THE LAW OF THE LAND
by Tim Veater.
Iris Pseudacorus
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Let us go back together to the hills.
Weary am I of palaces and courts,
Weary of words disloyal to my thoughts,—
Come, my belovèd, let us to the hills.
Let us go back together to the land,
And wander hand in hand upon the heights;
Kings have we seen, and manifold delights,—
Oh, my beloved, let us to the land!
Lone and unshackled, let us to the road
Which holds enchantment round each hidden bend,
Our course uncompassed and our whim its end,
Our feet once more, belovèd, to the road! |
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Is
there any point in typing words?
It's Monday and the second day in
June, two thousand and twenty-five years after Jesus the Nazarene
came on the scene, caused a lot of waves and stilled others. "What
manner of man is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him?"
"Oh yea of little faith."
Faith they say moves mountains
and there are certainly plenty to move. Billions of human kind now
infest the earth, all laying claim to a little or a lot of it. Life
will always be a struggle for survival and some have to struggle more
than others.
Our attachment to land and territory is deep and
mystical with its roots in the past. How we view it and what we do
with it is shaped not only by effort but by the metaphysical ideas
that reside within the human brain: the conviction to do or to die
for the land and its masters.
How can humans 'own' the earth, yet
they lay claim to it and will carry out dreadful deeds to ensure it?
Last night I watched a film from 1990 (remember that year?) called
'The Field' written and directed by a man called Jim Sherridan. (It
reminded me somewhat of 'Ryans Daughter' from twenty years before) An
epic work, but who remembers them?
Looking Sherridan up, I see he was
born within days of me and is still alive. He got his degree the same
year I qualified (1972) but there the parallels end. From somewhere,
his genius flowered in several critically acclaimed films with an
Irish theme, between 1989 and 1993. Those were the years I was
traumatised by love.
'The Field' is a creative, dramatic examination
of one man's attachment to the land and its devastating consequences.
The central quote: "There is something deeper than the Common
Law: the Law of the Land".
Historically the concept of
'ownership' is said to flow from the effort applied to tame and shape
nature. We call it 'farming' or 'gardening' or more destructively
'development', but they all encapsulate the same idea of the human
interaction with the earth, to which everyone eventually returns.
The
tragic results of the propriatorial claims over land, we witness
every day. It has the potential to bring out the very best and worst
in human behaviour, turning people into gods or devils.
It is said
'you are closer to god in a garden than anywhere else on earth.' It
may be true. What is also true is that humans - what you might regard
as sensible, educated, moral even, humans - are also able to
transform an earthly paradise into a living hell.
That is a paradox
that is hard to explain without reference to the human emotions of
hatred and greed, or the inalienable ethical absolutes.
This morning,
the Second of June, 2025 I stood silently in my sun drenched garden.
I admired the delicate beauty of a yellow Flag (Iris Pseudacorus)
that had somehow seeded itself without my involvement.
I watched a
Bumble Bee, deliberately, delicately, fastidiously, delve into every
Foxglove flower. Watched Wrens flit from branch to branch in the
majestic overarching trees, intent on fulfilling their tiny role in
the intricate, ever changing, indestructible web of nature, of which
we form an intelligent part.
What is our role? What is our destiny?
What can we do but go with the flow and submit to irrisistable fate, whilst trying our best not ruin what we see around us? God grant us that opportunity.
(TTV)
6.4.2025:
EVIL ISRAEL AT WORK ON THE LAND!
Systematic torture and murder at Israeli detention centre.
"My nerves were raw as I waited for the investigative report on the events in the Sde Teiman detention facility amid the Israel-Gaza war, where I served as a reservist, to air on Israel's public broadcaster this week. It wasn't an easy decision for me to participate when the producers of the prominent Israeli investigative docuseries asked to interview me. The Israeli media rarely shows the public what's being done in its name, and the public, for its part, prefers to keep its eyes tightly shut. And once again, my interview didn't make the final cut of the report, and neither did anything else about the systematic abuse and death of detainees, about which many of the senior Israeli officials know.
The show, "Zman Emet," which literally translates to "Truth Time," did not deliver the truth to the public. A filtered truth, perhaps, even worse than a lie. The report focused mainly on a single, infamous Israeli army investigation of abuse in Sde Teiman: A documented case of alleged sexual assault with a foreign object committed by soldiers from the secretive IDF unit known as "Force 100."
"Zman Emet" focused on this incident and how its subsequent investigation, with the help of cynical politicians, was spun into a near-mutiny against the rule of law. The incident culminated in an angry mob, one which included multiple Israeli government officials breaking into Sde Teiman and another nearby army base in support of the alleged offenders. By zeroing in on this one case, the show deliberately ignored the broader context, the sickening big picture that is Sde Teiman.
As anyone who has been there knows, Sde Teiman is a sadistic torture camp. Since late 2023, dozens of detainees have entered alive and left in body bags. There are testimonies from guards, doctors and detainees, all recounting similar events. None of this was mentioned in the investigation. As if the hell on earth we created there boils down to a single event that can be explained away with an abstract discussion on the legitimacy of different types of corporal punishment. But I saw that hell.
I saw a detainee die before my eyes. He was sitting with other prisoners, blindfolded, and at some point, we just realized he was gone. I watched the facility commander gather everyone to try to temper the daily routine of abuse, the unhinged use of force, the inhumane conditions in which prisoners were held. I heard him explaining: "The top brass is saying that Sde Teiman is being called a cemetery," and that "we have to stop that."
I saw people arrive at the facility from the Gaza Strip wounded, then be starved for weeks without medical care. I saw them urinate and defecate on themselves because they weren't allowed to use the bathroom. I can still smell it. Many of them weren't even members of the Nukhba (the Hamas commando force that led the October 7 attack), just regular Palestinian civilians from Gaza detained for investigation and, after enduring brutal abuse, released when it turned out they were innocent. It's no wonder people died there. The wonder is that anyone survived.
The "Zman Emet" researchers were shocked when I told them all this, but none of it made it into the report. What made it into the final cut? The head of the military police investigation department feigning ignorance: "Until that moment," meaning, until they received a report about one wounded, bleeding detainee, "we had no warning signs."
Really? By that point, former detainees, as well as soldiers and medical staff who served in Sde Teiman had published testimonies of extreme abuse, inhumane conditions and a lack of basic medical care. All they had to do was listen, or even just count the number of detainees entering and compare it with the number of those who didn't make it out. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes.
Everyone who served at Sde Teiman knows. They know about the torture, the surgeries done without anesthesia and the appalling sanitary conditions. But none of this was aired. As if a military torture camp, operating with the full knowledge of senior commanders, is less interesting or important than a single, isolated abuse case that can be denied or confirmed – an entire program about Sde Teiman, without actually talking about Sde Teiman.
What happened at Sde Teiman is not a secret, yet most Israelis know nothing about it, even now, because the Israeli media has almost entirely ignored it. That's also why I agreed to the interview. Because Palestinians continue to leave our detention facilities in body bags, and most of the people around me have never even heard about it.
But more than revealing the truth about Sde Teiman, the program laid bare how such a reality can persist. The reason is that Israeli journalists, who are fully aware of the facts choose to conceal them, so they can instead sell a narrow, localized story about a few "bad apples." Sde Teiman is not an isolated incident. It is, distinctly, a story about policy – a policy implemented and sustained with active complicity from the Israeli media."
This article was contributed by an anonymous reservist in the IDF.
"Anti-Semitic?" Not 'Semitic' at all. Central Europeans who invaded Palestine.
"NEW CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM"? > Impostors in Palestine.
Changing names to a Hebrew equivalent was a standard practice among the European settlers for decades to come. Ethnically they had no connection with Palestine: mostly they were Poles or Russians whose forebears had converted at some time in the past. Even physically they were clearly not of any Middle Eastern ancestral origin but the name change concealed their origins and made them appear to belong to the region and its history.
The adoption of Hebraized names in Palestine and Israel took four primary approaches.
The first was the traditional use of patronyms or matronyms, which is probably the oldest form of naming. Yiddish names, but also names that were German, Polish, Russian, English or French patronyms could be Hebraized: Davidson to Ben-David, Mendelson to Ben-Menachem, Simmons to Shimoni.
A second approach was to choose a Hebrew name that sounded like the original name. In some cases, the new name had a (sometimes remote) connotation with the original, as in the case of Lempel (little lamp) becoming Lapid (torch). Levi Shkolnik would become Israel’s third prime minister as Levi Eshkol. This was more than simply a near-homophone. It reflected another trend in the process, which was to adopt a name that spoke to the commitment of the chalutzim, the pioneers, whose Zionism was deeply informed by a back-to-the-land ethos. Eshkol means “cluster of fruit,” so it did double duty, sounding something like the original and also having a kinship with the blooming desert.
A third strategy was basic translation. Goldberg might become Har-Zahav (mountain of gold); Silver or Silverman might become Kaspi; Herbst, which in German and Yiddish means autumn, could be changed to a Hebrew equivalent, Stav or Stavi.
The fourth approach took the pioneer spirit and connection with the land to greater depths (with or without the homophonic advantage of Shkolnik/Eshkol). Flora, fauna and geography of the new homeland were attractive new names that situated the migrants linguistically and geographically. The writer Carrie-Anne Brownian cites such examples as Rotem (desert broom), Nitzan (flower bud), Yarden (Jordan), Alon (oak tree) and Tomer (palm tree). Simply adopting a place name gives us Hermoni, Eilat, Golani, Kineret and many others.
Those whose names already had a nature theme were at an advantage. The Haganah commander Moshe Klaynboym changed his family name, which meant “little tree” in Yiddish, to Sneh, Hebrew for “bush.”
Not necessarily related to nature, but to the idealization of the Zionist spirit, some took names like Amichai (my people live), Maor (light), Eyal (strength), Cherut (freedom) and Bat Or (daughter of light).
Golda Meyerson, after prodding from Ben-Gurion, became Golda Meir. Interestingly, her rather emphatically Yiddish given name she kept, presumably making Ben-Gurion half-satisfied. END
On Forgiveness — A Palestinian Reflection
A friend recently asked me something I haven’t stopped thinking about:
“Do you think Palestinians will ever forgive the world for what it has allowed to happen?”
It’s
a powerful question ,one that goes far beyond politics, borders, or current events. It cuts deep into the human condition, into what it means to survive injustice that repeats itself generation after generation.
As a Palestinian, the word forgiveness is not foreign to me. We are taught mercy in our faith, in our homes, and in our hearts. But forgiveness in the context of what we have lived ,and are still living ,is not a matter of simple will. It is not something we can be expected to give, especially not by those who watched, stayed silent, or turned their backs.
Let me be clear:
We are not a people of hate.
We do not wake up each morning dreaming of revenge.
We are people of longing ,longing for justice, for freedom, for dignity, for the right to exist as humans with full rights, without apology.
But here’s what many don’t understand: forgiveness is not the opposite of anger.
It is not the cure for grief.
It does not come before justice.
You cannot ask a people to forgive while the killing hasn’t stopped.
While the rubble of homes is still fresh.
While entire families are erased from civil registries, and their names live on only in witness testimonies and memory.
You cannot speak of forgiveness while Gaza is under siege.
While children pull their siblings out from under the ruins with bare hands.
While mothers walk through morgues looking for familiar faces among bodies burned beyond recognition.
While the media debates whether we are “human enough” to deserve protection.
Forgiveness does not come without acknowledgment of wrong.
Not without responsibility.
Not without the world confronting its complicity,not just in what happened in October, but in what has been happening for decades.
Forgiveness is not forgetting.
It is not silence.
It is not surrender.
Some of us may one day reach a place where we can forgive ,not for their sake, but for our own survival, for the preservation of our souls in a world that has tried so hard to break them.
But no one has the right to demand it.
And no one who stood by in silence should expect it.
I do not know if Palestinians will forgive the world.
I do know that the world still hasn’t asked for forgiveness.
Not properly.
Not truthfully.
Not humbly.
As the late Palestinian thinker Edward Said once wrote:
“There can be no reconciliation without memory, no reparation without acknowledgment of the wrong, and no forgiveness without justice.”
We are not waiting to be saved.
We are not waiting for the world to suddenly wake up.
But we are watching.
We are remembering.
We are writing.
We are resisting.
And we are planting seeds ,even under fire ,so that future generations may grow in a world that is more just, more awake, more human.
Until then, we carry our grief with pride.
We honor our martyrs by telling their stories.
And we continue to live ,not as victims, but as survivors who refuse to forget.
الله غالب
Fares Abulebda
4 June 2025
PERSECUTION OF JOURNALISTS BY BRITISH POLICE!
Whose side are they on?
Many thanks to all of you who supported my nomination in the Amnesty Media Awards People’s Choice category.
The awards ceremony was held last night. I didn’t win. That honour went to
Owen Jones. Congratulations to him for his work exposing Israel and the media’s lies through the past 20 months of genocide.
I took with me to the ceremony the investigative journalist Asa Winstanley.
Had I won and had the chance to make an acceptance speech, I wanted to highlight his case. He, along with other independent journalists, has been targeted for persecution by the police, doubtless under political direction, for his work on Gaza.
The police have been using the most expansive interpretation possible of the UK's draconian terrorism laws. Last month the courts ruled that the police had illegally seized his electronic devices.
Incredibly, no media outlet in the UK has thought it worth reporting either the drawn raid on his home last year, or the court’s subsequent finding of law-breaking by the police in seizing the electronic devices of an accredited journalist.
Asa still has a police investigation hanging over him, with a potential jail sentence of 14 years for doing journalism.
There are obvious parallels with the media’s failure to report, or protest, the incarceration for many years of Julian Assange in a London high-security prison for doing journalism that embarrassed the British and US national security states by bringing to light their war crimes.
Sadly, there has been little solidarity shown by other journalists towards those, like Asa, who do not have the institutional backing they enjoy.
We sabotage our own work as journalists if we focus exclusively on the all-too-obvious assault on human rights far away in Gaza but refuse to consider the more veiled assault on human rights on our own doorstep. The two are connected.
I call on fellow journalists – and most especially the prominent journalists who were nominated for the People’s Choice award – to use their platforms to protest this concerted attack on our profession, on our ability to hold power to account.
Journalism should never be treated as a club, least of all by journalists. And yet all too often it is. We are here to defend a principle: that the centres of power in our societies must be scrutinised and held to account. That is our job.
That principle is far bigger than any single journalist, any single ego. Time for us to show proper solidarity with fellow journalists – and journalism.
"The Invention of the Jewish People" by Shlomo Sand
…is a controversial and thought-provoking book that challenges traditional narratives about Jewish identity and history.
Sand, a historian at Tel Aviv University, argues that many of the common beliefs about the origins and continuity of the Jewish people are modern inventions.
Here are ten (FOUR appear to be missing. Ed.) key lessons and insights from the book:
1. The Myth of a Homogeneous Jewish People: Sand argues that the concept of a singular, homogeneous Jewish people with a common origin is a modern invention. He suggests that Jewish identity has always been diverse, with various groups converting to Judaism throughout history.
2. The Khazar Hypothesis: One of Sand’s most contentious points is the revival of the Khazar hypothesis, which posits that the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe are largely descended from the Khazars, a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. This challenges the traditional belief in a direct descent from the ancient Israelites.
3. The Role of Conversion: Sand emphasizes the significant role that conversion played in the spread of Judaism. He argues that large-scale conversions in the ancient world created diverse Jewish communities, which undermines the idea of a pure, ethnically distinct Jewish lineage.
4. Invented Traditions: Sand contends that many Jewish traditions and narratives, particularly those that emphasize a continuous and unbroken lineage from ancient Israel, were constructed in the modern era, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, to serve nationalist purposes.
5. The Exile Myth: Sand challenges the widely held belief in a mass Jewish exile after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. He argues that there is little historical evidence for a large-scale forced displacement and that many Jews remained in the region or migrated voluntarily over time.
6. Nationalism and Identity: The book explores how Jewish nationalism, particularly Zionism, influenced the collective identity.
