Daily Archives: 8 January 2015

Geeze . . . . Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian soccer players in the feet

After Latest Incident, Israel’s Future in FIFA Is Uncertain

Their names are Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17. They were once soccer players in the West Bank. Now they are never going to play sports again. Jawhar and Adam were on their way home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium on January 31 when Israeli forces fired upon them as they approached a checkpoint. After being shot repeatedly, they were mauled by checkpoint dogs and then beaten. Ten bullets were put into Jawhar’s feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, they received the news that soccer would no longer be a part of their futures. (Israel’s border patrol maintains that the two young men were about to throw a bomb.)

This is only the latest instance of the targeting of Palestinian soccer players by the Israeli army and security forces. Death, injury or imprisonment has been a reality for several members of the Palestinian national team over the last five years. Just imagine if members of Spain’s top-flight World Cup team had been jailed, shot or killed by another country and imagine the international media outrage that would ensue. Imagine if prospective youth players for Brazil were shot in the feet by the military of another nation. But, tragically, these events along the checkpoints have received little attention on the sports page or beyond.

Much has been written about the psychological effect this kind of targeting has on the occupied territories. Sports represent escape, joy and community, and the Palestinian national soccer team, for a people without a recognized nation, is a source of tremendous pride. To attack the players is to attack the hope that the national team will ever truly have a home.

The Palestinian national football team, which formed in 1998, is currently ranked 144th in the world by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). They have never been higher than 115th. As Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril al-Rajoub commented bluntly, the problems are rooted in “the occupation’s insistence on destroying Palestinian sport.”

www.thenation.com/blog/178642/after-latest-incident-israels-future-fifa-uncertain

Israel Prepares to Cut Electricity to Palestinians

Together with the recent story about star soccer players being detained and shot in the feet. I see sadism. What Trotsky called “bureaucratic hooliganism.”

Just days after the Israeli government announced it is seizing some $100 million in tax money from the Palestinian Authority to “punish” them for trying to join the International Criminal Courts (ICC), the Israeli state-run electric company has announced it will cut off electricity supplies to the Palestinians for non-payment.

The IEC claims the Palestinian Authority owes NIS645 million, or about $160 million, for past shipments, and that the company can’t keep sending the Palestinians electricity that they can’t pay for.

The IEC warned Israeli military and spy agencies of the planned cuts, saying it fears cutting off the electricity to PA territory would lead to “various responses by the Palestinian population.”

benswann.com/israel-prepares-to-cut-electricity-to-palestinians/

A call for Irish Schools to accommodate Islam.


www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/call-for-state-schools-to-accommodate-islamic-beliefs-1.1915810

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The most bizarre thing is how hostile Islamic countries are to other faiths within their own territories. One cannot even build a Church in many Islamic countries. And yet, when it comes to Western countries, the government is supposed to subsidize Islam.

Oh, and it gets even more bizarre, the Islamic folks in Western countries are not only silent when it comes to discriminating against Christians where they are originally from, they even support that discrimination.

CLASSICAL(HEROIC), LEVANTINE (MAGIAN), FAUSTIAN(SEARCHING) #Curt

Apollonian / Magian / Faustian These are Spengler’s terms for Classical, Arabian and Western civilisations respectively.

Apollonian Civilisation is focused around Ancient Greece and Rome. Spengler saw its world view as being characterised by appreciation for the beauty of the human body, and a preference for the local and the present moment.

Magian Civilisation includes the Jews from about 400BC, early Christians and various Arabian religions up to and including Islam. Its world feeling revolved around the concept of world as cavern, epitomised by the domed Mosque, and a preoccupation with essence. Spengler saw the development of this civilisation as being distorted by a too influential presence of older cultures, the initial vigorous expansionary impulses of Islam being in part a reaction against this.

Faustian Civilisation began in Western Europe around the 10th century and according to Spengler such has been its expansionary power that by the 20th century it was covering the entire earth, with only a few Regions where Islam provides an alternative world view. The world feeling of Faustian civilisation is inspired by the concept of infinitely wide and profound space, the yearning towards distance and infinity.

Anarcho-Warlordism

Anarcho-Warlordism

Truth is a martial virtue.

A warrior depends on his fellows. Honesty breeds trust. Trust breeds loyalty. Loyalty breeds cohesion. And cohesion breeds power and victory. Dishonesty (towards friends) is punished by defeat.

The truth is enough, for a warrior. Just the facts, and – so far as possible – just the necessary ones. Let people form the conclusions for themselves.

The Spartans were notoriously curt, and contemptuous of those who bandied about meaningless words, as a direct result of being perhaps the most martial culture in history.

The west has always been a culture of warriors.

When warriors trade, they can trade honestly, because they’re bred for honesty, and they can demand it in return. If you will not deal honestly with them, they have alternatives. They can simply kill you and take your stuff.

But, on the other hand, when people are weak, they seek advantage in subtlety, and verbalisms, and moralisms.

The martial virtue of the west made us the best traders, and the wealth from trade made us the best warriors. It was a virtuous cycle.

But then we largely gave up violence, and you may observe the results for yourself.

– Northman