Truth, nowhere does it lie

I just have to reprint this piece by Robert Fisk on Barack Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly:

Today should be Mahmoud Abbas's finest hour. Even The New York Times has discovered that "a grey man of grey suits and sensible shoes, may be slowly emerging from his shadow".

But this is nonsense. The colourless leader of the Palestinian Authority, who wrote a 600-page book on his people's conflict with Israel without once mentioning the word "occupation", should have no trouble this evening in besting Barack Hussein Obama's pathetic, humiliating UN speech on Wednesday in which he handed US policy in the Middle East over to Israel's gimmick government.

For the American President who called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab lands, an end to the theft of Arab land in the West Bank – Israeli "settlements" is what he used to call it – and a Palestinian state by 2011, Obama's performance was pathetic.

As usual, Hanan Ashrawi, the only eloquent Palestinian voice in New York this week, got it right. "I couldn't believe what I heard," she told Haaretz, that finest of Israeli newspapers. "It sounded as though the Palestinians were the ones occupying Israel. There wasn't one word of empathy for the Palestinians. He spoke only of the Israelis' troubles..." Too true. And as usual, the sanest Israeli journalists, in their outspoken condemnation of Obama, proved that the princes of American journalists were cowards. "The limp, unimaginative speech that US President Barack Obama delivered at the United Nations... reflects how helpless the American President is in the face of Middle East realities," Yael Sternhell wrote.

And as the days go by, and we discover whether the Palestinians respond to Obama's grovelling performance with a third intifada or with a shrug of weary recognition that this is how things always were, the facts will continue to prove that the US administration remains a tool of Israel when it comes to Israel's refusal to give the Palestinians a state.

How come, let's ask, that the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, flew from Tel Aviv to New York for the statehood debate on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's own aircraft? How come Netanyahu was too busy chatting to the Colombian President to listen to Obama's speech? He only glanced through the Palestinian bit of the text when he was live-time, face to face with the American President. This wasn't "chutzpah". This was insult, pure and simple.

And Obama deserved it. After praising the Arab Spring/Summer/ Autumn, whatever – yet again running through the individual acts of courage of Arab Tunisians and Egyptians as if he had been behind the Arab Awakening all along, the man dared to give the Palestinians 10 minutes of his time, slapping them in the face for daring to demand statehood from the UN. Obama even – and this was the funniest part of his preposterous address to the UN – suggested that the Palestinians and Israelis were two equal "parties" to the conflict.

A Martian listening to this speech would think, as Ms Ashrawi suggested, that the Palestinians were occupying Israel rather than the other way round. No mention of Israeli occupation, no mention of refugees, or the right of return or of the theft of Arab Palestinian land by the Israeli government against all international law. But plenty of laments for the besieged people of Israel, rockets fired at their houses, suicide bombs – Palestinian sins, of course, but no reference to the carnage of Gaza, the massive death toll of Palestinians – and even the historical persecution of the Jewish people and the Holocaust.

That persecution is a fact of history. So is the evil of the Holocaust. But THE PALESTINIANS DID NOT COMMIT THESE ACTS. It was the Europeans – whose help in denying Palestinian statehood Obama is now seeking – who committed this crime of crimes. So we were then back to the "equal parties", as if the Israeli occupiers and the occupied Palestinians were on a level playing ground.

Madeleine Albright used to adopt this awful lie. "It's up to the parties themselves," she would say, washing her hands, Pilate-like, of the whole business the moment Israel threatened to call out its supporters in America. Heaven knows if Mahmoud Abbas can produce a 1940 speech at the UN today. But at least we all know who the appeaser is.

Go Palestine!

I've been watching the Palestinian plan to to approach the UN for full membership with some amazement and not much expectation.

For a few years the Palestinian government has been lobbying governments around the world for their support at the UN. They want to be recognized as a state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as their capital. It's funny because even the Americans, the lapdogs of Israel, have wanted Palestine to have these borders.

But here they are, about to stand alone with Israel, and veto the Palestinians' request of recognition. It's quite a bizarre game they are playing. So there will be no Palestine. Not while the unjust Security Council sits. But it's likely that the General Assembly, representing all countries, will approve their request and grant them more legitimacy.

I just read a great article about the last minute lobbying of the Palestinians and the US and Israel's desperate attempts to get them to stop. It's so gratifying to see that the Palestinians have some backbone. I pretty much expected them to cave after vague promises from the US to 'get Israel and the Palestinians back to the table' (every time I hear it it makes me want to puke). All the while the paint is drying on new settlements.

Here are some quotes from a Palestinian representative heading to the UN soon:

"Mr Blair doesn't sound like a neutral interlocutor, he sounds very much like an Israeli diplomat sometimes". (Duh)

The US is "not a neutral observer, but a strategic ally of Israel". (Double Duh)

On US pressure and threats of withdrawing funding: "You don't barter for your rights for money."

Good luck Palestine--you've always been alone against the world. Maybe things are changing.

Season Scenes

High speed

Oh accursed high speed. We just got it. I have been reluctant to switch from dial-up since moving here. We talked about it and the price always seemed quite high. Dial-up kept us honest in a way. Just email and the news and blogging of course. No high res pictures or youtube. But since Jane moved out it seemed that it would be good to have high speed.

It's funny how you can talk yourself into it. I've justified it that if we go with high speed then I can once and for all cancel the bloated, money sucking phone that we have with Bell. They charge $40 a month for phone and an answering machine! Shit. Yak has a VOIP phone for $14 a month and I think it has an answering machine included. Of course then I have to get a cell phone in case of emergencies when the power is out. So that's more buying and selling. In the end I'm feeling guilty I guess with all this shopping around and comparing.

But the worst is spending many hours on my laptop typing away and reading articles and watching new episodes of Futurama. I always tell people that we have to smash our televisions and we certainly should. But now I'm realizing that all we've done is moved that corporate brainwashing to a smaller screen. So I have to redouble my efforts and harness what I've learned thanks to dial-up. Just get on and get off.

Season Reflections

The climate is definitely changing. Our dear leader would tell us to adapt but there's no adapting to this. This summer has been super cool for us. Nights dropped to the lower teens all summer and now we are dropping into single digits at night with September. Happily we didn't have frost from May until now but it's been cool. This has meant slow growth for squash, summer squash, tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers and corn.

But we've had a super long season of peas and the lettuce has resisted bolting. The brassicas have done well, as have the beets. The garlic and onions are their usual successful selves.

And it's been dry, really dry. So it's cool and dry. Not the ideal combination. We haven't had rain for weeks. So I have drained my stored rainwater and now we're going to have to move water from the brook. The forecast always calls for rain in the next few days but, like tomorrow, it never comes. Even Hurricane Irene brought no rain.

So what are you going to do? I guess unless you are willing to stop the bastards that adapting is the best we can do. Pretty pathetic.

MIA

Yikes, it's been a long time. I haven't forgotten this blog but important, the most important actually, things have gotten in the way.

But fall is arriving and we're having some cool nights. Still no sign of rain which would be most appreciated. We're doing lots of preserving and dehydrating and soon we'll be pulling the potatoes. It's nice to be here in such a special place. It's really so peaceful you almost forget the (civilized) world and all the nonsense going on.

More to come I promise.