Aletho News

Palestine Papers: The Palestinians’ ‘Generous Offer’

Palestinian officials are largely focused on ensuring American aid

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | February 4, 2011

As Palestinians are becoming increasingly confident about the authenticity of the Palestine Papers – 1,600 leaked documents that Al Jazeera began publishing on January 23 – they can also find little to be proud of in their contents.

According to Palestinian political commentator Mazin Qumsiyeh, the PA’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat “comes out basically pleading and begging sometimes and other times using the presence of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to try and convince (American and Israeli) officials.” If the conduct of PA officials is not outright betrayal of the rights of their people, then it is, at best, degrading political groveling in exchange for factional gains.

Others have convincingly argued that such demeaning behavior is also indicative of the true nature of the negotiations. Palestinians are, in fact, the party desperate for a peace agreement, while the Israelis insist on arrogantly refusing all Palestinian initiatives – which often even surpass Israel’s and the US’s declared expectations. “The documents put to death the idea that Israel has no Palestinian ‘partner for peace,” argues US author and professor, Stephen M. Walt. They also “expose the bipartisan and binational strategy that Israel and the United States have followed under both Bush and Obama: to keep putting pressure on the Palestinians to cut a one-sided deal.”

The leaked documents – comprising mostly of Palestinian accounts of numerous meetings between Israel, US and Palestinian Authority officials – truly represent a convincing, and, in my view, a final argument against the sham dubbed the ‘peace process’. The so-called process, which commenced with the original declaration of principles in Oslo in 1993, has turned into a secretive barter between a rejectionist, but unified Israeli-American front and Palestinian officials who are largely focused on ensuring American aid and defeating their political rivals.

What is particularly odd is the fact that while Palestinian negotiators were conceding most of the Palestinian rights in occupied East Jerusalem, brazenly giving away the right of return for refugees, and offering territorial concessions to accommodate most of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many in the American media were still talking of Palestinian failure to respond to Israel’s historic concessions. The Israeli generosity ruse had begun many years ago – back in the Henry Kissinger years when Arabs were constantly paraded for failing to live up to Israeli and American overtures. But the ruse was greatly cemented following the July 2000 collapse of peace talks between then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Barak’s “generous offer” – since proven untrue – continued to haunt Palestinians, who were derided for their supposed political inflexibility and “Arafat’s recalcitrance” (L.A. Times editorial, April 08, 2002).

Now Al Jazeera has revealed and verified hundreds of documents, spanning from 1999 to 2010, which show that the Palestinians’ generosity was truly extraordinary and far-reaching, if not a cause of utter shame for many of those involved.

The Palestine Papers revealed much about the skewed nature of the relationship between two parties who are purportedly in a state of conflict. As it turned out, the Palestinian leadership seemed to negotiate and offer the very opposite of what the Palestinian public truly desire.

According to one leaked document, Saeb Erekat gave away most of Occupied East Jerusalem, even as Israelis insisted on not yet discussing Jerusalem. On June 30, 2008, in a meeting that included Tzipi Livni, then Israel’s Foreign Minister and Ahmed Qurei, top Fatah official and former PA Prime Minister, Erekat declared: “It is no secret that on our map we proposed we are offering you the biggest Yerushalayim (the Hebrew word for Jerusalem) in history.”

Erekat’s personal offer was an extension of one proposed by Qurei himself, in a meeting two weeks earlier. Qurei “proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa). This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David.” To further convince Israeli officials, Erekat “went on to enumerate some of the settlements that the PA was willing to concede,” according to Gregg Carlstrom in Al Jazeera. They include “French Hill, Ramat Alon, Ramat Shlomo, Gilo, Talpiot, and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s old city. Those areas contain some 120,000 Jewish settlers.”

As for Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary – the third holiest of Muslim sites – Erekat offered ‘creative’ solutions, such as placing the Palestinian Muslim shrine under international supervision – thus ceding almost complete control over the occupied city.

This is barely the tip of the iceberg. The compromises are plentiful and they blatantly contradict international law, Palestinian national aspirations, Arab consensus, and even the declared official position of the Palestinian Authority itself.

The Palestine Papers also confirm that both sides are on more or less on the same page regarding the Palestinian people’s right to return, agreeing that such a right will not be carried out in any meaningful way. In an October 21, 2009 meeting with US diplomat and Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, Erekat stated: “Palestinians will need to know that five million refugees will not go back. The number will be agreed as one of the options. Also the number returning to their own state will depend on annual absorption capacity.”

The documents reveal much more, including, for example, that the PA’s strategy in crushing political opposition was the handy work of Britain’s intelligence service, MI6. This, of course, hardly compares to the American role, which has held Israeli interests and priorities as the backbone of American involvement in the talks.

The leaked documents have permanently damaged whatever little credibility the Ramallah-based authority still enjoyed among Palestinians. How much longer the PA can continue to serve any purpose is now unclear. What is certain, however, is that its purpose does not include exacting Palestinian rights or preserving the national integrity of the Palestinian people and the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state.

The Palestine Papers have made this very clear, and lashing out at Al Jazeera – as the PA is now doing – will change nothing.

February 4, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Egyptians vow to continue protests

Press TV – February 2, 2011

Millions of protesters across Egypt have deified army orders to return to their homes as rallies against President Hosni Mubarak and his government continue for the ninth day.

Earlier Wednesday, the Egyptian military called on protesters to return home.

“The army calls on protesters to go home to restore security and stability in the street,” a military spokesman said on state television.

The call comes as millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Wednesday. Organizers say the protests will continue across the country.

Clashes broke out between Mubarak supports and anti-government protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Opposition activists say Mubarak supporters were in fact plainclothes police officers who charged anti-regime protesters in Cairo on horses and camels. They attacked protesters with knives, witnesses said. According to reports, some 100 people have been injured in the clashes.

Reports say security forces have also attacked people in Suez and Alexandria. The development comes hours after Mubarak warned protesters that clashes would erupt if protests continue. Mubarak has so far defied the protestors’ demand to step down.

Earlier, Egypt’s two houses of parliament suspended their sessions indefinitely until the December general election results are revised.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has accused elements loyal to Mubarak of committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to undermine the Egyptian revolution.

The group has confirmed several cases where plain clothes police loyal to Mubarak instigated raids and hostility during demonstrations.

The group’s emergency director, Peter Bouckaert, says he has verified reports of injured looters with police ID cards receiving treatment at hospitals.

Bouckaert has also expressed doubts over reports of the escape of thousands of prisoners over the weekend.

During the past several days, Egypt’s state television has been running reports on violent criminals among the protesters. Some view the move as an attempt by Mubarak to discredit the current democratic movement in the country.

February 2, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Threats to academic freedom surround pro-Palestinian college professors

Israel – Palestine News | January 27, 2011

Kristofer Petersen-Overton, a political science doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center, has been fired from his position as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College one week before his course on Middle East politics was slated to begin.

The case was taken up by the Brooklyn College administration after a student enrolled in his course raised concerns that Mr. Petersen-Overton’s alleged pro-Palestinian bias would prevent him from conducting a balanced seminar. The student expressed these concerns with the political science department but agreed not to pursue further action until after the course actually began. However, this student contacted state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who then characterized Mr. Petersen-Overton as “pro-suicide bomber” in a letter to the college President.

In a response sent to Hamodia newspaper on Wednesday, Mr. Petersen-Overton expressed concerns “that a state official would denounce my work so strongly without, apparently, having offered it more than a cursory reading. [Hikind’s] press release … is slander pure and simple.” Mr. Petersen-Overton emphasized that his work has little to do with suicide bombers and that Mr. Hikind deliberately twisted his conclusions to make it appear otherwise.

“I was not contacted by Brooklyn College administration at any time during their decision-making process. This politically motivated action undermines CUNY’s longstanding legacy as a stalwart defender of academic freedom,” Mr. Petersen-Overton said.

The allegations against Mr. Petersen-Overton center on time he spent in the Gaza Strip working for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and on an unpublished scholarly paper that analyzes the symbolic place of martyrdom in Palestinian nationalism. Petersen-Overton’s detractors also took issue with the fact that, according to his personal website, he still maintains “close contact” with the Palestinian activist community.

Mr. Petersen-Overton’s academic work deals broadly with issues of identity formation in Israel and Palestine.

January 27, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Fatah fighters point fingers to PA for ’05 assassination

Ma’an – 27/01/2011

GAZA CITY — The Fatah-aligned Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades named names on Thursday, identifying four PA officials who they said were behind the 2005 assassination of a leader within the militant wing.

Former Fatah strongman in Gaza Muhammad Dahlan topped the list, along with PA security forces leaders Naser Yousef, Samir Al-Mashharawi, and Rashid Abu Shabak.

The four, Al-Aqsa spokesman said, were responsible for the death of Hassan Madhoun.

Speaking from Gaza City, the militant wing leader called for a revolution Friday, and a “day of anger” against the “corrupted and the conspirators with the occupation.”

Madhoun was killed on 11 January 2005 along with a Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades member Fawzi Abu Qaraan. The two were in a car with government license plates when they were hit. Resistance factions in Gaza at the time vowed retaliation on Israel.

“There will be many chances to defend this crime,” Al-Aqsa said, adding that a chance would be taken “in the coming days.”

On Tuesday, Al-Jazeera and The Guardian leaked documents that quoted Israeli officials asking Palestinians to assassinate Madhoun.

According to handwritten Arabic notes obtained by the Qatar-based news station, former Israeli Defense Minister Sha’ul Mofaz asked the former PA interior minister Nasser Yasouf to assassinate the fighter.

“We know his address … Why don’t you kill him?” Mofaz said. “He is not Hamas and you can kill him.”

Later, Yousef answers that “We’re working” on taking action against Madhoun and others. “The environment is not easy, our capabilities are limited, and you haven’t offered anything.”

Addressing the reports, the Al-Aqsa fighter said the brigades learned “noting new” from the leaked documents, but analysis of the report “proved the PA involvement in the crime.”

PA officials have called into question the validity of the 1,600 documents which cover 10 years of negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials, while others accused the satellite channel of pushing a political agenda and seeking to destabilize the West Bank.

January 27, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Lebanon: Miqati Reportedly Blessed by Syria, France, Qatar

Naharnet | January 24, 2011

Beirut – Najib Mikati’s candidacy for the premiership has reportedly won the blessing of France and Qatar in addition to Syria as the Opposition’s condition primarily called for the abolition of the international tribunal.

As-Safir newspaper on Monday said Miqati’s nomination came following intensive contacts between Paris and Doha that also included prominent regional capitals.

It said Miqati is expected to receive a “comfortable” percentage of votes against Hariri, particularly since at least two of his north Lebanon allies (Mohammad Safadi and Ahmad Karami) will vote for him and given that Druze leader Walid Jumblat will most likely secure 8 votes from his Democratic Gathering bloc in Miqati’s favor.

As-Safir said AMAL Movement and Hizbullah MPs Ali Hasan Khalil and Haj Hussein Khalil visited Miqati at his Verdun residence on Saturday and conveyed to him the Opposition’s desire to bring him as Lebanon’s new prime minister to head the next Government which would take upon itself the termination of the agreement between Lebanon and the international tribunal, the withdrawal of Lebanese judges from the tribunal and ending financing it, in addition to referring the false witnesses’ issue to the Judicial Council.

Mikqati, however, according to the report, considered that any commitment of this kind is to be taken unanimously by Cabinet.

“Cabinet can discuss these issues and decide which it deems appropriate,” Miqati reportedly told AMAL and Hizbullah delegates.

A senior Mustaqbal Movement official, on the other hand, acknowledged that Miqati has been named by the Opposition after he agreed to adopt a position against the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The pro-Opposition Al-Akhbar newspaper, meanwhile, said Miqati also made a “brief” visit to Damascus where he met President Bashar Assad.

January 24, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Iran warns West of meddling in Tunisia

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses crowds of people in the central Iranian city of Yazd, January 19, 2011.

Press TV – January 19, 2011

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned the United States, Israel and some Western states not to interfere in Tunisia and Lebanon’s internal affairs.

Addressing crowds of people in the central Iranian city of Yazd on Wednesday, President Ahmadinejad emphasized that Western countries aim to deprive the Tunisians of their rights through psychological warfare.

Massive riots and protests have rocked Tunisia this past month. The Riots broke out in Tunisia following the self-immolation of a 26-year-old fruit vendor, identified as Muhammad Bouazizi, who set himself on fire after police confiscated his merchandise.

President Ahmadinejad urged Tunisian politicians to exercise vigilance in face of foreign interference and pay due attention to the needs and choices of their people, adding that Tunisians want an Islamic government.

Elsewhere in his speech, the Iranian president slammed the Western-backed UN tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

President Ahmadinejad called on the US and its European allies to stop meddling in Lebanon, which he said is at a critical juncture.

Lebanon is in a political standoff after Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government collapsed on Wednesday when 11 Hezbollah-affiliated ministers resigned in a dispute over the US-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), probing the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

The US-sponsored tribunal is reportedly about to indict some Hezbollah members in the Hariri murder case — an allegation which has been vehemently rejected by the Lebanese resistance movement.

The Iranian chief executive also called for the promotion of unity among all Lebanese factions.

Pointing to the “Iranian nation’s achievements” over the past 32 years, the Iranian president said,” Today the Iranian nation is shining in the world and has brought its enemies to their knees.”

January 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Tunisia to hold polls in 60 days

Press TV – January 15, 2011

Tunisia’s constitutional council says the presidential election must be held within 60 days, after placing the country’s Parliament speaker in power.

The council, Tunisia’s highest legal authority on constitutional issues, decided to formally oust president Zine El Abidin Ben Ali and put Speaker Fouad Mebazaa in charge based on Article 57 of the Constitution.

Premier Mohammad Ghannouchi had earlier taken over from Ben Ali.

Tunisian airports were reopened after Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia.

Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for more than two decades. His era was marred by repeated human rights violations and torture.

Meanwhile, unrest continues in the capital Tunis where the central railway station and a market were set on fire. Witnesses have reported lootings in shopping centers.

Police have arrested several people in central Tunis during the overnight curfew.

Analysts believe the ouster of the Tunisian president is a warning to authoritarian regimes across the Arab world.

In an interview with Press TV, Clovis Maksoud, Lebanon’s former ambassador and permanent observer of the League of Arab States in the United Nations described the Tunisian uprising as a wake-up call for the Arab world.

“It’s going to be infectious in several other areas in a manner that might not necessarily lead to bloodshed but [could] weaken the authority [in many Arab countries],” Maksoud told Press TV.

Meanwhile in another development in the country, reports also say that at least 42 inmates have been killed in an inferno at a jail in the Tunisian resort town of Monastir.

“The whole prison is on fire, the furniture, mattresses, everything,” Reuters quoted one witness as saying.

January 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

China imports Israel’s methods of propaganda and repression

Jimmy Johnson, The Electronic Intifada, 28 December 2010

(EI Illustration)

Israeli army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu recently returned from a trip to China where he met with his Chinese counterparts and other officials. The goal was to deepen Sino-Israeli ties on political, security and military levels. This is only the latest in a burgeoning security relationship between Israel and China that includes drone technology, crowd control training, surveillance, intelligence gathering and more. This raises the question of how China’s official support for Palestinian self-determination will coincide with its ongoing procurement of the tools of Palestinian pacification. Similarly, how does it threaten the rights of Uighurs, Tibetans, and others under the control of the Chinese state by bringing Israel’s apparatuses of occupation and apartheid?

China, in recent years, has faced growing rebellions in Tibet, East Turkestan, and most prominently in the ongoing labor unrest focused in China’s south where strikes and protests are occurring at an unprecedented rate. Despite attempts at controlling what information comes and goes, the Chinese government has learned that complete suppression is impossible. Its political relationships with Uighurs, Tibetans and especially workers are different than that of Israel to Palestinians. Tibetans and Uighurs have certain protected statuses and rights both as minorities and as Chinese citizens, and the state, since 2008, has been supportive to a degree of improving workplace conditions and reducing the income gap in favor of the protesting working class.

But with the most visible of Uighur and Tibetan activism and resistance focusing on self-determination, China faces a likely insurmountable battle to convince already mobilized populations that they should accept Chinese control. The strong police responses to unrest in 2008 in Tibet and 2009 in East Turkestan, combined with China’s long record of authoritarian crackdowns on civil liberties, indicate any demands outside of those deemed acceptable by the state will be met harshly.

Sino-Israeli relations were generally distant prior to the 1980s but that decade saw the beginning of significant Israeli arms and technology transfers to China. Early efforts included the 1982 transfer of missile technology and the upgrading of China’s tank fleet despite closer political and diplomatic relations being hindered by Cold War and Non-Aligned Movement politics, especially Israel’s close military and political relationship with Taiwan. Yet by 1990 Israel was “a very major supplier” of defense technology to China (“Israeli Arms Technology Aids China“Los Angeles Times, 13 June 1990). Moreover, a closer relationship was built when Israel proved itself to be a reliable arms supplier during the period after the Tiananmen Square massacre when many international suppliers imposed an arms embargo in response. At the time Israel was selling arms to many repressive regimes including ones restricted by official arms embargoes such as apartheid South Africa.

The two nations only established official diplomatic relations in the wake of the 1991 Madrid Conference when the stigma of the oppression of the Palestinians was largely ameliorated by the beginning of public Israeli-Palestinian talks, presented at the time as the the precursor to Palestinian self-determination. Post-Cold War, Israel and China have developed extensive trade and military relations, despite occasional US skepticism and intervention, most notably blocking sales of advanced military systems and hardware over the past two decades.

Israel’s own Lavi fighter jet project was ended in the mid-1980s but some of the technology developed for it has made its way into China’s Jian-10 (Chengdu) jets. The transfer of Lavi technology and Chinese funding of Israeli missile projects accompanied larger sales such as the 1994 sale of around 100 Harpy unmanned aerial vehicles to China. Another aspect of their relationship started during this time too, China’s interest in Israel’s experience with Palestinian and Lebanese pacification.

Since 2004 a large number of Israeli “homeland security” and pacification systems have been deployed in China. The Israeli company On Track Innovations (OTI) began to deliver “smart cards” as part of China’s national ID card system with some of the same biometric technology it provides to ID systems at major checkpoints in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Magal Systems, whose detection systems are deployed on Israel’s wall in the West Bank, has installed nine perimeter detection systems at airports throughout China, with two more pending.

Such transfers could well be used in innocuous, or in the case of smart cards potentially beneficial, ways such as “smart” ID cards carrying information useful in medical emergencies. But their genesis as technologies of occupation and pacification deserves a critical interpretation. Numerous other surveillance and homeland security contracts to Israeli firms Nice Systems, Dr. Frucht Systems and others must be seen in a similar light.

Less innocuous is the Israeli private security firm International Security and Defense Systems’ (ISDS) training of Chinese security personnel in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. ISDS “was asked to provide know-how and situation reports about international terror, mainly regarding threats of extremist Muslim groups in Asia” (Israeli security expert takes pride in his role at the Olympics“Haaretz, 10 August 2008). The declared threat of armed attacks concerned mostly organizations associated with Uighur nationalism, Islamism and East Turkestan independence, the latter being the geographic center of the other two. With the international eye on China during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China was especially concerned about any actions that might distract from the pageantry and bring attention to various causes in opposition to the status quo.

China was also concerned with other kinds of resistance. ISDS head Leo Glaser told Haaretz, “The Chinese fear, among other things, that some demonstrators’ group might try to take advantage of the worldwide attention to carry out a non-violent but provocative act to disgrace the Chinese organizers” (Israeli security expert takes pride in his role at the Olympics” Haaretz, 10 August 2008).

In addition to potential Uighur and Tibetan protest, Beijing police were preparing for protest by some of the 1.25 million people forcibly displaced to build the Olympic infrastructure. To this end the Israeli police trained members of China’s police force in a six-week course that included, as reported in Haaretz, “how to deal with a crowd that riots on the playing field, and how to protect VIPs and remove demonstrators from main traffic arteries” (“Israeli police trained Chinese counterparts prior to Olympics,” Haaretz, 29 September 2008). The article noted that “although the main focus of the training was to give the Chinese police the tools necessary to handle terrorist attacks, they also learned how to handle mass civilian demonstrations.” The thousands upon thousands of Palestinian protests, marches, riots and acts of civil disobedience — which Israel routinely confronts with lethal force — have made Israel a go-to destination for such training.

The rising unrest in China and Tibet, along with China’s ever-increasing economic and political efforts outside its border, have already started to bring more press attention to the collective rights and conditions of workers, Uighurs, Tibetans and others in addition to the common historical criticisms of China’s poor record on civil freedoms. China’s studying of Israeli hasbara (the Hebrew term meaning “explanation” but commonly translated as “propaganda”) pairs ideologically with its ongoing pacification efforts. China’s record will need some explaining and the October visit of Benayahu and his public relations delegation follows the March 2010 visit of Sen. Col. Xeuping and a Chinese PR delegation that visited Israel to learn “the public-relations lessons learnt during the Second Lebanon War and during Operation Cast Lead” (“IDF Spokesperson Visits China,” IDF, 20 October 2010). The delegation also studied “the IDF [Israeli army] School for Media’s training system and the integration of spokesmanship and operational planning.”

Xeuping said of the most recent visit that “IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is very effective and up-to-date, especially in times of emergency.” With regular unrest throughout China, “times of emergency” to deploy Israeli hasbara are on the rise. And China’s adoption of Israeli security technologies means the Chinese response will be built from Israel’s industry of Palestinian pacification.

December 29, 2010 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

ObamaCare: Worse Than You Thought

The Insurance Robbers

By JOHN V. WALSH | CounterPunch | December 29, 2010

Prod a Democrat Party loyalist on the shortcomings of ObamaCare and you are likely to get two retorts: come 2014 at least everyone will be covered; and from the moment when Obama signed the law pre-existing conditions can no longer be used by the insurers to deny coverage.  It turns out, however, that neither of these claims is true.

Let’s take universal coverage first.  It turns out that in 2016, two years into full implementation of ObamaCare, there may be 30-40 million Americans sans coverage.  From whence and whom comes such a number?  No less than Dr. Robert Kocher, former special assistant to Obama on health care who directed the simulations to get these numbers in his new post at McKinsey and Co., an international consulting company.  The simulations involved a detailed county by county analysis across the country.

Asked who would remain uninsured, Kocher replied:  “There will always be a residual pool of uninsured that includes the following populations: undocumented [foreigners], people between jobs, those who may lose coverage from either changes in income [or from] rolling off of Medicaid. Also, the [people whose employer-based coverage] was dropped but who haven’t yet purchased insurance; those eligible and not enrolled in Medicaid; and those [who have not enrolled in insurance] by choice.”

OK then, our Obama loyalist might say, at least as of the moment the president put pen to paper to pass ObamaCare, the insurance robbers were themselves robbed of the ability to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.   Perhaps in theory, but that does not turn out to be the case either.  It turns out that although 6 million Americans are eligible for the “Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan” provided in ObamaCare, only 8011 are enrolled.  Why the shockingly low number? Two reasons emerge.  First most people and physicians do not know who is eligible or how to enroll, a recurrent problem in a health care system designed for the insurers not the insured.  And second the cost, the monthly premiums for the plan ranging from $320 to $570 a month.

So even these minimal benefits turn out to be an illusion.  And as we in Massachusetts are learning from RomneyCare, the model for ObamaCare, costs are not controlled by such programs.   Premiums continue to rise here and now the insurers are beginning to provide physicians with global budgets for their patients with financial incentives for the docs to withhold care.  We can expect more of that under ObamaCare.

But at its core the worst thing about ObamaCare is that it does not provide egalitarian care.  That is, health care is not a right.  We must pay bribes (aka premiums) to the insurers for our health care and better care comes to those who can pay the bigger bribe.  And for those who can’t who are too poor to pay any bribes there is Medicaid whose coverage in some states is no different from having no coverage at all, based on the outcomes.

One wonders whether it would not be better if ObamaCare failed in the courts leaving us with the reasonable two choices: Medicare for all, as in Canada and France, or a National Health Service, as in the UK.  Progressives might well want to ponder joining the suits against ObamaCare.

John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com.  He recommends following the sorry twists and turns of ObamaCare on Dr. Don McCanne’s superb column, “Quote of the Day,” from which some of the info above is drawn, on the web site of Physicians for a National Health Program,www.phnhp.org

December 29, 2010 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

France ‘will recognize’ Palestinian state

Press TV – December 8, 2010

After Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, France has now declared that it will recognize a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

France has declared that it will recognize a free and independent Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 war, becoming the first European nation to do so.

Bernard Valero, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Paris agrees with the formation of a Palestinian state based on the exchange of land between Israel and the Palestinians.

Valero also expressed hope that peace talks between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel will resume.

During the past week, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have all sent letters to acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas, declaring that they recognize a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Human rights activists and international bodies are meanwhile vying for the United Nations membership for the Palestinian state.

The activists believe that Palestine already meets the required criteria for joining the world body.

Israel has protested the recent recognitions, claiming that the move is against the spirit of the Mideast talks.

Tel Aviv accuses the Latin American nations of ignoring the 2003 Middle East roadmap for peace, which said that a Palestinian state could be established through dialogue, but not through unilateral measures.

This is while the international community widely backs Palestinian demands for a state in most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), all territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The recent developments come only weeks after Tel Aviv announced that it would not halt its plan for constructing over 1,300 new settler units in East al-Quds and a further 800 units in the northern occupied West Bank.

Israel’s decision has been condemned by the PA, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

In clear defiance to international criticism, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also stated that it considers al-Quds its capital.

The resumption of the illegal construction work has put a halt to direct talks between Israel and the PA, which began in early September after a 20-month break.

The Palestinians say that the settlement activities are being carried out to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its future capital.

December 8, 2010 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

The Israelification of America

By Paul Woodward | War in Context | November 22, 2010

As the Transportation Security Administration faces a barrage of criticism, some indignant Americans are calling for the “Israelification” of US airports — as though the security procedures used in a tiny Middle Eastern ethnocracy with one international airport could easily be scaled up for America.

Ironically, Israelification is not what we need — it’s what we already have.

Consider the real outrages of the last decade that, simply because they were done in the name of national security, the majority of Americans found tolerable:

• a global war on terrorism that led to massive increases in defense spending, the creation of multiple new intelligence and security agencies, and Washington’s enslavement to fear-based politics — that was OK;
• with disregard for international law, the invasion of Iraq on a false pretext — that was OK;
• the kidnapping, secret imprisonment and torture of individuals most of whom had nothing to do with 9/11 — that was OK;
• the authorization of warrantless wiretaps — that was OK;
• the implementation of a remote-controlled assassination program — that was OK;
• in short, the normalization of war crimes all of which were deemed justifiable because of 9/11 — that was OK;
• but “don’t touch my junk” — there are limits to what Americans will tolerate.

TSA administrators are no doubt frustrated by the fact that had the new pat-down procedures been implemented in late 2001, they would probably have been welcomed by a population that widely supported the idea of doing “whatever it takes” to stop “the terrorists.”

The problem, then and now, is that air transportation security is imagined to be about catching terrorists. On this count, the TSA seems to have a poor record.

At Slate, Juliet Lapidos notes:

In May, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that SPOT’s [“Screening of Passengers by Observational Techniques”] annual cost is more than $200 million and that as of March 2010 some 3,000 behavior detection officers [BDOs] were deployed at 161 airports but had not apprehended a single terrorist. (Hundreds of illegal aliens and drug smugglers, however, were arrested due to the program between 2004 and 2008.) What’s more, the GAO noted that at least 16 individuals later accused of involvement in terrorist plots flew 23 different times through U.S. airports since 2004, but TSA behavior-detection officers didn’t sniff out any of them.

Does this imply that the TSA’s BDOs have yet to pinpoint the way a terrorist walks, talks, or dresses? The TSA’s “failure” in this instance might simply mean that the individuals who escaped their attention were not at those times actually doing anything suspicious.

The point is, there are justifiable and unjustifiable grounds to turn a person into an object of suspicion. A system that simply on the basis of religion, ethnicity or nationality, regards a person with suspicion, is unjust and will be ineffective. Indeed, a system which even regards its targets as “the terrorists” conjures up the false notion that it is dealing with a class of people rather than a class of behavior.

Which brings me back to my initial claim that the Israelification of America is already deeply entrenched. Israel’s fear of the Arab world has been transplanted into American consciousness to such a degree that we are moving toward the absurd conclusion that if this country operated even more like Israel than it already does, then we would be able to feel as safe as the Israelis do.

Living inside a fortress and defining ones existence in terms of threats posed by eternal enemies, is a good way of justifying spending more and more on increasingly elaborate fortifications. But those who invest deeply in this mindset and who profit from its perpetuation, have the least interest in exploring what we need to understand most: why our enemies think the way they do. Delve into that question, and the notion of eternal enmity quickly evaporates — thus the perpetuation of the myth that we are under threat not because of what we do but because of who we are.

Meanwhile, next time a TSA officer offends your dignity, spare a thought for the Palestinians who while passing through IDF checkpoints suffer vastly worse when attempting no more than to travel from one town to the next.

November 24, 2010 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment