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What price security: Group of UCSF scientists challenge airport scanners

By Jayne Lyn Stahl | Online Journal | Nov 29, 2010

According to a recent CNN poll, 80 percent of Americans approve the use of airport full body X-ray scanners. Yet, back in April, a group of prominent scientists, physicians, and professors at the University of California San Francisco challenged their safety in a letter to Dr. John P. Holdren, the president’s assistant for science and technology.

Among the co-signers of Holdren’s letter are a 2009 Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn; her husband, John Sedat, Professor Emeritus at UCSF; and Dr, Marc Shuman, an internationally renowned cancer expert. Also signing the letter are UCSF professors whose expertise is in imaging, and crystallography.

In their letter, these scientists express “serious concern” about potential dangers posed by full body X-ray scanners. They contend that any possible perils caused by exposure to radiation can only be determined by a panel of medical physicists and radiation specialists who will take a look at all existing data independently, and without government oversight.

While some doctors have said that the danger from radiation exposure from a full body scan is less than that of a chest X-ray, or a mammogram, the doctors from UCSF disagree. They suggest that “a large fraction” of those exposed to this technology may be endangered.

The “large fraction” who may be at risk from these scanners include children and adolescents, anyone over 65, anyone with a compromised immune system, cancer patients, pregnant women, and even sperm may be compromised because of the proximity of testicles to the skin. Importantly, too, “mutagenesisprovoking” radiation may result in breast cancer in women.

They assert, too, that, while these new scanners operate at low frequencies of radiation, the concentration of the low beam energies to the skin and tissue beneath are what comprise the gravest threat to health, “Thus, while the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.”

The doctors lament that there is no “independent safety data” to prove this technology is safe. Instead, there has been a rush to manufacture, and install this equipment in airports around the country.

These prominent, longstanding scientists describe major errors made before in a rush to find a solution; mistakes that imperiled the health of “thousands of people.” As examples, they mention how, in the early days of HIV/AIDS, the CDC failed to recognize the risk factors in blood transfusions.

To clarify, this group of scientists, professors, and doctors are not saying that full body X-ray scanners are unsafe, but rather that the decision to subject the public to this technology without adequate review of the possible immediate and long-term damage from exposure could prove to be a grave mistake.

But, it is not a mistake without a message. Unlike some earlier decisions to perform a medical procedure that has yet to be fully vetted, there is also a powerful lobby to market, and showcase dubious technology in the interest of bolstering their profit margin. Indeed, too, had he been the current head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff would be called upon to account for his lobbying efforts, and own personal gain as a result of the proliferation of inadequately tested equipment in the name of national security. But, who better to figure out a way to make a buck off national security than the former tzar of homeland security?

As USA Today has reported, in the past nine months, two companies have done very well in the airport body scan business. L-3 Communications has sold nearly $40million in scanners, and dedicated more than $4 million to lobbying for them. Rapiscan Systems sold $41.2 million worth of scanners to the federal government after spending nearly $300,000 on lobbying. Clearly, the profits aren’t in scientific research as to any potential hazard this technology may pose to our health.

Notably, too, those who want to capitalize on and exploit this technology have scored another victory as full body X-ray scanners, like the kind now used at some airports, are now popping up at courthouses. According to the Associated Press, two state courthouses in Colorado currently employ full body X-ray scanners, and U.S. Marshalls are exploring the prospect of using them widely. What next, X-ray body scanners to replace metal detectors in inner city schools?

The risks to our health both now and in future, as these UCSF scientists say, may far outweigh those posed by any terror attack. It’s time not only to review the possible benefits of this technology, but to have experts more closely evaluate any adverse effects, or “opt-out” of X-ray body scans until they are able to do so.

November 29, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

SERCO – They Look after our safety…

thepublicdefender | December 29, 2009

November 29, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Gaza Photo Exhibition Attacked by the Jewish Defense League in Paris

fotokw | November 13, 2010

Kai Wiedenhoefer

Gaza 2010 – “The Book of Destruction”

Exhibition in the Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris from 4, November to 5, December featuring 82 color photographs of the aftermath of war in Gaza at the turn of 2009. The exhibit consist of two parts, destroyed buildings and war victims. The photographs were taken between November 2009 and May 2010.

The accompanying book “The Book of Destruction” is published by Steidl ISBN 978-3-86930-207-2.

The production of photographs, exhibition and was made possible by the Carmignac Gestion Foundation in the framework of the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award 2009.

~

IMEMC | November 25, 2010

Members of “The Jewish Defense League” attacked earlier this week a photo exhibition of the German photojournalist Kai Wiedenhöfer “depicting the massacres in the Gaza strip during the Israeli Operation Cast Lead” offensive. The exhibit is being held at the the Modern Art Museum of Paris.

The employees of the museum explained that a group of people equipped with masks and motorbike helmets tried to reach the gallery to sabotage the exhibition, when museum security blocked their access.

However, the extremists also attempted to vandalize many works displayed alongside the Museum, including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Marc Chagall, witnesses reported.

After the attempted attack, the group disrupted the visitors’ entrance, chanting slogans against museum, and affixed stickers that read: “Anti-Zionism=Anti-Semitism policy”, “Down anti-Semitism from which it comes” and “Palestinianism asset is the anti-Jewish activism.”

Since the photo exposition was opened at the beginning of November, many French Jews groups, such as CRIF (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) have been asking for its closure, putting pressure on Museum officials, and the city Council, an issue that pushed exhibition organizers to consider closing it before the official closing date in December 5.

Several French human rights associations have been mobilized asking the authorities not to cave under pressure, and demanded extra security measures to avoid another attack.

Wiedenhöfer, who has been retracting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1989, has brought 85 realistic and raw photographs to the exhibition, focusing on two major themes;destruction inflicting on Gaza and Palestinians wounded during the Israeli offensive on Gaza in the winter of 2008–2009 that was dubbed by Israel as “Operation Cast Lead”.

November 29, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet

TechDirt | November 18, 2010

This is hardly a surprise but, this morning (as previously announced), the lame duck Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to move forward with censoring the internet via the COICA bill — despite a bunch of law professors explaining to them how this law is a clear violation of the First Amendment. What’s really amazing is that many of the same Senators have been speaking out against internet censorship in other countries, yet they happily vote to approve it here because it’s seen as a way to make many of their largest campaign contributors happy. There’s very little chance that the bill will actually get passed by the end of the term but, in the meantime, we figured it might be useful to highlight the 19 Senators who voted to censor the internet this morning:

  • Patrick J. Leahy — Vermont
  • Herb Kohl — Wisconsin
  • Jeff Sessions — Alabama
  • Dianne Feinstein — California
  • Orrin G. Hatch — Utah
  • Russ Feingold — Wisconsin
  • Chuck Grassley — Iowa
  • Arlen Specter — Pennsylvania
  • Jon Kyl — Arizona
  • Chuck Schumer — New York
  • Lindsey Graham — South Carolina
  • Dick Durbin — Illinois
  • John Cornyn — Texas
  • Benjamin L. Cardin — Maryland
  • Tom Coburn — Oklahoma
  • Sheldon Whitehouse — Rhode Island
  • Amy Klobuchar — Minnesota
  • Al Franken — Minnesota
  • Chris Coons — Delaware

This should be a list of shame. You would think that our own elected officials would understand the First Amendment but, apparently, they have no problem turning the US into one of the small list of authoritarian countries that censors internet content it does not like (in this case, content some of its largest campaign contributors do not like). We already have laws in place to deal with infringing content, so don’t buy the excuse that this law is about stopping infringement. This law takes down entire websites based on the government’s say-so. First Amendment protections make clear that if you are going to stop any specific speech, it has to be extremely specific speech. This law has no such restrictions. It’s really quite unfortunate that these 19 US Senators are the first American politicians to publicly vote in favor of censoring speech in America.

November 20, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

End of Free Internet: US Senate Committee Approves Internet “Blacklist” Bill

Activist Post | November 18, 2010

It seems the lame duck Congressional session is becoming anything but unproductive. Yesterday, we saw the cloture of the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510), and today the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was unanimously approved by the US Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday with a 19-0 vote. The COICA has been overwhelmingly viewed by bloggers as a corporate hijacking of the Internet by mega-media cartels.  Indeed, its eventual passage will be the end of the free Internet as we now it.

The Associated Press reported on the COICA vote:

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which has the support of the entertainment industry but has been strongly criticized by digital rights and other groups, was approved by a vote of 19-0.

“Few things are more important to the future of the American economy and job creation than protecting our intellectual property,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who co-sponsored the bill.

“That is why the legislation is supported by both labor and industry, and Democrats and Republicans are standing together,” Leahy said.

The bill gives the Justice Department an expedited process for cracking down on websites engaged in piracy or the sale of counterfeit goods including having courts issue shutdown orders against domains based outside the United States.

“Rogue websites are essentially digital stores selling illegal and sometimes dangerous products,” Leahy said. “If they existed in the physical world, the store would be shuttered immediately and the proprietors would be arrested.”

“We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas,” he said. “The Internet needs to be free — not lawless.”

This legislation may be the most dangerous weapon against free speech in modern history.  The infringing activity that may land a website on the “Blacklist” is defined very broadly.  It appears that the blacklist can be enforced without a court order via ISPs.  This is total information tyranny and all independent voices need to stand up and protest or surely we’ll face the arbitrary blacklist.  David Segal reported on the blacklist regulations:

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites “dedicated to infringing activity,” but that’s defined very broadly — any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are “central to the activity of the Internet site” could be blocked.

Segal has also established a petition against this hijacking of the free internet which can be signed here. However, given that this bill passed out of committee unanimously proves that our corporate-owned public officials will surely jam this legislation down our throats.  It will likely change the Internet as we know it, essentially redirecting the flow of free information to media conglomerates.  The bill is proposed as a piracy protection bill where according to AP:

The US Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill on Thursday that would give US law enforcement more tools to crack down on websites abroad engaged in piracy of movies, television shows and music.

Clearly this was funded by media cartels, but this has a lot more to do with Internet censorship as it does about copyright infringement.  Further, this law gives the Department of Justice power to block access to websites located outside the United States.  This self-appointed global power grab is explained by activist Francis Anthony Govia:

The Justice Department will be granted power to serve court orders upon the registry where the domain name registrar is not located in the United States, and upon receipt of such an order, the domain registry must suspend operations of, and lock, the domain name of the infringing site.

During the action intended to “lock the domain name,” a court may determine, at a minimum threshold, that an Internet site is not conducting business to residents in the United States if the Internet site “states that it is not intended, and has measures to prevent, infringing materials from being accessed in or delivered to the United States,” including other provisions in subsection (d)(2)(B). The owner or operator of the “infringing site” shall also have recourse to petition the Justice Department to remove his domain name from an offending list, or petition the court to modify, suspend, or vacate the order in accordance with subsection (h)(1)(B).

This is very bad news for alternative voices and news aggregators.  Although it may be futile, we encourage everyone to call the Senate switchboard and voice their strong objection to this legislation, or we and many other “truth” sites may be essentially finished. The U.S. Capitol Hill Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.

November 19, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

FBI Pushes For Expanded Wiretapping Capabilities

ACLU | November 17, 2010

WASHINGTON – According to a report in The New York Times today, the FBI is lobbying technological companies including Google and Facebook to win support for an Obama administration proposal to expand its Internet wiretapping capabilities. The administration is urging Congress to revise the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), claiming that law enforcement needs to keep pace with technological changes. The original law, passed in 1994, compels telecommunications and broadband companies to make their services wiretap-ready.

Today’s report states that the administration is hoping to submit proposed legislation to Congress early next year to overhaul CALEA in order to ensure telecommunications companies’ networks can be wiretapped as soon as they receive a government order. According to today’s report, the proposal could also mandate that any communications service based overseas ensure its communications are routed through an American server so that the government is able to collect and wiretap those communications.

The American Civil Liberties Union warned that the administration’s proposal could grant the government the means for extensive surveillance and is urging Congress to reject any proposal that does not protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.

The following can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:

“It is important to realize that this proposal isn’t simply applying the same sort of wiretap system we have for phones to the Internet; it would require reconfiguring and changing the nature of the Internet. We remain very concerned that this proposal is a clear recipe for abuse and will make it that much easier for the government to gain access to our most personal information. Americans should not simply surrender their privacy and other fundamental values in the name of national security. We strongly encourage Congress to not simply rubberstamp this proposal that will grant the government the ability to conduct broad surveillance on innocent Americans.”

November 18, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Mubarak’s Critics See Hypocrisy in U.S. Support

By William Fisher | IPS | November 15, 2010

NEW YORK – The Egyptian government’s crackdown on political opponents continues unabated in advance of parliamentary elections Nov. 28, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week hailed the “partnership” between the two countries as “a cornerstone of stability and security in the Middle East and beyond”.

In the latest example of a widespread campaign of media repression, Kareem Nabil, an Egyptian blogger who completed a four-year prison term, was still being detained and beaten at the State Security Intelligence (SSI) headquarters in Alexandria by security officers, according to the New York- based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Nabil had been released from Burj al-Arab Prison on Nov. 6. He was subsequently re-arrested by security officers in Alexandria without charges.

A student at Cairo’s state-run religious university, Al- Azhar, Nabil was convicted in 2006 by an Alexandria court of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak, who he called a dictator.

Nabil’s re-arrest was seen by human rights activists as, in the words of an unnamed opposition figure, “another nail in the coffin of Egyptian democracy”.

The government’s efforts to stifle opposition to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have included firing an influential newspaper editor, revoking the licenses of TV channels, arresting bloggers, changing the rules governing political slogans, and fabricating infractions to disqualify opposition candidates from running.

As the government’s campaign continued, Clinton hosted a Nov. 10 visit by Egypt’s foreign minister, Aboul Gheit, and Egypt’s intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman. Gheit confirmed that he and Clinton did not discuss the forthcoming election.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has come under increasing criticism from both conservatives and liberals for not being forceful enough in speaking out publicly regarding the parliamentary election and the presidential election, which is to follow.

Conservatives – and neoconservatives – are urging Obama to reinstate the “democracy-building” programmes implemented by the George W. Bush administration, Obama’s predecessor. But they appear to be far more concerned about Egypt’s continuing role as “mediator” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Liberals are pushing for more unequivocal rhetoric from the White House condemning the renewal of Egypt’s 30-year-old “emergency” laws and the widely-reported harassment of opposition political institutions and individuals.

The country’s 82-year-old leader since 1981, Hosni Mubarak, promised the U.S. he would repeal the emergency laws, which give Egypt’s security services the unfettered right to arrest and detain people without due process or judicial review.

The Obama administration has been most outspoken regarding the emergency laws, whose renewal it regards as a broken promise. It has also publicly condemned the June murder of blogger Khaled Saeed, who was dragged out of an Internet café and beaten to death on the street. He had recently posted a video online exposing police corruption.

Human rights advocates charge that the government has kidnapped bloggers and Internet activists, tortured them, and then imprisoned them until the bruises on their bodies have disappeared so there is no evidence of abuse.

One of those advocates, Hossam Bahgat, told IPS that democracy-building programmes can only be effective if they are “inside-out” – adopted by indigenous people who live and work in a country or a community, and not superimposed on them.

Bahgat, who heads a not-for-profit organization known as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), was in New York to receive an award from Human Rights Watch (HRW) celebrating the “valor of individuals who put their lives on the line to protect the dignity and rights of others”.

His group recently won a case against the Interior Ministry on behalf of Egypt’s Baha’i citizens, a minority facing frequent violence and discrimination. Egyptians may now obtain official documents without revealing their religious convictions, or being forced to identify themselves as Muslims, Christians, or Jews.

The EIPR recently launched an advocacy campaign to combat sectarianism in Egypt and “strengthen the values of equal citizenship and shared existence in our common nation without religious or faith-based discrimination”.

“While the movement is being launched by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights as part of our ongoing efforts to defend equality and freedom of religion and belief, we realize that it cannot be successful if it remains ours alone,” Bahgat said.

“We firmly believe that this campaign will not meet with success unless it becomes a voice for Egyptians who believe that we are all in this together and those united by a common fear for our future due to rising social divisions, sectarian tension and a mindset that divides the country into an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ he said.

The Mubarak regime has been criticized for many years for what opponents call a nationwide campaign of persecution and discrimination against the Egyptian Coptic church. Copts are Christians who make up about five percent of the Egyptian population.

From a U.S. perspective, despite the “cumbaya” diplomacy on display during the Egyptian foreign minister’s visit to the U.S. State Department, Egypt is likely to continue to be the target of both liberal and conservative scorn.

But neither end of the political spectrum believes Washington has the clout to influence the upcoming elections. And Egyptian voters are both powerless and uninformed.

As one prominent activist, Bahey el-din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, wrote recently, “The outcome of the elections has already been determined – all that remains is the official announcement of the results after 28 November, in favor of the ruling National Democratic Party.”

November 16, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israeli Army Isolates the Village of Nabi Saleh to Prevent Commemorative Folk Festival

By Mays Al-Azza – IMEMC & Agencies – November 12, 2010

After the Fatah movement called the Palestinian people in Ramallah for a folk festival to commemorate late president Yasser Arafat, as a new step in escalating the popular resistance, the Israeli army imposed an intensive blockade upon the village of an-Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah.

Israeli army personnel also erected military barriers to separate the villages of Beit Ramba and Kufr Aein, northwest Ramallah, and tightened measures and obstructed the passage of the vehicles through the Israeli checkpoint, Attara.

Muhammad Tamemi, an official in the media office in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlement Construction, stated that Israeli army personnel imposed a blockade upon the village and obstructed the passage of vehicles preventing international peace activists and journalists from entering the village. He pointed out that these measures had been carried out after the Israeli army entered the village at dawn threatening the villagers with harsh measures if the festival went ahead.

He added that Israeli army personnel closed all the entrances of the village and intensified the presence of the soldiers there in order to prevent the residents of the nearby villages from participating in the festival which is scheduled to be held at mid-day.

The Popular committee Against the Wall and Settlement Construction has called the Palestinians to go by foot to participate in the festival and face all the Israeli measures.

November 13, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Obama increases Clandestine Ops against Venezuela

By Eva Golinger | Postcards from the Revolution | November 11, 2010

Millions of dollars are being channeled to opposition groups in Venezuela via USAID, while the Pentagon has established a new PSYOP program directed at Venezuela, including a “5-day a week television program in Spanish broadcast in Venezuela” during 2011

The 2010 annual report of the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), a division of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), regarding its operations in Venezuela, evidences that at least $9.29 million USD was invested this year in efforts to “support US foreign policy objectives…and promote democracy” in the South American nation. This amount represents an increase of almost $2 million over last year’s $7.45 million distributed through this office to fund anti-Chávez political activities in the country.

The OTI is a department of USAID dedicated to “supporting US foreign policy objectives by helping local partners advance democracy in priority countries in crisis. OTI works on the ground to provide, fast, flexible short-term assistance targeted at key political transition and stabilization needs”.

Although OTI is traditionally used as a “short-term” strategy to filter millions of dollars in liquid funds to political groups and activities that promote US agenda in strategically important nations, the case of Venezuela has been different. OTI opened its office in 2002, right after the failed coup d’etat against President Hugo Chavez – backed by Washington – and has remained ever since. The OTI in Venezuela is the longest standing office of this type in USAID’s history.

OTI’S CLANDESTINE OPS

In a confidencial memo dated January 22, 2002, Russell Porter, head of OTI, revealed how and why USAID set up shop in Venezuela. “OTI was asked to consider a program in Venezuela by the State Department’s Office of Andean Affairs on January 4…OTI was asked if it could offer programs and assistance in order to strengthen the democratic elements that are under increasing fire from the Chavez government”.

Porter visited Venezuela on January 18, 2002 and then commented, “For democracy to have any chance of being preserved, immediate support is needed for independent media and the civil society sector…One of the large weaknesses in Venezuela is the lack of a vibrant civil society…The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has a $900,000 program in Venezuela that works with NDI, IRI and the Solidarity Center to strengthen political parties and the Unions…This program is useful, but not nearly sufficient. It is not flexible enough, nor does it work with enough new or non-traditional groups. It also lacks a media component”.

Since then OTI has been present in Venezuela, channeling millions of dollars each year to feed the political conflict in the country. According to the 2010 annual report, OTI is now operating “out of the US Embassy and is part of a larger US diplomatic effort to promote democracy in Venezuela”.

The principal investment of the $9.29 million in US taxpayer dollars in 2010 went to the opposition’s campaign for the legislative elections, held last September 26 in Venezuela. “USAID works with several implementing partners drawn from the spectrum of civil society…offering technical assistance to political parties…and supporting efforts to strengthen civil society”.
In Venezuela, it’s widely known that the term “civil society” refers to the anti-Chavez opposition.

A SECRET FLOW OF FUNDS

Despite revealing its overall budget, the actual flow of funds from USAID/OTI to groups in Venezuela remains secret. When OTI opened its offices in 2002, it contracted a private US company, Development Alternatives Inc (DAI), one of the State Department’s largest contractors worldwide. DAI ran an office out of El Rosal – the Wall Street of Caracas – distributing millions of dollars annually in “small grants of no more than $100,000” to hundreds of mainly unknown Venezuelan “organizations”.
From 2002 to 2010, more than 600 of these “small grants” were channeled out of DAI’s office to anti-Chavez groups, journalists and private, opposition media campaigns.

In December 2009, DAI began to have severe problems with its operations in Afghanistan, when five of its employees were killed by alleged Taliban militants during an attack on their office December 15 in Gardez. Just days earlier, another DAI “employee”, Alan Gross, had been detained in Cuba and accused of subversion for illegally distributing advanced satellite equipment to dissidents.

When an article written by this author titled “CIA Agents assassinated in Afghanistan worked for “contractor” active in Venezuela, Cuba”, published December 30, 2009 on the web, evidenced the link between DAI’s operations in Afghanistan, Cuba and Venezuela, and their suspicious nature, the CEO of DAI, Jim Boomgard, was alarmed. Days later, he attempted to coerce me into a private meeting in Washington to “discuss” my article. When I refused, he threatened me by claiming that my writing was “placing all DAI employees worldwide in danger”. In other words, if anything happened to DAI employees, I would be personalIy responsible.
But Boomgard, who claimed little knowledge of his company’s operations in Venezuela, understood that what DAI was doing in Venezuela was nowhere near as important (to his company) as what DAI was doing in Afghanistan and other countries in conflict. Weeks later, DAI abruptly closed its office in Caracas.

Nonetheless, OTI continues its operations in Venezuela, and although it has other US “partners” managing a portion of its annual multimillion-dollar budget, such as IRI, NDI, Freedom House and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), there is zero transparency regarding funding to Venezuelan groups.

A report published in May 2010 by the Spanish think tank FRIDE assessing “democracy assistance” to Venezuela revealed that a significant part of the more than $50 million annually in political funding from international agencies to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela was entering illicitly. According to the report, in order to avoid Venezuela’s strict “currency control laws”, US and European agencies bring the monies in dollars or euros into the country and then change them on the black market to increase value. This method also avoids leaving a financial record or trace of the funds coming in to illegally finance political activities.

If DAI is no longer operating in Venezuela and distributing “small grants” to Venezuelan groups, then how are USAID’s multimillion-dollar funds reaching their recipients? According to USAID, they now operate from the US Embassy. Is the US Embassy illegally dishing out funds directly to Venezuelans?

OTI’s 2010 report also reveals the agency’s ongoing intentions to continue supporting and funding Venezuelan counterparts. In the section marked “Upcoming Events”, OTI makes clear where energies will be directed, “December 2012 – Presidential elections”.

PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS

USAID isn’t the only US agency intervening in Venezuela’s affairs. In the Pentagon’s 2011 budget, a new request for a “psychological operations program” for the Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), which coordinates all US military missions in Latin America, is included. Specifically, the request refers to the establishment of a “PSYOP voice program for USSOUTHCOM”.

PYSOP are, “planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals. The execution of PSYOP includes conducting research on various foreign audiences; developing, producing and disseminating products to influence these audiences; and conducting evaluations to determine the effectiveness of the PSYOP activities. These activities may include the management of various websites and monitoring print and electronic media”. Or, as the 2011 request indicates, running a radio or audio program into a foreign nation to promote US agenda.

USSOUTHCOM’s new PSYOP program in Latin America will complement a new State Department initiative run out of the Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG), which manages US propaganda worldwide. BBG’s whopping 2011 budget of $768.8 million includes “a 30-minute, five-day-a-week VOA [Voice of America] Spanish television program for Venezuela”.

This increase in PSYOP and pro-US propaganda directed at Venezuela evidences an escalation in US aggression towards the region.

And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is still running a special intelligence “mission” on Venezuela and Cuba, set up in 2006. Only four of these country-specific “mission management teams” exist: Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Venezuela/Cuba. These “missions” receive an important part of DNI’s $80 billion annual budget and operate in complete secrecy.

November 12, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

US-Backed Death Squad Files Surface

As Obama Lands in Indonesia

By ALLAN NAIRN | CounterPunch | November 10, 2010

Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia’s red berets, which say that Indonesia’s US-backed security forces engage in “murder [and] abduction” and show that Kopassus targets churches in West Papua and defines civilian dissidents as the “enemy.”

The documents include a Kopassus enemies list headed by Papua’s top Baptist minister and describe a covert network of surveillance, infiltration and disruption of Papuan institutions

The disclosure comes as US President Barack Obama is touching down in Indonesia. His administration recently announced the restoration of  US aid to Kopassus.

Kopassus is the most notorious unit of  Indonesia’s armed forces, TNI,  which along with POLRI, the  national police, have killed civilians by the hundreds of thousands.

The leaked cache of secret Kopassus documents includes operational,  intelligence and field reports as well as personnel records which list the names and details of Kopassus “agents.”

The documents are classified “SECRET” (“RAHASIA”) and include extensive background reports on  Kopassus  civilian targets  — reports that are apparently of uneven accuracy.

The authenticity of the documents has been verified by Kopassus personnel who have seen them and by external evidence regarding the authors and the internal characteristics of the documents.

Some of the Kopassus documents will be released in the days to come, in part via my website.

Those being released with this article concern West Papua, where tens of thousands of civilians have been murdered and where Kopassus is most active.  Jakarta has attempted to largely seal off Papua to visits by non-approved outsiders.

When the US restored Kopassus aid last July the rationale was fighting terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically targets civilians.

A detailed 25-page secret report by a Kopassus task force in Kotaraja, Papua defines Kopassus’ number-one “enemy” as unarmed civilians.   It calls them the “separatist political movement” “GSP/P, ” lists what they say are the top 15 leaders and discusses the “enemy order of battle.”

All of those listed are civilians, starting with the head of the Baptist Synod of Papua. The others include evangelical ministers, activists, traditional leaders, legislators, students and intellectuals as well as local establishment figures and the head of the Papua Muslim Youth organization.

The secret Kopassus study says that in their 400,000 – person area of operations the civilians they target as being political are  “much more dangerous than” any armed opposition since the armed groups “hardly do anything” but the civilians — with popular support — have “reached the outside world” with their “obsession” with “merdeka” (independence/ freedom) and persist in “propagating the issue  of severe human rights violations in Papua,” ie. “murders and abductions that are done by the security forces.”

The Kopassus document cited above is embedded below, followed by supplementary field reports. [The documents can be viewed here. Satgas Ban – 5 Kopassus Triwlapharian.]

Given that the Kopassus report states as settled fact that security forces do “murder, abduction,” those who they define as being the enemy can be presumed to be in some danger.

In its discussion of “State of the enemy” Kopassus identifies the enemy with two kinds of actions: “the holding of press conferences” where they “always criticize the government and the work being done by the security forces” and the holding of private meetings where they engage in the same kind of prohibited speech.

The Kopassus “enemies” list — the “leaders” of the “separatist political movement” includes fifteen civic leaders.  In the order listed by Kopassus they are:

— Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, chair of the Papua Baptist Synod

— Markus Haluk head of the Association of Indonesian Middle Mountains Students (AMPTI) and an outspoken critic of the security forces and the US mining giant Freeport McMoRan;

— Buchtar Tabuni, an activist who, after appearing on the Kopassus list, was sentenced to three years prison for speech and for waving Papuan flags and was beaten bloody by three soldiers, a guard, and a policeman because he had a cell phone;

— Aloysius Renwarin, a lawyer who heads a local human rights foundation;

— Dr. Willy Mandowen, Mediator of PDP, the Papua Presidium Council, a broad group including local business people, former politcal prisoners, women’s and youth organizations, and Papuan traditional leaders.   His most prominent predecessor, Theys Eluay, had his throat slit by Kopassus in 2001;

— Yance Kayame, a committee chair in the Papuan provincial legislature;

— Lodewyk Betawi;

— Drs. Don Agustinus Lamaech Flassy of the Papua Presidium Council staff

— Drs. Agustinus Alue Alua, head of the MRP, the Papuan People’s Council, which formally represents Papuan traditional leaders and was convened and recognized by the Jakarta government;

— Thaha Al Hamid, Secretary General of the Papua Presidium Council;

— Sayid Fadal Al Hamid, head of the Papua Muslim Youth;

— Drs. Frans Kapisa, head of Papua National Student Solidarity;

— Leonard Jery Imbiri, public secretary of DAP, the Papuan Customary Council, which organizes an annual plenary of indigenous groups, has staged Papua’s largest peaceful demonstrations, and has seen its offices targeted for clandestine arson attacks;

— Reverend Dr. Beny Giay, minister of the Protestant evangelical KINGMI Tent of scripture church of Papua;

— Selfius Bobby, student at the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and Theology.

Reached for comment, Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman of the Baptist Synod laughed when told he headed the Kopassus list. He said that churches were targeted by TNI/ Kopassus because “We can’t condone torture, kidnapping or killing.” He said that he has received anonymous death threats “all the time, everywhere,” but that as a church leader he must endure it .  He said the real problem was for Papua’s poor who “live daily in pressure and fear.”

Markus Haluk said that he is constantly followed on foot and by motorcycle, has been the subject of apparent attempts to kill him, and receives so many sms text death threats that he has difficulty keeping current with the death-threat archive he tries to maintain for historical and safety purposes.

One threat, written months after his name appeared as a target in the Kopassus documents, promised to decapitate him and bury his head 200 meters deep, while another imagined his head as a succulent fruit to be devoured and swallowed by security forces.

But as a famous figure in Papua, Haluk enjoys, he thinks, a certain kind of protection since when security forces have actually arrested him it has at times touched off street uprisings.

Village Papuans, he said, enjoy no such advantage. For them, being targeted by Kopassus “can get you killed. If there’s a report against you, you can die.”

Contacted in prison, Buctar Tabuni, the number three enemy on the Kopassus list, told of getting a death threat with a rat cadaver, described living with round-the-clock surveillance, and said the threats to him repeatedly stated that “you will be killed unless you stop your human rights activities.”

Three days ago, writing from his prison cell, Buctar Tabuni called on President Obama to cut off aid to TNI and back a democratic vote on Papuan independence. He told me that Indonesia follows the US lead and that the US was complicit since, as he wrote Obama, US-trained “troops in cities and villages all over West Papua treat the people like terrorists that must be exterminated.”

Anti-terrorism was indeed Obama’s main argument for restoring US aid to Kopassus, but the documents make clear that Kopassus mainly targets unarmed civilians, not killers.

In fact, the main unit that wrote the secret documents, SATGAS BAN – 5 KOPASSUS, is ostensibly doing anti-terrorism, with the Kopassus Unit 81, Gultor.

Obama justified the Kopassus aid restoration to Congress by saying that the initial US training would be given not to Kopassus as a whole but only to its anti-terror forces. The White House and Pentagon suggested that these forces were less criminal than the rest of Kopassus and of TNI/POLRI, but the documents establish that they, like the rest, go after civilians like the Papuan reverends and activists.

Reverend Giay said, when reached for comment that TNI, Kopassus and POLRI were making the case that “it’s OK to kill pastors and burn churches since the churches are separatist.”

Among Giay’s collection of anonymous sms death threats was a political missive demanding that “the reverend stop using the platform of the church to spread the ideology of free Papua.”

Giay said that “they need ideological and moral support from the Indonesian majority and the media” so they use Kopassus and others to attack the churches as constituting security threats.

He compared TNI/Kopassus actions in Papua now to those earlier in East Timor and the Malukus where “they created this conflict between Muslims and Christians” to expand their presence and get more money and power.

Reverend Giay said that “local pastors have been targeted. They kill them off and report them as separatists.”

The Kopassus documents boast that “in carrying out the operational mission of intelligence in the kotaraja area, we apportion work in order to cover all places and avenues of kotaraja society.”

The files show that Kopassus indeed penetrates most every part of
popular life. In addition to plainclothes Kopassus officers who go undercover in multiple roles, Kopassus fields a small army of non-TNI “agents” — real people with real lives and identities, who are bought, coerced or recruited into working covertly.

Kopassus Kotaraja area agents discussed in the secret personnel files include reporters for a local newspaper and for a national TV news channel, students, hotel staff, a court employee, a senior civil servant who works on art and culture, a 14 year old child, a broke, “emotional, drunken” farmer who needs money and “believes” that Kopassus will “take care of his safety,” a “hardworking” “emotionally stable” farmer who also is a need of funds, a worker who “likes to drink hard liquor,” is poor and “likes to believe things,” a motorcycle taxi driver, a cellphone kiosk clerk who watches people who buy SIM card numbers, and a driver for a car rental company who “frequently informs on whether there are elements from the Separatist Political Movement who hire rental cars and speak regarding independence/freedom (merdeka).”

In the file, though, the word “merdeka” is not spelled out. In accord with Kopassus practice, only an initial is written, in quotation marks: “‘M'”, the unwritable, unspeakable M-word.

The documents support the longtime word on the street: you rarely know who is Kopassus. So best watch what you say if you care for safety, especially if what you say is “freedom.”

Allan Nairn is a journalist living in Indonesia.

November 10, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

The Resurrection of Ariel Sharon

Why the curious renewed interest in the former Prime Minister?

By William A. Cook | Palestine Chronicle | November 8, 2010

‘He’s neither alive nor dead.’

Raanan Gissin, Sharon’s former advisor, made the above comment last month as quoted in the Jerusalem Post (20-10-2010) upon the exhibit of a lifelike sculpture by Noam Braslavsky in Tel Aviv. The wax figure shows the comatose Sharon’s chest move up and down “to depict Sharon’s dependence on a breathing machine.” Some have found the work unsettling. “It’s very tragic,” Gissin noted. It’s “only sickening voyeurism,” Kadima MK Yoel Hasson declaimed. Braslavsky created “the sculpture because Sharon has been absent from the public eye for so long,” according to the Post’s article. Regardless, the exhibit has stirred up the Israelis as they are forced to revisit the former PM who is not yet dead.

Coincidentally, this week Christoph Schult published an article in Spiegel Online titled “The Israeli Patient: Searching for Ariel Sharon’s Political Legacy.” While noting that the former Prime Minister has been in a coma now for 5 years, “his presence looms over the country’s political course.” In an effort to explore whether or not the comatose PM would have taken Israel into peace negotiations with the Palestinians or not, he decided to interview Sharon’s sons and selected friends. Sharon’s sons offer little, indeed nothing worth recounting if the article’s lack of quotes is true. But Schult makes this point, “the entire country is living with the consequences of a policy that the former Prime Minister began but was never able to end. It was Sharon who ordered the construction of the security wall … and withdrew the Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip…” But Braslavsky got it wrong; Sharon breathes but lives via a gastric feeding tube. Can he hear? Can he see? Will he recover? No one seems to know for sure. His sons hope he will eventually wake.

So why the curious renewed interest in the former Prime Minister? It seems that the current policies of the Netanyahu administration, the increased vigor in the Knesset as it rams through a series of “thought” legislation, and the uncertainty that surrounds Obama’s ambiguous thrusts and withdrawals regarding his negotiations have shed klieg lights on what Sharon wrought before he fell into the coma. Five years ago I wrote an article, “Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied, The Rape of Palestine,” (11-29-2005) that reflected then, when Sharon first went into the coma, what legacy he left to the Jewish state. It is a legacy of calculated carnage both of the people of Palestine and Judaism; it is imaged in his Wall of Fear that physically imprisons the Palestinians on one side and psychologically imprisons the Jews in fear and victimhood, a true legacy of isolationist tribalism as their efforts to control thought symbolizes. Magnify and multiply the abuses this man inflicted in 2005 by the atrocities of the 2006 Lebanon invasion, the Christmas invasion of Gaza, and the attack on the Marmara, added to those reported in B’Tselem since 2005, and one can understand why this state needs to hide behind thought control and the insulation that protects ruthless self interest. This passage from that article illustrates the point:

“As we moved through month after month of 2005, Sharon’s forces have continued their illegal “targeted killing” of Hamas militants, a short hand way of saying Israel has disbanded the basis of law in the West to reintroduce the law of the ancient barbarian states that granted license to the tribal chief or local tyrant absolute authority to determine guilt without arrest, without issuance of a charge, without counsel, without a plea, and without a court resulting in illegal assassination that goes unnoticed and unpunished in Israel and the United States, the self-extolled bulwarks of Democracy in the world. What hypocrisy. Thus have we come full circle in the mid-east as a new barbarian horde inflicts its merciless power on the innocent as well as the condemned for it inevitably happens, as it did this week, that innocent bystanders suffer the same fate as the object of the extrajudicial execution. The IDF record as reported by the Palestine Center for Human Rights as of January 2004 shows 309 civilians killed as a result of 157 executions. Rule without law, an action approved by the US government and supported by the American tax dollar. Yet no one objects. The above litany of Sharon’s brutality constitutes what is countable in the way of deaths attributable to the illegal actions of the IDF. But there are other consequences to this occupation that are lost to the non-observant eye…”

“The decline in the well-being and quality of life of Palestinian children,” reports Human Rights Watch, “[in the occupied territories] over the past two years has been rapid and profound according to CARE, 17.5% of children in Gaza are malnourished.” Thirteen percent of children between the ages of six months and five years “have moderate to severe acute malnutrition.” Nearly half of Palestinians live below the poverty line. Hospitals are in dire need of basic supplies including water and electricity. Almost ninety percent of the Rafah population depends on food aid. And while malnutrition and poverty imposed by the Israeli oppressors seems hideous enough, it pales in comparison to the reality facing the children as they grow up in the occupation. Dr. Shamir Quota, Director of Research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programs, makes this observation: “Ninety percent of children two years old or more have experienced ¬ some many, many times ¬ the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many have been beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had things happen to siblings and neighbors.”

Contemplate that statistic, ninety percent of two year olds growing up have witnessed soldiers bursting through the door of their home, rifles pointed at their mother or father, pushed against walls, beaten perhaps, shouted at certainly, cursed we might assume, and left in fear knowing another raid is imminent. What torture is here? This is intentional, calculated, psychological torture, genocidal “mental harm” as described in the UN Convention.

But there’s more. I left Palestine shortly after the “disengagement” from Gaza, a word that masks the reality of that “peace” move by Sharon. There is no disengagement: Sharon’s government owns the sky above Gaza; it owns the fence around Gaza; it owns access and exit from Gaza; it owns sea passage and use of the sea that borders Gaza; and it owns the missiles that it hurls from F-16s into the cities and refugee camps inside of Gaza indifferent to the innocent incinerated by its savagery. The only real disengagement that Sharon authorized in Gaza is disengagement from responsibility under the Geneva Conventions for occupying powers to provide adequately and humanely for the people so occupied. That means Israel does not have to pay for the care of the people who are locked into their prison in this most heinous apartheid on the face of the planet.”

But lest the disengagement plan be observed as an Israeli weakness in light of world opinion against its occupation policies, Israel redoubled its efforts to punish the Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel’s policy of assassinating wanted Palestinians continued in Gaza following the unilateral withdrawal. The policy was reaffirmed by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Military Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, at a meeting on 8 November 2005. According to statistics from Al Mezan, 47 targeted assassinations took place from 12 September 2005 to 10 September 2006, usually in the form of air strikes on a moving vehicle. Such attacks killed and wounded a total of 25 bystanders; for instance, an attack on 27 October 2005 killed seven Palestinians, including three children, and injured 19 more. Based on Al Mezan statistics, 362 Palestinians in Gaza died as a result of Israeli military attacks in the year following the unilateral withdrawal: 151 from 12 September 2005 to 27 June 2006, and 211 in Operation ‘Summer Rains’ between 28 June and 10 September 2006. The majority of casualties were civilian. The number of attacks escalated over the course of the year. Between 12 September and 31 December 2005, 544 artillery shells were fired into Gaza, and there were 124 air strikes. Between January and April 2006, more than 3,600 artillery shells and 63 air strikes were launched. Most recently, in June alone, there were 1,376 shells fired and 122 air strikes, as well as an explosion on Beit Lahiya beach which a Human Rights Watch investigation attributed to Israel; these recent attacks resulted in the deaths of thirty-six people, including 12 children, and injured 110. (The Disengagement Plan and Israel’s Status as Occupying Power, NGO in Consultation Status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN).

Following Sharon’s withdrawal into the coma, Israeli politicians were faced with determining what actions to pursue: continued disproportionate and ruthless military attacks against Gaza and the West Bank in keeping with Sharon’s policies or withdraw to a more conciliatory posture to appease growing international criticism of that behaviour. It didn’t take long for the world to witness Israel’s answer. The fall 2006 invasion and razing of Lebanon’s infrastructure followed by its merciless killing of over a 1000 Lebanese including the second destruction of Qana village (the first occurred ten years earlier) where 63 Lebanese refugees including 42 children were hunted down, chased from home to home until destroyed. Again, the savage behaviour executed by Israel was meant to demonstrate to the world that Israel was not defeated by world opinion.

But world opinion appears to be having an impact. Neve Gordon notes in “Thought crimes in Israel” that Israel’s Knesset has a raft of laws before it that will “seal Israel’s transformation into a fully fascist state that persecutes and marginalizes everyone who does not subscribe to the official racially-oriented ideology.” These measures include swearing an oath of loyalty and allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and to its laws and symbols as a condition for receiving public funding for film projects; for newly naturalized citizens to declare loyalty to the Jewish character of the state (similar Gordon notes to Jews and Muslims in Britain to swear to loyalty to the Church of England); for those protesting against or denying Israel’s Jewish character incarceration can be levelled effectively denying political freedom of speech; for those desiring to live in settlements who do not accept the settlement committee’s political views or religion no recourse is allowed to achieve their end thereby making it legal for settlements to deny access to non-Jews and Palestinians; for those who wish to mark the anniversary of the Nakba, public funds will be denied thus preventing expression to citizens of views that are critical of Israeli actions; for those who wish to encourage boycotts or disinvestment actions against the state monetary penalties will be imposed effectively silencing free speech; for all these measures the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has warned that they would effectively make an alternative political ideology, such as the idea that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens, a crime.

This then is the legacy of Ariel Sharon: a retreat into self-righteousness that finds fault with all who oppose the Zionist ideology, the isolation within that fears anyone who does not accept the Zionist mindset of force that ensures adherence to rights determined by them to be rights. It is imaged in Sharon’s Wall of Fear that would visually erase their neighbours whom they have erased from their minds as people, to force their citizens to walk the streets, roam the highways, bathe in the sea yet not see one who is different from them though they live in the same land, raise their families under the same sun, drink from the same aquifers, and retire in rest as they watch the sun set over the same sea. But they are not the same if they do not believe what the Zionists believe for there is cemented into that mindset an absolute understanding that they alone determine what will be at any cost regardless of international law or international agreements, and they will use whatever means at their disposal to control all who could or would find fault with their desires and will. … Full article

November 9, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

The great book robbery of 1948

By Arwa Aburawa, The Electronic Intifada, 9 November 2010

Stolen Palestinian books labeled “absentee property.” (Courtesy of The Great Book Robbery)

A new documentary reveals a hidden chapter in the history of the Nakba — the Palestinian expulsion and flight at the hands of Zionist militias as Israel was established in 1948 — which saw the systematic looting of more than 60,000 Palestinian books by Israeli forces and the attempted destruction of Palestinian culture.

As the violence which came to mark the formation of Israel erupted, Palestinian families living in the urban centers and villages of the country fled their homes in search of safety and refuge. One Palestinian family after another escaped, and believing that they would soon return, many left behind their most precious belongings. As Palestinian homes sat silent in the haze of conflict, however, a systematic Israeli campaign was underway to enter the homes and rob them of a precious commodity — their books.

Between May 1948 and February 1949, librarians from the Jewish National Library and Hebrew University Library entered the desolate Palestinian homes of west Jerusalem and seized 30,000 books, manuscripts and newspapers alone. These cultural assets, which had belonged to elite and educated Palestinian families, were then “loaned” to the National Library where they have remained until now. Furthermore, across cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, Tiberias and Nazareth, employees of the Custodian of Absentee Property gathered approximately 40,000-50,000 books belonging to Palestinians. Most of these were later resold to Arabs although approximately 26,000 books were deemed unsuitable as they contained “inciting material against the State [Israel]” and were sold as paper waste.

This untold story of the Nakba has remained hidden over the years until, by complete accident, Israeli graduate student Gish Amit stumbled across archives documenting the systematic looting of Palestinian books. “I came across this topic quite accidentally,” Gish admits. “I spent the first few months of my doctoral studies at various archives, among them the archive of the Jewish national and university library, where one day, I discovered the first documents regarding the collecting of the Palestinian libraries left behind during the 1948 war. Anyhow, it took me a few more weeks — and dozens of documents — to realize that there was a story to tell. A story that hasn’t yet been told and one that might enrich our knowledge about the Palestinian culture and its erasure.”

Although many Palestinian families were aware that their books were taken during the aftermath of 1948, they had no idea that there was a systematic and conscious effort to appropriate their books.

Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian activist and author who lived in Jerusalem until 1948 when her family was forced to flee, recalls that her father was an avid reader and had an impressive personal library. “My family was part of the small, relatively educated elite in Palestine at the time which has lots books,” she explains. “For the Zionists to steal those books … I don’t know, it’s shocking. Well, they stole everything so I guess it doesn’t surprise me at all.”

The cultural destruction that occurred during the Nakba has remained a relatively marginalized aspect of the wider narrative of Palestinian suffering. It is seen as a small, irrelevant detail which affected a small minority of urban elites living in the cities, as apposed to the complete annihilation of Palestinian villages that affected a large portion of the Palestinian population.

“What you need to understand is that the Palestinian loss was so massive that such details were overwhelmed,” says Karmi, who now lives and works as a university lecturer in the UK. She is also the author of several books including In Search of Fatima, a memoir of her family’s experience during the Nakba. “People lost their homes, their lives, their land and I guess the loss of books in the homes of a small Palestinian elite would not have been high up on the scale. Now that all these years have passed since the Nakba, these details are starting to emerge and their importance is being acknowledged.”

In fact film director Benny Brunner, Arjan El Fassed (co-founder of The Electronic Intifada) and others have made it their task to highlight the state-sponsored looting of 1948-49. The Great Book Robbery is a project and documentary in the making which hopes to expose the untold story of the book looting and help Palestinians reclaim their cultural heritage and even revive it (a brief video is available on the film website).

Brunner, a Dutch and Israeli citizen who has worked on various films related to Israel and the Palestinians, says “The story is really significant because it’s more than the fact that 60,000 books were looted — it’s about the destruction of a culture. That’s the real impact of this event; that’s the real significance and I think that needs to be communicated. And if possible, efforts have to be put in resurrecting the lost cultural world that was destroyed in 1948.”

Before the Nakba scattered the Palestinian elites, cities such as Jerusalem and particularly Jaffa were a hive of cultural and political activity. Well-educated elites published newspapers, magazines, books and poetry and intellectual clubs thrived and cafes served as venues for discussion of important issues. This all came to an abrupt end in 1948 and is now an almost completely forgotten chapter in Palestinian cultural history.

While the books seized by Israel were initially marked with the names of the Palestinian owners, in the 1960s this policy was changed and the books were later marked with just two letters: “AP” or “abandoned property.” As time passed, these became “Israeli” books especially as a vast majority of them were embedded in the national collection and so it became impossible to trace the looted Palestinian books. “They became ‘our’ books and part of ‘our’ cultural heritage,” says Brunner.

As Karmi explains, “What’s really horrible about the book thefts is that it’s like saying, ‘I’m not only going to steal your home and your land but also an intellectual heritage’ because they took these books, put in them in their Israeli libraries and then pretended that they were always there. Therefore we’re in a fight because we’re not just trying to reclaim something which has been sitting there gathering dust — we’re trying to reclaim something before it’s destroyed. And that’s why it’s so urgent and why [Brunner’s] project is extremely valuable.”

Right now, Brunner is trying to trace more Palestinians who either witnessed the looting or lost their books in the Nakba. “We want people to tell us how they see the event, to analyze it and to contribute to us, not only financially — although that would help — but with their stories.”

“If people care about their past and making a serious attempt to revive part of the cultural heritage they need to be a part of this project,” says Brunner. He urges Palestinians to “look into your family history and see if there is anything you can contribute to this project” and to get in touch directly if they can.

Karmi emphasizes the urgency of reclaiming this part of Palestinian history and the significance of this moment: “We are no longer in a stage of trauma or shock which Palestinians have been in for a very long time. The actual shock of losing everything and having to build yourself up again has occupied people’s energies for a very long time. Now, it’s time to reclaim our history, our culture, our towns, our architecture, our geography before the Israelis demolish everything.”

But even Karmi admits that some things have been lost forever. Manuscripts which were never published, books sold as paper waste, personal diaries or even the Arabic-English dictionary which Karmi’s father was working on at the time of the Nakba is now lost forever. Even so, both Karmi and Brunner believe that Israel must return the 6,000 books that are clearly marked as Palestinian property to their rightful owners.

Karmi also adds that it’s time for a Palestinian movement to emerge — parallel to the movement reclaiming Jewish and other cultural artifacts lost under the Nazis — dedicated to relocating pieces of cultural heritage lost during the Nakba. The Great Book Robbery aims to highlight the scale of the loss and hopefully act as a first step in this direction.

Arwa Aburawa (http://arwafreelance.wordpress.com/) is a freelance journalist based in the UK who writes on the Middle East, the environment and various social issues.

November 9, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

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