the Islamic Republic will continue its nuclear enrichment program, reiterating the country's claim that it is for peaceful purposes.”

From Beirut to Jerusalem and Blind Spot

I found two non-fiction books that worth to mention here; Dari Beirut ke Jerusalem (From Beirut to Jerusalem) and Blind Spot. Dari Beirut ke Jerusalem is the Malay version of the From Beirut to Jerusalem book that already in the market for quite sometime. The former book’s author is Dr. Ang Swee Chai and the latter is by Dr. Dzulkifli Ahmad.

I had seen From Beirut to Jerusalem book in the bookstores as well as during book exhibition for several times, but never have second thought to buy it. However, I feel interested to have it in Malay language (bahasa Melayu) version; in addition the price is only RM28 for 400 plus pages book.

This is the story of Dr Ang Swee Chai, a Penang-born orthopaedic surgeon, and her flight to war-torn Lebanon in 1982 to treat the wounded and dying. This new edition, twenty years after the Zionist terrorism in Shabra and Shatila which killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, is a tribute to the ongoing struggle against Zionist occupation in the Holy Lands.

The Blind Spot is book about the Malaysia’s Islamic state debate, new economic policy and other national pressing issues that peoples need to know from second source, rather than only rely on government information. The price of this book is RM25 for 232 pages.

I’m not sure who the publisher of the books is. You can visit Merdeka Books (http://www.merdekabooks.net/) website to have a peek at the books, if you have any doubt.

Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement

To know about Hamas, why they exist and why Palestinians fight Israelis, this is the book you should read. The truth is still the truth, no matter what; just open your eyes and heart.

I feel really excited to get this book.

From publisher
The radical Islamist movement Hamas shocked the world when it won a landslide election victory in January 2006 in the Palestinian occupied territories.

One of the few journalists not to be surprised by this outcome was Zaki Chehab who has developed an international reputation as a fearless reporter and was one of the first to interview members the Iraqi resistance in May 2003. Fluent in Arabic, he is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in UN refugee camps and has unique access to and understanding of Hamas.

Like Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, Chehab shows how Hamas built a formidable social base in Palestine through its welfare programs. He also explains why, in the face of the endless complexities, disappointments and delays brought about by the signing of the Oslo Peace Accord, Hamas's strategy of armed struggle and terrorism offers the Palestinian people a seductive, simple and deadly alternative.

Title: Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement
Author: Zaki Chehab

Asy-Syahid Sheikh Ahmad Yasin

A Review by Michael B. Farrell

On April 6, 1994, Yehia Ayyash, one of the more elusive members of the Islamic Resistance Movement known by its Arab acronym Hamas, left an indelible mark on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The man whom former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called "the Engineer" dispatched a Palestinian named Raed Zakarneh on what would be a historic mission. When Mr. Zakarneh blew his car up, killing himself and eight Israelis at a bus stop in the Israeli city of Afula, he became Hamas's first suicide bomber.

The attack was retribution for a massacre perpetrated by a Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, who threw a hand grenade into a crowded mosque, killing 29 Palestinians.

And so Hamas literally exploded onto the world stage. Today, Israel and the US consider it a terrorist organization with which they refuse to negotiate.

Yet neither they -- nor the rest of the world -- can afford to ignore Hamas, particularly since the group's most recent historic feat: seizing control of the Gaza Strip and routing out Fatah, the main faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

So how did this marginal group, inspired by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, grow from its shadowy beginnings in the densely populated slums of the Gaza Strip to first win a landslide victory in the January 2006 Palestinian election and now to hold complete control over all of Gaza?

Zaki Chehab's new book, Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement, goes a long way toward answering such questions. Chehab's book not only explains the methodical rise of Hamas, but also offers insights into the group's psyche that go beyond the stereotypes perpetuated by so much of today's news coverage.

Chehab is a veteran Arab journalist who has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a quarter century and is now the London bureau chief for Al Hayat.

But he is more than that. Chehab is also a Palestinian who was himself born in a refugee camp, a credential that has allowed him unprecedented access to any number of high-level sources.

Through interviews with Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin, the so-called "father" of Hamas, Chehab lays the groundwork for the group's evolution: "The first phase was to build institutions; charities and social committees which would open their doors to the young and old -- anyone who could play a role in resisting the occupier," explains Sheikh Yassin.

The second, he told Chehab, was to work on "strengthening the roots of the resistance within every household in the West Bank and Gaza."

From there, it became possible to build a military that evolved from rock throwing to rocket launching and finally to establish a dialogue between Hamas and its Arab and Islamic neighbors.

Hamas saw success on all fronts, as Chehab explains in interviews with other key Hamas members who have managed to survive (avoiding the fate of Ayyash, the Engineer, who the author says was assassinated by Israeli intelligence) to lead it today.

But Chehab doesn't stop with an examination of the group's leadership. He moves on to probe its rank and file and offers the reader a glimpse of the poverty and anger that turn ordinary men and women into militants.

He talks to the mother of a young martyr who urged her son to take up arms at an early age. So enmeshed in her family's daily life is the fight against Israel that on their wall hangs a framed piece of barbed wire torn from a Jewish settlement.

Chehab watched as two Hamas members caught the elderly, grieving father of a suicide bomber in their arms as he collapsed from grief. Within minutes, they had persuaded him that this was not a loss but an honor. Such views, Chehab makes clear, are not the ravings of an isolated few. The Islamic Resistance Movement, he argues, is not going away, or not going quietly. It has broad and growing support among Palestinians, deep backing within the region, and impressive resilience.

Inside Hamas could hardly be more timely, although, written before the seizure of Gaza, it runs the risk of being overtaken by events. But that doesn't alter the force of Chehab's conviction: Hamas must be part of any regional negotiations.

"Attacking and isolating Hamas, as has been done," he writes, "is merely making the movement more popular."

Michael B. Farrell is the Monitor's Middle East news editor.