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4 ALBA states leave Rio Treaty

Press TV – June 6, 2012

Four Latin American countries have agreed to pull out of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, saying the regional defense treaty is a US initiative and membership is not beneficial to them.

The foreign ministers of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nicaragua announced their decision on Tuesday at the end of an annual meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Bolivia.

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said the decision by the four member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) was official as the four countries signed a document denouncing the treaty.

The treaty, commonly known as the Rio Treaty, stipulates that an armed attack against any of the member states is to be considered an attack against all of them.

On Sunday, Bolivian President Evo Morales called for the elimination of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, saying that the rights body concerns itself only with countries that do not share a political affinity with the United States. The US is not subject to the commission’s oversight.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not attend the OAS meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The 42nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States, which brings together leaders from nations across the Americas to address hemispheric issues and opportunities, started on June 3 in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba under the theme “Food security with sovereignty.”

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June 5, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Countering the Israel Lobby’s Dominance

Can Jewish Liberals Transcend the Wiesel Doctrine?

By ALAN NASSER | May 29, 2012

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”

Elie Wiesel, From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences

“My loyalty to my people, to our people, and to Israel comes first and prevents me from saying anything critical of Israel outside Israel… As a Jew I see my role as a melitz yosher, a defender of Israel: I defend even her mistakes… I must identify with whatever Israel does – even with her errors.”

Elie Wiesel, Against Silence (AS)

In the end, whether Israel’s penchant for serial atrocities encounters an effective obstacle will hinge on two types of resistance, elicited not from the fictitious “international community”, but from the active opponents of Israel’s ongoing projects, and from the withdrawal of moral and financial support for the ongoing reproduction of Israel as an apartheid Zionist State.

Among the first type of response are the increasingly visible efforts, which gained momentum in the wake of the May 2010 flotilla murders, to promote sanctions, boycott and divestiture. A broad range of individuals and groups  -rock stars Elvis Costello and The Pixies, the actor Meg Ryan, Britain’s largest union, Unite, the United Methodist Church, the cosmetics firm Lush, the University of London Union, Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator, large supermarket chains in Italy, dockworkers in many cities around the world refusing to unload Israli cargo-  has either actively called for or effectively engaged in actions in support of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel’s occupation and in support of Palestinian resistance. (For an up to date list of such actions see http://www.bdsmovement.net.)

The second kind of response includes refusals to any longer make excuses for Israeli abominations, willingness finally to speak out in public protest, and the cessation of financial support for the rogue State. An especially powerful development would be the readiness of American Jews to announce loud and clear that Israel does not speak for them, to distance themselves from the agenda of the politically powerful Israel lobby, and to cross over into solidarity with the Palestinian people. None of this, I will suggest below, is as far-fetched as it might have seemed fifteen years ago.

Among the key habits of thought, feeling and action that must be defeated is what we might call the Wiesel Doctrine, as expressed in the second passage at the head of this article, which pledges to “defend even [Israel’s] mistakes… [to] identify with whatever Israel does – even with her errors.” The Doctrine saturates the political consciousness of too many older (an important qualifier)  liberal American Jews. These are the Jews most likely to contribute to AIPAC and for whom their perception of a given Senate, House or presidential candidate’s friendliness to Israeli policy is sufficient to determine support.

The Doctrine’s stalwarts have been marinating in a political-ethnic milieu largely formed since the early 1950s by the self-promotional and political-marketing zeal of Elie Wiesel, the world’s leading holocaust entrepreneur. The man has been adroit in milking Western guilt over the holocaust in the service of making it virtually impossible for soi disant humanitarians to dissent from Israeli propaganda. He has also helped to create an atmosphere in which the likes of Alan Dershowitz can thrive, and the jobs and reputations of both politicians and university professors who challenge the Israeli line can be jeopardized on the spurious grounds that they peddle anti-Semitism. Wiesel has contributed hugely to the mystified ideological settlement that invites a well heeled and ardently motivated entity like AIPAC to win enviable gains for Israel on Capitol Hill and to prevent critical issues from being raised in the US media, even as these same issues are put forward and contested in the more democratic Israeli press.

Wiesel and his Doctrine are to the typical American Jewish apologist for Israel as the standard meter is to the meter stick in your workshop. Wiesel is the Platonic Form made flesh in every Zionist apologist. Listen to the arguments of your Zionist friends. They channel the teachings of St. Elie.

It behooves us, then, to review what Wiesel is about.

Wiesel as Archetype of the Soul of Zionism 

Elie Wiesel is in a class by himself. Take his word for it. The man promotes himself with unflagging persistence as the living embodiment of Jewish humanitarianism. This makes him, he’d have us believe, the  -not ‘a’, but ‘the’- humble representative and wounded spokesman of the community of holocaust survivors, the preeminent guardian of Jewish memory and witness to Jewish suffering. What this comes to is granting Israel carte blanche to treat Palestinians as it chooses and to habitually lie about its political intentions.

In Wiesel’s stance we find a paradigmatic expression of the apologetics that has become the party line for so many older American Jews for whom nothing  Israel does warrants open opposition.

Wiesel pulls no punches. In the second citation at the head of this article he announces that facts and evidence are irrelevant to his assessment of Israel’s behavior. Thus, Wiesel misled when he remarked, regarding his assessment of Israel’s May 2010 flotilla raid, “I don’t know enough. … For me to say anything now would be irresponsible.” (June 2, 2010) We are to believe that Wiesel is open to evidence of Israeli wrongdoing. But he has made it clear that he is not. When pushed to the wall on Israeli misbehavior, Wiesel’s tactic is patented: he changes the subject to the holocaust. Moments after the above remark Wiesel whimpered “Holocaust denial today – what it does to the children of survivors,” he said. “I believe Holocaust denial should be illegal.” There followed a philosophical debate on freedom of thought and the limits of censorship. Mission accomplished: the original issue, the assessment of Israel’s murders of noncombatants in international waters, has been forgotten.

It is essential to Wiesel’s agenda that he depict his categorical refusal to criticize Israel as more than a merely individual decision. He is merely acknowledging a moral obligation binding everyone, everywhere, to eternal silence regarding Israel’s abominations. That’s the Wiesel Doctrine: “The nations that kept silent during the Holocaust ought to keep silent now as well. The world that then condemned itself by its silence has lost all rights to judge Israel now.” (AS, 2, 191.)

The holocaust is made into political plastic carrying an unlimited line of exculpatory credit.

In his speech to the United Nations last September Benjamin Netanyahu began by conflating Nazi Germany, contemporary Iran, al Qaeda (a Sunni tendency foreign to Shiite Iran), and global terrorism. The word ‘Nazi’ appeared five times in the first thirty paragraphs. This kind of nonsense is made possible and certified by the Wiesel Doctrine.

The Doctrine also rules out solidarity with the Palestinian people. As a holocaust survivor, Wiesel must accept whatever claims Israel makes about its relation to Palestinians: “Do not ask me, a traumatized Jew, to be pro-Palestinian. I totally identify with Israel and cannot go along with leftist intellectuals who reject it.” ( AS, 1, 223) These two sentences are packed with Israel-serving dogma: the fact of the holocaust permits open season on Palestinians, speaking the truth about Israel is an inherently “leftist” prejudice, and criticizing Israeli policy is the same as “reject”ing Israel, whatever that may mean.

Wiesel As Terrorist and The Requirement of Hypocrisy 

In his essay “To a Young Palestinian Arab” (1979) Wiesel intones “I feel responsible for your sorrow, but not for the way you use it, for in its name you have massacred innocent children, slaughtered children.” (‘sorrow’ is a favorite word of Wiesel’s, which he deploys almost as frequently as you and I use ‘the’) Wiesel’s claim to feel “responsible” for Palestinian “sorrow” (Why not refer to Palestinian deaths? Why not indeed.) is disingenuous. He refuses to acknowledge the death and destruction visited upon Palestinians by Israel except in the context of blaming Palestinians. He acknowledges no responsibility to do anything as an expression of his professed responsibility, nor does he acknowledge that this responsibility stems from wrongdoing by Israel. And he has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the occupation as a political matter, preferring “sorrow” as the required non-political “moral” attitude.

Wiesel goes on to anticipate the young Palestinian’s response that these acts were performed by “extremists”, not typical Palestinians. He rejoins that “they acted on your behalf, with your approval, since you did not raise your voice to reason with them. You will tell me that it is your tragedy which incited them to murder. By murdering, they debased that tragedy, they betrayed it.” Wiesel goes on to contrast Palestinians’ insidious political response to their suffering to holocaust survivors’ humanistic “moral” response to their brutalization. Here we have a typical case of the hypocrisy that is a leitmotif in Wiesel’s repertoire.

Wiesel is surely not ignorant of European Zionists’ response to persecution by pioneering innovations in the art of terrorism. Zionists crusading in Palestine prior to the establishment of Israel created a range of modern terrorist tactics. In 1938 the Zionist terror outfit Irgun executed attacks against Arab civilians, including placing bombs in milk cans in a Haifa market, killing twenty three Arab shoppers.  In 1947 the Zionist group the Stern Gang was the first to use letter bombs, mailed to British Cabinet members. The Gang assassinated high-level British diplomats and the chief UN mediator attempting to negotiate a two-state solution for Palestine. Irgun, then under the leadership of Menachim Begin, planted bombs in Arab East Jerusalem, killing civilians in an effort to drive Palestinians out. As the British mandate was coming to an end in April 1948 and a civil war between Arabs and Zionists was beginning, Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked the village of Deir Yassin, killing over a hundred unarmed villagers, including women and children. The villagers had not been involved in any violence prior to the attack. In 1954 Israel became the first country to hijack an airplane for political purposes, seizing a Syrian civilian plane in a botched effort to trade hostages for Mossad intelligence agents captured by the Syrians.

When the Deir Yassin massacre occurred Wiesel was on the payroll of Irgun’s newspaper Zion in Kampf, having offered his services as a translator in Paris. This makes Wiesel, by his own standards, a terrorist. Accordingly, he has never denounced these massacres. Might not a Deir Yassin survivor charge Wiesel with his own words: “they acted on your behalf, with your approval, since you did not raise your voice to reason with them. You will tell me that it is your tragedy which incited them to murder. By murdering, they debased that tragedy, they betrayed it.”

Zionist terrorist attacks against Palestinians and others, which intensified between 1945 and 1949, including the kidnappings and hanging of British soldiers in 1947, were accomplished for political purposes. But the Wiesel Doctrine requires that Palestine never be understood in political terms. In 2003 Pope John Paul II proposed that “what the Middle East needs is bridges, not walls.” Wiesel’s attack immediately followed: “From the leader of one of the largest and most important religions in the world, I expected something very different, namely a statement condemning terror and the killing of innocents, without mixing in political considerations and above all comparing these things to a work of pure self-defense. To politicize terrorism like that is wrong.” (The New York Times, 11/17/2003) Wiesel no doubt associates the political in this context with the culpable exercise of power by the powerful against the powerless. This kind of thing, Wiesel seems to concur, would require action in resistance, including the exercise of counter-power by the oppressed. But for Wiesel, Israel must never be blamed, nor must any actions, such as boycott, sanctions and divestment, much less forceful resistance by Palestinians, be taken against Israeli power. Hence, Israeli policy must not be seen as political. At most, Wiesel permits a moral response, typically expressed as “sorrow” and never requiring one to get off his political ass. Consistency was never this gasbag’s forte.

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, Who is the Zionest of Them All? Wiesel As Co-Recipient of Requited Self Love 

Wiesel moved to New York in 1955, where he continued to work as a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ah’ronot. It was then that he set upon the task of establishing himself as the self-appointed spokesperson for all holocaust victims and survivors (the latter group treated erroneously by Wiesel as monolithic and homogenous). In 1956 he was struck by a taxi near Times Square. Given to grandiose self-description by nature, he later claimed: “I flew an entire block. I was hit at 45th Street and the ambulance picked me up at 44th. It sounds crazy. But I was totally messed up.”  (NYT, March 5, 1997) The story is preposterous, but Wiesel has covered himself: “Some events do take place but are not true; others are true although they never occurred.” (Legends of Our Time, viii.) Telling a “true lie” in the name of making a legend of oneself is, as one says nowadays, “no problem” for Wiesel.

In this story Wiesel appears to possess superhuman powers, much like a cartoon Superhero. He’s hit by a taxi and bo-o-o-oing! he flies through the air, landing a city block away. Wiesel’s megalomania takes many forms. He has criticized every notable holocaust survivor/commentator, notably the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, as less authentic and profound than he. His case is characteristically self serving. Rival commentators are rejected on the grounds that they are among “the intellectuals”. What’s wrong with that? Intellectuals analyze, they bring intellectual discourse to bear on our comprehension of the holocaust. But Wiesel insists that the holocaust is a sacred and spiritual phenomenon, and hence a mystery. As such it transcends mundane, normal boundaries of language and conceptualization. It’s like A Kantian noumenon – it’s “out there” but none of our human categories are remotely adequate to capturing its reality. The best we can do is to exhibit the kind of doleful, agonized visage Wiesel sports 24/7. If someone points to our countenance and asks “What’s that?”, we just say “sorrow”.

Note that this puts Wiesel beyond challenge. Critical analysis is expressed in language, and is analytical in form. But language and analysis are foreign to the mystical nature of Jewish suffering. As Wittgenstein once remarked, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” That suits Wiesel just fine. Like Israel, Wiesel is unassailable.

The fact is that many Jewish liberals have ingested and digested this political serving. Little wonder that they cannot be counted on to call a Zionist spade a spade. But strong evidence indicates that this may be changing. As Israeli Jews are moving ever rightward, young American Jews are moving in the opposite direction. Let’s have a look at this.

Decline of Nationalist Zionism Among Young American Jews 

There is ample evidence that younger American Jews are decreasingly identifying with the Zionist State. A number of independent studies indicate that younger Jews are less likely to experience criticism of Israel as an assault on their identity. Peter Beinart has recently discussed a number of important studies confirming younger Jews’ indifference to criticism of Israel. His essay and book (2) also issue a call to moral arms to American Jews.

Several surveys have revealed, as Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and and Ari Kelman of the University of California at Davis report, that “non-Orthodox younger Jews, on the whole, feel much less attached to Israel than their elders,” with many professing “a near-total absence of positive feelings.” Although the majority of American Jews of all ages continue to identify as “pro-Israel,” those under 35 are less likely to identify as “Zionist.” Over 40% of American Jews under 35 believe that “Israel occupies land belonging to someone else,” and over 30% report sometimes feeling “ashamed” of Israel’s actions. A paradigm case is the 2008 rejection by the student senate at Brandeis University  -the only nonsectarian Jewish sponsored university in America-  of a resolution commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Jewish State. (3)

This development has been troubling prominent members of the Jewish establishment since the mid-1990s. In 2003 several of them  commissioned the pollster Frank Luntz to find out what younger Jews thought about Israel. The underlying aim of the poll was to explain why Jewish college students are not on the whole inclined to defend Israel against campus critics.

Luntz’s findings were distressing to his employers. “Six times we have brought Jewish youth together as a group to talk about their Jewishness and connection to Israel,” he reported, and “Six times the topic of Israel did not come up until it was prompted. Six times these Jewish youth used the word ‘they’ rather than ‘us’ to describe the situation.”

The attitudes Luntz found most consistently expressed were a resistance to the kind of “group-think” the young Jews saw as suppressing “open and frank” discussion of Israel, a “desperate” desire for peace and, in some cases, empathy with the plight of the Palestinians. The students come across as broadly “liberal” in the sense in which American Jews have always been perceived as liberal. The “trouble” with these students was that their liberalism is traditionally Jewish, and consistent: if Israeli policy contravenes basic canons of liberalism, then so much the worse for Israeli policy.

Among American Jews there are plenty of liberals and plenty of Zionists. What these studies indicate is that these two groups share fewer and fewer members. Younger Jewish  Zionists are decreasingly likely to be liberal, and younger Jewish liberals decreasingly likely to be Zionists. This portends the American Jewish establishment’s further movement to the right. As Beinart observes, “As secular Jews drift away from America’s Zionist institutions, their orthodox counterparts will likely step into the breach.” Thus, the distance between largely secular American Jews and the Zionist establishment is likely to widen. But this will weaken the political power of the Israel lobby  -inextricably linked, of course, to the Jewish establishment-   only if American Jews as a whole are prepared to announce unambiguously their antipathy to their soi disant representatives. The political and moral responsibility this places on American Jewish liberals cannot be overestimated.

Intensification of Zionist Nationalism in Israel

American Jewish liberals and Zionism in Israel are moving in opposite directions. While the studies mentioned above indicate that a decreasing percentage of American Jews will feel sympathetic attachment to Israeli Zionism, some of the most unsavory forms of Zionism are growing in Israel.

A 2008 survey reported in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ah’ronot found that 40 percent of Jewish Israelis would deny the vote to Arab Israelis. More recent surveys found 56 percent of Jewish Israeli high school students sharing this sentiment. A survey conducted by Professor Camil Fuchs from the Statistics Department of Tel Aviv University found that half of Israeli teens don’t want Arab students in their class. Most Israeli teens aged fifteen to eighteen don’t think Arabs enjoy equal rights in Israel, and most of those don’t think Arabs deserve equal rights. The survey also revealed that 96 percent of the respondents want Israel to be a Jewish and democratic state, but 27 percent believe that those who object should be tried in court, and 41 percent support stripping them of their citizenship. In answer to a question whether they would be willing to learn in a classroom with one or more students with special needs, 32 percent answered in the negative. When the question was asked regarding Arab students, 50 percent of respondents answered in the negative. In addition, 23 percent said that they wouldn’t want gays or lesbians in their class.

These findings are disturbingly consistent with the Netanyahu coalition government’s reflection of the worst elements among contemporary Israelis: the growing extreme-Orthodox population, the increasingly radical settler movement, which has come to occupy an increasing percentage of both the Israeli political establishment and the army, and the conspicuously anti-Arab Russian immigrant community.

Netanyahu himself is a Palestinian-State denier. In his 1993 book A Place Among the Nations he explicitly repudiates the notion of a Palestinian State. Like Golda Meier he denies that there are Palestinians, and he argues that to support Palestinian statehood is equivalent to endorsing…. you guessed it, Nazism! His Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would revoke the citizenship of Israeli Arabs who refuse to swear loyalty to the Jewish State, deny citizenship to Arab nationals of other countries who marry Arab citizens of Israel, execute Arab Knesset members who meet with Hamas representatives and imprison Arabs who dare to publicly mourn on Israeli Independence Day. Holy Moses.

Beinart’s reflections on these abominations are a lamentation of the refusal of the “leading institutions of American Jewry” to openly challenge Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens. (The NYR essay was written three weeks before, and published two weeks after, the May 31 attack on the Mavi Marmara.) And Beinart is no one-stater. “Saving liberal Zionism in the United States,” he writes, “so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel, is the great American Jewish challenge of our age.”

Bienart sees that as an American Jew he bears a special responsibility to act on the words, hypocritically penned by Elie Wiesel, cited at the head of this article: “We must always take sides…. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.” I say he’s right.

Alan Nasser is professor emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His book  The “New Normal”: Persistent Austerity, Declining Democracy and the Globalization of Resistance is forthcoming in 2013. His website/blogsite is www.alannasser.wordpress.com. He can be reached at nassera@evergreen.edu.

(1) AS is a three-volume collection of the most representative of Wiesel’s lectures, articles, op-eds, letters, etc.)

(2) See “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment”, The New York Review, June 10, 2010, further developed in his book The Crisis of Zionism, Henry Holt, 2012.

(3) See Cohen and Kelman’s “Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and Their Alienation from Israel” at http://www.acbp.net/About/PDF/Beyond%20Distancing.pdf.

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May 29, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran, P5+1 agree to hold another round of talks in Moscow in June

Press TV – May 24, 2012

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1) have agreed to hold another round of talks in Moscow on June 18-19, Press TV reports.

Iran and the P5+1 group (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany) wrapped up their plenary meeting in Baghdad on Thursday evening after two sessions of negotiations earlier on Thursday and on Wednesday.

Sources close to the Iranian delegation say Iran maintains that its demands, including the lifting of the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, must be met.

The Iranian negotiating delegation was headed by Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili, and the delegations of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany were headed by the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

On the first day of the negotiations, Iran offered a comprehensive package to the P5+1, while a European Union spokesman, Michael Mann, told Press TV that the group’s representatives put forward a set of new proposals to Tehran.

The previous round of the talks between Iran and the P5+1 was held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on April 14.

Iran and the P5+1 had previously held two rounds of talks, one in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2010, and another in Istanbul, Turkey, in January 2011.

May 24, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Nasrallah calls for restraint after Syria kidnapping

Press TV – May 22, 2012

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has denounced the abduction of 13 Lebanese citizens by Syrian armed militants but also called for restraint and a measured response.

On Tuesday, Nasrallah said it is the duty of the Lebanese government to ensure that the abducted people are able to return home safely.

“We will work day and night until those beloved are back with us… The Lebanese state and government have a responsibility to work toward the release of those kidnapped,” he added.

Commenting on the situation and the recent violence in Lebanon, he asked the Lebanese people to exercise self-restraint and said that nobody should resort to violence.

“I call on everyone to show restraint… It is not acceptable for anyone to block roads or carry out violent acts,” Nasrallah added.

Anti-Syrian government armed militants kidnapped the 13 Lebanese people near the Syrian town of Aazaz, which is on the border with Turkey. The Lebanese were returning to Lebanon after visiting Shia shrines in Iran.

The armed militants reportedly hijacked their bus, then kidnapped the men and released the women.

There is no more information about the whereabouts of the abductees.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. While the West and the Syrian opposition say the government is responsible for the killings, Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest and insists that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

Al-Manar reports:

… In response to some people who threatened to kidnap Syrian nationals in Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah said that this act of revenge is forbidden and that the Syrian nationals are “our brothers, and nobody should make such unacceptable act personally.” …

The names of the kidnapped men according to media reports:

Abbas Shoaib, Hassan Mahmoud, Hussein al-Siblani, Ali Abbas, Abu Ali Saleh, Mahdi Ballout, Hussein Arzouni, Hussein Omar, Mustafa Yassine, Mohammad Monzer, Awad Ibrahim, Ali al-Ahmar, Ali Zgheib, Rabih Zgheib, Ali Termos and Ali Safa.

May 22, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

IAEA to pen nuclear agreement with Iran: Amano

Press TV – May 22, 2012

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief says Iran and the UN nuclear agency have made a decision to reach an agreement aimed at resolving issues related to the country’s nuclear energy program.

“A decision was made by me and [Iran’s top nuclear negotiator] Mr. [Saeed] Jalili to reach an agreement on the structured approach,” Yukiya Amano said in Vienna on Tuesday after returning from his visit to Iran.

“At this stage, I can say it will be signed quite soon, but I cannot say how soon it will be,” he added, describing the agreement as an “important development,” AFP reported.

The UN nuclear agency chief, accompanied by the IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards Herman Nackaerts and the agency’s Assistant Director General for Policy Rafael Mariano Grossi, arrived in Tehran on Monday for talks with senior Iranian officials.

“We had very good talks with [Yukiya] Amano today and, God willing, we will have good cooperation in the future,” Jalili said after his meeting with Amano in Tehran on Monday.

Amano’s remarks come as Iran and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany) are preparing to resume the second round of talks in Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on May 23.

The last round of the negotiations was held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on April 14.

Both sides hailed the discussions as constructive.

May 22, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria blast hits UN chief’s convoy

Al Akhbar | May 9, 2012

The head of a UN observer mission to Syria, Major General Robert Mood, escaped unharmed when a blast went off as his convoy entered a restive southern town on Wednesday, Syria’s Addounia TV reported.

The explosion in Deraa wounded six Syrian soldiers, including an officer, who were escorting the UN convoy, while 12 other monitors traveling with the Norwegian general were uninjured in the attack, said an AFP photographer.

The attack was “a graphic example of violence that the Syrian people do not need,” said UN observer chief Major General Robert Mood.

“It is imperative that violence in all its forms must stop,” Mood, who was unhurt in the attack, was quoted by observer spokesman Neeraj Singh as saying.

“We remain focused on our task,” Singh told AFP.

The blast, caused by an explosive device planted in the ground, went off after four UN vehicles passed the entrance to Deraa safely, the photographer said.

The attack came as one of Syria’s main armed rebel leaders threatened to resume attacks on President Bashar Assad’s forces, a pan-Arab newspaper reported.

The statement from Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Colonel Riyadh Asaad will deal a further blow to the fragile UN-backed ceasefire agreement that both sides are accused of disregarding.

“We will not stand with folded arms because we are not able to tolerate and wait while killings, arrests, and shelling continue despite the presence of the (United Nations) observers who have turned into false witnesses,” Asaad said, according to the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

“Our people are also demanding we defend them in the absence of any serious steps by the Security Council which is giving the regime a chance to commit more crimes,” he added.

Explosive devices are a common technique used by the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Asaad said, but it was uncertain whether his group was behind the attack on the UN convoy.

“Bombings are not part of our ethics and we don’t need them. Our aim is to target military vehicles and we only use explosive devices,” he said.

The UN has noted violations to the ceasefire from the government and armed rebels, who are suspected of carrying out a series of bombings in recent weeks, as well as political assassinations.

The armed Syrian opposition is highly fragmented and there are militant groups in the country who say they do not take orders from Asaad.

Syrian National Council spokesperson Ausama Monajed told Al-Akhbar in March that Asaad’s fighters only accounted for “maximum five percent” of all armed groups.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a Russian-European drafted resolution last month that authorized an initial deployment of up to 300 unarmed military observers to Syria for three months, to be known as UNSMIS.

But despite an initial pause in fighting on April 12, a promised ceasefire has not taken hold. Nor has the carnage in Syria stopped, despite a parliamentary poll on Monday which the government promoted as a milestone on its path to reform but most opposition groups dismissed as a sham and boycotted.

International mediator Kofi Annan called on both Syrian government forces and opposition fighters to put down their weapons and work with the unarmed observers to consolidate the fragile ceasefire that took effect in April.

The newspaper quoted Asaad as saying the Free Syrian Army had devised a new strategy to make its attacks more effective.

Asaad said the FSA had pulled out of cities to give the Annan plan a chance to succeed.

“The Free Syrian Army is still on the ground in most Syrian territories, and its departure from the cities was to spare civilians military operations and in order not to give the regime an excuse to say that we do not want a ceasefire,” he added.

(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

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May 9, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria border guards foil infiltration attempt from Turkey: Report

Press TV – May 5, 2012

Syrian state media say border guards have foiled an attempt by an armed group to infiltrate into the country from neighboring Turkey.

According to the official Syrian news agency, SANA, clashes broke out between Syrian forces and members of the armed group near the village of Allani, close to the border with Turkey, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Saturday.

Syrian officials said several border guards were killed and injured during the fighting on Saturday. A number of armed men were also killed and wounded.

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five people were killed in a bomb attack in the northwestern city of Aleppo on Saturday. Two similar attacks were also reported in the capital, Damascus.

The clashes on the Syrian-Turkish border come despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 12 and the presence of UN observers tasked with monitoring the truce.

The UK-based Observatory also said on May 2 at least 15 Syrian security forces were killed in a terrorist attack near the village of Rai in the northern province of Aleppo.

The ceasefire in Syria was part of a six-point peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan in March.

The first group of the UN observers arrived in Damascus late on April 15. The observers were approved for the mission according to UNSC Resolution 2042 passed on April 14.

On April 21, the UN Security Council met and unanimously voted on Resolution 2043 to send a mission of 300 observers to Syria.

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May 5, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sudan says UNSC resolution contains positive elements

Sudan Tribune | May 2, 2012

WASHINGTON – The Sudanese government reacted with caution to the resolution adopted unanimously today by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) saying it contains positive elements but vowed to review it carefully in order to determine its negotiating strategy with South Sudan.

Today’s decision directs Khartoum and Juba to inform the Chairperson of the African Union Commission and UNSC president in writing of their intention to commit to a cessation of hostilities including aerial bombardments within 48 hours.

The two sides must immediately withdraw their forces inside their respective borders without conditions and within a week activate the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM) and the Safe Demilitarized Border Zone (SDBZ).

Also, withdrawal from the disputed border region of Abyei must be completed in two weeks in accordance with the June 2011 Agreement on Temporary Security and Administrative Arrangements for Abyei.

Furthermore, the two countries will return to the negotiating table in two weeks time to settle issues including oil, citizenship, border demarcation and Abyei. A four-month window was given to conclude the talks.

Talks on these contentious items is mediated by the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) led by Thabo Mbeki but there was little success in achieving any breakthrough.

The panel managed to schedule a meeting between Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir and his southern counterpart Salva Kiir for April 3rd to seal framework agreements on borders and citizenship. However, clashes that erupted between the two countries in late March over the oil-rich region of Heglig inside South Kordofan led to the suspension of the summit.

Relations deeply deteriorated in early April after South Sudan army (SPLA) managed to occupy Heglig for 10 days before Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) reclaimed the area. Juba insists that it withdrew voluntarily and dismissed Khartoum assertions that they were expelled by force.

South Sudan claimed that Heglig is part of Unity state that was annexed to north Sudan several decades ago through an administrative decision. Heglig, which produces half of Sudan’s oil, saw its facilities severely damaged which Khartoum blamed on SPLA and vowed to sue it internationally.

The UNSC resolution passed today called for a fact finding effort to assess the losses including economic and humanitarian damage to oil facilities and other key infrastructure in and around Heglig.

Despite reservations expressed by China and Russia, the resolution maintained the threat of non-military measures against any side that fails to comply with council’s demands that were in essence part of the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) roadmap endorsed last month.

“We are always very cautious about the use and threat of sanctions,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong told the council.

“China has all along maintained that African issues should be settled by the Africans in African ways” Baodong added.

The Russian envoy expressed the same sentiment.

“The arsenal of political and diplomatic instruments for normalizing the situation has nowhere been exhausted,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council.

“We consider sanctions as an extreme measure” he said

In Beijing, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised China for backing the resolution.

“I’m pleased that China and the United States joined with a unified international community just hours ago to support a strong UN Security [Council] resolution that provides unambiguous support to the African Union roadmap,” Clinton said.

The Sudanese government criticized the AUPSC for requesting the blessings of the UNSC and warned against the attempt to override the African role by involving the UNSC. It said that the intervention by the world body will make political considerations and pre-established positions prevail over the requirements of peaceful settlements.

Last Sunday, the Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti sent a letter to the AU declaring his country’s “preliminary” agreement with the roadmap while expressing several reservations that were not specified.

Karti traveled to Moscow this week to press Russia on Sudan’s point of view regarding the draft resolution. However, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov signaled his backing to the resolution despite expressing discomfort with including Article 41 of the UN charter.

Article 41 states that the UNSC may decide what measures – not involving the use of armed force – are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call on the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures.

These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Sudan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Al-Obeid Marwih said that elements of the UNSC resolution related to condemning Heglig occupation and calling for assessing damage to oil facilities are positive.

Marwih noted that Sudan has no “fundamental objection” on the resolution as long as it is made on the basis of the AUPSC roadmap.

But the head of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) parliamentary bloc Ghazi Salah al-Deen slammed the AUPSC communiqué saying that it equated between the victim and the villain.

“We cannot endorse any international decision denying the right of the Sudanese people,” Al-Deen told the legislative assembly.

Al-Deen, who also serves as Bashir’s adviser, said the labeling of Heglig as a disputed area is “malicious”.

Sudan’s ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Osman expressed disappointment with the resolution.

“It is notable that the resolution has disregarded the continuous aggression by South Sudan against Sudan,” Osman told the council.

“Peace … will only be achieved through halting all forms of support and sheltering of proxy rebel and armed groups espoused by the South Sudan,” he added.

But South Sudan’s Minister of Cabinet Affairs Deng Alor Kuol who attended the vote told the council that his government would comply with the resolution.

“It is my privilege to reaffirm to you that, in compliance with the decisions of the African Union Peace and Security Council, the UN Security Council’s Presidential Statement, and in the spirit of our commitment to peace, my government ordered the withdrawal of our police force from Abyei Area on 28 April 2012. We expect the international community to exert efforts to ensure the immediate and complete withdrawal of Sudan Armed Forces from Abyei Area,” Alor told the council.

As acknowledged formally by the African Union, my government is already committed to the cessation of hostilities and the resumption of negotiations under the auspices of the African Union High Implementation Panel. We welcome the decision of the African Union Peace and Security Council, and the commitment of the UN Security Council to the enhancement of the AUHIP led negotiations process through the active participation of the UN, the Chairman of IGAD and other international partners.”

“We appeal to the United Nations and its member states to urgently mobilize humanitarian assistance for the population affected by Sudan’s continuous aerial bombardment and ground incursions in northern states of South Sudan,” he said.

Alor told reporters that his country did not abandon claims to Heglig and stressed that the move on the region was in response to Khartoum’s aerial bombardments and ground incursions. He said the ownership of Heglig would be on the negotiating table.

The U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice hailed the vote saying that it enforces a time frame to achieve results after years of talks.

“With this vote, the Council has clearly imposed tight deadlines for concrete action, in line with the African Union decision. This Council, especially those members with particular influence, including my own, must continue to press both parties to implement the African Union Roadmap by ending hostilities, ceasing cross-border attacks and movements, halting aerial bombardments, withdrawing all their forces from the border areas including Abyei, activating the necessary border security mechanisms, and ending support to rebel groups working against the other state,” she said.

“It is also essential that both parties return at once to the negotiating table under the auspices of the African Union High-level Implementation Panel to reach agreement on critical outstanding issues. We support the plans of the African Union to travel to Khartoum and Juba in the coming days to begin the process. This is ultimately the only way that further conflict can be avoided” Rice added.

She warned that the UNSC is willing to impose punitive measures if there is lack of progress.

“If the parties fail to take these steps promptly, this Council is united in its determination to hold both sides accountable. We stand ready to impose Chapter VII sanctions on either or both parties, as necessary,” the U.S. diplomat said.

But the Russian ambassador said that sanctions should not be used in relation to conflicts in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where fighting has been raging since last year between Sudan’s army and rebels from Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) who want to topple to Khartoum government.

The resolution orders Khartoum and SPLM-N to cooperate with the mediation and use a June 2011 framework agreement as a basis for talks. The deal was signed by presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie only to be scrapped by Bashir himself later.

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Occupy and Tea Party Members Meet in Minnesota

By Michael Cavlan RN | Dissident Voice | April 28th, 2012

April 11th there was an amazing event at the University Club in St  Paul, Minnesota. Occupy Minnesota sat down at a table and had a discussion with the Minnesota Tea Party.

Before we get into how it went, an explanation on how it transpired is in order. Members of the Minnesota Tea Party were attempting to contact the Occupy Minnesota Movement. However, since we had been booted out of the “People’s Plaza” outside of Minneapolis City Hall in December by the “liberal progressive” Minneapolis City Council, we had become difficult to locate. It must be noted here that this “progressive” City Council had passed Resolutions in support of Occupy — right before they initiated their crackdown on us.

The Tea Party folks had tried to locate a number of individuals but without any luck. Since I had been quite public in organizing the Street Medics, including having my phone number in public, they then called me with a proposal — a debate between Occupy and The Tea Party regarding  the role of government. I quickly contacted my Occupy contacts, and we came up with three people ready, willing and able to participate.

Coleen Rowley, former FBI Whistleblower and Time’s 2002 Person of the Year; Scott Hargarten, who had organized the anti-ALEC Rally at the State Capitol; and myself. We agreed that we would all take the standard statement that depicts any true Occupy event. None of us spoke for Occupy.  Instead we all were individuals who worked within the Occupy Movement. After all there had been no GA to solidify our position nor to give us “authority” to speak on behalf of the Occupy Movement. We made this statement before we started to speak.

As a side note, the Tea Party folks had initially advertised my participation as being a US Senate candidate. I contacted them and told them to stop. I explained that I refused to speak at any Occupy events as a Senate candidate, as a matter of principle; that electoral politics should be kept separate from the Occupy Movement as a matter of policy. I told them that their continuation of this advertising was a deal breaker for my participation. They agreed and changed their fliers and Facebook site.

We arrived at the University Club in St Paul. Very nice and very elegant it must be noted. The debate had been sponsored by the Caux Round Table, a business group aligned with The Tea Party Movement.

We met our “opponents” who were Marianne Stebbins, the Minnesota Ron Paul coordinator; Walter Hudson of North Star Tea Party Patriots; and a gentleman whose name I cannot remember who was a Republican party official.

We started off the discussion. We all agreed to have a Tea Party person speak, then an Occupy and so on. Marianne, the Ron Paul person, started first and gave a very eloquent speech.

I was chosen next. As is my style, I gave a very passionate speech about Occupy and the complete bi-partisan betrayal of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I noted that elected officials from both parties were colluding in this, all while pretending to hate each other. I mentioned the NDAA passage and what this meant. I also pointed out how both political parties were run by elites who marginalized and demonized voices of dissent from within their ranks, and I noted that all kinds of preconceived notions about each other were being shred asunder by this meeting. I laughed and stated that, “See, we Occupy are not just a bunch of dirty, smelly hippies smelling of patcholi oil and not wanting to work, and we see that the Tea Party people here are not a bunch of crazy people.”

I noted the media attempts to marginalize us all, and pointed out the idea of what can be called the “false left-right ideals” that are in place to keep us separated and divided. In a classic case of divide and conquer. I talked about being a left wing supporter of the Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty. I also noted that the Tea Party had been co-opted by the Republican Party establishment and that Occupy was fighting to make sure we were not similarly co-opted. As I talked I noticed many heads nodding in agreement. In fact, the only one that was not was the Republican.

After I finished, I was hit with a plethora of questions and comments. Marianne, the Ron Paul person, looked at me with astonishment and stated, “Oh my God, I never hear of ‘liberals’ speak about the Constitution, and I agree with everything you just said.” I pointed out to her that my views are, in fact, very common but people who think like myself are never given space on the “progressive” media like MSNBC, which are filled with nothing but people talking Democratic Party talking points.

The next person speaking was Walter Hudson of the North Star Tea Party Patriots. He talked about the Tea Party, how it came about and confirmed how the Tea Party was indeed co-opted. He voiced his frustration at that.

Scott Hargarten spoke next.  He talked about the complete corruption going on in the government and how it was his opinion that the Occupy Movement sprang in response to that corruption and from the complete unresponsiveness of the government to the People.

The Republican Party operative spoke next. It was actually kind of funny. He tried to talk Republican Party talking points, went on about how, “You have to make a choice.  There comes a time for that” and other variations on this theme. It was obvious that they were falling on deaf ears.

Coleen Rowley spoke last, and she spoke about her experiences as an FBI Agent and Whistleblower. Then she talked about just how much the government was indeed dismantling the very basic premise of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, together with looting our Treasury and its ties to continued wars. She also pointed out the bi-partisan complicity in all of this.

After this there was a time for questions. They came fast and furious. The questions were thought-provoking and profound. We all sat around and discussed where we were in the USA today. I remember clearly one point where the Republican guy was trying to make a point. Marianne leapt to a response. She stated,  “Oh, hell, no! I am done with this lesser evil nonsense. I am so done with that!”

The entire event can be encapsulated by that event right there.

The poor old Republican was simply outgunned. It was a beautiful and fascinating event. We knew there were things that we all disagreed on. That was implicit and understood, but we also realized there were a lot of basic principles that bound us together.

The divide and conquer has just begun. Now to the meat of the matter. If we had gone in there with a “lesser evil” and “we have to support Obama and the Dems” framing, this entire conversation would have ended up like a Fox News or MSNBC shout fest. Instead it turned into quite something else. The whole time I thought of Chris Hedges and his book Death Of The Liberal Class.

It was a thing of beauty.

Namaste.

Michael Cavlan, an American citizen raised in a Catholic housing project in Northern Ireland, is a decades-long activist for true democracy, anti-war, Social Justice and Media Accountability. Michael is a candidate for the US Semate 2012, Minnesota Open Progressives.

April 28, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

South Sudan orders Sudanese oil workers to leave

Sudan Tribune | April 24, 2012

KHARTOUM – South Sudan has ordered 154 northern Sudanese nationals working for Chinese-led oil consortium, Petrodar, to leave its territories within 3 days, drawing Beijing once again into Juba’s conflict with Khartoum.

The news was announced from Khartoum on Tuesday by the official spokesman of Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, Al-Obaid Adam Marawih, who also revealed they were already engaged in contacts with South Sudan’s foreign ministry to discuss the possibility of sending a plane from Khartoum to take them back home.

Marawih pointed out that the Sudanese staffers were working for Petrodar in Fulug oilfield in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State.

The tension and military confrontations currently dominating relations between Khartoum and Juba can be traced back in part to their failure to agree on terms of using Sudan-based pipelines to export South Sudan’s oil.

China, which is the biggest investor in the oil sector on both sides of the border, was embroiled in the conflict despite its policy of balancing relations between Khartoum and Juba.

In February, as the oil dispute intensified with Juba halting production, South Sudan expelled the head of Petrodar, accusing him of complicity in Khartoum’s confiscation of southern oil.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir is currently on a visit to China where he is planning to ask Beijing to fund an alternative pipeline for exporting southern oil.

Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashir announced following the end of fighting with South Sudan’s army last week around the oil-producing area of Heglig that Khartoum will never allow the south to export its oil via Sudan again.

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April 25, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

South Sudan president in China seeking diplomatic support in conflict with Khartoum

Sudan Tribune | April 24, 2012

KHARTOUM – The president of South Sudan Salva Kiir pleaded the case of his country with China saying that Khartoum has declared war on Juba as he started a five day visit to Beijing.

“It [this visit] comes at a very critical moment for the Republic of South Sudan because our neighbor in Khartoum has declared war on the Republic of South Sudan,” Kiir said during his meeting with China’s president Hu Jintao.

“I have undertaken this visit because of the great relationship that I value with China. China is one of our economic and strategic partners,” Kiir added.

Last Friday, the Sudanese army managed to recapture the oil-rich region of Heglig after South Sudan occupied it for 10 days sparking the worst military conflict between the two sides since the country split into north and south in July 2011.

On Monday witnesses and officials in South Sudan said that Khartoum’s air force carried out bombing raids in Unity states that fell on a market in Bentiu.

The escalation comes as a reflection of the failure of Khartoum and Juba to settle through negotiations a number of key post-independence items and particularly the issue of how much the landlocked south should pay to transport its oil through the north’s pipelines.

China has been the largest single importer of oil from Sudan prior to the south’s breakup. The latter took 75% of the country’s oil when it seceded.

But earlier this year South Sudan suspended its oil production after Sudan started taking part of the oil as payment in kind to make up for what it called unpaid fees.

Last February, Juba ordered Liu Yingcai, the head of the Chinese-Malaysian oil consortium Petrodar, out of the country and accused him of not honoring the terms of reference of the memorandum of understanding which they signed in December.

The latest Chinese customs data show crude imports from Sudan fell nearly 40 percent in January and February compared to a year earlier.

China made a failed attempt last December to mediate between the two countries on the oil issue. Following that, Beijing remained largely silent while calling on Khartoum and Juba to continue dialogue.

But last week, Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir threatened to crush the “insect” government of the South, and said the time for talks was over.

The Chinese president appeared careful not to take sides on the Khartoum-Juba row and urged continuation of dialogue.

“The urgent task is to actively cooperate with the mediation efforts of the international community and halt armed conflict in the border areas,” Hu was quoted as telling Kiir during a meeting in Beijing.

“China sincerely hopes that South Sudan and Sudan can become good neighbors who coexist in amity and good partners who develop together,” Hu added.

Kiir and Hu witnessed the signing of several agreements between the two countries that cover humanitarian aid, solar energy and financial cooperation.

Gum Bol Noah,an official from Salva’s office, said China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) was willing to offer South Sudan technical support if Juba decided to build an alternative oil pipeline, making it less reliant on the pipeline running through Sudan.

Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin confirmed to Dow Jones China’s interest in financing the project.

“The Chinese are already there and we will continue with them, no problem” Benjamin said.

“Everybody will apply and we will see who has the capacity and who can generate a good consortium of companies to create money” he added.

Kiir attended the opening ceremony of the South Sudanese embassy in Beijing yesterday and will meet Vice-Premier Li Keqiang today.

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April 25, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians: The Forgotten People

By William James Martin | Palestine Chronicle | April 24th, 2012

It is impossible to understand the present Palestinian/Israeli conflict without understanding the past, in particular, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe, who are not Semitic people, but indigenous to Eastern Europe.

In 1900, there were no Ashkenazi Jews living in Palestine; essentially none, that is, but a few, small mostly temporary Russian Jewish settlers, not totally unusual for various cults in the Holy Land at that time. Theodore Herzl, frequently designated ‘The Father of Modern Zionism’, because of the publication of his book, The Jewish State, in 1996, and because of the founding of the World Zionist Congress a year later,  stated in 1897:

[We shall] spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.

Thus the concept of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was introduced.

By the 1930s, the ‘transfer’ of Arabs was the unanimous opinion of the founders of Israel. So-called transfer committees, headed by Joseph Weitz, Director of Land Management for the Jewish Agency, were set up explicitly for the purpose of studying ways of transferring Arabs out of Palestine.

At the beginning of 1948, despite 50 years of land purchases, Jews only owned 6% of the land of Palestine. By the year’s end, the Israeli army controlled 78% of Palestine in a process of ethnic cleansing that saw the destruction of 531 Arab cities or villages and 11 Arab urban areas, with massacres at almost all of those towns or villages, the almost complete looting of Palestinian property and wealth, including looting of banks, confiscation of Palestinian homes and property, businesses, fields and orchards.

The Palestinian people lost everything. Those who survived the massacres lost their careers, their means of livelihood, only to find refuge in tent cities set up by the United Nations which were later to become squalid refugee camps of cinder block buildings dotted around the Middle East.

By just checking the time line, one quickly disposes of the 60 year old Israeli propaganda myth that the state of Israel was innocently minding its own business when it was attacked by five armies of surrounding Arab states.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians began on November 30, 1947 in Haifa when the Jewish army under David Ben Gurion, along with the Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, under Manachem Begin, began shelling the Arab sections of that city. In March of 1948, David Ben Gurion finalized and distributed Plan D to his officers, which was a program for destroying and depopulating Arab villages and eliminating any resistance. The massacre at the Arab village of Deir Yassin, only one of many, but possibly the most famous, occurred on April 9, 1948. Israel declared itself a state on May 14, 1948, and it was the next day, May 15, that the first regular soldier of an Arab army set foot in Palestine. By then, about half of the 800,000 Palestinian refugees had been generated and all of Palestine’s urban centers and been depopulated of Arabs.

One cannot understand the natural anger and resentment of the Arab people, and particularly the Palestinian people, toward Israel, and also to the West, for supporting their oppressors and for being blind to their own suffering, without coming to a full understanding of the catastrophe, which they call the Nakbah, that befell the Palestinian people in 1948.

Nor can one understand the futility of the exalted ‘peace process’, ongoing now for the last 22 years, concurrent with the further erosion of Palestinian rights and freedom, and migration of new Jewish settlers into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, without understanding that Israel acquired its present status as a state, not by negotiation with Palestinians, but by brute force and very much against the will of the indigenous people.

For the Arab people, Israel is an alien implant, imposed by western powers, in the heart of the Arab world against the will of the Arab people.

The Palestinians living under occupation have been living in that situation for 40 years, deprived of natural human rights, abused and, more often than not, humiliated, suffering degradation and humiliation on a daily basis, as their land and property and resources are daily confiscated by the state of Israel, who also winks at settler violence and looks the other way as settlers, who have built their settlement so hilltops, dump their sewage onto Palestinian farmland, as they also cut down their olive trees, burn their fields and poison or otherwise kill their livestock, in order to make way for more settlers and settlements as well as to make life as miserable as possible for the Palestinians.

Zionism is a political program of clearing Palestine of Palestinian Arabs in order to create the space for an exclusive Jewish state. As such, its goal is to destroy the Palestinians as a people with an identity as a people and with an attachment to the land of their births and the births of their ancestry. Such a project meets the definition of genocide in international law. Genocide is a crime against humanity as well as against its immediate victims. Genocide is a crime in which all of humanity is degraded.

William James Martin teaches in the Department of Mathematics at the University of New Orleans. He can be reached at: wjm20@caa.columbia.edu.

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April 24, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

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