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Abe Lincoln, Racist Fascist?

By MICHAEL DICKINSON | CounterPunch | February 9, 2013

I’m going to the cinema tonight in Istanbul to see Steven Spielberg’s biopic, ‘Lincoln’. The other choices of films in English this week are ‘Django Unchained’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’. I’ll catch them later. I’m not expecting much from ‘Lincoln’ apart from some excellent performances and great camera-work. From what I’ve heard, we’re presented with the standard loveable father figure that Americans are indoctrinated from childhood to believe in – the sanctified image of the simple country lawyer from Illinois who heroically defended his country and freed the slaves – not the unscrupulous fascist that he really was.

The fact of the matter is that ‘Massa Lincoln’ was a die-hard racist. When he said “all men are created equal” he meant all WHITE men.

This quotation from a speech he made in Charleston in 1858 shows how he really felt:

“I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.”

Over and over again he stated that he was opposed to equality of the races. He was not an abolitionist, he denigrated and distanced himself from them. In 1862 in a letter to the New York Tribune Editor he wrote:

“If I could save the union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the union.”

And in the same year, addressing a meeting of freed black leaders at the White House, Lincoln said:

“But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men on either side do not care for you one way or another. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoys. It is better for us both to be separated.”

Not only was Lincoln a racist who supported the noxious pre-Civil War “Black Laws,” which stripped African-Americans of their basic rights in his native Illinois, as well as the Fugitive Slave Act, which compelled the return to their masters of those who had escaped to free soil in the North, he was a white-supremacist whose projected plan for dealing with racial problems was ‘colonization’ – the deportation of all American blacks to Africa, Haiti, or Central America – anywhere but the United States, which would be for whites only. If Lincoln had had his way there would be no black people in America today.

The idea of deporting the blacks from the country was that of his fellow-fascist friend Henry Clay, upon whose plan, ‘The American System’, or ‘Everyone for Himself at the Expense of his Neighbour!, the Lincoln regime had been built – consolidating massive power in the hands of a small cabal of manufacturers, bankers, and politicians at the expense of the rest of society, and which called for a regimen of high tariffs, federal support for “internal improvements” such as road building and railroads, corporate welfare, and a national banking system based on fiat money. ‘Honest Abe’ eulogized Clay as “the beau ideal of a statesman,” noting that: “During my whole political life, I loved and revered [Clay] as a teacher and leader.”

In fact, despite President Obama’s reverence for Lincoln as the ‘Great Emancipator’, it doesn’t take much research to uncover him as he really was – a political opportunist, a corrupt corporate insider and a lifelong mercantilist.

Lincoln ruled over an oppressive police state under which a military draft was implemented; income tax was introduced for the first time to help finance a Civil War that killed 620,000 young men; dissenters were imprisoned without trial; ‘habeus corpus’ was suspended in some regions; and legal documents were authored which paved the way for corporations to becoming recognized as the equivalents of “legal persons.”

Before his career as a politician Abraham Lincoln had served as a corporate attorney for some of the biggest interests in Illinois, including “Big Rail”- the prevailing corporate interests of his day, a governmental pie of railroad subsidies in which all the big Republican Party Cats had their fingers. As president he championed protectionism and corporate welfare schemes where the force of law was used to benefit a select group of politicians and their cronies, signing legislation that virtually gave away miles of public land to the railroads for free. His son, Robert Todd Lincoln, went on to a successful career as the president of the Pullman Car Company.

It’s no secret that President Obama is a big fan of ‘Honest Abe’. He made the announcement that he was running for president in Springfield, Illinois, on the steps of the Old Capitol, where Lincoln was a legislator; he traveled to Washington by retracing the final stages of the train trip Lincoln made to assume his presidency; the Bible last used for Lincoln’s oath of office was used for his swearing-in; the theme of his inauguration was taken from a line in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “A New Birth of Freedom”.

Lerone Bennett Jr, executive editor of popular black-oriented Ebony magazine describes the whitewashing of Abraham Lincoln as “one of the most extraordinary efforts I know to hide a whole man and a whole history, particularly when that man is one of the most celebrated men in American history.”

How can Obama support such a charlatan racist as his role model? Is it because he exists in a political environment largely inherited from the Lincoln era where enriching oneself and one’s friends while hiding behind a smokescreen of “humanitarian” propaganda is the norm – a government of the poor by the rich and for the rich?

Although he has never been really poor in his own life himself, in his autobiography an admiring Obama wrote: “In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat – in all this, he reminds me of my own struggles. I find him a very wise man. There is a wisdom there and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful.”

But what would Lincoln have thought about the idea of a black man as the president of the United States of America? Most likely he would have been astounded – and appalled.

Michael Dickinson can be contacted at his website – http://yabanji.tripod.com/

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yet Another Estimate of When Iran Will Have the Bomb

By Kevin Jon Heller | Opinio Juris | January 29, 2013

McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016.  That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 — around six months from now.  But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or three years away from nuclear capability, so I think it is useful to recall and update the timeline I mentioned early last year of breathless Israeli and Western claims about Iran’s nuclear program:

1984: West German intelligence sources claim that Iran’s production of a bomb “is entering its final stages.” US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.

1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells the Knesset that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

1995: The New York Times reports that US and Israeli officials fear “Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought” – less than five years away.  Netanyahu claims the time frame is three to five years.

1996: Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres claims Iran will have nuclear weapons in four years.

1998: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims Iran could build an ICBM capable of reaching the US within five years.

1999: An Israeli military official claims that Iran will have a nuclear weapon within five years.

2001: The Israeli Minister of Defence claims that Iran will be ready to launch a nuclear weapon in less than four years.

2002: The CIA warns that the danger of nuclear weapons from Iran is higher than during the Cold War, because its missile capability has grown more quickly than expected since 2000 – putting it on par with North Korea.

2003: A high-ranking Israeli military officer tells the Knesset that Iran will have the bomb by 2005 — 17 months away.

2006: A State Department official claims that Iran may be capable of building a nuclear weapon in 16 days.

2008: An Israeli general tells the Cabinet that Iran is “half-way” to enriching enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon and will have a working weapon no later than the end of 2010.

2009: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak estimates that Iran is 6-18 months away from building an operative nuclear weapon.

2010: Israeli decision-makers believe that Iran is at most 1-3 years away from being able to assemble a nuclear weapon.

2011: An IAEA report indicates that Iran could build a nuclear weapon within months.

2013: Israeli intelligence officials claim that Iran could have the bomb by 2015 or 2016.

The McClatchy articles quotes an Israeli intelligence officer as asking “Did we cry wolf too early?” That’s amusing: Israel (and the West) have been crying wolf over Iran’s nuclear capability for nearly three decades.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

David Brooks Flunks International Relations Theory 101

By Daniel Warner | NYTX | February 10, 2013

David Brooks’ op-ed piece in the February 9 International Herald Tribune – the global edition of the New York Times – is an insult to any serious student of international relations and political theory as well as to Yale University. As part of a course at Yale on Grand Strategy that he is “taking part in” – Brooks does not say if he is a student in the course or teaching the course – the editorialist wheels out the 16th century Florentine political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince  to justify the use of drones. Citing passages often used by Realists to justify whatever action fits their aims above and beyond moral considerations, Brooks says that “in the real world, a great leader is called upon to create a civilized order for the city he serves. To create that order, to defeat the forces of anarchy and savagery, the virtuous leader is compelled to do hard things, to take, as it were, the sins of the situation upon himself…Sometimes bad acts produce good outcomes. Sometimes a leader has to love his country more than his soul.”

Brooks’ caricature of Machiavelli allows him to pose a dilemma that has appeared regularly in Realist literature as a binary division between idealism and realistic power politics that is now couched in terms of using drones. “Do I have to be brutal to protect the people I serve? Do I have to use drones, which sometimes kill innocent children, in order to thwart terror and save the lives of my own?” Brooks asks. The political theorist Michael Walzer wrote about this dilemma as “The Problem of Dirty Hands”.

If I were grading Brooks as a student, I would begin by noting in the margins of his paper that his understanding of Machiavelli is terribly superficial. Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince must be understood in the context of the time and place, as R.B.J. Walker has brilliantly shown in “The Prince and ‘the pauper’”. Renaissance life, as sophisticated as it was culturally, was centuries before the codification of public international law, the Geneva Conventions on international humanitarian law, the Genocide Convention, etc. The limited world of the Italian city-states in no way resembles today’s global society. To compare advising the ruler of a small city-state in 16th century Italy with advising President Obama today on the use of drones (or whatever else Brooks can imagine would be justified) is like comparing apples and oranges. Although Brooks praises the fact that “we’ve inherited an international order that restrains conflict,” he cannot go beyond that statement to see that the international order that he praises also restrains the killing of non-combattants by drones, just as it restrains torture. The very basis of that order, and what distinguishes the civilized from the barbaric, is adherence to international law, not the projection of naked power.

David Brooks’ use of Machiavelli is not deserving of a serious first year college student (Will he next be quoting Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue to justify nuking a country when negotiations fail?). Yale’s political science department has long been a leader in the field. By quoting Machiavelli as he does, and then to add legitimacy to the quotations by citing his presence at Yale, Brooks disqualifies himself as a competent student and no more than a simplistic power politics Realist who has no right to whisper in the ear of the Prince, let alone be an editorialist for an institution that considers itself the paper of record.

Mr. Brooks, I do hope you will do better on your next paper. This one is not up to serious standards. You fail.

 ~

Daniel Warner is a political scientist living in Geneva, Switzerland, and the author of “An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations”. Daniel is a contributing writer to NYTX’s “Geneva Dateline” column.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel rejects US report on Israel-PA education

Rehmat’s World | February 9, 2013

The Zionist Education Ministry has rejected the findings of a US State Department funded study, which has claimed that textbooks taught in Gaza and the West Bank don’t teach hatred toward Jews. The Ministry has called the report “profoundly unobjective”. The American Jewish advocacy group, ADL, has called the report a “distortion of facts”. The rest of the Israel Hasbara Committee members (Jewish Week, JTA, Algemeiner, HuffingtonPost, JPost, NPR, The Beast, etc.), claimed the report was anything from “one sided” to “antisemitic”.

In fact, the report, titled ‘Victims of Our Own Narratives’ has tried to cover-up the fact that Israeli school textbooks do teach hatred toward Arabs, Muslims, Christians and all the other non-Jewish people based on the Jewish holy book the Talmud. This fact was admitted in 2007 by Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University, after studying 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. He wrote: “The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as ‘robbers,’ ‘bloodthirsty,’ and ‘killers”. Another Israeli professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan, daughter of Israel’s 1967 War hero, Gen. Peled, had come to the same conclusion.

The report in question is based on a study of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks conducted by a team of Israeli and Palestinian researchers and led by professor Bruce Wexler, a Jewish psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Wexler and the panel of 19 academics, who surveyed over 3,100 excerpts from 168 Israeli and Palestinian textbooks – have blasted the Zionist regime and the Jewish lobby for rejecting the report “for being politically motivated”.

The report has exposed decades of Israel’s anti-Palestinian propaganda lies that Palestinian kids are brought-up on hatred toward Jews. Successive Zionist regimes have used this lie as trump card in underminding the claim that an independent Palestinian state is overdue. This is also a “biblical truth” among majority of US lawmakers.

“Both the Israeli and Palestinian communities should be commended for this important positive aspect of their books. Extreme negative characterizations of the other of his sort are present in textbooks elsewhere in the world,” claimed the report.

The study was launched in 2009 by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, a multifaith body that aims “to prevent religion from being used as a source of conflict, and to promote mutual respect,” according to its website. It is comprised of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the Palestinian Islamic Waqf, and the heads of Christian churches in Israel and the West Bank.

The Zionist regime had boycotted the study, while Palestinian Authority officials cooperated with the study group.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Securing the ethnic cleansing of Silwan: Settlements in Wadi Hilweh using Pelco security equipment

Pelco cameras system being used by illegal settlements in Silwan
Pelco camera system being used by illegal settlement in Silwan
Corporate Watch | February 10, 2013

The Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan is experiencing harassment and home demolitions at the hands of the Israeli state and settler organisations. This ethnic cleansing is enforced by security companies and surveillance technology and facilitated by revenue from international donors and from tourism. Corporate Watch will be writing a series of articles over the coming months exposing the companies and charities carrying out this ethnic cleansing and those organisations who are funding it and profiting from it.

The communities of Wadi Hilweh and Al Bustan in Silwan in East Jerusalem are watched over by hundreds of Closed Circuit Surveillance (CCTV) cameras installed by settlers and the settler/colonial organisation El Ad.

These cameras watch over the creeping colonisation of the area which has been going on since the 1990s. Much of this has centred around the seizing of Palestinian property by the El Ad organisation and the undermining of the Palestinian community through archaeological excavations  carried out by the same organisation with the complicity of the Israeli National Parks Authority and the Israeli antiquities Authority (read more about El Ad and the excavations here).

During the 1990s the Israeli state and the Jewish National Fund gave one third of the land of Wadi Hilweh to El Ad. Since then settlers have moved in and El Ad has used a series of dirty tricks to acquire more and more properties in Wadi Hilweh. At the same time Palestinian homes are subject to demolitions under planning regulations, such as the demolitions that took place on 2nd February 2013.

On Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th January 2012 Corporate Watch researchers photographed dozens of Pelco security cameras being used by the settlements in Silwan including those at the El Ad compound close to the ‘City of David’ Visitors Centre in Wadi Hilweh.

The cameras included those in use at the Tirah House settlement, a Palestinian home occupied by Israeli settlers.

Pelco is a manufacturer and supplier of security cameras based in Clovis, California. The company has 2,200 employees worldwide and resellers in 130 coutries.

PIC_1096Since 2007 Pelco has been part of Schneider-Electric, a French multinational company headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison. Schneider-Electric has 130,000 employees and 2011 sales totaling 22.4 billion Euros. It operates in 190 countries.

Schneider-Electric is one of the only companies to have shown interest in the joint French-Palestinian Authority (PA) industrial zone in Bethlehem, the Bethlehem Multidisciplinary Industrial Park. It seems the PA have chosen poor partners for its flagship industrial zone.

Schneider-Electrics global operations are listed here

To contact Pelco click here

For more information on Silwan click here.

Photos taken by Corporate Watch researchers
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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Historic buildings around Al-Aqsa continue to be demolished

MEMO | February 9, 2013

For the third day in a row, Israeli bulldozers are demolishing historic arches and facades of Islamic buildings dating back to the Mamluk and Ottoman eras on the north side of Buraq Square. The site lies just 50 metres from the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa.

Details of the architectural vandalism by the Israeli occupation authorities were provided by Al-Aqsa Foundation for Religious Endowments and Heritage in a press statement. The Israeli demolition work is a prelude to the establishment of a centre promoting the state’s Judaisation policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. The buildings in question formed part of the Moroccan Quarter of the Old City, which was demolished by the Israelis in 1967 at the start of the occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The foundation said that it will use exclusive maps and documents to show how the Israelis plan to establish a synagogue, a police station, a reception area and show rooms on the site, all of which will be linked to tunnels under Al-Aqsa Mosque. A press conference will be held on Sunday for that purpose which will be attended by the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah. Among the other speakers will be the Chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council and the Imam of Al Aqsa Mosque, Dr Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, and Hatem Abdel Qader, who deals with the Jerusalem file for Fatah, as well as the foundation’s director, Amir Khatib.

According to the documents held by Al-Aqsa Foundation, the development will necessitate the destruction of noted Islamic landmarks. It is worth noting that the State of Israel pledged in its Declaration of Independence that it “will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”. The State of Israel regularly breaks both pledges with apparent impunity.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Canaan protest village

picture-skunk-water-hebronsmall-600x337 Canaan tent being skunk watered (Photo: ISM)
Beit Ommar Popular Movement | February 10, 2013

South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine – Today, the South West Popular Committee along with international activists embarked on a new effort to establish a village, Canaan, on Palestinian land in South Hebron Hills. The village’s name was not accidental. We wanted to declare that we are the indigenous people of Palestine. We are the descendants of the Canaanites and our ties to the land can never be broken or taken away. Early last night, various Palestinian activists from a wide array of villages in the South West Bank area along with international activists met in a home to discuss plans for the coming day.

Signs were prepared which stated ‘Our Land is Our Right’, ‘Canaan Village’ and a declaration of intent which stated that “we are the sons and daughters of the Cananites, we establish Canaan Village on endangered Palestinian land.” “We declare that it is our natural right to develop, reclaim, improve, use and live on all our lands free and without threat from occupiers/colonizers.”

In the early morning hours, following a night of planning, we established Canaan as our first attempt, in the south of Yatta (the entrance to Twani). Within less than a minute, while we barely managed to establish the tent, an occupation jeep arrived. The occupation soldiers encircled us and told us we must leave. We refused to obey such a racist demand. An officer of the occupation army then went on to demolish our tent, steal our additional tents and equipment and violently prevent us from reclaiming our land and our belongings.

Several hours later, we went on with a much larger group of activists, international supporters and an especially large number of journalists, to east Yatta, near Ein Mai’in, Hazawai, we established a large tent and began building a room from stones of the land. Within half an hour, we were heavily encircled by at least 6 jeeps of the occupation forces. A large military vehicle which fires skunk water was brought in. We were told that we have 10 minuets to leave the area and that the land was a ‘closed military zone’. We did not yield of course and were immediately showered upon by heavy skunk water.

Occupation soldiers then went on to attack journalists and arrest them. They beat an elderly woman and other activists. In several instances, activists jumped in and prevented with their bodies the arrest of two people. After several hours of struggling with the occupation soldiers which numbered more than 50, 4 journalists, 8 Palestinians and 2 international activists were arrested, our tent was destroyed and we were prevented from returning to our land. For many hours during the hot afternoon, hundreds of activists remained in the area and demanded the right to return to the Canaan Village.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Argentine president “shaken” by AMIA attack warning

Pagina 12* | February 9, 2013

A0732793President Cristina Fernández Kirchner said she was “shaken” by the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) President Guillermo Borger’s statement yesterday that the memorandum of understanding which Argentina signed with Iran to bring clarification to the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center “would give rise to a third attack.”

Through Twitter, the president asked “what is it that you know to (make) such a terrible statement?” and she considered that “the people and the Judiciary should and deserve to know what (he) knows.”

Yesterday, when asked about the agreement, which as of Wednesday will be debated by three Senate committees, Borger warned that “to advance in the agreement is to open the door to a third attack, it would be total submission.” The review was in line with the president of the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA), Julio Schlosser, who also rejected the memorandum and considered the official text lacking in the “clarity that the cause deserves.”

In a series of messages on her Twitter account, president Fernández went on to question Borger’s claims and asked: “If a terrorist attack did occur because of Argentina’s agreement with Iran, who would be the intellectual and physical mastermind?”

She added: “It’s clear that it could never be the signatory countries. Could it be those who have rejected the agreement? Countries, people, or intelligence services? Who?”

President Fernández said that she considers Borger to be “a respectable person” but nevertheless said she read his statements “with great concern.” For this reason she said that “the Argentine people in general and the Judiciary in particular should and deserve to know what you know Guillermo Borger,” to have made that warning.

* Translation by Aletho News

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February 9, 2013 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon study questions efficiency of US missile system in Europe

Press TV – February 9, 2013

Secret Pentagon studies have cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of the US-planned multi-billion-dollar missile system in Europe, congressional investigators say.

The classified studies by the Missile Defense Agency were summarized in a briefing for lawmakers by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional nonpartisan investigative body.

The GAO investigators said the briefing cast serious doubt on whether the system is capable of protecting Europe and US interests against potential missile attacks.

So far, the US has signed agreements for launching the missile system in Poland, Romania and Turkey.

The GAO briefing concluded that Romania was a poor location for an interceptor to protect the US interests.

The studies also expressed other concerns about the missile system, including production glitches, cost overruns as well as problems with radars and sensors that cannot distinguish between warheads and other objects.

Although military officials say the problems of the system can be overcome with difficulty, the governmental and scientific reports have expressed doubt on whether the system would ever work as planned.

While the Pentagon has embarked on giant budget cuts, the study is expected to prompt the Congress to reconsider the continuation of the multi-billion-dollar plan.

Republican lawmaker Michael Turner, who requested the GAO study, said the missile system might be useless, adding, “This report really confirms what I have said all along: that this was a hurried proposal by the president.”

The US plan for a missile system in Europe has been a bone of contention since former President George W. Bush’s tenure.

One the one hand, American critics said the plan was rushed and based on unproven technology. Russia, on the other hand, expressed concern that the plan sought to counter Russian missiles and undermine its nuclear deterrent power.

In his latest article on non-proliferation, the Executive Director of the US Arms Control Association Daryl Kimball urged the White House to delay plans for developing its missile interceptors in Europe as they merely prompt Russia to resist further cuts in its nuclear stockpile.

February 9, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Gatekeepers – demolishing the Zionist narrative

By Lawrence Davidson | To the Point Analyses | February 6, 2013

There is a new documentary movie about Israel, called The Gatekeepers.  It is directed by Dror Moreh, and features interviews with all the former leaders of the Shin Bet, the country’s internal security organization.  The Shin Bet is assigned the job of preventing Palestinian retaliatory attacks on Israel and, as described by Moreh, the film “is the story of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as told by the people at the crossroads of some of the most crucial moments in the security history of the country.”   Along the way it touches on such particular topics as targeted assassinations, the use of torture, and “collateral damage.”

The Gatekeepers has garnered a lot of acclaim.  It has played at film festivals in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, New York, Toronto and Venice, and elsewhere.  It has received critical acclaim from critics and won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Best Documentary Award. It has been nominated for an Oscar.

The Messages 

In order to promote the The Gatekeepers, Moreh has been doing interviews and recently appeared on CNN with Christiane Amanpour.  He made a number of points, as did the Shin Bet leaders in the clips featured during the interview.  I shall review and critique some of these below.

Moreh says that “if there is someone who understands the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s these guys”  (the Shin Bet leaders).  Actually, this not necessarily true.  One might more accurately claim that these men, who led Israel’s most secretive government institution, were and are so deeply buried inside their country’s security dilemma that they see it in a distorted fashion (with only occasional glimmers of clarity).  For instance:

– Avraham Shalom (head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986), tells us that “Israel lost touch with how to coexist with the Palestinians as far back as the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967….When the country started doubling down on terrorism.”  But is this really the case? One might more accurately assert that Israel had no touch to lose.  Most of its Jewish population and leadership has never had any interest in coexistence with Palestinians in any equalitarian and humane sense of the term.  The interviewed security chiefs focus on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza because they are the ones who offered the most resistance to conquest.  But what of the 20% of the population of Israel who are also Palestinian and who actually lived under martial law until 1966?   You may call the discriminatory regime under which these people live “coexistence,” but it is the coexistence of superior over the inferior secured largely by intimidation.

–Moreh also insists that it is the “Jewish extremists inside Israel” who have been the “major impediment” to resolving issues between Israel and the Palestinians.  The film looks at the cabal of religious fanatics, who in 1980, planned to blow up the sacred Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock  on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount,  as well as the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995.  Yet, as dangerous as are Israel’s right-wing extremists and settler fanatics, focusing exclusively on them obscures the full history of the occupation.

By the time Menachem Begin and Israel’s right-wing fanatics took power in 1977,  the process of occupation and ethnic cleansing was well under way.  It had been initiated, both against the Arab Israelis from 1948 onward, and against the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967,  by the so-called Israeli Left:  the Labor Party and such people as David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and Yitzak Rabin himself.  Amongst the Israeli leadership, there are no clean hands.

– Finally,  Dror Moreh  repeatedly pushes another message:  “a central theme of the documentary is the idea that Israel has incredible tactics, but it lacks long-term strategy…if [security] operations do not support a move toward a peace settlement, then they are meaningless.”

Again, this erroneous assessment is a function of being so deeply situated inside of a problem that you cannot perceive it clearly.   Moreh assumes that achieving peace with the Palestinians is the only “long-term strategy” Israel ought to have and, in its absence, Israel pursues no strategy at all.  However, an objective assessment of Israeli history tells us that there has been another strategy in place.  The Zionist leaders have in fact always had a long-term strategy to avoid any meaningful peace settlement, so as to allow:  1. occupation of all “Eretz Israel,” 2. the ethnic cleansing or cantonization of the native population, and 3. settlement of the cleansed territory with Jews.

It is because of this same naivete that Moreh confesses himself “shocked” when Shalom compares the occupation of the Palestinian territories to “Germany’s occupation of Europe” which, of course, had its own goal of ethnic cleansing.  It is to Shalom’s credit that he made the statement on camera, and to Morah’s credit that he kept the statement in the final version of the film.  But then Morah spoils this act of bravery when he tells Amanpour, “Only Jews can say these kind of words. And only they can have the justification to speak as they spoke in the film.”  Well, I can think of one other group who has every right to make the  same comparison Shalom makes– the Palestinians.

The Retired Official’s Confession Syndrome

For all its shortcomings, the film is a step forward in the on-going effort to deny the idealized Zionist storyline  a monopoly in the West.  Indeed, that The Gatekeepers was made at all, and was received so positively at major film venues, is a sign that this wholly skewed Israeli storyline is finally breaking down.  Certainly, this deconstruction still has a long way to go, but the process is picking up speed.

On the other hand there is something troubling about the belated nature of the insights given in these interviews.  They are examples of what I like to call the “retired official’s confession syndrome.”  Quite often those who, in retirement, make these sorts of confessions were well aware of the muddled or murderous situation while in office.  But, apparently, they lacked the courage to publicize it at the time.  It would have meant risking their careers,  their popularity, and perhaps relations with their friends and family.  One is reminded of the fate of Professor Ilan Pappe, who did stand up and live his principles, and eventually lost his position at Haifa University and was, in the end, forced into exile.  For most, however, including these leaders of the Shin Bet, their understanding was clouded and their actions skewed by a time-honored, but deeply flawed, notion of “duty” to carry on like good soldiers.

Conclusion  

To date, Israel’s leaders and Zionist supporters have shown an amazing capacity to ignore all criticism.  The newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has let it be known that he has no intention of watching The Gatekeepers.  It is also questionable how many of those who voted for him, or other right-wing politicians, will bother to seek the documentary out.

Israel’s government has recently made the decision to ignore the country’s obligations under the United Nations Human Rights Charter,  a decision signaled by its representatives refusal to show up for the country’s “universal periodic review”  before the Human Rights Council.  Nor is there any sign that any new right-wing led government coalition will stop the ethnic cleansing and illegal colonial re-population of East Jerusalem.  

The only reasonable conclusion one can come to is that it will take increasing outside pressure on Israel, in the form of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, to convince a sufficient number of that country’s Jewish population that they must change their ways.  To not change is to acquiesce in Israel’s evolving status as a pariah state.  The irony of it all is that that status will have little to do with their being Jewish.  Yet, It will have everything to do with the fact that, in this day and age, even the Jews have no right to maintain a racist state.

February 9, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In a Major Privacy Victory, Seattle Mayor Orders Police to Dismantle Its Drone Program After Protests

By Trevor Timm | EFF | February 8, 2013

In an amazing victory for privacy advocates and drone activists, yesterday, Seattle’s mayor ordered the city’s police agency to cease trying to use surveillance drones and dismantle its drone program. The police will return the two drones they previously purchased with a Department of Homeland Security grant to the manufacturer.

EFF has been warning of the privacy dangers surveillance drones pose to US citizens for more than a year now. In May of last year, we urged concerned citizens to take their complaints to their local governments, given Congress has been slow to act on any privacy legislation. The events of Seattle proves this strategy can work and should serve as a blueprint for local activism across the country.

Back in early 2012, the Seattle city council was told that the Seattle police agency had obtained an authorization to fly drones from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). But they did not find out from the police; they found out from a reporter who called after the council after he saw Seattle’s name on the list obtained by EFF as part of our lawsuit against the FAA.

City council was understandably not happy, and the police agency was forced to appear before the council and apologize. It then vowed to work with the ACLU of Washington and the FAA to develop guidelines to make sure drones wouldn’t violate Seattle citizens’ privacy. But as long as the guidelines weren’t passed in a binding city ordinance, there’d be no way to enforce them.

After a townhall meeting held by police, in which citizens showed up in droves and angrily denounced the city’s plans, some reporters insinuated that city counsel members’ jobs could be on the line if they did not pass strict drone legislation protecting its citizens privacy.

Documents obtained by MuckRock and EFF in October as part of our 2012 drone census showed that the Seattle police were trying to buy two more drones despite the controversy. But that ended yesterday as the Mayor put a stop to the program completely.

Critics of the privacy protests said the participants were exaggerating the capabilities of the Seattle drones, given they would only fly for less than an hour at a time and are much smaller than the Predator drones the military flies overseas and Department of Homeland Security flies at home.

But while Seattle’s potential drones may not have been able to stay in the air for long, similar drones have already been developed and advertised by drone manufacturers with the capability to stay in the air for hours or days at a time. In fact, Lockheed Martin has been bragging about a drone that weights 13.2 pounds (well within the FAA’s weight limits) that can be recharged by a laser on the ground and stay in the air indefinitely.

Since the Seattle protests have heated up, similar complaints have been heard at local city counsels and state legislatures across the country. At least thirteen states are now considering legislation to restrict drone use to protect privacy, and there are also members of Congress on both sides of the aisle pushing the same thing.

Here in the Bay Area, we’ve experienced a similar situation. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office tried to sneak through drone funding without a public hearing and told the county board of supervisors it only wanted to use the drone for emergency purposes. Yet in internal documents obtained by EFF and MuckRock as part of our 2012 drone census, the Sheriff’s Office said it wanted to use the drone for “suspicious persons” and “large crowd control disturbances.”

When EFF and ACLU held a press conference pointing out this discrepancy, the county backtracked and is now attempting to write privacy guidelines that could potentially be turned into binding law. We will keep you updated on further developments.

But regardless, it’s important that privacy advocates take the lesson from Seattle and apply it all over the country. This is an important privacy victory, and like we said back in May, local governments will listen to our concerns, so let’s make our voice heard.

February 9, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Violent LAPD Shoots First at Anything Resembling Suspect’s Car

Activist Post | February 9, 2013

Almost proving the ex-cop Chris Dorner’s point in his manifesto of cops using excessive force, LAPD are the ones who appear to be on a rampage against anyone who’s driving a car even remotely similar to the suspect’s.

The video below tells of how cops have opened fire on yet another innocent vehicle “generally” fitting the description of Dorner’s car. Luckily the innocent driver was uninjured.

Previously, two women were hospitalized after being attacked by police for driving a blue Toyota Tacoma while they were delivering newspapers in a quiet neighborhood. Police were looking for a pickup truck of a different color, make, and model with a supposed connection to Dorner.

Upon seeing this truck drive down a residential neighborhood, police began unloading their weapons on sight. There are almost 40 bullet holes visible in this picture.

Dorner’s original complaint against the corrupt cops in the LAPD stems from their use of excessive force against civilians. And during their crazed man-hunt for Dorner, they seem to be proving his point. Whether or not Dorner is found guilty of these shootings, the LAPD and surrounding precincts are not doing their reputation any justice in their handling of this situation.


‘Heroes’ View Us as Little More Than Collateral Damage

By Steven Greenhut

Americans will rarely witness the kind of full-scale manhunt now going on throughout Southern California and the San Bernardino mountains as hundreds of heavily armed police and federal agents hunt down Christopher Dorner, a 33-year-old former Los Angeles cop and former Naval officer suspected of three murders.

Homicides are routine in Southern California, but this one is different. As Reuters reported, Dorner is “a fugitive former police officer accused of declaring war on law enforcement in an Internet manifesto.” He allegedly shot two officers in Riverside, killing one of them, and also allegedly murdered the daughter of the former police captain who unsuccessfully represented him in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his firing.

This isn’t about police protecting the public, but police protecting themselves. When one of “theirs” is threatened or killed, police act like invaders. And like any invading army, the public can expect collateral damage. While the national media focused on the basics of the manhunt, there have been too-few reports on the casualties of the ramped-up police presence.

“Emma Hernandez, 71, was delivering the Los Angeles Times with her daughter, Margie Carranza, 47, in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue in Torrance on Thursday morning when Los Angeles police detectives apparently mistook their pickup for that of Christopher Dorner, the 33-year-old fugitive suspected of killing three people and injuring two others,” according to a Los Angeles Times blog. “Hernandez, who attorney Glen T. Jonas said was shot twice in the back, was in stable condition late Thursday. Carranza received stitches on her finger.”

The quotation from Jonas was priceless: “The problem with the situation is it looked like the police had the goal of administering street justice and in so doing, didn’t take the time to notice that these two older, small Latina women don’t look like a large black man.”

According to reports, Dorner was driving a different color and different make of Japanese truck from Hernandez and Carranza, but whatever. If I were in Southern California this week, I’d keep the Toyota or Nissan truck in the garage given the number of police eager to mete out “street justice.” Police defenders will no doubt argue that this was a fluke, a case of a poorly trained cop overreacting (because he certainly believed his life to be in danger).

But apologists for police brutality will have a hard time with this case. As the Times blog also reported: “About 25 minutes after the shooting, Torrance police opened fire after spotting another truck similar to Dorner’s at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street.” Fortunately, no one was hurt at that one. If there were injuries, the cops would just shrug it off. The second shooting reminds us that this is how police will routinely behave. Police officials will then adamantly defend this behavior even in the federal court system.

For instance, a case that just recently headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal highlights the disturbing attitude of police officials toward innocent bystanders. The following are details from plaintiffs, in their lawsuit against the city of Sacramento and two of its “finest”:

On April 10, 2009, California Highway Patrol officers stopped a Honda Civic for having illegal taillights. As the officers approached the car, the driver, Manual Prasad, drove away and eventually crashed his car into a wall and started running in a residential neighborhood. Sacramento city police were called and used their helicopter to pinpoint the fleeing man who climbed a tree in a backyard.

James Paul Garcia and six of his friends had the misfortune of being in the yard where Prassad was hiding out. Without any apparent warning and without checking to see if there were innocent bystanders, the officer released a police dog into the yard. Police dogs are trained to attack and hold suspects, but they are not trained to distinguish between suspects and bystanders.

So “Bandit” headed into the yard, spotted the first person he saw (Garcia) and did what vicious police dogs do to people: bit the heck out of him and held him at the ground, as its teeth punctured Garcia’s leg in several places.

The police and the city of Sacramento argue that this behavior did not violate Garcia’s rights and of course sought every type of immunity to delay the case and keep its officers from facing discipline. The city argued that giving an adequate warning could – let’s repeat it now in unison, given that this is the trump card police always use – “jeopardize officer safety.”

In Anaheim a few years ago, police were tracking a burglary suspect through a neighborhood. A young newlywed came out of his house with a wooden dowel to see what the ruckus was about. The officer shot the bystander to death, then handcuffed him as he lay dying. Police officers reportedly were angry at the chief for apologizing to the family.

That case epitomizes the “us vs. them” mentality common among our highly militarized police forces. I wasn’t surprised, then, when years later the Anaheim Police Department acted like an invading army after residents protested some deadly shootings by police (including, apparently, the shooting of an unarmed man in the back).

When police pursue suspects, it is official, acceptable policy for officers to do anything they need to do to protect their own safety, even if it endangers the public’s safety. My advice – if you see police anywhere near you, stay very far away. And hope they don’t mistake your car for a suspect’s car. In their view, we are only potential collateral damage.

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February 9, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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