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KPFK Fund Drive Day 11

A top UN official warned yesterday that Israel’s settlement building activity is in violation of international law. Addressing the Security Council, UN Assistant Secretary for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez Taranco pointed to the more than 200 new Israeli building permits in the West Bank saying they were endangering the “brief window” of opportunity with the on-going peace talks with Palestinians. Taranco added that “[t]here is no alternative to a negotiated settlement resulting in the creation of an independent and viable State of Palestine living side-by-side with the State of Israel in peace and security.” The talks which began in mid-September, are currently stalled over the lifting of a ten-month moratorium on new settlements. The Palestinian Authority along with the Arab League have given the US, which is the main sponsor of the talks, a month to find a compromise before the talks are pronounced dead. Meanwhile the Israeli PM has continued to provoke criticism throughout the Middle East with a new citizenship law requiring non-Jews to swear allegiance to the state of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” nation if they want to become Israeli citizens. Palestinians see this as a direct undermining of their desire someday to return to their homeland. Prime Minister Netanyahu amended the loyalty oath this morning to require Jews to take the pledge too.

GUEST: Max Blumenthal, award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. His book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller, he is a contributor to the new book Midnight on the Mavi Marmara; Ronit Avni, filmmaker and human rights activist, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Encounter Point, Executive Producer of Budrus, founder and Executive Director of Just Vision, a non-profit organization that creates media about Palestinian and Israeli civilians who are working to resolve the conflict nonviolently.

Find out more about the film Budrus at: www.justvision.org/budrus

In Los Angeles, opens Friday, October 22 at the Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

Robert Fisk on Lies, Misreporting, and Catastrophe in the Middle East

In a talk given at KPFA, our sister station in Berkeley, British journalist Robert Fisk laid bare the language of empire and occupation. Speaking to a packed audience on September 22nd, just a few weeks ago, the veteran war reporter deconstructed the words that journalists and the media use on a daily basis: terror, peace process, and surge, among others. His talk, titled “Lies, Misreporting, and Catastrophe in the Middle East,” helped the audience see through the daily double speak we are subjected to. The New York Times once described Robert Fisk as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain.” He is one of few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, and did so three times between 1994 and 1997. Robert Fisk has been voted International Journalist of the Year seven times and in 2006 won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. His books include Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, and The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. Robert Fisk once said that journalism must, “challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war.”

Thank you Gifts:

Robert Fisk talk on DVD – $75
Robert Fisk talk on CD – $45
Midnight on the Mavi Marmara book – $80
For more information about Midnight on the Mavi Marmara visit:www.indypendent.org/

Call 818-985-5735 or visit www.kpfk.org to donate.