8,000 US troops remain in Iraq
Press TV – December 28, 2011
Some 8,000 US troops have remained in Iraq despite Washington’s plan for the complete withdrawal of US forces by the turn of 2011, Press TV reports.
The troops, along with 14 warplanes, 125 helicopters and 28 drones, are mainly based in Iraq’s Kurdistan region in the north.
US troops have been stationed in Jordan and some Persian Gulf Arab countries as well as some new locations in Kuwait after leaving Iraq while a small number of them have returned to the United States, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The last US military base was handed over to Iraqi officials on December 16. However, Washington is reportedly seeking to pose threats against Iran by maintaining its troops’ presence in Iraq’s Kurdistan.
According to the report, a delegation of US military and security officials met with leaders of the anti-Iranian group of Komala at its headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. The delegation was headed by an American general working for the US Consulate in Kurdistan’s capital Arbil.
US military officials have also held meetings with leaders of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group with the aim of stirring up violence and terrorist operations.
The PKK launched an armed campaign against Turkey in 1984 in a quest to force an independent Kurdish state in the southeast of the country.
Spoiling for a Fight with Syria and Iran
By Stephen Lendman | December 28th, 2011
Syria remains the region’s only independent secular state. Washington aims to replace its regime with a client one.
Libya’s model was replicated. Months of externally generated violence followed. So far it’s short of war. For how long is uncertain. Obama can’t wait to wage another one to keep ravaging the world one country at a time.
Months of violence, sanctions and isolation have taken a toll. Deaths mount. No one knows how many. Western media reported numbers come from opposition forces, not independent observers. Nothing they say is reliable.
Assad’s government says 2,000 security forces have been killed. “Terrorist gangs” are blamed. Whatever the actual number, they’ve been many. Heavily armed insurgents are responsible. Conflict resolution isn’t imminent.
Syria’s economy deteriorates steadily. In 2011, its GDP collapsed 30% – from around $55 billion to $37 billion. Its currency also plunged from 47 to 62 to the dollar. Basic goods and services are in short supply. Heating and cooking oil are scarce. Electricity is on and off.
Assad’s regime is weakening. National institutions are eroding. Opposition forces are locally organized. Neighborhood committees and armed groups were formed. At issue is usurping state power despite divisions of strategy, especially over peaceful or violent conflict resolution and pro or con advocacy for outside intervention.
After months of turmoil, heightened fear prevails. On December 23, Syrian state television reported two suicide car bombings, the first ones in Damascus since conflict began. Kfar Sousa district was targeted. It’s where state security and intelligence facilities are located. Heavy gunfire followed. Syria reported 40 or more killed and 100 wounded.
The attacks came a day after 60 Arab League observers arrived. They’re an advance monitoring team with hundreds more to come. Whether they’ll help or hurt is uncertain. More on that below.
Their mission will last a month unless renewed. It wants all security forces withdrawn from urban areas and detainees released. Nothing is said about heavily armed insurgent terrorists doing much of the killing. Conflict resolution depends on stopping all of it equitably.
Of concern is that monitors are a step short of occupation. It’s reminiscent of events preceding NATO’s 1999 Serbia/Kosovo war. In March 1999, Slobodon Milosovic got an unacceptable ultimatum, the so-called Rambouillet Agreement. It was a take-it-or-leave it deal no responsible leader would accept.
It involved surrendering Serbia’s sovereignty to NATO occupation with unimpeded access throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), including its airspace and territorial waters. Moreover, NATO demanded use of areas and facilities therein for its mission, irrespective of FRY laws.
It also required Milosevic’s full cooperation. It was an offer designed to reject. War, mass destruction and slaughter followed. Serbia’s sovereign Kosovo territory was lost. It’s now Washington/NATO occupied territory, run by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, an unindicted drug trafficker with known organized crime ties.
Washington, Israel, and key NATO partners have similar designs on Syria. War’s perhaps planned. Pro-Western Arab League despots supported NATO’s Libya war, mass slaughter and destruction. At the same time, they ignore ongoing atrocities in Bahrain, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, elsewhere in the region, and internally.
Calls for military intervention are increasing. In late November on CNN’s State of the Union, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice accused Assad of “driving his country to the brink of civil war. (He’s) no friend of the United States.”
“Syria is the handmaiden of the Iranians throughout the region and so the fall of (Assad) would be a great thing not just for the Syrian people….but also for the policies of the United States and those who want a more peaceful Middle East.”
She also called for tough sanctions, isolation and intervention, adding that if Russia and China won’t agree, “then we (and allies) have to do it on our own.” Stopping short of suggesting war, the implication is striking.
A Syrian National Council (SNC) was established. It’s similar to Libya’s puppet Transitional National Council (TNC). Originally formed in 2005, it was revived on August 23, 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. It represents Western-backed internal opposition elements against the rights and interests of most Syrians.
It called for a Libyan-style no-fly zone and foreign intervention. It supplies intelligence to Washington and other Western nations. If unconventional tactics fail, stepped up violence and war remain options.
Since early 2011, NATO countries used regional bases to provide anti-regime support. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon’s March 14 alliance, Turkey, Jordan and Israel are financing and arming insurgents.
So far, Russia and China blocked a Libyan-style “humanitarian intervention.” Washington, however, wants regime change. Huge challenges remain to stop it.
SNC members want the Security Council to establish “protected zone” cover in violent prone areas. Free Syrian Army (FSA) security force defectors and insurgents also want no-fly zone protection and foreign military involvement. Deferring so far from direct NATO action, Washington backs Turkey and Arab League partners intervening.
America’s Media War on Syria
A New York Times attack piece is typical. On December 22, its editorial headlined, “Get Tougher on Assad,” saying:
After months of conflict, Assad’s “still killing his people. And leaders in Russia, China and Arab states still haven’t done enough to pressure him to stop.” Claiming 5,000 unsubstantiated deaths, The Times blames “the brutal government crackdown in nine months of protests.”
Fact check
Unmentioned was Washington’s long planned regime change, replicating the Libya model, replacing an independent regime with a client one, and using heavily armed insurgents to destabilize Syria violently.
Assad’s willingness to dialogue with opposition elements “seems like another ploy to buy time as he tries to beat Syrians into submission.”
Fact check
Throughout the conflict, Assad made conciliatory offers. Opposition forces dismissed them out of hand, much like Libya’s TNC rejected Gaddafi’s overtures earlier.
On state television several times since last spring, Assad promised reforms. In June, he announced a 100-member panel to draft parliamentary election law changes, press freedoms, and a new constitution. He also said he’d prosecute those responsible for violence.
“There is little reason to believe Mr. Assad will allow (Arab League) observer(s) unrestricted access to all conflict areas (and be free to) make all of its findings public.”
“Meanwhile, Russia is still tying the… Security Council in knots and preventing it from doing what it should have done months ago (through) tough economic and trade sanctions,” condemnation, and more. Assad “left no doubt that he is willing to destroy his country to maintain his hold on power, which would be a disaster for the region.”
The Times stopped short of endorsing war. Expect it if NATO intervenes directly or indirectly. When Washington’s involved militarily, America’s media march supportively in lockstep without debate on who benefits and loses, rule of law issues, and other right and wrong considerations.
Throughout the AfPak, Iraq and Libyan conflicts, disputing their legitimacy was verboten.
Instead, Times and other major media opinion pieces suppress truths and manipulate public opinion to support Washington/NATO attacking nonbelligerent countries lawlessly. Perhaps Syria and Iran are next.
Target Iran
Matthew Kroenig titled his Foreign Affairs January/February 2012 article, “Time to Attack Iran.” Doing so let his advocacy pose as analysis.
Harvard International Affairs Professor Stephen Walt called his article “a textbook example of war-wongering disguised as analysis. It is a remarkably poor piece of advocacy… This is not fair-minded ‘analysis;’ it is simply a brief for war designed to reach a predetermined conclusion.”
In his article, Kroenig said waging war is “the least bad option. (For years), American pundits and policymakers have been debating whether the United States should attack Iran and attempt to eliminate its nuclear facilities.”
“Proponents (say) the only thing worse than military action (is) Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Critics” warn doing so won’t work and “would spark a full-fledged war and a global economic crisis.
Fact check
Iran’s not aggressive or imperial. It poses no regional threat. It hasn’t attacked another nation in over 200 years. It maintains a strong military for self-defense. It’s vital given repeated Washington and Israeli threats.
No evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program. US intelligence assessments through March 2011 found none.
During his December 1, 1997 – November 30, 2009 tenure as IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei concurred. Current head, Yukiya Amano, politicized IAEA policy for Western interests, mainly America’s.
Washington manipulated his appointment. He was enlisted to lie. He hasn’t disappoint. Ahead of his report suggesting an Iranian nuclear weapons program, he visited Washington for instructions.
“….(S)keptics of military action fail to appreciate the true danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to US interests in the Middle East and beyond… The truth is that a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically improve the long-term national security of the United States.”
Kroenig’s a former Secretary of Defense Office strategist. He’s also a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow. CFR is an influential US organization. From its 1921 beginnings, it’s advocated one-world government run by dominant financial interests.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called it a “front organization (for) the heart of the American establishment.” It meets privately and publishes only what it wishes the public to know. Since 1922, Foreign Affairs has been its flagship publication.
Its members represent imperial Washington’s interests, including its longstanding objective for unchallenged global dominance. Achieving it depends on replacing independent regimes with client ones and eliminating all military and economic rivals.
War’s a frequently used option. Waging it against Iran could embroil the entire region and threaten general war, possibly with nuclear weapons.
In his rage to attack nonbelligerent Iran lawlessly, Kroenig omitted the possibility and said nothing about Israel being nuclear armed and dangerous.
He represents imperial America’s quest for world dominance, even if destroying it happens in the process.
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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Israeli navy attacks international observers, injures Palestinian, on monitoring boat in Gaza waters
Civil Peace Service Gaza | 28 December 2011
Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA)
At 10:55 am, an Israeli naval warship attacked the international observers and Palestinian captain of the Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) boat Oliva, injuring its captain in an apparent attempt to capsize it.
“The Israeli navy passed near us and the fishermen, and started to go around us, creating waves,” said Rosa Schiano, one of the international observers. “The fishermen escaped, but we couldn’t because of a problem with our engine. We couldn’t move, and they went around us very quickly. The Israelis saw that we couldn’t move, and that the captain was trying to fix the engine, but they didn’t stop. We told them, ‘Please stop! Please stop!’ But they didn’t.”
When the warship was two meters away from the Oliva, one of the waves it had created nearly capsized the small boat, filling it with water and causing the Palestinian captain to fall out, injuring his left leg.
“Their intentions were to do something very bad,” said international observer Daniela Riva. “Coming so close to us was very dangerous, and they obviously knew that.”
After more than twenty minutes, the warship retreated, and the Oliva was rescued by a small Palestinian fishing boat, or hasaka, which threw it a line and towed it toward the shore.
Background
Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.
During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).
The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.
The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009.
Wall Street Journal “Determines” Russian Election a “Fraud”
Admits “statistical studies can’t prove vote fraud” but US-funded Golos “data” corroborates conclusion
By Tony Cartalucci | Activist Post | December 28, 2011
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), going to extraordinary lengths to prove a foreign election “fraudulent,” claims to have written a “computer program that downloaded 2,957 web pages posted on Russia’s Central Election Commission website.” They then claim they used another program to mine pages “for precinct-level data extracting outcomes for 95,228 precincts spread across 2,745 electoral commissions.” The Wall Street Journal then had “experts” in “election fraud and statistics” look at the data finding what they called, “the fingerprints of fraud.”
In Wall Street Journal’s article, “Russia’s Dubious Vote,” the authors admit that “the analysis doesn’t in itself prove fraud in Russia’s Dec. 4 parliamentary elections.” But the WSJ then cites “local and international observers,” that corroborate their findings of “fraud” with claims of ballot-box stuffing, vote falsification, and other violations. The only organization WSJ is able to cite by name, however, is US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded GOLOS.
In, “US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections,” GOLOS was noted as being the key “observer” cited across Western media in an attempt to portray the Russian elections as “stolen,” a similar ploy that has been used throughout color revolutions since the ’80s and in particular during the last year of US-backed destabilization also known as the “Arab Spring.” However, GOLOS owes its existence to the US government and in turn the banking oligarchs of Wall Street and London who have been trying in vain to dislodge Russia’s Vladimir Putin from power for years.
Indeed, something is “dubious” about Russia’s elections, namely the concerted, overeager campaign by the West to portray them as fraudulent, to lend ammunition to their stable of US-funded NGOs and opposition leaders now taking to the streets in Moscow, and the Wall Street Journal’s insistence that “local and international observers” back their recent “analysis” but failed to name any beyond a US-funded propaganda front, GOLOS.
That the WSJ disingenuously insisted that GOLOS was “Russia’s main independent election-monitoring group” despite receiving its funding from the US government — hardly independent by any stretch of the imagination — calls into question the alleged computer program they wrote to draw the conclusions they have presented.
A computer program can be written to render any result desired, as the recent “Climate Gate” hoax has proven. It is then only the integrity of those carrying out the analysis and presenting the results that determine the possible veracity of their conclusions. Since the Wall Street Journal makes such overt misrepresentations, such as GOLOS being “independent” when they are clearly, admittedly funded by the US government, indicates that the WSJ lacks such integrity. Instead, they are but the most recent corporate-media propaganda front to jump on the Wall Street-London battlewagon on its way to Moscow.
Wall Street Journal’s Conclusions are Fraudulent as are the Protest Leaders in Russia’s Streets
Meanwhile, Christmas Eve protests in Moscow were once again led by verified agents of Western sedition, namely Alexei Navalny, according to an AP report titled, “Alexei Navalny, Key Engine Behind Russian Protests.” Called a “corruption-fighting lawyer and popular blogger” by AP, who unlike Wall Street Journal, skipped feigned analysis and jumped right to labeling the elections as “shameless falsification,” Navalny is portrayed as a force of reform against a corrupt system.
And while Alexey Navalny is renowned for “exposing corruption,” at least when profitable, those researching his background begin unraveling his own insidious, compromised agenda. Alexey Navalny was a Yale World Fellow, and in his profile it states:
Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies, including Gazprom, Bank VTB, Sberbank, Rosneft, Transneft, and Surgutneftegaz, through the Union of Minority Shareholders. He has successfully forced companies to disclose more information to their shareholders and has sued individual managers at several major corporations for allegedly corrupt practices. Navalny is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement and was vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party YABLOKO. In 2010, he launched RosPil, a public project funded by unprecedented fundraising in Russia. In 2011, Navalny started RosYama, which combats fraud in the road construction sector.
The Democratic Alternative, also written DA!, is indeed a National Endowment for Democracy fund recipient, meaning that Alexey Navalny is an agent of US-funded sedition and willfully hiding it from his followers. The US State Department itself reveals this as they list “youth movements” operating in Russia:
DA!: Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.”
Alexey was involved directly in founding a movement funded by the US government, and to this day has the very people who funded DA! defending him throughout Western media. (For more information, please see, “Wall Street Vs. Russia.”)
It becomes clear then, that the AP report has misidentified the real “engine” behind the Russian protests. It is not Navalny, but rather Wall Street and London via organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy. It is safe to say that yet again we are watching unfold a “revolution” created from whole cloth not by the aspirations of the Russian people, but by the disingenuous “democracy promoting” forces of Wall Street and London bent on destabilizing Russia, undermining the Kremlin, and either extracting concessions from Russia, especially regarding Syria, or even going as far as replacing entirely the Russian government for one more servile like that of Yelsin’s and the corrupt oligarchs that succeeded him.
The NDAA Repeals More Rights
Ron Paul – December 26, 2011
Little by little, in the name of fighting terrorism, our Bill of Rights is being repealed. The 4th amendment has been rendered toothless by the PATRIOT Act. No more can we truly feel secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects when now there is an exception that fits nearly any excuse for our government to search and seize our property. Of course, the vast majority of Americans may say “I’m not a terrorist, so I have no reason to worry.” However, innocent people are wrongly accused all the time. The Bill of Rights is there precisely because the founders wanted to set a very high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty. To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured.
The PATRIOT Act, as bad is its violation of the 4th Amendment, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) continues that slip toward tyranny and in fact accelerates it significantly. The main section of concern, Section 1021 of the NDAA Conference Report, does to the 5th Amendment what the PATRIOT Act does to the 4th. The 5th Amendment is about much more than the right to remain silent in the face of government questioning. It contains very basic and very critical stipulations about due process of law. The government cannot imprison a person for no reason and with no evidence presented or access to legal counsel.
The dangers in the NDAA are its alarmingly vague, undefined criteria for who can be indefinitely detained by the US government without trial. It is now no longer limited to members of al Qaeda or the Taliban, but anyone accused of “substantially supporting” such groups or “associated forces.” How closely associated? And what constitutes “substantial” support? What if it was discovered that someone who committed a terrorist act was once involved with a charity? Or supported a political candidate? Are all donors of that charity or supporters of that candidate now suspect, and subject to indefinite detainment? Is that charity now an associated force?
Additionally, this legislation codifies in law for the first time authority to detain Americans that has to this point only been claimed by President Obama. According to subsection (e) of section 1021, “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” This means the president’s widely expanded view of his own authority to detain Americans indefinitely even on American soil is for the first time in this legislation codified in law. That should chill all of us to our cores.
The Bill of Rights has no exemptions for “really bad people” or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. That is not a weakness in our legal system; it is the very strength of our legal system. The NDAA attempts to justify abridging the bill of rights on the theory that rights are suspended in a time of war, and the entire Unites States is a battlefield in the War on Terror. This is a very dangerous development indeed. Beware.
Another BDS success: Joker cancels Tel Aviv show
By Uri Yaacobi Keller | Alternative Information Center | December 27, 2011
After the Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign opened his eyes to the harsh reality of the occupation, British dubstep artist Joker cancelled his Tel Aviv show. The small but significant victory for BDS shows the inroads the movement is making around the globe.
Joker (photo: flickr/Passetti)
Let’s start with the bottom line: the British dubstep performer Joker canceled his show in Israel. And it’s possible to say that he did so because of a campaign by Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, who created a Facebook group and contacted Joker.
Compared to other artists who have cancelled appearances in Israel or have supported BDS – such as Devendra Banhart, Elvis Costello or Roger Waters – Joker is not a “big name.” But his cancellation is highly significant for a number of reasons.
A young English dubstep producer who hails from Bristol, Joker has become one of the genre’s biggest international stars and performed in Tel Aviv several years. But this time around, a cultural boycott campaign was waged in the UK, indicating that the BDS movement has expanded and is now taking on lesser known artists and not just those who in the mainstream.
Joker’s cancellation exemplifies the power of new social networks. At a certain point, there seemed to be a “war of words” between those who support the boycott and those who are opposed to it, with Joker in the middle. In such a “battle,” which is a debate between activists, right and left, it is possible that boycott supporters have an advantage over officials or diplomats representing states or organizations.
The Israeli responses to the call for boycott have been almost solely based on the claim that “there’s no connection between music and politics.” Joker emphasized that he is, indeed, only a musician and that all that interests him – other than dubstep – is riding bikes and nothing else. His reasoning for the cancellation, as published on his Twitter account, was that the cultural boycott campaign opened his eyes to certain things. He said that while he had indeed appeared in Tel Aviv in the past, he didn’t have the information about racism that he does now, after the campaign.
Joker’s reaction is consistent with his non-political position. It should be a lesson to Israelis: Joker, as opposed to many Israelis, did not know about the reality which takes place in the Occupied Territories, just a short distance from Tel Aviv. The new information, however, led him to act in a non-political manner. Joker did not proclaim support for the BDS movement, but he also did not arrive in Israel. He apparently understood, unlike the Israeli clubbers who tried to fight the boycott with the “separation between politics and music” argument, that once the question of boycott was raised, a performance in Israel would become a deeply political act.
In the wake of the cancellation, the Israeli event organizers claimed that Joker had received threats on his and his girlfriend’s life. Since the Israeli organizers are the only source of this claim—Joker’s Twitter feed, the BDS campaign, and no news source hinted at this–it can be assumed that this is a lie intended to excuse the artist’s cancellation. The fact that someone – and an appreciated international artist at that – objectively chose to boycott Israel is apparently still a taboo that most Israelis cannot accept.
Translated by the Alternative Information Center.
Confronting intimidation, working for justice in Palestine
Ilan Pappe | The Electronic Intifada | 27 December 2011
Demonstration in commemoration of the killing of Mustafa Tamimi, Nabi Salih, West Bank (16 December 2011). (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)
If we had a wish list for 2012 as Palestinians and friends of Palestine, one of the top items ought to be our hope that we can translate the dramatic shift in recent years in world public opinion into political action against Israeli policies on the ground.
We know why this has not yet materialized: the political, intellectual and cultural elites of the West cower whenever they even contemplate acting according to their own consciences as well as the wishes of their societies.
This last year was particularly illuminating for me in that respect. I encountered that timidity at every station in the many trips I took for the cause I believe in. And these personal experiences were accentuated by the more general examples of how governments and institutions caved in under intimidation from Israel and pro-Zionist Jewish organizations.
A catalogue of complicity
Of course there were US President Barack Obama’s pandering appearances in front of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, and his administration’s continued silence and inaction in face of Israel’s colonization of the West Bank, siege and killings in Gaza, ethnic cleansing of the Bedouins in the Naqab and new legislation discriminating against Palestinians in Israel.
The complicity continued with the shameful retreat of Judge Richard Goldstone from his rather tame report on the Gaza massacre — which began three years ago today. And then there was the decision of European governments, especially Greece, to disallow campaigns of human aid and solidarity from reaching Gaza by sea.
On the margins of all of this were prosecutions in France against activists calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and a few u-turns by some groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Europe caving in under pressure and retracting an earlier decision to cede connections with Israel.
Learning firsthand how pro-Israel intimidation works
In recent years, I have learned firsthand how intimidation of this kind works. In November 2009 the mayor of Munich was scared to death by a Zionist lobby group and cancelled my lecture there. More recently, the Austrian foreign ministry withdrew its funding for an event in which I participated, and finally it was my own university, the University of Exeter, once a haven of security in my eyes, becoming frigid when a bunch of Zionist hooligans claimed I was a fabricator and a self-hating Jew.
Every year since I moved there, Zionist organizations in the UK and the US have asked the university to investigate my work and were brushed aside. This year a similar appeal was taken, momentarily one should say, seriously. One hopes this was just a temporary lapse; but you never know with an academic institution (bravery is not one of their hallmarks).
Standing up to pressure
But there were examples of courage — local and global — as well: the student union of the University of Surrey under heavy pressure to cancel my talk did not give in and allowed the event to take place.
The Episcopal Bishops Committee on Israel/Palestine in Seattle faced the wrath of many of the city’s synagogues and the Israeli Consul General in San Francisco, Akiva Tor, for arranging an event with me in September 2011 in Seattle’s Town Hall, but bravely brushed aside this campaign of intimidation. The usual charges of “anti-Semitism” did not work there — they never do where people refuse to be intimidated.
The outgoing year was also the one in which Turkey imposed military and diplomatic sanctions on Israel in response to the latter’s refusal to take responsibility for the attack on the Mavi Marmara. Turkey’s action was in marked contrast to the European and international habit of sufficing with toothless statements at best, and never imposing a real price on Israel for its actions.
Do not cave in to intimidation
I do not wish to underestimate the task ahead of us. Only recently did we learn how much money is channeled to this machinery of intimidation whose sole purpose is to silence criticism on Israel. Last year, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs — leading pro-Israel lobby groups — allocated $6 million to be spent over three years to fight BDS campaigns and smear the Palestine solidarity movement. This is not the only such initiative under way.
But are these forces as powerful as they seem to be in the eyes of very respectable institutions such as universities, community centers, churches, media outlets and, of course, politicians?
What you learn is that once you cower, you become prey to continued and relentless bashing until you sing the Israeli national anthem. If once you do not cave in, you discover that as time goes by, the ability of Zionist lobbies of intimidation around the world to affect you gradually diminishes.
Reducing the influence of the United States
Undoubtedly the centers of power that fuel this culture of intimidation lie to a great extent in the United States, which brings me to the second item on my 2012 wish list: an end to the American dominance in the affairs of Israelis and Palestinians. I know this influence cannot be easily curbed.
But the issue of timidity and intimidation belong to an American sphere of activity where things can, and should be, different. There will be no peace process or even Pax Americana in Palestine if the Palestinians, under whatever leadership, would agree to allow Washington to play such a central role. It is not as if US policy-makers can threaten the Palestinians that without their involvement there will be no peace process.
In fact history has proved that there was no peace process — in the sense of a genuine movement toward the restoration of Palestinian rights — precisely because of American involvement. Outside mediation may be necessary for the cause of reconciliation in Palestine. But does it have to be American?
If elite politics are needed — along with other forces and movements — to facilitate a change on the ground, such a role should come from other places in the world and not just from the United States.
One would hope that the recent rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah — and the new attempt to base the issue of Palestinian representation on a wider and more just basis — will lead to a clear Palestinian position that would expose the fallacy that peace can only be achieved with the Americans as its brokers.
Dwarfing the US role will disarm American Zionist bodies and those who emulate them in Europe and Israel of their power of intimidation.
Letting the other America play a role
This will also enable the other America, that of the civil society, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the progressive campuses, the courageous churches, African-Americans marginalized by mainstream politics, Native Americans and millions of other decent Americans who never fell captive to elite propaganda about Israel and Palestine, to take a far more central role in “American involvement” in Palestine.
That would benefit America as much as it will benefit justice and peace in Palestine. But this long road to redeeming all of us who want to see justice begins by asking academics, journalists and politicians in the West to show a modicum of steadfastness and courage in the face of those who want to intimidate us. Their bark is far fiercer than their bite.
The author of numerous books, Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.
70,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites to be re-classified as West Bank citizens
SILWANIC | December, 2011
Jerusalem mayor Nir Barakat has announced that the city Municipality will now classify 70,000 citizens of Jerusalem as non-residents, furthering the right wing Israeli campaign to achieve a Jewish majority in East Jerusalem. Seventy thousand Palestinian residents already cut off from the rest of Jerusalem by Israel’s Apartheid Wall will now be cast out on paper as well, with their affairs turned over from the Municipality to the Israeli military’s West Bank civil administration.
Palestinian Jerusalemites vehemently reject the segregation of their city, criticizing the “false justification of security that Israeli authorities peddle in order to take over our lands and separate us from our families – amidst a disgraceful silence from the international community.”
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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