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Egyptian army attacks protesters in Cairo

Press TV – August 1, 2011

Egyptian demonstrators rally in downtown Cairo’s Tahrir square on July 29, 2011.

At least 200 protesters have been injured as violent clashes erupted between Egyptian security forces and demonstrators camped out in the capital’s landmark Liberation Square.

The clashes erupted when security forces entered the square to disperse protesters who have stayed there for over three weeks.

Dozens of troops entered the square with military vehicles and managed to open the square to traffic.

Witnesses say the troops fired into air and used live ammunition in a bid to break up the demonstrations.

Some reports say at least 200 protesters have been injured. Some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

The protesters have been calling for an end to the military rule.

The protesters are calling for swift change and the ouster of military rulers who have replaced the former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

One of their key demands is the swift trial of former regime members involved in the killing of protesters during the revolution.

They are also calling on de facto president and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to step down.

Following Mubarak’s downfall, a military council took over in Egypt. Many Egyptians believe it is trying to derail the revolution.

Demonstrators call for an end to the military council’s rule and want the military to go back to their barracks and hand over power to a civilian government.

August 1, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

CIA and FBI Tried to Get U.S. Lawyer to Betray Arab Clients

By Sherwood Ross – Blacklisted News – July 29, 2011

Federal agents from the FBI and CIA/FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force tried to get a distinguished international lawyer to inform on his Arab and Muslim clients in violation of their Constitutional rights to attorney-client privilege, this reporter has learned. When the lawyer refused, he said the FBI placed him on a “terrorist watch list.”

Law professor Francis Boyle gave a chilling account of how, in the summer of 2004, two agents showed up at his office (at the University of Illinois, Champaign,) “unannounced, misrepresented who they were and what they were about to my secretary, gained access to my office, interrogated me for about one hour, and repeatedly tried to get me to become their informant on my Arab and Muslim clients.”

“This would have violated their (clients) Constitutional rights and my ethical obligations as an Attorney,” Boyle explained. “I refused. So they put me on all of the United States government’s ‘terrorist watch’ lists.”

Boyle said his own lawyer found “there are about five or six different terrorist watch lists, and as far as he could determine, I am on all of them.” Despite a legal appeal to get his name removed, Boyle said, “I will remain on all of these terrorist watch lists for the rest of my life or until the two Agencies who put me on there remove my name, which is highly unlikely.”

“Whatever people might think about lawyers, we are the canary-birds of democracy. When the government goes after your lawyer soon they will be going after you,” Boyle warned. “Indeed,” he added, “the government goes after your lawyer in order to get to you, which is what happened to me. This is what the so-called ‘war against terrorism’ is really all about. It is a war against the United States Constitution.”

Boyle is a leading American professor and practitioner of international law. He holds doctorates in both law (cum laude) and Political Science from Harvard and has more than two decades of experience representing pacifist anti-war resisters, suspects in the so-called “War on Terror” and foreign governments such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of numerous books, including “Protesting Power,” (Rowman & Littlefield), “Biowarfare and Terrorism,”(Clarity) and “Destroying World Order”(Clarity).

Writing of the attorney-client privilege, the American Bar Association has defined it as “the right of clients to refuse to disclose confidential communications with their lawyers, or to allow their lawyers to disclose them.” It further states the privilege “is viewed as fundamental to preserve the constitutionally based right to effective assistance of legal counsel, in that lawyers cannot function effectively on behalf of their clients without the ability communicate with them in confidence.”

The attempt by the government to destroy the Constitutional right of privileged communication between lawyer and client began in earnest after 9/11 when the Justice Department initiated a wave of such illegal actions. According to an article in Criminal Justice Magazine, Summer, 2002, “Immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a controversial order that permits the government to monitor all communications between a client and an attorney when there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ to ‘believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism.” That order “raises a wide range of constitutional concerns under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments,” authors Paul Rice and Benjamin Saul wrote.

As if to mock the very concept of attorney-client privilege, military interrogators at Guantanamo prison posed as “lawyers” to trick illegally held suspects into providing them with information, according to a report in The Catholic Worker newspaper.

And Newsday, the Long Island, N.Y., daily, reported a wholesale invasion of lawyer-client privilege, as when lawyers at Guantanamo are forced to turn over their interview notes to guards, who send them on to the Pentagon facility in Virginia that is the only place lawyers can go to write their motions and where the Pentagon attempts to edit out detainees’ claims of mistreatment from the public record. What’s more, Newsday reported, “The military has set up a system that delays legal correspondence (between lawyers and prisoners) for weeks,” adding that “Detainees have alleged that interrogators have tried to turn them against their lawyers.”

According to Newsday, guards and interrogators peruse prisoners’ private legal papers and warn them that prisoners who have lawyers will wait longer to get out! Tom Wilner, a lawyer for 12 Kuwaiti detainees, said an interrogator asked one of his clients, “Did you know your lawyers are Jews?”

The U.S. government is “not only trying to deny counsel to the prisoners, but is actively trying to remove Guantanamo from any scrutiny, legal or otherwise” as well as “marginalizing the lawyers representing the prisoners,” The Catholic Worker said.

Placing attorney Boyle on the Terrorist Watch List is a form of punishment that is being ever more widely applied. According to “USA Today” the list grew from 288,000 names in 2005 to 1-million in March, 2009, according to an article of March 10th of that year. “People put on the watch list… can be blocked from flying, stopped at borders or subjected to other scrutiny,” reporter Peter Eisler wrote.

The attorney-client privilege is the oldest such privilege enshrined in Anglo-Saxon law and was commonly respected even under the British crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1. That it is being flouted by the U.S. government today when a constitutional lawyer occupies the White House represents an incredible stain on what remains of the fabric of American democracy.

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Sherwood Ross can be reached at sherwoodross10@gmail.com

July 31, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Ufree condemns new indictment filed against mayor’s daughter

Palestine Information Center – 30/07/2011

OSLO — The European network to support the Palestinian prisoners (Ufree) has condemned Israel’s continued detention of the 17-year-old daughter of the mayor of Al-Beira near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The statement comes as the Israeli military prosecutor has placed new charges against her and signs of torture inside the prison have surfaced on her person.

The girl Bushra al-Tawil has been in Israeli custody for 25 days so far. She was abducted in a raid on her family’s home.

Ufree said that Israel was deliberately complicating releasing Tawil in a bid to bargain over her or use her to extort her father Mayor Jamal al-Tawil in a political game.

Israeli occupation forces had arrested Jamal al-Tawil as well as his wife on several occasions.

The Israeli Ofer military court ruled Thursday for the release of Tawil as no condemning evidence had been presented against her. But the military prosecutor quickly intervened and introduced an entirely new indictment against her. It also ordered that she be kept in detention and appear before another judge.

Ufree said that by keeping her detained after she was ruled a free girl; the Ofer court gave the prosecutor a fresh chance to present a new indictment against her, as the initial indictment had not been backed by evidence.

Since imprisoned, Tawil has experienced extreme physical pain, Ufree said quoting sources from her family. She was also tied up in awkward positions during the investigation process. Her family said that she appeared to have been suffering from fatigue and health problems when they last saw her bound in the courthouse.

Ufree said it will begin contacting international rights groups in an effort to unify efforts being made to support Tawil. It is also planning on preparing a document on Tawil to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

July 31, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers attack Palestinian journalist

Ma’an – 30/07/2011

RAMALLAH — Palestinian photojournalist Moheeb Al-Barghouthi was beaten by Israeli soldiers Friday covering a demonstration in the Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah.

Al-Barghouthi, who works for the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, suffered head injuries and sustained bruises across his body in the attack.

He said soldiers destroyed his camera and confiscated some of his equipment.

The journalist said the soldiers accused him of “misrepresenting” the image of Israeli forces. They left him bleeding and handcuffed on the ground in intense heat for several hours, he added.

Al-Barghouthi was treated at hospital in Ramallah for light injuries.

Israel’s military responded in a statement that “the Palestinian in question was detained for violating a closed military area order. The man was questioned and released an hour later.”

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the attack and expressed “grave concern” for the welfare of Palestinian media workers.

July 30, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

New moves to curb criticism of Israel in US and Canada

By Kristin Szremski | The Electronic Intifada | 29 July 2011

New legislation in the US threatens to conflate campus criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

A number of new initiatives to curtail freedom of speech by conflating opposition to Israeli crimes with anti-Semitism are underway in the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) issued a report in early July recommending the adoption of strict new standards defining anti-Semitism and the types of speech and campus activities that would violate them. Its report urged the Canadian government to adopt the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s definition of anti-Semitism (“Report on the Inquiry Panel,” 7 July 2011 [PDF]). That definition suggests that any questioning of whether Israel has the right to exist as a state that privileges Jews over people of other religions or ethnic backgrounds amounts to anti-Semitism.

Though the Canadian group is not linked to the Ottawa government, it has 22 parliamentarians as members. Activities it deems as anti-Semitic and, therefore, calls to be banned, include events such as the Israeli Apartheid Week that was founded in Toronto and now takes place on college campuses internationally every March.

The Canadian report is just the latest attempt at stifling public discourse about Israel. Free speech and the unimpeded exchange of ideas are also under attack on America’s college campuses. Pro-Israel supporters have targeted federal funding for academic institutions, including support for research and academic conferences, under the pretext that criticism of Israel is “hate speech.”

Federal authorities from the Office of Civil Rights with the US Department of Education are investigating charges of anti-Semitism against the University of California Santa Cruz, as well as at other institutions within the California university system, according to published reports. These are the first investigations taking place since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was re-interpreted in October 2010, allowing Jewish students, as members of a religious group, to claim discrimination under a provision that previously applied only to racial and ethnic bigotry.

A “dear colleague” letter issued by the Office of Civil Rights in October 2010 said that discrimination against a student who is a member of a religious group violates Title VI when the discrimination is based on the group’s “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics … or when it is based upon the student’s actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity,” David Thomas, a US Department of Education spokesman, explained by email.

Bowing to the Zionist lobby

Major pro-Israel organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League have lobbied for this re-interpretation for years. Title VI now can be applied to Jewish students who claim universities create hostile campus environments if they allow pro-Palestinian events or even class lectures critical of Israeli policies.

In other words, since Israel bills itself as a Jewish state, of which all Jews everywhere are automatic citizens, Jewish students can file complaints of anti-Semitism and discrimination based upon their perceived ethnicity and citizenship or residency in a country that has a “dominant religion.”

Dr. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-American professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who founded the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) there in 2001, takes issue with the amended understanding of Title VI. While he agrees that Jewish students, as well as Muslim students, should be protected from discrimination based on their religious identity under Title VI, he believes the reinterpretation is actually being used to silence debate about Israel.

“Attempts to silence opposition to the illegal Israeli occupation and policies is un-American and amounts to political and academic censorship,” Bazian said via email. (Bazian is also the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, the organization with which this writer is employed).

The Title VI reinterpretation and the subsequent case against Santa Cruz is part of a growing trend of stifling of protected political speech on college campuses. Several lecturers and professors have been censured and even denied tenure because they openly criticized Israeli policies or advocated for Palestinian rights.

Perhaps the most widely publicized cases are those of former DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein and North Carolina State University professor Terri Ginsberg, both of whom were not given tenure because of their open criticism of Israeli policies in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Ginsberg initiated legal action against North Carolina State and her case is currently on appeal.

Freedom of information denied

The new interpretation has rejuvenated a 29-page complaint brought against the University of California Santa Cruz in June 2009 by lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the contents of which have been kept secret by the Department of Education and university officials.

On 13 April, American Muslims for Palestine filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the complaint with the San Francisco Office of Civil Rights. Federal authorities declined the request on 22 April, saying that supplying the complaint would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and that it could “reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” both of which are listed as exemptions under the federal FOIA statute.

What is so troubling in the University of California Santa Cruz investigation is that the amended interpretation is being applied retroactively to Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint, which she filed more than one year before the October 2010 “dear colleague” letter. No one contacted from the university or the Department of Education would discuss how an institution can be held liable for something that was not considered to be a violation at the time it occurred.

“[The Office of Civil Rights] received the UC-Santa Cruz complaint … on 25 June 2009,” Thomas wrote in an email to American Muslims for Palestine. “On 7 March 2011, OCR formally notified the university and the complainant that OCR was opening for investigation the allegations that a hostile environment existed for Jewish students at the university in 2009 in violation of Title VI and that the university had notice of the hostile environment but did not have a process to adequately respond to hostile environment complaints.”

Thomas failed to respond to American Muslims for Palestine’s direct question about how the new interpretation could be applied retroactively, though it was posed three times in three separate emails on 13 and 15 April.

Jim Burns, a University of California Santa Cruz spokesman, also would not address that issue and instead referred it back to the Department of Education’s civil rights office. He did tell American Muslims for Palestine in an email, however, that the Office of Civil Rights is reviewing a complaint that “speech on campus that is critical of Israel creates a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

“We believe that [the Office of Civil Rights’] investigation will ultimately conclude that [the University of California Santa Cruz] diligently enforces laws, policies and practices that protect our students’ civil rights. But we also believe that our review of the matter with OCR will provide us with an opportunity to examine our relevant policies and practices to ensure that is the case,” he added.

If federal investigators find a university to be in violation of Title VI and the institution does not remedy the situation satisfactorily it could lose federal funding. This is a worst-case scenario to be sure, but it is one that seemingly threatens the open exchange of ideas on college campuses.

“While some of the recent allegations … might well raise a claim under Title VI, many others simply seek to silence anti-Israel discourse and speakers. This approach is not only unwarranted under Title VI, it is dangerous,” Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Presidents (AAUP), and Kenneth Stern of the American Jewish Committee, wrote recently in an open letter on AAUP’s website.

“The purpose of a university is to have students wrestle with ideas with which they may disagree, or even better, may make them uncomfortable. To censor ideas is to diminish education, and to treat students as fragile recipients of ‘knowledge,’ rather than young critical thinkers,” they added.

American Muslims for Palestine’s Hatem Bazian said the implications of the re-interpretation go far beyond free speech in the classroom and at extra-curricular events. Funding for scholarly research and academic conferences that bring up “legitimate criticism of Israel” may be at stake, he said.

“The new interpretation will directly, first and foremost, impact those who administer Title VI funding, and they for sure will be more hesitant and will engage in self-censorship in funding research or activities that are critical of Israel,” Bazian said.

Indeed, the Anti-Defamation League was one of 12 national organizations that urged the Department of Education to amend its Title VI interpretation. It may have just been a co-signer in that battle but the ADL has taken the lead in many high-profile cases to stifle free speech and public debate in its hundred-year history.

In March, the ADL, along with the American Jewish Committee and the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, protested an academic conference at the UC Hastings College of the Law in March entitled “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” Their protest was so effective the university board voted to remove its name and endorsement for the event and it prevented university Chancellor Frank Wu from making opening remarks.

Challenging Israel on campus

Writing about the incident in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cecilie Surasky, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, stated that “Perhaps for the first time in US history, there is an aggressive challenge to a one-sided narrative that covers up or justifies ongoing Israeli repression of Palestinians” (“Pressure on law conference threatens free speech,” 21 April 2011).

Surasky added, “The center of that challenge is on campuses, which is why those who have traditionally adopted knee-jerk defenses of Israeli policies are attempting to stigmatize or shut down alternative viewpoints.”

The same threats of losing federal funding because of an “anti-Semitic and hostile environment” are being leveled at Rutgers University in New Jersey, thanks in large part to a 15-page letter written to the university by Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, and copied to the state’s governor, its US senators and representatives and other officials.

These recent moves, according to Surasky, “suggest that legitimate criticism of Israeli policy is being conflated with anti-Semitism. If this is allowed to happen, then serious debate on Israel’s illegal actions in the Palestinian territories will be shut down.”

Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint against University of California Santa Cruz could very well be a test case under the new interpretation of Title VI. The reinterpretation, when viewed against the backdrop of professors being censured or denied tenure because of their political views, could have an adverse affect on the free exchange of ideas on college campuses at a time when debate and concrete examinations of US foreign policy in the Middle East is needed more than ever.

Kristin Szremski is an independent journalist and currently the director of media and communications for the American Muslims for Palestine.

July 29, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Ron Paul’s Challenge to the Left

A Question of Morality

By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | July 29th, 2011

On the question of war and empire, the Republican presidential candidates from Romney to Bachmann are clones of Obama, just as surely as Obama is a clone of Bush.

There is, however, one exception, Rep. Ron Paul (R, TX) the only contender who is a consistent, principled anti-interventionist, opposed to overseas Empire, and a staunch defender of our civil liberties so imperiled since 9/11. These are not new-found positions for Paul, come upon along the campaign trail or via a focus group, but long standing convictions, rooted in libertarian principles and verified by countless votes in the House and speeches on the Floor. You can take them to the proverbial bank. Nothing approaching this phenomenon has been seen in a major party since George McGovern. And even McGovern did not identify, let alone oppose, the U.S. as an Empire.

Paul must be taken seriously; he is not a candidate without real prospects. In New Hampshire, he is running third in the Republican race behind the chameleonic Romney and the looney Bachmann. And in the latest national Rasmussen poll, Dr. Paul runs 37% to 41% against Obama, clearly within striking distance of victory. Interestingly when Paul is put up against Obama, as opposed to others, the percentage choosing Obama drops. Paul has money from his grass roots “money bomb” fundraising and he has an enthusiastic base, especially among the under 30 set.

The question must be asked, what is to be done by the antiwar Left? This question may be put in a variety of ways. The Left often acknowledges its obligation to those in developing countries, people of color over the planet whose standard of living and life itself is held back by the depredations of the U.S. Empire. If the Left acknowledges such a primary obligation, does it not need to support an antiwar candidate like Paul when there is no other around? Look at Libya with thousands killed by NATO bombing and the infrastructure of the African country with the highest Human Development Index being systematically destroyed. It is a war that is undeclared by Congress, therefore in violation of the Constitution and thus an impeachable action. Or Iraq where a million have been killed and four million displaced. Paul takes an unequivocal stance to stop this killing. How can the Left justify withholding its support?

Is not the very first obligation of the Left above and beyond all else to stop the killing, done in our name and with our tax dollars? Is any other stance moral? And does not the Paul candidacy need to be seen in this light?

The Left has complained for decades that it is unable to reach much of the American public with a message of peace. In large part that is due to a cultural gap – the “progressive” Left does not speak in the same language as much of the country. Nor does the Left share the same worldview as many Americans. Ron Paul does, and he can reach, in fact, has reached these people with a solid anti-intervention message. Paul does not ask that his base change its worldview but simply to understand that anti-interventionism is a consistent part of that view. Paul speaks in straightforward terms. Let us stop poking our nose into other nations’ business and stop wasting our money doing so. He reaches people never before touched by an anti-war message. How can the Left pass up the chance to help such a candidate?

But what of other issues – like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security which the libertarian Paul wants to phase out, albeit gradually. Paul, the country doc, knows full well how people of little means rely on these programs and he proposes no sudden termination of them. But this author and others on the Left want to extend those programs. How do we square that circle? I contend it is no problem, because Paul is committed to preservation of civil liberties and the prerogatives of Congress. I am confident that under those conditions, where the discussion is open and free, my views on these social democratic programs will prevail. I am sure that my Libertarian friends feel the same way. And what more can we ask for in a democracy? Under Paul I do not have to worry about being locked up for my views. I am confident of that under Paul; I am not with any other candidate. Certainly not with Barack Obama.

On the other hand the only way that popular entitlement programs can be scrapped is by taking the decisions out of the hands of our elected officials and putting them in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. That is precisely what Obama is trying to do in the case of Medicare with his so-called “Independent Payment Advisory Board.” Congress will effectively be out of the loop, and so we will be unable to affect the decision with our votes. And Obama has already signaled that he is willing to cut these fixed benefit (aka “entitlement”) programs, incurring the wrath even of the usually placid AARP. As Alexander Cockburn has remarked, the only way to end Medicare is by pretending to save it – that is, by stealth. That is the way of Obama – but not of Paul.

The slogan “No Justice, No Peace,” has often been used by the Left; and for the developing world it is quite appropriate. But in the heart of the Empire it is the other way around: “No Peace, No Justice” – in that order. Until we get the monkey of Empire off our back, neither the desire for lower taxes nor the desire for better social benefits are likely to be realized. The Left cannot afford to ignore this fact or the Ron Paul candidacy. At the least it must be discussed. To simply avoid the question and look the other way as the wars and slaughter continue simply does not qualify as a moral stance.

July 29, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

World parliamentarians ‘appalled’ at Israel’s detention of Palestinian legislators

Palestine Information Center – 27/07/2011

GAZA — The Inter-Parliamentary Union said it was ”appalled” at Israel’s repeated detention of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, calling it a violation of the Palestinians’ democratic rights.

The condemnation came in a letter by the IPU Human Rights Committee directed at Palestinian MP Mushir al-Masri, who heads the Gaza-based International Campaign for Releasing the Abducted Members of Parliament.

The letter came to clarify the IPU’s position during its latest session on 4 July 2011 with regard to the detention and banishment of PLC members.

It considered that the arrest campaign that followed the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit had political motives and was an arbitrary decision, given Israel was well aware that Hamas nominees would appear on the election ballot.

The IPU also condemned the indefinite terms of administrative detention faced by Palestinian elected officials, as a violation of human rights.

The letter points out that the IPU had dispatched an observer to attend the latest Israeli Supreme Court hearing over the banishment of three Palestinian politicians from Jerusalem, two of them being members on the PLC.

The body said it would further discuss the matter in its 125th session to take place in mid-October 2011.

The IPU, established in 1889, is the oldest multilateral political organization. It brings together 155 affiliated parliaments and eight regional assemblies as associate members.

The world organization of parliaments has an Office in New York which acts as its permanent observer at the United Nations.

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israel is an Apartheid State

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | Palestine Chronicle | July 27, 2011

Western leaders and media label any Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation as terrorism, but it refuses to give Israel the same label when its military commits daily crimes against the Palestinians. Israel destroyed Gaza and committed massacres, starves the Palestinian population and bulldozes their houses in Jerusalem and the West Bank. It does not approve residency permits for Palestinians returning to their homes in the occupied lands and expels thousands of Palestinian families from Jerusalem.

The Arab population of Israel today stands at a little over one million, but the state has refused to allow them to create a single new Arab community to accommodate the natural population growth. The result is chronic overcrowding while the land lost to these Arab towns and villages has simply been passed to Jewish settlers for their benefit. Israel denies the right of the Arab-Israeli to marry Palestinians from outside Israel and Palestinians unlike Jews are not allowed to have dual citizenship.

Jewish settlements continue to grow rapidly in the Palestinian occupied lands while it is extremely hard for Palestinians to obtain permits to build homes on their own lands. The “Peace Now” organization found that 94% of Palestinian permit applications for building in East Jerusalem and in the 60% of the West Bank that is referred to in Oslo agreements as “Area C”, have been refused since 2000, when such data has been available. Palestinian houses built without permits are considered illegal and routinely demolished while the state provides water, electricity and military protection to Jewish outposts that are built without permits in the West Bank.

When a Palestinian in Jerusalem or in the West Bank could no longer live in his parents’ home and decides to build a home on his family land that Israel has not yet confiscated, the planning authority refuses him a building permit. At the same time endless housing developments are springing up all over the illegally occupied territories for Jewish families only.

Where is the next generation of the Palestinians in the occupied lands including Jerusalem to live?  What is the future envisaged for the next Palestinian generation by Israel?  The denial of permits for Palestinians on such a large scale is part of Israel’s plan to force a ‘silent transfer’ of the Palestinian population from the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Israel promotes a profoundly racist view of the Palestinians and enforces a system of land apartheid. It is the only member of the United Nations that is an apartheid state, but anyone who criticizes what it is doing to the Palestinians is called an anti-Semite or Jew-hater.  A disproportionate part of the Western media coverage of anti-Semitism is concentrated on tarring critics of Israel’s action against the Palestinians with any unpleasant label.

It is sad to see the West led by the US following the hypocrisy as their main guiding principle on the question of the Palestinians. It leads me to ask a question that is on the minds of the frustrated victims of Israel’s human rights violations: “why do the US leaders hate the Palestinians so much?” The West defends and even supports Israel’s inhumane, cruel and unusual actions against the Palestinians.

Richard Falk, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has come under fire by US officials for posting what has been described as an “overtly anti-Semitic” cartoon on his blog. US Ambassador to the UN, Eileen Chamberlain Donadoe said on July 8th, “Mr. Falk’s continued comments and postings to his personal blog are deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.” She suggested that Falk should resign his post in the UN saying: “his continued status as a UN mandate holder is a blight on the UN system.” The US criticized Falk several times before for his stance on Israel and Palestine.

When former President Jimmy Carter dared to title his book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, the US media was up in arms against Carter even before the first copy of the book was on the shelf.

Jews and the Western media have demanded exclusive rights to certain comparisons, such as nothing can be compared with the Jews suffering in Europe. Anyone who challenges that exclusive right, by suggesting that the Israeli Jews depopulated four hundred Palestinian villages and towns in 1947-48 and they are trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the 1967 occupied lands, is dismissed as anti-Semitic.

Germany had accepted its responsibility and atoned for the Holocaust, whereas Israel is still pretending that the 1947-48 Nakba never took place. The Nakba marks the period when 750,000 Palestinians were terrorized or expelled from their homes, many beyond the state, and tens of massacres were committed by the Jewish military and militias. Plenty of evidence has emerged including official documents concerning a military operation known as “Plan Dalet”, to suggest that it was always the intention of the Jewish leaders to rid Israel of its Palestinian inhabitants. Germany had been paying large sums of compensation to individual Holocaust survivors and to the state of Israel, but Israel has yet to apologize for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian population. No one with authority dares call Israel an apartheid or outlaw state despite the obvious.

Israel cooperated in the past with the most notoriously brutal regimes, including Argentina’s military dictatorship, Pinochet’s Chile, and Apartheid South Africa. Its intimate alliance with Apartheid South Africa was the most extensive. The Israeli-South African relation was a marriage of interests and ideologies. Nancy Murray, the director of “The Middle East Justice Network”, wrote that the history of Israeli-South African cooperation is evidence of the two countries shared racist roots and “moral and political congruence” between their systems of government.

In the end, Apartheid South Africa collapsed and Apartheid Israel survived. According to the Israeli citizen and human rights advocate, Uri Davis “following the dismantlement of the legal structures of apartheid in South Africa, Israel remains the only member of the UN that is apartheid state.” In Israel, the parliament, the judicial system and the law enforcement bodies impose racist and xenophobic policies against the Palestinian population in Israel proper and the occupied lands.

Israel forced many facts on the ground including transforming Palestine into a “Jewish state” owned by Jews and Israel privileges Jews both inside the country and outside it in the Diaspora while denying the Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. The “Law of Return” openly states that it offers special privileges to the Jews only, and many other laws state simply that the benefits apply only to anyone who qualifies under “the Law of Return”- that is Jews.

Some of South Africa’s own anti-apartheid leaders have said that the system of racial discrimination Israel is implementing is even worse than what they suffered. Israel acts worse than latter-day South Africa by building Jews-only settlements and access roads; erecting the apartheid wall and countless military checkpoints on confiscated lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem to ensure compliance with the apartheid rules.  And in Israel proper, 93% of the land is designated in law as state land for settlement, cultivation and development for Jews only, and less than 7% is private land that is theoretically accessible to the non-Jewish indigenous people.

John Dugart, the chairman of a UN commission on human rights, concluded that “Israel is a serious violator of human rights and is in serious violation of international law.” And in a report released in 2007, Dugart wrote that “It is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel’s laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination.”

The tragedy for the Palestinian people is that Israel and its supporters have succeeded in convincing the vast majority of the West population to accept the myth of Apartheid-Israel as “the only liberal democracy in the Middle East” as an article of faith and dismiss the Palestinians’ history and culture as irrelevant or nonexistent.

Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York)

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Rights group outlines torture in Israeli detention

Ma’an – 28/07/2011

BETHLEHEM — Palestinian detainees face torture and inhumane treatment in Israeli jails, a report by the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said Thursday.

In a publication documenting violations of human rights against Palestinians by the Israeli army over two years, the Gaza-based rights group outlined 85 cases of Palestinians tortured in Israeli prison.

One detainee told Al-Mezan he was prevented from sleeping for more than a few hours, bound in stress positions, spat at and bombarded with loud music, during a 42-day interrogation.

Nadedh Ali Abed-Rabbo, from Jabalia in north-east Gaza, passed out four times and lost 12 kilograms during the questioning, the report said. Upon his release in July 2010, he received medical treatment in Gaza City for loss of hearing, nerve spasms and ongoing head pain.

The report slammed what it called a “loophole” in the Israeli Supreme Court prohibition of torture, which allows Israeli interrogators to secure permission from supervisors for banned methods if they believe a detainee poses an immediate threat to public safety.

The provision, it said, allows for “practicing torture with impunity.”

“Israel continues to use administrative detention against an excessively high number of Palestinians, and for a prolonged period of time,” the report said.

As of April 2011, an estimated 192 Palestinians were held in administrative detention in Israel, it noted.

The study detailed around 50 Palestinian prisoners being held in solitary confinement, and at least 15 Palestinians from Gaza detained as “unlawful combatants.”

This label, applied since Israel evacuated its settlers from Gaza in 2005, “denies them [Palestinians from Gaza] further protections and allows Israel to place them in prolonged detention,” the report highlighted.

West Bank family visits to prisoners in Israeli jails were denied in 1,500 out of 80,000 cases, the report said.

Al-Mezan documented the detention of 28 rubble and scrap collectors, including four children, by the Israeli army near the buffer zone, and 75 attacks and 65 arrests of Gaza fishermen by Israeli forces off Gaza waters.

“The essence of the policy of the blockade is cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of the population at large, a prima facie violation of the [Convention Against Torture],” the report noted.

The study, which examined Israeli violations between May 2009 and April 2011, called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to comply with its international obligations through their political, technical and trade relations with the state.

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Bahrainis to stage anti-US sit-in Friday

Press TV – July 28, 2011

Bahrain’s February 14 Movement has called for a mass sit-in in front of the US embassy in Manama to condemn Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of the Persian Gulf country.

The spokesman of the Bahraini movement, Abdul Raouf al-Shayeb, said that the demonstrators intend to voice their opposition on Friday against the US support of the Al Khalifa regime.

The protesters seek to maintain the right to determine their own destiny, al-Shayeb added.

The main Bahraini opposition group, al-Wefaq, has also called for fresh rallies on Friday.

Al-Shayeb’s remarks come as Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces continue cracking down on peaceful demonstrators.

On Wednesday, the regime forces attacked the protesters in the village of Nuwaidrat, according to witnesses.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed their first batch of military forces to Bahrain in mid-March.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia deployed more forces in Bahrain in an attempt to further help the ruling regime clamp down on anti-regime demonstrators.

In June, a military court in Bahrain tried seven opposition activists including al-Shayeb in absentia for “plotting to overthrow the ruling system.” The opposition spokesman was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Anti-regime protesters have been holding demonstrations across the country since mid-February, calling on the ruling family to relinquish power.

Scores of protesters have been killed — many under torture — and numerous others detained and transferred to unknown locations during the regime’s brutal onslaught on protesters.

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Israeli Supreme Court convenes without issuing verdict on Jerusalem politicians

Palestine Information Center – 26/07/2011

RAMALLAH — The latest hearing on the banishment of three Jerusalem politicians has ended in the Israeli Supreme Court without a ruling being made.

The court has yet to set a date for the ruling, but one is expected to be issued in a few months due to legal complications enveloping the case, sources from the defense have told the PIC.

The Israeli Public Prosecutor will follow through in defending the interior ministry’s revocation of the men’s right to residency in Jerusalem under an Israeli allegiance law, the source, Att. Fadi al-Qawasimi, said.

Qawasimi added the body defending the former PA minister and two Palestinian legislators held that the law does not allow for revoking residency over participation in Israel-sanctioned elections held in 2006.

They said it only applies to those who have left the city and resided elsewhere for more than three years.

The defense also presented international treaties undersigned by Israel that disallow any country to strip one of its nationals the right of residency. It also produced agreements that Israel signed with the PA implying the right to hold local, legislative, and presidential elections in Jerusalem, as the city was chartered as an occupied Palestinian territory.

Qawasimi added that the court asked the defense not to base its case on international and PA-Israeli agreements, but rather to focus on the case according to Israeli law.

After 2006 elections gave Hamas political dominance in Palestine, the Israeli interior minister issued orders banishing from Jerusalem Khalid Abu Arafeh, the PA’s former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, as well as Mohammed Abu Teir, Mohammed Totah, and Ahmed Attoun, all members of the Palestinian legislative council.

July 26, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Ex-Gitmo captive recounts lethal torture

Press TV – July 26, 2011

German Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz has publicly spoken about being subjected to electroshock torture, lethal beatings and humiliation during his years of unlawful detention.

In an exclusive interview with Russia Today news network on Monday, the former detainee said he was held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for five years before being released without charges.

Kurnaz went on to say that Americans have not apologized for his years of torment at the notorious detainment facility, and he doesn’t think they would ever do so.

He further explained that he was arrested in Pakistan in 2001, and turned to the Americans after he had visited a school run by Tablighi Jamaat — a religious movement hated by the al-Qaeda and the Taliban for its non-political stature — in the Asian country.

Kurnaz had earlier become familiar with Pakistan-based Tablighi Jamaat movement through its assistance to homeless people and youth, who had problems with drugs.

He added that when he got booked, Pakistani forces didn’t tell him anything about what was going on.

“They didn’t tell me that they were looking for terrorists or whatever. They said we’re just going to check your passport. I didn’t know at that time they get a bounty of $3,000 for each person. Not under my name, but for anyone turned over to the Americans as terrorist they get $3,000, and $3,000 in Pakistan is a lot of money,” Kurnaz said.

He noted that after being transferred to Kandahar in Afghanistan, he witnessed all kinds of things that one can imagine as torture.

“I saw many killed under torture. I was one of those who survived those kinds of torture. They used electroshocks on me because I would not sign papers.”

“I was forced to agree I was a member of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda and I said I’m not. Really I didn’t know at that time what al-Qaeda was, I didn’t know [anything] about al-Qaeda. So when they asked me about al-Qaeda and Taliban, I said I’m not a member of them. And they brought me papers, forced me to sign. I refused,” the former Gitmo prisoner said.

“That’s why they tried to make me sign by electroshocks. And another time they forced me by water boarding. Another time they hanged me on chains. I was hanging on the ceiling. They were pulling me on the ceiling with the chain, and until my feet were over the floor. After a few days I started to pass out, because in that situation I couldn’t eat or drink and it was freezing cold. It was wintertime and I had no clothes on,” he added.

Kurnaz said Guantanamo detainees were chained hand to foot in a fatal position on the floor with no chair, food, or water for 24 hours or more.

He also said that the youngest Gitmo prisoner was nine years old, and the second underage detainee in Guantanamo was 12.

Upon taking office, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order to stop military commissions in order to close down the facility by 2010. However, this has not happened yet.

July 26, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Leave a comment

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