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Dangerous triumph of Israel's right wing (August 9 2012) Dangerous triumph of Israel’s right wing (August 9 2012)

Murtaza Hussain the Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘The dangerous triumph of Israel’s right wing’ discussing how Israel faces an existential threat from the Netanyahu government’s embrace of settlements in the West Bank. In the article Hussain states “For Israel, a state that has always been tenacious and aggressive in combatting perceived de-legitimisation from abroad, the most dangerous threat to its continued political integrity might today be engineered by its own right-wing government. Recently, the Levy Commission, a blue-ribbon panel of Israeli jurists commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to determine the legal status of the Palestinian West Bank, came back with findings and recommendations that represent a potential sea change in Israeli policy in the ongoing conflict. …The potential consequences of these findings can hardly be overstated. The report asserts that because the occupation and settlement enterprise have continued for decades under successive administrations and are historically unique, they should be de facto recognised as legal, regardless of international opinion. This position maintains that the West Bank is thus not occupied territory but in fact today is a part of Israel proper. …If the findings of the Levy Commission are indeed implemented as many high-ranking officials are presently advocating, it will either mean the end of Israel as a democracy or as the Jewish-majority state envisioned by its founders – two ideals that cannot exist simultaneously against a background of annexation and apartheid. While Israel’s strength facing its neighbours and the world continues to increase, its emboldened and ascendant right-wing may be engineering an existential threat to the country on its own.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/cEBsi image source Twitter ow.ly/cEC5P

Khader Adnan the 33 year old Palestinian prisoner in Israel without any formal charges against him arrested for “activities that threaten regional security” ended his 66-day hunger strike after a deal reached for his release from custody on 17 April. Adnan’s hunger strike sparked solidarity protests across the West Bank and Gaza, and sympathy hunger strikes by other Palestinian prisoners. Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief, said that Adnan’s case was of “great concern… Detainees have the right to be informed about the charges underlying any detention and be subject to a fair trial.” An Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev had defended the use of administrative detention orders, saying Adnan was “no boy scout”. According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, “over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention, for periods ranging from several months to several years”. Under international law, the measure can be used “only in the most exceptional cases, as the last means available for preventing danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means”.

 

Inspired by Richard Falk http://ow.ly/9dodw image source Alternative News http://ow.ly/9doFh

Samer Allawi the chief of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Kabul bureau has been charged by the Israeli authorities as being a member of Hamas and having contact with its military leadership, following his arrest attempting to cross the occupied West Bank border with Jordan at the conclusion of three week holiday in his home town Sabastia. Allawi holds a Palestinian identity card was interrogated by Israeli intelligence forces about his work and management of the Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau. Interrogated also about his personal financial status, and his relationships with work colleagues, friends, family and even his college/school days. Allawi regularly spends his summer vacation with family and friends in his occupied West Bank hometown. The Al-Jazeera Network along with human rights and press freedom groups, are demanding the Israeli authorities release Allawi immediately.

 

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/69e4y image source Aljazeera http://ow.ly/69dOK

My work is about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectators experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Arts notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work diverges from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

The work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Pop Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

The works are presented as individual pieces printed with Archival-Inks on 308g Cottonrag-paper, along with A3 sized bound monthly editions, and monthly looped video compilations.
www.ianbunn.com

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