Nouakchott – The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, paid a formal visit to Mauritania last Thursday and signed several bilateral agreements meant to improve economic ties between the North African state and the oil-rich Emirate.
However, various political disputes between the two countries quickly caused tensions. The emir, who received a warm welcome upon his arrival, left the country only a few hours later without any formal farewell ceremony.
This has led to speculation on the reasons why the normal protocol concerning formal ceremonies, that is strictly adhered to during such visits, was not followed.
It was no secret that the signing of the economic agreements was not the sole reason behind the emir’s visit.
Qatar and Mauritania are at odds over a number of issues, particularly Doha’s hosting of ousted Mauritanian President Muawiya Ould Tayeh.
Furthermore, foreign policy positions of the current Mauritanian government contradict Qatari positions, particularly with regard to Libya and the Syrian crisis.
Nouakchott opposed NATO intervention in Libya, which Doha backed.
President Mohammad Ould Abdel Aziz was among the African leaders who worked to the last minute in order to find a settlement between Muammar Gaddafi and the rebels in Libya.
In regard to Syria, Mauritania’s current government is a strong ally of the Syrian-Iranian axis. This alliance was established following the cancellation of normalization policies with Israel that existed during the rule of the Ould Tayeh.
Several Arab nationalist Mauritanian parties that make up the Support of the Resistance and Defense of Syria Front have issued a statement condemning the visit of the emir to their country.
“It is with great regret that we follow the conspiracy of the emir and his band against the security and stability of our Arab countries, and his open and blatant involvement in striking against the resistance centers and conspiring against its liberation project in order to serve the Zionist-American-Western project that aims to tear our Arab countries apart.
“They want to allow this project to remain in command and in control of our national destinies in order to sustain their looting and exploitation.”
Mauritanian observers believe that there are political dictates behind the cooperation agreements, which they see as an attempt to influence the Mauritanian position on Libya and on counter-terrorism in the Sahara, in addition to convincing Nouakchott to disengage from its strategic alliance with the Syrian-Iranian axis.
The package of 13 agreements singed by the two heads of state covers banking, employment, the environment, and housing, among other issues.
However, sources close to the Mauritanian presidential palace stated that “all these political issues were discussed openly and frankly.”
They denied reports indicating that there had been a conflict over certain aspects of the agreements which resulted in the emir’s departure without any formal farewell.
These sources explained that “the reasons behind the disagreement are related to internal Mauritanian affairs. The emir demanded that the Mauritanian president launch democratic reforms, particularly reconciliation with the Islamic currently led by Sheikh Mohammad al-Hassan Ould Dedew.”
This raised the Mauritanian president’s ire, who viewed this as an unacceptable interference in the country’s internal affairs.
An article in Ha’aretz today (‘Judaization of the Negev at any cost’) covers the recently announced plan by the Israeli government to establish 10 new communities not far south of the Green Line in the north of al-Naqab (Negev).
While officially the initiative is about ‘developing the periphery’ and lowering house prices, a moment of candour by a high-ranking Jewish Agency (JA) official confirms what has already been suspected. Quoted in a report by the Knesset’s Research and Information Centre, the JA’s director-general of settlement division Yaron Ben Ezra said:
The goal of the plan is to grab the last remaining piece of land and thereby prevent further Bedouin incursion into any more state land and the development of an Arab belt from the south of Mount Hebron toward Arad and approaching Dimona and Yeruham, and the area extending toward Be’er Sheva.
Last year, the government was not quite as explicit, instead describing the new towns as part of a “Zionist vision for making the Negev flourish”. But it should be no surprise that the proposal targets Bedouin citizens, given that it was drawn up by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Housing and Construction Ministry. Netanyahu has described Palestinians in Israel as a “demographic problem”, while Housing Minister Ariel Atias sees it as “a national duty” to “prevent the spread” of the Arab minority.
It is not the first time that JA officials have been honest about this sort of ‘development’. In 2002, the body announced its aim of securing a “Zionist majority” in the Negev and Galilee, with the then-JA treasurer Shai Hermesh admitting that the reason for the Negev plan is
to get around the problem that the government must act on behalf of all citizens of the State of Israel while the WZO is entitled to act for the sake of the Jewish people.
And all of this in the Middle East’s only democracy.
Contact: Thomas Neumann, Executive Director, JINSA
202-833-0020
This Goes Beyond Bin Laden
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2001 – In the face of horrendous acts of terrorism against the United States, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) calls on the American government and on all world leaders to be decisive in their actions to confront the terrorists and their supporters, who rely on our taking half measures in response.
We must begin by condemning them and their organizations by name; we know who they are. Osama Bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are only the most prominent. The countries harboring and training them include not just Afghanistan – an easy target for blame – but Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Algeria and even our presumed friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
We must make them believe there is not one inch of soil on the planet that is a haven or training ground for them.
The United States can have no political relationship with any country or group whose citizens celebrate the death of innocent Americans. There is nothing to justify dancing in the streets and rejoicing over an American tragedy. This behavior tells us who our friends are, and who wishes our mortal enemies well.
A long investigation to prove Osama Bin Laden’s guilt with prosecutorial certainty is entirely unnecessary. He is guilty in word and deed. His history is the source of his culpability. The same holds true for Saddam Hussein. Our actions in the past certainly were not forceful enough, and now we must seize the opportunity to alter this pattern of passivity.
In response to the attack on September 11, 2001 JINSA calls on the United States to:
• Halt all US purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food Program and to provide all necessary support to the Iraq National Congress, including direct American military support, to effect a regime change in Iraq.
• Bomb identified terrorist training camps and facilities in any country harboring terrorists. Interdict the supply lines to terrorist organizations, including but not limited to those between Damascus and Beirut that permit Iran to use Lebanon as a terrorist base.
• Revoke the Presidential Order banning assassinations.
• Overturn the 1995 CIA Directive limiting whom the U.S. can recruit to aid counter-terrorism in an effort to boost our human intelligence.
• Freeze the bank accounts of organizations in the US that have links to terrorism-supporting groups and their political wings. Ask other countries and financial institutions to do the same.
• Demand that Egypt and Saudi Arabia sever all remaining ties with Osama Bin Laden, including ties with Saudi-sponsored nongovernmental organizations and groups abroad that raise money for Bin Laden and other terrorist organizations.
• Suspend US Military Aid to Egypt while re-evaluating Egypt’s support for American policy objectives, and re-evaluate America’s security relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States unless both actually join in our war against terrorism.
• Ensure that American technology, arms, technical support and personnel are not supplied to countries that do not fully support American objectives regarding terrorism, and through which terrorists might acquire American materiel. Ask our allies and other countries to undertake similar restrictions.
• Reassess the visa process by which nationals from hostile nations are permitted to enter the United States. And tighten controls at the Canadian and Mexican borders to prevent access by people without appropriate documentation.
• Strengthen American law enforcement efforts to identify and eliminate terrorist cells operating in the United States.
• Take immediate steps to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
The terrorists who struck on Tuesday changed the physical and political landscape of America. We in JINSA trust that our government and our people will make them regret that day.
Aletho News notes that the original source link is no longer active and that the full content can therefore not be ascertained, however The Guardian published excerpts from the release which can be referenced at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/01/usa.georgebush
Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.
Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.
Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.
Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.
The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.
The development out of the DHS comes at the same time that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob Applebaum and other advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.
Last month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.
The website Fast Company reports that the intel collected by the Department of Homeland Security under the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been happening since as early as 2010 and the data is being shared with both private sector businesses and international third parties.
Qatar has suggested that Western agents join the Arab League delegation team in Syria to monitor the unrest in the country.
On Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers will review the first report by their observers two weeks after the bloc’s delegation arrived in the country on December 26.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani claimed the Arab League observer mission in Syria has deviated from its goals, saying that monitors could not stay in Syria to “waste time.”
He added that the Arab League observer mission in Syria has made “some mistakes.”
Meanwhile, France and the US have slammed what they call the impotence of the league’s observers and asked for their exit from Syria.
The Persian Gulf kingdom has been at the forefront of criticism of Syria and has pushed for Arab League sanctions against Damascus.
Doha has reportedly built up a strong army of hundreds of Wahhabi forces to help overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The heavily-equipped forces known as the Free Syrian Army have taken up positions in northern Syria, near the border with Turkey.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March and the UN said more than 5,000 people have been killed in the country over the past nine months.
Damascus says over 2,000 of those killed were members of its security forces.
The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing protesters. Damascus blames ”outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.
In this book, translated from German, Murat Kurnaz, a German Turk, tells his tragic story. When only nineteen and an apprentice shipbuilder, while taking time off in Pakistan for religious study, he was hauled off a bus and imprisoned for a short time before being `sold’ to the US Administration for $3,000. This was a bargain – the Americans were offering $5,000 – $25,000 to locals for anyone suspected of being Taliban or Al Qaeda. With such tempting offerings, many innocent men – usually foreigners – were gladly exchanged for the money which converted into huge amounts in the local currency.
Murat was sent first to a prison camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan and then later to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In both places he was repeatedly and relentlessly tortured. Among other things he was constantly beaten, often for no reason, he was water boarded, he was electrically shocked on the soles of his feet, he was hung from the ceiling by his arms tied behind him for hours on end, he was deprived of sleep for weeks at a time, he was forced to stand for days, he was starved, he was force fed, he was put in an air-tight metal container and subjected to extreme heat and cold and of course there were the months of solitary confinement. In Guantanamo he came across prisoners as young as 14 and a few even in their 80s and 90s.
Like all the books on Guantanamo, there is almost a shock a page. Besides the main tortures listed above, what I found almost as deplorable was how vindictive, sadistic and cruel the soldiers were to the detainees in little ways, all the time and always there were endless lies. Also appalling were Murat’s descriptions of female soldiers in one of the camps, watching while naked male prisoners defecated in a communal bucket in the open pen. And in Guantanamo, scantily dressed young women rubbed themselves against him and made sexual suggestions. One wonders if their male superiors ordered them to do this or if they thought up these little torments themselves. But it should also be said that a few guards treated the detainees with basic decency.
At the end of the book we learn that the Administration knew 6 months into Murat’s capture that he was innocent, but kept him on, continued the torture and even made wild accusations against him – presumably to save face. After 5 years when he was finally to be sent back to Germany, on the way out they made a last ditch effort to make him sign a statement saying he was either Taliban or Al Qaeda or he must stay in Cuba. He refused.
How do we know all this is true? Having read so many similar accounts from so many prisoners of many different nationalities and languages, from different cell blocks, who could not have collaborated, I am convinced that what is described is essentially what happened. The Epilogue, written by his American attorney, Baher Azmy, a law professor in New Jersey, is excellent.
Murat was robbed of part of his youth with no explanation or apology so it is hardly surprising he felt compelled to tell his story. He finishes with – “We have to tell the world how Abdul lost his legs and how the Moroccan captain lost his fingers. The world needs to know about the prisoners who died in Kandahar. We have to describe how the doctors came only to check whether we were dead or could stand to be tortured for a little longer.”
Arab League foreign ministers gathered Sunday to discuss and assess their Syria mission amid a wide criticism for their performance.
The ministerial committee on Syria was to meet in Cairo, where the Arab League has its headquarters, to be briefed by the head of the mission, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, according to AFP.
The Arab League ruled out considering a withdrawal of observers. “The option of suspending the monitors’ mission is not on the table and the mission will continue as more Arab nations are sending experts to join the mission,” the League said.
The head of the League will recommend beefing up the mission, which currently has 165 observers, said Ali Erfan, a senior adviser to the Arab League chief. Arab League officials have consulted with the United Nations about the situation in Syria, he said.
Led by Qatar, an Arab League committee on Sunday was to review a report about the mission.
Dabi, a Sudanese former military intelligence chief, said it was too early to judge the mission. “This is the first time that the Arab League has carried out such a mission,” he told Britain’s Observer in an interview. “But it has only just started, so I have not had enough time to form a view.”
The Arab League has admitted to “mistakes” but defended the mission, saying it had secured the release of prisoners and the withdrawal of tanks from cities. It said rather than pull out, it planned to send more observers. “No plan to withdraw the observers is on the agenda of the Arab ministerial committee meeting on Syria,” the bloc’s deputy secretary general, Adnan Issa, told AFP on Saturday.
Sunday’s meeting comes as heavy clashes broke out before dawn between the Syrian army and deserters, leaving 11 of its soldiers dead, according to human rights activists.
Hundreds of French people have taken to the streets in the city of Clermont-Ferrand to denounce the police’s heavy-handed tactics against residents.
Over five hundred people attended the silent march on Saturday to show their support for Wissam El-Yamini, a thirty year old man who went into coma following his arrest on New Year’s Eve.
Scores of young residents also staged a sit-in protest outside the city’s police station, holding a banner that said “No one above law, stop burr, we are all with you Wissam”.
Wissam was violently arrested on the night of December 31 by two officers near a shopping center in the district of Gauthière.
According to the local police, Wissam went into coma after having a heart attack while he was being transported to the police station.
The incident has provoked violent riots across Clermont-Ferrand. During the last two nights, angry protesters set fire to more than thirty vehicles across the city.
BETHLEHEM — Israel has been refusing to clear a minefield in the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, for decades, the village’s municipal council chairman, Jamal Sabatin, said.
He told Quds Press on Saturday that the minefield, which was planted in 1950, had killed six citizens and seriously wounded 15 others, who had their limbs amputated.
Sabatin said that the American society “Roots of Peace” had set up a plan on Friday to remove those mines but the plan was pending Israeli approval, charging that Israel has been adamantly refusing all plans to demine that field.
He said that international reports indicated that hundreds of thousands of mines were planted by the Israeli forces in various Palestinian areas.
THE U.S. Department of State has spent $200,826,000 on programs directed against Cuba since 1997, according to Just the Facts, a civic organization which tracks government spending on defense and security in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The investigation, carried out between 2009 and 2010, was undertaken after the effectiveness of programs related to Cuba was questioned, the majority of which are implemented by the USAID – U.S. Agency for International Development.
Over the last few years, USAID has paid this organization in Washington, D.C. at least $1.47 million to audit its Cuba programs.
Journalist Tracey Eaton, who maintains a blog entitled Cuba Money Project, requested a copy of the audit report through the Freedom of Information Act in March of 2011.
The USAID responded in early December, sending her just 10 pages from the report, omitting the majority of the findings, recommendations and other key information, including the identities of beneficiaries of the assistance projects audited.
“It is difficult to believe that an audit which cost $1.47 million would not leave more of a paper trail, but let’s suppose it’s true. This would mean that the10 pages published cost taxpayers close to $150,000 each,” commented Eaton.
Just the Facts is a key resource for three non-governmental organizations of legislators, journalists, trade union leaders and figures within civil society concerned about U.S. military assistance to Latin American countries. Its critical contribution is a data bank of detailed information about U.S. funded military and economic projects undertaken since 1996.
As Iowans were casting their ballots in the state’s Jan. 3 caucuses, CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash interviewed an American soldier who had just cast his vote for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Army Cpl. Jesse Thorsen explained that he was excited by Paul’s ideas, including “bringing the soldiers home.” When Bash stated that “some Republicans out there have been saying that Ron Paul will be very dangerous for this country” for that very reason, the 28-year-old soldier replied that he didn’t think “nitpicking wars with other countries” was necessarily a good idea. When Thorsen began to get specific, the audio suddenly starting breaking up. Viewers heard “Iran” and “Israel is more than capable”—before Thorsen’s words vanished from the airwaves altogether.
The mainstream American media have made a concerted effort to ignore or dismiss Paul’s foreign policy platform, which includes an end to U.S. foreign aid, including (gasp!) to Israel. (Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY], explicitly stated that in an earlier interview with Blitzer.) A look at the background of Blitzer and Bash might provide a useful context.
Blitzer is a former employee of AIPAC, Israel’s behemoth Washington, DC lobby (see former Sen. James Abourezk’s “Wolf Blitzer, AIPAC, and the Saudi Peace Initiative” in the July 2007 Washington Report, p. 16). The CNN anchor also is the author of Territory of Lies: The Exclusive Story of Jonathan Jay Pollard: The American Who Spied on His Country for Israel and How He Was Betrayed (the title seeming to imply that it was Pollard, rather than his native country, who was betrayed).
Senior congressional correspondent Bash joined CNN as Dana Schwartz, her maiden name. Her father, Stu Schwartz, is a senior broadcast producer at ABC News and her mother, Frances Weinman Schwartz, is, according to Wikipedia, “an educator in Jewish studies and author of the book, Passage to Pesach, and co-author with Rabbi Eugene Borowitz of two books, Jewish Moral Virtues and A Touch of the Sacred.” In 1998 the CNN correspondent married her first husband, Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to Leon Panetta in his capacities as both defense secretary and former CIA chief. The son of the chief rabbi of the Arlington Fairfax (VA) Jewish Congregation, Bash was chief minority council to the House Intelligence Committee when the pro-Israel Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) was its top Democrat prior to the 2006 elections. The Bashes divorced in 2007. The following year Dana Bash married fellow CNN congressional correspondent John King, who converted to Judaism prior to their marriage.
A lawsuit over alleged anti-Semitism at the University of California Berkeley has been dismissed in its preliminary stages.
The case was dismissed after a district judge determined that students had accused the university’s administrators of allowing an “anti-Semitic climate” to develop on campus failed to support their claims.
On 22 December in San Francisco, US District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled in favor of a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In his ruling, Seeborg stated that “plaintiffs have failed to allege facts supporting a claim that defendants have violated plaintiffs’ legal or other constitutional rights or that they have legal duty to take further action to control the conduct of other persons.”
The lawsuit, which was filed on 18 May 2011 by Jessica Felber, a 2010 UC Berkeley graduate, and Brian Maissy, a current UC Berkeley student, and members of UC Berkeley’s Zionist student organization Tikvah, alleged that the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA) “threaten and endanger the health and safety of the University of California’s Jewish Students.”
The plaintiffs referred to the MSA, SJP and the Muslim Student Union (MSU) — an organization that actually does not exist on UC Berkeley’s campus — as “the anti-Semitic/anti-Israel MSA, SJP and MSU.”
The centerpiece of the suit was an incident that Felber claimed to have occurred in March 2010. Felber alleged that an SJP member rammed into her with a shopping cart as she demonstrated on the campus’ well-known protest area, Sproul Plaza, during “Israeli Peace and Diversity Week.” The suit went on to invoke a long list of other supposedly similar or related incidents in which the MSA, SJP and other Muslim student organizations from other UC campuses allegedly committed acts of violence and harassed Jewish students and individuals.
No coherent or plausible argument
The lawsuit was dismissed during the motion to dismiss phase, in which the judge rules on the assumption that all information presented by the plaintiff is true, requiring no discussion or investigation of the accuracy of the plaintiffs’ claims.
A portion of the lawsuit was examined under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Seeborg stated in his ruling that nothing in the complaint “shows any deprivation of plaintiffs’ ‘freedom of assembly’ at all. Additionally, from the facts presently alleged, it is far from clear that any person interfered with plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion.”
The judge added, “some courts have allowed public colleges to outlaw harassing speech and conduct that interferes with students’ rights, but schools have no legal duty to do so” (“UC Berkeley students’ anti-Semitism suit dismissed,” San Francisco Chronicle, 26 December 2011).
Another portion of the claims are brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. These claims were also dismissed though Seeborg’s ruling allows plaintiffs twenty days to amend (until 11 January 2012). Seeborg’s ruling explains that plaintiffs’ claims fail to show that the events presented in the complaint had indeed interfered with students’ access to educational services.
Overall, the ruling reveals the completely ludicrous nature of the complaint and its frivolous use of the law. However, since the litigation excludes MSA and SJP as defendants in the suit, the organizations are provided no opportunity to respond to the allegations made against them.
Propagating false allegations
In general, the complaint links together the activities of all Muslim student groups as well as California SJP and SJP-National together as if the groups are officially and strategically coordinated with one another. The suit lists occurrences on the UC Berkeley campus alongside incidents on several other University of California campuses as evidence of the administration’s encouragement of SJP and MSA’s “campus terrorist incitements.”
In the official complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the alleged incident in which Felber was assaulted by an SJP member on Sproul Plaza was the product of the defendants’ failure to “effectively discipline the MSA and SJP for their pro-terrorist programs, goals and conduct” on the UC Berkeley campus as well as across the UC system. The complaint repeatedly refers to “the SJP, MSA and MSU,” claiming that the MSA is also known as the MSU, when in fact, there is no official strategic coordination between different chapters of the MSA or MSU nationally.
This tactic of mis-naming and mis-grouping sought to blur the lines of national, cultural, religious, ideological and political association to the end of constructing an imaginary rivalry between Muslims (used in the lawsuit as a “catch-all” including Palestinian solidarity activists of all backgrounds, all people of “Middle Eastern” origin, Muslims of all ranges of religiosity) and Jews.
In the context of this fabricated rivalry, all criticism of Israeli policy is anti-Semitic and therefore illegitimate.
Additionally, the suit alleges that SJP is the “militant arm” of the MSA, while in fact there is no formal coordination between the two groups other than co-sponsorship of some campus events.
Furthermore, SJP itself is not a “Palestinian activist group” as the complaint states. Its members are from a wide range of backgrounds, the majority of which are non-Arab and non-Muslim. In general, the leadership of SJP in the past five and a half years of its existence as a registered UC Berkeley student organization has reflected a majority of non-Arab and non-Muslim individuals, though the demographics shift from year to year.
The suit also conflates “Jewish” with “Zionist” in claiming that “anti-Zionist” equals “anti-Semitic,” disregarding the existence of the anti-Zionist Jewish voice — a voice that has been strong within SJP since its registration with the Associated Students of the University of California in the spring of 2005.
Of course, this abuse of the legal system in suppressing Palestinian solidarity activism both on and off university campuses is nothing new. Only after twenty years were charges against the Palestine solidarity activists dubbed the “LA 8” dropped for allegedly raising money for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
In 2001, the US government used the courts to shut down the Holy Land Foundation, formerly the largest Muslim charity in the US, and the group’s founding members remain imprisoned on terrorism charges.
Dr. Sami al-Arian remains under house arrest to this day, awaiting a judge’s ruling on charges of criminal contempt based on his humanitarian relief and advocacy work.
And most recently, the court system has been used to convict a group of students at UC Irvine — known as the Irvine 11 — of conspiracy charges for exercising their most basic first amendment rights when they protested the speech of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren in February 2010.
Students not deterred
Despite intimidation, student groups across the country and the around world continue to speak out against injustices and repression at home and abroad. From the efforts of students to realize the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to the Occupy movement within which the slogan “Occupy (fill in the blank), not Palestine” has arisen.
The endless list of demonstrations and victories for BDS and the Palestinian solidarity movement include numerous student campaigns and actions.
In May of 2010, DePaul University’s Student Government Association passed a resolution to replace Sabra hummus products with an alternative brand in campus dining halls. One co-owner of Sabra provides financial support and supplies to two Israeli military units implicated in human rights abuses, the Golani and Givati brigades.
On 26 October, 2011, a walk-out at the University of Michigan left 15 audience members in the room to hear a speech given by Israeli deputy consul Ishmael Khaldi. And in the UK, the National Union of Students unanimously passed a motion demanding an immediate end to King’s College London’s involvement in an EU-funded research project with the Israeli cosmetics firm Ahava in November of this year.
No less can be expected of university students across the globe in the Spring of 2012 with the upcoming 8th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), an action that gains presence on more campuses every year. In 2010, the first IAW was organized in the occupied West Bank.
As has been the case throughout history, students will remain at the forefront of movements for change despite attempts to discourage and brutalize. The Palestine solidarity movement is no exception.
Dalia Almarina is a Bay Area native. She is a recent alumnus of Cal Students for Justice in Palestine.
Previously I argued whether Saudi Arabia’s repeated involvements in U.S. interventions and wars stem from free national will or in response to a specific condition. For starters, in Saudi Arabia there is no national will. In Saudi Arabia, the national will is the will of the Al Saud clan. Still, when a major Arab state allies itself with a superpower that committed unspeakable crimes against humanity in almost every Arab country, then something is wrong. This fact alone should compel us to examine the U.S.-Saudi relation for one exceptional reason. As a result of the U.S.-Saudi wars, hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia have lost their lives. Millions became displaced in their own homelands. And millions more rendered refugees.
Attributing the Saudi policies to the bonds of “partnership” with the U.S. is frivolous. There are no bonds between these two thugs except those of business, military deals, secret plots, and wars. Proving this point, bonds such as these have no space for the American and Saudi peoples to share significant cultural or societal exchanges. If partnership is not the reason for the Saudi contribution to the U.S. strategy of empire and imperialism, then another reason must exist.
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