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By James M. Wall

The 2020 presidential election is rapidly approaching. With the national day of mourning for George Herbert Walker Bush on Wednesday, closure arrives for our 41st President.

At the same time, candidates are lining up for the presidential election of 2020.

Ten years ago, as the 2008 party conventions loomed, I wrote a Wall Writings posting that identified outstanding political films, ending with my choice as to the best film ever made about politics.

This feels like the right time to revisit the Wall Writings archives to see if my 2008 analysis still stands. After a close look, I find that the films have not changed, but what has changed is the national culture within which the films are evaluated. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

I have it on good authority that almost the only Thanksgiving celebrations in Palestine this week are those enjoyed by U.S. expats, that is, those who “leave one’s native country to live elsewhere”.

That does not deter this American blogger from sharing one good news story at Thanksgiving which involves the Palestinian people.

Yes, in spite of having to live under an Israeli military occupation run by an authoritarian politician named Netanyahu, there is positive news for the civilized world to include when joining our American rite of giving thanks this season.

Those who do not gather about an American-style Thanksgiving table may still utter words of gratitude for the results emanating from the sumud practiced by the Palestinian people.

And since I have already seen fit to define “expats” above, pause with me for a moment to define the Arabic word, sumud, as it appears in the very-American Wikipedia.: (To continue reading, click here.)

By James M. Wall

If you are an American voter and your ballot is not cast by closing time on Tuesday, November 6, you will have missed participating in the most momentous political event of modern times.

Don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of President Donald Trump, who has campaigned in rallies across the nation—to highly partisan crowds—with the cry that a vote for Republican candidates is a vote for Donald Trump.

It is also a vote for hatred, which Trump has promoted in a steady venomous stream of lies that demonize those in the world who are not White and Christian.

He says of himself, “I am a Nationalist”. His devoted followers insert the White because they know how to read and hear, “dog whistles”. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Uri Avnery died at age 94 on August 20, 2018, two weeks after a stroke sent him to a Tel Aviv hospital. 

He died too soon. Israel, Palestine, and the world, still need his passionate voice and stern guidance. We also need his Jewish presence at events like the one shown above. 

In this 2003 picture, Avnery is fourth from left, standing next to Palestine President Yasir Arafat, greeting a crowd from a window in Arafat’s Ramallah, Palestine, compound.

Uri Avnery wrote his final column for publication on August 4, 2018.

He began that column by recalling a friendly discussion he once had with Ariel Sharon, one of Israel’s right-wing, long-serving prime ministers.

He told Sharon: “I am first of all an Israeli. After that I am a Jew.” To which Sharon responded heatedly: “I am first of all a Jew, and only after that an Israeli!” (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Israelis want the Palestinians to give up their right of return in order to get “peace”. The joint Israeli-American “‘vision” for the Palestinians basically means the imposition of apartheid. My people will never accept this.

This statement from Ramzy Baroud comes from his essay, “Diary of an UNRWA Kid”, which appeared in Al Jazeera, and is now circulating on the international internet.

Ramzy Baroud is currently the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is also the author of My Father was a Freedom Fighter. 

He is pictured above during his second-grade trip to Cairo, Egypt.

Below is more from the Kid, who grew up in a Gaza refugee camp. He writes in the voice of a veteran Palestinian journalist. It is a voice of determined certitude. It is never shrill, just a calm statement of what he knows lies ahead for the Palestinian people.

He writes of Israelli soldiers who use their occupation power against children. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

We live in a world saturated by the manifestation of evil. Genesis tells the origin story. The story starts with Adam succumbing to the temptation of desire for the forbidden. The Creator surely knew the decision to allow freedom of will would produce evil. Every succeeding generation has had to live with the consequences of that decision.

Within each generation Adam and Eve’s descendants have succumbed to the grip of evil.  Wise men and women have warned us to beware of the destructiveness of choosing that path. Still, humankind bites that apple.

The Catholic News Service’s Courtney Grogan reported the latest bite:

The U.S. State Department announced Monday it will close the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Washington because it says Palestine has failed to take “steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel”.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, is recognized by the United Nations as “the representative of the Palestinian people” and has diplomatic relationship with over 100 states, including the Holy See.

Closing the Washington PLO office was petty, mean-spirited and pointless. It is also just the latest evil step by the Trump administration to join with Israel to destroy the Palestinian peoples’ essential humanity. It won’t work. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In the retirement community where we live, I work with a committee to select, promote and show feature films each Sunday night. We draw from new releases, classics, and films evoking memories of the past, old and recent. 

The Blues Brothers was initially scheduled for our community film showing the week of December 3, placed there to celebrate the 200th birthday of the state of Illinois, our home state.  It was named the top film made in and/or set in Illinois, by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; the State Journal-Register newspaper and the Illinois Bicentennial Commission.

When news arrived that Aretha Franklin died Thursday, August 16, we changed the booking and brought The Blues Brothers forward to open our fall season on September 2. We wanted to honor the life of Aretha Franklin, and to celebrate the Land of Lincoln’s 200th birthday.

It is an appropriate pairing, the Land of Lincoln, named for the President who freed the slaves, and Aretha Franklin, who was a major leader in the freedom movement for women of all races. (To continue reading, click here).

by James M. Wall

Ahed Tamimi (right) and her mother Nariman, were released from an Israel prison Sunday. They had served dual eight months sentences. Ahed, a 17-year-old teenager, left her cell and found a wild reception from friends, family and townspeople of her Nabi Saleh community.

Before her day of release ended, Ahed had held a press conference for the world’s media, was welcomed home by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and laid a wreath at the grave of Palestine’s first president, Yasir Arafat.

In her quiet, polished manner, Ahed also gave Israel what it dreaded, a heavy blow to its already-staggered public image of what is now a self-named Jewish state. She has become a symbol of both Israel’s 70-year Occupation, and Palestine’s future, by quietly serving her eight-month sentence for slapping an Israel soldier. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Bibi Netanyahu has long begged for others to recognize that “Israel is a Jewish state”. No one has agreed to do so. So Bibi and his Likud right-wing party did it for themselves. 

Netanyahu is the Donald Trump of the Mediterranean. Both men are driven by a desperate need for political and economic power for its own sake, coupled with an equally strong need to be loved. Donald wants the love for himself and his family. Bibi seeks love for himself and his tribe.

They arrived on the world political stage at just the moment to sustain each other.

In its sham negotiations with the Palestinian people, recognizing Israel as the Jewish state was always Israel’s basic demand. Bibi does not care that it is impossible to have a state that is a democracy of exclusively Jewish people. To identify Israel as a Jewish democracy is to label the nation with an oxymoron. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

When the name of Judge Brett Kavanaugh was presented to the nation as President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court Monday night, Trump was in a role he honed during his reality television years.

He was the master of ceremonies making an important announcement.

But don’t kid yourself, the choice of Kavanaugh was not made by Trump. It was made by Leonard Leo, one of the most important inside players in the conservative legal movement and the man to see for those who aspire to sit on the nation’s highest courts. (To continue reading click here)

by James M. Wall

A close friend took note of the scarcity of recent Wall Writings. I told him I was living in a nightmare in which two world figures hold the power to plunge us into an even darker nightmare. Their names are Trump and Netanyahu.

To keep describing that nightmare feels futile.

My friend wrote :

“the children are crying

the parents are crying

Rachel Maddow is crying

and I am crying.”

He continued:

“Never tell me again that Republicans are the party of family values.

Never preach to me from an evangelical standpoint and expect me to have any respect for what is said, since both Republicans and evangelicals currently lack sincerity, lack a moral compass, and fail as empathetic human beings.

They also seem to have great trouble with the truth.” (To continue. click here.)

by James M. Wall

I first met E.J. Dionne, Jr. during my first stint as Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Illinois campaign chair. We huddled for lunch in a corner deli across the street from our Chicago campaign headquarters.

I was surprised and delighted to discover a young Washington Post reporter who was so knowledgeable about the significance of Carter’s religious faith.

Forty-two years later, after following his political coverage for more than four decades, I still trust E.J.’s sensitivity to the moral dimension of the murky world of politics. As one of my political colleagues puts it, “he gets it”.

Latest example of that sensitivity came this week when Dionne, now a columnist for the Post,  captured the impact of a Royal wedding sermon delivered in London by the Most Rev. Michael Curry, the bride’s Presiding Episcopal Bishop. (To continue click here.)

by James M. Wall

History is filled with narratives about killing fields. This troubled writer looks at the killing fields of Gaza, and is driven to begin with a story:

“A man kills his mother and his father. Brought to trial, he begs for mercy because he is  an orphan.”

There are times when two sides have legitimate claims to a side. The killer in this story does not have a “side”.

The story comes to mind when this troubled writer sees the deaths of Palestinians in the killing fields of Gaza and is driven to fury by the willingness of others to embrace the killer’s narrative.

I write, of course, of Bibi Netanyahu, grinning ear to ear, ordering Israeli soldiers to secure themselves behind safe mounds on the Gaza “border”, and fire into Palestinian crowds, who were protesting their imprisonment.  The New York Times, in its usual tepid “both sides” journalistic style, defends the slaughter.

On May 16, the New York Times ran a story with this headline, which on-line reads: A Child of Gaza Dies. A Symbol Is Born. The Arguing Begins

The arguing begins?  The man who killed his parents has a side from which to argue? No he does not. A judge who knows a phony plea for mercy when she sees one, can only utter the words, “take him away”.

And yet in this nightmare of Orwellian reality in which we live, Israel’s occupying military force continues its death-dealing ways and calls it a side.(To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Paddington 2 is just the right film to share this Mother’s Day. To understand why, reflect back to the original 2015 Paddington film, a creative tale drawn from a British literary series.

In the series and in two films, Paddington is a very realistic animated bear who travels to London from his native Peru.

Paddington’s Peruvian family had been persuaded by a British explorer, that London would be a welcoming location for bear visitors. In the original Paddington film, our trusting, very realistic, animated young bear travels to London by boat and train.

Arriving at London’s Paddington Station, he looks for friendly faces. He finds some in the  station, a human London family, the Browns. The mother of the family is Mary Brown, played in her usual welcoming manner, by Sally Hawkins. She insists on taking Paddington home with the family. (To continue reading, click here.)

President Donald J. Trump has held the U.S. presidency for 1 year, 3 months and 8 days, as of Saturday night, April 28, the night on which he chose to hold a political rally in Washington Township, Michigan, while skipping his second straight Washington Correspondents dinner. 

This is a President who divides. This is a President who shows not the slightest indication that he wants to unite this nation. He knows from polling that he has a “base”, a segment of the American public loyal to his worldview based on fear of outsiders, liberal government and dislike for non-whites.

That base, as measured in polls, hovers in the mid 30% of the public. The President gives every indication through his tweets, and his major television ally, Fox News, that he actually believes that through the force of his personality public opinion will come to his side of the national yard.

His actions this week confirm and underscore this. 

On Thursday morning, he called the Fox News television program, Fox & Friends. Gleefully, the three hosts, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade, welcomed him.

For thirty minutes, with no commercial breaks, President Trump shouted out a rambling series of hostile comments aimed at his “enemies, the “fake news” media, Democrats and all others who had yet to enter his embrace. (To continue reading this 10th anniversary posting, click here.)

by James M. Wall

After the Syria Bombing, did you have that pit-of-the-stomach feeling that you had been deceived about a military strike? I offer here a suggestion to clarify that feeling. It will not cure it, but clarity does have a way of easing the pain.

Accept the Syria bombing as a Wag the Dog deceit, a pretense to deliver a largely harmless distraction for an ulterior motive, as in the manner of a Roman emperor staging a stadium show for the masses.

Media reports used the 1998 movie, Wag the Dog as short hand for The Syria Bombing. In the film, Dustin Hoffman plays a movie director hired to create television news casts to distract and deceive the American public. Robert De Niro is the spin doctor who hires him.

Film critic Roger Ebert explained: (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The first time I almost met Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been at his father’s Ebenezer Baptist church, in Atlanta, Georgia. I was one of three Emory University seminary students assigned to visit MLK, Sr.’s church. We were part of a class called Race.

After the Sunday morning worship service, MLK, Sr., took us to his office for an interview. As we were leaving, Dr. King invited us to return the following Sunday, adding,  “My son Martin will be delivering his first sermon after receiving his Ph. D. from the Boston School of Theology.”

None of us returned. That missed opportunity remains at the top of my personal list of Bad Decisions While Growing Up.

I told that story to MLK, Jr., when, as editor of the Christian Adocate, a United Methodist pastor’s magazine, I interviewed him more than a year before his assassination on a Memphis, Tennessee, motel balcony. King was killed fifty years ago this Wednesday, April 4, 1968, shot by a lone gunman from a window in a nearby boarding establishment.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the Susan D. Morgan Distinguished Professor of Religion at Goucher College in Baltimore, posed a question in an article she wrote for Sojourners:

“What values were really at stake for the 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted for a presidential candidate {in 2016} who uses crass language and admits to engaging in coarse behavior, and whose campaign was marked by vitriolic hatred of various people, particularly people of color?”

Brown Douglas served as Professor of Theology at Goucher College from 2000 through 2018. She gave up this post this month and is now the first African American woman to become Dean at an Episcopal Divinity School (EDS).

The new dean is also the author of Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (book cover above). Her book was written in the aftermath of the racial upheaval following the Sanford, Florida murder of teen-ager Trayvon Martin, on February 26, 2012. (To continue, click here.)

U.S. Politicos Embrace Israel’s Big Lie, “Oy Vey”

by James M. Wall

Lying to gain and keep power, is now officially the Order of the Day. The American voting public approved lying as an established form of governing, when it elevated an established liar as President in 2016.

The man’s name is Donald J. Trump.  Oy Vey.

Oy Vey is a Yiddish expression indicating dismay or grief. It derives its meaning from the German “ach weh”, which in English, is “oh pain”.  

I know, I know, lying has long been a staple of American politics, a staple which came in with the Constitution. But when we elected someone who made lying the Order of the Day, it went from being a dark shadow over American politics to a total eclipse. 

Those Americans who had any hope that peace in the Middle East might be possible with the support of the progressive/liberal wings of the Democratic Party, will not be encouraged to learn of the lineup of speakers arranged for the 2018 AIPAC Policy Conference March 4-6.   (To continue reading, click here.)    

by James M. Wall

Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem Lithograph

by Louis Haghe from an original by David Roberts.

When New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman travels to the Middle East, he brings with him a deep devotion to the state of Israel, and a longing for what he thinks ought to be.

In a recent column (January 30), he addresses that longing in these opening paragraphs of his column under the headline, “Can Crazy Still Keep the Peace Between Israel and Iran?”

At the Syrian Border, Golan Heights — Who knew that the future of warfare would present itself with such serene beauty — like one of those warm 19th-century David Roberts landscapes of the Middle East.

How so? I’m traveling along the Israeli border road at the intersection of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, and off in the distance there’s a freshly snow-capped Mount Hermon, begging for skiers. It’s framed by Lebanese and Syrian villages nestled into terraced hillsides, crowned by minarets and crosses. The only sound you hear is the occasional rifle burst from Lebanese hunters.

With his quiet opening of what ought to be, Friedman sets a mood designed to lure his readers into a quiet David Roberts painting. As frequent travelers know, Roberts was the Englishman who captures a tranquility from the 1800s, a tranquility which Friedman quickly dispatches. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Halfway though President Trump’s 90-minute State of the Union (SOTU) address Tuesday, it suddenly struck me: This guy is good at this.

Of course he is. This is a man who spent 14 years as host of television reality shows, most notably, The Apprentice.

Standing at the podium in the House chamber, the President was in his element. He was the star of his reality show. Members of Congress and the nation, watched him perform.

Half the Congress cheered on cue. They rose to their feet in their enthusiasm. The other half remained respectfully sullen and subdued with only the occasional moan. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M, Wall

Say this about President Trump: His unfettered outbursts of vulgarity show no signs of being planned. They just erupt from the man as a revelation of who he is.

In the film, The Best Man, Henry Fonda’s character, Senator William Russell, says to Joe Cantwell, a presidential candidate who exists in his own bubble, “you have no sense of responsibility toward anybody or anything. And that is a tragedy in a man, and it is a disaster in a president.”

We know we are living with a disaster, when President Trump, sitting in a White House conference immigration meeting Thursday, described immigrants of color from Haiti and Africa as residents of countries he called “s—holes”.      (To continue reading, click here,)

by James M. Wall

A slap is a physical act not meant to wound, maim nor kill.  It is rather, an act born of frustration, of indignation and a stinging rebuke for unwanted action.

Ahed Tamimi is a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who lives in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh where villagers have resisted the Israeli occupation.

 The Israeli occupying army functions as the military defenders of Jewish settlers in the nearby Jewish village of Halamish. This is a settler village whose residents steal the Nabi Saleh villagers’ water, and illegally confiscate their farm land to expand the settlement. 

I was introduced to the area in 1977 when Palestinian leaders encouraged a group of foreign journalists with whom I was traveling, to visit an abandoned “Tegart Fort,” one of a series of military installations placed on strategic hills, first by the British during the Mandate period and later used as police outposts by Jordan.

The Tegart fort above the village of  Nabi Saleh had been empty until Israeli Prime Minister Begin authorized six outposts of Gush Emunim Orthodox Jewish families to move into occupied Palestinian land. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

For those keeping score on the Trump Administration versus the United Nations, the final vote on the Status of Jerusalem resolution is recorded above.

The official count was 128 to 9 against U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, and his pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.  

Thirty-five nations abstained, and 21 countries did not cast a vote. The eight countries voting with the United States were Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.

On Thursday, the day of the vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was busy dedicating a hospital in the coastal city of Ashdod. He responded to the UN vote pretty much the way former Judge Roy Moore responded to his recent  defeat in Alabama’s election for a U.S. Senate seat. He rejected it.

Prior to the vote which rejected the U.S. President’s “gift” of Jerusalem to Israel, the U.S. Representative to the UN, Nikki Haley (below), warned nations that votes against the U.S. would be remembered. She added, “We will take names,” sounding more like a Mafia Don than a diplomat.

The New York Times reported that Riad Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, had a more civil response: (To continue reading, click here.)

James M. Wall writes:

Below is an email from a close friend, Laurie Salameh. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband Estephan, and their three children. I asked Laurie for permission to share her email, which she had circulated to friends. She gave her permission. 

Guest Posting by Laurie Salameh

President Trump stole our Christmas. And he did it standing in front of Christmas trees.

In what was an unusually polished speech (for him), President Trump announced the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and has plans to relocate the U.S. embassy to there from Tel Aviv. We sat on our couch watching, our hearts pounding and our fists clenching, wondering whether it was ignorance, lunacy or plain hubris that drove him to make this announcement.

How can one man decide to take our historical capital away and give it to another country? How can he do that without acknowledging the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in Jerusalem? Who live in the city of their birth without access to services, without basic human rights, who live unacknowledged? What happens to them? (To continue, click here.)

 This first week in the second month of my 90th year of life,  I take computer

in hand. I am committed to reflect, search for words, and begin a new blog post.

When I first began as a published writer, I took manual typewriter in hand to write a column for my junior high mimeograph newspaper.

That paper, The Signal, gave me the platform to share youthful thoughts with

classmates. I commented on events I read about in the two Atlanta, Georgia, newspapers, the Constitution and the Journal.

One that I vividly remember was my response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I

was 13.

Not much has changed since that dark attack day, other than the computer replacing the typewriter. Inhumane acts are still with us. Peace and justice are still shoved aside by deceit, fear and violence.

Fortunately, beacons of light do break through the darkness, beacons like Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of Congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison, Wisconsin. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On the day Yasser Arafat died, November 9, 2004, former Illinois Republican Congressman Paul Findley wrote an article to describe the relationship he had with the Palestinian leader.

Paul Findley knew then, and he knows now, that if enough members of Congress had joined with him in favor of talking with Yasser Arafat, Israel’s control over American policy might well have shifted in a different direction.

His article was published in the Daily Star, a Beirut, Lebanon, publication, on the occasion of Arafat’s death, 75, in a Paris hospital. Arafat had been under essential house arrest in his Ramallah headquarters. When he became ill, Israel moved him to Paris.

The failure of Finley’s news-worthy piece to find significant American exposure was further evidence of just how much Israel and its American allies fear an influential man like Paul Findley.

It is an article that reveals the irenic spirit and courageous political strength of Paul Findley. A political figure who has refused to yield power to non-American forces, frightens Israel. They need total control to keep Congress in check. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Thursday, November 2, will be the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

To commemorate that event, the current British Prime Minister Teresa May, will attend a London dinner party at the home of Lord Rothschild, heir to the recipient of the infamous letter from Arthur James Balfour, Britain’s then Foreign Secretary.

She will be joined at the dinner by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current Prime Minister, along with the dinner host, Lord Rothschild, and the current Lord Balfour, a descendant of Arthur James Balfour, who had no direct descendants.

The Balfour Declaration (it was actually a letter) was issued November 2, 1917. It is that “declaration”, the dinner party celebrates. To get some sense of the sheer hypocrisy of such a celebration, below is the letter. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The film, Queen of the Desert, begins with a distant image of a small group of travelers moving across a vast desert. Two sentences flash across the screen, setting the stage for what is to follow:

The onset of the First World War hastened the demise of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the Middle East for five centuries. The colonial powers set their eyes on dividing the spoils. 

The film then moves to a small room in which British army officers gather around a table with a minister from the War office, the future British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

The officers and Churchill  are looking at a map of the colonial “spoils”. Churchill asks: “How do we delineate the borders?.  . . Who knows best about the tribes? . . .Who knows best about the Bedouin tribes?”

The officers reluctantly agree among themselves, “That woman”. (Click here to continue.)

By James M. Wall

October Sky begins on the night of October 5, 1957. Residents of the town of Coalwood, West Virginia, peer into the October sky, some with binoculars, searching for a brief glimpse of Sputnik, the first Russian-launched satellite.

The film is based on Rocket Boys, a memoir written by Homer H. Hickam Jr. The memoir tells the true story of four boys in a coal-mining town in Appalachia, each determined to build a rocket that will soar into the sky. It is a serious project. The boys want to help get America back into the “space race.”

At the film’s conclusion, we discover what their experiences as “Rocket Boys” prepared them to do as adults.

The celebration of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union is the first of two anniversaries in October, 2017.

The second will arrive October 31, preceded by other events, all pointing to the day 500 years ago when Martin Luther posted his 95 thesis on a door in the small German town of  Wittenberg. (To continue, click here.)

Two Speeches at Fulton, 71 Years Apart

Israel Lobbies Shaping Illinois Governor’s Race

by James M. Wall

A foreign nation is having an impact on the Illinois Democratic 2018 primary campaign for governor.

Israel’s lobbies, led by AIPAC, is demanding absolute loyalty to Israel from all leading candidates.

Few Illinois voters know the difference between Ramallah and Ramla.

Israel’s lobbies do not care what voters know.

What they do care about, is that the Illinois Democratic nominee for governor, must be loyal to Israel. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Another day, another Donald Trump tweet. This one came Thursday, August 17, a few hours after a van plowed into a crowd on the Barcelona pedestrian mall of Las Ramblas, Spain.

The Islamic state claimed credit for the attack. President Trump tweeted, via iPhone:

Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

The Atlantic debunked the story:

It seemed to be a reference to a story Trump told at campaign rallies during the 2016 primaries, which in turn was a garbled version of an Islamophobic meme that has made its way around the internet for years. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Updated 5:45 MST Tuesday, August 22

Defying Mayor Greg Stanton’s request that he cancel his Tuesday night rally in Phoenix, the New York Times reported that the Trump rally and the protests would go forward.   

Large protests are expected near the president’s rally in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday night, his first such event since he drew wide condemnation for his comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Va., this month.

The rally, scheduled for 7 p.m. local time at the Phoenix Convention Center, is Mr. Trump’s first visit as president to Arizona, where he made fiery remarks on a signature issue — immigration — during his election campaign last year. . . .

Earlier:

To hold, or not to hold, a Trump rally in Phoenix next Tuesday: that is the question Donald Trump should be asking himself right now.

The Mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, Greg Stanton, (left) has asked President Trump to postpone his campaign-style rally scheduled for the Phoenix Convention Center, on Tuesday, August 22, because “our nation is still healing from the tragic events at Charlottesville.”

Trump has said he wants to pardon former Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio. If that is Trump’s intention for the Phoenix rally, the Mayor said, “then it will be clear that his true intent is to enflame tensions and further divide our nation.”

To hold or not to hold, is the Hamlet-like question Trump must ask himself. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Professor asks”: “What could be worse than the soul-shredding evil of racism during the era of human bondage?”

This question is posed by a professor of African and Middle East History at the University of North Texas. Her name is Constance Hilliard. 

Fortunately for the rest of us, she also writes a​ blog,​​ Soul Wisdom.

Again: “What could be worse than the soul-shredding evil of racism during the era of human bondage?” 

In her recent blog posting, Dr. Hilliard offers her answer to her question.

My answer would be creating a world of make-believe so fortified by lies that those who lived within it could believe that slaves didn’t mind it in the least when their children were sold from their trembling arms or when their wives were sexually assaulted by the plantation owner.”

Current parallel examples abound that link this nation’s period of slavery and continued segregation, to our current period with Donald Trump as our president. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Last week brought more ill-informed, mean-spirited acts from our current President.  Before reviewing some of those acts, pause with me for a moment to give thanks for Jimmy Carter.

Here is just the latest reason to be thankful for our 39th President.

President Carter delivered a speech from his White House Oval Office, July 15, 1979, which John Farmer, Jr. describes as “a prophetic 1979 warning of Trumpism”. 

Farmer, former attorney general of New Jersey, and now a professor at Rutgers school of law at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, wrote a guest column for the Newark, NJ, Star-Ledger, on January 16, which examines Carter’s speech

“We’ve always believed in something called progress. We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith … “

Farmer writes that President Carter’s speech “offers an uncannily prescient perspective on the urgent question: how did we get here”? (To view a clip from 20th Century Women, which includes a portion of the speech, and to read the full posting, click here.)

by James M. Wall

A power-sharing Gaza leadership agreement involving two Palestinian childhood friends, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Dahlan may be “slowly taking shape”.

What led to the reunion of Sinwar and Dahlan is an intriguing story that involves two Palestinian leaders who have known one another since childhood.

Ynetnews reports on that history:

Dahlan, now 55, and Sinwar, now 54, grew up in the same neighborhood of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp. They later attended the same UN school and were students together at Islamic University.

Dahlan and Sinwar took different political journeys. They joined rival political factions, Fatah and Hamas. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Jack G. Shaheen, retired professor of communications at Southern Illinois University, died Sunday, July 9, after a short battle with cancer. He was 81.

His death brought to a sudden end, his five-decade fight against the stereotyping of “Bad Arabs” in movies and television. 

I have maintained regular contact with Jack since our first encounter in 1978. My most recent email from him arrived in March of this year, informing me that he had once again sent this blog’s link to his list.

Our first encounter came in August, 1978, when I was the editor of The Christian Century magazine in Chicago. Jack sent me a manuscript “over the transom”, media jargon for “unsolicited”.

We immediately accepted it, using Jack’s title, “The TV Arab”. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump have one thing in common: They both have as much credibility as the man who killed his parents and then begged the judge for mercy because he was an orphan.

Why should we believe what they say? President Trump is an accomplished prevaricator in a job he is clearly not qualified to hold.

But we know that already.

What concerns me at the moment is the way in which Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu follows the classic colonial playbook by living a lie and inducing the colonized to fight among themselves.

The current internal Palestinian conflict involves a severe drop in medical care and adequate electrical power in Gaza, two essential elements which must be provided for a civilian population. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Have you seen the Hollywood film that flashes back to February, 2006, when Palestinians elected a Hamas party parliamentary majority.

I didn’t think so, because there is no such film available.

An honest film on Palestine’s current situation would begin in present-day Gaza. A Palestinian baby lies in a tiny crib, dying because the hospital lacks sufficient electricity to keep her alive.

The poorly-maintained portable generator outside in the yard, would have run out of fuel. 

Then, in a flashback, the film would show long lines of voters in occupied 2006 Palestine, waiting their turn in an election monitored by outsiders including President Jimmy Carter. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

At 2:30 in the morning of June 17, 1972, forty five years ago this weekend, five men were arrested as they attempted to place wire taps in the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Washington, D.C. Watergate hotel and office complex.

Those arrests are being recalled after 45 years, as President Donald Trump faces his own potential Watergate Scandal. Both ABC News and MSNBC are airing Watergate specials this weekend.

History has shown that the Nixon-authorized break-in was a colossal act of paranoid misjudgment. Nixon did not need the break-in to win. Utilizing his presidential platform, Nixon campaigned vigorously as a foreign policy expert, traveling in 1972 to China (February 21) and the Soviet Union (May 22).

The 1960s frightened insecure politicians like Nixon, but the radical passions of that era made even more voting enemies than it did adherents.

Trump had more reason to stretch outside the law to win, if indeed, that is what he did, because unlike the incumbent Nixon, he was a nobody from reality television. Still, the suspicion grows daily that “Watergate Two” threatens, thanks to news stories like this one Thursday from The Washington Post.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Fifty years after the June 5-10, 1967, Six Day War, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people offers a business opportunity for some, and massive oppression for others.

We will begin with the business opportunity, as it is seen from the perspective of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. We will get to the oppression part a bit later from B’Tselem.

Alex Kane, writing in the alternative publication, Indypendent, sets the stage: “On March 5, Gov. Andrew Cuomo flew to Israel to show solidarity with Jews amidst an uptick in anti-Semitism in New York. But the trip also doubled as the kick-off for a new project meant to bring Israel and New York closer together.”

Smart man, that Cuomo; he does business that helps his city, while he makes nice, very nice, with his voters and donors. (To continue, click here.)

By James M. Wall

Hillary is back; the Hillary who ought to be in the White House instead of the man our archaic electoral system gave us November 8, 2016.

The Hillary Clinton who is back, relaxed and at ease, was interviewed for more than an hour on a California stage Wednesday, telling the world in clear understandable language, what she perceives to have happened in her 2016 election loss.

I report on this interview because I want citizens like my grand daughters and my great grand daughters, to look with justified pride at this woman who broke the glass ceiling as the first female nominee for president from a major political party, and who won the popular election by almost 2.9 million votes. 

She is back after taking a few months to reflect on the national train wreck which put Donald Trump in the White House. To continue, click here

by James M. Wall

His name is Muhammad Majid Bakr. He was a 23-year-old Palestinian fisherman killed by an Israeli rifleman patrolling on a naval boat in the Gaza Sea.

When he was shot, Muhammad Majid Bakr (left) was fishing at 8:30, Monday morning, 69 years since the day the Nakba began. 

Muhammad was shot in the chest when he and his brother Umran Majid Bakr, were in their small fishing boat in the waters of the Gaza Sea.

Bleeding profusely, Muhammad was taken to an Israeli hospital where he died, the latest Palestinian victim whose death came, Israeli officials claim, because his boat had “deviated from the designated fishing zone”.

The Bakr brothers had entered the Gaza Sea the morning of the day Muhammed died, to fish for food to eat, to share, perhaps to sell. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

It is a well-known fact of history that to the victor belongs the spoils.

And one of those spoils is the ability to reshape history. Donald Trump has won the presidency. He is now busy reshaping history.

On Wednesday, President Trump met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House.  The usual “we want peace” talking points were exchanged. The word “justice” was not included.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike were ignored by Trump. Sean Spicer, Trump’s press spokesman later claimed the President suggested to Abbas that he cease funding families of political prisoners held in Israeli jails. 

Since that would be both inhumane to the prisoners and politically devastating to President Abbas, he most certainly would have brushed aside such an idea.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Ma’an reported Thursday that a general strike has begun in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

As part of the strike, Palestinians shut down their shops and businesses in solidarity with the more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners now enduring the 11th day of their “Freedom and Dignity” hunger strike.

The Arabic graffiti above means, “Salt and Water,” the only nutrients striking prisoners allow themselves. Placed on the locked  door of a Palestinian sh0p, “salt and water” signals  support for the strike which was organized by imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi.

The general strike calls for a Day of Rage on Friday, April 28, during which Palestinians are expected to show their solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement

The deserted streets and closed shops evoke memories of the First Intifada, which began in 1987, when Palestinians held general strikes as part of a civil disobedience campaign against Israeli forces. (To continue reading, click here. )

by James M. Wall

The Irish writer is Eimear McBride. The scholar is a fellow named Chas Freeman. They did not actually walk into a bar together. Most likely they have never met. But they are soul-mates.

Chas and Eimear have each recently offered readers a deeper look into the evils of Israel’s occupation. The old “walk into a bar” line is merely a device to entice you to read what they want to share.

Eimear McBride speaks first. She is back from her first visit to  Palestine. She is angry. She has brought many pictures with her. She slams one of them on a table. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

A raid has killed members of a frontier family. Ethan Edwards, portrayed by an angry, unforgiving John Wayne, was secretly in love with one of the victims. The quick burial in a nearby hillside cemetery is conducted by a family friend, the Reverend Captain Samuel Johnston Clayton (Ward Bond).

Mourners sing, “Shall we gather at the river”. The Reverend Captain Clayton, formerly of the Confederate army, stands beside three wooden crosses. He prays.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Larry Derfner’s memoir, No Country for Jewish Liberals, is must reading for anyone even slightly interested in the “issue” of Palestine and Israel. Read it before he arrives at a location near you.

The author is expected to arrive in the U.S. soon to begin a book tour arranged by his American publisher, Just World Books. (To continue, click here.) 

by James M. Wall

Writing in the current issue of In These Times, American History scholar Theo Anderson follows the modern political conservative movement’s rise to power from the founding of the Heritage Foundation in 1973 through Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

It is a story of an ideological movement dedicated to the creation of “an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish.”

In 1980, that movement rode initially to White House power on the coattails of an amiable movie actor, Ronald Reagan, while picking up crucial political allies among evangelical Christians.  (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

by James M. Wall

When I learned of the courageous decision made recently by Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, I remembered my 1973 trip to Israel.

Bennett (right) made headlines when he pulled out of an Israeli government-sponsored trip to Israel designed for NFL players.

He refused to be a  part of Israel’s hasbara campaign.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, interviewed Bennett after he had written an open letter in which he said:

One of my heroes has always been Muhammad Ali. I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people, visiting refugee camps, going to rallies, and always willing to be a ‘voice for the voiceless.’ I want to be a ‘voice for the voiceless’ and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.”

I made a similar trip just after the 1973 war, a trip arranged, but not paid for, by the American Jewish Committee. It was a journey with a surprise ending. (To continue, click here.)

Trump Delivers “A Deportation Force on Steroids”

by James M. Wall

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump approached the waning days of his first month in office with what he hoped would be a significant foreign policy event, his first White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At their joint press conference, the real estate tycoon now occupying this nation’s highest office, became Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), from the 2005 Coen brothers movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou. In the film, Delmar and his pals, Everett (George Clooney), the dominant figure who evokes military occupier Bibi Netanyahu, and Pete (John Turturro), in the role of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, have escaped from a Mississippi chain gang. 

Still linked together by the chains of Occupation, Everett and Pete argue heatedly over which of them should be the Decider of the future.

Ha’aretz writer Ilene Prusher analyzed Wednesday’s Trump-Netanyahu press conference, under this harsh headline: Trump Is Delusional and Ignorant About Israel. His Meeting With Netanyahu Proved It. 

Prusher opened her analysis by pointing to what she calls a bizarro moment: “Trump departed from decades of U.S. policy of all administrations, Republican and Democratic, when he said that America was no longer determined to reach a two-state solution to end the conflict”.

Trump’s exact words were: “So I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.”

The answer drew laughs. Delmar could not have said it better. (To continue reading and see videos from  the press conference, and for Trevor Noah’s take on the exchange, click here.)

Posted on February 8, 2017 by wallwritings

by James M. Wall

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has just announced that more than one thousand new words have been added to its latest edition.

One of those new words–snollygoster–arrives just in time to apply to Republican members of Congress, who shut down Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) as she was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.

According to Merriam-Webster, a snollygoster is “a shrewd, unprincipled person”. The word has a history in American English as far back as 1846.

The dictionary cites one use by former President Harry Truman who “lamented that Dwight Eisenhower had given in to congressional ‘snollygosters’—unprincipled politicians”.

One of the darker moments in this one-sided cabinet battle in a Republican controlled Senate, came when Senator Warren was not allowed to participate further in the Senate debate over Senator Jeff Sessions, to become Attorney General.

Following a second straight all-night session, Warren’s Democratic colleagues came to her support. Several male senators took to the floor to read the letter. They were not shut down for “breaking Rule 19”.(To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

When President Donald Trump spoke by phone Saturday, January 28, with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he was speaking (above) from the White House, before an audience of two aides, National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn and his top strategist, Stephen K. Bannon.

Trump’s conversation with the leader of a major U.S. ally, was supposed to last an hour. Instead, Trump hung up after 25 minutes. 

The Washington Post reported: “It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week”.

Instead, President Trump “blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win”. The details of the call were leaked from “senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange”. 

Trump’s diplomatic style is, to say the least, different. “At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that ‘this was the worst call by far’.” (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In his final hours as President, Barack Obama ordered authorized funds for the Palestine Authority to be sent to Ramallah.

The funds had been “delayed” by two Republican members of the House, Ed Royce of California, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Those two GOP House members had placed “holds” on the funds, which has been authorized by Congress in budget years, 2015 and 2016. 

Royce and Granger said their reason for holding the funds were “moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations”.

News of Obama’s decision to release the authorized funds were reported by the Associated Press, and reported in several publications, including The Times of Israel.

The Times explained that “Congressional holds are generally respected by the executive branch, but are not legally binding after funds have been allocated”. 

Congress members Royce and Granger had their reasons for delaying the funds. Among those reasons could be the influence of the Israel Lobby which shapes American politics toward what it perceives to be in Israel’s best-interests. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

President-elect Donald Trump posted several insensitive and ill-informed tweets against Congressman John L. Lewis on the Saturday before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. 

The tweets displayed an ignorance of the facts about both Lewis’s history of public service, and of the 5th congressional Georgia district Lewis has served since 1987. 

They also displayed an indifference to a time when the nation pauses to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Instead, our next president acted with a naughty child’s petulance over a congressman’s questioning of his election victory.

If Trump’s staff and family allow him to keep his personal twitter account, we can only assume our next president will display that same unfettered ignorance and insensitivity, for four years, through January 20, 2021.

What led to Trump’s attacks on Lewis? Marlee Kokotovic reports on the site Nation of Change that in a television interview, Congressman Lewis said, “I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others to help him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open democratic process.”

Lewis added that he would not attend the Friday inauguration. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

One week before his inauguration, President-elect Trump was dealt an irresponsible, “warped and self-destructive” blow by the CIA and its allies in the media.

This conclusion was reached by Glenn Greenwald, in The Intercept.

Greenwald was quick to point out that the “serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience”.

But, as Greenwald also noted, “cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive”. . .

This subversion involved the granting of official credence to a salacious, unsubstantiated document by a former British MI16 operative which claimed to have proof of conduct in a hotel room by President-elect Trump while he was in Moscow.

The document, which became known as the Trump dossier, originated from “opposition research” funded by enemies of Trump, first by Republicans who opposed his nomination, and then by Democrats who wanted him to lose to Hillary Clinton.

The salacious document, Greenwald writes, “was just an anonymous claim unaccompanied by any evidence or any specifics.” (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

As soon as the Congress arrived back to do the nation’s business on January 5, it bowed to Tel Aviv.

Politico reports that “the House voted overwhelmingly [342 to 80] to rebuke the United Nations for passing a resolution that condemned Israeli settlement construction, a bipartisan slap that also targets the Obama administration while signaling a rocky road ahead for U.S.-U.N. relations under soon-to-be-President Donald Trump”.

The encouraging sign, however, is that while 342 members supported the resolution, 80 members opposed House Resolution 11: Objecting to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace, and for other purposes.

To see how your local House member voted, click on this link

Alternet examined that list and found that only four Republicans voted against the resolution, joining 76 Democrats who voted to support President Obama. Given a choice between Israel’s far-right government, 109 Democrats voted with Israel, while 76 stood with the UN and Obama.

Democratic PEPs (Progressive except for Palestine) stayed with Israel. (To continue, click here).

by James M. Wall

A New York Daily News headline published October 30, 1975, is one of the most famous headlines in modern journalism. 

The headline did not quote President Gerald Ford, but it editorialized exactly what the Daily News wanted to convey.

The headline read: “Ford to City: Drop Dead“.

The succinct reference was explained by writer Frank Van Riper in his opening Daily News paragraph: “President Ford declared flatly today that he would veto any bill calling for ‘a federal bail-out of New York City’ and instead proposed legislation that would make it easier for the city to go into bankruptcy.”

Van Riper’s second paragraph from 1975, conveyed more of Ford’s distress over the city: “In a speech before the National Press Club, Ford coupled repeated attacks on the city’s fiscal management with a promise that, if default came, the federal government would see to it that “essential public services for the people of New York City” would be maintained”.

President Ford was not dismissing the people of New York. He was dissing their political leadership. 

The headline on this posting (above) does not quote former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. It is intended, rather, in the spirit of the New York Daily News, to convey Reich’s meaning. (To continue reading, click here.)

Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, reported that Kerry said “trends on the ground are leading to a one-state solution”. 

In his speech, delivered 23 days before the U.S. turns the presidency over to Donald Trump, Kerry said:

“If the choice is one-state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both and it will not ever live in peace.” 

Kerry also presented the principles of a what he described as a “future final status agreement: An Israeli and a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines; full rights to all citizens; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue; Jerusalem as the capital of both states; an end to the occupation, while satisfying Israel’s security needs, with a demilitarized Palestinian state; an end to all claims by both sides”. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

President-elect Donald J. Trump will be sworn in January 20th as the nation’s 45th president, following the most contentious, hate-filled presidential campaign in the nation’s history.

Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic challenger, won the 2016 popular vote by more than a 2 percent majority. According to the Cook Political Report, Clinton’s final vote was 65,844,610, compared to Donald Trump’s 62,979,636. That is a difference of 2,864,974 in Clinton’s favor. The total number of votes for other candidates was 7,804,213.

How did this happen? History will blame Trump’s victory on the archaic Electoral College. But that will not be accurate. We, the American voting public, did it to ourselves. 

The Electoral College has been the basis of our presidential elections since the Founding Fathers at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, arrived at a compromise to keep the smaller states within the newly formed democracy. 

Meanwhile, we have to accept the fact that on Monday, December 19, the 538 Electoral College electors met in their respective state capitals to confirm Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States, and Mike Pence as vice-president. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, President-elect Donald Trump met with the publisher of The New York Times and some editors, columnists and reporters at the paper.

by James M. Wall

In his Op-ed column in The New York Times, Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, sent an urgent request to Barack Obama, the 44th President: 

“The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20, is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership”.

That column appeared on the morning of November 29, seven weeks and three days before President Obama leaves office.

President-elect Donald Trump’s attitude toward the Palestinian issue is unclear, though an Israeli right wing minister believes Trump’s election has ended Palestinian hopes for a separate state. 

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Wednesday that the possibility of a Palestinian state being established had ended after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, calling for an end to the issue that has been at the center of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for years.

by James M. Wall

In the film, The Best Man, written by Gore Vidal, a candidate for president, Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), is arguing with his more principled opponent, William Russell (Henry Fonda).

Exasperated at one point, Cantwell says to Russell, “I don’t understand you”.

Russell responds, “I know you don’t. Because you have no sense of responsibility towards anyone or anything. And that is a tragedy in a man, and a disaster in a president”.

The Best Man first appeared as a play in 1960. The film was released in 1964. More than five decades later, our newly-elected 45th President, Donald J. Trump, may be the disaster Gore Vidal warned us about.

Check the record. Start with Trump’s campaign comment on John McCain (pictured above).

“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Rebecca Gordon. the author of American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes, teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco.

She has a more nuanced approach to our newly-elected president. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

One week after Donald Trump won the presidency, he is running his transition the way he ran his campaign, like a neophyte circus ringmaster who walks into the center ring with absolutely no idea of what to do next.

The clowns are bolting from their small crowded car, the acrobats are swinging high from their wires. The elephants are standing by quietly, perhaps recalling the plains of Africa.

Lurking over in the far edge of that circus ring is a mysterious figure, maybe a lion, or maybe another being, hungry for power. It is not a presence we expected to see at this circus. The audience pays him no attention. 

What about that audience? It is now living with the consequences of the second presidential election in 16 years in which voters gave the popular vote victory to the loser of the Electoral College race, the one that counts?

The audience mourns or is gleeful. Some, but sadly not all, watch and read to see what happens next. (To continue reading, click here.)

By James M. Wall

The early morning after Donald Trump’s shocking upset election victory, the first thought that came to my mind was Job’s dark lament: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me”. KJV Job 3:25.

My mother seared that verse into my consciousness the moment she quoted it, when my wife and I traveled 45 sad miles to tell my mother of the unexpected death of her son, who was also my oldest brother.

Job’s lament was her immediate reaction, followed by her quoting to me another line from Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”.

When I recall that exchange that took place in my childhood home in Monroe, Georgia, it is a memory in a different context, consistent with the distress I felt in response to Trump’s victory.

It is a response not shared by more than half of those voters who gave Donald Trump the presidency.

Stunned by that final vote, and yet bolstered by the memory of my mother’s testimony of faith in the midst of her darkness, I turned to John Wesley’s Notes.

This is how Methodism’s founder understood Job’s lament: (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

To make any sense of the presidential election which concludes Tuesday, we must acknowledge that Donald J. Trump seized upon the fears and anger of voters and exploited them like the television con-man he is.

Trump voters, not Trump himself, have understandable fears and angers. Trump preys upon those emotions by promising to be their savior.

Trump is no savior. He is a documented narcissistic abuser of women, minorities, and, lets face it, all of us within the sound of his voice and the vision of his hand-clapping cheer leading.

In an August 2014 issue in Psychology Today, Carrie Barron, a medical doctor, wrote an essay entitled If You Are the Target of Narcissistic Abuse. Troubled about Trump two years later, that title caught my attention.

We are all targets of Donald Trump’s “narcissistic abuse”. He and his gang of enablers, those Trump-backing Republican politicos and media conservatives who are even now counting their pieces of silver from a future Trump administrations.

This democracy and all its inhabitants are targets of Trump’s abuse. Dr. Barron’s thoughts are pertinent to understanding what we are experiencing. (Click here to continue reading.)

by James M. Wall

With two weeks to go be Election Day, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is vigorously campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

Sanders is also making plans to lead his fellow Senate liberals in opposition to any President Clinton efforts to back away from the current Democratic Party platform.

Thanks to the aggressiveness of Sanders’ platform committee delegates, the platform includes strong domestic progressive planks,

Unfortunately, thanks to pressure from Clinton delegates, the platform failed to take any position on the decades-long, illegal, U.S.-funded Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. 

In an interview this week with John Wagner, of the Washington Post, Sanders said “he and other senators have started plotting legislation that would achieve many of the proposals that fueled his insurgent run for president, including a $15 federal minimum wage, tuition-free public college, an end to ‘mass incarceration’ and aggressive steps to fight climate change.” 

Sanders said he and his Senate allies plan to push for the breakup of “too big to fail” banks and to pressure Clinton to appoint liberals to key Cabinet positions, including treasury secretary. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Atlantic, a magazine in print since 1857, does not hand out a presidential endorsement except when it feels one of the two choices is a serious danger to the nation.

It has made a U.S. presidential endorsement only three times in its history.

The first was in 1860, when James Russell Lowell, the founding editor of The Atlantic, argued that the Republican Party, and Abraham Lincoln, the Republican nominee, “represented the only reasonable pathway out of the existential crisis then facing the country”.

That crisis was one of the animating causes of The Atlantic’s formation in 1857, the abolition of slavery. 

The Atlantic’s second presidential endorsement came 104 years later, when in 1964 the publication endorsed incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, over his Republican challenger, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

Edward Weeks, writing on behalf of the magazine, cited Lowell’s words from 1860, before making his case for the election of President Johnson, who would, The Atlanticbelieved, “bring to the vexed problem of civil rights a power of conciliation which will prevent us from stumbling down the road taken by South Africa.”

The Atlantic’s third endorsement arrived this month, 52 years after its Lyndon B. Johnson endorsement.(To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Hillary Clinton is our final protective barrier against a massive Trump forest fire now raging across our land.

She is the firewall standing between a fire which should have been stopped when it began June 15, 2015, as an anti-Obama racist birther flame.

On November 8, voters will have to choose: Support Hillary Rodham Clinton; make a naive gesture for a third party candidate; vote for a retired general or Aunt Maud; or vote for Donald J. Trump.

I chaired George McGovern’s Illinois convention delegation in 1972 when one young McGovern delegate told me she would cast her vice presidential nominating vote for her mother.

That irresponsible act was an early warning to me of misguided idealism in politics. It revealed an immaturity on the Miami convention floor in 1972. In 2016, it flames the fires of tyranny. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On January 20, 2017, Barack Obama will give up his presidency, leaving him fifteen weeks to fuss and fume over his inability to dislodge the Israeli elephant which sits on his back.

For evidence of that elephant’s heavy and humiliating presence, start with Bibi Netanyahu’s latest in-your-face insult to the departing Obama.

Ha’aretz announced the news Wednesday under the headline: “U.S. Blasts Israel’s Plan for New West Bank Settlement, Says Netanyahu Broke His Word”.

The subhead continues: “In unusually harsh statement, State Department ties timing of construction plans to signing of aid deal. U.S. official says White House was livid over timing of approval of plans, which seek to resettle residents of Amona”.

How is Obama expected to respond? He is a lame duck. Bibi revels in that fact. So, for the moment, Obama issues responses.

His options are small in number? The Congress belongs to Israel. It is, as Pat Buchanan once said, “bought and paid for”. Mainstream TV and print media, likewise. Cable television, ditto.

American Christian churches? Also bought and paid for in guilt chits and free trips. What Obama gets from the churches are resolutions issued periodically. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The moment on the debate stage Monday night which was most revealing was not one of Donald Trump’s nervous deep breaths.

The most revealing moment came immediately after the debate ended. Hillary Clinton moved quickly down the steps to greet supporters who were rushing to shake her hand.

Donald Trump waited until his family and two aides joined him on the stage. He stood there briefly for photos. Then, the most uninformed and politically inexperienced nominee in the nation’s history, left the stage.

On November 8, Donald Trump could receive full control of this nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Dare we trust him with such awesome power? Dare we trust a man about whom we know virtually nothing other than what we have seen on television reality shows, or promoting beauty contests? (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Syria’s cease-fire, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, began Monday night on Eid al-Adha, the Islamic festival which commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to follow Allah’s command to sacrifice his son Ishmael.

The agreement, reached last Friday, began under a cloud of opposition within the U.S. and Israeli governments. The plan would lead to American and Russian forces jointly targeting terrorist groups. 

The New York Times reported that the cease-fire exposed “an increasingly public divide between Secretary Kerry and U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter”.

Secretary Carter “was among the administration officials who pushed against the agreement on a conference call with the White House last week as Secretary Kerry, joining the argument from a secure facility in Geneva, grew increasingly frustrated”.

In the end, Secretary Kerry prevailed. After hours of debate, on Friday President Obama approved the cease-fire, even as Pentagon officials “remained unconvinced”.(To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Commander-in-Chief Forum, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, was televised Wednesday night. The Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America, a  veterans organization based in New York City, joined NBC and MSNBC in hosting the event.

Billed as a precursor to three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate, starting September 26,  the Forum was described by The New York Times as “a high-stakes political moment, far from the chummier confines of the ‘Today‘ show and, for Matt Lauer, NBC’s stalwart of the morning, a chance to prove his broadcasting mettle on the presidential stage.”

The Times adds, “The consensus afterward was not kind.” Among the harsher criticism of Lauer was New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait’s, evisceration of Lauer’s performance entitled, “Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign”.

Chait explained what scared him about the Forum:

I had not taken seriously the possibility that Donald Trump could win the presidency until I saw Matt Lauer host an hour-long interview with the two major-party candidates. Lauer’s performance was not merely a failure, it was horrifying and shocking. The shock, for me, was the realization that most Americans inhabit a very different news environment than professional journalists. . . . . Most voters, and all the more so undecided voters, subsist on a news diet supplied by the likes of Matt Lauer.

Jonathan Chait is right to be scared. We should all be scared at the prospect that Donald J. Trump might actually be elected president of the United States.

But don’t blame Lauer for not digging deeper into this danger. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In recent weeks, I have studied Spotlight, a film that should explain why our current presidential election is about none of the critical issues facing our nation.

This Clinton-Trump campaign, is, most certainly, not about the critical foreign policy issue of Israel’s expansive and repressive grip on Palestinian freedom. 

Spotlight is the 2015 Academy Award winning real life examination of a team of journalists working to uncover, and identify, those at fault in a massive church cover-up.

The title comes from The Boston Globe‘s investigative team of reporters which spent eight months examining the role of the Boston archdiocese hierarchy in covering up sexual abuse of children by priests. 

Early in the film, two men, Boston Cardinal Bernard F. Law (Len Cariou) and Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber), the editor of The Globe, are in a quiet conversation. 

The Cardinal says to the editor, “The city flourishes when its great institutions work together,” The editor politely dissents, arguing that the paper should stand alone.

Their conversation, New York Times critic A.O. Scott, wrote, “sets up the film’s central conflict”. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On one of my earliest reporting trips to Israel/Palestine in the early 1980s, I was assaulted by an Israeli government official wielding a wicked instrument called hasbara, Hebrew for propaganda.

I had latched on to a group of tourists who were being lectured to by an Israeli government official. I asked the official a question about the West Bank.

He whirled around to face me, his face contorted in a condescending smile.

“I know nothing about any West Bank”, he answered. “We have a Bank Leumi branch near here, but no West Bank”.

We both knew he was lying when he threw that verbal bomb at me, a weapon that Israel uses constantly to preserve a false narrative. 

To sustain its invading colonial project, Israel constructed its own narrative history, utilizing a steady outpouring of hasbara (propaganda).

Hasbara tolerates no attack on Israel’s false narrative. My encounter in the 1980s was with an official who did not want “West Bank” to enter the minds of the tourists he was busy brain-washing. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In the beginning was Donald J. Trump’s false birther tweet, posted four years ago.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Matt Pearce remembers: “On Aug. 6, 2012, the Twitter account @realDonaldTrump posted an important public announcement: “An ‘extremely credible source’ called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud’.”

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign began with that false statement from an “extremely credible source”.

The birther allegation was so obviously false that it should have fallen into the trash heap of absurdity. Instead, an alarming number of Republican voters took the birther nonsense seriously enough to launch Trump’s campaign for president, a campaign one final election away from placing “birther” Trump in the White House.

Trump’s style of short falsehoods embellished with insulting adjectives (“crooked Hillary”), is tailor-made for Twitter. (To continue reading, click here).

by James M. Wall

How long, O Lord, must we suffer outbursts of dangerous rhetoric from Donald J. Trump? The latest example, this time in Wilmington, North Carolina, is reported in the New York Times:

The Republican nominee, reports the Times, “appeared to raise the possibility that gun rights supporters could take matters into their own hands if Hillary Clinton is elected president and appoints judges who favor stricter gun control measures to the bench.”

The candidate then “warned that it would be ‘a horrible day’ if Mrs. Clinton were elected and got to appoint a tie-breaking Supreme Court justice.”

‘If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,’ Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: ‘Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.’(To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

As the November 8 election looms larger with each passing day, Republican party leaders are now in a “panic mode”.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Timesreported, “Donald Trump’s relations with the Republican Party – and his political fortunes – worsened dramatically  as party leaders fretted openly about the inability of his campaign staff to control him and even began to discuss what to do if their unpredictable nominee suddenly quit the race.”

Donald Trump bulldozed his way to the Republican nomination for president in a campaign in which the “unfit” charge was raised and ignored by an alarming majority of Republican voters.

So it comes down to the final bout between Trump and Clinton. (To continue reading, click here.)

UPDATE: Initially, I wrote in this posting “that presumably the ‘very little guy’ in Trump’s diatribe is Senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, Clinton’s choice as her vice-president”.

Two days later, Trump tweeted that he was referring to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a speaker at the convention.

News of that tweet arrived from Forward, a Jewish publication and the New York Daily News. 

Is this the first of many moments in the Trump so-far “non” campaign, when the Republican nominee builds a case that he is not really serious about winning the election? 

By James M. Wall

On August 18, 1920, the U.S. Congress ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. 

On Thursday night, July 28, 2016, just short of 96 years later, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was nominated by the Democratic National Convention to become the next president of the United States. 

Almost a century after women gained the right to vote, a woman is now one election away from becoming president.

On August 18, 1920, the U.S. Congress ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. (To continue reading, click here.) 

By James M. Wall

George Orwell’s 1984 is now dangerously close to reality. In the picture above, Donald J. Trump looms on the large screen behind the nominee, bringing an ominous reminder of Orwell’s “Big Brother”.

The acceptance speech Trump gave on the closing night of the Republican National Convention was filled with emotional shouts designed to engender fear. 

Donald John Trump’s speech echoed a tone across the years, a reminder of four of Orwell’s oft-quoted slogans from his 1949 dystopian novel, 1984: “War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength; Big Brother is Watching You.”

The Democrats will nominate Hillary Clinton this week. On Friday, she announced Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her vice-presidential choice, a decision which could stir a negative convention response from Bernie Sanders’ delegates.  

It is, however, an establishment choice her delegates and donor base will embrace. 

Vote for Jill Stein’s Green Party or Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Party if you like. But remember, a third party vote is a feel-good protest. Save it to vote for next year’s Homecoming Queen and King.

The harsh reality is that we have reached a moment of serious choice where we have the power to give the White House to Orwell’s “Big Brother” or to the Establishment’s Chosen One. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The posting below originally ran in this space, March 2, 2016. Since the Trump nightmare has only grown in intensity, I am reproducing the earlier posting for the benefit of new readers, and as a reminder for all of us, that elections have consequences.—Jim Wall

Super Tuesday [March 1] performed as predicted. Hillary Clinton won six southern states with considerable African-American backing. She narrowly won Massachusetts. Sanders won Vermont, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Colorado.

The major message from this particular Super Tuesday is that Donald Trump has emerged as an even more threatening nightmare to both political parties. It is a nightmare which will only grow in intensity.

Trump’s success is rooted in the political toxins of fear and hate, symbiotic emotions generated by a political process whose dominant generating force is the manic desire to gain power and control wealth.

That force is so prevalent that a disturbingly large and expanding number of voters do not respond to the current political culture with the agonizing “scream” displayed above in the iconic composition by the Expressionist Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

Instead of screaming in horror, those voters thrive on fear and hate, toxic forces that landed with the pious Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Will McAlvoy (Jeff Daniels), (right), played a newscaster working for a fictional cable news network on The Newsroom, a program which ran on HBO (2012-2014).

The writer of The Newsroom series is Aaron Sorkin, creator and lead author of the earlier television political series, The West Wing.

The Newsroom is The West Wing on steroids, same rapid-fire dialogue, same personal interaction carried out by a cast which talks and walks rapidly in their search for greatness.

Sorkin has honed this style in a career that began with A Few Good Men (Jack Nicholson, “You can’t handle the truth”) and includes Michael Douglas as The American President.

In 2011, at the time The Newsroom was unveiling its first season, the Republican party was attempting to absorb know-nothing political candidates from the Tea Party, a rebellious crowd which has now morphed into a “brand movement” called Donald Trump. In episode one of The Newsroom’s first season. a college student asks panel members, “Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?”

Two panelists offer the usual platitudes, “diversity and opportunity”, and “freedom and freedom, and let’s keep it that way.”

Will McAvoy fumes a moment, and then responds: “It’s NOT the greatest country in the world. That’s my answer.” Below is a three-minute clip from that episode: (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

A search for hope began with a viewing of the 2014 film, Interstellar, the mind-stretching movie directed by Christopher Nolan, and written by Christopher and his brother Jonathan Nolan. Interstellar is one of those motion pictures that lifts the spirits because it brings hope to human experience.

After viewing the nearly three-hour Interstellar, I came across Louis Menand,  a writer who cuts through the miasma of contemporary politics by carefully observing the past.  For contemplation during this nation’s Independence Day week, The New Yorker chose to publish a collection of Menand’s essays, starting with his story of the dramatic and long-delayed passage of what became the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

A Jewish mother hears her family cheering. She cries out, “what happened?” One of the men gathered around the radio, shouts back, “Mel Ott just hit a home run!”

She responds, “Is it good for the Jews”?

That is the version of the story I first heard in my sports writing days. Ott was not Jewish, but he played for, and managed, the New York Giants, which had a large Jewish fan base.

Stanley Fish explained the importance of the question of what is good for Jews, when he wrote in the New York Times, March 4, 2007:

When I was growing up in the ’40s and ’50s, a single question was asked in my neighborhood of every piece of news, large or small, local or national: “Is it good for the Jews?” We have now learned to identify this question in all of its versions – Is it good for the Catholics? Is it good for the Latinos?

Is it good for the gays? and on and on – as the paradigmatic question of identity politics, the politics that is derived not from some general, even universal, assertion of what is good, but from a particularized concern with insular interests. Is it good for us, for those of our kind, for our tribe?

It is no surprise that on both sides of the Atlantic, tribal media from all persuasions responded to the surprising Brexit vote with the Jewish mother’s question, “is it good for us?”

In the picture above, from Jerusalem’s Ha’aretz, Mark Regev, Israel’s new ambassador to England, meets Queen Elizabeth for a private audience at Buckingham Palace, London, June 24, the day after the Brexit vote. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Bill and Hillary Clinton swept into the White House in 1992 on the back of their campaign strategist, James Carville (right), a wise-cracking political operative from Louisiana.

“It’s the economy, stupid” was Carville’s greatest contribution to the first Clinton campaign victory. It is classic bumper sticker wisdom that cuts through inauthentic campaign rhetorical paragraphs. It is a bumper sticker that has power, because it is true.

“It’s still the occupation, stupid”, is a perfect way to begin all discussion within the Democratic Platform Committee relative to Israel’s obvious, brutal, ugly, illegal and immoral occupation.

Flaunting the obvious and displaying her Zionist-honed instincts, Hillary Clinton has instructed her platform writing team to keep the word “occupation” out of the party platform.

The Clinton team cannot erase this “damn spot” any more than could Lady Macbeth. The only word that fits “occupation”, is “occupation”.

You can say a thousand times a day that there is no occupation, but it doesn’t take even a single day among imprisoned Palestinians to see the walls, check points, Israeli military forces, and children running to school through gunfire, to experience the occupation for what it is, an occupation. (To continue, click here.)

Clinton Needs Only 199 Supers to Win Nomination

by James M. Wall

Following her strong 55 to 43% defeat of Bernie Sanders in the California democratic primary Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is now within 199 delegate votes to become  the first woman ever nominated as a candidate for president for a major U.S. political party.

The New York Times reported that after returns from six states in Tuesday’s elections, Clinton had 2184 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 1804 pledged delegates.

The total number of delegates required for the the nomination is 2383, a majority of the 4765 delegates who will attend the convention.

Since the 1980s, the Democratic conventions have had two classes of delegates, pledged and unpledged. As the names indicate, a pledged  delegate is a man or woman who ran and won on behalf of a candidate in a state primary or state caucus.

Under the party’s “faithful delegate” rule, pledged delegates are required to vote for their candidate on the first ballot at the Democratic Convention which will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 25-28.

The unpledged delegates are party officials and leaders whose votes at the convention may go to any nominated candidate, which this year will include Hillary Clinton and Bernie sanders.

Contrary to shallow and lazy media reporting, these unpledged (“super delegates” to use a media-derived name) are announced openly in their various states. There is nothing secret about their selection. They are chosen from inside a state and include state officials and party leaders. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

When the Democratic nominating convention meets in Philadelphia, July 25, the Platform Committee deliberations will indicate how much Hillary Clinton feels she needs Bernie Sanders’ support.

Given the dire, looming alternative of a President Donald Trump, it is tempting to stop worrying about the Bern and embrace the New York Times’ pro-Clinton narrative.

Not so fast. There is still ample time to support the party’s nominee after the Bernie Sanders’ forces make their Platform Committee stand.

Sanders has lain down a defiant marker by selecting three major pro-Palestinian Platform Committee members: Cornel West, James Zogby and Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, each of whom brings a unique background to this fight.

That trio sounds like one of those powerful law firms of West, Zogby and Ellison, a team you would not want to face in the courtroom of public opinion when the issue is the continuous torture of a battered client.

The Arab American Institution posted a video introducing five progressive activists appointed by Sanders to represent him on the Platform Committee. (To continue reading and to access two videos below, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Sixty-two years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned racial segregation in U.S. public schools, the United Methodist Church ended its 2016 General Conference by voting 559-157 to continue investing its funds in U.S. corporations profiting from operations in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.

This do-not-divest vote rejected an effort by some delegates to the UMC General Conference to halt all investments in three American corporations profiting from Israel’s immoral and illegal behavior.

There are brothels in the state of Nevada which profit from what the vast majority of Methodists would consider to be immoral conduct. Some of these brothels would, no doubt, welcome church funds to sanctify their businesses.

Tell me, fellow Methodists, what is the difference between investing church funds in brothels and putting church funds to work in illegal Israel settlements built on Palestinian land?

While we reflect on your answer, remember that brothels in eight Nevada counties are legal under Nevada law, while the existence of Israeli settlements on stolen land violates international law.

By its vote, 559 to 157, to underwrite illegal occupation, did the Methodist delegates (559!) sanction immorality?

We will sit here and thumb through John Wesley’s book of sermons while we wait for your answer. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, delivered a public address on the eve of this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He spoke at Israel’s Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies, which is located at Tel Yitzak Kibbutz.

The General could not have chosen a more auspicious location for what Ha’aretz described as an “unusual speech”.

Four days later, General Golan (above, right) was “harshly criticized” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, Ha’aretz reported, told Sunday’s cabinet meeting that Golan’s remarks “were outrageous, unfounded and they wronged Israeli society”.

Ha’aretz‘ report on the Golan speech began:

In an unusual speech in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday evening, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Yair Golan likened recent developments in Israeli society to processes that unfolded in Europe before the Holocaust. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The United Methodist Church has begun its ten-day General Conference in Portland, Oregon.

The Conference will consider resolutions to join other mainline Protestant denominations in divesting from three American corporate giants, Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard.

These companies profit from businesses that operate inside the occupied Palestinian territories. The UMC resolutions are aimed directly at the American companies, a tactic which worked well to reshape the government of South Africa. 

The state of Israel hides behind “anti-Semitism” as it fights these divestment efforts. This often-used fear tactic originates in Israel and spreads like a virus deliberately introduced into different settings.

The tactic came up in recent British elections. When the “anti-Semitism” trope is on the table, you know Israel is afraid of being exposed as a fraud.  Israel has never been the “only democracy in the region”. Instead, as Ilan Pappe writes, Israel is “the last remaining, active settler-colonialist project”. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Updated Friday, May 6

Thursday, May 5, elections were held in Great Britain for four mayors and 124 local councils.

The two major British parties are Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn, and the Conservative party, headed by David Cameron, the current Prime Minister.

These two leaders know that these local elections are critical to national elections yet to come.

British-born journalist Jonathan Cook (above) lives in Nazareth, Israel, where he writes The Blog from Nazareth. Cook, now 51, has served as a Middle East correspondent for major publications.  He knows this link between local and national elections.

His latest posting, The True Anti-semites, Past and Present, examines the May 5 local elections, one of which will be in London, where the Labour candidate is Sadiq Khan (left), a member of Parliament and a Muslim with family roots in Pakistan.

Cook finds a familiar “generated anti-semitism” dominating those local elections, in which the Labour and Conservative parties will wage political combat. (To continue reading the update, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The ugliest, meanest, primary-caucus season in modern history, is over.

History will record the ending came when Republican champion Donald Trump swept five states in Tuesday’s primaries while Democratic winner Hillary Clinton won four out of five primaries. 

Other primaries will continue through June 7, but the winners have been chosen: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the insult bully and the Israel Lobby’s favorite war hawk, will face off in the General Election, November 8.

Our Hillary a war hawk? How can this be? 

Her record is out there. Her preference for military solutions was never more obvious than in the New York primary debate, Thursday, April 14.

Asked about his earlier statement that Israel had a “disproportionate response” to Palestinian rocket fire against Gaza, Bernie Sanders responded on behalf of an embattled people under occupation. 

Clinton’s response, in sharp contrast, was pure AIPAC, a perspective that merges her pro-Zionism with her militarism. (To continue reading and view the debate excerpt, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The New York Times editorial board was absolutely right when it declared the day following the New York primaries, that it is too soon for Bernie Sanders and John Kasich to concede the nominations to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

In its editorial, the paper called on  Kasich and Sanders to stay in their respective campaigns. The Times calls on them to “let the remaining states have their say”.

Furthermore, the Times writes,

This should be a wake-up call to leaders of both parties. They are missing something big about their own members’ priorities, and their mood. 

A spirited nominating season might teach them what voters actually want from their president. So far, voters are saying they aren’t willing to settle for a party favorite, and don’t want to be cheated out of a choice.

After their strong victories Tuesday, Trump and Clinton called on their opponents to give up, and rally around the party flags for November. The post-primary narrative makers are asking, why should the two losers continue to fight? The answer lies in the song lyric, “It ain’t over til its over”

We need to hear more from Bernie Sanders, a rarity in national life, an authentic, passionate socialist candidate who, over a lifetime, has drilled to the core of this nation’s militaristic, empirical dark side. (To continue reading and to access The Band video, click here.)

by James M. Wall

So obsessed is U.S. media with this year’s headlong dash for the White House, that Israel’s increase in settlement construction has gone by us like a snake sliding into a back yard recycling bin.

The Paris-based news agency, AFP reported from Jerusalem this week that “the number of West Bank settlements Israel plans to build” has more than tripled “in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year”.

Israeli-based Peace Now, a settlement watchdog, said in a statement “that between January and March, projects for 674 housing units passed at least one of the steps in the planning approval process, up from 194 in the first quarter of 2015”. The absence of media attention to such a development is no surprise. The mainline media narrative on Israel/Palestine is already conditioned to treat Israel as a 51st U.S. state, surrounded by “terrorists”.  

With attention directed more than usual to a domestic conflict between and within two political parties, what happens in Israel/Palestine stays in Israel/Palestine. Local U.S.conflicts are better copy especially if they involve name calling and ugly inuendoes 

It is not just the settlements. At the end of March, Israel’s Knesset, voted in favour of a “Suspension Law” designed “to allow lawmakers to suspend an elected member of the Knesset (MK) with a three-quarters majority”. The impact of this Israeli law on American readers/viewers slides by virtually unnoticed. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders reached a watershed in Tuesday’s Democratic Wisconsin primary.

Secretary Clinton, the presumptive party nominee, lost to Sanders for the sixth straight time. His Wisconsin margin of victory was a substantial 57 to 43.

On Saturday, April 9, Wyoming will hold its Democratic caucus, a western state venue that favors Sanders. On April 19, the two will meet again in the delegate-rich New York primary, a state in which Sanders was born and Hillary served as a U.S. Senator.

Forty years ago, it was in the 1976 Wisconsin primary that Jimmy Carter was transformed from “Jimmy Who”, as even his home state Atlanta Journal once called him, to a candidate on the fast track to his party’s nomination.

Carter was outside the establishment mainstream, making him an outlier not unlike this year’s candidate, the avowed democratic socialist senator from Vermont. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic essay, “The Obama Doctrine”, opens with two contrasting conclusions which could be drawn from events on Friday, August 30, 2013.

It was either the day Barack Obama “brought to a premature end America’s reign as the world’s sole indispensable superpower”, or, it was the day Barack Obama “peered into the Middle Eastern abyss and stepped back from the consuming void.”

In President Obama’s mind, August 30, 2013, “was his liberation day, the day he defied not only the foreign-policy establishment and its cruise-missile playbook, but also [defied] the demands of America’s frustrating, high-maintenance allies in the Middle East.

 Barack Obama’s presidential “liberation day” began with a “thundering speech” given on his behalf by Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Kerry’s uncharacteristically Churchillian remarks”, were delivered in the State Department’s Treaty Room. It dealt with the gassing of Syrian civilians by the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. (To continue, click here.)  

by James M. Wall

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were among the invitees to the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting which this year happened to coincide with the start of Holy Week.

I do not know if candidate Clinton attended a worship service on Passion/Palm Sunday, the day before she gave her keynote address.  If so, she might have heard a reading from the Gospel of Luke, which records that the authorities said to Jesus: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

The authorities were complaining about the shouts of praise which greeted Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.  “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Stones cry out to deliver a message when others remain silent. Stones cry out with messages of last resort in the hope the words will penetrate the shields surrounding those who remain stubbonly oblivious to reality.

Candidate Bernie Stone did not attend the AIPAC conference. He sent his eponymous message which he also delivered at a campaign event.  One sample: “to be successful, we have got to be a friend not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people, where in Gaza unemployment today is 44 percent and we have there a poverty rate which is almost as high”. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In her effort to become the first woman President of the United States, former First Lady Hillary Clinton easily won three Democratic primary states Tuesday night.

Clinton won, by comfortable margins, in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida, In Missouri she finished slightly ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

In an unsettling display of her nagging vulnerabilities, Clinton had to hold off a late surge from Sanders, to gain a narrow victory in her home state of Illinois.

What really matters in these primaries, however, is not the popular vote, but the number of delegates won.

Clinton’s impressive victories in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida gave her enough delegates to leave her with an almost insurmountable total of delegates in her campaign to return the Clinton family to the White House. She and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, lived and served there from 1993 to January, 2001.

Clinton’s pro-Israel stance had projected easy victories in Florida and Illinois, two states with heavy Jewish voting pockets. She did win impressively in Florida but she almost lost Illinois in the popular vote totals. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Two months and eight days into this tumultuous election year, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hold commanding leads for the presidential nominations of their respective parties.

It is not difficult to explain Clinton’s success. Democrats have grown accustomed to her face in the White House, the Senate and on the international scene.

Voters who knew her face and wanted her to be president were not sufficient to enable her to defeat Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

After eight more years in the public arena, Clinton’s political identity is more fully formed, and her financial backing more firmly fixed by her favorability rating on Wall Street.

Clinton now appears poised to win the Democratic nomination. Trump’s victory at the Republican Convention, also appears almost certain. 

Like Clinton, he is a familiar face. He gained familiarity as a (for real) billionaire television star who played an uncouth talk show bully. In the political arena, Trump has honed that same image to emerge as a successful (still for real) billionaire uncouth political bully.

One Israeli media commentator who has covered and analyzed his own local share of uncouth bullies in political office, has written a succinct and on-target explanation as to why and how, Donald Trump emerged. 

Ari Shavit is a senior correspondent at Jerusalem-based Haaretz and a member of its editorial board.  In a recent column on the U.S. election, Shavit offers three reasons why a billionaire like Trump, with no political background, has risen so high and so fast in his race for the presidency. (To continue, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Super Tuesday performed as predicted. Hillary Clinton won six southern states with considerable African-American backing. She narrowly won Massachusetts. Sanders won Vermont, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Colorado.

The major message from this particular Super Tuesday is that Donald Trump has emerged as an even more threatening nightmare to both political parties. It is a nightmare which will only grow in intensity.

Trump’s success is rooted in the political toxins of fear and hate, symbiotic emotions generated by a political process whose dominant generating force is the manic desire to gain power and control wealth. 

That force is so prevalent that a disturbingly large and expanding number of voters do not respond to the current political  culture with the agonizing “scream” displayed above in the iconic composition by the Expressionist Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

Instead of screaming in horror, those voters thrive on fear and hate, toxic forces that landed with the pious Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.

After the Pilgrims and their successors conquered and slaughtered the indigenous people of a not-so-new land, a new republic grew into an empire, but at what a cost.  “We reap what we sow” is the harsh reminder of how we got to this moment that demands a “scream”. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

It is still early in the U.S. presidential nomination races. 

It is not too early, however, to harbor a pretty strong suspicion that on November 8, the election will provide a choice between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Of course, surprises could emerge that could lead voters to create a different pairing for November 8. Democrat Bernie Sanders, a secular Jewish radical socialist, could face Marco Rubio, now emerging as the Republican establishment candidate.

Given those competing scenarios, what will American voters do?

One answer may be found in the observation, often attributed to Winston Churchill: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else”.

What will be the right thing to do on November 8? As the kid in the back seat keeps asking, “are we there yet?” Absolutely not. The journey ahead is filled with turns and dips before each individual voter finally decides, driven by heart and/or head, preferably both.

Will voters make a disastrous decision? Or will they choose a leader who, at least. has the potential to pull the nation out of its current political mire? (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M.Wall

Some of my friends support Hillary; some of my friends support Bernie. Me? I’m with my friends.

I first heard those fence-straddling words of wisdom from a wise old Chicago politician. It is a good way to approach the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders race this early in the year.

Why not wait until a few more states vote before we agree on the strongest candidate to run against which ever Republican emerges from the hard-right options currently wallowing in the muck of the GOP primary and caucus races.

Strong support from minority voters in Nevada and South Carolina (on February 20, 23, and 27) could deliver twin victories to Clinton over Sanders. On Tuesday, March 1. voters in 13 states, American Samoa and Democrats Abroad, will make their decisions between the two Democratic opponents.

If that leader is Clinton, a nagging question must be asked:

Is she too military-minded for the Democratic liberal base she needs to win a general election?

Clinton may look like the strongest candidate to defeat any Republican. But will she take the nation back to the bellicose military policies favored by Israel and corporate military interests? 

Is that a fair question? Maybe not, but Clinton’s critics are asking it, and her strongest supporters are worried about it. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Two weeks before the Iowa caucus, New York magazine’s Frank Rich delivered a campaign analysis for New York magazine under the headline, “Getting serious about Bernie“.

Rich admits, “I have never believed — and still don’t — that [Bernie Sanders] can be elected president even though I prefer almost everything about his views and record to Clinton’s”.

Rich pointed to three problems Sanders would face in a national election:

“He’s 74; he can be stigmatized as a nominal “socialist” (though that nomenclature may not carry much weight, negative or otherwise, to 21st-century American voters, beyond the claque who think every Democrat is a socialist); and he’s Jewish, a fact that few want to discuss as a possible hindrance to a national general-election candidacy.”

Breaking through those three barriers in his first two campaign contests with Hillary Clinton, Sanders exceeded all expectations, narrowly losing in Iowa, and handily winning the New Hampshire primary (to use one of his favorite adjectives) by a “huge” 60%-38% margin over Clinton.

Beaming with home team pride, the Jewish News Agency eagerly reported: 

In New Hampshire on Tuesday night, he handily won the Democratic Party contest, becoming the first Jew to win a presidential primary. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

British critic Patrick McCray has described the Marx Brothers’ 1933 film, Duck Soup as “an absurdist essay on politics and warfare. . . which can stand alongside (or even above) the works of Beckett and Ionesco.”

Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) is Groucho Marx’ perennial comedy sparring partner. In Duck Soup, she is the wealthy benefactor of Freedonia, a 1933 female equivalent of the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, or Haim Saban.

In relating to Mrs. Teasdale, Groucho is as insulting to her gender as Donald Trump is to any woman who crosses him. In his attitude toward diplomacy, Groucho sounds as clumsy and adolescent as Ted Cruz when he calls for carpet-bombing.

The narrative of Duck Soup’s Freedonia, envisions U.S. politics between Monday’s Iowa caucuses. the New Hampshire primary, Tuesday, February 9, and the presidential election November 8.

Freedonia is bankrupt. Mrs. Teasdale appoints Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) as the country’s new president. Sensing a weakness in the new leader, the bordering nation of Sylvania sends in two spies, Pinky (Harpo Marx) and Chicolini (Chico Marx) to set the stage for a revolution. 

The Sylvania ambassador comes to see President Firefly (Groucho). The 2 minute video clip below, captures that encounter: (To continue reading and view clip. click here.)

by James M. Wall

Jesus told his disciples they must learn to “discern the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3).

In the Iowa caucuses, Monday, February 1, voters will offer their secular versions of political signs for the future when they select two potential presidential candidates.

Democrats will choose between an establishment leader who seeks to become the nation’s first female president, and a declared Socialist Senator from Vermont, who could become the nation’s first Jewish president.

Republicans have many choices for a future president, led by a raging bully named Trump, a “non-politician” who has so far outrun all the politicians lined up against him.

Which 2016 political signs are there for discernment? For voters concerned about guns, ISIS, God, wages, and health care, signs abound. But don’t look for signs to discern the end of Israel’s continued military control over the people of Palestine.

There are none. Unless, that is, the total absence of signs, is a sign in itself.

Don’t look to the Iowa caucus results for any grasp of reality on the Palestine-Israel issue.  Look instead, to corners of Israel’s media. Begin with the editor-publisher of Jerusalem’s major moderate Ha’aretz publication, Amos Schocken. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On October 10, 2010, I gave a talk to a small group  at a United Methodist Church in Naperville, IL, a city in the western suburbs of Chicago.

In the talk I referenced the film, Grapes of Wrath. Recently, while searching the internet for information on the film, the talk popped up. Along with other references to the film was the line, “Draft: Talk on 10/10/10″.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) will gather in its General Conference, a quadrennial legislative assembly, in Portland, Oregon, May 10-20.

UMC leaders have asked its delegates, and the church members they represent, to prepare spiritually for that upcoming gathering of its largest legislative body.

One way to prepare spiritually for this Conference, is to look back at one moment when U.S. church leaders were slowly beginning to confront what was euphemistically referred to as the “Palestinian issue”.

The talk that I gave on October 10, 2010, was given at a specific point in recent history. It is, therefore, tied to that moment, five years and four months ago.

I share it now as a small contribution to the UMC General Conference delegates who will discuss many important matters May 10-20, none more important than the “Palestinian issue”. 

Below are segments of that talk which I trust will resonate with many others who have made, or will in the future, make the same spiritual journey I began in December, 1973. (To continue reading, click here or on the headline above.)

United Methodists Target Guilty Banks, Not Israel

by James M. Wall

by James M. Wall

As the nation enters 2016 in search of a new president, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton seems certain to derail Bernie Sanders while anti-immigrant Republican candidate Donald Trump is expected to recover quickly even if he loses the Iowa Republican caucus, February 1, or the New Hampshire Republican primary, February 9.

The South Carolina Republican primary is next on February 20.  After that, the nation will experience a series of primaries, caucuses, and endorsements, that will beg for our attention even though the Trump versus Clinton outcome, at this point in time, appears a foregone conclusion.

It is precisely at a this point where the enthusiasts for good government. as it should be practiced, must not lose hope. Bernie Sanders may catch enough momentum with a New Hampshire victory to pose a threat to Clinton. 

Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush may break through to stop Trump. Don’t lose hope until the summer conventions. Or as we say in my business, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

The Republican Convention will be held at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 18-21. The Democrats will gather July 25-28 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Not a promising sign for good government as it should be practiced. The names of the two convention sites celebrate the true religion of the nation and its political structures: Big Money.

Quicken Loans and Wells Fargo embody what the U.S.Supreme Court codified in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, granting corporate contributions unfettered access to political candidates. (To continue reading click here, or on the headline above.)

by James M. Wall

On May 24, 2000, I wrote a column for The Christian Century magazine reflecting on yet another “peace agreement” between Palestine and Israel.  I wrote that to the U.S. government, then led by President Bill Clinton, the impending agreement “will appear fair and just, at long last bringing security to Israel and a truncated state to the Palestinians”.

I began the May 24, 2000, column this way:

“Family members gather in a Liverpool hotel ballroom to learn the fate of loved ones who were traveling on the Titanic. Everyone is frantically seeking information on survivors. Suddenly an old polar bear walks into the room. He looks sad, and there is a tear in his eye as he asks, ‘Have you got any news of the iceberg? My family were on it, you see. Have you got any news of the iceberg? They mean the whole world to me.’

It hadn’t occurred to the grieving relatives that a polar bear’s family might have been on the iceberg that collided with the Titanic. It is, you see, a matter of perspective.

The story about that polar bear, which comes from an old British comedy record I own, came back to me as I brooded over the imminent peace agreement between Israel and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.”

In these waning days of the final month of  2015, I returned to this column because 15 years later, it is depressingly clear that a “fair and just” agreement is even further away from reality than it was in 2000. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

It did not take long for a group of opportunistic U.S. Governors to respond to the horrors of the Paris bombings.

They did so with racist, religiously bigoted responses against Muslims.

Their responses were degrading to their collective state offices, and hateful to a major world religion. They also display a collective naked ignorance of the fact that governors have absolutely nothing to do with U.S. immigration policy. (To continue reading, click here or on the headline.)

by James M. Wall

Writing in Intercept, Glenn Greenwald delivered bad news to progressive Democrats under the glaring headline: Elizabeth Warren Finally Speaks on Israel/Gaza, Sounds Like Netanyahu.

As I reported in an earlier posting, the information on Warren’s views on the Israeli invasion of Gaza emerged during a political gathering in Hyannis. Massachusetts.

The report came from C. Ryan Barber, writing for the Cape Cod Times.

At Hyannis, on July 17, Senator Warren (at left above) was asked about her “yes” vote to give Israel supplemental funding. Her response was disheartening to progressives who had just lived through the dark summer days of Israel’s Gaza invasion. She put it this way:

“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right. America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”

This was how the Massachusetts senator defended an invasion that killed 506 children and every member of 81 extended Palestinian Gaza families, in a brutal one-sided military assault. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The American public doesn’t want to go to war unless there is something out there that frightens them.

Which explains why all of our wars have been preceded by dire warnings of what will happen if we don’t militarily engage the enemy.

In President Obama’s Wednesday night speech. he repudiated his own caution and prudence by falling in line with those who think there is no fear out there that war cannot overcome.

The New York Times editorial board sonorously endorsed the President’s decision under a headline that informs the nation that the drums of war have had their efffect: “The Attack on ISIS Expands to Syria.”

Gail Collins’ Times column the same day, “A Man With a Plan”, questions the wisdom of her editorial bosses, pointing to samples of the strategy congressional fear/war mongers employed to influence the President’s decision:

Collins cites a Texas senator:

“President Obama’s chronic passivity has helped the jihadists,” John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said in a floor speech this week. Cornyn slammed the administration’s “don’t do stupid stuff” mantra, claiming Obama “doesn’t seem to fully grasp the magnitude of the threats and challenges that America is now dealing with.” (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall 

“Israel has the right to defend itself” was the Orwellian doublespeak Israel used to justify its latest invasion of Gaza, carried out at the same time as its under-reported increased military action inside the West Bank.

President Obama, eagerly joined by would be presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, and Elizabeth Warren, rushed to endorse Israel’s 51-day August assault against the Palestinians, by proclaiming, “Israel has the right to defend itself”.

Prompted by AIPAC, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to embrace the doublespeak Israeli claim that it was killing Palestinians “because it has the right to defend itself”.  The vote was taken on the final day before the senators went into their annual summer recess.

Were there any among that list of endorsees who understood the meaning of “doublespeak”, which Wikipedia defines as “language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words?”

Did that “right to defend”, give Israel the right to kill 11-year-old Khalil Muhammad al-Anati, just before he was to begin the sixth grade in the Al-Fawwar refugee camp school south of Hebron? (To continue reading, click here.)

 by James M. Wall

The personal report that begins below, first appeared in the website, Mondoweiss. 

This report conveys the horror of war experienced by young Palestinian college students in Gaza during recent summer weeks of unrelenting and vicious attacks by Israel.

The author, Nazmi Al-Masri, a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), writes, “This day is carved in my memory”. He continues:

As all academics in Gaza, I had given much thought to my students who were suffering all sorts of agonies and worries caused by Israel’s aggression.

After 40 days of atrocities caused by heavy bombardment and random artillery shelling, which destroyed thousands of houses and devastated countless families, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) did everything it could to make use of the three-day temporary ceasefire, which was extended for five days and then for another 24-hour period before it ended at midnight on August 19th, 2014.

They decided to resume the classes on Saturday, August 16 that had so crudely interrupted summer semester. I was unsure what to say to my students in my lecture class. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Israel still retains absolute mind control over the western world, thanks to the selling of an Israel narrative which was boosted high into the literary lights and onto movie screens with the fictional Israeli narrative written by Leon Uris in 1954.

After its publication, the novel Exodus became the guide book for all who studied, traveled, or gave even the slightest attention to the start of the modern nation of Israel in 1947-48.

How powerful is a movie image? The Guardian reported that when Ronald Reagan first arrived at the White House as president, he wanted to see the “war room” which he had seen in the movie, Dr Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.

He had to be told that the Strangelove war room was a movie set, (shown below) built at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England.  In reality, the real war room is much smaller.

Exodus, the novel by Leon Uris, was far removed from the reality of Palestine in 1948.

Undeterred by reality, the novel grew into a 208 minute, 1960 movie version, with Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan, a leader of the Hagannah (the Jewish underground), and Eva Marie Saint, as Kitty Fremont, his love interest.

In one scene, Kitty sits beside Ari on a hill overlooking what he tells her is the ancient Valley of Jezreel. He then informs her, pointing, that below are the ruins of Megido.  He also points to Mount Tabor.

She gazes up admiringly at the Jewish underground leader, hanging on his every word.  Ari asks Kitty, “Do you know your Bible?”

Overwhelmed by his superior biblical certainty, she answers quietly, “In a Presbyterian sort of way”  Having established his biblical knowledge superiority, Ari tells Kitty how his people conquered this land centuries ago.

Today, sixty years after the novel Exodus first appeared, the Palestinian narrative has great difficulty being heard in the cacophany of a culture shaped for more than six decades by propaganda (hasbara) campaign, each defended with bogus cries of “anti-semitism”.

Over time, however, reality continually forces hasbara spin masters to launch new campaigns. The latest: The sudden discovery and immediate peddling, of a series of “rights”, promulgated simplistically by advertising spin masters. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Cease fire talks between Israel and Hamas have been extended for an additional five days.

The extension in the talks was made possible because the Gaza Palestinians are standing firm in their humanitarian demand that Israel lift the siege on Gaza, while Israel is feeling the negative worldwide vibes over its massive military assault.

The vibes are negative everywhere, that is, except in the U.S., where in an Atlantic interview, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to kick off her 2016 presidential campaign with a ringing endorsement of Israel’s massive assault on the Palestinians of Gaza.

For his part, as the man who holds the reins of responsibility, President Obama has called a halt to U.S. Hellfire missile shipments to Israel until arrangements are made to clear with the White House all future transfers of Hellfire missiles.

The President is clearly disturbed over his discovery of the free-flowing weapons pipeline from the U.S. to Israel via the Pentagon.

The story of his decision to halt sales, originated in the Wall Street Journal and was beamed into Israel and internationally on the internet by Haaretz. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

During their temporary cease fire, Israel and Hamas are negotiating in Cairo, Egypt, for an agreement to end Israel’s third military assault since 2007, on Gaza.

Thursday night, Ha’aretz reported that the talks were “stalled”.

Friday morning, when the 72 hour agreement ended, the New York Times reported both sides resumed cross-border firing.

These shots could be “warning shots” to signal a resumption of the conflict, or they may be part of the negotiations strategy on both sides.

The conflict is asymmetrical, suggesting that more exchanges of fire would be especially harmful to the Palestinians in Gaza.

The one-sided nature of the now 30-day conflict, is seen in the human toll of Israel’s third “mowing the grass” project in Gaza. Thus far, Israel has killed 1900 Palestinians, the great majority of whom were civilians, including 400 children.

To agree to an extended cease fire with no more firing from either side, Hamas, the ruling government of Gaza, has laid out its simple requests. There is nothing radical nor threatening about them.

Israeli analyst Gershon Baskin says of the Hamas demands for an extended cease fire, “When Palestinians look at the Hamas demands, they say, ‘this is what we want, what all Palestinians want.’” (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The situation in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza at mid-afternoon Friday (U.S. CST; 11 p.m Gaza time), is both chaotic and horrifying.  This posting will be updated as further reports become available.

Amy Goodman’s current report on Democracy Now is broadcast  from Washington and Gaza. This edition of Democracy Now, posted early Friday afternoon, runs for roughly ten minutes.

It includes an on the scene set of interviews with two Palestinians, Raji Sourani, award-winning human rights lawyer, and Gaza City-based Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, award-winning Palestinian journalist who is originally from Rafah.

The New York Times identified the missing Israeli as Second Lt. Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old officer in an infantry brigade.   (To continue reading and access the Goodman interviews, click here.)

By James M. Wall

Once every two years or so, depending on the U.S. and Israeli strategic and political calendars, Israel, the fourth largest military power in the world, descends on Gaza to “mow the grass”.

That obscene phrase, used to describe Israel’s military engagements with Gaza, was described by the Jerusalem Post as a legitimate Israeli tactic:

“Israel is acting in accordance with a “mowing the grass” strategy. After a period of military restraint, Israel is acting to severely punish Hamas for its aggressive behavior, and degrading its military capabilities – aiming at achieving a period of quiet.”

The “mowing the grass” image is an all-out Israeli air and ground attack on a largely helpless civilian population of 1.8 million Palestinians, all of whom are trapped inside prison-like Gaza walls.

Amira Hass, veteran Israeli writer for Ha’aretz, describes how difficult it is for Israel to understand that the Palestinians “refuse occupation”.

“There is method in madness, and the Israeli insanity, which refuses to grasp the extent of its revenge in Gaza, has very good reasons for being the way it is.   (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

One day after a U.S. congressional committee voted to send more U.S. tax dollars to bolster Israel’s Iron Dome shield, four Palestinian boys were killed on an open beach by Israeli shelling from a naval ship offshore.

Defense for Children International  reported on the Israeli shelling:

“Eight children in Gaza were killed on Wednesday [July 16], including four boys who died as they were playing on the beach in Gaza City when they were directly targeted by the Israeli navy.  Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45 children according to DCI-Palestine documentation.”

DCI-Palestine identified the four boys killed, as Zakariya Ahed Subhi Baker, 10, Ahed Atef Ahed Baker, 9, Ismail Mohammad Subhi Baker, 9, and Mohammad Ramez Ezzat Baker, 11.

The boys were all cousins from local families. They had been playing with a soccer ball on the beach in Gaza City’s harbor before they were killed in a missile strike just after 4 pm.

Hamada Baker, 13, was struck by shrapnel from one of the missiles fired from the Israeli ship. He and other boys ran or were carried, to the al Deira Hotel next to the beach where the four boys were killed.

Many western journalists. housed at the hotel, helped the wounded with first aid kits they brought down to the hotel terrace. One of them was William Booth of the Washington Post. Booth filed his account of the attack:

“I had just returned to the hotel to type up some notes and file inserts on the day’s news when there was a large explosion on the quay at the port, a little after 4 o’ clock in the afternoon.  .  . We saw a small fisherman’s shack on the quay, churning with gray smoke.” (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

On the sixth day of its asymmetrical war against Gaza, Israel destroyed a home for the handicapped in Eit Lahiya, killing two handicapped residents, and wounding three others, including the caretaker.

The destruction of the home came on an early Saturday morning while only five of the 19 severely handicapped residents were in the building.

Jamila Elaiwa, who founded the center 20 years ago, told the New York Times the remaining 14 residents of the Mabaret Palestine Society home were visiting their families.

Ms. Elaiwa spoke to the Times at Gaza’s Shifa’s hospital’s burn unit. She was there visiting the wounded survivors of the building’s destruction, two of whom were Mai Hamada, 30, and Salwa Abu al-Qomssan, 53, the caretaker, both of them with severe burns.

Jamila Elaiwa, the founder of the Mabaret Palestine Society, suggested the attack must have been pre-planned, and was not one of Israel’s unfortunate “accidents”, as Israel claimed was the case with the bomb that killed eight Gazans sitting on the beach watching a TV presentation of a World Cup football match. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The headline for Jodi Rudoren’s July 5 New York Times story captures the ugly report in all of its appalling harshness.

“Autopsy Suggests Palestinian Teenager Was Burned to Death After Abduction”

The picture at right, from the New York Times, is that of Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir’s father, greeting guests at his home Saturday.

Standing with him is Mousa Zaloum, 8, a boy from a neighbor’s family, whose neck was said to have been cut in a kidnapping attempt.

The Times story begins:

“Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, spent his last hours before being abducted, beaten and most likely burned to death in one of his favorite places, doing some of his favorite things.

Until about 1 a.m. Wednesday, a close cousin said, Muhammad was at the recreation center named for his respected, expansive Palestinian family in the ancient section of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, impressing friends with his defensive prowess at the foosball table and watching World Cup matches on a flat-screen television he recently helped install.”

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Israeli police have arrested several “Jewish suspects” in connection with the crime. No names were released.

Palestinians believe the death of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, “was a revenge killing for the earlier deaths of three Israeli teens” near Hebron, in the West Bank.

The Jewish Voice for Peace web site reported this week that the Israeli government has responded to the recent rash of violence by sealing off Palestinian towns, arresting more than 400 Palestinian and raiding over 100 homes. Israel has also carried out bombing raids in the same time period.

At a time when American Protestant church leaders continue to debate how best to respond to the asymmetrical struggle between Israel, the military occupation power, and the Palestinian people, the cycle of violence builds with all the furor of a fierce storm. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Ten years after the start of their divestment campaign against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and people, the Presbyterian Church (USA) anti-occupation forces have  finally removed that denomination’s funds from the occupation.

In their 221st biennial General Assembly Friday, PCUSA commissioners (delegates) voted 310-303 to divest all financial involvement in three U.S. corporations whose products are used to enforce Israel’s occupation: Hewlett Packard, Motorola and Caterpillar.

Hewlett Packard manufactures eye and face scanning devices used at Israeli checkpoints, Motorola provides communications facilities within the occupied areas; while Caterpillar makes bulldozers used by Israeli authorities to destroy Palestinian homes.

The removal of PCUSA investments in those firms will neither end the occupation nor change Israel’s tactics over a captive population.  Total PCUSA investment in these firms is but a tiny portion of the Israeli military budget, a substantial amount of which is derived from annual U.S. gifts and loans.

The vote was not about the money; it was a moral vote against the occupation.

Through their divestment vote, U.S. Presbyterians are telling Israel, we do not support your occupation, no matter how hard you try to incorrectly shape the conversation as anti-Israel and anti-Hewlett Packard, Motorola and Caterpillar. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) is holding its biennial national General Assembly this week in Detroit, Michigan (June 14-21).

A number of overtures (resolutions) will be debated and voted on during the Assembly by 654 commissioners (elected representatives).

One overture before the Assembly will offer Presbyterian General Assembly commissioners the opportunity to have the denomination divest from three major corporations–Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola–that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

As of December 31, 2013, the PCUSA Board of Pensions’ total investment assets were $9.2 billion. The PCUSA has a membership of over 1,800,000 members related to 10,262 congregations.

The overture on pension funds and the Palestinian occupation has been presented to the General Assembly by the PCUSA’s “socially responsible investment committee”. It is a hard-hitting overture that follows ten years of failed discussions with representatives from the three targeted companies. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

My experience as a member of the U.S. armed services was a long time ago.  It was also far removed from a battlefield. I was an Air Force public information officer during the Korean War.

I was part of a team, serving my country. All these decades later, I still feel a loyalty to, and a deep respect for, anyone who signs up for active military duty.

For this reason, though far removed from my own active duty days, I can still feel an intense fury toward the journalists and politicians who have stumbled over themselves to demonize a U.S. army sergeant who has just been saved from enemy captivity through a prisoner exchange orchestrated by his Commander in Chief.

Do these people have no shame? Do they not see that because of their need to either attack or stand apart from the President’s decision, they are acting as jury and judge against an American citizen?

Do they, some of whom have also served on active duty, like Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, realize that those who judge U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, expose themselves as political sycophants? (To continue reading, click here.)

Searching for Justice In Church and On Campus

by James M. Wall

It is what the Pope did not say that should disturb the world.

The Turkish World Bulletin’s New Desk  points to crucial words missing from his Holy Land Papal trip May 25-26:

“Although the Pope has prayed at the separation wall in Bethlehem and called for a Palestinian state during his visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Al-Quds (East Jerusalem), he has not commented on Israeli abuses or on the blockade on 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza.” 

Also missing was the essential point that the Pope’s visit was made in a political environment in which Israel and the U.S. have once again insisted on their “two sides” recurring diplomatic dodge.

President Obama repeated the dodge following the collapse of the latest round of “peace talks” between Israel and Palestine:

“What we haven’t seen is, frankly, the kind of political will to actually make tough decisions, and that’s been true on both sides.”

Not so, by any standard of political realism.  The prisoner is never equal to the jailer. Naim Ateek, the Palestinian Anglican priest who founded Sabeel, told Time magazine before the Pope’s trip: (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Following yet another round of failed peace talks, Palestinian leaders  have seized the initiative to create their own future.

Knowing that Israel has consistently demonstrated no interest in reaching a peace accord, Palestinian leaders defied pressure from Israel by signing their own reconciliation agreement.

The agreement is between the mainstream PLO faction, Fatah, and the Islamic Liberation group, Hamas.

Not only Palestinian leaders, but the Palestinian people appear ready for their own Palestinian unity, not one designed by Israel.

The unity government agreement was reached in Gaza City, April 23, after talks between Hamas leaders and a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation headed by Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior figure in president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.

Immediately, Israel threatened to adopt “draconian measures” against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in case the latter dared implement the agreement with Hamas on the ground. The punitive measures include (the usual) halting the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinians as well as a series of other restrictions and harassments.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying on Friday (May 16) that the PA would have to choose between Hamas and the peace process. (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

The battle has begun over Zionism Unsettled.

The Christian Century opened round one by publishing an attack on Zionism Unsettled, a study guide developed for the study of Zionism, a secular ideology formed in the 19th century, which has had a major impact on Jewish–Christian relations.

The battle will continue June 14, when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gathers for national deliberations in Detroit, Michigan.

The attack ran under the headline, False witness: A misguided ‘study guide’. The guide was developed, and published in January of this year, by The Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), one of 40 networks approved by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and funded by each network’s church members.

The picture above is not from Zionism Unsettled. It is from an Amnesty International blog that appeared in the Albany, NY, Times Union. It was taken in Hebron, Palestine, during a “round-up” of Palestinian children by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

President Obama has suggested a “pause” following the failure of the most recent Israel-Palestine peace negotiations.

A pause is an option, of course, but it needs to be a “pregnant pause”, defined by one source as: “A pause that gives the impression that it will be followed by something significant.”

It was Edmund Burke who once wrote, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” During his peace talks pause, Obama should look back to 2006, the last time the U.S. and Israel “trusted” the Palestinians to speak for themselves. That was the year of the remarkable 2006 parliamentary elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The U.S and Israel did not actually trust the Palestinian voters in 2006, they tolerated them. Their “experts” on the ground assured them the election would end in victory for the Fatah party, known then for its loyalty to the Israeli-U.S. axis. The election was won by Hamas. Wikipedia provides the election results: (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

Two tapes have surfaced in recent days. Thereby hangs a modern tale of the “best of times and the worst of times”.

It is a bit of a stretch to use Charles Dickens to link the best of times represented by John Kerry, and the worst of times, embodied in the owner of an American professional basketball team.

But stretch is required in a world gone awry with both power and money much more than usual in the wrong hands. Hence, we have a tale of two tapes.

Tape number one is getting considerable media play because it involves the racist ravings of the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, one of the better teams in the National Basketball Association.

Tape number two draws less attention, of course, but it happens to be of far greater significance, because it reveals U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry telling a group that Israel is in danger of heading toward international isolation as an apartheid state.

Charles Dickens begins A Tale of Two Cities: A Story of the French Revolution, in this manner:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

We all remember the schoolyard bully, the girl or boy who set the rules and forced the rest of us to play by those rules, enforced by threats of the loss of backpacks and lunch money.

In the past few years I have found it impossible to look at the current Israeli government as anything other than that bully on the Middle East playground.

The latest example arrived this week when the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported:

The Fatah party, led by P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, on Wednesday signed an agreement with Hamas that would lead to a unity government within five weeks.

Actually, that news lead was in the fifth paragraph of the JTA story. Setting the tone for all international mainstream media coverage, JTA’s solemn report began:

Israel formally suspended peace talks with the Palestinian Authority over the P.A.’s national unity accord signed with the Hamas authority in the Gaza Strip. “The Cabinet today unanimously decided that Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for Israel’s destruction,” said a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released Thursday afternoon.

Oh, the irony: Israel “formally suspended peace talks” they were determined to destroy from the outset.  (To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In John Ford’s film, The Searchers, Ethan (John Wayne) is talking with his bother Aaron. Ethan has been away from the family for several years.

AARON: How’s California?

ETHAN: How should I know?

AARON: But Mose Harper said…

ETHAN: That old goat still creakin’

around?…Whyn’t someone bury him?

It is time for President Barack Obama to be the leader who steps forward and finds a presidential way to “bury the old goat”.

The “Peace Process” is finished. The U.S. charade as an “honest broker” has been on its death bed for decades.

There has never been anything even closely resembling honesty in this U.S. charade.  The U.S. was never a broker; it has always been”Israel’s lawyer”, to recall the description originally coined by Henry Kissinger.

Of course, should you prefer the guidance of the Gospel of Matthew rather than that of the Gospel of John Ford, here is a biblical version of the same burial recommendation:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Matthew 23:27.

In his book, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has undermined peace in the Middle East,” Obama’s onetime University of Chicago colleague, Rashid Khalidi, has conveniently delivered the funeral oration for the Fordian “old goat”, and Matthew’s hypocrites. 

(To continue reading, click here.)

by James M. Wall

In a scene from the 2006 movie, Amazing Grace, set during the lifetime (1759 – 1833) of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd, right), Wilberforce presents his anti-slave trade bill to the  British Parliament. It is a task he performs annually.

Wilberforce is following the advice of his former preacher, John Newton (played in the film by Albert Finney), author of the hymn, “Amazing Grace”, who tells him that sometimes change occurs only through steady drips.

The purpose of Wilberforce’s annual legislative “drip” is to eventually persuade the majority of the Parliament to make it illegal for British ships to transport slaves from Africa to the New World.

At a crucial turning point in the film, speaking to an indifferent body of law-makers, many of whom have financial ties to the shipping industry, Wilberforce begins his annual plea:

“It is with a heavy heart that I bring to the attention of this House a trade that degrades men to the level of brutes and insults the highest qualities of our human nature. I am speaking of the slave trade.” (To continue reading, click here.)