By Reidar Visser (www.historiae.org)

19 February 2009

After today’s official release by the Iraqi elections commission of the seat allocation in the new Iraqi provincial councils elected on 31 January, the process of forming new coalitions can begin in earnest. Since the provisional result was released two weeks ago, the various parties have had some time to calculate their likely share of the seats and initiate a process of negotiation with prospective partners, but small percentage differences can have dramatic implications for the mathematics of coalitions and hence the exact political landscape only became apparent today.

[Read the report]

By Nu’man Abd al-Wahid

“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them…”

President Barack Hussain Obama

Well, with regard to the title of this essay, he didn’t exactly put it that way but a closer reading and a more honestly keen interpretation inevitably leads those of us sympathetic towards a sincere anti-imperialist tradition to logically infer and quite inevitably draw that conclusion. The comparison and then verdict is clearly implicit and what more noble platform to affirm this absolute truth, than at his own inauguration, as President of the United States of America: one of the first nations, if not the first nation to free itself from the British parasitic and imperialist yoke.

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hat tip to Gaza Human Rights, where one can read all about Churchill’s play.

Churchill’s ten-minute play is riveting and provocative, unlike the acclaimed “Waltz with Bashir” by Ari Folman and David Polonsky, a childish cartoon that paints pouts on Israeli soldiers as they ruminate, decades later, oh bother, why can’t they remember where they were, what they witnessed, or when they killed during the Sabra-Shatila massacre? Christian Phalangists are blamed entirely and cast as uncivilised, irrational animals; the Israeli “grunts” are naive, unwitting so innocent bystanders who’ve an irreproachable love of country.

Tom Engelhardt excerpts, “What ‘Waltz with Bashir’ can teach us about Gaza” by Gary Kamiya, describes it, “The single best piece on Waltz with Bashir and its relevance to the recent invasion of Gaza.”

Of course, Israel’s moral culpability for the 1982 massacre [in Sabra and Shatila] is not the same as its moral responsibility for the civilians killed in the current war. But there are painful similarities. Sooner or later the patriotic war fervor will fade, and Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing. And perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release ‘Waltz With Hamas.’

So, not only should the debate on Israeli complicity in Sabra-Shatila be tossed into the dustbin, one should be comforted that, “perhaps in 2036” some Israeli might be “haunted” enough to make another cartoon?

Caryl Churchill is not so willing to let rabid dogs lie.

Updated @1335 on 19 February 2009:
This review is “The single best piece on Waltz with Bashir and its relevance to the recent invasion of Gaza” that I’ve read to date.

Students demand NYU disclosure of budget and endowments.

By NYC IMC

Following what has been a wave of student activism over the past couple of months, including student occupations in Greece, Great Britain, and the United States and protests across Europe, students from the Take Back NYU coalition have begun to occupy the Kimmel Center for University Life at New York University.

Read more here, here and here:

Jasper Conner: NYU Students TAKEOVER, UDC Students fight the hike! / New School Students Lead Occupation for Democratic, Accessible and Socially Responsible Education

video link | hat tip