New ‘HRW’ report affirms Goldstone’s claim: Israel wantonly destroyed Gaza’s civilian infrastructure
By Alex Kane on May 13, 2010
In its official responses to the Goldstone Report, Israel has vehemently denied that it purposely and systematically destroyed Gaza’s civilian infrastructure during “Operation Cast Lead,” as the U.N. report alleges.
One of the many damning allegations in the report states that as the Israeli military began withdrawing from Gaza on January 15, 2009, “there appeared to be a practice of systematically demolishing a large number of structures, including houses, water installations, such as tanks on the roofs of houses, and of agricultural land.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a comprehensive, 134-page report today titled, “’I Lost Everything’: Israel’s Unlawful Destruction of Property during Operation Cast Lead.” HRW’s report comes to a similar conclusion the Goldstone Report does: Israel committed war crimes in Gaza when “Israeli forces caused extensive destruction of homes, factories, farms and greenhouses in areas under IDF control without any evident military purpose. These cases occurred when there was no fighting in these areas; in many cases, the destruction was carried out during the final days of the campaign when an Israeli withdrawal was imminent.”
As this latest report notes, the targeting of civilian infrastructure seems to have been official Israeli policy, according to statements made by Israeli officials. For instance, Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai said, “we have to determine a price tag for every rocket fired into Israel,” and recommended that “even if they fire at an open area or into the sea, we must damage their infrastructures and destroy 100 houses.”
The HRW report examines 12 cases of “unlawful destruction” of civilian property, including the el-Bader flour mill, juice and biscuit plants, and seven concrete factories.
HRW recommends that Israel conduct impartial investigations into the cases the report documents, and to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. That will not happen, though, as a separate April 2010 HRW report concludes that “Israel’s investigations into serious laws-of-war violations by its forces during last year’s Gaza war lack thoroughness and credibility.”
In addition to that recommendation, the HRW report urges the United States to halt all sales of Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers until “an official investigation into the IDF’s use of these bulldozers to destroy civilian property in Gaza” concludes.
The report also repeats the Goldstone Report’s recommendations that if independent and impartial investigations by the parties involved in the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict do not materialize, the International Criminal Court should get involved.
Erdogan eyes better ties with Greece
Al-Jazeera | May 13, 2010
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, is set to travel to Greece for talks in an effort to improve historically tense relations between the two countries.
Erdogan, accompanied by almost a dozen cabinet ministers and more than 100 Turkish businessmen, arrives in Athens on Friday for the start of a two-day visit.
Dimitris Droutsas, Greece’s alternate foreign minister, said the visit would allow Greek officials to discuss investments and business opportunities.
“Business activity in Turkey has displayed impressive growth, and I think this is a very good opportunity, particularly in the economic situation Greece is going through,” he said.
EU accession
George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, said his talks with Erdogan will include discussion of Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Greece supports Turkish accession, which has been delayed for years.
Turkey went through a banking crisis in 2001, so Erdogan may offer advice to his Greek counterpart, currently implementing a series of tough austerity measures to address a debt crisis.
Education will be another issue on the agenda with Turkish officials having reportedly promised to change passages in textbooks which portray Greece as a threat to Turkish sovereignty.
Turkey and Greece are both NATO member states, but they have been rivals for decades, particularly over Cyprus.
The island has been split since Turkey occupied its northern third in 1974, a response to an Athens-engineered Greek-Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. The two countries also disagree on sovereignty in some areas of the Aegean.
Turkish fighter planes routinely fly in airspace claimed by Athens, leading to regular mock dogfights with Greek jets. Though the dogfights are usually harmless, a Greek pilot died in 2006 in a mid-air collision.
Erdogan’s last official visit to Athens came in 2004. He canceled a scheduled trip last year for health reasons.
Turkey Installs Anti-Aircraft Batteries Near Syrian Border
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 13, 2010
Turkey has installed Anti-Aircraft Hawk Missiles at a village close to the Syrian border in an attempt to prevent Israeli war jets from violating Turkish Airspace in case of an attack against Iran or Syria.
A Turkish paper reported that Turkey will not allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, Syria or any other country, and will act against any such violations.
The anti-aircraft batteries were installed in the village of Kayeel, south of Turkey and located close to the Syrian border.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Turkish military official stated that the batteries are meant to protect Turkey and its airspace against any violations, including American or Israeli war jets should Israel or the United States decide to attack Iran or Syria.
Installing the batteries is more of a message than a military act as Turkey is not interested in any military combat but at the same time will not allow its airspace to be used in attacking neighboring countries, the official stated.
New target of rights erosions: U.S. citizens
By Glenn Greenwald | May 13, 2010
A primary reason Bush and Cheney succeeded in their radical erosion of core liberties is because they focused their assault on non-citizens with foreign-sounding names, casting the appearance that none of what they were doing would ever affect the average American. There were several exceptions to that tactic — the due-process-free imprisonment of Americans Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, the abuse of the “material witness” statute to detain American Muslims, the eavesdropping on Americans’ communications without warrants — but the vast bulk of the abuses were aimed at non-citizens. That is now clearly changing.
The most recent liberty-abridging, Terrorism-justified controversies have focused on diluting the legal rights of American citizens (in part because the rights of non-citizens are largely gone already and there are none left to attack). A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations. Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind. The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow “public safety” exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino — while noting (correctly) that Holder’s Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive — today demand that U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer).
This shift in focus from non-citizens to citizens is as glaring as it is dangerous. As Digby put it last week:
The frighting reality is that not even Dick Cheney thought of stripping Americans of their citizenship so that you could torture and imprison them forever — even right after 9/11 when the whole country was petrified and he could have gotten away with anything. You’ll recall even John Walker Lindh, who was literally captured on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban, was tried in civilian court. They even read him his rights.
I think this says something fairly alarming about the current state of our politics.
There is, of course, no moral difference between subjecting citizens and non-citizens to abusive or tyrannical treatment. But as a practical matter, the dangers intensify when the denial of rights is aimed at a government’s own population. The ultimate check on any government is its own citizenry; vesting political leaders with oppressive domestic authority uniquely empowers them to avoid accountability and deter dissent. It’s one thing for a government to spy on other countries (as virtually every nation does); it’s another thing entirely for them to direct its surveillance apparatus inward and spy on its own citizens. Alarming assaults on basic rights become all the more alarming when the focus shifts to the domestic arena.
It is not hyperbole to observe that all of the above-cited recent examples are designed to formally exempt a certain class of American citizens — those accused of being Terrorists and arrested on U.S. soil — from the most basic legal protections. They’re all intended, in the name of Scary Terrorists, to rewrite the core rules of our justice system in order to increase the already-vast detention powers of the U.S. Government and further minimize the remaining safeguards against abuse. The most disgraceful episodes in American history have been about exempting classes of Americans from core rights, and that is exactly what these recent, Terrorism-justified proposals do as well. Anyone who believes that these sorts of abusive powers will be exercised only in narrow and magnanimous ways should just read a little bit of history, or just look at what has happened with the always-expanding police powers vested in the name of the never-ending War on Drugs, the precursor to the never-ending War on Terrorism in so many ways.
What’s most amazing about all of this is that even 9 years after the 9/11 attacks and even after the radical reduction of basic rights during the Bush/Cheney years, the reaction is still exactly the same to every Terrorist attack, whether a success or failure, large- or small-scale. Apparently, 8 years of the Bush assault on basic liberties was insufficient; there are still many remaining rights in need of severe abridgment. Even now, every new attempted attack causes the Government to devise a new proposal for increasing its own powers still further and reducing rights even more, while the media cheer it on. It never goes in the other direction. Apparently, as “extremist” as the Bush administration was, there are still new rights to erode each time the word Terrorism is uttered. Each new incident, no matter how minor, prompts new, exotic proposals which the “Constitution-shredding” Bush/Cheney team neglected to pursue: an assassination program aimed at U.S. citizens, formal codification of Miranda dilutions, citizenship-stripping laws, a statute to deny all legal rights to Americans arrested on U.S. soil.
The U.S. already has one of the most pro-government criminal justice systems in the world. That (along with our indescribably insane drug laws) is why we have the world’s largest prison population and the highest percentage of our citizenry incarcerated of any country in the Western world. It is hard to imagine a worse fate than being a defendant in the American justice system accused of Terrorism-related crimes. Conviction and a very long prison sentence are virtual certainties. Particularly in the wake of 9/11 and the Patriot Act era, the rules have been repeatedly rewritten to provide the Government with every conceivable advantage. The very idea that the Government is hamstrung in its ability to prosecute and imprison Terrorists is absurd on its face. Decades of pro-government laws in general, and post-9/11 changes in particular, have created a justice system that strangles the rights of those accused of Terrorism. Despite that, every new incident becomes a pretext for a fresh wave of fear-mongering and still new ways to erode core Constitutional protections even further… Full article
Settlers Torch Olive Orchard In Silwan
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 13, 2010
A group of fundamentalist Israeli settlers torched, Wednesday night, an 11-Dunam olive orchard in al-Rababa valley, in Silwan, south of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Maan news Agency reported that three olive trees, over 300 years old, were burnt down while dozens of trees were partially burnt. The attack took place while thousands of Jewish settlers held a provocative procession in Silwan under extensive Israeli police presence. Yet, the police did not prevent the settlers from torching the orchard.
On Tuesday at dawn, May 4, a group of fundamentalist settlers torched the main mosque of the al-Lubban al-Sharqiyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The settlers attacked the mosque approximately at 3 a.m., rounded up several copies of the Holy Koran in one place and set them ablaze.
The fire caused excessive damage to the property of the mosque, including its ceiling, its ceiling fans and walls. Its 450 square meters of carpet and eight air conditioners were burnt also.
This is the third mosque to be torched by the settlers this year as the settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village near Salfit, and another mosque in Huwwara town, near Nablus.
In April, settlers torched three Palestinian vehicles in Huwwara town, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus and sprayed “price tag” graffiti on a local mosque.
Two days after the attack in Huwwara, the settlers torched two Palestinian cars in Jinsafut village, near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia. The settlers also sprayed the star of David on a building in the same village.
In December of last year, a group of settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village, near the central West Bank city of Salfit, and also sprayed “price tag” on its walls.
Russia Warns US against Unilateral Iran Sanctions
Al-Manar TV – May 13, 2010
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and other Western nations on Thursday against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
Countries facing Security Council sanctions “cannot under any circumstances be the subject of one-sided sanctions imposed by one or other government bypassing the Security Council”, Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax. “The position of the United States today does not display understanding of this absolutely clear truth.”
Russia is in talks with the United States and other UN Security Council members on a fourth round of sanctions. Moscow has indicated it could support broader sanctions but has stressed they must not harm the Iranian people. Russia’s position suggests that its may not agree to new tougher sanction on Iran at the UNSC.
Lavrov, speaking to deputies from Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the United States tended not to see international law as having pre-eminence over national laws. “We are now confronted with this problem during discussion of a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran.”
Permanent Security Council member China has joined Russia in opposing Washington’s plans to impose tough, wide-ranging sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Lavrov’s warning came just before the arrival in Russia on Thursday of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a non-permanent member of the Security Council that is also opposed to further sanctions against Iran. Lula was expected to meet senior Russian officials on Friday to discuss how to revive a stalled nuclear fuel swap deal meant to minimize the risk of Tehran using enrichment for military purposes. Lula will travel on to Iran on Sunday.
Russia, Turkey call for Hamas inclusion
Press TV – May 13, 2010
Russia and Turkey have called for the inclusion of the democratically elected Palestinian government of Hamas in Middle East peace talks.
“Unfortunately Palestinians have been split into two… In order to reunite them, you have to speak to both sides. Hamas won elections in Gaza and cannot be ignored,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul said during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Ankara on Wednesday.
“Undoubtedly, all parties to this problem should be included more actively (in the process) in order to reach a solution. The process should not exclude anyone,” he added.
Medvedev agreed with the idea that no group should be excluded from the peace process. The Russian president urged the United States to work actively with other nations in the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East. He also stated that a divided Palestinian administration could not help resolve the conflict.
Medvedev said the division “causes the Palestinians to regress.” He also warned that Gaza was “facing a human tragedy.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Medvedev was in Syria, where he met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Medvedev’s meeting with Meshaal and his later comments in Turkey received an angry response from the Israeli foreign ministry.
“The foreign ministry vehemently rejects the call from the presidents of Russia and Turkey to include Hamas in the peace process and expresses deep disappointment over the meeting between the president of Russia and Khaled Meshaal in Damascus,” it said in a statement issued on Wednesday. However, that was not the only thing about Medvedev’s visits that upset Tel Aviv. In a phone conversation before Medvedev left for Syria, Israeli President Shimon Peres had asked him to convey a message to Assad. But according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Medvedev did not agree because it contradicted Moscow’s stance.
“We did not have a special need to implement this message because this is our position — to live in peace and solve issues on the basis of the international legal framework adopted by everyone and which should now be implemented by everyone,” Lavrov told AFP.
Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Chicago, Harvard and Washington
By James Petras | May 13, 2010
President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan for Justice of the United States Supreme Court on the basis of an academic publication record, which might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law school in the Texas Panhandle.
A review of her published scholarship after almost two decades in and out of academia turns up four law review articles, two brief pieces and several book reviews and in memoriam. There is nothing even remotely resembling a major legal text or research publication.
Her lack-luster academic publication record is only surpassed by her total lack of any practical experience as a judge: zero years in adjudication, unless one accepts the line of her exuberant advocates, who point to Kagan’s superb ability in adjudicating among the squabbling faculty at Harvard Law School when she served as Dean. No doubt Kagan had been very busy as the greatest fundraising Law School Dean in Harvard’s history ($400 million), which may account for the fact that she never found time to write a single academic article during her nine year tenure (2001-2009).
The criteria for her appointment to the Supreme Court have little to do with academic performance as it is understood today in all major universities. Nor does her total inexperience as a judicial advocate compensate for academic mediocrity.
The evidence points to a purely political appointment based, in part, on social networks and certainly not on her lack of affinity for the agenda of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Kagan’s approval of indefinite detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions on constitutional freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration and subsequently upheld by President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. It is no coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush torture advocate, the genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
Elena Kagan’s appointment certainly was not based on “diversity”. She will be the third Jew on the Supreme Court and, together with the six Roman Catholics, will decide the most critical cases with far-reaching and profound impact on citizens’ rights and protections. For the first time in US history the nation’s largest demographic group, the Protestants (of any hue or gender), will have no representative on the Court, thereby excluding the descendents, like retiring Justice Stevens, of the brilliant, strongly secular judicial heritage that formulated the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and its amendments.
Kagan’s nomination to the US Supreme Court is not exceptional if we consider many of Bush and now Obama’s choices of advisers and officials in top policymaking posts. Many of these officials combined their diplomas from Ivy League universities with their absolutely disastrous performances in public office, which no amount of mass media puff pieces could obscure. These Ivy League mediocrities include the foreign policy advocates for the destructive and unending wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and the leading economic advisers and officials responsible for the current financial debacles. The names are familiar enough: Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Levey, Greenspan, Axelrod, Emmanuel, Indyk, Ross, Summers, Rubin, et al: Prestigious credentials with mediocre, or worse, performances. What is the basis of their rise? What explains their ascent to the most influential positions in the US power structure?
One hypothesis is nepotism . . . of a certain kind. Elena Kagan got tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago in 1995 on the basis of one substantive article and one brief piece, neither outstanding. With this underwhelming record of legal scholarship, she became visiting professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only two more articles (one in Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima facie evidence strongly suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience.
The public utterances and political writings of innumerable Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, John Hopkins professors, whether it be on the speculative economy, Israel’s Middle East wars, preventative detention, broad presidential powers and constitutional freedoms are marked by a singular mediocrity, mendacity and an excess of hot air reeking of the barnyard.
If you do not qualify on the basis of excellent scholarship or broad-based practical experience, your ethnic tribesmen will wax ecstatic over you as a “wonder colleague”, a “superb teacher”, a “brilliant consensus builder” and a “world champion fund raiser”. In other words, if you have the right ethnic connections and political ambitions, they can adjust the criteria for tenure at the University of Chicago, the deanship at Harvard Law School and a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court.
Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees who have long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago Judge Abner Mitva, an ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President Obama as “America’s first Jewish President”, probably his soundest judgment.
The issue of the composition of the US Supreme Court is increasingly crucial for all Americans, who are horrified by Israel’s devastation of Gaza, its threats to launch a nuclear attack on Iran and its Fifth Column’s efforts to drag us into a third war in ten years. With the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations pressing the compliant US Congress to declare “anti-Zionism” as a form of “anti-Semitism” and “opposition to Israel’s policies” as amounting to “support for terrorism”, thus criminalizing Americans critical of Israel, another active pro-Zionist advocate on the Court will provide a legal cover for the advance of Zionist-dictated authoritarianism over the American people.
Yes, Kagan would be another woman on the Supreme Court. Yes, she would probably adjudicate conflicts among the judges and strengthen Obama’s police powers. And yes, she would likely favor your indefinite detention if you support the right of Palestinians to struggle (“terrorism”) against the Israeli occupation . . . especially if you defend America against Israel’s Fifth Column.
But remember when you apply for Ivy League law school appointment or a top judicial post and your CV lacks the requisite publications or work experience, just ask Judge Abner Mikva or Larry Summers or Rahm Emmanuel for a recommendation. With such support you will shoot ahead of the competition. . . because you have the right ethnic connections.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles.