Gilad Atzmon

Waltz With Bashir is a breath-taking new Israeli film, an animated documentary directed by Ari Folman.

In 1982, Folman was a 19-year-old IDF infantry soldier. Twenty four years later, in 2006, Folman is surprised to find out that he does not remember a thing from that war or the massacres in Sabra and Shatila. The film is a journey into Folman’s lost past.

The documentary is set as a chain of animated interviews and conversations between Folman and his military associates, psychologists and Ron Ben Yishai, the legendary Israeli TV reporter who was among the first to report on the Sabra and Shatila Massacres. The setting aims at building a coherent personal past narrative out of the broken memories of others.

The film is highly sensitive and emotionally moving. To a certain extent, it is a very brave individual attempt to deal with the devastating collective Israeli past, and the massacres in Sabra and Shatila in particular. However, we are asked to remember that the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps, though set up by the Israeli Army, were physically carried out by the Lebanese Christian Phalangists.

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Les Visible

It’s been two years now since the attacks in Houston and Seattle. Then, a month later, Denver was gone as well. Even I found it hard to get my head around what happened. As for the American people, well, they couldn’t process it at all; Muslims rounded up and necklaced with tires on city and suburban streets… burning in the dark nights of the American outrage. All it took was to tell them that Iran was behind it and then Iran was gone too. There isn’t much news out of what’s left of the Middle East these days. No one knows what’s going on there.

In the early days there was some pretty fierce resistance but it didn’t come to much. Executive order 525 put an end to most of it after it became law to kill the entire families and all known associates of anyone caught fighting back. Then came Bloggernacht and the public executions of anyone convicted of terror-speech. The arrival of the IDF and its merger with Blackwater and the New American Army put ‘shoot to kill’ storm troopers on every street corner. The bounty paid to children for informing on their parents, with food and fuel so scarce, was a crackerjack idea. No one knows what happened to those informed on. They just disappeared.

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Ramzy Baroud

There are a few buzzwords that every American politician, aiming for high office must utilize, even if disingenuously, to have a reasonable chance at getting elected.

President-elect, Barak Obama’s constant use of terms like ‘hope’ and ‘change’ contributed greatly to the overwhelming support he has experienced by the American public. Many, admiringly so, have overcome a legacy of racial division and prejudice that has defined America for decades, if not centuries. In that regard, voting to office a bi-racial candidate is truly an historic event.

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Stephen Lendman

Since taking office in February 1999, America's dominant media have relentlessly attacked Chavez because of the good example he represents and threat it might spread in spite of scant chance it will in today's climate.

Yet some of his fiercest critics maintain pressure and show up often on the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. Most recently on November 10 by its America's columnist, Mary O'Grady. Her style is agitprop. Her space a truth-free zone. Her latest in an article headlined "Hugo Chavez Spreads the Loot" referring to what The New York Times calls "Suitcasegate."

It played out in a Miami show trial that concluded on November 3 with Franklin Duran found guilty of acting as an unregistered agent of the Venezuelan government in the US. He's co-owner of the private Venezuelan motor oil company, Venoco. It's unconnected to the government, but that's not what prosecutors charged, what jurors were pressured to conclude after initially being deadlocked, and what O'Grady picked up on and claims.

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