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Saudis show solidarity with Bahrainis

Press TV – May 20, 2011
Protesters in Qatif demand the release of political prisoners

Saudi protesters have poured into the streets in the eastern city of Qatif, condemning Manama’s brutal crackdown on anti-regime demonstrators.

Expressing solidarity with Bahraini protesters, Saudi demonstrators on Friday urged the government to stop helping Manama in suppressing the uprising in the neighboring country and immediately withdraw its troops.

Since the deployment of Saudi troops in mid-March, Bahrain has launched a harsh crackdown on anti-government protesters, rounding up senior opposition figures and activists in dawn raids and arresting doctors, nurses, lawyers and journalists who voiced support for the protest movement.

Last week, Bahraini authorities announced that Saudi troops would remain in the Persian Gulf kingdom even after the state of emergency is lifted in June.

Despite, international condemnation of Saudi occupation of Bahrain, a Saudi official said, “This is the initial phase and Bahrain will get whatever assistance it needs. It’s open-ended.”

Saudi demonstrators also called for human rights reform, freedom of expression and the release of political prisoners some held without trial for more than 16 years.

Saudi Arabia’s east has been the scene of anti-government protests over the past months and authorities have arrested scores of people, including bloggers and writers, for taking part in protest rallies.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 160 dissidents have been arrested since February as part of the Saudi government’s crackdown on anti-government protesters.

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Soldiers fire on protesters near Gaza border

Ma’an – 20/05/2011

GAZA CITY — Israeli forces fired on protesters in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon, medical officials said.

One protester was injured in the incident east of Khan Younis, medics told Ma’an.

The protester was taken from Abasan village to the European Hospital for treatment, they said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army confirmed shooting one “inciter” in the leg as he approached a fence separating Palestinians from forces on the border.

Demonstrations organized on Facebook called for Palestinians to demand the right of return.

In response to the demonstrations, Israel’s military is increasing a state of alert in Jerusalem and deploying more forces at its Syrian and Lebanese borders, Israel Radio reported.

More protests were expected in Nabi Saleh, where a busload of 50 soldiers had arrived, and Qalandiya, activists said. The two villages are near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The protests come less than a week since Israeli forces killed over a dozen demonstrators crossing into Israeli-controlled territory in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and from Lebanon.

Over 100 Palestinians were injured in separate clashes throughout the West Bank marking Nakba Day, the 63rd anniversary of the mass exodus of Palestinians amid Israel’s creation in 1948.

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Criminal Criminology in Israel

By LAWRENCE DAVIDSON | CounterPunch | May 20, 2011

For those who might not know, Israel will be holding a conference entitled “Pink Crime–Women, Crime and Punishment” on 30 May 2011. As the title implies it is all about female criminality: women as drug use offenders and drug traffickers, women murders, etc., as well as how the media covers female offenders. This is an international conference, drawing to it not only Israeli criminologists but also scholars and researchers from abroad. The United Kingdom and the United States will each have at least two participants.

One might ask what the big deal is? True, the internationals are ignoring a growing boycott of Israel by various elements of civil society. True, the Israeli criminologists should actually be giving priority to their government’s criminal acts. True, there is something sexist about the entire affair. What is so unique about crime committed by women? Why “Pink”? Still, there is something else that marks this gathering as out of the ordinary. The “Pink Crime” Conference is being held at an illegal Israeli settlement sitting on stolen Palestinian land. It is scheduled for the “University Center” in the settlement of Ariel on the occupied West Bank. To put it more directly, Israel is to hold in conference on crime in a criminal place.

The Israelis do these sort of things– the kind of things that blur the lines between the seemingly normal and the abnormal–a lot. For instance, back in early August 2010, I wrote a piece on the eviction of 200 Bedouin Israeli citizens in the village of al-Arakib. Kicking non-Jews out of their homes is quite “normal” in Israel. Then it was revealed that the Israeli authorities were using busloads of high school aged “police civilian guards” to “extract” the residences’ “furniture and belongings” prior to bulldozing the houses. During this process these kids “smashed windows and mirrors…and defaced family photographs” with apparent impunity. The use of high school kids in this capacity is that added touch of Israeli abnormality.

Higher Crimes

If Israel’s criminologists want to get serious about their society’s problems there are a myriad number of issues, touching on higher crimes, that they could take up–and do so at any number of sites within Israel’s 1967 border. Most of the outside world would deem those locales legitimate (despite they too having been stolen from the Palestinians). Here is a run down of just a few of the current felonies that should interest a serious Israeli investigator of criminal behavior:

1. The recent revelation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper of the illegal and surreptitious cancelling of the residency rights of 140,000 Palestinians who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994. Most of these travelers, legal residents of the Occupied Territories, were going to visit relatives or to study abroad. Upon departure they were required to surrender their id cards. When they tried to return they were permanently denied entrance. A conscientious Israeli criminologist should easily recognize this as criminal behavior under the Geneva Conventions.

2. The collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza. The use of a draconian land and sea blockade against Gaza since 2007 and the drastic reduction of the standard of living of over a million and a half people is so blatantly criminal it just cries out for attention by Israeli criminologists. Yet they can, with apparent easy conscience, prioritize “pink crime” while their own government is replicating the Warsaw Ghetto within easy driving distance.

3. The on-going nationwide campaign to suppress academic freedom, free expression and dissent by a growing number of right wing organizations with friendly government connections. These groups harass and seek the firing of any Israeli educator who is publically critical of official policies toward the Palestinians. If this sort of behavior is not illegal, it certainly ought to be. Asked if he “feared for the future of Israeli democracy?” the Israeli academic Neve Gordon answered, “We don’t have to imagine a dark future, we’re already there. Democracy is severely curtailed, we’re on a dark path, and unless something radical happens….I think that within not so many years, the last remnants of Israeli democracy might be lost.” Given that Israel claims that its government institutions are democratically based, is not the undermining of democracy a criminal act–maybe even an act of treason?

Inevitable Consequences?

The probability is just about nil that any of the “Pink Crime” criminologists (Israeli or otherwise) will even notice that a) by participating in the conference at Ariel they are accessories to a crime or b) their expertise is desperately needed to check the illegal behavior of the Israeli nation at large. They all appear to be wearing tight fitting moral blinkers that confine their worldviews. What is obviously illegal and abnormal from the outside looking in, is legal and normal on the inside the conferees share. And indeed, as Gordon suggests, the consequences of this tunnel vision lay not in the future. It is with the Israelis right now. A recent poll of Israeli teenage youth found that 60% of them believe that the rule of law is less important than “strong” leadership. Fully 70% see “state security,” which presumably includes maintaining the state’s “Jewish” nature, as more important than “democratic values.” This is a strong indication that Israel’s democracy is fast transforming itself into something much more autocratic for all its citizens, and not just the Palestinians.

Actually this outcome is almost inevitable. If you create a country for just one narrowly defined group you are going to end up with a discriminatory psychology and corresponding policies toward out-group elements. The larger the percentage of out-group folks there are in the general population the more strident the discrimination is likely to be. Presently, the Total Fertility Rate for the majority Israeli Jews is 2.90 and for minority (presently around 21% of the population) Israeli Arabs 3.73. Education in support of institutionalized discrimination and, of course, its actual consistent enforcement will, in turn, brutalize the dominant in-group. Since 1917 and the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, Zionists have purposely molded a discriminatory society for themselves. The behavior we now witness, both from the Israeli government and the majority of its Jewish citizens, is the abnormal and often criminal product of that effort. You reap what you sow.

The Outside Consequences

But, as we well know, things are even worse. The Zionists, through the use of their lobbies in the United States and Europe, have drawn the Western governments into their world. They have used money and political scare tactics to cause Western politicians and officials to support what the Israelis decree as normal and legal. And since the average voting Western citizen’s default position is one of ignorance and disinterest to happenings beyond their local sphere, there is little or no constituency counter pressure to this process of Zionist corruption. It is not only the “Pink Crime” internationals booking into Ariel who are aiding and abetting the breaking of international law, it is also just about every Western government. Things are pretty bleak.

Alas, none of this is very original. The great 18th century historian Edward Gibbon once commented that “history…is indeed little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind” (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2001 edition, page 335, section 6). Does that mean that Israel’s abnormal behavior is really normal? No, it does not. Mankind, even though historically prone to “crimes, follies and misfortunes” still knows them for what they are and can label them as behavior to be avoided and, when possible, punished. We do this all the time on the domestic front. What we need to do is start taking the breaking of international law as seriously as we do the breaking of domestic law. And, do so not just for the trespasses of the small time political crooks of the third world who end up before the International Criminal Court now and again. Enough with the double standards already! Go after the big time crooks, at home and abroad, who have the capacity to intimidate and manipulate our own governments. When it comes to that category of criminals one place to look is Israel.

Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University in West Chester PA.

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Why Does Saban Support Arab Spring?

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | Palestine Chronicle | May 20, 2011

‘The test of a first-rate intelligence,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, ‘is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.’ When it comes to what’s been dubbed the ‘Arab Spring,’ most Middle East analysts pass Fitzgerald’s test with flying colours.

Hardly anyone would dispute the claim that Haim Saban cares deeply about Israel. After all, the Egyptian-born Israeli-American media mogul has admitted to the New York Times, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” A New Yorker profile last year elaborated:

“His greatest concern, he says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship. At a conference last fall in Israel, Saban described his formula. His ‘three ways to be influential in American politics,’ he said, were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.”

The think tank part of Saban’s tripartite Israel-protection formula was initiated in 2002 with a pledge of nearly $13 million to the Brookings Institution to establish the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. In 2007, the Saban Center expanded operations with the launch of the Brookings Doha Center. Its Qatar-based project was inaugurated in February 2008 by the founding director of the Saban Center, Martin Indyk. A former research director at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Indyk had previously founded the AIPAC-created Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

All three experts at the Brookings Doha Center — its director, deputy director and director of research — are fellows at the pro-Israel Saban Center, while two of the three have close ties to Washington’s “democracy promotion” establishment. The center’s deputy director, Ibrahim Sharqieh, previously managed a long term USAID development project in Yemen, as well as a U.S. State Department Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) civic education project. According to a March 12 report in the Washington Post detailing U.S. support for Arab democrats, USAID grants “proved vital to activists in a half-dozen Arab lands,” financing, for example, the training by groups such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and Freedom House of up to 80 percent of the leaders of the Egyptian uprising. MEPI, according to an April 18 Washington Post report, has funneled up to $6 million to Syrian opposition groups since 2006. As further testament to Haim Saban’s contribution to Middle East democracy, MEPI is currently headed by Tamara Wittes, formerly director of the Saban Center’s Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project.

Shadi Hamid, the Doha center’s director of research, is aptly described as an expert on democratization in the Middle East. Prior to working for the Saban Center, he was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). CDDRL’s director, Larry Diamond, is the founding co-editor of the National Endowment for Democracy’s Journal of Democracy and a longtime advocate of Arab democracy. Hamid was also director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), whose board of advisors, reading like a who’s who of the democracy promotion establishment, includes Diamond and the NDI and IRI presidents. Hamid has also served as a program specialist on public diplomacy at the U.S. State Department. James Glassman, the former Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy who brought Middle Eastern pro-democracy activists to New York for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit in 2008, viewed public diplomacy as “the direct or indirect engagement of foreign publics to support national security objectives,” while observing that “it’s a lot easier to be influential when others are making the pronouncements.”

On its international advisory council, the Brookings Doha Center boasts such luminaries of democracy promotion as Madeleine Albright. The former U.S. Secretary of State currently chairs the NDI, the Democratic affiliate of the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy (NED). As Kenneth Timmerman candidly admitted in 2009, “The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.” During the protests in Egypt, Albright was interviewed by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, one of the corporate sponsors of Movements.org, the AYM’s online hub which supports the activities of pro-democracy digital activists. Considering her lack of scruples about the sanctions-induced deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children, Albright’s condemnation of the Mubarak regime’s brutality has to be taken with a grain of salt. More importantly, however, the NDI chair acknowledged that her democracy-promoting organization had been “working within Egypt for a long time.”

From the beginning of the Arab uprisings, the Brookings Doha Center has been churning out commentaries with titles like “Saleh Falls,” “In Syria, Assad Must Exit the Stage” and “If United States Doesn’t Make Qaddafi Go, Who Will?” which leave little doubt about their stance. In a recent Washington Post report, which reads more like an editorial in support of the Arab Spring, the center’s director, Salman Shaikh, warns, “If these Arab revolutions do become a footnote, and if people do become frustrated and see no light at the end of the tunnel, I don’t know where it could lead in terms of people thinking of al-Qaeda.”

Yet few Middle East observers seem to be asking: If the Arab Spring is backed so unreservedly by Haim Saban’s think tank, which was created to protect Israel, then how could it possibly threaten Israeli interests?

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Ameer Makhoul: One Year of Imprisonment

Ameer Makhoul, Gilboa Prison-2011

A year has passed since my imprisonment. My share has been more modest compared to other prisoners who are about to enter their fourth decade in Israeli prisons. It’s true, one should not differentiate between the sentences the same way we should not differentiate between the fighters for freedom – the sentence of the judges of oppression is always one of cruelty, terror and abuse. What is most important, however, is that it is always temporal.

Things in Palestine occur according to the following rule: the harsher the escalation of state sponsored terrorism, oppression, political persecution and deportation policies, the stronger is our steadfastness, challenge, remaining, preservation of our identity and commitment to our cause and dispossessed rights. They wish to fragment our cause according to geography and the color of identification cards, but our senses are never suppressed and our struggle for liberation is one in all of its components. While they continue to reproduce oppression, we reproduce freedom and break out of their vicious circle, transforming their actions into reactions to ours. Our right to Palestine, whether we are in our homeland or in exile, is one: the return, self-determination, ending the occupation, prisoners’ release, recovery of confiscated land, dismantling settlements and the apartheid wall, protection of Jerusalem, the Naqab, the Galilee and the coast from Judaization and eviction projects and breaking the Israeli blockade on Gaza- all these causes form part of our one cause.

But the struggle for our cause is not waged only by us Palestinians, for it is being complemented by the rebellions in the Arab world and the global BDS movement, succeeding in isolating Israel on both the Arab and international levels. These actions are nothing but an extension of the Palestinian anti-normalization movement inside Israel and of our struggle to strip the racist colonizing regime from its legitimacy.

Speaking on behalf of prisoners’ movement, I wish to allude to the dangers of the so-called security coordination between Israel and any Palestinian or Arab party. The victims of such coordination are, first and foremost, the fighters and prisoners of the freedom of Palestine and the Arab peoples. We call on the Arab peoples to stop the complicity of some Arab regimes with Israel on the so-called security-coordination level by launching an Arab and Palestinian campaign for this cause.

To spend one year in prison is a high price to pay for their unjust rule. However, free will has made of this year an act of steadfastness, challenge and struggle for our people. I here send a message of appreciation and love to all the people who call for my release, as well as to the popular committee for my defense and the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms, which has launched a campaign for my release from the very first moment when I was arrested. From inside the prison cells I also wish to greet my loving and supportive family, and to all those who are in solidarity with our cause, here and abroad, as individuals and the organizations they represent. They are in constant contact with me, and are partners in our struggle for liberation and freedom. What we seek, we the political prisoners, is freedom and not to accumulate more years of imprisonment. We were born free, and protecting our freedom is our responsibility.

On May 15th we commemorated the 63rd anniversary of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba. Our strength continues to stem from the justice of our cause and rights, which can be fulfilled only through struggle. To struggle for liberation, as well as to rebuild ourselves as people and institutions, is our right and obligation. As for the price that is paid- it will always be painful, whether it is individual or collective. Regardless of how painful it is, we will never deviate from the road to liberation and freedom of our people and land.

Their rule, not matter how long, is temporal, but our freedom is our destiny.

~

Ameer Makhoul is the General Director of Ittijah- Union of Arab Community-Based Organizations in Palestine 48 and president of the Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms of Palestinians 48. He is a Palestinian political prisoner who has been in prison since May 2010.

Translated to English by Shadi Rohana, Alternative Information Center (AIC

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israeli Occupation Forces raid Palestinian homes just to “get acquainted”

Palestine Information Center – 20/05/2011

NABLUS — IOF troops raided a number of Palestinian homes in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday to “get acquainted” with their residents.

The raids were concentrated in the Daheya neighbourhood to the east of the city and two of the homes raided belonged to the families of Jittan and Shaaban.

One of the owners of the homes raided told PIC correspondent that IOF soldiers raided his house at 2:00 am and that among the soldiers were intelligence officers and that one of those officers told him that they did not intend to arrest anyone, but they only wanted to “get acquainted.”

The Palestinian home owner further said that the officer introduced himself saying that his name was “Ali” and that he was in charge of that area. He further informed the head of the household that he wanted to “get acquainted” with him and his family.

The officer’s questions were concentrated about members of the family, what jobs they have and their financial situation. He also asked what Palestinians thought of the reconciliation agreement between Palestinian factions. The questioning lasted about an hour.

Such raids, “just to get acquainted”, have been frequently taking place in the West Bank and are causing great concerns among residents who do not know the real aim behind such raids.

May 20, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

US: PATRIOT Act Renewed

Press TV – May 20, 2011

Several controversial provisions of the nearly decade-old Patriot Act are about to expire, and US Congress has decided to extend them.
US Congress lawmakers have agreed to extend a series of controversial surveillance and search powers, known as the Patriot Act, in force since the 9/11, 2001 attacks.

The agreement calls for the extension of key powers of the act for an additional five years, AFP reports.

Under the arrangement, the Senate and House of Representatives will hold a vote on extending the controversial powers at the core of the act before they lapse on May 27, according to several congressional aides.

The officials said the vote would be “a clean extension” to June 1, 2015, meaning it would not include new civil liberties safeguards sought by some senior Republican and Democrat lawmakers.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached the accord with time running short before the provisions expire.

The measures include the use of wiretaps and tracking non-US citizens suspected of being “lone-wolf” terrorists, even if they are not affiliated to an extremist group.

It also allows law enforcement agencies to seize “any tangible thing” seen as critical evidence in an investigation, such as personal or business records.

The Patriot Act has generated a great deal of controversy since it came in force.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it undermines people’s basic rights.

US Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper urged top lawmakers in a January-28 letter to extend all three powers, and complained of frequent short-term renewals.

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | 4 Comments

Nakba Day demonstrations started by young school girls in Beit Ommar

Palestine Video

Video of Nakba demonstrations on May 15, 2011, in the West Bank village of Beit Ommar and nearby refugee camp of Aroub.

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Video | 1 Comment

Did Obama’s big speech offer any hope for Palestine?

By Ali Abunimah – Electronic Intifada – 05/19/2011

The New York Times was quick to spin Obama’s speech in ‘historic’ terms

“Obama Endorses 1967 Borders for Israel” as part of a “Broad Speech Rejecting Status Quo in the Middle East” – that was the instant spin on the front of The New York Times website within minutes of the president speaking.

But while President Barack Obama laid out in a little bit more detail a US “vision” of what “peace” would look like in his much anticipated speech on US policy in the Middle East and North Africa, there was precious little new.

Moreover, the speech affirmed that the United States will not take any effective action to advance its vision of a two-state solution.

The president covered broadly the uprisings in the Arab world and the American response to them, but I will look at the sections on Palestine – not necessarily in the order of delivery, but by theme.

The 1967 lines

What the president actually said was:

We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.

There is a world of difference between “the 1967 lines” and “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” It is sort of like the difference between “a true story” and a Hollywood movie “based on a true story.”

As the Palestine Papers showed, US-brokered negotiations for years were predicated on trying to reach such a result, and despite unprecedented Palestinian concessions agreeing to allow Israel to annex most of its settlements, no agreement could be reached.

Although it is true that the Obama administration previously adamantly refused to mention the term “1967 lines,” its doing so now is couched in such a vague formula that it does not contradict President George W. Bush’s April 2004 pledge on behalf of the United States to support Israel’s annexation of its West Bank settlements.

Moreover, as Palestinian Authority (PA) “chief negotiator” Saeb Erekat recently told The Electronic Intifada, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas remains fully committed to “land swaps” to allow Israel to keep its settlements even if the UN recognizes a Palestinian state “on the 1967 line.”

Shortly after Obama’s speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a grand-standing statement rejecting the 1967 borders as “indefensible.” He needn’t worry. There were enough loopholes in Obama’s speech to drive several large settlement blocs and perhaps even the entire Jordan Valley through.

Israel as a “Jewish state”

Obama has done it before, but once again he explicitly endorsed Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state”:

a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.

It is shocking that a president who constantly boasts that he is only in the White House because of the victories of the US Civil Rights movement against vile Jim Crow racism would endorse Israel’s demand to be allowed to discriminate against Palestinians. I explained in detail why Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state” is totally incompatible with democratic principles and human rights in a 2009 article in The Nation:

If Israel has a “right to exist as a Jewish state,” then what can it legitimately do if Palestinians living under its control “violate” this right by having “too many” non-Jewish babies? Can Israel expel non-Jews, fine them, strip them of citizenship or limit the number of children they can have? It is impossible to think of a “remedy” that does not do outrageous violence to universal human rights principles.

And indeed, recognizing Israel’s “right” consigns not only Palestinian refugees to the trash heap, but Israel’s own 1.4 million Palestinian citizens whom leading Israeli politicians like Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni and foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman view as a fifth column and hope to expel or denationalize.

Obama made a nod to this kind of racism when he warned that “The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River.” This was a coded reference to what Israelis openly term the “demographic threat” to a Jewish majority posed by the reality that Palestinians are once again becoming the majority population throughout historic Palestine. This is due to natural growth of Palestinians, a lower Israeli Jewish birthrate and the dearth of Jews around the world who wish to settle in historic Palestine.

In my 2009 article, I explained in American terms why this is unacceptable and racist:

What if we apply Israel’s claim to the United States? Because of the rapid growth of the Latino population in the past decade, Texas and California no longer have white majorities. Could either state declare that it has “a right to exist as a white-majority state” and take steps to limit the rights of non-whites? Could the United States declare itself officially a Christian nation and force Jews, Muslims or Hindus to pledge allegiance to a flag that bears a cross? While such measures may appeal to a tiny number of extremists, they would be unthinkable to anyone upholding twenty-first-century constitutional principles.

Yet this is precisely the nightmare vision Obama is endorsing for Israel which has become increasingly bold in its passage of new laws discriminating against non-Jews, and is in the grip of state-funded rabbis calling for Jews to shun and boycott non-Jews and refuse to rent or sell homes to them.

Hamas

The president said:

the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.

On its face this might appear to be a softening of Obama’s long-standing rejectionism of any dealings with Hamas in that he’s not calling for an immediate aid cut-off to the Palestinian Authority. He appears to be giving the Palestinians time. But it still looks certain that the ultimate US response will depend on whether Hamas submits – as Fatah has done – to Quartet conditions.

Always more sensitive to Israelis

If this was a speech intended to woo an Arab audience, then it is notable that Obama displayed the typical bias characteristic of American officials. He was very graphic and vivid about Israeli suffering and victimhood, while vague and evasive about the vastly greater terror Palestinians have experienced under Israeli rule. Reflecting on decades of conflict, Obama said:

For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them.

Aside from its visceral language, this formulation feeds the myth that hostility to Israel is primarily a result of Arabs being “taught to hate,” when in fact if Arabs do hate Israel it is a result of Israeli actions. Israel teaches Arabs to hate Israel. Contrast the president’s words on the other side:

For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.

That’s it? Toward the end of the speech, the president did mention “the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas” and “a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza” – but this was only to offer an example of a Palestinian who decided to let bygones be bygones despite Israel’s ongoing actions.

The president would never dream of actually supporting efforts to hold Israel accountable. Indeed, he vowed:

Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums.

Clearly the president cannot risk offering sympathy to Palestinians proportionate to their actual suffering. As he has learned before, this would risk offending the Israel lobby which demands that American politicians always portray Israel as the principal victim. Recall that during the 2008 campaign Obama once accidentally let slip that “Nobody is suffering more than Palestinians” but later “clarified” that he meant they were suffering at the hands of their own leaders, not Israel.

Obama vows to continue its inaction and condemns Palestinians taking action

Putting the merits of Obama’s “vision” aside, what will the president actually do to advance it? Before he laid out the details, Obama said:

Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them – not by the United States; not by anybody else.

What this means in translation is that the United States will not put any pressure on Israel to change its behavior – such as forcing it to stop building settlements. But Obama will continue to support lop-sided “negotiations” between local superpower Israel and a Palestinian Authority that is actually dependent on Israel for its mere survival (as Israel’s recent withholding of PA tax funds shows). No peace, let along a just one, can emerge from such “negotiations.”

Palestinians must sit on their hands

During his speech, the president also warned:

For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.

The reference to “delegitimization” appears to be a coded condemnation of the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, a growing nonviolent campaign to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. That’s out.

The bid to get Palestine recognized as a state is a desperate effort by the PA to seek international support in the face of intransigent US bias toward Israel. That’s out too.

Next the president tells Palestinians to reject “terror.” Ok, fair enough. And indeed elsewhere in his speech Obama was fulsome in his praise for “nonviolence.”

But what happened when tens of thousands of Palestinians peacefully marched for their human rights, including their right to return to Palestine even if they are not Jewish, last Sunday on Nakba Day? Israel gunned down more than a dozen people and the White House endorsed its actions.

So as far as Obama is concerned Palestinians have no options but to turn to negotiations that have proven utterly fruitless as even he acknowledged.

Soon after Obama was elected in 2008, I predicted that his tenure – despite high expectations everywhere else – would not produce any progress toward the mythical “two-state solution.” I see no reason to change that assessment.

But I concluded then, as I do now, that “This does not however mean that the situation will remain static or that those pursuing a just peace have no recourse for action.”

Indeed as recent months have shown throughout the region, the fates of nations are in the hands of their own citizens, not those of the American president.

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | 2 Comments

Settlement Activity in the Old City of Hebron

Uploaded by Alhaqhr on May 17, 2011

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | 1 Comment

FBI plans, interview questions discovered in raided activist’s home

Maureen Clare Murphy – Electronic Intifada – 05/18/2011

Activists in the Twin Cities today announced at a press conference that they were releasing a recently-found document that was left behind by federal agents when they raided Mick Kelly and Linden Gawboy’s Minneapolis home on 24 September 2010.

The FBI confirmed to the Associated Press that the documents appear to be authentic and were accidentally left behind during the raid.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression said in a statement:

FBI agents, who raided the home of Mick Kelly and Linden Gawboy, took with them thousands of pages of documents and books, along with computers, cell phones and a passport. By mistake, they also left something behind; the operation plans for the raid, “Interview questions” for anti-war and international solidarity activists, duplicate evidence collection forms, etc. The file of secret FBI documents was accidently mixed in with Gawboy’s files, and was found in a filing cabinet on April 30. We are now releasing them to the public.

The press conference was held at the office of the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, which was raided the same day as the Kelly-Gawboy home. It is believed that the key used to raid the office was one that had belonged to a woman known as Karen Sullivan, now confirmed to be an undercover agent, and whose word appears to be the basis for the investigation.

The investigation has so far targeted 23 activists — several homes in the Twin Cities and Chicago were raided on 24 September 2010 and 14 activists were subpoenaed that month. After they refused to testify before a grand jury, nine more activists — all of them active in the Palestinian community or involved in Palestine solidarity work — in Chicago were subpoenaed, including myself (I believe I have been subpoenaed because of my solidarity organizing in Chicago, not because of my work with The Electronic Intifada). All 23 of us have refused to testify before the grand jury.

Last week we reported that bank accounts of one of the targeted activists, Palestinian community organizer Hatem Abudayyeh, and his wife were frozen but restored after a flood of phone calls were made to protest the move.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression statement adds:

Taken as a whole, the secret FBI file shows the willful disregard for the rights of anti-war and international solidarity activists – particularly the first amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. The documents make it clear that legal activity in solidarity with the peoples of Colombia and Palestine is being targeted. The documents use McCarthy-era language, which gives one the feel that the 1950s red scare has returned. And finally, the documents show the chilling plans for the armed raid that took place at the home of Kelly and Gawboy on September 24, 2010.

The documents show that public advocacy for the people of Colombia was the genesis of the FBI investigation. The ‘Operations Order’ for the FBI SWAT Team states “The captioned case was initially predicated on the activities of Meredith Aby and Jessica Rae Sundin in support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a U.S. State Department designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), to include their travel to FARC controlled territory.”

While we have no way of knowing if it was speaking tours or educational events on Colombia that got them so riled up, there is something we can state with certainty: There is nothing illegal about traveling to Colombia, or visiting the areas where the FARC is in charge. This is something that journalists, including U.S. journalists, do, and we have yet to hear of their doors being broken down. Upon returning from Colombia, Aby and Sundin spoke at many public events about their experiences.

The FBI interview questions for Meredith Aby ask “1) Have you ever met Lilia [sic] Obando? 2) Where? 3) When? 4) Why?” Liliana Obando is a well-known Colombian trade unionist who spoke in the Twin Cities at an event organized by the Anti-War Committee. She received a visa to travel in the U.S. from the U.S. government.

In addition to focusing on associational information and travel to Palestine and Colombia, the interview questions focus on the Freedom Road Socialist Organization:

The FBI documents include 57 interview questions about Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the organization that some of those who were raided or subpoenaed to the Grand Jury are members of. The questions include; “Are you a member?” “How many members are there?” “Who are the leaders?” And on and on and on. It is like pages of the calendar have been turned back 60 years.

The documents also show the amount of force used to raid the anti-war and social justice activists’ home. The committee says in the statement:

In the documents, the “Operations order” for FBI SWAT for “Operation Principal Parts” the raid on the Kelly/Gawboy home has the word “DANGEROUS” in underlined bold type at the top of the page. FBI agents were told to bring assault rifles, machine guns and two extra clips of ammunition for each of their side arms. Two paramedics were to stand by in the event of causalities. Other documents include photos of Kelly and Gawboy, as well as pictures of stairs leading to their front door and the front door itself.

What transpired on September 24 was this. Gawboy was awoken by the FBI pounding on the door. When she stated she wanted to see the search warrant, agents used a battering ram on the door, breaking the hardware and shattering a fish tank in the process. Gawboy was taken down the front steps in her nightgown while the FBI swat team entered her home.

The justification for this armed home invasion is given in the “Operations plan” – “Kelly is believed to be the owner of an unknown number of firearms which may be at his residence…”

Kelly, who learned to shoot while in Boy Scouts, owns guns – just like a lot of Minnesotans. The “Operation Plan” also claims that Kelly “offered to provide weapons training” – an outright lie that originated with the police infiltrator “Karen Sullivan” or a fiction writer at the FBI office.

Those of us who have been ensared in this fishing expedition have claimed from the beginning that activists are being targeted for organizing in opposition to US foreign policy in the Middle East and South America, and because of first-amendment activity like travel and association. The interview questions confirm that this is the focus.

Imagine being asked any of the following questions — all listed in the document — knowing that if you are not able to answer them completely, you could be vultnerable to perjury or contempt-type charges (emphasis mine):

“Have you, anyone from FRSO [Freedom Road Socialist Organization], or anyone you know, ever traveled to South America?”

“Have you, anyone else from FRSO, or anyone you know, ever traveled to the Middle East? Gaza? West Bank? Israel?”

And some questions are just incredible, like:

“Have you ever taken steps to overthrow the United States government?”

“What is your husband’s immigration status?”

“What do you think of terrorist groups? Do you support them?”

“Have you ever recruited fighters to the FRSO?”

As the Committee to Stop FBI Repression concluded in its statement today:

The bottom line is this: there can be no justification for the raid in the first place, and still less for it to be done by agents smashing doors and wielding machine guns. This is a recipe for people getting hurt or killed.

The events of September 24 and the ongoing grand jury are not about “material support of terrorism,” as any normal person would understand it. What is happening is this: anti-war and international solidarity activists are being targeted for practicing our rights to speak out and organize. We have done nothing wrong. Our activism is making this world a better place.

The documents left behind by federal agents can be downloaded from stopfbi.net.

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Arab League Silences Libyan TV

By Thomas C. Mountain | Sri Lanka Guardian | May 19, 2011

The new supremo of the Arab League kept his promise, the first he was to make, and has chopped off the head of Libyan television, so to speak, by blocking any further Libyan government satellite television broadcast by the middle east and Africa’s most watched network, Arabsat.

By the time I arrived home for lunch on Tuesday, May 17 and my thrice daily dose of Al Jammahariya TV all five Libyan government satellite channels had gone dark.

No more splinted, bandaged and sewn back together Libyan children clutching Muammar Gaddafi’s picture with one cast encased arm while the other is raised in that signature Libyan clenched fist salute.

No more images of blood splattered bed sheets in pediatric wards where victims of previous bombings were shredded by flying glass blown in on them from NATO bombs next door.

No more scenes of Muammar Gaddafi driving through the smoke shrouded streets of Tripoli standing in the open sunroof of a SUV, almost daring NATO to do its worst.

And no more press conferences with Libyan Imams standing side by side with their Christian brethren, raging at the world for allowing the NATO crusaders to slaughter men of peace who had gathered to try and end the bloodshed of Libyan against Libyan.

I cant say I was surprised when the ax dropped for I had been wondering for months now that those that only know “rule by force” in the Arab world didn’t realize how much damage they were inflicting on themselves by allowing their subjects to see what the USA and NATO’s wrath had wrought on a long peaceful Arab people in North Africa.

Arab Awakening? No, the revolution in the third world is Arabsat via satellite dishes popping up like mushrooms all over Africa, south Asia and the middle east. With hundreds of channels to choose from including the likes of Al Manar of Hezbollah, Al Jammahariya from Libya, and of course, the unchallenged elephant on the airwaves, Al Jazeera, broadcasting from the home of an absolute monarch, the Emir of Qatar.

Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general has little meaning to those Egyptians from the poorest of the most desperately poor neighborhoods of Cairo who were the first to pour into Tahir Square in protest against the hated Mubarak regime. When one cannot afford to buy your daily bread or sugar for your morning tea life quickly becomes unendurable and those of enough means to own a laptop find fertile ground for their Facebook based protests. And even if the internet and cell phone service is cut, somewhere in even the most squalid slums and shantytowns there will be a satellite dish and a television screen showing the exploding anger of those like themselves who have nothing left to lose.

Arab street or Arab sheep? Satellite news channels can inform or disinform. One must only see how the Libyan rebels hit the big time to see how dangerous the propaganda arms of hereditary rulers can be, especially when their message falls on ears only to eager for change, any change, no matter the disastrous consequences for themselves and their neighbors.

Still, there is something about seeing with ones own eyes and hearing with ones own ears that allows one to try to best judge what is and what isn’t true. After a lifetime of strictly controlled propaganda, we finally have a choice, maybe limited, but a choice of what propaganda we would try and digest. An important part of that choice is gone now that Libyan TV is off the satellite airwaves.

So farewell to the battle cries of the foes of the NATO crusaders, the voice of Libya for LIbyans one might say, axed by the new Prince of the Arab League. I for one, will miss you.

~

Thomas C. Mountain can be reached at thomascmountain@yahoo.com

May 19, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | 1 Comment

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