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Obama Administration Says It Can Spy On Americans, But Can’t Tell You What Law Allows It

TechDirt | February 14, 2011

Remember how President Obama, while campaigning, promised to reject the questionable spying practices of the federal government of President Bush? Yeah, forget all that. Over the past two years, we’ve seen time and time again that he’s actually extended those abuses even further. The latest to come out is that the Justice Department is now claiming that the FBI has the right to get phone records on any call made from inside the US to an international number without any oversight. You may recall a few years back that there was a similar controversy, when it came out that the FBI would regularly just call up phone companies and ask for records — despite the fact that this violates certain laws designed to protect consumer privacy. Sometimes, they would just use post-it notes.

Apparently, a year ago, McClatchy newspapers put in a FOIA request, asking for the details of a particular Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that was mentioned in the (previously released, but highly redacted) report that showed how frequently the FBI abused the law in this manner. The OLC took its sweet time responding, but finally responded, and in the cover letter admitted that the Obama administration believes it is perfectly legal for the FBI to route around the in-place oversight for getting access to such records and claimed that the law said so.

Which law says so? Oh, see, that they can’t say. Yes, the part of the letter that explains which law lets the FBI get these records without oversight was redacted.

It’s a secret law! And here I thought, in the US, if the government was going to base actions on a particular law, at the very least, they were supposed to tell you what law. Apparently, the Justice Department under the Obama administration does not believe that to be the case.

Basically, what this means is that the federal government believes that it’s free to request information without first getting court approval — and without telling the public what law says they’re allowed to get this information. That’s not what the laws on the books seem to say at all. But, of course, big telcos such as AT&T, who are so closely tied to the government, are going to roll over and give the government such info (or, perhaps, give them direct access to the info), even if it violates other laws. Why do you think President Obama voted to support giving telcos retroactive immunity on this issue, while he was running for President despite having earlier said he was against it? Now that he’s in power, he apparently is perfectly happy to let the FBI twist the clear intentions of the law to spy on Americans without oversight, and then to refuse to reveal what law he’s relying on to make such spying on Americans without oversight legal.

McClatchy quotes Michael German, a former FBI agent, who now works for the ACLU pointing out the obvious:

“It’s wrong that they’re withholding a legal rationale that has to do with the authorities of the FBI to collect information that affects the rights of American citizens here and abroad…. The law should never be secret. We should all understand what rules we’re operating under and particularly when it comes to an agency that has a long history of abuse in its collection activities.”

And so far, it doesn’t seem like most people care. About the only politician who really seems concerned about this is Senator Wyden, who says this level of secrecy “is a serious problem” and he’s “continuing to press the executive branch to disclose more information to the public about what their government thinks the law means.” Once again, kudos to Senator Wyden for being one of a very small number of politicians who seems to consistently be concerned about the rights of individuals. But it’s sad that the rest of our elected officials aren’t up in arms about this. The government shouldn’t be spying on Americans, and if it is, it should at least have to tell Americans what law it’s basing that decision on.

February 15, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

‘Saudi Arabia sending troops to Bahrain’

Press TV – February 15, 2011

Saudi Arabia is sending troops to Bahrain in a move to crack down on pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets in the capital Manama, a political analyst says.

The analyst told PressTV on Tuesday that Riyadh is sending its troops in an attempt to help King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa to crack down on the protesters.

Bahraini police have been using tear gas and batons to disperse the pro-democracy protesters in the Bahrain capital.

Three protesters have so far been killed due to police gunshot in the Shia village of Daih, in the suburb of Manama.

The last fatalities came as the protesters were participating in the funeral ceremony of another protester who lost his life earlier on Monday.

His death prompted the opposition to call for a vast participation at the funeral and to urge Bahrainis to escalate the pro-democracy protests.

Security forces have been deployed in force along the main routes into Manama in an effort to prevent a gathering that had been inspired by similar online initiatives around the Arab world.

February 15, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Police clash with Bahraini protesters

Press TV – February 14, 2011
Bahraini youths protest in front of the police in Manama on February 14, 2011

Witnesses say police in Bahrain have violently clashed with pro-democracy protesters during the “Day of Rage” rallies across the country.

On Monday, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at hundreds of demonstrators in Karkazan, a Shia village south of the capital, Manama, AFP reported.

Security forces stepped up their presence with helicopters circling over Manama.

At least 14 people were wounded in overnight and Monday clashes.

Activists, inspired by revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, have dubbed Monday “the Day of Rage” to express disappointment at the political reforms of the past decade, which have failed to bring prosperity and real change.

The majority Shia population in Bahrain has been complaining about inequality and oppression. The government has been clamping down on the opposition since the country’s controversial general elections in August last year.

Since late Sunday, Bahrain’s security forces have been patrolling shopping centers and other locations to monitor people’s movements amid calls by opposition groups for pro-democracy protests.

February 14, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

O’Grady’s Honduran Free Market Fantasies

By Belen Fernandez | Pulse Media | February 14, 2011

Mary O’Grady, editorial board member of The Wall Street Journal and champion of the 2009 coup d’état against Honduran President Mel Zelaya “because he was trying to extend his presidency in violation of the nation’s constitution” [read: because he was trying to conduct a nonbinding public opinion survey to gauge popular will to rewrite a document produced at the height of Honduras’ cold war service as a U.S. military base], has finally found an acceptable reason for constitutional revision.

O’Grady’s latest dispatch from Tegucigalpa begins:

What advocate of free markets hasn’t, at one time or another, fantasized about running away to a desert island to start a country where economic liberty would be the law of the land? If things go according to plan, more than one such ‘island’ may soon pop up here.

Honduras calls these visionary islands ‘model cities,’ and as the Journal’s David Wessel reported from Washington 10 days ago, the Honduran Congress is expected to soon pass an amendment to the constitution that would clear the way to put the concept into action.

The idea is simple: A sizable piece of unpopulated government land is designated for use as a model city. A charter that will govern the city is drafted and the Congress approves it. A development authority is appointed by the national government. The authority signs contracts with the investors who will develop the infrastructure. The city opens for business under rules that act as a magnet for investment.”

It would seem that free market advocates fantasizing about running away to desert islands of economic liberty might have already had their fantasies sufficiently fulfilled via sweatshop opportunities in Honduras.

Undeterred, O’Grady insists:

Now the little country that stood up to the world to defend its democracy seems to be affirming a belief that it needs to change if it wants to ward off future assaults on freedom.”

The valiant Honduran defense of democracy consisted, of course, of the overthrow by the country’s tiny elite, in concert with the U.S., of a president engaged in such assaults on freedom as a raise of the minimum wage to approximately $290 a month in certain sectors, support for legislation to ban open-pit mining, and willingness to discuss land reform.

It is meanwhile unclear how the designation of government land for what is essentially an experiment by an American economist can be construed as democratic in nature when Honduran farmers attempting to reclaim property illegally acquired by wealthy businessmen are subjected to assassinations and other forms of harassment by military and paramilitary units.

In case there is any doubt as to the identity of “the Honduran people” that O’Grady claims to speak for in her articles, she ends this particular one with a quote from Zelaya’s predecessor Ricardo Maduro, described as “a fan” of the model cities scheme:

If we want to develop we have to find a way to counterbalance the populism that causes us so much harm. The model city is a way of decentralizing power and connecting people to their government.”

As for previous counterbalancing efforts against threats posed by the non-elite, Maduro holds the distinction of having presided over a regime that, according to former chief of internal affairs for the Honduran police María Luisa Borjas, exterminated 3,000 extraneous Honduran youths via a liberal application of the term “gang member.”

February 14, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Revolution Coalition Demands Still Unmet

KABOBfest | February 13, 2011

For those who, in the euphoria of celebration, forgot what this revolution was all about, below is the list of demands from the Revolution Coalition. The success of the Egyptian revolution must be measured by how many of these demands have been met, in addition to the verdicts issued against Mubarak, Suleiman, Shafiq, and all other ex-government officials and business tycoons, even if they were members of the Egyptian so-called brave Military. All other measures that demand anything less are treasonous to the blood of the martyrs since January 25.

The January 25 Revolutionary Youth Communique No. 1

We, the peoples of Egypt, the true rulers of its land, destiny, and fortunes, who have retrieved them in full since the outbreak of the January 25 populace, civil, democratic revolution, and the sacrifice of our righteous martyrs, and after the revolution’s success in the deposing of the corrupt regime and its leaders; we announce the continuation of this peaceful revolution until victory and the realization of all our demands in full:

1 – The abolishing of the Emergency [martial law] conditions immediately.
2 – The immediate release of all political prisoners.
3 – The abolishing of the current constitution including all its amendments.
4 – The abolishing of both arms of the parliament and local governments.
5 – The creation of an interim presidential rule including five members, one military and four civilian, known for their patriotism and accepted by the people, and on the condition that none of them run for the first presidential elections.
6 – The creation of an interim government including capable, independent, and patriotic individuals; and excluding individuals with ties to political parties, to assume command of the nation’s affairs and prepare for fair and free general elections at the end of the interim period which must not exceed nine months; and no member of this interim government can run for the first elections.
7 – The formation of an original constituent assembly to write a new democratic constitution that concurs with the greatest democratic constitutions and international charters for human rights, put for public referendum within three months of the formation of this assembly.
8 – The freedom to form any political party, on civil, democratic, and peaceful foundations, without any obstacle or condition, and [they become legal] by simply announcing [their creation].
9 – The freedom of press [media] and the circulation of information.
10 – The freedom for union organization and the creation of civil institutions.
11 – The abolishing of all military and poll courts, and abolishing all verdicts produced by these courts against civilians.
12 – And finally, we, the peoples of Egypt, call upon Egypt’s righteous, national army, who is the son of this nation, who safeguarded the people’s blood and secured the nation in this great revolution, to declare its full adoption to all of these decisions and people’s demands, and to completely align itself with the people.

The Peoples of the January 25 Revolution

February 14, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Forming a new government in West Bank unconstitutional

Palestine Information Center – 14/02/2011

GAZA — The Hamas Movement said that de facto president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to mandate Salam Fayyad to form a new government in Ramallah city is unacceptable and unconstitutional, adding that the current government in the West Bank is already illegal.

“Any government can only be legitimate after it is referred to the legislative council and gain a vote of confidence, and this thing was not there in Fayyad’s government,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri underlined in a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC).

Spokesman Abu Zuhri affirmed that the intended formation of a new de facto government in Ramallah is proactive step aimed at preventing the West Bankers from taking to the streets to protest against the Palestinian authority (PA) and its policies especially after Al-Jazeera channel’s revelations.

The spokesman emphasized that the PA has to straighten its political deviation and stop its security crimes and cooperation with the Israeli occupation or else the Palestinian street will certainly move against it.

February 14, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Egypt’s revolution and Israel: “Bad for the Jews”

Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 14 February 2011
Is Arab democracy bad for Israel? (Matthew Cassel)

The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are bad, very bad. Educated Arabs — not all of them dressed as “Islamists,” quite a few of them speaking perfect English whose wish for democracy is articulated without resorting to “anti-Western” rhetoric — are bad for Israel.

Arab armies that do not shoot at these demonstrators are as bad as are many other images that moved and enthused so many people around the world, even in the West. This world reaction is also bad, very bad. It makes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its apartheid policies inside the state look like the acts of a typical “Arab” regime.

For a while you could not tell what official Israel thought. In his first ever commonsensical message to his colleagues, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers, generals and politicians not to comment in public on the events in Egypt. For a brief moment one thought that Israel turned from the neighborhood’s thug to what it always was: a visitor or permanent resident.

It seems Netanyahu was particularly embarrassed by the unfortunate remarks on the situation uttered publicly by General Aviv Kochavi, the head of Israeli military intelligence. This top Israeli expert on Arab affairs stated confidently two weeks ago in the Knesset that the Mubarak regime is as solid and resilient as ever. But Netanyahu could not keep his mouth shut for that long. And when the boss talked all the others followed. And when they all responded, their commentary made Fox News’ commentators look like a bunch of peaceniks and free-loving hippies from the 1960s.

The gist of the Israeli narrative is simple: this is an Iranian-like revolution helped by Al Jazeera and stupidly allowed by US President Barack Obama, who is a new Jimmy Carter, and a stupefied world. Spearheading the Israeli interpretation are the former Israeli ambassadors to Egypt. All their frustration from being locked in an apartment in a Cairean high-rise is now erupting like an unstoppable volcano. Their tirade can be summarized in the words of one of them, Zvi Mazael who told Israeli television’s Channel One on 28 January, “this is bad for the Jews; very bad.”

In Israel of course when you say “bad for the Jews,” you mean the Israelis — but you also mean that whatever is bad for Israel is bad for the Jews all around the world (despite the evidence to the contrary since the foundation of the state).

But what is really bad for Israel is the comparison. Regardless of how all this would end, it exposes the fallacies and pretense of Israel like never before. Egypt is experiencing a peaceful Intifada with the deadly violence coming from the side of the regime. The army did not shoot at the demonstrators; and even before the departure of Mubarak, already seven days into the protests, the minister of interior who directed his thugs to violently crash the demonstrations had been sacked and will probably be brought to justice.

Yes, this was done in order to win time and try to persuade the demonstrators to go home. But even this scene, by now forgotten, can never happen in Israel. Israel is a place where all the generals who ordered the shootings of Palestinian and Jewish anti-occupation demonstrators now compete for the highest post of Chief of the General Staff.

One of them is Yair Naveh, who gave orders in 2008 to kill Palestinian suspects even if they could be peacefully arrested. He is not going to jail; but the young woman, Anat Kamm, who exposed these orders is now facing nine years in jail for leaking them to Israeli daily Haaretz. Not one Israeli general or politician has or is going to spend one day in jail for ordering the troops to shoot at unarmed demonstrators, innocent civilians, women, old men and children. The light radiating from Egypt and Tunisia is so strong that it also illuminates the darker spaces of the “only democracy in the Middle East.”

Nonviolent, democratic (be they religious or not) Arabs are bad for Israel. But maybe these Arabs were there all along, not only in Egypt, but also in Palestine. The insistence of Israeli commentators that the most important issue at stake — the Israeli peace treaty with Egypt — is a diversion, and has very little relevance to the powerful impulse that is shaking the Arab world as a whole.

The peace treaties with Israel are the symptoms of moral corruption not the disease itself — this is why Syrian President Bashar Asad, undoubtedly an anti-Israeli leader, is not immune from this wave of change. No, what is at stake here is the pretense that Israel is a stable, civilized, western island in a rough sea of Islamic barbarism and Arab fanaticism. The “danger” for Israel is that the cartography would be the same but the geography would change. It would still be an island but of barbarism and fanaticism in a sea of newly formed egalitarian and democratic states.

In the eyes of large sections of Western civil society the democratic image of Israel has long ago vanished; but it may now be dimmed and tarnished in the eyes of others who are in power and politics. How important is the old, positive image of Israel for maintaining its special relationship with the United States? Only time will tell.

But one way or another the cry rising from Cairo’s Tahrir Square is a warning that fake mythologies of the “only democracy in the Middle East,” hardcore Christian fundamentalism (far more sinister and corrupt than that of the Muslim Brotherhood), cynical military-industrial corporate profiteering, neo-conservatism and brutal lobbying will not guarantee the sustainability of the special relationship between Israel and the United States forever.

And even if the special relationship perseveres for a while, it is now based on even shakier foundations. The diametrically-opposed case studies of the so far resilient anti-American regional powers of Iran and Syria, and to some extent Turkey, on the one hand, and the fallen ultimate pro-American tyrants, on the other are indicative: even if it is sustained, American support may not be enough in future to maintain an ethnic and racist “Jewish state” in the heart of a changing Arab world.

This could be good news for the Jews, even for the Jews in Israel in the long run. To be surrounded by peoples who cherish freedom, social justice and spirituality and navigating sometimes safely and sometimes roughly between tradition and modernity, nationalism and humanity, aggressive capitalist globalization and daily survival, is not going to be easy.

Yet it has a horizon, and it carries hope of triggering similar changes in Palestine. It can bring a closure to more than a century of Zionist colonization and dispossession, to be replaced by more equitable reconciliation between the Palestinian victims of these criminal policies wherever they are and the Jewish community. This reconciliation would be built on the basis of the Palestinian right of return and on all the other rights the people of Egypt so bravely fought for in the last twenty days.

But trust the Israelis not to miss an opportunity to miss peace. They would cry wolf. They would demand, and receive, more funds from the American taxpayer due to the new “developments.” They would interfere clandestinely and destructively to undermine any transition to democracy (remember what force and viciousness characterized their reaction to democratization in Palestinian society?), and they would elevate the Islamophobic campaign to new and unprecedented heights.

But who knows, maybe the American taxpayer would not budge this time. And maybe the European politicians would follow the general sentiment of their public and allow not only Egypt to be dramatically transformed, but also welcome a similar change in Israel and Palestine. In such a scenario the Jews of Israel have a chance to become part of the real Middle East and not an alien and aggressive member of a Middle East which was the figment of the hallucinatory Zionist imagination.

Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).

February 14, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israeli commander refuses to allow murder victim funeral

Ma’an – 13/02/2011

JERUSALEM  — Israeli authorities told the family of murder victim Husam Rweidi that his body would not be returned unless they agreed to a set of conditions, relatives said.

Husam Rweidi, 24, was stabbed to death Friday by a mob of Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem’s city center.

The victim’s cousin Firas Baydoun said Israeli authorities stipulated that his burial must take place at midnight, and that a maximum of 10 mourners could attend the funeral.

Baydoun told Ma’an that Rweidi’s body was being kept in the mortuary of Israel’s Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv.

An Israeli central commander said the family could not take Rweidi’s body to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for funeral prayers and Islamic rituals, Baydoun said.

“The body must be carried to the Al-Rahma cemetery directly,” the commander told the family.

Rweidi’s father refused the demands, and the Israeli commander eventually agreed that the funeral could be held at 8 p.m. But the commander insisted the body must not be taken to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The family is considering taking on legal council to challenge the conditions, and to ensure Rweidi is given a decent funeral, Baydoun said.

February 13, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Hamas lawmaker sentenced without charge, trial

Ma’an – 13/02/2011

RAMALLAH — An Israeli military court sentenced on Sunday Hamas lawmaker Mohammad Jamal An-Natsha to six months of administrative detention.

An-Natsha, 53, was sentenced without trial and without charge at the Ofer military court after spending two weeks in the Etzion detention center. He was given the maximum term for administrative detention.

The official was detained on January 31 from his home in the West Bank city of Hebron five months after his release from an Israeli prison. Party members indicated that he spent nine years in Israeli prison, six of them in solitary confinement, and another five years in the PA preventative security prisons.

An-Natsha was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council from prison. He has a wife and three sons.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said An-Natsha was rearrested “because he’s a Hamas activist,” but did not elaborate.

Administrative detention — detainment without trial or charge — is regularly handed down to Palestinians seized in the West Bank and is often prolonged without hearing or appeal.

Under the provision, individuals can be held for a period of up to six months without charge. The term is indefinitely renewable.

According to Israel rights group B’Tselem, Israel’s use of administrative detention “blatantly violates” internationally-recognized restrictions on its use.

“It is carried out under the thick cover of privilege, which denies detainees the possibility of mounting a proper defense. Over the years, Israel has administratively detained thousands of Palestinian for prolonged periods of time, without prosecuting them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their attorneys to study the evidence,” the rights group says.

February 13, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

MUBARAK’S GONE, BUT… SO WHAT? THE ARMY’S NOW RUNNING THINGS AND ALL THE EGYPTIANS HAVE ARE PROMISES.

By Damian Lataan | February 13, 2011

Two weeks ago, shortly after the protests in Egypt started, the Israelis allowed some 800 Egyptian soldiers into the Sinai. They went to Sharm el-Sheik down on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea where the Israelis said they may be based. While the Israelis had allowed Egyptian police and security into the Sinai, this is the first time in thirty years that a contingent of the Egyptian army had been allowed in.

Two weeks later, Mubarak is ousted from power and he leaves Cairo and heads off, not overseas into exile as one might expect of a ruthless dictator ousted by popular revolution, but to Sharm el-Sheik – where the 800 Egyptian troops are now based.

While Mubarak has handed over power to the chiefs of the army ostensibly to oversee the transition to a democratic civilian government, one cannot blame the Egyptian people being more that bit wary of what is actually going on and maintaining their vigil in Tahrir Square.

The simple reality is this; apart from getting Mubarak to step down, nothing at all has really changed for the Egyptian people. They are no better off today in terms of having power for themselves than they were the before Mubarak left. All the people have are promises. Nothing else.

Before the protests, Mubarak the military man ran things. Now military men that worked for Mubarak – and are now, it seems, protecting him at his retreat at Sharm el-Sheik – are running things.

Given that Egyptian troops went to the Sinai right at the beginning of the protests and long before Mubarak left Cairo himself to go to the Sinai, one has to wonder if there was some collusion going on between the Israelis and the Egyptian government whereby the aging Mubarak at the first signs of serious discontent among the people would be eased out into comfortable retirement to live out his days at Sharm el-Sheik.

If that was the case, one then needs to ask; what were the contingency plans for the transition of power from the militarist president to the military and, far more importantly, what are the military’s plans for the future?

February 13, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | Leave a comment

The revolution continues after Mubarak’s fall

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 12 February 2011

Yesterday evening, after it was announced that Hosni Mubarak had met the first demand of the revolution and left office, I headed toward the Egyptian embassy in Amman. The joy on the streets was something I had never experienced before.

From all directions people came, pouring out of cars stuck in gridlocked traffic on Zahran Street and into the side street where the embassy sits. They were young and old and families with children. Egyptian laborers — the unacknowledged back bone of much of the Jordanian economy — sang, carried each other on their shoulders and played drums. Egyptian flags waved and signs were held high.

The chants were as varied and lively as the crowd which grew to thousands: “Long Live Egypt!,” “The people overthrew the regime!,” “Who’s next?,” “Tomorrow Abbas!” Some people showered the crowd with sweets, as fireworks burst overhead. Everyone took pictures, recording a moment of victory they felt was made by the Egyptian people on behalf of all of us.

After Tunisia, a second great pillar of oppression has been knocked down, at such great cost to hundreds who gave their lives, and many millions who saw their lives destroyed for so many years. It was a night for joy, and the celebrations continue today.

After the celebrations are over, the revolution too must go on, because it will not be complete until the Egyptian people rebuild their country as they wish it to be.

But standing in the streets of Amman there was no mistaking that the Egyptian revolution will have a profound impact on the whole region. Arab people everywhere now imagine themselves as Tunisians or Egyptians. And every Arab ruler imagines himself as Ben Ali or Mubarak.

The revolution has reawakened a sense of a common destiny for the Arab world many thought had been lost, that seemed naive when our mothers and fathers told us about it from their youth, and that Arab leaders had certainly tried to kill. The Arab dictators, who are as dead inside as Mubarak showed himself to be in his awful televised speeches, thought their peoples’ spirits were dead too. The revolutions have restored a sense of limitless possibility and a desire that change should spread from country to country.

Whatever happens next, the Egyptian revolution will also have a profound effect on the regional balance of power. Undoubtedly the United States, Israel and their allies are already weaker as a result. First they lost Tunisia, and then suffered a severe setback with the collapse of the US-backed Lebanese government of Rafiq Hariri, and now Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, the closest and most enthusiastic collaborators with Israel except perhaps for Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies in Ramallah.

On many minds — especially Israeli and American ones — has been the question of whether a new democratic Egyptian government will tear up the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. That of course, is up to the Egyptian people, although the transitional military government confirmed in its fourth statement Egypt’s adherence to “all international and regional treaties.”

But the treaty is not really the issue. Even if democratic Egypt maintains the treaty, the treaty never required Egypt to join Israeli and American conspiracies against other Arabs. It never required Egypt to become the keystone in an American-led alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia against an allegedly expansionist Iran. It never required Egypt to adopt and disseminate the vile “Sunni vs. Shia” sectarian rhetoric that was deliberately used to try to shore up this narrative of confrontation. It never required Egypt to participate in Israel’s cruel siege of Gaza or collaborate closely with its intelligence services against Palestinians. It never required Egypt to become a world center of torture for the United States in its so-called “War on Terror.” The treaty did not require Egypt to shoot dead migrants crossing Sinai from other parts of Africa just to spare Israelis from seeing black people in Tel Aviv. No treaty required or requires Egypt to carry on with these and so many more shameful policies that earned Hosni Mubarak and his regime the hatred of millions of Arabs and others far beyond Egypt’s borders.

There is no doubt that the United States will not give up its hegemony in Egypt easily, and will do all it can to frustrate any Egyptian move toward an independent regional policy, using as leverage its deep ties and enormous aid to the Egyptian military that now rules the country. The regional ambitions of the United States remain the main external threat to the success of Egypt’s revolution.

Whatever break or continuity there is with Egypt’s past policies, the calculations have changed for remaining members of the so-called “alliance of moderates,” particularly Saudi Arabia — which allegedly offered to prop Mubarak up financially if the US withdrew its aid — Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

For many years, these regimes, like Egypt, bet their security and survival on a virtually unconditional alliance with the United States: they abandoned all dignified, independent and principled positions and adopted America’s hegemonic aspirations as their own, in exchange for assistance, and what they hoped was a guarantee that the US would come to their rescue if they got in trouble.

What the revolutions demonstrate to all Arab regimes is that the United States cannot rescue you in the end. No amount of “security assistance” (training, tear gas, weapons), financial aid, or intelligence cooperation from the United States or France can withstand a population that has decided it has had enough. These regimes’ room for maneuver has shrunk even if the sorts of uprisings seen in Egypt and Tunisia are not imminent elsewhere.

After the revolutions, people’s expectations have been raised and their tolerance for the old ways diminished. Whether things go on as they have for a few weeks, a few months, or even a few more years in this or that country, the pressures and demands for change will be irresistible. The remaining Arab regimes must now ask not if change will happen but how.

Will regimes that relied for so long on repression, fear and the docility of their people wait for revolution, or will they give up unearned power and undertake real democratization willingly, speedily and honestly? This will require not just a dramatic change of internal policies which regimes may or may not be capable of making voluntarily, but also a deep reexamination of external alliances and commitments that have primarily served Israel, the United States and the regimes at the expense of their people.

Jordan is now a prime case where such a reexamination is urgently due. Regardless of whether or not (and I think almost certainly not) the newly-appointed cabinet will be able to meet public expectations for democratization, fighting corruption, and ending the worst neo-liberal policies that have put so many of the country’s resources and companies in unaccountable private hands, the country’s foreign policy must undergo a full review.

This includes the overly dependent relationship on the United States, relations with Israel, participation in the sham “peace process,” the training of the security forces used by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank against other Palestinians, and the deeply unpopular involvement in the NATO war and occupation in Afghanistan. Up until now, these matters have all been decided without any regard to public opinion.

And in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas is in a more precarious situation than ever. Its loss of legitimacy is so thorough — especially after the revelations in the Palestine Papers — that it exists only thanks to the protection of the Israeli occupation, US and EU training of its repressive security forces, and massive EU funding to pay the salaries of its bloated bureaucracy.

The PA’s leaders are as dead to the just cause and aspirations for liberation of the Palestinian people for which so much has been sacrificed, as Mubarak was to the Egyptian people’s rights and hopes. No wonder the PA relies more and more on the thuggery and police state tactics so reminiscent of Mubarak and Ben Ali.

The revolutions in the Arab world have lifted our horizons. More people can now see that the liberation of Palestine from Zionist colonialism and US- and EU-funded oppression, to make it a safe, humane place for all who live in it to exist in equality, is not just a utopian slogan but is in our hands if we struggle for it and stick to our principles. Like the people power, against which the Egyptian and Tunisian police states were powerless in the end, Palestinians and their allies (particularly those supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement) have the power to transform reality within the next few years.

In whatever form the revolution continues, the people are saying to their rulers: our countries, our futures, don’t belong to you any more. They belong to us.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

February 12, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Revolution in Egypt – Divergent Views

Press TV | February 11, 2011

‘Military top brass atop Egypt pyramid’

Interview with Said Zulficar, political analyst, Cairo, Egypt

Egyptians are jubilant over achieving the first step in forcing decades-long dictator Hosni Mubarak out of power, as the military is now in charge.
The following is the transcription of Press TV’s interview with Said Zulficar, a political analyst in the capital Cairo, regarding the latest developments in the crisis-hit country and what might follow.

Press TV: Mr. Zulficar, how are you feeling right now? It must just be an electric time in Cairo at the moment.

Zulficar: Well I was in Tahrir (Liberation) Square when the news came that the president has resigned. I knew that a couple of hours before he had left Cairo and was in Sharm el-Sheikh. I was in front of the television station which was surrounded by several thousand demonstrators and I walked to Tahrir (Liberation) Square when the news came out. Of course there was over joy, jubilation, etc… I still have reservations about this whole thing because although we have the first step or the first necessity demanded by people that the president resigns and leaves but the regime seems still to be in place because the person who is the head of the military council is one of his closest associates. General Tantawi has been minister of defense for more than 25 years and he is a very close friend of President Mubarak. So what has happened is, I think, the military top brass have found out that the president was a liability and that they must put order, they must save the bridges, the opposition and the state and they are taking over.

Now what is [Vice President] Omar Suleiman’s position? No one knows that he remains in his position as vice president. The government of course is going to be changed. But the top brass, all of the members of this military council, [are] all very close hand-picked generals picked by Mubarak over the years. And obviously screened by CIA. So I still have reservations, we’re just starting. We have succeeded in a very important step which is getting rid of Mubarak. But Mubarak for the past five years has not been governing this country. He’s been sitting in Sharm el-Sheikh where he is now; he has been for five years. He hardly ever comes to Cairo. It has been run by General Omar Suleiman who was vice president until a couple of hours ago, may still be. It was run, from security point of view and from a foreign policy point of view by Omar Suleiman. He is a close friend of the Israelis and of the Americans. Nothing has changed.

Press TV: The question I want o pose to you is 18 days, such a short amount of time for such an uprooting revolution that people want. What does this 18 days signify to us? Does it signify that the army possibly in coordination with other powers has implemented a plan B or is that assessment taken from people’s success and their achievement in 18 short days?

Zulficar: My assessment is the fear which is for the populations to be afraid of the regime has changed camps. The people are no longer afraid. They have shown that they can overturn an oppressive government. But fear is in the other camp. And the other camp was not just the regime but the people are supporting the regime, which was the army. I still think that the top brass of the army has not changed that fundamental feeling. They are doing what they call the crisis management. They are in daily, maybe in hourly contact with the Pentagon, these people. They are all hand-picked. So I suspect that the Pentagon has been advising them what to do. That they have to get rid of Mubarak who was a total liability and that they must do some crisis management, which is take over power and try and have certain amounts of reform which I fear might be cosmetic unless the people who are no longer afraid must continue the movement. They must not be demobilized by what happened tonight. They must not demobilize. They must still maintain the aims of the movement. They must maintain the demands which are the dissolution of both houses of the parliament, the abrogation of the emergency law, the establishment of social justice and a normal, legal justice and having a civilian government.

We don’t want a military dictatorship here. We don’t trust this top brass even though they have changed style but they only changed style because they are in fear. They are in fear of popular power.

Press TV: You’re still in touch with what’s going on on the streets. I guess tonight people are going to be just thinking about celebrating and not about politics at all.

Zulficar: Yes, they are celebrating right now with fireworks right now just outside my window. So people are celebrating but I just hope they will not demobilize. This is only the very beginning of a long process. We must be sure that we have civilian rule and not military rule. We must be sure that the remnants of this regime that are still in positions of power do not remain in these positions.

As I said this military committee is handpicked by Mubarak. They are all American stooges basically and they all have relations with Israel. As long as these people run the show we have to be very vigilant. And one last word I have is to give thanks to the Tunisian people who showed us the way. They showed that you could overthrow oppressive, terrible, dictatorial regimes just by people’s power and by specific means by civilian upsurge. The national Intifada which is unheard of in our part of the world. The dictators in all over the Arab world must be shivering now. They must be trembling because their time will come and I am sure people in Washington must be very distraught because their whole so-called new Middle East is falling apart. And people are freeing themselves from the shackles of American imperialism and its Israeli acolyte, Israeli colonialism.

Press TV: I would like to ask your predictions now because you have been on defense over the last couple of weeks. What would be the determining factor for you?

Zulficar: As I said I have reservations about being overjoyed. Of course we have to be overjoyed but as I said Mubarak was not ruling this country over the past five years. It was ruled by Omar Suleiman and people around him. So we have to be very vigilant. We must not lay down our arms. We must not demobilize. I have discovered some young people, the leaders of the April Sixth Movement, Ahmad Maher people like Honein …who just came out of prison. These young people who are their late twenties or early thirties who started this whole Internet revolution through Facebook. They deserve to become ministers in this country. They deserve to have a role and get rid of all these old faces that have been mismanaging for 60 years a country which could have been wealthy, which is now in chaos and in poverty because it has been looted by the people who have been mismanaging and running it, by the family of Hosni Mubarak and wild-cat capitalists that they have around it. We should make sure not to lay down our arms and let the young people take over from these generations of old people that have mismanaged and misruled what used to be ‘the mother of the world.’ Now when you look at it, it is nothing but debris.

February 12, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

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