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Al Jazeera: The Gospel - Israel´s AI Warfare (Dec. 9 2023)

 

THE WEAPONS ISRAEL TESTS ON PALESTINIANS WILL BE USED AGAINST ALL OF US [Listen here]

 

As Antony Loewenstein explains, Palestine has been a testing ground for repressive technologies exported around the world, from spy software to killer drones.

 

by Chris Hedges, The Real News Network December 8, 2023

 

Whether it's drone technology or the infamous Pegasus spy software, Israel has long developed and refined repressive technologies used by governments around the world by testing them on Palestinians. Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a deep dive into the disturbing links between Israeli Apartheid, the arms industry, and global repression of civilian populations.

 

Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Cole, Cameron Granadino

Post-Production: Adam Coley, Kayla Rivara Opening Sequence by: Cameron Granadino

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

 

Chris Hedges: The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel's drones, surveillance technology including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure, along with smart fences, experimental bombs, and AI-controlled machine guns are all tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as "battle-tested" and sold around the world.

 

Israel is the tenth largest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totaled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with these military internal security surveillance, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement agencies explains the fulsome support Israel's allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

 

When Colombian president, Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the October 7 attack by Palestinian resistance groups as a terrorist attack and said, "Terrorism is killing innocent children in Palestine," Israel immediately halted all sales of defense and security equipment to Columbia. This global cabal dedicated to permanent war and keeping its populations monitored and controlled has hundreds of billions of dollars a year in sales.

 

These technologies are cementing into place a supernational, corporate totalitarianism, a world where populations are enslaved in ways that past totalitarian regimes could only imagine. It is not a far cry from Gaza to the camps and detention centers set up for migrants fleeing to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. It is not a far cry from the carpet bombing in Gaza to the endless wars in the Middle East and the global south. It is not a far cry from the anti-terrorism laws used to criminalize dissent in Israel to the anti-terrorism laws introduced in Europe and the US. Joining me to discuss this use of Palestinians as human Guinea pigs for the Israeli weapons and technology industry is Antony Loewenstein (b. 1974), author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World.

 

So your book, which is a great read, lays out the rise of this arms industry, which originally was a state industry and then privatized. One of the points you made at the end of the book, which is very fascinating, is how much of the apparatus to keep the Palestinians under control is essentially now handed over to private firms. I want to quote Elliott Abrams (b. 1948), who I've interviewed, "The role of Israel is to serve as a model, an example in military might, in innovation, in encouraging child birth." This is one of the themes of your book that much of Israel's support and power derives from its connection to this global arms network. So let's lay out some of the innovations that Israel has pioneered. We can begin with Pegasus and drones. They're at the forefront of some of the most advanced technologies and weapon systems that are used to control subject populations.

 

Antony Loewenstein: In some ways, the genesis of the book was partly due to some of the reporting around Pegasus a few years ago. Listeners or viewers will be aware that Pegasus is a spyware tool that is made by NSO Group, which is an Israeli company and it was started to be used about 15 or so years ago by a range of countries. And in fact, the country that it was first mostly used in was Mexico as various governments there were desperate to fight a failed drug war, and of course it only made the violence worse. But what's interesting back then and also now is Mexico remains, Chris, to this day, the world's biggest and most obsessive user of Pegasus. Obsessed.

 

Whether it's the right-wing government or nominally left-wing government, Pegasus is now in dozens of countries; I don't even know how many, I think about 70, 80 or 90. In some ways, the reason I partly wrote the book was to say that the media was obsessed with Pegasus. Pegasus is an important investigation; It's a tool that is put on phones of activists and human rights workers in countless countries. And it breaches human rights. Obviously, that's terrible.

 

But the problem was that it was too often framed as this rogue Israeli company doing terrible things. As I show in the book, as you know, it's not that; It's essentially an arm of the state as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are arms of the US government. Now, Lockheed Martin is a private company. It has a board, sure, and it makes profits or not. But essentially it's an arm of the state. Right? It's used by the government in various foreign policy agendas or goals.

 

Pegasus is exactly the same. I started looking at that issue about saying that now probably, Israel is number one or two in the world for spyware and Pegasus and NSO Group in some ways are a smokescreen. Because there are so many other companies that are doing exactly the same thing. So if NSO Group goes bust tomorrow --And it's in a bit of financial trouble at the moment -- It's not going to make any difference. There are so many other companies doing exactly the same thing using that whole allure of being able to spy on pretty much anybody, which is why to this day no country wants to regulate this, nno country. They're all obsessed with it. That's been the fundamental problem at the moment.

 

Chris Hedges: Explain how Pegasus works. And we should note that it was used also on Jamal Khashoggi's fiance, Jamal, who I knew being the Saudi journalist who was dismembered in the Saudi embassy and a consulate in Turkey. But explain how it works.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Pegasus is a silent tool. It can be installed on your iPhone or Android. It doesn't matter what phone you have. Years ago, a lot of us used to get random text messages. You'd click on the link, you'd forget about it, and you'd move on. That was the way it used to work. So country X or intelligence agency Y would have this tool, let's say, in India, in some other country. They would then send a message to this phone of an activist or human rights worker or a lawyer, that person would click on a link, their phone would be infected, and they wouldn't know.

 

There's no way to know yourself without it being forensically checked. These days it doesn't even require a text message. All it requires is someone knowing your number. That's it. And it can access all your information. It can even access your phone and microphone when the phone is off. So it can be used as a weapon against you. As I show in the book, I interviewed huge amounts of people in Mexico and India and elsewhere. These are people often lawyers who are challenging the state.

 

In Mexico, I interviewed a woman whose husband was murdered by, almost certainly, Narcos. Then after his death, her phone was being surveilled by the Mexican state. It's never entirely clear even to this day why in her case it was surveilled. But it shows that there is this utter obsession with various intelligence services to get access to all this personal information. It's important to note that one thing that really was clear in researching this particular tool is that Pegasus and tools like this have become -- And it was said to be in The New York Times a few years ago, and I questioned some of this in the book but two journalists wrote --The most powerful weapon in the world since the invention of the nuclear bomb.

 

Now, I would question that because nuclear bombs clearly can cause carnage, to put it mildly. Pegasus doesn't directly kill anybody per se, but what it does is it means that privacy is close to dead. At the moment there is this massive proliferation of these tools. Israel of course -- This is the key point -- Uses Pegasus and other tools as a key foreign policy agenda. I show in the book Netanyahu and Mossad, over the last decade, would go to countries where Israel had no close relations: Rwanda and India when Narendra Modi (b. 1950) comes in. And others; Saudi, UAE. They hold Pegasus up as a diplomatic carrot saying, we will sell you this amazing tool which you can surveil your own citizens, whatever you want. But in return we would like you to vote in a certain way in the UN or buy certain weapons. That's how it works. I show a timeline when Netanyahu goes to Hungary to visit Viktor Orbán (b. 1960) or Modi in India, and 6-12 months later, Pegasus is in use. This is not accidental. This is a key part of Israeli foreign policy now.

 

Chris Hedges: Let's talk about the drone program. They pioneered drones. As I remember from the book, India is maybe their largest drone customer. These drones are used against migrants fleeing towards Europe, particularly Greece as well as the US-Mexico border.

 

Antony Loewenstein: I have some interesting declassified documents from the '80s where Israel was using drones in its war in Lebanon. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, it was before the digital era, but Israel was using drones. In this amazing document that I have in the book from the CIA they're shocked and amazed how incredible -- That's their words -- These drones are, how effective they are, and they wonder -- Back in the '80s -- How Israel will be a global pioneer of drones. Fast forward to the last decade or so, and as I show in the book, I have spent a lot of time in Gaza as a reporter in the last 15 or so years that there is a proliferation of testing of drones, particularly around Gaza.

 

I'm putting aside what's happened since October 7, although it's happening since then too. But in the last 15 years huge amounts of drones are being tested above Gaza, some armed, some not, used in the various Israeli invasions, incursions, or whatever you want to call it in Gaza. Those drones are then called "battle-tested" and then they're sold to huge amounts of nations around the world. The part that shocked me the most was the use by the EU. The EU is buying Israeli drones. They're unarmed, yes. And viewers will be aware that in the last 10 or so years, there's been a huge influx of migrants coming from Africa and the Middle East, after 2015 when the Europeans said they didn't want to repeat that huge influx of people coming. Of course, if you're Ukrainian and white, they'll welcome you in. And I have no problem with Ukrainians being welcomed in. But clearly if you're Black or Brown it's not going to be the same.

 

EU created this fortress, Europe and Israeli drones are part of that. Frontex, which is the European border force, uses Israeli drones 24/7 in the Mediterranean, circling the Mediterranean, sending back real-time images to Frontex, which is based in Warsaw, in Poland of what's happening. The EU has made a clear decision to let people drown; That is obvious. They barely issue rescue boats and they criminalize people who are trying to rescue migrants. Israeli drones are a key part of that infrastructure and eye in the skyand Israeli drones have appeared in India and various other countries. In the last years, Israel remains one of the key drone makers of the world, and increasingly, so is Turkey. Turkey makes a cheaper version of what Israel has been developing and therefore Turkish drones are now also appearing in many nations around the world in many conflicts.

 

Chris Hedges: Let's talk about who Israel sells to. It's easier to tick off the list of who they don't sell to. I covered the conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s. Israel was supplying weapons, including napalm, to the Salvadorans and the Guatemalans. They were one of the most fervent supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa, they worked with Augusto Pinochet's Chile, and the Rwandan genocide was perpetrated with Israeli weapons. They will provide military equipment to the most heinous regimes, including the latest ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. You mentioned three countries: Iran, North Korea, and I don't know who the other one was.

 

Antony Loewenstein: I think I say Syria.

 

Chris Hedges: Maybe Syria

 

Antony Loewenstein: As far as we're aware.

 

Chris Hedges: Right. As far as we're aware.

 

Antony Loewenstein: As far as we're aware. It's interesting to note though, before 1979 and the Islamic Revolution, Israel and Iran were incredibly close. The fact that Iran was run by a dictator was no impediment to selling weapons. They were worried that the rise of the Islamic Revolution would impede their sales, which clearly it did. On the one hand, I shouldn't have been that surprised. It's important to note America remains the world's biggest arms dealer. 45% of the world's arms comes from America, so they are leaders by far. Israel is tenth. One of the things that shouldn't have shocked me but did was Myanmar, in the last years, has been committing a genocide against its Rohingya population -- Many of them have been killed, many have been kicked out into Bangladesh -- Even after the UN found that Myanmar was committing genocide, Israel was still selling surveillance and weapons to the Myanmar regime.

 

As you say, it's hard to list. There's so many of them. It's also worth saying that India -- And India is a big focus of the book because India is now the world's biggest country population wise, the world's biggest self-described democracy. Although I would very much question that. A key ally of the US and certainly my country, Australia and most western nations, because it's not China -- India is building a Hindu fundamental estate under Modi, a proudly chauvinist nation where particularly Muslims are discriminated against openly. There's pogroms against Muslims. Now, India and Israel didn't have a great relationship before Modi came in. There was a relationship in decades past. Modi comes in 2014 as Prime Minister and there's a love affair between Netanyahu and Modi. There's this image that some viewers may have seen of the two of them stepping onto the beach, getting their feet wet, talking about how much they love each other, who knows, no audio was recorded.

 

But this relationship is central to why I wrote the book. There is a growing global ethno-nationalist surge, India being the most obvious example, of nations that proudly discriminate against non-majority populations. In India it's against Hindus, against Muslims. In Israel, it's Jews against anyone who's not Jewish. And I say this as someone who's Jewish myself, that the whole alliance between Israel and India reminds me very much of Israel and South Africa: Nations that proudly discriminate against non so-called acceptable populations and are therefore inspiring others. Israel has become the inspiration to so many countries and far-right and rightists around the world, putting aside liberal Zionists for a minute, who over the years have had a love for Israel. I'm talking about India, Hungary, various other nations, not selling weapons but selling the idea of getting away with it.

 

That's something I talk about a lot in the book, that the idea that Israel is able to get away with it, each being occupation, endless colonization, brutalizing Palestinians, selling weapons to God knows who and God knows where, goes to the heart of why Israel is, to me, a danger. Not only to Palestinians, which is bad enough, but a model. Finally, Chris, I say in the book that you often go to far-right rallies -- And I go there for work, to be clear. For work purposes -- In the US, Australia, and elsewhere, the Israeli flag is a constant presence. It's not unusual and these are not groups that traditionally like Jews. They don't. I quote in the book Richard Spencer (b. 1978), that hideous alt-right leader in America who said a few years ago, I'm a white Zionist. He doesn't like Jewish people but he loves the idea of creating, for him and many like him, a Christian ethno-nationalist state.

 

You've written a lot of incredibly important work on Christian theocracy in the US and its potential growth and rise in domination. Israel is a touchpoint, as you would well know, for many of these groups. Not all, but many. And it's not because lobbyist groups like Jews; Many of them do not. But they like what Israel is doing to Palestinians to unbelievably dominate and control them. And they're proudly Jewish chauvinists. They're Jewish supremacists. That's what they want to create for Christians in America or Hindus in India. That to me is the danger.

 

Chris Hedges: This is from your book according to Netanyahu, Jewish writer Peter Baynard explained, "The future belong not to liberalism as Obama defined it, tolerance, equal rights and the rule of law, but to authoritarian capitalism, governments that combined aggressive and often racist nationalism with economic and technological might. The future, Netanyahu implied would produce leaders who resembled not Obama but him." I think it fits in with what you said and unfortunately I fear, I don't know what you think that he's right.

 

Antony Loewenstein: I fear that too because it's worth saying that Obama wasn't exactly a big believer in-

 

Chris Hedges: No, he wasn't.

 

Antony Loewenstein: … democracy and human rights either. But putting that issue aside, no, I fear that that is correct. And Netanyahu, I suspect as a leader possibly hasn't got a long life left as leader of Israel. It's obviously unclear because so many Israelis, even many who supported him are understandably incredibly angry with him after what happened on October 7th. So he may not last long as a leader himself, but I think his general analysis, I fear is correct, absolutely, that there is this sense of country after country, after country becoming enamored, not just with technological repression either from Israel or the US or others, but this idea somehow that you can maintain that domination forever.

 

Now, obviously, October 7th, as I touch on in the book or imply, although the book came out before October 7th, is arguably a delusion that if you believe as a nation that you can repress people through tech forever, it's a lie that will not work. And from Gaza is a key example of that. Even though Gaza was the key laboratory of Israel, they spent billions and billions in building walls and drones and surveillance. Hamas was able to breach that remarkably relatively easily. I mean, it's obviously took years of planning to do so, but I fear the lesson will not be learned.

 

And Gideon Levy (b. 1953), who's a good friend of mine, the amazing Israeli journalist in Israel has said that he fears that even now the lessons are not being learned by Israel and other leaders. What he means by that is that the lesson that Israel is taking from October 7 and frankly the US took from 9/11 was the wrong one. It was that we need to invade and bomb and dominate even more, which I think is born out of insecurity, not strength, but nonetheless, that's I fear the lesson that Israel is taking, not so much that we need to maybe talk to Palestinians or negotiate with Palestinians. Those Israelis, some are saying that, but it's a tiny minority.

 

Chris Hedges: And yet in your book you talk about Sri Lanka. You can explain what happened. They destroyed the Tamil Tigers and the Israelis were full partners in that project. And that fascinated me because I wondered if that wasn't the playbook for Gaza.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Looking just exactly a bit of background, 2009 was the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. It'd been going for decades between the majority Sinhalese population and the Tamil Tigers who were I guess resistance movement for more Tamil rights and a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka for years. Actually Israel had been supporting the Sri Lankan government in selling planes, fighter jets and other forms of technology weapons. 2009 happens and as some viewers remember, the Sri Lankan government was able to target the Tamils in a smaller, and smaller, and smaller part of the northern part of Sri Lanka.

 

Probably 40,000 Tamils were killed. We really don't know the exact number. There's never been any real accountability for that. I do look at what's happening in Gaza and I have thought of quite a lot actually about Sri Lanka since October 7 because in some ways the Israeli plan, and I don't think there's one united plan, there is to some degree a discussion, although within think very narrow bounds within the Israeli political and military establishment.

 

But I think the plan seems to be Northern Gaza is obliterated. It's apocalyptic. I think if Israel, I think it's probably very lucky there will be a resumption of some kind of fighting in Gaza. I don't know when, but soon. If the plan is to decimate the southern part of Gaza, and I have, as I'm sure you do, Chris, Palestinian friends in Gaza who are sheltering in refugee camps in their own country now in southern part of Gaza really struggling. Their homes have been destroyed. They have no connection to Hamas.

 

I mean, these are civilians living in Gaza. If essentially Gaza's infrastructure is completely obliterated that leaves only really a handful of options. Permanent tent cities in Gaza, or which of course as some viewers will be well aware, the dream of many on the Israeli political elite. And also let's be clear, many in the Israeli public based on public opinion polls kicking the Palestinians out. Egypt, Jordan Lebanon.

 

Though so far, Egypt, despite being a dictatorship, has not acquiesced to that. They have not opened the borders enough to allow really that many Palestinians into the Sinai that could change. I mean, the Egyptian economy is on its knees. Will they accept lots of money and bribes? I very much hope not, but we don't know. But I do fear the plan, as you say in Gaza, is not dissimilar to what Sri Lanka did in the northern part of that country. And the outcome in Sri Lanka finally has been that the war is kind of over, but Tamils are still regarded as second class citizens in their own country.

 

Chris Hedges: Let's talk about the Alpha Gun Girls. It's a little sidelight, but something just disgusting, I didn't know existed until you wrote it, until I read it.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Yes. Well, there is a side industry, I guess you could call it, of Israeli women, Jewish women who are… Often they've been in the military. They have fetishized or sexualized the Israeli military. So you have these groups of women who are scantily clad, often holding guns, often posing in photo shoots as if they're kind of in war in Gaza or somewhere else as an idea and a way to show two things. One, the IDF is female friendly. You can be a incredibly sexy woman and still be in the IDF and kill Palestinians. That's the implication. And secondly, that Israeli women are cool.

 

I mean, that's the message they're trying to send. I don't know if it's particularly effective, but that's the message they're trying to send. And for years, I've been following this story that there's been a real push by the IDF Israeli army to show how gender friendly they are, how in fact gay friendly they are, how trans friendly they are, by how vegan friendly they are.

 

I mean, we sort of laugh in a way by saying this, but I have a big section in the book talking about this is such a key part of Israeli messaging. So-called Hasbara. But I'm not entirely convinced it's massively successful. I mean, people can argue that either way, but a lot of Israel's social media in the last 10 or so years has focused on this issue. We give vegan meals to soldiers who want it. We are trans friendly, we are women friendly, we are gay friendly. You can wave the rainbow flag.

 

In fact, some viewers will see about two weeks after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, there was this Israeli soldier in Gaza. The background was apocalyptic. Holding the rainbow flag, and this image kind of went viral. I did a story about. Essentially saying, and the message was very clear, you see, we want to liberate Palestinians in Gaza who are gay to just be themselves.

 

Now, the mocking that this got justifiably was clear as if people were saying, "Right, so you've decimated Gaza and it's apocalyptic." But gee, you can be a gay Palestinian and some may have freedom in Gaza. I mean the cognitive dissonance to actually believe that. And that ties into these girls. You're talking about this finally that these women over the last years are traveling around Israel and the world promoting an image of Israel as liberal, but also militaristic. Pro-feminist, but also gun friendly. And that's why a lot of pro-gun groups in the US and mostly men, let's be honest, are into these kinds of sexualization of Israeli gun-wielding women.

 

Chris Hedges: We should note that one of the uses of Pegasus or the spyware was to entrap gay Palestinian men as you write in the book and essentially turn them into informants.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Indeed. There's a big part of 8200, which is the equivalent of the US's NSA. Which in its whole [inaudible 00:28:02] is to monitor Palestinians 24/7 across the occupied territory. So one thing they do is to try to find, so-called weak spots. A man who's married to a woman who might be gay, a man who might be having an affair with a woman. In other words, someone who is, "doing" something unconventional. I use that term loosely.

 

When they get that information, they will then try to turn that person into a spy. We don't really know how many Palestinians are collaborators. There's not really an… Some are. It's a tiny minority, but some are. In Gaza too, by the way. And often in fact, as I say in the book, because there's been a siege on Gaza for close to 20 years, enforced by Israel and Egypt to get out of Gaza sometimes.

 

I've spoken to Palestinians who have been offered this but refused it to get out of Gaza. On the Israeli side, they've been told, "You can leave to go to study overseas or go to hospital in Israel or elsewhere. You have to spy for us for Israel." And that's how they blackmail people because they gather information from this 24/7 global surveillance network. And it's interesting just finally that when October 7 shows that not just the Israeli intelligence failed, it was an arrogance and a hubris, but also the American intelligence failed. It's interesting to note, since speaking to various sources I have, and there's been some decent reporting in the last six weeks that the US, apparently after 9/11 basically, although is spying on Israel a lot, I talk in the book that there's apparently about 3 to 400 NSA employees in the US whose everyday job is to spy on Israel. That's their job.

 

So they're an ally, but also America doesn't entirely trust them. And I'm sure that works both ways, but America was not particularly "helping" Israel to detect so-called terrorist threats. And one thing, I just wanted to add this finally if I could, that I'm the co-editor and co-founder of a group called Declassified Australia, which is a news-gathering organization. We did a story a few weeks ago that showed that Pine Gap, which is a key US intelligence gathering center in the center of my country, Australia, which is used as a key intelligence gathering venue to use the US used in Iraq and Afghanistan to target so-called terrorists, but kill huge amounts of civilians is being used by the US since October 7 to give intelligence to Israel in its so-called targeting of Hamas.

 

Now, the reason that's relevant apart from the fact that you have a massive US intelligence base in the center of Australia, which is being expanded in the frankly crazy US expansion in my part of the world, apparently target China and Australia, sadly is a key ally in that madness to have a US and Australian spy base in the center of Australia being used to funnel information to Israel. How they're using that information, of course, is not entirely clear.

 

It makes legal culpability very clear on the US side and the Australian side as it was when the US was targeting, so-called terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria or elsewhere. I say so-called because huge amounts of civilians were killed. That global US intelligence infrastructure is being used as is the F-35A. F-35A is a weapon that the Israel is using over Gaza. The global supply chain involves many countries. And I'll declassify Australia. We also had a story showing that a key part of when the door is being opened at the bottom of the F-35 to drop weapons on Gaza, that part is made here in Melbourne, Australia.So you have a global supply chain of companies that are directly complicit in what Israel is doing, which seems like at the ICC is listening, "Hello, there's a lot to be done."

 

Chris Hedges: Let's talk about privatization. You talk about the neoliberalism that transformed Israel which was a socialist state, major state owned enterprises were sold off, privatized, especially in the 1990s. Israel has very high income inequality. Poverty rate 23% in Israel, 36% for the Arab population. And you write, "Many Palestinians are unaware at how the occupation has been privatized because it makes no difference if a state officer or private individual harasses or humiliates them." You go on to write, "Many checkpoints through which Palestinians are forced to travel to access their schools, workplaces, or Israel, if they are fortunate enough to get one of the few work permits handed out by the Jewish state, use facial recognition technology and biometric details to document their every move." But these are private companies. So explain that what's happened to how essentially private for-profit firms are managing the occupation?

 

Antony Loewenstein: It's worth saying obviously that Israel was a self-described socialist country, but socialist country for Jews. I mean, that's obvious to say that.

 

Chris Hedges: Well, yes. That's right.

 

Antony Loewenstein: And clearly, I mean as some older viewers will be aware, it's amazing to think now that so much of the global left was enamored with Israel for the first really 20 years of its existence. Anyway, that was a bit of blindness that we can talk about some other time. But anyway, look, Netanyahu was a key factor in this, that yes, Israel had a quasi-socialist background. In the last 20 or so years, there's been a shift, not just neoliberal policies within Israel itself, but also outsourcing the occupation. And in some ways it goes along with the massive expansion of settlements.

 

You now have roughly three quarters of a million Jewish settlers living in occupied territory, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And a lot of the guards or security officers that are working on both settler checkpoints but also Israeli checkpoints are run by private companies. I lived in East Jerusalem between 2016 and 2020 and been visiting there for close to 20 years. So I spent a lot of time looking into these kinds of issues. And it's worth saying that, as I say in the book, yes, it's been outsourced and the accountability was zero. Even if an Israeli soldier commits an abuse, let alone if a private interest does.

 

It's important also to say that, yes, a lot of these companies are Israeli, but many of them in fact that are doing this, are also foreign and international. And that's relevant because some viewers will remember the last years the UN had tried for years to release this list of global companies and Israeli companies that were directly complicit in the occupation, and therefore they should be boycotted essentially. And they released a list a number of years ago. It caused a big scandal in some circles. About 20 or so of those companies then removed themselves from being involved in managing the occupation, so to speak.

 

But there are still, I think around 100 companies, Israeli and foreign that are directly involved day-to-day in so-called managing the occupation. That to me is not just illegal and immoral, but also right for a kind of boycott campaign, which I suspect will increase in the coming years after what we've seen the last six weeks.

 

Chris Hedges: Can you talk about AnyVision? I think it's changed its name to Oosto and then Unit 8200.

 

Antony Loewenstein: So AnyVision which you said has changed its name, is a facial recognition company, an Israeli company that was testing this at Israeli checkpoints. So what that means is that when Palestinians want to, say, move around the West Bank, if they want to potentially go from the West Bank into Israel proper, they have to have their details checked, their irises often checked now, and they were gathering all this information.

 

We don't exactly know where that information was going, but clearly it was going into Israel, a massive database that they were using to gather personal data on pretty much every single Palestinian, the occupied territories. Those tools are then marketed globally. They have appeared in huge amounts of infrastructure from airports to other places around the world. And when those companies promote it, whether AnyVision uses the term, battle tested, I'm not sure, but they are saying it's been tested in Palestine successfully. So-called successfully.

 

And that does tie into Unit 8200, which is, as I said, Israel's NSA. It is the body that is gathering intelligence on Israeli and on Palestinians. And increasingly I should say, there is a lot of evidence that increasingly the occupation is coming home, that a lot of Israeli Jews who for years believe that this was just happening to Palestinians down the road, are increasingly being surveilled themselves. And I'm not just talking about since October 7, although particularly since then, that there is a move within Israel increasingly at criminalizing dissent entirely, whether it's by Arabs or Jews.

 

But Unit 8200 has become this kind of quite infamous funnel of people who work in the military for years developing all these tools and methods to surveil Palestinians, which they then take to the private sector to develop various forms of repression which they can then sell around the world. And by maintaining those close ties, that's how it goes to my point earlier on, the NSO Group was essentially an arm of the state. Many of these companies, these surveillance companies, repressive tools, biometric companies operating in the occupied territories or in Gaza are then used by Israel as a key selling point to make new friends, so to speak.It's a transactional friendship, transactional relationship. And it's why as I really think, I think there's more and more that the Israeli armed industry really is an insurance policy. It's an insurance policy because, yes, there are some countries that oppose what Israel's doing. Not many, not enough, but even the countries that publicly do oppose what Israeli is doing, many of them are still buying Israeli repressive technology. I mean, Mexico is one example amongst many.

 

So often I think words matter. Sure, what a government or prime minister or president says, it's not irrelevant. Yeah, sure. But what matters more is what you are doing, what you are buying, what you are deploying yourself in your own country. So when you have 130, 140 nations in the world that have bought some form in the last decades of Israeli defense technology, drones, missiles, spyware, whatever it may be, that's what matters. I think Israel believes probably with justification, those nations, at least for now, are unlikely to turn on Israel while they're so reliant on those tools of repression.

 

Chris Hedges: Let's talk about Blue Wolf or the Wolf Pack database.

 

Antony Loewenstein: So this is basically a system that has been developed in the last five or so years that every Israeli soldier operating in the occupied territories has. The aim is to get personal information and data on every single Palestinian man, woman, and child. It's entered into a massive database. And that is then used to potentially discriminate against those people. What does that mean practically? Person X wants to go from the West Bank to Israel to work to get medical care. A Palestinian does not know what information has been collected on them. There's obviously no consent.

 

As I say in the book, there's testimony given by soldiers usually anonymously, Israeli soldiers, where it's almost like a game. How many Palestinian personal details can we get on our mission tonight when we're serving in the occupied territories? And it goes without saying, but there is no transparency in this process. Zero. So Palestinians living in Hebron or Nablus or somewhere else, don't really know what information is being gathered, but we do know that it's impacting their freedom of movement from place to place within the West Bank and also potentially further afield into Israel or overseas.

 

Chris Hedges: Israel innovates all sorts of forms of crowd control. You write Sea of Tears, a drone that dropped tear gas canisters over a broad area, skunk water, the skunk water drone, a form of liquid emitted from a water cannon that left a foul smell on clothes and body for a long time. They were used on Great March of Return, which was a nonviolent, largely nonviolent protest movement in Gaza where they went up to the border. Many of them, of course, were shot. But talk about some of the forms of crowd control that have been pioneered by Israel, but that we have seen in places like Ferguson.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah. Well, this is something I talk about in the book, right, Chris, that there is a sense that, again, Israel is using the West Bank, particularly East Jerusalem and Gaza as a testing ground. So some of those examples then explain what they basically are. So the Great March of Return, as you said, was Palestinians trying to march for their freedom and for the right to return essentially to Israel to where ancestors used to live. And the Sea of Tears was a drone that was dropping essentially a tear gas on people. Didn't kill them, but it certainly caused huge damage. And literally while the March of Return was happening and while that drone, the Sea of Tears was being used, I document this in the book, other countries were wanting to buy it because it was being tested, so to speak, in real time.

 

The connection between the US and Israel is key here. And I say this pretty much soon after 9/11, there was a massive attempt by both the American Israeli… Firstly the pro-Israel lobby in the US, the Anti-Defamation League particularly, but other groups as well to have sort of information sharing. So huge amounts of police forces went between Israel and the US and vice versa training, so to speak, in tools of so-called people management. They're examples of police officers that have these quotes in the book going to Israel after 9/11, being inspired by what Israel is doing to Palestinians.

 

I mean, let's be clear, as I say in the book, American police don't need Israeli training to be repressive against Blacks and minorities. Obviously I'm not arguing that. But what I am saying is that they're getting new tools of repression to the point where just quite recently you had major Israeli border security individuals on the US-Mexico border. Looking at how the US, "maintains" its border. And it's worth saying, you mentioned this before, I didn't fully give an answer to that, that on the US-Mexico border, there is a key part of that infrastructure, which was started by Obama, deepened by Trump, and continued by Biden now of Israeli surveillance. There's massive Albert surveillance towers all across the US-Mexico border.

 

And Elbit is Israel's biggest defense company. And the reason the US initially was interested in this kind of technology was because it had been tested and tried in Palestine. "It works". So you have all these massive surveillance towers, which the aim is to both surveil potential migrants crossing the border, but also importantly Native Americans who live on their ancestral territory. And I have quotes in the book of saying they can't live securely in their own territory because of these surveillance towers.

 

So again, it's worth saying that there is this ideological alignment between many in the US who view Israel as almost on the frontline, I hate to use the term, the Wild West of crowd control, crowd management, crushing any kind of resistance to overwhelming force. And they take those examples back to the US and vice versa. It's like a feedback loop. It goes both ways. So as you say in Ferguson, I touch on this in the book, that there was a lot of evidence that some, we don't know exactly, that particularly police in Ferguson had directly gone to Israel. That's not necessarily the case. But some of the training that police forces in the US had used, including in Ferguson, had partly come from Israel.

 

Chris Hedges: Talk about Frontex and how this Israeli technology is used to break into encrypted messaging apps, especially on refugee mobile phones.

 

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah, Frontex is the EU's border, so-called security force. And there was a real trauma inside Frontex, not that I feel sorry for them, but trauma after the 2015 refugee surge, mostly from Syria and elsewhere. Let's not let that happen again. So now you have a situation where huge amounts of migrants are still trying to come from mostly Africa and the Middle East, escaping walls or conflicts or climate crisis disasters and their phones, which are their smartphones, which essentially are a vital way of knowing how to get there. People have maps on their phone, personal details, photos, are often taken from people at EU border crossings.

 

Information is taken off them. We don't know exactly what information is taken off, but presumably my sense and for my reporting is that probably contacts in European nations and attempt to try to break up what they would call people smuggling networks, what I would say is humanitarian paths to a better life. And Israeli technology is part of that. I think it's important to say that, as I said before, those Israeli drones that are part of that infrastructure as well, but also the EU, which is Israel's biggest trading partner.

 

It's worth saying that. So when you have all these European nations in the last years expressing now and then concern about the occupation, concern about settlements, just this week, just this week, one of the heads of the EU said, and I'm paraphrasing, in time of war, it's just outrageous that Israel would spend huge amounts of money on building more settlements because the Israel has released its latest budget and there's huge amounts of money for settlements. I responded on Twitter and what are you going to do about it? Because history suggests nothing. They'll do nothing about it.

 

I mean, apart from the fact that I'm a German citizen and an Australian citizen, obviously in Germany, this issue is toxic, that Germany is using its own historical calamity, disgusting actions during the Holocaust, including much of my family were killed in the Holocaust. Using that to support Israel's historical absolution to somehow say that to be madly pro-Israel is to atone for our own sins during the 12 years of Nazi Germany. And that has a practical impact because Israel is not just selling lots of weapons to Germany.

 

Germans are also selling huge amounts of technology to Israel. Since October 7, there's been a tenfold increase in weapons that Germany is selling to Israel, to assist in its horrific war in Gaza. This is what it practically means. So EU support for Israel, and I have a quote in the book, there was a… Gideon Levy, the journalist I mentioned before from Haaretz went to a meeting with Netanyahu a number of years ago and he looks at a map, Netanyahu, and says, "The whole world's basically in support of Israel." There's a few nations in Europe, I think he pointed to Belgium that kind of give us a bit of trouble, but overall we're fine.

 

Meaning that, yes, occasionally the Belgium authorities express concern about settlements, which Israel doesn't really care about, but ultimately the EU has made a decision that they will not challenge Israel, even though EU infrastructure, Chris, is being destroyed in the West Bank constantly. And I wonder how and when that will change because it hasn't changed yet.

 

Chris Hedges: I want to close your last chapter. You quoted an Israeli human rights lawyer "Because of surveillance tech, a country can avoid massacring protestors now. Today, we're able to identify and stop surveillance of the next Nelson Mandela before he even knows he's Nelson Mandela." What you describe in the book is the formation of a really frightening, dystopian, Orwellian world that extends far beyond Israeli borders. But that, of course Israel is integral to creating.

 

Antony Loewenstein: I certainly don't suggest that Israel is not able to commit massacres. And obviously, we've seen that since October 7. I guess what that quote, that was from Eitay Mack who is a really great Israeli human rights lawyer. He spent a lot of time trying to uncover the Israeli arms industry. So in a lot of his work is in my book. Essentially what he's saying, and the book also shows this, is that the technology of surveillance is so sophisticated now that nations… And I have quotes from people in Togo, for example, and various other nations across the globe that are run by, often US-backed or Israeli-backed dictatorships that back in the so-called bad old days, obviously there are repressive regimes that were able to surveil people through various forms.

 

Of course, that's existed forever. But the difference now is that we are so, frankly, overly reliant on phones and the internet that all this technology is monitored 24/7. It doesn't mean every information is always captured. I mean, the US issue after 9/11 was they were getting so much information, they couldn't process it. Israel has a similar problem as we saw on October 7, but as you say, Israel to me is becoming and really has been for years, one of the global inspirations for repressive tech. Long before 9/11 and long after 9/11.

 

And the danger of that is, is clear, is that it becomes a model for repression. As I said, Israel shows countries how to do it. You can also repress your people if you buy this technology, this spyware, this drone, whatever it may be. Now, yes, the technology is not perfect that of course don't say that, but that's what I'm saying. But it can create a global, almost architecture of control that is close to unbeatable and the impact of that at a time where democracy is frankly in decline.I mean, you could argue that even so-called self-described democracies aren't democracies anyway, but nations that claim to be democratic are increasingly moving, I would say, more and more to an Israeli style model. I'm not just talking about an occupation, particularly. I'm talking about language. I was also talking about surveillance. As I say in the book, the whole US rhetoric after 9/11, the so-called war on terror, that was the Israeli playbook. It wasn't exactly the same, but it was remarkably inspired by what Israel had been doing in Lebanon in the '80s and onwards. Hugely similar.

 

Similar rhetoric about, so-called terrorism, collateral murder, or they call it collateral damage, but I would call collateral murder. Something that a mutual friend Julian Assange (b. 1971), a fellow Australian, a great huge hero of mine, I've known Julian since 2006, right at the beginning of WikiLeaks, that what people like him and many others have been saying for years, this is the threat, the idea of a complete architecture of global surveillance, which is close to unbeatable. Israel is a global leader in that.

 

I think alerting people to that is the first step. The next step is obviously how to challenge that. I think a lot of the global response to October 7, both the attack by Hamas, but also the insane, overwhelming, brutal war crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza, I think is bringing out a civil society action that I have not seen on this issue certainly in my lifetime. I have Palestinian-Israeli friends, and I'm talking about mostly globally, not so much in Palestine, Israel itself. And that to me is a sign of hope, including fellow Jews and many Palestinians. And that to me is the only sort of sliver of hope in what is a really, really dark time.

 

Chris Hedges: Great. That was Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. I want to thank the Real News Network and its production team, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivera. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.

 

This article first appeared on The Real News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

don't skip the proofreader...

Here's the view of the L-shape of the two conference tables. I used a longer, shallower one (5 ft x 2 ft) for the computer equipment side (left), and a shorter, deeper one (4 ft x 3 ft) for the proofreading side (right).

 

With some coupons we had for Staples, the entire "desk" cost $26 and is better and sturdier than any pressboard prefab thing we could have bought for ten times the amount. And highly customizable. :)

In Types of the De Vinne Press — Specimens for the use of compositors, proofreaders, and publishers, 1907.

 

Seen at Oaklander Books; Chelsea, Manhattan

Ben and Deirdre (Photo by CiBi)

There are three of these large-ish signs on the wall of this new teriyaki joint, all with the same correction.

So, did the person who specified make the error, or the signwriter and why did the person who screwed it to the wall not point this out to someone? Not one of Network SouthEast's better efforts.

Go go proofreading!

100 pages of A4 proof reading for University of Ballarat. (We made Stef do it.)

Proofreading your thesis is a tedious and time-consuming task, but it is an important one. Your thesis is your final product and the culmination of all your hard work. It’s the most important document you will ever write and it deserves to be proofread thoroughly. A thesis is not something you can half-ass; if you want to get a good grade on it, you need to take your time and proofread every sentence. Visit www.unitedinnovator.com/thesis-writing-for-postgraduates.php for more information.

Funny how much work can be done with this tiny apparatus!

 

Today I've spent most of my day upgrading a website to a new WordPress theme and tweaking it a bit. I realized the long way I've come since I launched my first website eleven years ago!

 

Who said running a website has no cost?

 

Among other things, we now pay for:

- freelance writers and content creators

- stock photography for pretty images

- commercial WordPress themes

- privacy policies (if you want to be serious, pay attention to your website's policy, especially if you're monetizing it)

- proofreading tools or services when we create content in-house

- plagiarism checking services

- logo design

- domain registration and hosting

 

The costs can quickly add up as we invest the revenue and improve our websites. Surely one can run a #website almost for free, but by the time you start having an income, you'd better put it to good use.

 

And all this is achieved thanks to this mouse!

 

Connect with me at jimmakos.com/photography

Despite what he reports as lower pay since he returned after Katrina, Clint has been a sidewalk promoter for several years. That's not to say that it's the sidewalk he's promoting. No, he's promoting the nubile and curvaceous young cuties performing within. Exactly what they're performing and/or on whom, I couldn't say.

I also can't say whether that sign is alluding to the admission fee or the performer's degree of undress. One can only hope. :D

 

Work-a-Day Project

  

97.100 for the 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at www.100strangers.com/

For a product that has "never existed", there is an extraordinary amount of residue to suggest that JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER was once a household staple.

While there are thousands of coupons and local grocers advertising JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER, in truth, if a client is paying for an advert, they'll print whatever is supplied in the space purchased. I endeavoured to include newspaper articles that would have had the support of a team of fact-checkers and proofreaders; after all, the reputation of any paper is built on the veracity of their information.

I also wondered if perhaps JIF was once called JIFFY before being purchased by larger conglomerates, but it seems to have been christened JIF from the very beginning:

"In 1958, the brand rollout in the US involved a heavily publicized house-to-house distribution of free sample jars from special trucks emblazoned with the then JIF mascot, the "JIFaroo", a blue kangaroo. An early slogan was "JIF is never dry; a touch of honey tells you why." Early advertising also emphasized the beveled edge of the jar base, meant to make it easier to get the last bit of JIF out of the corner. For many decades, TV commercials for the product have ended with the tagline, "Choosy mothers choose JIF" and, in the 1990s, "Choosy moms choose JIF." Since 1981, JIF has been the leading peanut butter brand in the United States."

When you’re reviewing a particularly long and unwieldy translation, you just feel like it never ends. I always think of the theme song of the movie ‘The Neverending Story’.

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin 1895 – 1925, sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century. One of his narratives was "lyrical evocations of and nostalgia for the village life of his childhood – no idyll, presented in all its rawness, with an implied curse on urbanisation and industrialisation".

 

Sergei Yesenin was born in the village of Konstantinovo in Ryazan County, Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Rybnovsky District, Ryazan Oblast) into a peasant family. His father was Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1873–1931), his mother was Tatyana Fyodorovna Yesenina, née Titova, (1875–1955).

 

Both his parents spent most of their time looking for work, his father in Moscow, his mother in Ryazan, so at age two Sergei was moved to the nearby village of Matovo to join Fyodor Alexeyevich Titov and Natalya Yevtikhiyevna Titova, his relatively well-off maternal grandparents, who essentially raised him.

 

The Titovs had three grown-up sons, who were Yesenin's companions in his early life. "My uncles taught me horse riding and swimming, one of them... even employed me as a hunting dog when he went duck hunting in local ponds," he later remembered. He started to read at age five, and at nine began to write poetry, inspired originally by chastushkas and folklore, provided mostly by his grandmother, whom he also remembered as a highly religious woman who used to take him to every single monastery she visited. He had two younger sisters, Yekaterina (1905–1977), and Alexandra (1911–1981).

 

In 1904 Yesenin joined the Konstantinovo zemstvo school, where in 1909 he graduated with an honorary certificate. He then went on to study in the local secondary parish school in Spas-Klepiki. From 1910 onwards he started to write poetry systematically; eight poems dated that year were later included in his 1925 Collected Works. In all, Yesenin wrote around thirty poems during his school years. He compiled them into what was supposed to be his first book, which he entitled "Volnye Dumy" (Free Thoughts) and tried to publish it in 1912 in Ryazan, but failed.

 

In 1912, with a teacher’s diploma, Yesenin moved to Moscow, where he supported himself working as a proofreader's assistant at Sytin's printing company. The following year he enrolled in Shanyavsky Moscow City People's University to study history and philology as an external student (вольнослушатель), but had to leave after eighteen months due to lack of funds. At the University he became friends with several aspiring poets, among them Dmitry Semyonovsky, Vasily Nasedkin, Nikolai Kolokolov and Ivan Filipchenko. Yesenin’s first marriage (which lasted three years) was in 1913 to Anna Izryadnova, a co-worker from the publishing house, with whom he had a son, Yuri.

 

1913 saw Yesenin becoming increasingly interested in Christianity, and biblical motives became frequent in his poems. "Grisha, what I am reading at the moment is the Gospel and I find a lot of things which for me are new," he wrote to his close childhood friend G. Panfilov. That was also the year when he became involved with Moscow revolutionary circles: for several months his flat was under secret police surveillance and in September 1913 it was raided and searched.

 

In January 1914 Yesenin's first published poem, "Beryoza" (The Birch Tree), appeared in the children's magazine Mirok (Small World). More appearances followed in minor magazines such as Protalinka and Mlechny Put. In December 1914 Yesenin left his job "and dedicated himself to poetry, writing continually," according to his wife. Around this time he became a member of the Surikov Literary and Music circle.

 

In 1915, exasperated with the lack of interest in Moscow, Yesenin moved to Petrograd. He arrived in Petrograd on 8 March and the next day met Alexander Blok at his home, to read him poetry. He was quickly acquainted with fellow poets Sergey Gorodetsky, Nikolai Klyuev and Andrei Bely, who were well known. Blok was especially helpful in promoting Yesenin's early literary career, describing him as "a gem of a peasant poet" and his verse as "fresh, pure and resounding", even if "wordy".

 

The same year he joined the Krasa (Beauty) group of peasant poets which included Klyuyev, Gorodetsky, Sergey Klychkov and Alexander Shiryayevets, among others. In his 1925 autobiography Yesenin said that Bely gave him the meaning of form while Blok and Klyuev taught him lyricism. It was Klyuyev who introduced Yesenin to the publisher Averyanov, who in early 1916 released his debut poetry collection Radunitsa which featured many of his early spiritual-themed verse. "I would have eagerly relinquished some of my religious poems, large and small, but they make sense as an illustration of a poet's progress towards the revolution," he would later write. Yesenin and Klyuyev maintained close and intimate, a friendship that lasted several years, and indeed it is likely they became lovers.

 

Later in 1915, Yesenin became a co-founder of the Krasa literary group and published numerous poems in the Petrograd magazines Russkaya Mysl, Ezhemesyachny Zhurnal, Novy Zhurnal Dlya Vsekh, Golos Zhizni and Niva. Among the authors he met later in the year were Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova; he also visited the painter Ilya Repin in his Penaty. Yesenin's rise to fame was meteoric; by the end of the year he became the star of St Petersburg's literary circles and salons. "The city took to him with the delight a gourmet reserves for strawberries in winter. A barrage of praise hit him, excessive and often insincere," Maxim Gorky wrote to Romain Rolland.

 

On 25 March 1916 Yesenin was drafted for military duty and in April joined a medical train based in Tsarskoye Selo under the command of Colonel D.N. Loman. On 22 July 1916, at a special concert attended by the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (the train's patron) and her daughters, Yesenin recited his poems "Rus" and "In Scarlet Fireglow". "The Empress told me my poems were beautiful, but sad. I replied that the same could be said about Russia as a whole," he recalled later. His relationship with Loman soon deteriorated. In October Yesenin declined the colonel's offer to write (with Klyuyev) and have published a book of pro-monarchist verses, and spent twenty days under arrest as a consequence.

 

In March 1917, Yesenin was sent to the Warrant Officers School but soon deserted Kerensky's army. In August 1917 (having divorced Izryadnova a year earlier) Yesenin married for a second time, to Zinaida Raikh (later an actress and the wife of Vsevolod Meyerhold). They had two children, a daughter Tatyana and a son Konstantin. The parents subsequently quarreled and lived separately for some time prior to their divorce in 1921. Tatyana became a writer and journalist and Konstantin Yesenin would become a well-known soccer statistician.

 

Yesenin supported the February Revolution. "If not for [it], I might have withered away on useless religious symbolism," he wrote later.[8] He greeted the rise of the Bolsheviks too. "In the Revolution I was all on the side of October, even if I perceived everything in my own peculiar way, from a peasant's standpoint," he remembered in his 1925 autobiography. Later he criticized the Bolshevik rule, in such poems as "The Stern October Has Deceived Me". "I feel very sad now, for we are going through such a period in [our] history when human individuality is being destroyed, and the approaching socialism is totally different from the one I was dreaming of," he wrote in an August 1920 letter to his friend Yevgeniya Livshits. "I never joined the RKP, being further to the left than them," he maintained in his 1922 autobiography.

 

Artistically, the revolutionary years were an exciting time for Yesenin. Among the important poems he wrote in 1917–1918 were "Prishestviye" (The Advent), "Preobrazheniye" (Transfiguration, which gave the title to the 1918 collection), and "Inoniya". In February 1918, after the Sovnarkom issued the "Socialist Homeland is in Danger!" decree-appeal, he joined the esers' military unit. He actively participated in the magazine Nash Put (Our Way), as well as the almanacs Skify (Скифы) and Krasny Zvon (in February his large poem "Marfa Posadnitsa" appeared in an issue of the latter). In September 1918 Yesenin co-founded (with Andrey Bely, Pyotr Oreshin, Lev Povitsky and Sergey Klychkov) the publishing house Трудовая Артель Художников Слова (the Labor Artel of the Artists of the Word) which reissued (in six books) all that he had written up until then.

 

In September 1918 Yesenin became friends with Anatoly Marienhof, with whom he founded the Russian literary movement of imaginism. Describing their group's general appeal, he wrote in 1922: "Prostitutes and bandits are our fans. With them, we are pals. Bolsheviks do not like us due to some kind of misunderstanding." In January 1919, Yesenin signed the Imaginists' Manifesto. In February he, Marienhof and Vadim Shershenevich, founded the Imaginists' publishing house. Before that, Yesenin became a member of the Moscow Union of Professional Writers and several months later was elected a member of the All-Russian Union of Poets. Two of his books, Kobyli Korabli (Кобыльи корабли, Mare's Ships) and Klyuchi Marii (Ключи Марии, The Keys of Mary) came out later that year.

 

In July–August 1920, Yesenin toured the Russian South, starting in Rostov-on-Don and ending in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia. In November 1920, he met Galina Benislavskaya, his future secretary and close friend. Following an anonymous report, he and two of his Imaginist friends, brothers Alexander and Ruben Kusikovs, were arrested by the Cheka in October but released a week later on the solicitation of his friend Yakov Blumkin. In the course of that year, the publication of three of Yesenin's books were refused by publishing house Goslitizdat. His Triptych collection came out through the Skify Publishers in Berlin. Next year saw the collections Confession of a Hooligan (January) and Treryaditsa (February) published. The drama in verse Pugachov came out in December 1921, to much acclaim.

 

In May 1921, he visited a friend, the poet Alexander Shiryaevets, in Tashkent, giving poetry readings and making a short trip to Samarkand. In the autumn of 1921, while visiting the studio of painter Georgi Yakulov, Yesenin met the Paris-based American dancer Isadora Duncan, a woman 18 years his senior. She knew only a dozen words in Russian, and he spoke no foreign languages. Nevertheless, they married on 2 May 1922. Yesenin accompanied his celebrity wife on a tour of Europe and the United States. His marriage to Duncan was brief and in May 1923, he returned to Moscow.

 

In his 1922 autobiography, Yesenin wrote: "Russia's recent nomadic past does not appeal to me, and I am all for civilization. But I dislike America intensely. America is a stinking place where not just art is being murdered, but with it, all the loftiest aspirations of humankind. If it's America that we are looking up to, as [a model for our] future, then I'd rather stay under our greyish skies... We do not have those skyscrapers that have so far managed to produce nothing but Rockefeller and McCormick, but here Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Lermontov were born."

 

In 1923, Yesenin became romantically involved with the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya to whom he dedicated several poems, among them those of the Hooligan's Love cycle. In the same year, he had a son by the poet Nadezhda Volpina. Alexander Esenin-Volpin grew up to become a poet and a prominent activist in the Soviet dissident movement of the 1960s. From 1972 until his death in 2016 he lived in the United States as a famous mathematician and teacher.

 

As Yesenin's popularity grew, stories began to circulate about his heavy drinking and consequent public outbursts. This may have been caused by his a struggle to deal with his bisexuality In autumn 1923, he was arrested in Moscow twice and underwent a series of enquiries from the OGPU secret police. Other accusations against Yesenin and three of his close friends, fellow poets Sergey Klytchkov, Alexei Ganin and Pyotr Oreshin, were made by Lev Sosnovsky, a journalist and close Trotsky associate. The foursome retorted with an open letter in Pravda and, in December, were cleared by the Writers' Union comrades' court. It was later suggested, though, that Yesenin's departure to the Caucasus in the summer of 1924 might have been a direct result of harassment by the NKVD. Earlier that year fourteen writers and poets, including his friend Ganin, were arrested as alleged members of the (apparently fictitious) Order of Russian Fascists. They were tortured and executed in March without trial.

 

In January–April 1924 Yesenin was arrested and interrogated four times. In February he was admitted to the Sheremetev hospital, then moved into the Kremlin clinic in March. Nevertheless, he continued to make public recitals and released several books in the course of the year, including Moskva Kabatskaya. In August 1924 Yesenin and fellow poet Ivan Gruzinov published a letter in Pravda, announcing the end of the Imaginists.

 

In 1924-1925, Yesenin visited Azerbaijan, and stayed in the village of Mardakan, where he published a collection of poems in the "Krasny Vostok" printing house, and was also published in a local publishing house. According to one source it was here, in May 1925, that the poetic “Message to the Evangelist Demyan” was written. There is today a street and a museum house in memory of the poet in Mardakan, Azerbaijan.

 

In early 1925 Yesenin met and married Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (1900–1957), a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. In May, what proved to be his final large poem, Anna Snegina, came out. During that year he compiled and edited The Works of Yesenin in three volumes which were published by Gosizdat posthumously.

My army list for Da Grand Waaagh! GT 2011, held on the U.S.S. Hornet (40k on an aircraft carrier!) in Alameda, CA.

Tracked damage on copies of the lists handed out to opponents in color.

Page 1/2 of my Grand Waaagh! GT list. Not proofread, Will hand out armybuilder sheets as well.

*erased the copy/paste Deffgunz error on Chadwick.

*trukk is bought as dedicated transport for Nobs, but moved the stats up for clarity.

*Excel doesn't like 3/4 from Army builder, etc, and turns it into a date. I missed manually changing this pasted data to something pleasing.

Page from the book ‘hunderTvariationen’ (one hundred variations on t) by Jan Teunen, published by Herrmann Schmidt Verlag. Most variations are works of art resembling a T rather than characters from typefaces. The proofreader probably concentrated on the images instead of checking typographic details. Which became fatal in this case here …

The fourth ‘t’ in this row is neither Erik’s Postschrift (a typeface that was proposed to become the corporate typeface for the German Mail) nor his FF Meta which evolved from it. It is … Adobe Sans again! Also the caption was supposed to appear in FF Meta. The ff preceding Meta was originally written in FF Meta Small Caps, a PostScript font in which the small caps were allocated on the slots for the lower case letters.

Proyecto Editoral "EL GRAN LIBRO DE LOS DINOSAURIOS en 3D"

Editorial Lexus

Estrategias MCP Ltda

 

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PÁGINA DOBLE DEL SEGUNDO CAPITULO

"Dinosaurios Herbívoros"

 

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Créditos:

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JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

Ilustración

CARMELO VERGARA (AdvanStudio)

JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

Efecto Anáglifo 3D

JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

Diagramación

CAMILO MONTAÑEZ (AdvanStudio)

DIEGO ALEJANDRO PEREZ (AdvanStudio)

 

Agradecimientos Especiales

CARLOS DIAZ CONSUEGRA

 

Editora

MARÍA CRISTINA PARRA

 

Investigación y Redacción de Textos

LILIA GUTIERREZ RIVEROS

 

Corrección de Estilos

ELKIN RIVERA

  

© Copyrights 2011. Queda prohibida la reproducción total o parcial de esta publicación, con lo establecido en las leyes de derechos de autor.

 

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Editorial Lexus

Estrategias MCP Ltda

 

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2nd CHAPTER´S DOUBLE PAGE

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Credits:

Art Direction, Grapihc and Concept Design

JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

Illustration

CARMELO VERGARA (AdvanStudio)

JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

3D Anaglyph Effect

JAVIER GACHARNÁ (AdvanStudio)

 

Layout

CAMILO MONTAÑEZ (AdvanStudio)

DIEGO ALEJANDRO PEREZ (AdvanStudio)

 

Special Thanks

CARLOS DIAZ CONSUEGRA

 

Publisher

MARÍA CRISTINA PARRA

 

Research and Copy

LILIA GUTIERREZ RIVEROS

 

Proofreading

ELKIN RIVERA

 

© Copyrights 2011. Any reproduction of this artwork is forbidden, in it´s full or partial extension, according to international laws of Copyrights.

 

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Display of processes used to create printed versions of the Tripitaka Koreana, in the special Festival building at Hapcheon, Republic of Korea, designed to celebrate the Millennial Anniversary of the Tripitaka Koreana from September-November 2011.

 

The Goryeo Daejanggyeong (Goryeo dynasty Tripitaka), known as the “Tripitaka Koreana” to the modern scholarly world, is a Korean collection of the Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures). Carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century, under commission by the Goryeo dynasty of Korea (918-1392 CE), it is currently stored at Haeinsa Monastery in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. It is often called the Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-thousand Tripitaka") due to the number of the printing plates that comprise it.

 

The Tripitaka (in Sanskrit, meaning "Three Baskets"), or Daejanggyeong in Korean, refers to the collection of Buddhist scriptures, or Buddhist canon, that relate to discourses with the Buddha (Sutta-pitaka), regulations of monastic life (Vinaya-pitaka), and commentaries on the sutras by renowned monks and scholars (Abhidhamma-pitaka). When Buddhism was transmitted to East Asia through China, and the Buddhist scriptures translated from various Indian and Central Asian languages to classical Chinese (the lingua franca of educated discourse throughout East Asia, including Korea), there were several attempts by several countries to inscribe them in wooden printing blocks for distribution. However, the Tripitaka Koreana is the only complete canon still extant on the mainland of Asia.

 

Though the Tripitaka Koreana was a task commissioned by the Goryeo dynasty to produce an edition of the Tripitaka in wooden printing blocks, there were also individual woodblocks of miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures commissioned directly by Haeinsa Monastery. With year of scribing dating from 1098 to 1958, there are 5,987 miscellaneous woodblocks that have been created and stored at Haeinsa Monastery. These miscellaneous scripture woodblocks, some of which are the only extant copy in the world, were created to supplement the Tripitaka.

 

The woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana and miscellaneous scriptures possess high cultural value as an example of the best printing and publishing techniques of the period. Each block was systematically and meticulously prepared, and individually and beautifully inscribed with a great degree of regularity. Their excellent durability has been proven well, as the printing blocks can even now print crisp, complete copies of the Tripitaka, 760 years after its creation.

 

Due to the sophistication of its editing and process of compilation and collation, the Tripitaka Koreana is known as the most accurate of the Tripitakas written in classical Chinese; as a standard critical edition for East Asian Buddhist scholarship, it has been widely distributed and used over the ages.

 

The woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana and miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures show an outline of a complete "knowledge system" that produces and distributes knowledge. The Tripitaka is a compilation of Buddhist literature including scripture, disciplinary manuals, commentary, doxography and history; based on this collection of information a unique system of scholastic research was established.

 

These wooden printing blocks became a medium through which knowledge could be produced and distributed continuously. Using these woodblocks, Haeinsa Monastery printed copies every time need arose, as resources for research and material for the education of the ordained. Accordingly, Haeinsa Monastery was able to become a central locus for the traditional practice of knowledge transmission, where Buddhist education, the preservation of knowledge, and scholastic research could be conducted. Even in the present, Haeinsa Monastery reflects this tradition as a centre of Buddhist scholastic study as the designated Dharma-jewel Monastery of Korea, responsible for the teaching and transmission of the Dharma, amongst the Three Precious Jewels of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, i.e. Buddha, the Law, and the Ecclesia or Order.

 

Source: UNESCO Memory of the World Register, www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flags...

Very excited - I've never received a 419 scam by post before, and the scammer even spent 60p on postage. If he'd spent just a bit more, on a non-webmail email address and a decent letterhead and an English-speaking proofreader it would have been so much better. I don't know why I just got it and it's dated July 26th.

Ben and Deirdre (Photo by CiBi)

www.manythings.org/kanji/d/6821.htm

 

school; correct; proofread; correction; examine; officer

コウ

Ben, Deirdre (Photo by CiBi)

At Genius Academics you can buy custom essays and purchase samples of dissertation writing at extremely competitive prices. We also offer proofreading and editing services to ensure that your work is always perfectly presented. For more information www.geniusacademics.co.uk

These are a few slides from a series of large PowerPoint presentations I designed and built for an automobile dealership broker and developer. This particular presentation was given to General Motors. I also did some for Ford and other auto companies. This particular presentation was over 50 slides long. I created the designs, color palette, designed the information flow, built the tables, created flow charts, input all the data and proofread the presentations for the client.

For a product that has "never existed", there is an extraordinary amount of residue to suggest that JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER was once a household staple.

While there are thousands of coupons and local grocers advertising JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER, in truth, if a client is paying for an advert, they'll print whatever is supplied in the space purchased. I endeavoured to include newspaper articles that would have had the support of a team of fact-checkers and proofreaders; after all, the reputation of any paper is built on the veracity of their information.

I also wondered if perhaps JIF was once called JIFFY before being purchased by larger conglomerates, but it seems to have been christened JIF from the very beginning:

"In 1958, the brand rollout in the US involved a heavily publicized house-to-house distribution of free sample jars from special trucks emblazoned with the then JIF mascot, the "JIFaroo", a blue kangaroo. An early slogan was "JIF is never dry; a touch of honey tells you why." Early advertising also emphasized the beveled edge of the jar base, meant to make it easier to get the last bit of JIF out of the corner. For many decades, TV commercials for the product have ended with the tagline, "Choosy mothers choose JIF" and, in the 1990s, "Choosy moms choose JIF." Since 1981, JIF has been the leading peanut butter brand in the United States."

serena williams personally delivers my message to the proofreader

I only edit the occasional galley, but an editor friend of mine noted that the same proofreading marks are still in use today (several hundred years later).

;p

Marcin Białas "Above the pavements"

 

Book info:

- 300 copies, signed and numbered (dedication on request)

- hard back cover, cloth spine

- number of pages: 128

- size: 300×215 mm

- number of images (graphic, photos, projects): 93

- language of texts: polish and english

- autors of texts: Maciej Linttner , Grzegorz Hańderek, Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz

- type of papier: Cyclus Print 130g (eco)

- concept and edition: Marcin Białas, Katarzyna Wolny

- graphic design: Katarzyna Wolny, Marcin Białas

- typesetting: Katarzyna Wolny

- photography: Marcin Białas

- english translation: Katarzyna Drewniak

- proofreading: Izabela Blacha

- ISBN 978-83-937997-0-1

 

Details about prices and shipping - check out: www.facebook.com/notes/marcin-bialas-graphic-arts/above-t...

 

If you'd like to order or have any other question please use this email address: abovethepavements@gmail.com

For a product that has "never existed", there is an extraordinary amount of residue to suggest that JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER was once a household staple.

While there are thousands of coupons and local grocers advertising JIFFY PEANUT BUTTER, in truth, if a client is paying for an advert, they'll print whatever is supplied in the space purchased. I endeavoured to include newspaper articles that would have had the support of a team of fact-checkers and proofreaders; after all, the reputation of any paper is built on the veracity of their information.

I also wondered if perhaps JIF was once called JIFFY before being purchased by larger conglomerates, but it seems to have been christened JIF from the very beginning:

"In 1958, the brand rollout in the US involved a heavily publicized house-to-house distribution of free sample jars from special trucks emblazoned with the then JIF mascot, the "JIFaroo", a blue kangaroo. An early slogan was "JIF is never dry; a touch of honey tells you why." Early advertising also emphasized the beveled edge of the jar base, meant to make it easier to get the last bit of JIF out of the corner. For many decades, TV commercials for the product have ended with the tagline, "Choosy mothers choose JIF" and, in the 1990s, "Choosy moms choose JIF." Since 1981, JIF has been the leading peanut butter brand in the United States."

This sign went up some months ago on a small watch shop in APM in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong. Alongside the other brands is the glorious "this is shitty!!"

 

Not a brand, but a realisation from a graphic designer of what their career had become - which made it through the proofreading and all the way to the final shopfront.

The world needs more Alpha Rats, and apparently these are just the guys to help. "The rats at my house are fine for most things, but I just don't think they're competitive enough for the really tough jobs."

 

The irony of a printing company that can't proofread their own advertisements is too delicious for words. Hyderabad India. July 2003.

"Wystan Stevens: A member of the Ann Arbor High School class of '61, he has read more local obituaries than a proofreader at a funeral home. This friendly, silver-haired, bearded icon has Ann Arbor on the brain. Wystan's noggin is filled with more local history than a hundred Googles. His cemetery tours are legendary and sadly an irreplaceable source of local lore and tales. Wystan admits, "The new generation historian is not dying to learn from a cemetery about 'who walked, worked, governed and lived in the city.''' His father, an English professor at U-M, would have appreciated the pun." -- Dale R. Leslie in Ann Arbor News "Other Voices" column published February, 28, 2008.

Types of the De Vinne Press — Specimens for the use of compositors, proofreaders, and publishers [1907]

Kamera: Nikon F3 (1989)

Linse: Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f1.4 (1970)

Film: Cinestill BWXX (Kodak 5222) @ ISO 200

Kjemi: Xtol (stock / 8 min. @ 21°C)

 

- Here is a clip from Paul Verhoeven´s classic satirical anti-fascist anti-american film Starship Troopers (1997) that these days somehow seems like it could be a contemporary «documentary» from Israel… and USA. A movie everyone should see again.

 

Starship Troopers: Failure of Democracy (1997)

  

HOW ISRAEL INDOCTRINATES IT´S PEOPLE

 

by Chris Hedges (b. 1956), The Real News Network January 12, 2024 [Listen here]

  

Three months into Israel's bombardment of Gaza, the atrocities the IDF has committed against Palestinians are too numerous to name. Israel is staging a prolonged assault on the Palestinian people's very means of existence—destroying homes, hospitals, sanitation infrastructure, food and water sources, schools, and more. To understand the genocidal campaign unfolding before our eyes, we must examine the roots of Israeli society. Israel is a settler colonial state whose existence depends on the elimination of Palestinians. Accordingly, Israel is a deeply militarized society whose citizens are raised in an environment of historical revisionism and indoctrination that whitewashes Israel's crimes while cultivating a deep-seated racism against Palestinians. Miko Peled, former IDF Special Forces and author of The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a frank conversation on the distortions of history and reality at the foundations of Israeli identity.

 

Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino

Post-Production: Adam Coley

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

The Israeli army, known as the Israel Defense Forces or IDF, is integral to understanding Israeli society. Nearly all Israelis do three years of military service, most continue to serve in the reserves until middle age. Its generals often retire to occupy senior positions in government and industry. The dominance of the military in Israeli society helps explain why war, militaristic nationalism, and violence are so deeply embedded in Zionist ideology.

 

Israel is the outgrowth of a militarized settler colonial movement that seeks its legitimacy in biblical myth. It has always sought to solve nearly every conflict; The ethnic cleansing and massacres against Palestinians known as the Nakba or catastrophe in the years between 1947 and 1949, the Suez War of 1956, the 1967 and 1973 wars with Arab neighbors, the two invasions of Lebanon, the Palestinian intifadas, and the series of military strikes on Gaza, including the most recent, with violence. The long campaign to occupy Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse Palestinians is rooted in the Zionist paramilitaries that formed the Israeli state and continues within the IDF.

 

The overriding goal of settler colonialism is the total conquest of Palestinian land. The few Israeli leaders who have sought to reign in the military, such as Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol (1895-1969), have been pushed aside by the generals. The military setbacks suffered by Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, and during Israel's invasions of Lebanon only fuel the extreme nationalists who have abandoned all pretense of a liberal democracy. They speak in the open language of apartheid and genocide. These extremists were behind the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995) and Israel's failure to live up to the Oslo Accords/a>.

 

This extremism has now been exacerbated by the attack of October 7, which killed about 1,200 Israelis. The few Israelis who oppose this militaristic nationalism, especially after October 7, have been silenced and persecuted in Israel. Genocidal violence is almost exclusively the language Israeli leaders, and now Israeli citizens, use to speak to the Palestinians and the Arab world.

 

Joining me to discuss the role of the military in Israeli society is Miko Peled (b. 1961). Miko's father was a general in the Israeli army. Miko was a member of Israel's special forces, although disillusioned with the military, moved from his role as a combatant to that of a medic. After the 1982 war in Lebanon, he buried his service pin. He is the author of, The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.

 

You grew up, you were a child when your father was a general in the IDF. This inculcation of that military ethos has begun very young and begun in the schools. Can you talk about that?

 

Miko Peled:

 

Sure, thanks for having me, Chris. It's good to be with you again and talk to you. So it begins before the military. It begins in preschool. It begins as soon as kids are able to talk and walk. I always say I knew the order of the ranks in the military before I knew my alphabet and this is true for many Israeli kids. The Israeli education system is such that it leads young Israelis to become soldiers and to serve the apartheid state and to serve in this genocidal state, which is the state of Israel. It's an enormous part of that. And with me, it came with mega-doses of that because when your father's a general, and particularly of that generation of the 1967 generals, they were like gods of the Olympus. Everybody knew their names.

 

On Independence Day, I remember in the schools you would have little flags, not just flags of Israel, but flags of the IDF with pictures of IDF generals, with pictures of military, all kinds of military symbols and so on. It's everywhere. When I was a kid they still had a military parade. It's everywhere and it's inescapable. And it's like you said, you hear it when you walk down the street, you hear it in the news, you hear it in conversations, you hear it in schools, you read it in the textbooks, and there's no place to develop dissent. There's no place to develop a sense that dissent is okay, that dissent is possible. And the few cases where people do become dissenters, it's either because their families have a tradition of being communist or more progressive and somehow it's part of their tradition but this is a minority of a minority. By and large, Israel stands with the army, and Israel is the army. You can't separate Israel from its army, from its military.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Let's juxtapose the myth that you were taught in school about the IDF with the reality.

 

Miko Peled:

 

The myth that I was... Again, this was given to me in larger doses at home because my father and his comrades were all part of the 1948 mythology. We were small and we were resourceful, and we were clever, and therefore, in 1948, we were able to defeat these Arab armies and these Arab killers who came to try to kill us and so on and destroy our fledgling little Jewish state. And because of our heroism -- And you talked about the biblical connection -- Because we are the descendants of King David, and we are the descendants of the Maccabees, and we have this resourcefulness and strength in our genes, we were able to create a state and then every time they attacked, we were there. We were able to defend ourselves and prevail and so on. It's everywhere. Then again, in my case, it's every time the larger, more extended family got together or my parents got together with their friends. And in many cases, the fathers were also comrades in arms.

 

The stories of the battles, the stories of the conquests; Every city in Israel has an IDF plaza. Street names after different units of different generals are all over the country, street names of battles, so it's everywhere. It wasn't until I was probably 40 or a little less than 40, that it was the first time that I encountered the other narrative, the Palestinian story, and it was unbelievable. Somebody was telling me the day is night and night is day, or the world is flat, or whatever the comparison you want to make, it was incredible. They are telling me that what I know to be true 'cause I heard it in school and I read it in books, and I heard it from my father and from my mother and from friends, that all of this is not true. And what you find out if you go along the path that I chose to take, this journey of an Israeli to Palestine, is that it was one horrifying crime against humanity.

 

That's what this so-called heroism really was, it was no heroism at all. It was a well-trained, highly motivated, well-indoctrinated, well-armed militia which then became the IDF. But when it started, it was still a militia or today they would be called a terrorist organization, that went up against the people who had never had a military force, who never had a tank, who never had a warplane, who never prepared, even remotely, for battle or for an assault. Then you have to make a choice: How do you bridge this? The differences are not nuanced, the differences are enormous. The choice that I made is to investigate for myself and find out who's telling the truth and who isn't. And my side was not telling the truth.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

How did they explain incidents such as the Nakba, the massacres that took place in '48 and '56, the massive ethnic cleansing that took place in '67? How was that explained to you within that mythic narrative? Then I wonder if you could, because many of the activities as you mentioned that the IDF has had to carry out are quite brutal, quite savage, the killing, indiscriminate killing of civilians, we can talk about Gaza in a minute. What did that do to the society, the people who carried out those killings, and, of course, eventually huge prisons and torture and everything else. But let's begin with how the myth coped with those incidents and then talk about the trauma that is carried within Israeli society for carrying out those war crimes.

 

Miko Peled:

 

My generation, we knew that there were several instances of bad apples that committed terrible crimes. And we admitted, so there was Deir Yassin, which was a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a peaceful village where a horrible massacre took place. Then we knew that Ariel Sharon (1928-2006) was a bit of a lunatic and he took the commandos that he commanded in the '50s and went to the West Bank and went into Gaza and committed acts of terrible massacres. He was still a hero, held in high regard by everyone, but we knew that there were certain instances... And every military, every nation makes its mistakes and then these things happen. But there was never any sense that this somehow discounted or hurt the image of us being a moral army.

 

There are lots of stories of how soldiers went and they decided to, out of the kindness of their heart, they didn't harm civilians. And those same civilians went and then warned the enemy that they were coming. And these same good Israeli soldiers would then pay the price and were killed. So it's presented as limited cases. Nakba was not something that was ever discussed. I'm sure it's not discussed today, certainly not in schools. In Israeli schools today, you're not allowed to mention the Nakba. There's a directive by the Ministry of Education that even Palestinians are not allowed to mention the Nakba. But nobody ever talked about that. And the Arabs left, what are you going to do? There was a war and all these people left and this is the way it is.

 

So none of that ever hurt, in any way, the image of us being this glorious heroic army, descendants of King David, and other great traditions of Jewish heroism, none of that ever, ever hurt itself. So there's no trauma because we did nothing wrong. If somebody did something wrong, well, it was a case of bad apples, it was limited to a particular circumstance, a particular person, a particular unit, and you get crazy people everywhere. What are you going to do? It's never been presented as systemic. Today, we have a history so we can look back and if we do pay attention, and if we do read the literature, and we do listen to Palestinians -- And today there's this great NGO called Zochrot, which its mission is to maintain the memory of the towns and cities that were destroyed in 1948 and to revive the stories of what took place in 1948 -- They are uncovering new massacres all the time. Because as that generation is dying off, both the Israelis who committed the crimes and the Palestinians who were still alive at the time and survived, are opening up and telling more and more stories.

 

So we know of churches that were filled with civilians and were burned down. We know of a mosque in Lydda that was filled with people and a young man went and shot a Fiat missile into it. All of these horrific stories are still coming out but Israelis are not paying attention, Israelis are not listening. Whenever there's an attack on Gaza -- And as you know very well, these attacks began in the fifties with Ariel Sharon, by the way -- There was always a reason. Because at first they were infiltrators, and then they were terrorists, and now they're called Hamas, and whatever the devil's name may be there's always a very good reason to go in there because these are people who are raised to hate and kill and so on. So it's a tightly-knit and tightly-orchestrated narrative that is being perpetuated and Israelis don't seem to have a problem with that.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

And yet carrying out acts of brutality. The occupation -- Huge numbers, a million Israelis are in the States. Large numbers of Israelis have left the country. I'm wondering how many of those are people who have a conscience and are repulsed by what they have seen in the West Bank and Gaza. Perhaps I'm incorrect about that.

 

Miko Peled:

 

I don't know. The few encounters that I've had with Israelis in the US over the years, the vast majority support Israel, support Israel's actions. It's interesting that you mentioned that because I an email from someone who is representing a group of alumni of secular Zionism. And they are now appalled by the indoctrination to serve in the IDF. And a very high percentage of these students grew up, went to Israel, joined the IDF, and took part in AIPAC events and so on. And now they're looking back and they're reflecting and they're feeling a sense of anger that they were put through this and lied through their entire lives about this.

 

So that's an interesting development. And if that grows, then that might be a game changer because these are the most loyal American Jews. The most loyal to Israel. But by and large, Israelis that I meet, with few exceptions, support Israel and they're here for whatever reasons people come to America: They're not unique, they're not necessarily here because they were fed up or they were angry, or they were dissenters in any way, shape, or form. Around DC and Maryland, there are many Israelis. Sometimes you'll sit in a coffee shop or go somewhere, you hear the conversations, and there's no lack of support for Israel among these Israelis as far as I can see.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Let's talk about the armies. You were in the Special Forces elite unit. Talk about that indoctrination. I remember visiting Auschwitz a few years ago, and there were Israeli groups and people were flying Israeli flags. But speak about that form of indoctrination and it's link, in particular, to the Holocaust.

 

Miko Peled:

 

The myth is that Israel is a response to the Holocaust. And that the IDF is a response to the Holocaust; we must be strong, we must be willing to fight, we must always have a gun in one hand or a weapon in one hand so that this will never happen again. And what's interesting is, when you talk to Holocaust survivors who are not indoctrinated, who did not get pulled into Zionism -- Which there are very, very many -- They'll say the notion that a militarized state is somehow the answer to the Holocaust is absurd because the answer to the Holocaust is tolerance and education and humanity, not violence and racism. But nobody wants to ruin a good myth with the actual facts. So that's the story.

 

The story is because of Auschwitz, we represent all those that were killed, perished by the Nazis and so on, and therefore we need to be strong. And the Israeli flag represents them, and the Israeli military represents them. It's absurd, it's absolute madness. I went to serve in the army willingly, as most young Israelis do. In my environment, refusing or not going was not heard of, although there were some voices in the wilderness that were refusing and questioning the morality. But I never did. Nobody around me ever did until I began the training and you began patrolling. I remember -- You and I may have talked about this once -- We were an infantry unit, a commando infantry unit. And suddenly we were given batons and these plastic handcuffs and were told to patrol in Ramallah.

 

And I'm going, what the hell's going on? What are we doing here? And then we're told if anybody looks at you funny, you break every bone in their body. And I thought, everybody's going to look at us, we're commandos while marching through a city. Who's not going to look at us? I was behind. I didn't realize that everybody already understood that this is how it is, this is how it's supposed to be. I thought, wait, this is wrong. Why are we doing this? We're supposed to be the good guys here.

 

And then there was the Lebanon invasion of '82 and so on. So that broke that in my mind, that was a serious crack in the wall of belief and the wall of patriotism that was in me. But this whole notion that somehow being violent and militaristic and racist and being conquerors is somehow a response to the horrors of the Holocaust is absolute madness. But when you're in it nobody around you is asking questions. You don't ask questions either, unless you're willing to stand out and be smacked on the head.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Within the military, within the IDF, how did they speak about Palestinians and Arabs?

 

Miko Peled:

 

The discourse, the hatred, the racism, is horrifying. First of all, they're the animals. They're nothing. It's a joke, you see, it's horrifying. They think it's funny to stop people and ask them for their ID and to chase them and to chase kids and to shoot. It all seems like entertainment, you know? I never heard that discourse until I was in it. Then afterwards, when I would meet Israelis who served, even here in the US, the way they joked around about what they did in the West Bank, the way they joked around about killing or stopping people or making them take their clothes off and dance naked, it's entertainment.

 

They think it's funny. They don't see that there's a problem here because the racism is so ingrained from such a young age that it's almost organic. And I don't think it's surprising, I think when you have a racist society, and you have a racist education system that is so methodical, that's what you get. And the racism doesn't stop with Palestinians or with Arabs; It goes on to the Black people, it goes on to people of color, it goes to Jews or Israelis who come from other countries who are dark skinned, for some reason. The racism crosses all these boundaries and it's completely part of the culture.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

You have very little criticism of the IDF, almost none within the Israeli press, although there is quite a bit of criticism right now, of Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949) and his mismanagement and his corruption. Talk a little bit about the deification of the IDF within the public discourse and mainstream media and what that means for what's happening in Gaza.

 

Miko Peled:

 

Well, the military is above the law. It's above reproach, except from time to time. So after >the '73 war, there was an investigation. And now there has been, just earlier this week, there was, in the cabinet meeting, the cabinet meets every Sunday. And the army chief of staff was there and he was, apparently, this was leaked from the meeting, a cabinet meeting. It was leaked that some of the more right-wing partners, it's funny to say right-wing partners because they're all this right-wing lunacy in the Israeli cabinet. But the more right-wing settlers that are in the cabinet were attacking the army, were attacking the chief of staff because I guess he decided to start an inquiry because there was a, it was catastrophic when the Palestinian fighters came in from Gaza, there was nobody home. They took over half of their country back. They took twenty-two Israeli settlements and cities.

 

They took over the army base of the Gaza brigade, which is supposed to defend the country from exactly this happening. And there was nobody in the, they took over the base. So he began, I guess, or he initiated an internal inquiry within the army, and they're criticizing him. And what you see in the Israeli press is two very interesting things. One is, yes, there was this, something went horribly wrong and we need to find out why, but we should wait because we shouldn't do it during wartime. We shouldn't criticize the army during wartime. We shouldn't make the soldiers feel like they have to hold back because if they need to shoot, they should be allowed to shoot. And the other thing we see is that politically, everybody is eating each other up. I mean, they're killing each other politically in the press. So of course, everybody that's against Netanyahu and wants to see it is attacking him.

 

His people are attacking the others for attacking the government. I mean, there's this complete, it seems like there's this paralysis as a result of this infighting that is definitely affecting the functionality of the state as a state. Israelis are not living in the country, Israel is not the state that it was prior to October 7th, it was paralyzed for several weeks, and now it's still paralyzed in many ways. You've got missiles coming from the north, you've got missiles coming from the south. You've got very large numbers of Israeli soldiers being killed and thousands being injured and the war, and it's not ending. They're not able to defeat the Palestinians in Gaza, the armed resistance and so on.

 

So all of this is taking place, and you read the Israeli press and it's just like this cesspool that's bubbling and bubbling and bubbling, and everybody's attacking everybody else. And the army, like you said, it's true, they are above reproach mostly, but from time to time, like I said, this particular time, the settlers are very angry because, also another reason is because I guess the chief of staff, the military decided to pull back some of the ground troops, understandably, since they're being hit so hard. And I remember that happening before when the army pulled back out of Gaza, they were being attacked for stopping the killing, for not continuing these mass killings of Palestinians.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Well, you had what? 70 fatalities in the Golani Brigade, I think. And they were pulled back. This is a very elite unit.

 

Miko Peled:

 

Yeah, it's very interesting because many of the casualties are high-ranking officers. You have colonels, lieutenant colonels, very high-ranking commanders within Israeli special forces are being killed. And they're usually killed in big bunches, like you say, in big bunches because they'll be in an armored personnel carrier or they'll be marching together. And in Jenin, just recently also a few days ago, they blew up a military vehicle and killed a bunch of soldiers. So Israelis are, I think, scratching their heads, not knowing what the hell is going on and what to do, because number one, they were not protected as they thought they were.

 

And I'm sure you know this, the Israeli settlements, the kibbutzim, the cities in the south that border Gaza, [inaudible 00:25:59], they enjoy some of the highest standards of living among Israelis. It's a beautiful lifestyle. It's warm, it's lovely. Agriculture is, and I don't think it ever occurred to them that Palestinians would dare to come out of Gaza fighting and succeeding the way they did. And that the army, I mean the army was bankrupt. It was gone, the intelligence apparatus, bankrupt, nothing worked. And it is reminiscent of what happened in 1973, I mean, this is far worse, but it is reminiscent. And I don't think it's a coincidence that October 7th attacks were exactly 50 years and one day after the 1973 October war began, and the whole system collapsed. So that's what we're seeing right now.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

How do you read what's happening in Gaza, militarily?

 

Miko Peled:

 

Well, clearly the Palestinians are able to hold on and kill many Israelis. And even though the Israelis have the firepower and they've got the logistics, obviously they've got supply chains are not a problem. Whereas Palestinians, I don't know where they're getting supplies. I don't know where they're getting food even to continue fighting. They're obviously putting up a fierce resistance. I don't think that militarily, there's a strategy here. I mean, this is revenge. This is just, Israel was humiliated, the army was humiliated, and they needed to take it out on somebody.

 

So they found the weakest victims they could lay their hands on, and these are the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And so they're killing them by the tens of thousands. I don't think anybody believes in such a thing as getting rid of Hamas. I don't think anybody really believes that that's possible. I don't believe anybody takes seriously or actually believes that you can take too many people out of Gaza and spread them around the world and into other places, even though that's what they're saying. But as long as Israel is allowed to kill, and as long as the supply chain isn't interrupted, they're going to continue to kill.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

And they're also, of course, creating a humanitarian crisis. So it's not just the bombs and the shells, but it's now starvation. Diarrhea is an epidemic, sanitation is broken. I'm wondering at what point this humanitarian crisis becomes so pronounced that really the choice is you leave or you die.

 

Miko Peled:

 

That's always the big question for Palestinians. And the sad thing is that Palestinians are always being placed in these situations where they have to make that choice. It's the worst form of injustice. And you know this, you've been in war zones. I mean, we don't know how many bodies are buried under the rubble and what that's going to bring up. And there are hundreds of thousands now, like you said, that are suffering from all kinds of diseases as a result of this environmental catastrophe. And you remember, what was it? 2016 or something, 2017, the UN came out with a report that by 2020, Gaza would be uninhabitable. I don't think the Gaza Strip has ever been inhabitable. It's been a humanitarian disaster since it was created in the early fifties, late forties, early fifties. Because they suddenly threw all these refugees there with no infrastructure and that was it, and then began killing them.

 

So it's a question, and I was talking to some people the other day, as Americans, as taxpayers, wouldn't we want the Sixth Fleet, which is in the Mediterranean, the US Navy's Sixth Fleet, to aid the Palestinians? To provide them support? To create a no-fly zone over these innocent people that are being massacred? I mean, as Americans, isn't that the natural, shouldn't that be the natural ask? The natural desire to demand our politicians to use, because American naval vessels have been used for humanitarian causes before. Why aren't they supporting the Palestinians? Why aren't they providing them aid? Why aren't they helping them rebuild? Why are American tax dollars going to continue this genocide rather than stop it and aid the victims?

 

I think these are questions Americans need to ask themselves because it makes absolutely no sense. It is absolute madness that people are allowing their government to support a genocide that's not even done in secret. It's not even done in hiding it. It's on prime time. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows what's going on. And again, for some strange reason, Americans are allowing their military and their government to aid the genocide. And there's no question, I mean, there's no question that it's genocide. I mean, the definition of the crime of genocide is so absolutely clear, anybody can look it up and compare it to what's been going on in Palestine. So that to me is really the greatest questions. Why aren't Americans demanding that the US support the Palestinians?

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Well, according to opinion polls, most Americans want a ceasefire. But the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Joe Biden (b. 1942) is one of the largest recipients of aid or campaign financing from the Israel lobby. And this is true within both parties. I mean, Chuck Schumer (b. 1950) was at the rally saying, no ceasefire.

 

Miko Peled:

 

Which is odd. I mean, a ceasefire, I mean, I think ceasefire is a very small ask, and I don't know why Palestinians, we always ask for the bare minimum for Palestinians. But let's talk about ceasefire. I mean, Israeli soldiers are being killed as well in very large numbers. How has ceasefire suddenly become an anti-Israeli demand? But I think that it's a very small ask. I don't know how it was or where it was that this idea of demanding just a ceasefire came up because that is really not a serious demand. Ceasefire gets violated by Israel anyway, within 24-48 hours. I mean, you know that, historically Israel always violated ceasefires. What is required here are severe sanctions, a no-fly zone, immediate aid to the Palestinians, and stopping this and providing guarantees for the safety and security of Palestinians forever moving forward so this can never happen again.

 

That's what really needs to be the ask. At this point, after having sacrificed so much, after having shown such, what I believe is immense courage, Palestinians deserve everything. We as people of conscience need to demand not to ceasefire, we need to demand a dismantling of the apartheid state and a full stop and end absolute end to the genocide and guarantees put in place that Palestinian kids will be safe. I mean, I was talking to Issa Amro (b. 1980) earlier in Hebron. I mean, it's ridiculous when nobody even talks about what happens in the West Bank. Friends of mine who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, nobody dares to leave the house, nobody dares to text. They're afraid to walk down the streets. Their safety is not guaranteed by anyone.

 

Palestinian safety and security is left to the whims of any Israeli, and that should be the conversation right now, after such horrendous violence. That needs to be the demand, that needs to be the ask when we go to protests, when we make these demands, ceasefire, and even that, Israel is not willing. And like you said, these [inaudible 00:33:15] political supporters of Israel here in America are not willing to entertain a ceasefire. I believe it's really a crazy part of history that we're experiencing right now, and I think it's a watershed moment. I think October 7th created an opportunity to end this for good, to end the suffering of Palestinians, the oppression, and the genocide for good. And if we don't take advantage, again, we being people of conscience, if we don't take advantage of this now and bring it to an end, this will be, we will regret this for generations.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

The Netanyahu government is talking about this assault on Gaza, this genocide continuing for months. There are strikes, have been strikes against, now Hezbollah leaders. What concerns you? I mean, how could this all go terribly wrong?

 

Miko Peled:

 

I mean, it's already gone terribly wrong because of death and destruction of so many innocent lives is, I don't even know that there's a word for it. It's beyond horrifying. I think that, I think Netanyahu is relying on the restraint of Hezbollah and the restraint of Iran and the restraint, of course, the Arab governments have all been neutralized either through destruct, being destroyed or through normalization. So he's relying on that, and he knows that he can keep triggering, he can keep bombing Lebanon, bombing Syria, instigating all of these things and it won't turn into an all-out war. Because at the end of the day, even though the Hezbollah fighters have shown, Lebanese fighters and Hezbollah and the Palestinian fighters have shown that they're superior as fighters, they don't have the supply chains, they don't have the warplanes, they don't have the tanks. So more and more civilians are going to be hurt.

 

So I don't think it's going to turn into a regional war by any stretch of the imagination. And so Netanyahu is betting on that, and that's why he's allowing this to go on. And for him, this is a win-win. I mean, there's no way that he can be unseated by anybody that's around him. There's really no opposition. And as long as this goes on, as long as everybody's in a state of crisis, he can continue to sit in the Prime Minister's seat, which for him is the end all and be all of everything. And look, the world is supporting, the world, as governments of the world, I should say.

 

I do interviews with African TV stations, Indian TV stations, Europeans, everybody is supporting Israel. Everybody listens to what I have to say, and they think I am a lunatic for supporting terrorism or whatever it is they, however it is that they frame it. But I don't think anything good, I don't see this ending unless there is massive pressure by people of conscience on their governments to force change, to force sanctions, to force the end of the genocide and the end of the apartheid state.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

I want to talk about the shift within Zionism itself from the dominance of a secular leadership to, we see it of course in the government of Netanyahu, the rise of a Religious Zionism, which is also true now within the IDF. And I wondered if you could talk about the consequences of that?

 

Miko Peled:

 

Sure. So originally, traditionally, historically, Zionism and Judaism were at odds. And even to this day, as you know, ultra-orthodox Jews reject Zionism and reject Israel by and large. But after 1967, there was this new creation of the Zionist religious movement. And these are the settlers who went to the West Bank and they became the new pioneers. And they are today, they make up a large portion of the officers and those who joined the special forces and so on. And in the past, in the army, the unofficial policy was that these guys, they should not be allowed to advance. The current chief of staff comes from that world, which is a huge change. And there are several generals, and of course commanders, high-ranking commanders and so on who come from that world. And the reason that it was the unofficial policy that these guys should not be promoted was that it's an incredibly toxic combination, this messianic form of Judaism, which is really an aberration.

 

It's not Judaism at all, with this nationalist fanaticism. This combination is toxic and look what it created. It created some of the worst racists, some of the most violent thugs that we've seen, certainly in the short history of the state of Israel, although I don't know that they're any less violent than the generation of Zionists of my father who are secular. But this was a big concern in the past but now they're everywhere and of course, look at its current government. They hold the finance ministry, they hold the national security ministry, certainly in the military they're everywhere. And they hold many sub-cabinet, and they're heads of committees in the Knesset and so on. And they've done their work. I mean, they worked very hard to get to where they are today, which is where they call the shots. And they are really, Netanyahu's guaranteed to remain in power.

 

They're his support group. That's why you could have had, as we had earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting in the streets and it didn't affect him because he has his block in the Knesset that will never leave him as long as he allows them to play their game. And this is what's happening. So in terms of violence and the actual facts on the ground, I don't think these guys are any worse again than my parents' generation who were young Zionists and zealots at the time and committed the 1948 Nakba and ran the country for the first and operated the apartheid state for the first few decades. But it's definitely a new form of fanaticism being that it is religious as well as fascist. So it's very toxic. And I think they have a stomach, more of a stomach for killing civilians than we've ever seen before, even for Israelis. I mean, this is new, this is, these numbers are just beyond, these numbers are beyond belief, even for Israel.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

I'm wondering if this Religious Zionism probably has its profoundest effect within Israel, in terms of shutting down dissidents, civil liberties, this kind of stuff.

 

Miko Peled:

 

Well, Israelis love them. Israelis love these guys because they're religious, but they dress like us. They don't look like the old Jews with the big beards and everything. They're kind of cool. They wear jeans. And the reason I say this is because one of the things, one of their objectives is to take over Al-Aqsa and build a Jewish temple. They're destroying Al-Aqsa and so they conduct these tours. And you may know this, in the old city of Jerusalem, there's a particular path that you take from where the western wall is up to Al-Aqsa, which is open for non-Muslims. And so they hold tours and there's several odd times throughout the day, and I've taken some of these tours, just to see what it's about, what these guys do, you know?

 

These are basically prayer tours. And they've taken, hundreds of thousands of Israelis go on these tours. And these are Israelis who are not religious at all. These are secular people. I mean, I see the people that go on the tours and you go up that bridge, just to give you an idea of what this is about. You go up on that bridge and then you wait until the tour starts because you have to go in a group. And there's a massive model of the new temple, of the Jewish temple that is going to be built there. And then you have a huge group of armed police.

 

They're not soldiers, they're police, but dressed like, completely militarized that accompany the tour all around. And of course, Muslim Palestinians are not allowed, they accompany the tour all around. And they stop and they pray and they stop and they pray and they stop and pray at various places, the whole thing takes maybe an hour. But the interesting thing is that the people that go on these tours are secular Israelis. And then as I was doing this, I was remembering it, even as a kid growing up completely secular, we would sing songs about the day that we build a temple.

 

Why did we sing songs about building a temple? Because I think it went beyond our religious significance, and it became a national significance. And there's no question in my mind that Netanyahu, when secular Israelis are, would love to see this idea of destroying Al-Aqsa and having a Jewish temple there. It's a sign that we're back, King David is back. And the connection, even though it has nothing to do with history and there's no truth in it, the connection that we are descendants of King David is something Israelis really love. That's really what this is about so the relationship between the settlers, the so-called settlers, that's what they're called in Israeli jargon. They're called the settlers, and regular secular Israelis is an interesting one because on the one hand, they're looked down upon because they're religious, but on the other hand, they're kind of cool religious. So there is an affinity.

 

Chris Hedges:

 

Great. That was Miko Peled, author of The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. I want to thank the Real News Network and its production team, Cameron Granandino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivera. You can find me at: chrishedges.substack.com.

 

This article first appeared on The Real News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

this sign is in the window of a job centre. i was tempted to go in and ask if there were any openings for proofreaders.

Nice proofreading job, guys.

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Official story of the tree. Once again, poor or no proofreading in a government document. It seems to be getting out of hand.

I don't think the fancy embossed leather will make a difference to my assets

 

(and a thanks to Mike Hauptman.. for the proofreading)

My waist is getting smaller again and my stomach flatter but the marks will never go and I will never again fit into my teeny jeans....

 

I know it is fine and that my son is worth every tear left on my skin but it does not stop me feeling insecure.

 

I hope someday it will.

 

For Theme Of The Week..."Insecurities"

 

PS I did a set last week but it was a mad week (my book finally went to the proofreaders at the weekend) so I have to edit them all...as well as Toby's ;)

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