The Myth of the US Military Aid to Lebanon
By Yusuf Fernandez | Al-Manar – TV | August 10, 2010
US weaponry laid entire Lebanese communities to waste in 2006 – Photo credit Amelia Opalinska
On August 4, US State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said that Lebanese armed forces firing on Israeli troops near the Israel-Lebanon border the previous day, which killed two Lebanese soldiers and one Lebanese journalist as well as one Israeli officer and seriously wounded another, was “totally unjustified and unwarranted.” Shortly before, Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Michel Oren, held talks with US senior officials to demand a harsh US response.
Some US congressmen warned Lebanon that the US could reassess its aid to the Lebanese Army. “To start shooting as they did -one person killed, one seriously injured– is a very serious move by the Lebanese army,” Florida Representative Ron Klein, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Jerusalem Post.“It certainly is going to come up in our conversations in the Congress about the continued support of the Lebanese Army,” he said. Klein ignored the three Lebanese victims and the Israeli actions that provoked the incident.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main organization of the Zionist lobby, reportedly circulated a memorandum claiming that the Lebanese Army was cooperating with Hezbollah, and stating that unless this stops, “Washington must reevaluate its relationship with the Beirut government and the Lebanese Armed Forces – the recipient of significant American military aid.” A State Department representative declined to respond to a Jerusalem Post question about whether the incident could affect American aid to Lebanon.
According the Israeli daily Haaretz, in the past five years, the Lebanese Army has been the second largest recipient of US military assistance per capita after Israel. A State Department press release from late 2008 noted that between 2006 and 2008, the Lebanese Army received 10 million rounds of ammunition, Humvees, spare parts for attack helicopters, vehicles for its Internal Security Forces “and the same frontline weapons that US military troops are currently using, including assault rifles, automatic grenade launchers, advanced sniper systems, anti-tank weapons and the most modern urban warfare bunker weapons.”
Since 2006, the US has provided Lebanon some 500 million dollars in military assistance. Last year, the US approved 100 million dollars in assistance to the Lebanese military. The Obama administration has requested the same levels for 2011, with small increases for anti-terror and military training programs.
However, the border incident of August 3 highlighted the fact that the US Administration does not consider that its military aid should be used to protect Lebanon against its only real enemy: Israel. “We have no indication that US equipment played any role in this incident earlier this week,” Crowley said. “In any US-origin equipment that has been provided to Lebanon, we have very strong end-use monitoring to make sure it is used appropriately.”
“Used appropriately” means that US aid must only be used against other Lebanese parties, especially the Resistance. According to Lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper, in written testimony to Congress, Obama´s nominee to head the US Central Command, General James Matthis, claimed that the relationship between US Central Command and the Lebanese Army is focused on building the latter´s capabilities “to preserve internal stability”. US Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow, who has recently visited Beirut and the South of Lebanon, said that continued US aid and training to the Lebanese Army would allow it to “prevent militias and other nongovernmental organizations” from “undermining the government”.
One State Department spokesperson made the quid pro quo clearer: if the Lebanese Army hopes for equipment, even spare parts, it will have to first focus on “using its military to keep Hezbollah in check and to control southern Lebanon and Palestinian refugee camps in order to prevent them from being used as bases to attack Israel”. This point was underscored by US officials interviewed by International Crisis Group who “implied” that “the Lebanese must be trained and equipped to meet Hezbollah´s, not Israel´s, challenge.” Therefore, US military aid for Lebanon seeks to protect Israel, the real enemy of Lebanon, and the Lebanese Army should become a mercenary force to implement US and Israeli schemes in Lebanon and the Middle East. Significantly, the US has not given the Lebanese Army anti-aircraft, anti-tank or anti-ship missiles that could be used against Israel.
The second goal of US aid, according to the US Central Command, is to “protect borders”, which means to prevent the Resistance from receiving weapons from abroad in order to protect the country against the Israeli enemy. However, the Jerusalem Post complained, “the Lebanese Army has taken no actions to seal off that border from weapons transfers to Hezbollah” and has done “nothing while Syria and Iran have been arming Hezbollah´s army with tens of thousands of missiles.”
At a White House meeting in December 2009, President Barack Obama asked Lebanese President Michel Sleiman to stop the flow of weapons being allegedly sent to the south of Lebanon “that potentially serve as a threat to Israel”. He warned that a failure to do so could lead to another invasion by Israel. Vice President Joe Biden went further, telling Sleiman that Israel could invade Lebanon and go all the way to Beirut to destroy Hezbollah´s weapons if the government failed to rein in the organization.
Of course, massive US military aid to Israel, which includes all kind of weapons, including the most advanced ones in the US arsenal, is something normal and nobody has the right to question it. However, when Syria, Iran or Lebanon acquire any kind of weapons adequate to protect their countries against US or Israeli attacks or threats this becomes a universal scandal.
The US aid is not supposed be used to protect Lebanon from Israeli spies either. Recently, Los Angeles Times complained that the US-supported Lebanese Internal Security Forces had used US signals equipment to help Hezbollah “ferret out Israeli agents.” According to the Times, “a strengthening Lebanese government is helping Hezbollah bust alleged spy cells, sometimes using tools and tradecraft acquired from Western nations eager to build up Lebanon´s security forces as a counterweight to the Shiite group.” Once again, Hezbollah was the target, not Israel.
In this way, US and Israeli outrage is easy to understand. The Lebanese have not used US weapons to crush Hezbollah but to defend Lebanon and this is an unbearable reality for Israelis and pro-Zionist circles in Washington. For Washington and Tel Aviv, the truth is simple: the Lebanese Army is not supposed to protect Lebanon from Israeli violations of the Lebanese sovereignty and, thus, it shot at whom did not have to.
More and more Lebanese are now questioning the value of US aid that can only used in an internal conflict. Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hasan has called for preventing the US from controlling the army through its ill-intentioned support, the National News Agency said. He claims that American military and security assistance does not benefit Lebanon.
SUPPORT FOR ISRAELI WARS ON LEBANON
Lebanese people also remember that the US role has gone much beyond trying to turn the Lebanese Army into an internally oppressive security force. Washington has been an accessory to all Israeli attacks and aggressions against Lebanon. For example, a great portion of the American equipment stored in Israel was used for combat in the 2006 July war in Lebanon. Moreover, the US sent Israel all kinds of weapons and ammunition during the conflict.
Moreover, Washington politically supported the Israeli assault and blocked all efforts for an immediate halt to a war that killed more than 1,300 Lebanese, wounded more than 4,000 and drove 900,000 from their homes. A third of the Lebanese dead were children under the age of 12.
This US stance outraged the Lebanese population. “We did not use to be against the Americans, but now we are. They are against us,” said Fatima Haider, a Lebanese who lived in the district of Ein el-Mreiseh in Beirut, to Reuters at that time. Her home was destroyed by US-made Israeli bombs. “It is clear America´s support for Israel during the 34 days of bombing will not be forgotten,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, to ABC News.
As the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star said: “American complicity in these (Israeli) plans is clear: the Lebanese middle class has witnessed the carnage and destruction of their country with US approval, and the killing of innocent women and children with advanced American weaponry that mutilated their bodies into pieces.” Even naïve Lebanese that had believed for a moment that the US Administration could have a sincere interest in promoting democracy in its country got indignant about American support for the Israeli aggression.
Khadr’s ‘torture’ confessions admissible
Press TV – August 10, 2010
Confessions made by Omar Khadr, who was captured by US troops when 15, can be used as evidence in trial despite claims they were obtained through torture.
Khadr, who was charged with war crimes based on the allegation that he threw a grenade that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002, has been held in US custody with out a trial since then.
The Canadian-born captive is set to be tried before a military tribunal on Tuesday.
He reportedly confessed to the crime while in a US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, 8 years ago, but later pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has argued that his confessions should be ruled as inadmissible because he was forced to confess due to torture and threats of death and rape.
A military judge at Guantanamo Bay, where Khadr is currently held, denied that request on Monday.
“He suffered 142 separate interrogations at Bagram,” Alfred Lambremont Webre, a war crimes lawyer, told Press TV.
“Bagram interrogators threatened him to be raped, he was not allowed to use the bathroom, and he was forced to urinate on himself. They were shoving bright lights up against his face and his eyes would tear and tear and tear.”
“This is torture; it is prohibited by international conventions,” Webre said.
Khadr has reportedly been beaten, subjected to long periods in solitary confinement, doused in freezing water, spat on, chained in painful positions, terrorized by barking dogs and subjected to sleep deprivation in the three months he was imprisoned in Bagram.
“He is protected by the conventions on the rights of the child. And he is protected as a prisoner of war by the Third Geneva Convention and he is protected by the Convention against torture and other cruel or inhumane treatments,” Webre said.
The now 23-year-old is the youngest, among the 176 captives held without charge, in the US notorious detention center.
US — Venezuela: The Empire Strikes Back (and Loses)
By James Petras | 08.09.2010
Introduction
US policy toward Venezuela has taken many tactical turns, but the objective has been the same: to oust President Chavez, reverse the nationalization of big businesses, abolish the mass community and worker based councils and revert the country into a client-state.
Washington funded and politically backed a military coup in 2002, a bosses’ lockout in 2002-03, a referendum and numerous media, political and NGO efforts to undermine the regime. Up to now all of the White House efforts have been a failure – Chavez has repeatedly won free elections, retained the loyalty of the military and the backing of the vast majority of the urban and rural poor, the bulk of the working class and the public sector middle class.
Washington has not given up nor reconciled itself to coming to terms with the elected government of President Chavez. Instead with each defeat of its internal collaborators, the White House has increasingly turned toward an ‘outsider’ strategy, building up a powerful ‘cordon militaire’, surrounding Venezuela with a large-scale military presence spanning Central America, northern South America and the Caribbean. The Obama White House backed a military coup in Honduras, ousting the democratically elected government of President Zelaya (in June 2009), a Chavez ally, and replacing it with a puppet regime supportive of Washington’s anti-Chavez military policies. The Pentagon secured seven military bases in eastern Colombia (in 2009) facing the Venezuelan frontier, thanks to its client ruler, Alvaro Uribe, the notorious narco-paramilitary President. In mid 2010 Washington secured an unprecedented agreement with the approval of right wing President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, to station 7000 US combat troops, over 200 helicopters, and dozens of ships pointing toward Venezuela, under the pretext of pursuing narco-traffickers. Currently the US is negotiating with the rightist regime of President Ricardo Martinelli of Panama, the possibility of re-establishing a military base in the former Canal Zone. Together with the Fourth Fleet patrolling off shore, 20,000 troops in Haiti, and an airbase in Aruba, Washington has encircled Venezuela from the West and North, establishing jumping off positions for a direct intervention if the favorable internal circumstances arise.
The White House’s militarization of its policy toward Latin America, and Venezuela in particular, is part of its global policy of armed confrontation and interventions. Most notably the Obama regime has widened the scope and extent of operations of clandestine death squads now operating in 70 countries on four continents, increased the US combat presence in Afghanistan by over 30,000 troops plus over 100,000 contract mercenaries operating cross border into Pakistan and Iran, and provided material and logistical assistance to Iranian armed terrorists. Obama has escalated provocative military exercises off the coast of North Korea and in the China Sea, evoking protests from Beijing. Equally revealing, the Obama regime has increased the military budget to over a trillion dollars, despite the economic crises, the monstrous deficit and the calls for austerity cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
In other words, Washington’s military posture toward Latin America and especially toward the democratic socialist government of President Chavez is part and parcel of a general military response to any country or movements which refuse to submit to US domination. The question arises – why does the White House rely on the military option? Why militarize foreign policy to gain favorable outcomes in the face of decided opposition? The answer, in part, is that the US has lost most of the economic leverage, which it previously exercised, to secure the ousting or submission of adversary governments. Most Asian and Latin American economies have secured a degree of autonomy. Others do not depend on US-influenced international financial organizations (the IMF, World Bank); they secure commercial loans. Most have diversified their trading and investment partners and deepened regional ties. In some countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru, China has replaced the US as their principal trading partner. Most countries no longer look to US “aid” to stimulate growth, they seek joint ventures with multi-national corporations, frequently based outside of North America. To the extent that economic arm twisting is no longer an effective tool to secure compliance, Washington has resorted more and more to the military option. To the extent that the US financial elite have hollowed out the US industrial sector, Washington has been unable to rebuild its international economic levers.
Major diplomatic failures, resulting from its incapacity to adapt to basic shifts in global power, have also prompted Washington to shift from political negotiations and compromise toward military intervention and confrontation. US policymakers are still frozen in the time warp of the 1980’s and 1990’s, the heyday of client rulers and economic plunder, when Washington secured global support, privatized enterprises, exploited public debt financings and was relatively unchallenged in the world market. By the end of the1990’s, the rise of Asian capitalism, mass anti-neo-liberal uprisings, the ascendancy of center-left regimes in Latin America, the repeated financial crises and stock market crashes in the US and the EU and the increase in commodity prices led to a realignment of global power. Washington’s efforts to pursue policies attuned to the previous decades conflicted with the new realities of diversified markets, newly emerging powers and relatively independent political regimes linked to new mass constituencies.
Washington’s diplomatic proposals to isolate Cuba and Venezuela were rejected by all of the Latin American countries. The effort to revive free trade agreements, which privileged US exporters, were rejected. Unwilling to recognize the limits of imperial diplomatic power and moderate its proposals, the Obama regime turned increasingly toward the military option.
Washington’s struggle to re-assert imperial power, via interventionary politics fared no better than its diplomatic initiatives. The US-backed coups in Venezuela (2002) and Bolivia (2008) were defeated by mass popular mobilizations and the loyalty of the military to the incumbent regimes. Likewise in Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil, post-neo-liberal regimes, backed by industrial, mining and agro-export elites and popular classes were able to beat back traditional pro-US neo-liberal elites rooted in the politics of the 1990’s and earlier. The politics of destabilization failed to dislodge the new governments’ pursuing relatively independent foreign policies and refusing to return to the old order of US supremacy.
Where Washington has regained political terrain with the election of rightist political regimes – it has been through its ability to exploit the ‘exhaustion’ of center-left politics (Chile), political fraud and militarization (Honduras and Mexico), decline of the national popular left (Costa Rica, Panama and Peru) and the consolidation of a highly militarized police state (Colombia). These electoral victories, especially in Colombia, have convinced Washington that the military option, combined with deep intervention and exploitation of open electoral processes, is the way to reverse the left turn in Latin America – especially in Venezuela.
US Policy to Venezuela: Combining Military and Electoral Tactics
US efforts to overthrow President Chavez’s democratic government borrow many of the tactics applied against previous democratic adversaries. These include border incursions by Colombian paramilitary and military forces similar to cross border attacks by the US sponsored “contras” against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua during the 1980’s. The attempt to encircle and isolate Venezuela is similar to Washington’s policy over the past half century against Cuba. The funneling of funds to opposition groups, parties, media and NGO’s via US agencies and “dummy” foundations is a repeat of the tactics applied to destabilize the democratic government of Salvador Allende of Chile 1970-73, Evo Morales in Bolivia 2006-2010 and numerous other governments in the region.
Washington’s multiple track policy, in its current phase, is directed at escalating a war of nerves, by constantly raising security threats. The military provocations, in part, are a ‘testing’ of Venezuela’s security preparations, probing for weaknesses in its ground, air and maritime defenses. These provocations also are part of a strategy of attrition, to force the Chavez government to put its defense forces on “alert” and mobilize the population and then to temporarily reduce the pressure until the next provocation. The purpose is to discredit the government’s constant reference to threats, in order to weaken vigilance and when circumstances allow making an opportune strike.
Washington’s external military build-up is designed to intimidate Caribbean and Central American countries who may be looking toward closer economic relations with Venezuela. The show of force is also designed to encourage the internal opposition toward more aggressive actions. At the same time the confrontational posture is directed at the “weak links” or “moderate” sectors of the Chavista government who are nervous and anxious for “reconciliation” even at the price of unprincipled concessions to the opposition and the new Colombia regime of President Santos. The increasing military presence is designed to slow the internal radicalization process and to preclude Venezuela’s growing ties with Middle Eastern and other regimes, adverse to US hegemony. Washington is betting that a military build-up and psychological warfare linking Venezuela with revolutionary insurgents like the Colombian guerrilla will result in Chavez’s allies and friends in Latin America putting distance toward him. Equally important Washington’s unsubstantiated accusations that Venezuela is harboring FARC guerilla encampments, is meant to pressure Chavez to lessen his support to all social movements in the region, including the landless Rural Workers of Brazil as well as non- violent human rights groups and trade unions in Colombia. Washington wants a military “polarization”: US or Chavez. It rejects the political polarization existing today which pits Washington against MERCOSUR, the organization of economic integration involving Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay with Venezuela in line for membership or ALBA (economic integration involving Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and several Caribbean states.
The FARC Factor
Obama and now ex-President Uribe accused Venezuela of offering sanctuary for Colombian guerillas (FARC and ELN). In reality this is a ploy to pressure President Chavez to denounce or at a minimum demand that the FARC give up their armed struggle on terms dictated by the US and Colombian regime.
Contrary to President Uribe and the State Department’s boasts that the FARC is a declining, isolated and defeated fragment of the past, as a result of their successful counter-insurgency campaigns, a recent detailed field study by a Colombian researcher La guerra contra las FARC y la guerra de las FARC demonstrates that in the last 2 years the guerrillas have consolidated their influence over one-third of the country, and that the regime in Bogota controls only half the country. After suffering major defeats in 2008, the FARC and ELN have steadily advanced throughout 2009-2010 inflicting over 1300 military casualties last year and probably near double this year. (La Jornada 8/6/2010). The resurgence and advance of the FARC has crucial importance as far as Washington’s military campaign again Venezuela. It also affects the position of its “strategic ally” – Santos regime. First it demonstrates that despite $6 billion plus in US military aid to Colombia, its counter-insurgency campaign to “exterminate” the FARC has failed. Secondly, the FARC’s offensive opens a “second front” in Colombia, weakening any effort to launch an invasion of Venezuela using Colombia as a “springboard”. Thirdly, faced with a growing internal class war, the new President Santos is more likely to seek to lessen tensions with Venezuela, hoping to relocate troops from the frontier of its neighbor toward the growing guerilla insurgency. In a sense, despite Chavez misgivings about the guerrillas and outspoken calls for ending the guerrilla struggle, the resurgence of the armed movements are likely a prime factor in lessening the prospects of a US directed intervention.
Conclusion
Washington’s multi-track policy directed at destabilizing the Venezuelan government has by and large been counter-productive, suffering major failures and few successes.
The hard line toward Venezuela has failed to “line up” any support in the major countries of Latin America, with the exception of Colombia. It has isolated Washington not Caracas. The military threats may have radicalized the socio-economic measures adopted by Chavez not moderated them. The threats and accusations emanating from Colombia have strengthened internal cohesion in Venezuela, except among the hard-core opposition groups. They have also led to Venezuela’s upgrading its intelligence, police and military operations. The Colombian provocations have led to a break in relations and an 80% decline in the multi-billion dollar cross border trade, bankrupting numerous Colombian firms, as Venezuela substitutes Brazilian and Argentine industrial and agrarian imports. The effects of the policies of tension and the “war of attrition” are hard to measure, especially in terms of their impact on the forthcoming crucial legislative elections on September 26, 2010. No doubt, Venezuela’s failure to regulate and control the multi-million flow of US funds to its Venezuelan collaborators has made a significant impact on their organizational capability. No doubt the economic downturn has had some effect in limiting public spending on new social programs. Likewise, the incompetence and corruption of several top Chavista officials, especially in public food distribution, housing and public safety will have an electoral impact.
It is likely that these “internal” factors are much more influential in shaping the alignment of Venezuela’s electoral outcome, than the aggressive confrontational politics adopted by Washington. Nevertheless, if the pro-US opposition substantially increases its legislative presence in the September 26 elections – beyond one-third of the Congress people – they will attempt to block social changes and economic stimulus policies. The US will intensify its efforts to pressure Venezuela to divert resources to security issues in order to undermine social-economic expenditures which sustain the support of the lower 60% of the Venezuelan population.
Up to now, White House policy based on greater militarization and virtually no new economic initiatives has been a failure. It has encouraged the larger Latin American countries to increase regional integration, as witnessed by new custom and tariff agreements taken at the MERCOSUR meeting in early August of this year. It has not led to any diminuation of hostilities between the US and the ALBA countries. It has not increased US influence. Instead Latin America has moved toward a new regional political organization UNASUR (which excludes the US), downgrading the Organization of American States which the US uses to push its agenda. Ironically, the only bright lights, favoring US influence, comes from internal, electoral processes. Rightist candidate Jose Serra is running a strong race in the upcoming Brazilian Presidential elections. In Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia the pro-US right is regrouping and hoping to return to power.
What Washington fails to understand is that across the political spectrum from the left to the center-right, political leaders are appalled and opposed to the US push and promotion of the military option as the centerpiece of policy. Practically all political leaders have unpleasant memories of exile and persecution from the previous cycle of US backed military regimes. The self-proclaimed extra-territorial reach of the US military, operating out of its seven bases in Colombia, has widened the breach between the centrist and center-left democratic regimes and the Obama White House. In other words, Latin America perceives US military aggression toward Venezuela as a “first step” southward toward their countries. That, and the drive for greater political independence and more diversified markets, have weakened Washington’s diplomatic and political attempts to isolate Venezuela.
Colombia’s new President Santos, made out of the same rightist mold as his predecessor Alvaro Uribe, faces a difficult choice – continuing as an instrument of US military confrontation and destabilization of Venezuela at the cost of several billion dollars in trade losses and isolation from the rest of Latin America or lessening border tensions and incursions, dropping the provocative rhetoric and normalizing relations with Venezuela. If the latter takes place, the US will lose its last best instrument for its external strategy of “tensions” and psych warfare. Washington will be left with two options: a unilateral direct military intervention or funding of political warfare through its domestic collaborators.
In the meantime President Chavez and his supporters would do well to concentrate on pulling the economy out of recession, tackling state corruption and monumental inefficiency and empowering the community and factory-based councils to play a greater role in everything from increasing productivity to public safety. Ultimately Venezuela’s long term security from the long and pervasive reach of the US Empire depends on the strength of the organized mass organizations sustaining the Chavez government.
Nagasaki mayor slams nuclear powers
Press TV – August 9, 2010
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue has criticized the nuclear weapons states, saying they have not shown a sincere commitment to nuclear disarmament.
He made the remarks in the 2010 Nagasaki Peace Declaration, which he delivered on Monday at a ceremony held to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945.
Mayor Taue appealed to the world to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons and said that people have the “responsibility to realize a world without the fear of nuclear weapons,” the Kyodo News International reported.
“We call upon the leaders of the nuclear weapons states never to trample on humanity’s efforts for a world without nuclear weapons,” Taue told the six thousand people gathered at the Nagasaki Peace Park to remember the victims of the attack and to honor the hibakusha (atomic bombing survivors).
“The lack of sincere commitment from the nuclear weapons states toward nuclear disarmament could provoke antipathy and lead to the emergence of more new nuclear weapons states, increasing the threat of nuclear proliferation around the world,” he added.
Taue said Nagasaki strongly supports the Nuclear Weapons Convention, a new international treaty for a complete ban on nuclear weapons.
He criticized the nuclear powers for rejecting a proposal presented at this year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that would have established a schedule for nuclear disarmament.
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said, “Nagasaki and Hiroshima have long worked together to tell the world of the catastrophes caused by the atomic bombings, and to appeal for the weapons’ abolishment. The government of Japan, a nation that has endured two atomic bombings, manifested its position as a non-nuclear country by stating the Three Non-Nuclear Principles as national policy. However, this year, 65 years after the atomic bombings, the Japanese government has revealed the existence of a ‘secret nuclear pact.’ We harbor profound distrust of the government’s past responses that have turned the Three Non-Nuclear Principles into a mere formality. Moreover, the government has recently been promoting negotiations on a nuclear agreement with India, a non-NPT member country with nuclear weapons. This means that a nation that has suffered atomic bombings itself is now severely weakening the NPT regime, which is beyond intolerable.
“The first thing the Japanese government should do is to enact the Three Non-Nuclear Principles into law in order to restore the trust of the Japanese people. Also, the government should seek the denuclearization of Japan, South Korea and North Korea in a bid to realize security that does not rely upon a nuclear umbrella. We urge the Japanese government to propose a concept of a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone and to demonstrate to the international community its own leadership as the government of a nation bombed by atomic weapons.”
He added, “I would like to remind everyone around the world that it is we ourselves who have the power to decide which path we should take, ‘a world with nuclear weapons’ filled with distrust and threat, or ‘a world without nuclear weapons’ based on trust and cooperation. For our children, we have responsibility for creating a future without the fear of nuclear weapons. Even though on our own each of us might be small and weak, by joining together we can become a force to make governments act and to create a new history. Let us convey our intention fully and clearly to our governments.”
In conclusion, he stated, “We offer our sincere condolences on the deaths of the atomic bomb victims, and pledge to continue our utmost efforts together with the city of Hiroshima, until the day when nuclear weapons no longer exist on the Earth.”
NY Times full-page ad demonstrates who is pushing for war against Iran
Also, the organizers say they’re actuated by fears of climate change, but why the Netanyahu quote and the emphasis on missiles?
And the NYTimes is still on message, Global Warming, Peak Oil and the War on Terror all seem to merge to support Zionism:
Letters to the International Herald Tribune – How to Fight Climate Change – NYTimes.com
The only way to effectively address climate change is for our leaders to make it an issue of national security: Emphasize the link between consumption of fossil fuels, especially foreign oil, and the rise of international terrorism. Once that link is clearly established, people will be willing to make an effort: The home-front will contribute to fighting against terrorism, which threatens every one of us. People will understand that there is no way to put a value on the lives of any of the nearly 3,000 people who perished in the Sept. 11 attacks, and that any effort is worth making to prevent recurrence of such a tragedy.
Update:
The Israel Lobby’s War on America’s Middle East Oil Dependence
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | October 26, 2012
See also:
US Jewish leaders push Obama to act on Iran
Jerusalem Post, September 10, 2009
Related efforts toward energy independence and war on Iran
- Obama uses Weekly Address to lobby for Israeli firm BrightSource (alethonews)
- Noam Chomsky: The Fate of Humanity Is at Stake — Why Are Romney and Obama Too Cowardly to Talk About What Really Matters? (alternet.org)
- Iran Underground Nuclear Plant Almost Finished, NY Times Says – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Earth Day in Israel: Apartheid Showing Through the Greenwash (alethonews)
Vanunu released from solitary, still confined in Israel
August 8, 2010
The Guardian reports:
Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower who spent 18 years in jail for exposing Israel’s nuclear capabilities was released today after completing a further three-month sentence.
Vanunu, 56, a former technician at a secret nuclear plant near the desert town of Dimona, was convicted after handing over details of Israel’s nuclear arsenal to a British newspaper in 1986.
The revelations led to the belief that Israel held a sizeable nuclear arsenal – a claim Israel has neither confirmed nor denied under its policy of “ambiguity”.
Vanunu served much of his 18-year sentence in solitary confinement.
His latest three-month sentence came after the Moroccan-born whistleblower was convicted of holding unauthorised meetings with foreigners – banned under the conditions of his release – including journalists and his Norwegian girlfriend in 2007…
Vanunu’s movements have been subject to strict conditions, including a ban on leaving Israel…
Speaking before his sentence in May and in English – Vanunu refuses to speak Hebrew in public – he said:
“Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons but no one is talking about it. The world doesn’t want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world.”
###
Eileen Fleming adds:
In 1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted:
“A radioactive cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima…A live nuclear test sentenced you. A nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a nuclear mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive ash-Hiroshima…Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood doesn’t know you – you are not a Jewish Holocaust.”
Palestinian lawmaker attacked by settlers
Ma’an – August 8, 2010
HEBRON: A Palestinian lawmaker said he was attacked by settlers as he accompanied farmers trying to access their land near Hebron on Saturday.
Palestinian National Initiative leader Mustafa Barghouthi said after the attack, Israeli soldiers used force to prevent the group accessing farmland in Al-Buwiera and Al-Baq’a villages.
An Israeli military spokesman said Barghouthi was in a closed military zone when soldiers asked him to leave, but denied reports that force was used.
Barghouthi held Israeli authorities fully responsible for the farmers’ lands, which are at risk of drought since Israel’s Civil Administration destroyed what it described as an illegal water irrigation network in Al-Baq’a on Monday.
The parliamentarian noted that settlers from an illegal outpost near the Kiryat Arba settlement had rebuilt homes demolished by the army last week.
Gaza: An Open Letter to Chick Corea
Tadamon | August 9th, 2010
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel, August 2010
We are a group of students from Gaza, and our only fault is being Palestinians. For that, Mr. Corea, we are imprisoned with our families and loved ones in what major Human Rights Organizations call the largest open air prison in modern history. The state you are planning to entertain, committed a process of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous people in 1948. And now it is engaged in, what the Israeli academic Ilan Pappe calls, “slow motion genocide” against the 1.5 million population of Gaza.
We are writing to you from under the hermetic siege imposed on us. We are punished just because we belong to this land and hold its identity. Israel committed, what Prof. Richard Goldstone called “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” knowing very well that it would be immune from accountability. You must be aware that all aspects of our life are affected by the siege, which in itself is a gross violation of international humanitarian law.
We love music. But, we are deprived from it. The sound of Israeli-US made F16s, F15s, F35s, Surveillance planes, White Phosphorous bombs, naval gunboats and Merkava tanks do not allow us to listen to music any more. In Gaza, we are forbidden from experiencing the meaning of humanity, from being in love and expressing it in art, dance, music, and all its magnificent other forms that we long to live and experience.
Dear Mr. Corea, we are deafened by the sounds of crying children around us. Some have lost their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers in the last genocidal war the Apartheid state of Israel launched against Palestinians in Gaza, and others have lost a part of their bodies. But, we can assure you that all of them have lost something they never had… a childhood!
Dear Mr. Corea, if you decide to play in Israel, please remember us, remember the screaming, crying children of Palestine, the voices of the 434 children killed during the 22-day attacks that sometimes linger in the silence of our dark nights. Remember those who cannot read, study and attend school and university as a result of Israel’s medieval siege. Remember those farmers who are shot by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers as they harvest their crops on their land. Do you know that most of the people in your audience will have served or are serving in the Israeli army?
Mr. Corea, we call upon your free soul that has been adding magnificent art for decades into this disenchanted world of ours, to join those courageous people of conscience like Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, the Pixies, Carlos Santana and Devendra Banhart in boycotting Israel until it complies with international law, and until justice and accountability are reached just as the global BDS movement made way for the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.
Anti-Apartheid heroes Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kasrils have all described Israel’s control and 60 year collective punishment of the Palestinians as: Apartheid – a brutal, colonial system based on racial discrimination. We ask you now to stand on the right side of history, to respond to our call from the Gaza ghetto to not turn your back on us.
Mr. Corea, if you will play in Israel, then we will be a short distance away from where you are playing. Perhaps the sound of the deadly silent, cautious nights of ours will send your tunes over to besieged Gaza. But, your beautiful tunes will break our wrenching hearts and not sway our souls.
Besieged Gaza,
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel “PSCABI”
U.S. downgrades Saudi arms deal over Israeli concerns
Haaretz | August 9, 2010
The Wall Street Journal said Monday that the United States had signed on to sell dozens of F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, but that details in the final deal had been negotiated to quell Israeli concerns over the possible exchange.
Saudi Arabia F-15
Last month, a senior defense source told Haaretz that Israel was trying to prevent the United States from selling new F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in order to upgrade the 150 F-15s already in the Saudi air force.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak raised the deal in meetings with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor General Jim Jones over a month ago in Washington.
It was also reported that Israel made its reservations clear at a meeting in Tel Aviv between top Israeli defense officials and a delegation led by U.S. under secretary of defense for policy Michele Flournoy.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, the Obama administration in fact agreed to sell advanced F-15 fighter jets to the Saudis, however excluding long-range weapons systems as well as other components in order to quiet Israel’s concerns.
However, despite the reported Israeli concerns over the weapons deal, U.S. officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal made it clear that Washington did not make changes to appease Israel.
“It’s not that Barak swoops into town, we suddenly make a bunch of concessions that the Israelis never knew about before, and they’re assuaged,” the official said. “There were no refinements, no changes.”
The official concluded that Israel had acquiesced to the deal not because of changes made to it, but as a result of Israeli officials having a better understanding “what the configuration looks like.”
The report said that the $30 billion, 10-year package came after U.S. officials offered “clarifications” to Israel about the deal, with officials close to the deal saying that, while Israel still had its reservations, it was unlikely to to challenge the sale.
In addition to the exclusion of long-range weapons, according to the Wall Street Journal, the 84 F-15s included in the deal will have onboard targeting systems of the kind the U.S. sells to foreign nations, yet inferior to those in American-used F-15s.
Last month, security sources told Haaretz that if the deal would indeed be completed, Israel hoped Saudi Arabia will receive fewer advanced versions of the F-15 than those possessed by Israel, which seeks to maintain its air force’s superiority. “Today these planes are against Iran, tomorrow they might turn against us,” the source said.
Israel and the United States held a number of meetings over the past 18 months on maintaining Israel’s security standings in the Middle East.
The two sides agreed that neither would surprise the other by agreeing to a military deal with a third party. A senior source in the U.S. administration told Haaretz the United States has promised Israel it would have priority access to any new weapons system and, in some cases, exclusive rights to buy new weapons systems, as opposed to Arab states.
“The administration is conducting open and completely transparent talks with Israel on the matter, and we are updating Israel on any planned deal to hear its reservations,” the official said. “We believe that there are many cases in which the Iranian threat commits us to strengthen the ability of states in the region to defend themselves.”
Jordan Valley demolitions continue
Ma’an – 09/08/2010
TUBAS — Israel’s Civil Administration began razing housing units Monday in the Ein Hilwa area of the northern Jordan Valley, campaign officials said.
Save the Jordan Valley campaign coordinator Fathi Ikhdeirat said Israeli authorities, accompanied by border guards, began tearing down structures and handing down stop-work orders to residents.
He described the move as an attempt “to clear the area of its indigenous people and include it into Israel” and also called on international human rights groups to intervene to bring the demolitions to a halt.
A spokesman for Israel’s Civil Administration did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
The Jordan Valley has been a target for demolitions by Israel’s Civil Administration, with several structures in villages across the area being torn down.
On Sunday, dozens of Palestinians as well as foreign activists rebuilt areas in the nearby Al-Farisiya village that were recently bulldozed by Israel’s Civil Administration.
Over the past 10 days, several shacks, homes and agricultural structures were torn down in the village by the administration, which has complete planning and building control over Area C. Last Thursday, the Civil Administration returned to the valley to demolish 23 structures rebuilt by residents and farmers.
Meanwhile, in the nearby Bardala village, locals said the Civil Administration distributed several stop-work orders to residents in late July.
The orders, known locally as “demolition orders,” demand that homeowners appear before a magistrates court to defend allegations. Because legal action at the court rarely succeeds, the stop-work orders essentially constitute a demolition order.
According to a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz in July, the Civil Administration has received government orders to increase enforcement against Palestinian construction in Area C, according to a deposition by an administration official to the High Court.
The deposition, by the head of the administration’s infrastructure authority, Colonel Zvika Cohen, came in response to a petition by Regavim – a group seeking the destruction of illegal Palestinian construction at six West Bank sites, citing a security threat, the daily reported.
A recent UN report said 86 structures in the Jordan Valley were demolished two weeks ago, and 17 others were demolished in other areas of the West Bank the week after.
“The spate of demolitions raises concerns over whether Israeli authorities could further escalate demolitions throughout Area C,” a UN report said, noting more than 3,000 demolition orders handed down by Israeli officials to locals were still outstanding.
“Currently, it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to maintain, repair or construct homes, animal shelters or necessary infrastructure in Area C,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report on Area C.
US, EU states fail to isolate Iran
Press TV – August 9, 2010
As the US and its European allies are trying to increase unilateral sanctions against Iran, other major states show bold resistance to the punitive measures.
“China, Russia, India and Turkey move into the lucrative void left by US and EU sanctions that aim to halt Iran’s nuclear program,” the Los Angeles Times wrote on Sunday.
On June 9, the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran’s military and financial sectors over allegations that Tehran is following a military nuclear program.
In recent weeks, the US, the European Union, Australia, and Canada have added unilateral measures to the UNSC sanctions, targeting the energy rich country’s oil and gas industry. But China, Russia, India and Turkey rejected the unilateral US and EU sanctions aimed at Iran’s energy sector.
The countries “are making it very clear they are not going to go along with the new American and European efforts to ratchet up pressure on Iran,” Ben Rhode, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told the Times. China’s move to expand its business Iran “has been amazing,” said a senior European official on condition of anonymity, the American newspaper said.
Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi announced last week that China is investing 40 billion dollars in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
The unilateral sanctions also gave China and Russia an opportunity to sell more gasoline to Iran.
“These countries have long-term interests in the region,” Bloomberg quoted Gary Sick, a member of the US National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, as saying on Monday. China wants “to maintain relations with Iran for the sake of maintaining some access to the oil,” Sick said.
“Looking at the political situation, I’m not sure if Europe and the US were 100 percent sure about the possible responses from places like Russia and China,” said Alexander Poegl, an analyst at JBC Energy in Vienna. “Iran will find partners supplying them gasoline,” he added.
Last week China defended its economic ties with Iran after a senior US official called on Beijing to adopt the UN sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.
“China’s trade with Iran is a normal business exchange, which will not harm the interests of other countries and the international community,” China Daily quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu as saying on Thursday.
“Sanctions will not hinder us in our joint cooperation,” Sergei Shmatko, Russia’s energy minister, said last month in Moscow after signing an agreement for a long-term energy partnership with his Iranian counterpart.
Why We Boycott Israel
A REPLY TO THE U.S. SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY
A LeftViews article by Art Young | August 6, 2010 | Excerpts
In the first action of its kind in the United States, on June 20 more than 700 unionists and community activists picketed at several entrances to the Port of Oakland, California, protesting the arrival of an Israeli-owned vessel. Two shifts of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union refused to cross the picket line. The cargo was unloaded only 24 hours later, after the picket lines were lifted.
The protest was organized by the Labor / Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an ad-hoc coalition of local labour, Palestine solidarity, and social justice groups. Several hundred unionists responded to the call of the San Francisco and Alameda County labour councils and other unionists to support the action.[7] Statements of support for the action were issued by the Oakland Education Association, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the Cuban labour federation, the Cuban Workers Central, among others.[8]
Opposing the boycott
One group that did not support the action in Oakland was the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. The SWP is opposed to boycotting Israel. It reaffirmed this stand at its national conference a few days before the picket in Oakland.
The group first elaborated its position on the Palestinian struggle in a series of articles that appeared during the first half of 2009 in The Militant, a weekly newspaper that expresses its views. These articles argued that:
- There is no Zionist movement today.
- Anti-Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism.
- Israel’s rulers plan to give up control of most of the West Bank and Gaza.
- Israel is not an apartheid state.
- The BDS campaign is not only wrong. It is anti-Semitic.
- The democratic, secular Palestine that the SWP envisages must grant a special right of immigration to the Jews of the world.[9]
This line of argument places the SWP in the Zionist camp. To be sure, the SWP opposes Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, but the thrust of its argument is directed against the solidarity movement. It endorses the slanders advanced by Israel’s supporters that anti-Zionism in general and the BDS movement in particular are anti-Semitic. The group also supports a privileged position for Jews in Palestine.[10]
A complete reversal on Zionism
These positions represent a breathtaking turnabout for a group that for decades unconditionally supported the Palestinian people and thoroughly opposed Zionism.
The SWP’s previous position on these questions was explained in a resolution it adopted at its 1971 convention. The opening paragraphs of that resolution read:
The Socialist Workers Party gives unconditional support to the national liberation struggles of the Arab peoples against imperialism, that is, we support all these struggles regardless of their current leaderships. Our foremost task in implementing such support is to educate and mobilize the American people against U. S. imperialist actions in the Mideast.
Israel, created in accordance with the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state, could be set up in the Arab East only at the expense of the indigenous peoples of the area. Such a state could come into existence and maintain itself only by relying upon imperialism. Israel is a settler-colonialist and expansionist capitalist state maintained principally by American imperialism, hostile to the surrounding Arab peoples….
The struggle of the Palestinian people against their oppression and for self-determination has taken the form of a struggle to destroy the state of Israel. The currently expressed goal of this struggle is the establishment of a democratic, secular Palestine. We give unconditional support to this struggle of the Palestinians for self-determination….
Our revolutionary socialist opposition to Zionism and the Israeli state has nothing in common with anti-Semitism, as the pro-Zionist propagandists maliciously and falsely assert. Anti-Semitism is anti-Jewish racism used to justify and reinforce oppression of the Jewish people….
Zionism is not, as it claims, a national liberation movement. Zionism is a political movement that developed for the purpose of establishing a settler-colonialist state in Palestine and that rules the bourgeois society headed by the Israeli state today in alliance with world imperialism. [11]
It is immediately apparent that what the SWP says today is the polar opposite of these positions. Contrary to Marxist practice, the SWP has neither acknowledged the reversal nor explained why in its view it is necessary.
Zionism and anti-Zionism
The first indication that the SWP had changed its position on these questions came in an article in the March 2, 2009 issue of The Militant. The article quoted SWP leader Norton Sandler as follows:
“Class-conscious workers should drop the term Zionism,’ in the current context, Sandler added. ‘There is no Zionist movement today. The reality is, it has become an epithet, not a scientific description; a synonym for ‘Jew’ that helps fuel Jew-hatred, which will rise as the capitalist crisis deepens.”[12]
Sandler’s claim that the Zionist movement had vanished from the face of the earth was so at odds with current reality and with the SWP’s previous position that it was challenged by some readers of the paper. Sandler’s reply appeared in the April 13 issue.
I made these remarks at a January 31 public meeting in London. I was not addressing the history of the Zionist movement, or how the state of Israel came into being as an expansionist colonial-settler state. Zionism in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was a bourgeois political current contending with the communist movement for the allegiance of workers who were Jewish. Israel was established in 1948, more than six decades ago. There is no Zionist movement today and there hasn’t been for a long time.[13]
An end to Israeli expansionism?
In his April 13 article Sandler also expresses the view that the expansion of Israel’s borders is drawing to a close. “The majority of the Israeli ruling class has given up the dream of a ‘Greater Israel.’ They are forced to opt for what they consider the only pragmatic solution — maintaining a majority Jewish state within borders of their own choosing. This is hardly the Zionist movement’s dream of an Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.” (Other articles published between February and June 2009 make the same claim.)
Here Sandler and the SWP merely echo the Israeli rulers who never tire of claiming that their only aim is an Israel with defensible borders living in peace next to a Palestinian state. This has been Tel Aviv’s mantra ever since it occupied Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 war. Israel’s actions reveal a different plan. Seen from the Palestinian perspective, history since 1967 has been one of unrelenting Israeli expansion onto Palestinian land and continual ethnic cleansing by the Zionist state. Approximately half a million Israeli settlers now live in the occupied West Bank, some nine percent of the Jewish Israeli population. The settlements, the wall, the Jewish-only road network, the draining of the water resources — these and many other features of the occupation are turning the West Bank into a series of isolated and dependent cantons. The settlement enterprise has not halted for a moment, not even during the recent phony temporary “settlement freeze” declared by Netanyahu under pressure from Obama. Meanwhile Israel maintains an iron grip on the Gaza Strip.
“Greater Israel,” Israeli rule from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, has been the reality for more than forty years — that is, for more than two thirds of Israel’s existence. During this period Israel has steadily strengthened its hold on the conquered territories (although the Palestinians have resisted tenaciously and scored some successes along the way).
The reality of “Greater Israel” that Palestinians face every day is documented in countless reports from the United Nations and many other organizations, including Israeli human rights groups. But Zionist propaganda appears to carry more weight with the SWP.
No Israeli apartheid?
Another major article appeared in the April 6, 2009 issue of The Militant. “Israel boycotts and divestment serve as cover for anti-Semitism” was written by Paul Pederson, a member of the paper’s staff. He stated:
There are sweeping differences between the apartheid regime in South Africa and the capitalist regime in Israel—in terms of organization of labor, the character of the regimes, and the historical conditions under which they emerged. The attempt to paint them as the same simply obfuscates the real social and class relations in Israel and the tasks facing the toilers there to chart a revolutionary course forward. Applied to Israel the term “apartheid” is simply an epithet, rather than a scientific description of a social structure.
Perhaps the most glaring difference between the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the fight for Palestinian national rights today is the existence of a revolutionary organization—the ANC under Nelson Mandela—in the case of South Africa.[15]
The first sentence asserts that “there are sweeping differences between” South Africa and Israel. This is an empty platitude. There are also sweeping differences between capitalist rule in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain. But there are also fundamental similarities, just as there are in the case of apartheid-era South Africa and Israel.
The second sentence is another platitude, asserting that the false comparison leads to false conclusions.
The third sentence states the SWP’s political position — Israel is not an apartheid state.
This is a straightforward question of fact: is the Israeli system of rule fundamentally similar to the apartheid system in South Africa? Does it meet the common-sense or legal understanding of the term?
Israel was established in 1948 by the massacre and expulsion of most of the native inhabitants, who generations later still cannot return to their homes. It practices systematic discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and structural discrimination against these Palestinians is enshrined in its laws and the entire legal apparatus. In addition, Israel rules over millions of other Palestinians in the occupied territories through a combination of measures that ultimately rest on its military control. These inhabitants are systematically deprived of their land, their water, and other resources to the benefit of Jewish Israelis. The Jewish settlers who live on Palestinian land enjoy full rights of citizenship while Palestinians are denied basic human rights.
This, in a nutshell, is the Israeli system of rule over the Palestinians. It bears a striking similarity to the system of apartheid in South Africa even if it differs in many particulars. (For a more detailed analysis see “Not an analogy: Israel and the crime of apartheid” by Hazem Jamjoum.[16])
In the course of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, large numbers of people around the world came to understand that apartheid is a crime against humanity that must be eradicated wherever it might appear. In 1973 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which specifies that a regime commits apartheid when it institutionalizes discrimination to create and maintain the domination of one racial group over another. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also defines apartheid as a crime. This statute came into effect in 2002, long after the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Of course the experts on what is apartheid, and what it is not, live in South Africa. It is no accident that many unions and solidarity organizations in South Africa have endorsed the idea that Israel is an apartheid state.[17]
One of the most thorough and authoritative studies of Israeli apartheid in the occupied territories was published by the South African Human Rights Council in May 2009. The 302-page report by an international panel of experts concluded “that Israel, since 1967, has been the belligerent Occupying Power in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories], and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”[18]
Today’s solidarity activists draw strength from this understanding of the crime of apartheid. They look at Israel in light of the experience gained in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and they are inspired by the victory that was won there. Their explanations of the Israeli apartheid system have been convincing and have helped to build the movement.
Returning to the article cited above, only one element of the argument remains. Israel is not an apartheid state, Pederson states, because the Palestinian leadership is not revolutionary.
It is, to say the least, rather bizarre to assert that the nature of the Palestinian leadership determines the nature of the Israeli state. Nevertheless, the assertion is revealing. It expresses how the SWP has come to condition its support for struggles against imperialism on its view of the leadership of such struggles. This provides a handy excuse for refusing to support them. In 2003 the SWP refused to support the large demonstrations against the war in Iraq. Its Canadian sister organization expelled supporters who argued that Marxists had a duty to defend the Iraqi people against imperialism by taking concrete action against the war. The SWP justified its abstention from the struggle by pointing to the bloody and reactionary record of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Over the last few years the SWP has adopted a similar approach toward the Palestinian struggle.
Suffice it to say that this has more in common with dead-end sectarianism than it does with Marxism. The SWP used to understand this quite well. The 1971 resolution cited earlier begins with these words: “The Socialist Workers Party gives unconditional support to the national liberation struggles of the Arab peoples against imperialism, that is, we support all these struggles regardless of their current leaderships.”
Israel boycott, a growing and dynamic movement
As noted earlier, the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) has made great strides in the past few years. BDS is now one of the most dynamic and fastest growing components of the international movement in solidarity with Palestine.[19]
Israel’s rulers recognize the power and potential of the boycott movement.
On July 14 the Israeli Knesset (parliament) approved the initial reading of a bill designed to punish residents of Israel who promote boycotts of the state or Israeli products. If enacted into law it will allow punitive fines to be levied against such persons. The bill is primarily aimed at Palestinians living in the West Bank and the small but growing number of Israeli citizens, Jewish and Palestinian, who form the “Boycott From Within” movement supporting the international boycott. In a speech to the Knesset Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the Boycott From Within movement as a “national scandal.” Neve Gordon, a professor at Ben Gurion University who endorsed an academic boycott of Israel last year, has received death threats. Gideon Sa’ar, the minister of education, has threatened to punish any lecturer or institution that supports a boycott of Israel.
In February the REUT Institute, one of Israel’s most influential think tanks, published a report in which it warned of a dangerous decline in Israel’s international support. It urged the government to take more effective action against the forces promoting the “delegitimization” of the state of Israel, including the international BDS movement.[20] The institute devoted the June 10 issue of its magazine to a detailed analysis of the movement, noting that:
the damage caused by the BDS Movement lies in its promotion of delegitimization towards Israel through creating the comparison — whether implicit or explicit — between Israel and the former apartheid South African regime. Therefore, BDS should be viewed first and foremost as a tool to brand Israel as a ‘pariah state’ with the ultimate aim of undermining the legitimacy of its political structure.[21]
Although only five years old, the boycott movement has scored some notable successes, winning increasing support in many quarters. National trade union federations in South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Quebec, and elsewhere have endorsed the boycott, as have numerous unions in various countries. On July 22 the annual conference of Unite, the largest union in Britain, with two million members, voted unanimously in favour of a complete boycott of Israeli goods and services. Earlier this year Israeli Apartheid Week, an educational activity promoting BDS, took place on more than 50 campuses worldwide. The number of participating campuses has grown steadily from year to year.
Grass-roots organizing has been particularly effective in Europe, where a divestment campaign forced the French multinational Veolia to withdraw from a major transportation project in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israeli businesses have acknowledged a decline in their sales because European consumers are boycotting Israeli agricultural products.
In the United States and elsewhere, the movement is increasing its pressure on pension funds and university endowments to divest from companies such as Lockheed Martin, ITT, United Technologies, General Electric, Caterpillar and Motorola that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands while helping it carry out its war crimes. On June 2 students at Evergreen State College in Washington state voted by a large majority to demand that the college’s foundation divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation and that the college ban the use of Caterpillar equipment on campus. Rachel Corrie, an Evergreen student, was killed by a weaponized Caterpillar bulldozer as she attempted to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has been a particularly vocal supporter of the college divestment campaigns in the United States.
An appeal from Palestine
The BDS movement responds to an appeal for solidarity issued on July 9, 2005 by more than 170 Palestinian organizations, including trade unions, political and social organizations, and women’s and youth groups. The signatories represent the three components of the Palestinian nation — refugees, Palestinians living under in the occupied territories, and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The appeal from Palestine said:
We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.
These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194.[22]
The BDS call does not advocate a particular political solution to the conflict. Its approach is to develop a grass-roots mass political campaign in favour of these three basic pillars of human rights for the Palestinian people. This approach serves not only to overcome divisions among the Palestinians, it also stands on the universal principles of human rights that have animated the struggle against racism in South Africa, the United States, and elsewhere.
The movement took another step forward in 2008 with the formation of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, a broadly representative group of Palestinians that serves as the leadership of the international BDS campaign.
The rapid growth of the movement can be attributed to a number of factors: its origin in Palestine; the unity among Palestinians that it expresses; its new, rights-based approach to the struggle; its consistent anti-racism (which includes opposing Islamophobia and anti-Semitism); and the movement’s Palestinian leadership. The movement also offers many opportunities for grass-roots organizing of boycott and divestment campaigns as well as educational activities. As it has grown the movement has acquired experience and developed an increasing number of local leaders. It has also become more diverse, developing targeted academic and cultural boycotts of Israel similar to those used in the struggle against South African apartheid.
Israel boycott, ‘a cover for anti-Semitism’?
These developments have not gone unnoticed at the SWP’s headquarters. The group has taken up the cudgels against the boycott movement, waging a sustained campaign against it in the pages of its newspaper. Leaders of the group have denounced BDS in meetings organized to build the solidarity movement, from Israeli Apartheid Week to the recent U.S. Social Forum.
The SWP’s campaign is fundamentally dishonest. The Militant has not reported any of the basic facts about the boycott movement. The SWP has also chosen to ignore the appeal of Omar Barghouti, a leader of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, who wrote in a recent article that:
“genuine solidarity movements recognize and follow the lead of the oppressed, who are not passive objects but active, rational subjects that are asserting their aspirations and rights as well as their strategy to realize them.”[23]
In the SWP’s eyes BDS is “a cover for anti-Semitism.” The article by Paul Pederson cited previously said this:
In the absence of any revolutionary perspective, campaigns such as the anti-Israel boycott can appear to be a radical substitute. But, as the crisis of capitalism deepens, the “anti-Israel” character of these campaigns is simply a modern form of Jew-hatred. All who genuinely support the battle for Palestinian national rights must oppose it.
Not to be outdone, in his reply to critical readers in the next issue of The Militant Norton Sandler compared advocates of BDS to the Nazis:
In London earlier this year the Marks & Spencer department stores and Starbucks coffee shops were targets of protests over the Israeli assault on Gaza. These businesses are supposedly Jewish-owned. … Jewish businesses were a prime target of the Nazis in Germany after 1933. Why aren’t U.S.-owned businesses targets during protests against Washington’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars?[24]
The SWP’s allegation that the boycott movement is anti-Semitic and akin to Hitler’s targeting of Jews in Germany is beneath contempt. It assumes that readers of The Militant will not try to ascertain the facts for themselves. But facts are more powerful than such slanders, and the facts about the BDS movement are readily available.
(For example, The Militant repeatedly alleges that boycott activities in the United Kingdom target the Marks & Spencer department store chain because the company’s owners are Jewish. Like virtually everything else the SWP writes about the BDS movement, this is untrue. The Boycott Israeli Goods website lists seven major retailers in the U.K. that sell Israeli products. Each of them has been the target of pro-Palestinian protests in recent years. According to the website, Marks & Spencer has deep historical ties to the state of Israel. Also, “in 1998, Sir Richard Greenbury, then CEO of Marks & Spencer, received the Jubilee Award from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In 2000, the Jerusalem Report stated that ‘M&S supports Israel with $233 million in trade each year.’”[25])
Supporters of the SWP might want to reflect on the fact that the group’s campaign against boycotting Israel places them to the right of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship in the U.S., which recently endorsed boycott, divestment and sanctions, and the Methodist Church of Great Britain, which has called on its followers to boycott all products from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.[26]
A fateful leap toward Zionism
Already well on its way toward the Zionist camp, the SWP took another fateful leap at its national conference this June. The Militant reported that the conference featured a series of classes.
One on ‘World Capitalist Crisis, Israel, and the Roots of Jew Hatred’ took up the need for a multinational, working-class leadership to fight for a democratic, secular Palestine. Communists would fight for Palestine to be a refuge for all Jews facing persecution. Conference participants discussed how the call for a boycott of Israeli products is not a road toward winning self-determination for the Palestinians, but a dangerous concession to anti-Semitism.[27]
This passage does more than repeat the familiar slander against the boycott movement. It introduces a new and far-reaching change in the SWP’s program. Its call for a democratic, secular Palestine now has a distinctly Zionist flavour — Palestine must be a homeland for world Jewry.
This has several major implications.
For one thing, what is it about Palestine that makes it the proper destination for Jews who may feel the need to emigrate? Why not the United States, Canada, or Australia, much larger and wealthier countries? Religious Zionists believe that Palestine is the Holy Land and that God has granted the Jews the right to settle there. Secular Zionists advance other reasons. Both agree that the Palestinians must not obstruct Jewish immigration and colonisation. But what is the SWP’s reason for selecting Palestine for new waves of Jewish settlement?
Furthermore, the SWP appears to give little weight to the possibility that “Jews facing persecution” at some point in the future might choose to defend their rights in the countries where they reside, struggling alongside the oppressed and exploited of those countries. It is Zionism, not Marxism, that insists on the need for a sanctuary for Jews in Israel/Palestine.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the SWP’s vision for Palestine fails to mention the Palestinian refugees, victims of Israel’s wars. Many of them live in dismal refugee camps near Israel’s borders. According to Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees. One in three refugees in the world is Palestinian.[28] Any settlement that deprives them of their right to return home, to receive redress for their dispossession and to live as full citizens in the land of their choice is an unjust settlement that will not endure.[29]
While barring all Palestinian refugees, Israel accords automatic citizenship to immigrants who are Jewish. The SWP appears to want to maintain this arrangement in some form in the new state that they envisage. Whatever else one might say about it, this state would be neither democratic nor secular.
Although a logical extension of the positions first developed in early 2009, the SWP’s discovery of Palestine as a homeland for the Jews and its silence on the Palestinians’ right of return marks a fateful leap toward Zionism.
Bending to imperialist pressure
The SWP’s embrace of Zionist arguments against the Palestinian struggle are the clearest and most extreme examples of the group’s steady rightward evolution. Unfortunately they are not an isolated case. A few other examples show the pattern.
For a number of years following the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the SWP refused to support the anti-war movement. It wrote article after article criticizing what it called the “middle class radicals” leading the movement while itself doing virtually nothing to oppose the war and occupation. It also repeatedly condemned acts of resistance by Iraqi fighters to the occupation of their country.
More recently the SWP refused to support the Honduran people in their struggle for democracy.
In June 2009 the Honduran army staged a coup d’état, overthrowing the elected government. President Manuel Zelaya had angered business leaders by raising the minimum wage. He had also alarmed Washington by joining the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Latin America (ALBA), an alliance initiated by Venezuela and Cuba that conducts mutually favourable trade between Latin American countries, thereby weakening the U.S. grip on the continent. In Honduras workers, peasants, aboriginal people and other toilers mobilized in large numbers against the coup, which they understood was a blatant attack on their democratic rights. Their struggle continued for months, while Cuba, Venezuela, and much of Latin America did all they could to restore constitutional rule in Honduras. The Honduran masses resisted valiantly but ultimately were defeated by the combined power of Washington, the Honduran army and the local oligarchy.
The SWP urged its followers to remain aloof from the struggle against the coup, which it characterized as “part of (the) infighting between wings of the capitalist class.” The July 20 issue of The Militant also falsely asserted that constitutional procedures had been followed after the army “arrested” the president.[30] An editorial in the next issue declared that “the interests of Honduran workers and farmers do not lie in whether Zelaya returns to the presidency.” It warned against “the false claim by middle-class radicals that Zelaya’s ouster was a ‘right-wing’ coup ‘made in USA.’” The editorial also attacked ALBA.[31]
In August 2008 Georgia provoked a war with Russia, attempting to reclaim territories then under Russian protection. Georgia was an ally of the U.S., which had provided it with $277 million in military aid since 1997. It had troops in Iraq serving under U.S. command. Soon after the war with Russia broke out, the U.S. sent additional supplies to Georgia. It also mobilized international public opinion against Russia. The Militant’s coverage echoed the imperialist propaganda. “Russian troops out of Georgia!” was the title of an editorial in the September 1, 2008 issue, which characterized the fighting as a Russian invasion and occupation.[32]
In September 2005 a Danish newspaper published blatantly anti-Islamic caricatures, provoking massive protests by Muslims in many countries. The SWP turned its back on their cry for dignity and equality and their outrage against the xenophobic intent of the cartoons’ publishers. The Militant joined in the reactionary uproar against the demonstrations, smearing them as “often violent protests.”[33] The SWP refused to recognize that the protests embodied the fight against both national oppression and imperialism.
This is a pattern of repeatedly bending to imperialist pressure in times of crisis. It is a disgraceful course of conduct for a group that calls itself socialist, particularly one located in the United States, the heartland of imperialism.
———
[8] http://www.laborforpalestine.net/wp/2010/06/19/support-pours-in-for-zim-lines-picket/7
[9] This position was first expressed in June 2010.
[10] A Zionist blogger welcomed the SWP’s support. “Communists Against Boycotting Israel,” http://www.thejudeosphere.com/?p=13888
[11] http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/24thconvention/zionism.htm9. Also available as a pamphlet by Gus Horowitz, Israel and the Arab Revolution, from amazon.com and pathfinderpress.com.
[12] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7308/730857.html10
[13] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7314/731436.html11
[14] Estimates vary widely. This estimate is provided by the U.S.-based Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?documentid=2965&programID=3212
[15] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7313/731336.html13
[16] http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10440.shtml14
[17] See, for example, the statement by the South African Municipal Workers’ Union quoted earlier in this article. Many other examples could be cited.
[18] “Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law”, Executive Summary, p. 5. Links to Executive Summary and full report at http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml15.
[19] For more information on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, see “BDS: A Global Movement for Freedom & Justice” by Omar Barghouti http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/civil-society/bds-global-movement-freedom-justice16 and “Pro-Israel Lobby Alarmed by Growth of Boycott, Divestment Movement” by Art Young http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/46217
[20] “The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall” http://www.reut-institute.org/en/Publication.aspx?PublicationId=376918
[21] “The BDS Movement Promotes Delegitimization of the State of Israel”, http://reut-institute.org/data/uploads/PDFVer/20100612%20ReViews%20-%20BDS%20Issue%2016_1.pdf19
[22] “Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel,” http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/BDSEnglish.pdf20
[23] Barghouti http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/civil-society/bds-global-movement-freedom-justice16
[24] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7314/731436.html11. Emphasis added.
[25] http://www.bigcampaign.org/index.php?page=who_sells_israeli_goods21
[26] http://epfnational.org/action-groups/epfs-executive-council-statement-on-divestment-boycott-and-economic-sanctions-as-a-means-of-nonviolent-resistance/22 and http://www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentogod.newsDetail&newsid=45323
[27] http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7426/742650.html24. Emphasis added.
[28] http://www.al-awda.org/faq-refugees.html25
[29] The July 26, 2010 issue of The Militant published an excerpt from a report by the SWP’s central leader, Jack Barnes, in which he states that a new, revolutionary leadership in Palestine will be built around struggles on many fronts. Barnes provides a list of such progressive causes. He does not include the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7428/742853.html26
[30] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7327/732752.html27
[31] http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7328/732820.html28
[32] http://www.themilitant.com/2008/7234/index.shtml29
[33] “Socialists Must Oppose Anti-Muslim Bigotry” by Sandra Browne and Robert Johnson. http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=91
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Provoking a Path to Persia
The Saban Center’s prescient paper on war with Iran
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | October 20, 2011
In June 2009, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Which Path to Persia?—Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.” Writing in a tone strikingly reminiscent of the Project for a New American Century’s infamous pre-9/11 paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the six co-authors noted that, “It seems highly unlikely that the United States would mount an invasion without any provocation or other buildup.” For a think tank specifically established by media mogul Haim Saban to protect Israel, this could prove to be a formidable obstacle impeding their desired march—of U.S. troops—to Tehran.
“In fact, if the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely,” Saban’s think-tankers ruefully observed.
“With only one real exception, since the 1978 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never willingly provoked an American military response, although it certainly has taken actions that could have done so if Washington had been looking for a fight. Thus it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.”
Seemingly undeterred by Iran’s frustrating unwillingness to provide the requisite provocation, the analysts continued to examine this option… continue
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