israel

Shoes flown round the world. Shoe“Protests were held in Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey as the Israeli offensive entered its second week...In many cities people waved shoes — recalling the action of an Iraqi journalist who hurled footwear at U.S. President George W. Bush in Baghdad last month in a symbolic insult. British demonstrators threw dozens of shoes into the street as they passed the gated entrance to Downing Street, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown lives, and shouted angrily at a line of 40 police officers on guard there. ‘Come to get your shoes Gordon,’ one woman shouted as other marchers directed chants of ‘Shame on you’ at Brown.”
>  7 January 2009 | LINK | Filed in , , , ,
No Spin Zone. Free the Truth in Gaza“Mr Dromi [a former government press adviser and air force colonel] admitted that the administration will struggle to win hearts and minds if footage of those suffering in Gaza continues to be shown. ‘When you have a Palestinian kid facing an Israeli tank, how do you explain that the tank is actually David and the kid is Goliath? That is why the television kills us.’” Not only has the Israeli government barred journalists from entering Gaza, they also bombed the local TV station on second day of the assault.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Consulate in New York yesterday held a “citizen’s press conference” on its new Twitter channel and blog, while the IDF’s new YouTube channel is going strong.

Update January 13, 2009: Hamas has launched its own YouTube equivalent and Al Jazeera has made its latest video from Gaza freely available at broadcast quality under a Creative Commons license.
>  31 December 2008 | LINK | Filed in , , , ,
Sands of Sorrow. Via YouTube, a 28 minute black-and-white documentary from 1950. “On the plight of Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war. Dorothy Thompson speaks on the refugee problem. Refugees live in tents in the Gaza Strip, are given blankets and food by Egyptian soldiers, and receive flour from UNICEF. A Lebanese priest conducts services. Refugees work as plumbers, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers in the city of Jerusalem. Doctors vaccinate refugees against disease. Shows the squalid living conditions in refugee camps, starving children, and emphasizes the hopeless condition of the refugees. Producer: Council for the Relief of Palestine Arab Refugees”
>  25 August 2007 | LINK | Filed in , ,
“Cartographers don’t lie, but they take a position”... “‘The problems of cartography are the same that exist in diplomatic relations’... For mapmakers like Nova Rico, disputes over geography are commonplace. For a Turkish customer, Cyprus is shown split in two, a division that Greek Cypriots do not recognize. In one globe, Chile gets parts of Antarctica that on another globe go to Argentina. And in much of the Arab world, Israel is nonexistent.”
>  12 August 2007 | LINK | Filed in ,

Wanted at Harvard

A flyer I designed appears on the front page of today’s edition of the Ma’ariv, the second largest newspaper in Israel.

Maariv Cover

Here’s a close up:

Maariv Closeup

The flyer is for a campaign by Alliance for Justice in the Middle East, a student group at Harvard University.

The text calls attention to the enrollment of former Israeli general Dan Halutz in the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. Halutz oversaw the bombing of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. See his dossier here.

And he’s not the first accused war criminal enrolled by Harvard. See a short list of bios on the AJME site. The AJME is campaigning to establish a set of practices to screen for war criminals and serious human rights abusers as part of its admissions and hiring policies.

The campaign was relatively modest to achieve such front page coverage. The group set up a free web site on blogspot. They printed up the flyer and handed it out on campus. They also sent out a press release about the campaign, which resulted in front page coverage.

Here’s the full article in Hebrew on the Ma’ariv web site and AJME’s English translation of it.

Click below for a larger version of the flyer:

Wanted: Dan Halutz

For contrast, see another iteration below. I think it’s a little more evocative, but maybe less direct.

AJME Quote Poster


Update: The flyer is featured online at Time and Al Jazeera. See other coverage of the campaign.

>  15 May 2007 | LINK | Filed in , , ,
Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006. Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran... The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall... “Stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country’s major national news media.” From Project Censored, a group of 250 student researchers and faculty out of Sonoma State University.
>  9 September 2006 | LINK | Filed in , ,
The World Says No!. Images of protests around the world against Israel’s war on Lebanon — and the war’s U.S. government support. (via)
>  11 August 2006 | LINK | Filed in , ,

Eye for an Eye

Two poster mockups. Click above for high resolution PDF’s. Please reproduce and distribute.

Got a another idea? Here’s the unicode text.

>  25 July 2006 | LINK | Filed in , ,
Call to prayer. Ahead of the March 28 general elections in Israel, a local cellphone operator announced that a small, right-wing, ultra-Orthodox party’s ringtone is the most requested download.
>  17 March 2006 | LINK | Filed in ,

Orange vs Orange

Protesters against Israeli ‘disengagement’ from the West Bank and Gaza have taken to the streets flying orange ribbons in support of the settlers.

Only Palestinian groups protesting the occupation have been using orange ribbons for years.

Via Reuters, July 1, 2005:

Israeli Arabs sue settlers over orange protests

An Arab party has asked an Israeli court to stop right-wing Jews using orange in protests against withdrawing from Gaza settlements, saying the colour was already theirs.

‘If we appear now in a march in the streets with orange, people will think we are settlers,’ said parliament member Azmi Bishara of the Arab Balad party, which is fundamentally opposed to settlements on Israeli-occupied land.

Orange, displayed on ribbons, flags and shirts, has emerged as a powerful pro-settler symbol in the run-up to the pullout. It is the municipal colour of the main Gush Katif Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza.

Bishara said his party has used an orange flag and logo since 1999, and launched the lawsuit after being flooded with calls from constituents.

The Balad party was concerned that use of the same colour by ultra-nationalist Jews would damage its image and confuse its anti-occupation message, he said.

It filed its suit in Haifa District Court on Thursday to prevent the Yesha settler council and other right-wing groups from using orange, saying the colour was now sending a ‘colonial, racist message’ that would make it difficult for Balad to continue using it.

‘You build an image. If you look at our logo you will see it is orange. Our flags are the same flags,’ Bishara said. ‘Real damage has been done.’

The Yesha council said it knew nothing of the suit.”


First their land, then their symbols. Oddly enough, this Haaretz article notes that while orange is the season’s hot color elsewhere in the world, it has become a fashion faux pas in Israel and Palestine.

>  11 August 2005 | LINK | Filed in ,



page 4 3 2 1 Older »