TNHP - March 2016

Brilliant director, writer of critical analyses in prose and poetry

Lia Tarachansky

A Jew reports from Israel and Palestine

The Wife Of The Accused
 
The wife of the accused is 23. She is eight months pregnant. She still has pimples on her face. She is very pale. She stands, her elbow at a right angle against her back. Like an old, old woman.

The day her husband went missing she left her house. She knows too well the ways of the army. She doesn't want to die when they come to demolish.

They didn't come with charges, or a warrant. They came with sledgehammers and broke everything. She stayed at her parents' home. The next night they came with dogs.

And sledgehammers. And broke the broken rubble.

The next night they came with an army jeep to her parents' place and took her. They drove her home and made her watch. They blew up her house, and made them watch. The wife of the accused and her unborn baby. 

_______
 
On the phone with Gaza

We sigh together on the phone. Long, genuine sighs. Each one hopes the other has a better idea. Instead we sigh on the phone together.

_______

I am an Israeli

I am an Israeli at a time of... A time of... Full force assault on Gaza. I forget I am human. I do not live under occupation. I do not live under siege. But I am human. How do I know? I do not report the names of the dead anymore. Now I count them by dozens. Like fruit. A long line of scratched out numbers on my pages. Listed in order of importance. Dead. Injured. Destroyed.

Here, people sit at coffee shops and eat cake. I am human. How do I know? Chain smoking. Always looking south. Being afraid of birds because they cut through the sky too fast. The sirens follow the rockets, not the other way around.

I tried to find a bomb shelter. I tried to get footage. My fingers shook too hard. I have a long list of scratched out numbers on my pages.

People are sitting at coffee shops eating cake. Four days ago — 18. Today — 167. Maybe more. Zero on "our side". Whole homes, families evaporated. A mist of blood and dust and rubble in Gaza. Journalists are asking me how to get the scoop.

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Syria is shipping 700,000 tons of oranges to Russia

RT

Damascus is ready to export more than 700,000 tons of citrus fruit to Russia to “fill the gap” left by Moscow’s ban on Turkish agricultural products, AFP reported, citing officials in Damascus.

“We are preparing some 700,000 tons of citrus, mostly oranges, to send to the Russian market,” Fares Chehabi, head of Syria's Chambers of Industry, said on Tuesday. He added that the first shipment was already on the way to Russia and that other Syrian goods, such as textiles would also be exported.

Moscow’s ban on Turkish goods could help Syrian producers expand business in the Russian market, according to the head of the Damascus Chamber of Industry Samer Debes. He said Syrian businessmen are to visit Moscow soon to “examine the chances of cooperation after the sanctions that Moscow imposed on Ankara.”

Egypt has also expressed an interest in replacing Turkey in the Russian market. Cairo has asked Moscow to provide it with the list of banned Turkish goods, saying it was ready to export Egyptian products to Russia. (More)

To understand U.S. politics be sure to read

this profound backgrounder by Matt Taibbi

' . . . This is part of a gigantic subplot to the Trump story, which is that many of his critiques of the process are the same ones being made by Bernie Sanders. The two men, of course, are polar opposites in just about every way – Sanders worries about the poor, while Trump would eat a child in a lifeboat – but both are laser-focused on the corrupting role of money in politics.

'Both propose "revolutions" to solve the problem, the difference being that Trump's is an authoritarian revolt, while Sanders proposes a democratic one. If it comes down to a Sanders-Trump general election, the matter will probably be decided by which candidate the national press turns on first: the flatulent narcissist with cattle-car fantasies or the Democrat who gently admires Scandinavia. Would you bet your children on that process playing out sensibly?' (More)

‘Russians made peace possible’

Ex-NATO military committee chief praises Syria op

12 February 2016

RT

Russia was the first to do the groundwork for peace in Syria by launching its anti-IS operation September 2015, while both Washington and Brussels lacked any kind of strategy, the ex-chairman of NATO’s Military Committee has said.

Lieutenant General Harald Kujat, who was chief of staff of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) from 2000-2002 and served as NATO’s Military Committee chairman from 2002-2005, made the comments on the Syrian crisis in an interview with Passauer Neue Presse newspaper.

“The Russians have made the peace process [in Syria] possible,” he told the newspaper on Friday 12 February.

The West was at standstill until September 2015, Kujat stressed: “Neither the Americans nor the Europeans had any strategy for a peaceful Syria. Both weren’t prepared to be really involved. The Russians did it and opened a window for political solution.”

The Russian operation was crucial for the Syrian Army on the ground to survive Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) offensive and prevent the entire country from being seized by Islamist militants, he said.

“I gave them several weeks [to last before being defeated]. Then Syria would have collapsed, with IS capturing the country. The next target would be Lebanon, then Israel. It could result in far-reaching consequences for all of us.”

According to Kujat, Russian air support for the Syrian Army’s operation to re-take Aleppo was essential from a military perspective. (More)

14 February 2016

A mini world war rages in the fields of Aleppo

KILIS, Turkey — Across the olive groves and wheat fields of the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, a battle with global dimensions risks erupting into a wider war.

Russian warplanes are bombing from the sky. Iraqi and Lebanese militias aided by Iranian advisers are advancing on the ground. An assortment of Syrian rebels backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting to hold them back. Kurdish forces allied both to Washington and Moscow are taking advantage of the chaos to extend Kurdish territories. The Islamic State has snatched a couple of small villages, while all the focus was on the other groups.

Ahead of a supposed pause in the hostilities negotiated by world powers and due to be implemented later in the week, the conflict seems only to be escalating. Turkey joined in over the weekend, firing artillery across its border at Kurdish positions for a second day Sunday and prompting appeals from the Obama administration to both Turks and Kurds to back down.

Syria’s civil war long ago mutated into a proxy conflict, with competing world powers backing the rival Syrian factions almost since the earliest days of the armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

But perhaps never before have the dangers — or the complications — of what amounts to a mini world war been so apparent as in the battle underway for control of Aleppo. (More)

'Ukraine is a moral and political

black hole on the brink of collapse'

RT

22 February 2016

Europeans fear the planned EU-Ukraine association agreement – the first step to integrate Ukraine into the bloc – may lead to a new crisis on the European Union's eastern borders, Professor Laszlo Maracz of Gumilyov Eurasian National University told RT.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, are currently in Kiev for political talks. Before setting off on the trip, they yet again urged Ukraine's government to implement political reforms, including a new election law, special rights for regions, and stronger efforts in countering corruption.

The visit comes just one day after up to 1,000 radicals rallied in central Kiev’s Maidan square, demanding the resignation of the government and early elections. This weekend marked two years since the bloody uprising in the Ukrainian capital, which led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich.

Meanwhile, Dutch journalists have leaked government plans on dealing with an upcoming April 6 non-binding referendum on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (EUAA). The treaty envisions closer economic, political, and cultural ties between Kiev and the bloc. A 'no' vote in the referendum would force the Dutch government, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, to reconsider the pact.

Officials have now been advised to make the details of the deal look as appealing as possible by using words like “democratization,” and calling the treaty a “Cooperation Agreement.” They've also been told to drop rhetoric on sensitive issues like security concerns, and to avoid focusing on the Russian government's interests in Ukraine.

Most voters are likely to reject the agreement with Kiev, according to a new poll. (More)

Max Keiser:

'. . . enough of George Soros and his ride to nowhere?'

RT

22 February 2016

Financial analyst and RT host Max Keiser blasted the Dutch Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement referendum, branding it a “George Soros road to nowhere” that will flood the EU with Monsanto’s GM “food”.

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