Nazareth – In the celebratory atmosphere last week as the Palestinian unity government was sworn in, ending a seven-year feud between Fatah and Hamas, it was easy to overlook who was absent.
Hamas had agreed to remain in the shadows to placate Washington, which is legally obligated to refuse aid to a government that includes a designated terrorist group. The new Palestinian cabinet looked little different from its predecessor; Hamas’ input was limited to three independents, all in low-level ministerial positions.
And because this transitional government is still operating within the confines of Israeli occupation, the three ministers from Gaza were refused permits to travel to the West Bank for the swearing-in ceremony on June 2.
The appointment of a temporary government of technocrats is likely to be the easiest phase of the reconciliation agreed in late April. The deal has endured so far – unlike earlier agreements – because Hamas, in even more desperate straits than its rival, Fatah, has capitulated.
For that reason, the United States and most of the world hurried to offer their blessing. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, made dire warnings about the “strengthening of terror” and okayed 3,300 settler homes to punish the Palestinians.
A far trickier stage is still to come: the Palestinian cabinet under President Mahmoud Abbas needs to oversee a bitterly contested national election between Fatah and Hamas expected early next year.
The elections are seen as vital. Palestinians have had no say in who rules them since 2006, when Hamas was victorious. A year later, after brief and vicious fighting, Hamas and Fatah created separate fiefdoms in Gaza and the West Bank. Both need to prove their legitimacy at the ballot box.
Should voting take place, and Hamas win again, the US and others can be expected to boycott the new government – withdrawing desperately needed aid – as they did back in 2006.
But far more likely, Israel will not allow the elections to take place.
Eight years ago, in the months prior to voting, Israel initiated a wave of arrests of Hamas leaders in an attempt to stymie the democratic process. Israel also hoped to block voting in occupied East Jerusalem, which it considers part of its “eternal, indivisible” capital. But the White House – realising a ballot without Jerusalem would lack credibility – pressured Israel into grudging acquiescence.
Less well remembered is that Fatah quietly conspired with Israel to try to postpone the national vote. Fearing that Hamas would sweep the board, Fatah hoped to use Israeli intransigence in Jerusalem as the necessary pretext to delay the wider elections to a time more favourable to its candidates.
Netanyahu has already announced that he will not allow an election in East Jerusalem, as well as indicating that Hamas will be barred from running elsewhere. That is hardly surprising: Israel has spent the past eight years eradicating Hamas from Jerusalem by jailing its leaders or expelling them to the West Bank.
But Fatah’s behaviour in 2006 hints at an even bigger obstacle to consummating the reconciliation. The reality is that Hamas and Fatah have entered the process only out of mutual despair.
Hamas’ political and geographical isolation in Gaza has plumbed new depths since the Egyptian regime turned hostile. Blockaded on all sides, Hamas has seen its support erode as the enclave’s economic crisis has deepened. A deal with Fatah seems the only way to open the borders.
The credibility of Fatah and Abbas, meanwhile, has been steadily undermined by years of cooperation with Israel – all while the settlements have expanded – in the hope of extracting a concession on statehood. With little to show for it, Fatah is increasingly seen as Israel’s craven security contractor.
Abbas’ new strategy – creating a momentum towards statehood at the United Nations – requires that his government-in-waiting establish its democratic credentials, territorial integrity, and a national consensus behind the diplomatic option.
The priority for Netanyahu is not only to void the elections but to weaken the two sides’ commitment to unity by punishing them for their insolence. He can do so given Israel’s control over all aspects of Palestinian life.
Israel has begun not only with another glut of settlement building, but by declaring war on the Palestinian economy, refusing to accept shekel deposits from Palestinian banks, and by imposing collective daily blackouts on Palestinians for unpaid bills to Israel’s electricity company.
Abbas, now responsible for paying the salaries of tens of thousands of public employees in Gaza each month, will be even more vulnerable to Israeli threats to refuse to transfer tax and customs revenues. On Monday it was reported that Israel had also been lobbying foreign capitals to ensure the Palestinian president is held directly responsible for any rockets fired from Gaza.
Hamas faces a no less difficult period ahead. If it strays too far from Fatah’s dictates, it will be blamed for destroying the unity pact; but if it adheres too close to Fatah, it will lose its identity and risk being outflanked by more militant groups like Islamic Jihad.
Samah Sabawi, a political analyst, observed of the unity government: “What we need more than ministries and authorities is resistance and liberation.” The unity government – whether of technocrats or elected officials – will still operate within the limitations imposed by Israel’s occupation.
In fact, the unity government simply breathes new life into the illusion – created by the Oslo accords of two decades ago – that good governance by the Palestinian Authority can change the Palestinians’ situation for the better. In practice, such governance has entailed submitting to Israel’s security demands, a Palestinian obligation Abbas termed “sacred” last week.
As Sabawi suggests, an occupied people needs not better rubbish collection or street lighting but an effective strategy for resistance.
Palestinians will not benefit from a PA that polices the occupation simply because it becomes more “unified”. Rather, their struggle to attain real freedom will grow that bit more daunting.
Mérida – Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro unveiled a new policy to focus on the needs of the least well off as part of his pledge to eradicate extreme poverty in the country by 2018.
The policy involves creating almost 1,500 special attention points that group together various social programs in areas where extreme poverty still prevails, in order to meet the basic needs of these communities.
The attention points, called Social Mission Bases, will house government social programs such as free community food kitchens, subsidised food stores, and free medical clinics. They will be spread out over the 255 of the country’s 1163 local districts where households experiencing extreme poverty still exist.
Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics estimates that 5.5% of Venezuelan households still experience extreme poverty. This is calculated using the regionally based Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) structural poverty indicator, which considers as extremely poor those homes where two or more basic needs, such as access to basic services, adequate living conditions, or schooling, are not met.
The percentage of households in extreme poverty has decreased steadily over the previous decade from 12.7% in 2003 to 5.5% currently. In the same period, overall structural poverty has decreased from 30.5% to 19.6%.
President Nicolas Maduro has vowed to eliminate extreme poverty altogether by 2018, the end of his current term of office, as well as to continue to reduce overall structural poverty.
“In the year 2018 I’ll be…able to say that we’ve achieved the goal of zero misery in Venezuela… the Bolivarian revolution must end poverty to establish a system of equality [and] justice,” he said as the first Social Mission Base was founded in the coastal state of Miranda.
Maduro also informed the country that the Social Mission Bases will be complemented with multidisciplinary teams of social program workers, such as community doctors, sports therapy trainers and cultural promoters, who will visit deprived communities house by house to assess living conditions and attend to differing needs.
“The great battalion [multi-disciplinary team] … won’t have another objective but to fight a strong battle along with our people to eradicate extreme poverty,” the president said, while also encouraging supporters to participate in the work of the Social Mission Bases.
The policy announcements come amid a debate over poverty in Venezuela, with government critics pointing to an increase in income-based poverty between the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013, in the context of a sharp increase in annual inflation.
“The days when poverty was a winning issue for chavismo are over. Official statistics now show that poverty is rising rapidly,” wrote anti-government blogger Juan Nagel for Foreign Policy magazine recently.
Nevertheless income-based poverty actually decreased in the second half of 2013 to lower than it was in early 2012, and in keeping with the level of income-based poverty recorded in recent years, at 32.1%, down from 62.1% a decade earlier.
The Social Mission Bases policy also comes not long after Maduro announced reforms to the country’s national system of welfare programs, in order to improve their performance and reduce bureaucracy and overlapping functions.
The programs, known as “missions”, include free health clinics, free educational programs, subsidised food outlets, and the construction of heavily subsidised housing. They are held as one factor behind the large reduction in poverty since the Bolivarian government was elected to power in 1999.
Reason this link violates the right to be forgotten:
This link is inappropriate. It compiles stories making many distorted claims about my political views. Political views are a particularly sensitive form of personal data. The stories are written by men who disagree with me, and they are assembled for the purpose of making money for a website, a purpose that cannot outweigh my interest in controlling the presentation of sensitive data about myself.
Baker’s certainly not hoping for Techdirt’s posts on him to be de-listed (although I imagine he’d indulge in a chuckle or two if they went down). He’s mocking the ridiculousness of the “right to be forgotten” ruling Google is now attempting to comply with. He has submitted other requests as well over such things as outdated photos and “inaccurate” statements as the kickoff to an informal “hack” of a bad law.
I feel bad for Google, which is stuck trying to administer this preposterous ruling. But that shouldn’t prevent us from showing quite concretely how preposterous it is.
I propose a contest. Let’s all ask for takedowns. The person who makes the most outrageous (and successful) takedown request will win a “worst abuse of privacy law” prize, otherwise known as a Privy.
Stewart’s takedown request targeting Techdirt is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it does highlight the sort of abuse that should be expected when government bodies attempt to force the internet to bend to their will. Granting a “right to be forgotten” pretty much ensures that a majority of the requests will be no more legitimate than Baker’s.
Multiple advocates for the law have compared it with the infamous DMCA takedown notice, something that has also been routinely abused. But at least the DMCA takedown carries with it the (almost never enforced) charge of perjury for issuing bogus takedowns. The RTBF form simply asks for a copy of the submitter’s identification. There’s nothing in it to discourage abuse of the system. If you don’t like something someone has said about you on the web, just fill out a webform.
While we at Techdirt disagree with most of what Stewart Baker says, at least his position on privacy remains consistent. His “Privys” — an “award” given to the worst or most hypocritical abuser of privacy laws — have generally been awarded to worthy recipients, usually people who tend to think these laws exist to save them from their own embarrassments.
A request has been made to remove one or more links from a search page under European “right to be forgotten” rules, following Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos, Mario Costeja Gonzalez.
The body of the post contains nothing but the word “TEST” but this seems to indicate that an attempt will be made to publish takedown attempts. At this point, it’s impossible to say how much information will be redacted, or if the European Commission will even allow this sort of transparency. Google is also toying with appending messages to the bottom of search results pages indicating that link(s) may have been removed due to “RTBF” requests. If this works like DMCA requests do, then a link to Chilling Effects database will be provided. These measures won’t necessarily deter abuse, but they will make it much easier to track.
Thousands of federal government employees are armed with handguns and even semiautomatic and automatic weapons as part of their jobs for agencies that are not traditional law enforcement operations.
These gun-toting civil servants include those performing missions that involve Social Security, delivering the mail, predicting the weather, and overseeing railroad pensions. Others authorized to carry firearms conduct audits for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Social Security Administration has sought to purchase 174,000 rounds of hollow-point bullets, while at least nine agencies have their own SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Labor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
With the increase of federal regulatory criminal laws being passed, the number of law-enforcement personnel attached to agencies has gone up as well. But the traditional law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Marshals Service have been unable to handle all of the demand to execute potentially dangerous investigations, searches and arrests, leading officials at these other departments to develop their own police forces, according to an analysis by Candice Bernd of Truthout.
These forces can take their jobs too seriously. In 2003, Department of Fish and Wildlife agents stormed into the home of George and Kathy Norris of Houston. George Norris imported and sold orchids. He was subsequently accused of smuggling a certain variety of the plant into the United States. Although it was later found that he had only made a few paperwork errors, he ended up pleading guilty to seven counts of violating the Endangered Species Act and served 17 months in prison.
Some lawmakers are starting to think it might be time to scale back on federal criminal codes. Last year, the Over-Criminalization Task Force (part of the House Judiciary Committee) convened for the first time to consider ways to shrink the number of laws and provisions on the books.
When Colorado legalized recreational marijuana, critics of the idea warned it would lead to more crime throughout the state. But the impact has been just the opposite so far in the state’s largest city, which has seen violent crime go down.
Crime data for Denver, the hub of legal pot sales in the state, shows murders, assaults, rapes, burglaries and other violent crimes declined during the first three months of the year, compared with the same period for 2013.
Homicides went down from 17 to 8 (a 53% drop), automobile break-ins from 2,317 to 1,477 (down 36%) and sexual assaults from 110 to 95 (down 14%). Overall, violent and property crimes dropped more than 10% from last year to this year during the first quarter.
Two types of property crime did go up—arson from 20 incidents to 47 (a 135% jump) and larceny from 2,133 to 2,287 (up 7%).
Meanwhile, marijuana sales across the state increased during the first three months of 2014, from $14 million to $19 million, according to Vox. “For all three months, Denver County made up about half that revenue,” German Lopez reported, noting the city is host to nearly 60% of Colorado’s licensed retail pot stores. Disappointed opponents of legal marijuana pointed out that there has been no connection shown between the drop in the crime rate and the increase in marijuana sales.
Some opponents say the criminal effect of decriminalizing marijuana won’t be felt for several years. “This is a great opportunity for us to find out what happens when you legalize a substance like marijuana,” Tom Gorman, director of Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, told Vox before the police statistics came out. “Just wait and watch what happens in these labs, and then you can make a decision based on data and facts and not rhetoric.”
An official British probe this week into alleged “Islamic extremism” in schools is replete with rumor, hearsay and sensationalist accusations.
But, as it turns out, the government report is based on scant factual evidence.
What this amounts to is a “witch-hunt” against British Muslims fuelled at the highest level of government.
This exercise in fear mongering not only denigrates Muslim communities; it recklessly adds to an already hostile climate of Islamophobia in British society, where ordinary citizens are being targeting by racism and hate crimes.
This week the British government’s regulatory body, Ofsted, released a report into more than 20 schools in the midlands city of Birmingham, where it has been alleged that there is a secret plot to infiltrate the education system with “Islamic extremism.”
Six of the schools investigated have been accused of promoting “intimidation” and “intolerance” of non-Muslims. The British government has now placed the schools on a watch-list, which will involve future no-warning snap inspections.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed “a robust response to protect children” with “an extremism taskforce” that will from now on promote “British values” in schools.
The Birmingham establishments in question may now see their governors and staff sacked, and replaced by government-vetted personnel.
The local education trust that runs the facilities in Birmingham has flatly rejected the Ofsted report and the “baseless allegations.”
A senior member of Parkview Trust, which governs three of the schools investigated, said the government probe has found no evidence to support its claims. Trust chairman David Hughes said:
“This report has been conducted in a climate of suspicion… Ofsted inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot. The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools.”
So, what is going on here? The whole affair into alleged extremism in the Birmingham schools, both secondary and primary, began some four years ago when an anonymous teacher supposedly wrote a letter to the British government claiming that there was a “Trojan Horse” plot operating in schools in majority Muslim communities across Birmingham.
That plot was said to involve the takeover of teaching staff at the schools and the infiltration of students with extremist ideology.
The letter has since been widely seen as a hoax. Even right-wing British newspapers, such as The Daily Mail, have acknowledged that the document and its accusations therein are fabrications.
Nevertheless, the allegations have taken on a life of their own and have gained credibility, largely due to incessant media vilification of the schools and Muslim communities in general.
Reprehensibly, senior British government ministers have heightened this climate of fear and the ensuing Islamophobia by giving these groundless claims of extremism credence.
Last week, the interior minister Theresa May and education minister Michael Gove engaged in a bizarre public row, accusing each other of “being soft on Islamic fundamentalism.” Then Conservative party leader David Cameron stepped in to the war of words – not to dismiss the damaging allegations against Muslim majority schools, but to merely discipline his ministers for their public bickering.
There is more than a suspicion that the Conservative ministers, May and Gove, are each exploiting the issue as a way of garnering personal publicity and to further their ambitions for taking over the party leadership from the hapless Cameron. For his part, Cameron seems to be reacting in a heavy-handed way to shore up his image as a “tough leader” instead of being seen as the lame duck premier that he is increasingly appearing to be.
With the release of the Ofsted report this week, Cameron has not challenged the dubious premise of the probe, but has instead promised a “robust response,” thus giving its claims a veneer of veracity.
Teachers, parents and community leaders in Birmingham have roundly condemned the “political agenda” of the government’s so-called probe into Islamic extremism.
Lee Donaghey, a principal at the now black-listed Parkview Academy, said the accusations were “absolutely untrue,” adding: “This is a normal state school, like thousands of others across Britain – 98 percent of our pupils just happen to be Muslims. British Muslims.”
As several local people also pointed out, the schools being targeted by the British government report have staff of different religious faiths, including Muslim and Christian. Some are agnostic.
One parent, Arshad Malik, said the conclusions of the Ofsted report claiming the existence of extremism were “completely alien” to him.
“The only thing extreme about our school is the excellence of student achievement in exams,” he added, saying that Park View had been turned around from an academically failed school into an award-winning one in recent years, thanks to the resilient efforts of the teaching staff.
What forms the basis of the British government probe is nothing but a litany of hearsay and unfounded rumor, which has been pursued with prejudice among the government school-regulators. That is a symptom of the worrying trend of increasing Islamophobia in British society at large, not the existence of “hard-line Islamic” influence in schools.
This very real and unconscionable Islamophobia is now being further whipped up at senior government level for self-serving political reasons that bear no relation to alleged problems.
Furthermore, what is even more deplorable is that the government fuelled anti-Muslim attitude in Britain is placing the lives of ordinary Muslims, including young students, at grave risk. Already, there is disturbing evidence of a soaring number of physical attacks, some of them lethal, on Muslim citizens across Britain. In the mindset of racist street thugs, all Muslims are dehumanized as “terrorists.”
What the British government is doing with its scaremongering reports of “extremist plots” at schools in Muslim communities is setting the stage for even more hate crimes.
Ironically, the one entity that can be most associated with so-called Islamic extremism is the British government itself, with its covert support for terrorists in Syria and Libya, as well as its long-held cozy relationship with the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia.
Tragically, Muslim communities across Britain are at risk of paying an even bigger price of human suffering for the reckless policies of the British government and its so-called “British values.”
From the streets of Fallujah to Franklin, Indiana, heavily armored military vehicles have been rolled out for one and the same reason: many police officers in the US believe there’s a war going on.
Franklin, Indiana is by all accounts the idyllic Midwestern American town. Eponymously named after one of the founding fathers and “the first American,” Franklin’s small town bona fides provided Life Magazine with a Norman Rockwell-esque scene for a bit of village life utopia in the heart of the Great Depression.
But if you were to talk to local law enforcement, a battle is raging in the streets of Mayberry.
Franklin is the county seat of Johnson Country, Indiana. Speaking with Mark Alesia from The Indianapolis Star, Sheriff Doug Cox described the 139,000-strong administrative district as a place where officers’ old-time policing just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Leading Alesia to a pole barn in Franklin, Cox shows him a MRAP – a 55,000 pound, six-wheeled Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored-fighting vehicle with the word “SHERIFF” emblazoned on its flank.
“We don’t have a lot of mines in Johnson County,” confessed Sheriff Doug Cox, who acquired the vehicle. “My job is to make sure my employees go home safe.”
Cox isn’t alone in believing his deputies have something to fear. Johnson County is one of eight Indiana law enforcement agencies to acquire MRAPs from military surplus since 2010, according to public records obtained by The Indianapolis Star.
All across the state, and the country, the trend is similar. From picking up military surplus to using to $35 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to acquire the most advanced weapons, police forces across America are armed to the teeth.
And as Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer puts it, the effects are not only tactical, but psychological.
To put it bluntly: “It’s a lot more intimidating than a Dodge.”
Pulaski, mind you, is a county of roughly 13,000 people. The question of whether civilians need to be intimidated like that depends on your perspective, and as far as Gayer sees things, America is a battlefield and the police are akin to an occupying force.
“The United States of America has become a war zone,” he said. “There’s violence in the workplace, there’s violence in schools and there’s violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
‘What if it were your kid’
The militarization of America was covered in a recent Vice.com documentary, entitled: ‘Here’s What Happens When Hackers Send a SWAT Team to Your House.’
Danny Gold heads to Somerset County, New Jersey, what he describes as “one of the wealthiest counties in the US.”
Sgt. Edward Ciempola, commander of the county SWAT team, boasts of a Lenco BearCat Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck, which he says they use on “every call out.”
With infrared cameras in stock and other military grade hardware, Gold asks Ciempola one simple question: in a quiet, relatively crime-free area, is all of this hardware really necessary?
“I would ask somebody that maybe suffered a loss because of not having this service and I would ask them the answer to that question,” Ciempola said.
“I would say, well, the SWAT team wasn’t available when you really needed it or a police officer wasn’t available when you really needed it, or an ambulance didn’t get there when you really needed it. How does that make you feel? And if your child’s school was suddenly under attack by some random actors, do you want them coming (points to SWAT team) to help your kid or do you want no one to show up?”
Despite the fears of Ciempola and Gayer, in a 2012 Department of Justice report, violent crime had declined by 72 percent from 79.8 to 22.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older since 1993. And yet, what’s happening in places like Franklin and Somerset County are the exception rather than the rule.
Writing for the Huffington Post, Radley Balko noted the disturbing trend in SWAT team growth across the country.
He argues that SWAT teams in municipalities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 have “increased by more than 300 percent between 1984 and 1995.”
By 1995, nearly 90 percent of cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team. In 2000, 75 percent of towns with 25,000 to 50,000 people had their own SWAT teams as well. And those paramilitary units are not sitting idly by.
Citing Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University, Balko says the total number of SWAT raids in America has increased exponentially, from just a few hundred per year in the 1970s, to a few thousand by the early 1980s, to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “disproportionately those in poor communities and communities of color – have become targets for violent SWAT raids, often because the police suspect they have small amounts of drugs in their homes.”
And with the SWAT teams comes the military hardware. In Keene, New Hampshire, a town with two murders since 2009, officials accepted a $285,933 grant from the Department of Defense in 2012 to purchase a BearCat. In Columbia, South Carolina, a MRAP which can be equipped with a 50-caliber machine gun was picked up in 2013. In the sleepy town of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina – a town of 16,000 people, police got their hands on their own Humvees and MRAPs, which they went on to display at a car show.
According to March report in USA Today co-written by US Representative Hank Johnson, the following counties “have acquired free MRAPs from US war zones”:
McLennan and Dallas Counties in Texas; Boise and Nampa Counties in Idaho; Indiana’s West Lafayette, Merrillville, and Madison Counties in Indiana (not to mention Johnson); Minnesota’s St. Cloud and Dakota Counties in Minnesota; Warren and Jefferson Counties in New York; North Augusta and Columbia in South Carolina; Murfreesboro in Tennessee; Yuma in Arizona; Kankakee County in Illinois; and Calhoun County in Alabama.
Many of the vehicles were acquired through the 1033 program, a 1997 law which facilitated the transfer of military hardware to local police forces. But what appears to be free federal handouts could result in fundamentally changing the face of the United States.
“Americans should therefore be concerned, unless they want their main streets patrolled in ways that mirror a war zone,” Johnson lamented.
“We recognized that we’re not in Kansas anymore, but are MRAPs really needed in small-town America? Are improvised explosive devices, grenade attacks, mines, shelling and other war-typical attacks really happening in Roanoke Rapids, a town of 16,000 people? No.”
Johnson, a member of the House Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, announced he was introducing legislation to reform the 1033 program “before America’s main streets and civilian police militarize further.” The ACLU, meanwhile, has launched an investigation into the militarization of US police.
“The police officers on our streets and in our neighborhoods are not soldiers fighting a war. Yet many have been armed with tactics and weapons designed for battle overseas,” it said.
In 2013, ACLU affiliates in 25 states filed over 260 public records requests with law enforcement agencies to document the impact of excessively militarized policing on people, families, and communities.
But as Balko warns, vested interests are likely to keep pushing the police-industrial complex until America is on lockdown.
“A new industry appears to be emerging just to convert those grants into battle-grade gear,” he said.
“That means we’ll soon have powerful private interests, funded by government grants, who will lobby for more government grants to pay for further militarization — a police industrial complex.”
At least 100,000 people have formed a 123-kilometer-long human chain in support of a regional referendum on the Basque Country’s independence from Spain.
People began to link up at noon to form a continuous line along a road that connects the northern cities of Durango and Pamplona in the neighboring Navarra region, considered part of Basque cultural heritage.
The organizers of ‘Gure Esku Dago’ (It’s in our hands) initially said that around 50,000 people would be just enough to cover the distance of 123 km. But the turnout went beyond expectations with some reports indicating that 150,000 people eventually took part in the campaign.
Demonstrators draped in red-white-and-green Basque flags raised their linked hands as media crews flew over their heads.
Organizers of the solidarity movement say it was aimed to echo a similar demonstration last year in Catalonia where more than 1 million people formed a human chain stretching 400 kilometers.
Basque, a region of 2.2 million people, held its first elections in October 2012 after separatist group ETA ended its violent campaigns of bombings in 2011, the struggle claimed at least 850 lives from 1968-2010.
In late May, Basque lawmakers adopted a declaration of self-determination to follow on the footsteps of Catalonia, which made its own sovereignty claim last year.
In March, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled the Catalan declaration was “null and unconstitutional” but the Catalan government is still committed on holding a referendum on secession in November.
The Basque already proposed a similar declaration back in 1990 in an attempt to hold a vote of self-determination but it was blocked by the Constitutional Court in 2008.
Apparently, soccer fans are very nationalistic. It is not uncommon for soccer fans to bring their national flag to a game where their national team is not even playing. In this spirit, a Palestinian-American woman named Buthayna Hammad brought her Palestinian flag to last Sunday’s Honduras vs Israel match at BBVA Compass Stadium. Fifteen minutes into the game, Nathan Buchanan, head of security at the stadium, removed her from her seat, surrounded her with four Houston Police officers and three additional stadium security personnel, and prohibited her from returning to her seat until she surrendered the “racist” flag. What makes the flag “racist?” We’ll get to that, but first let’s hear the lady’s side of the story:
On June 1st, BBVA Compass stadium was host to a “friendly” soccer match between Honduras and Israel. Both countries have the same national colors and a similar look to their flags. I am a big fan of futbol and I went eagerly to the match with my alt family from Honduras. I wore a Honduras jersey and was eager to cheer on this team, dressed to represent Honduras. To represent my own heritage as a Palestinian-American, I also brought my Palestinian flag. I made sure my flag was allowed (based on the size, etc.) and I was all ready to go. For the first 15 minutes of the match I stood up and cheered and stomped my feet with the rest of the crowd chanting “HON-DU-RAS” and waving my Palestinian flag, my colors vibrant and loud against a sea of blue and white…and apparently also racist. I was told I had to sit down, which I did, only to be told to get back up again and follow the manager of security away from the stadium seats and into the concession area. I followed, and there waiting for me were three more BBVA security personnel and four police officers. When I asked them what was wrong, the manager of security, Nathan Buchanan, told me I am not allowed to carry this flag because it implies a “racial slur” and it is in BBVA Compass Stadium violation. I asked him to show me evidence of his accusations and asked him how my flag, a part of my identity as a Palestinian-American, implies a racial slur. He could not answer whether he did not know or could not articulate why he was ordered to remove my flag and me from my seat. I was getting very emotional at this point, I had my flag wrapped around my neck like a scarf, and he said he would take my flag and “check it in” for me, that I was not permitted to return to my seat until I surrendered my flag. The Israeli government has banned Palestinians from hanging their flags outside their home, and arrests the occupants of the home for having it on display on their own land. Every day, in Occupied Palestine, Palestinians are denied entry to neighboring villages, to schools or their family’s home and in many cases to hospitals thanks to Israel’s apartheid state. Yes “apartheid,” that word implies racism, yet my flag implies a racial slur? I asked him several times if I could go back to my seat and he would spread his arms out to create a blockade with his body and his arms so I could not pass. “This is private property,” he said. I told him I paid for a ticket to enter. I could not keep my eyes from gathering tears, but forced myself from letting them fall. “What country are we in again?” I asked. “Just because Israel is playing a match, does that mean you should treat me this way? Because of my Palestinian identity? I am a U.S. Citizen!” I have attended many soccer matches, many of which at the Dynamo stadium, and I have worn a different national jersey every time. Why was I pulled away that day? Who ordered this singling-out and on what grounds? When I asked him if he would feel comfortable with his actions once my treatment became public, he offered a compromise which was that I could keep my flag as long as I did not wave it. The first half was nearly over; they were extended three minutes when I was finally able to return to my seat. I had spent over 15 minutes defending myself from being bullied. I missed the first half because I waved a Palestinian flag at an international match in my hometown. I am proud and honored to be an American, to be able to enjoy the civil liberties that people in many countries are not afforded, but I would have never thought that the influence of an Israeli soccer team on U.S. soil would compromise our most basic liberties.
I asked BBVA Compass Stadium to clarify their flag policy, to explain how a flag could be “racist.” (I suppose you could say that all flags are “racist,” but still, why single out this one?) This is what Houston Dynamo [parent corporation] spokesperson Gina Rotolo had to say:
The decision to not allow the Palestinian flag to be displayed during the game was based on the sole intention of maintaining the safety of those in attendance. The flag bearer was instigating the crowd, and we felt it was important to diffuse a potentially volatile situation as emotions began to escalate.
Of course safety comes first, so I asked Ms. Rotolo how exactly was Hammad “instigating the crowd?” Did she threaten anybody or called for violence? Rotolo replied:
This patron instigated the crowd by waving the Palestinian flag in front of Israeli supporters. Given that her actions caused emotions to escalate, the appropriate course of action, in our eyes, was to ask her to please refrain from waving the flag.
So…there you have it. “This patron instigated the crowd by waving the Palestinian flag in front of Israeli supporters.” It is now considered “racist” for an American of Palestinian descent to wave her flag at fans of the Israeli soccer team. The First Amendment can be suspended in a stadium built with taxpayer money because some Israeli soccer fans might be moved to violence by the mere sight of the Palestinian flag. The good people of the Houston Dynamo Organization think that it is “racist” to merely remind Israeli soccer fans that Palestine exists. I am trying to imagine what the complaint sounded like. “Excuse me, Mr. Buchanan, that flag over there is really pissing me off–causing emotional distress–and I might have to hurt the lady holding it so you better get four cops to impound that flag or else I’m going to beat her up and it will be all her fault.”
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Rotolo did not answer my questions about who complained, nor would she clarify the stadium policy on flags or how this flag violates that policy. She did not answer questions about which other flags are banned. According to Hammad, Honduras fans were shouting “faggots” and “motherfuckers” at Israel fans, and a fight between an Israel fan and a Honduras fan was going on just a few rows behind her, at the very time that she was removed from her seat…yet she was the one singled out for “instigating violence.” Go figure.
Is he still working for his former masters in Washington, DC?
Two diplomatic messages from the WikiLeaks Public Library on U.S. Diplomacy indicate that newly elected President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko was an agent for United States State Department. A confidential message from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev on April 29, 2006 mentions the newly elected Ukraine president twice.
“During an April 28 meeting with Ambassador, Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko emphatically denied he was using his influence with the Prosecutor General to put pressure on Tymoshenko lieutenant Oleksandr.”
“During an April 28 meeting with Ambassador, Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko denied that he was behind Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko’s recent decision to issue an arrest warrant for Tymoshenko lieutenant Oleksandr Turchynov. … [to] question him about the alleged destruction of SBU [Ukraine intel] files on organized crime figure Seymon Mogilievich.” [Russian Mafia Boss of Bosses] WikiLeaks Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy
The motivation for alleged destruction of files appeared in an embassy message from April 14, 2006.
“– The files contained information about Tymoshenko’s cooperation with Mogilievich when she ran United Energy Systems in the mid-late 1990s.” WikiLeaks
Yulia Tymoshenko, an aspiring oligarch, is the darling of the both the Bush and Obama administrations for her role in the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought the first modern anti-Russian Ukraine government to power. She helped negotiate the natural gas deals between Ukraine and Russia.
Another mention of Poroshenko made it clear that the State Department saw the future value of Poroshenko’s insider role.
“OU-insider Petro Poroshenko was in the running for the PM job.” WikiLeaks
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the current president in 2009 when he served as Ukraine Foreign Minister. The content of the meeting was described in a confidential message from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev on December 18, 2009:
[Speaking to Ukraine Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko] “She [Secretary of State Clinton] emphasized that the United States envisioned multiple pathways to NATO membership.” WikiLeaks
Since he was doing his work in secret, and he was “our insider,” it follows that Poroshenko played the role of agent: ” someone hired or recruited by an intelligence agency to do its bidding. The person to whom the agent reports — the actual agency employee–is known as an operative.” Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security
Poroshenko is a Ukrainian oligarch, one of the fifty or so wealthiest citizens who run the country. It is unlikely the president got cash for his services but highly likely that he extracted financial advantage as a result.
Amidst the chaos and ruin visited upon Ukraine, Poroshenko’s recent election may mean a full synchronization of U.S. – Ukraine policies regarding the eastern regions where citizens of Ukraine are subject to bombardment by land an air in their towns and cities.
False Hope at D-Day Gathering?
At the recent D-Day commemoration in France, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland arranged a fifteen-minute meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the newly elected Ukrainian president. Both leaders agreed that military actions must stop and set up a date for meetings to accomplish that goal. Putin went beyond military settlement by offering Ukraine its former discounts on Russian gas.
According to the Guardian, “Putin said he welcomed Poroshenko’s call for an end to the bloodshed and liked his approach to settling the crisis but wanted to wait until the Ukrainian leader could deliver it in detail to the nation.” (Authors emphasis) Poroshenko delivered some detail to the nation but it wasn’t what Putin wanted to hear in order to move forward. The inauguration speech in Kiev included the new president’s desire to sign the European Union (EU) association agreement and seek full integration into the EU, which implies NATO membership.
“Dear friends, my pen is already in my hands. I am ready now. As soon as the EU takes a relevant decision, the signature of the Ukrainian president will immediately appear under this document. We see the association agreement as only the first step towards Ukraine’s fully-fledged membership in the European Union ” Petro Poroshenko, June 7
As Poroshenko spoke, “Residents [of Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine] said the sounds of shelling reverberated around the city on Friday.” ABC, June 7
Which Poroshenko can we believe? The president who worked for the U.S. as “Our Ukraine insider” or the elected head of a sovereign state engaged in honest diplomacy?
Right now, it’s safe to stick with the bellicose rhetoric of the inaugural speech. In a heavily documented report, RT showed the handiwork of President Poroshenko’s troops in Slavyansk – eight dead yesterday from aerial bombardment of the separatist occupied city administrative building.
“Death and destruction is reported in eastern Ukraine as Kiev’s artillery has resumed shelling the rebellious city of Slavyansk. Locals tell RT they have been without running water and power for days, and that hope is fading.” RT, June 8
The $5 billion spent to get a U.S. friendly government in the Ukraine worked. “Our Ukraine insider,” Petro Poroshenko is president. He was informed five years ago that the U.S. wanted Ukraine in NATO, and he no doubt heard Vice President Joseph Biden’s speech in Kiev. Without a vote by Congress or a valid treaty, Biden assured the then coup-run government that our government would be there to help.
U.S. will stand by Ukraine in face of Russian aggression, Biden says
“I came here to Kiev to let you know, Mr. Prime Minister, and every Ukrainian know that the United States stands with you and is working to support all Ukrainians seeking a better future. You should know that you will not walk this road alone. We will walk it with you.” Vice President Joseph Biden, April 22
The players and plans have been in place for years and it’s all paid off. The White House and their masters finally have their insider in place in charge of Ukraine. It’s worth listening to the assessment of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst and his Deputy around the time they handled Poroshenko. The ambassador saw him as a “disgraced oligarch” and his deputy pointed out that “Poroshenko was tainted by credible corruption allegations.”
Spreading brand democracy around the world is a tough job. Somebody’s got to do it.
Yesterday morning on the 8th June, Israeli police forces raided the village of Iqrit (located on the northern tip of Israel, within eyesight of Lebanon). The police uprooted trees, destroyed and confiscated all the personal belongings of Palestinian activists present in the village. Furthermore they beat and violently arrested 3 Palestinian men who were present in the village at the time. The 3 arrested are: Walla Sbait, Nidal Khoury and Jeries Khiatt. They were taken to the police station in Nahariyya, where they were kept in detention over night.
Today at 8:30 AM the three detainees were brought before the Kiryat Gat Magistrates’ Court, following a police request for an extension of their detention. The police have charged the detainees with trespassing the land owned by the ILA, obstructing the work of public officials, assaulting a public employee and endangering public order.
The court ruled that Nidal Khoury is kept in detention until Wednesday 11th of June. Walaa Sbeit and Jeries Khiatt was sentenced house arrest until Sunday 15th of June and they are not allowed to go back to Iqrit for 60 days.
As the season of Advent approached in November 1948, the Israeli military forced residents of Iqrit and the neighboring village of Kufr Bir’im —all citizens of the newly created state of Israel— to leave their homes near the northern border with Lebanon because of military operations in the area. The Israeli forces made a promise to the inhabitants, that they could return to their homes after 15 days. The people of Iqrit are still waiting. In July 1951, the Israeli High Court ruled that the people of Iqrit and Kufr Bir’im had the right to return to their homes. The military refused to comply, and on Christmas Eve 1951 blew up all houses in both villages.
Shortly thereafter, all village lands were confiscated by the state and has been rented out to the nearby Kibbutz for their cows to graze until this day. Since then, decades of demonstrations and legal appeals for the villagers’ right to return have seen a string of favorable decisions by courts and commissions that have resulted only in more broken promises and unenforced rulings.In the 1970s, the government had granted use of the cemetery —allowing only the dead to return to Iqrit after they lived and died in exile at Kufr Yasif, Rameh, Haifa or other places. The original villagers and their descendants —now around 1,500 people scattered across northern Israel— are allowed only to hold services in the church and bury their dead in the cemetery. Every first Saturday of the month there has been a mass held at the village church and every year a summer camp has been organised on the hillside. In August 2012 the third generation reclaimed their village.
Around 20 descendants from Iqrit took the initiative to begin resurrecting the village despite the village’s legal limbo. The activists make sure that the village is constantly inhabited, sleeping in tents, under the stars or in rooms attached to the church. The group consists of university students, factory and restaurant workers, and teachers.
Their attempts to construct or plant anything in the village have been met with immediate demolition by the Israeli authorities. But over time, they’ve been able to add a few amenities, including solar panels on the church roof, determined to bring back life to Iqrit.
Iqrit’s 80 homes are long gone, but the activists goal is to rebuild Iqrit for the villagers-in-exile, refusing only to return to their home in coffins, but alive. The activists have returned to the area and are discussing on how to proceed with their campaign, determined not to be intimidated by Israeli forces and their harassment.
An Israeli committee tasked with putting forward a law on the “Jewish State” is scheduled to be formed today, Sunday, 8 June.
The committee will be chaired by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and is expected to have among its members MK Ruth Calderon (Yesh Atid) and the initiators of the proposal MKs Oielit Shaked (Jewish Home) and Yariv Levin (Likud).
Livni and Yair Lapid had previously stated that they would oppose the bill.
The formation of the committee has been approved by the Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Haaretz said, adding that Netanyahu will adopt any agreement reached by the committee and will help adopt a legislation as proposed by the committee.
According to Haaretz, bills on the “Jewishness of Israel” proposed in recent years aimed at obliging courts to favor “Jewish identity” over “the Decmocratic nature” of decisions, since the Jewishness of the state contradicts with its being democratic.
The text of the bill describes Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people,” and that “the right to determine the destiny of the nation in Israel is owned by the Jewish people alone.” The bill also states that “The land of Israel is the historic home of the Jewish people.”
By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
![Mere Existence of Palestine Deemed a “Threatening Racial Slur” by the [parent corporation of the] Houston Dynamo Organization](https://i0.wp.com/www.freepresshouston.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/10383509_10154201754125023_3501788515572494232_n-720x550.jpg "Mere Existence of Palestine Deemed a “Threatening Racial Slur” by the [parent corporation of the] Houston Dynamo Organization")
Aletho News 