intersections-a link dump

There are about fifty thousand sites whose main purpose are sharing links but every once in a while I have thoughts that aren't expressible in two lines and that I don't necessarily want to share with all my cousins and everyone I went to elementary school with, so until something better comes my way I'll be around here. But feel free to send other site suggestions my way if you have any.

Bekhsoos has a statement from queer Arab groups condemning the US Social Forum for unfortunately hosting an LGBT Workshop conducted by what's essentially an Israeli propaganda group. How that happened is anyone's guess. I do remember in 2006, and I'm sure many of you have since, hearing quite a few times how great Israel is to the gays and the womens, and apparently that is enough to suspend the basic human rights-like breathing-of those other uncivilized peoples. Sometimes this came from people I thought I knew and would have expected to know better, but we shouldn't assume that lefties will know their shit when it comes to I/P. It's been a recurring theme this year and especially this month, more on this when I have time, even though I'm sure I can't have a lot to say that hasn't already been said at this point.

EDIT: Of course right after I type that a nice, long article about Arab-Palestinian organizing at USSF and in the left in general pops up. I like the conclusion, too.
If we want to achieve and benefit from genuine solidarity, then not only must we speak about Palestine to everyone, everywhere, as Edward Said advocated, but we must also speak to our own Arab and Palestinian communities about everyone else.
Solidarity, it is a two way street.

An Armenian perspective on Israel-Turkey. I've been especially curious about the Pali-Armenian perspective since this whole thing started. Pro-Israel groups recently exploiting crimes that they've been enabling since their existence is pretty disgusting, but I'm also concerned that the romanticisation of all things Turkey lately will result in some people taking Turkish state propaganda at face value along with the stigmatization of people they were historically at odds with. Turkish nationalists like to complain that it's Armenians keeping them out of the EU which is stupid, the majority of EU member states don't recognize the genocide themselves, so why would that be their biggest beef with Turkey? I hope people will remember that there were a lot of Kurds on the flotilla and that lots of Palestinians ARE Armenian.

Timely piece at Salon, via Mondoweiss by a journalist that tried to expose the ADL's role in Armenian genocide denial and lost his job over it.

Friedman. I really hate to link to that but it's useful as an example of two camps neocons seem to be falling in these days. Friedman here doesn't opt to play up Turkey's shitty human rights record but instead romanticizes the oldschool Kemalist pro-Israel Turkey that he loves: the only thing wrong with Turkey apparently is that they've taken to defending Iran lately and have a religious president. With people like him and Robert Gates that seem to be looking to engage rather than push away Turkey, it suggests they believe there is still something to salvage. It's hard to know how things will play out but some kind of normalization is something I still don't totally rule out if a UN inquiry happens. Anyways, remember when Friedman wrote that stupid book about the environment and tried to make himself over as a hippie? I DO.

In the dumbest pseudo-scandal related to Israel-Palestine in this country yet Canadian MP Libby Davies is being pressured to resign over some incredibly bland statements that are historically accurate. But Libby Davies is also one of 3 MPs that went to Gaza after it was bombed and that's considered Palestinians human beings which is problematic in this country's current state of bizarro-politics. Anyways, people are concerned the NDP (her quasi-socialist party) won't adequately defend her and there's a campaign to pressure them to. On one level it's really fascinating how much time and energy my government puts into suppressing all things Palestine lately, honestly if someone told me 5 years ago that politicians would be this worried about a bunch of student activists I would have thought they were nuts. How things change.

Istanbul Calling: decent journalist's analysis blog based in Turkey.