Today’s opening statements in the Irvine 11 trial included explicit deconstruction by the defense team of the Orange County District Attorney’s argument that the Muslim students who protested an Israeli official’s speech last year did so in violation of a California penal code for conspiracy.
“You cannot have a conspiracy to commit an unlawful act if there is not an unlawful act that has been committed,” stated a defense attorney in the courtroom today.
The trial, now underway in the Orange County courthouse in Santa Ana, California, focuses on the prosecution’s claim that the students violated the penal code that could send the students to jail for up to two years on two misdemeanor counts: conspiracy to disrupt a meeting, and disruption of a meeting.
Kifah Shah, media coordinator and spokesperson for the Irvine 11 solidarity group, Stand With the Eleven, told The Electronic Intifada that approximately 100 supporters packed the courtroom after attending a press conference outside of the courthouse. Several major media organizations also attended the pre-trial debriefing, which was organized by local community leaders from such groups as the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and several interfaith leaders and professors at UC Irvine.
The LA Times’ Orange County-based Daily Pilot reported that Father Wilfredo Benitez of the Saint Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church stated at the press conference that “[t]his smells of persecution. In a free country … this should simply not be happening.” The report continued:
Moutaz Herzallah, whose son Taher is among the defendants, said Rackauckas “threw the [U.S.] Constitution in the trash” when he decided to press charges.
Moutaz Herzallah, who is from Gaza, said he immigrated to the United States “to have peace, dignity and honor” and that the D.A. should be prosecuted for his disregard of the Constitution.
Shah said that the opening day of the trial “went really well.”
“There were a lot of people there, and a lot of community members came out to support. There was a sentiment of eagerness in the room awaiting and anticipating justice. There was a hopeful feeling,” she added.
I asked her if she had a sense of whether the selected jurors were given a clear picture of what went on during Ambassador Oren’s speech that has led to the prosecution of the students, following the opening statements by the defense and prosecution teams.
Shah replied:
Yes. They went over what happened and explained it thoroughly to the jury. They went through exactly what happened, and obviously in their own terms. In terms of the opening statements, the prosecution is arguing that this was a “heckler veto” — meaning that individuals don’t like what’s being said, and decide to “veto” a speech. The prosecution lawyer reiterated that the students tried to “shut down” the event, to provide the evidence during his statements that [the protest] was a conspiracy. He also went over the fact that they belong to a group, the Muslim Student Union (MSU), and that these defendants “conspired together as a group to enact a heckler’s veto.”
He said that the MSU “was not happy” that the ambassador, Michael Oren, was coming to campus, and “they didn’t want to debate the ambassador — they decided they wanted to shut down the event within the guise of acting as individuals. They wanted to shut him down.” Like I said, he repeatedly asserted that the Irvine 11 wanted to shut down the event.
The other part is that he also talked about that it’s the act itself that the jury will deliberate upon, and not the content of the speech. He added that in the beginning of [Oren’s event] itself, the chair of the Political Science department had stated that we “expect and relish debate on campus, but will expect nothing but civility and courtesy” [from the audience]. And then he said that even the Chancellor, when the protest began, that “this is outrageous, and this violates the rules.” So the prosecuting attorney chose these statements in particular to tell a story to the jury — that this was a violation of rules, that this was a conspiracy to shut down the event.
The defense attorneys also laid out what the defendants did during the protest, and what that looked like for them. What … really hit it on the head was that [defense attorney] Reem Salahi stated exactly what was written on the index cards [from which the students read during their protest]. This was a concerted, calculated effort — it was not their intention to resist removal, they were not trying to stall or prolong anything — they simply wrote down what they wanted to say on their index cards, said what they had to say, which amounted in total for each of them just a few seconds, which took up a cumulative five minutes including the jeers from the crowd.
In their emails [that were subpoenaed during the investigation], the students were talking about not resisting, being nonviolent, acting with a certain demeanor — the defense was illustrating how it wasn’t their intention in any way to “shut down” the event. At the end of the event, even Michael Oren had said that he wished the students who protested and were removed from the ballroom “had stayed … it was that group that I wanted to address.”
The defense said really well that “you cannot have a conspiracy to commit an unlawful act if there is not an unlawful act that has been committed.” So what the prosecution has is a conspiracy to commit a crime, and then the actual committing of that crime. But in terms of whether or not a crime was committed, we’re looking at CA Penal Code section 403 which states that there is a violation if a meeting has been disturbed or broken up. However, there was not a crime that was committed here — Oren did finish his speech, at the end of which he stated that he wished the students had stayed.
Another argument is that Oren wasn’t able to do a question and answer — but if you look at how the event was advertised, they didn’t even say that there was an intention that there was going to be a question and answer section to Oren’s speech. The penal code was not violated. That means that the prosecution’s argument of a “shut down” didn’t happen.
In closing, I asked Shah to talk about the solidarity efforts of her campaign, Stand With the Eleven.
Well, even from the opening statements, this is a political opportunity for the district attorney’s office — everyone knows he’s running for re-election, and I really think that if this is selective prosecution, it’s really important to remember that now it’s not just about these ten students, but it’s significant for all Americans at this point. The precedent that is set concerns everyone’s rights to free speech.
The district attorney is the one who’s committing egregious acts of intolerance and persecution. It’s not about these ten students in a courtroom anymore, now it’s about every American and everyone’s rights to free speech.
The Electronic Intifada will continue to update our readers on the Irvine 11 trial. The verdict is set for 23 September.
September 8, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes |
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Two weeks after an Associated Press investigation exposed the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s ”demographic units” used to spy on a wide array of Muslim New Yorkers, a journalist has published startling new details that reveal the breadth of that operation. The details are sure to raise new alarms in the Muslim-American community in New York City (NYC) as the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approach.
Leonard Levitt, a long-time writer on the NYPD beat, reports:
The New York City Police Department has been spying on hundreds of Muslim mosques, schools, businesses, student groups, non-governmental organizations and individuals, NYPD Confidential has learned.
The spying operation has targeted virtually every level of Muslim life in New York City, according to a trove of pages of Intelligence Division documents obtained by NYPD Confidential.
The documents do not specify whether the police have evidence or solid suspicions of criminality to justify their watching the Muslim groups.
The breadth and scope of the surveillance described in the documents suggest that the police have been painting with a broad brush and may have targeted subjects without specific tips about wrongdoing.
Specifically, Levitt reveals exactly who the NYPD spied on:
The NYPD’s spying operation has compiled information on 250 mosques, 12 Islamic schools, 31 Muslim student associations, 263 places it calls “ethnic hotspots,” such as businesses and restaurants, as well as 138 “persons of interest,” according to the Intel documents.
Police have singled out 53 mosques, four Islamic schools and seven Muslim student associations as institutions of “concern.” They have also labeled 42 individuals as top tier “persons of interest.”
At least 32 mosques have been infiltrated by either undercover officers, informants, or both, according to documents, which are dated between 2003 and 2006 and marked “secret.”
The NYPD has also been monitoring Muslim student associations at seven local colleges: City, Baruch, Hunter, Queens, LaGuardia, St. John’s and Brooklyn.
The department calls the two student groups at Brooklyn and Baruch colleges “of concern” and has sent undercover detectives to spy on them, the documents reveal.
The department defines a Muslim student association as “a university based student group, with an Islamic focus, involved with religious and political activities.”
The documents reveal that an Intelligence Division Cyber Unit has monitored MSAs at Brooklyn, City and Queens colleges.
The department also lists 10 non-governmental organizations as “of concern.” According to the documents, all 10 organizations have been spied upon by NYPD undercovers, informants, detectives with the Joint Terrorist Task Force or what the documents describe as a “secondary.”
On the NYPD list of 42 top tier “persons of interest” are: a corrections officer, a former imam, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a lecturer at Brooklyn College and what the department describes as a “Brooklyn College MSA member [who] has expressed desire to be a suicide bomber in Palestine.”
The police have spied on all these people with either an undercover officer, an informant, or both, the documents say.
The spying operation–which appears to run afoul of a 2004 NYC law that prohibits racial and ethnic profiling by the NYPD–was created by former CIA agent David Cohen. Cohen has previously been criticized for helping spearhead an expansive NYPD operation that saw the department travel the globe to monitor social justice activists ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Muslim-American and civil liberties groups have slammed the NYPD operation. A statement by the Muslim-American Civil Liberties Coalition demands:
• the New York City Council to investigate and oversee the NYPD’s operations, as well as a City Comptroller Audit;
• the Obama Administration to initiate a federal investigation into the extent to which the CIA has engaged in domestic spying within the United States, in violation of law and its manadate;
• Congress and the New York State Senate to hold hearings into the NYPD’s, FBI’s, and CIA’s surveillance and policing practices in Muslim communities with a focus on the role of informants;
• Congress and New York State Senate to pass enforceable anti-racial profiling legislation;
• NYPD and the Department of Justice to revise their internal guidelines to disallow the use of surveillance and informants absent suspicion of specific criminal activity.
The response to the relevations about the NYPD casting a large net over NYC Muslims is by no means the first time civil liberties and Muslim-American advocacy groups have clashed with the NYPD. As I reported for the Gotham Gazette last November:
Arguably the biggest irritant came when the police department released a 2007 report, titled Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat. The report detailed the process by which it saw some American Muslims as being “radicalized” into terrorists and said that, while Americans Muslims are “more resistant to radicalization than their European counterparts, they are not immune.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations promptly criticized the report, saying, “Its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.” In the wake of the report, the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition formed and critiqued the report for presenting “a distorted and misleading depiction of Islam and its adherents.”
Following meetings with Muslim organizations, the police department quietly issued a two-page clarification that stressed that the “NYPD’s focus on al Qaeda inspired terrorism should not be mistaken for any implicit or explicit justification for racial, religious or ethnic profiling.”
While Muslim organizations welcomed the clarification, criticism of the report remains.
“It’s not clear what the NYPD really thinks, because it’s leaving the bulk of its assertions and its conclusions in place,” said Faiza Patel, who works with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Project. The clarification “didn’t address all of [the Muslim community’s] concerns. The way it was done — really kind of hidden there — makes it seem as if the police department is talking out of two sides of its mouth.”
September 8, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular |
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Michel Besson, director of the “Andines” Cooperative, which develops Fair Trade cooperation with Palestine, was arrested Monday morning on his arrival at the airport in Tel Aviv and was placed in the retention center.
Besson is being denied entry to Palestine and is awaiting deportation, according to his lawyer Gabi Laski. Laski added that if Besson decides to fight deportation he will have to wait a few weeks in jail before he can get a trial.
Christine Sanguiñeda, Policy Officer Sustainable Development & International Solidarity says, “this act endangers the work of economic development through fair trade which is developing between France and Palestine.”
On July 8, Israeli authorities deported over 150 internationals who arrived at Tel Aviv airport and declared their intention to visit Palestine, as part of the Welcome to Palestine campaign.
September 7, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism |
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Demonstrators hold a banner reading “Stop to social butchery, diktat of the European Union” during a general strike in Rome, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011.
Italy’s riot police have clashed with anti-government demonstrators rallying against the government’s controversial austerity package, which the Senate recently approved.
The police reportedly used batons and fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse the protesters in the capital of Rome, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Moreover, hundreds of demonstrators tried to break through a police barrier protecting the upper house of parliament in which the vote for the austerity package was held.
The package, initially introduced by Prime Ministers Silvio Berlusconi, was approved by a vote of 165 to 141.
The EUR 54 billion package of spending cuts and tax hikes is meant to help the debt-ridden eurozone country balance its budget deficit by 2013.
The package was originally worth EUR 45.5 billion, but was raised due to market concerns. It will now be passed on to the lower house Chamber of Deputies for approval, before it comes into effect.
Meanwhile, analysts believe the Italian government needs an additional EUR 10 billion cut in spending to achieve a balanced budget by 2013.
Italians had a day earlier, also staged demonstrations against the package.
~
See also:
Conservative Mayor in Italy calls for a wealth tax
“Given that Italy has no real tax on residential properties, the lowest capital gains tax rate in Europe and rampant tax evasion among higher-income professionals, why not recover resources from the people who have the money”?
and
Two Visions on Taxation in Italy
September 7, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism |
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On Tuesday September 6th local Palestinians from the village of Al Walajeh gathered with international activists to protest the building of the illegal separation barrier as well as the destruction of ancient olive trees. The demonstrators succeeded in halting the razing of Palestinian land for approximately one hour before soldiers violently broke up the protest arresting one Palestinian and one Israeli activist.
On September 5th bulldozers protected by dozens of soldiers arrived at 4 AM and uprooted 50 olive trees that date back at least 100 years. The bulldozers also destroyed 18 almond trees, 27 pine trees, and 8 fruit trees. The destruction took place in an area of over 1 square mile and was declared a closed military zone, prohibiting media coverage of the devastating operation.
Mohammed Al-Atrash (Abu Wajih), the elderly farmer who owned the trees, will receive no compensation for his loss.
In the aftermath residents of Al Walajeh called for a presence of media and activists to highlight this illegal destruction carried out by the Israeli government. At approximately 10am on Tuesday several residents from the village, joined by ISM and other activists, walked down to the site of the olive grove, which is now a wasteland. Upon arriving they stood in front of the construction machines and forced them to halt their work.
Soldiers declared the area a closed military zone and disbanded the protest by force within an hour. Yousif Shakawi, a local resident in his 50’s was arrested along with one Israeli activist. The remaining protesters were held at distance so that the work could resume.
The trees were destroyed in preparation for the building of the illegal Israeli apartheid wall which is planned to run several hundred metres inside the 1967 green line, effectively seizing hundreds of dunnums of land from around Al Walajeh. If the Israeli government succeeds in completing the wall along the planned route the village will be surrounded on three sides with the army controlling entrance and exit to the village.
Sheerin Alaraj, who has lived in Al Walajeh all her life, explained to us that construction of the wall was continuing in spite of an on going appeal process in the Israeli high court with a ruling expected September 27th . However Sheerin has little confidence in the process as she explained to us “the court is just an extension of the military arm of Israel.”
In 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the apartheid wall is illegal and Israel should tear it down immediately and compensate the victims. In spite of this ruling Israel has continued construction of the wall which annexes 8.5% of the entire West Bank territory. Since 2000 Israel has destroyed approximately 330,000 olive trees in the West Bank and Gaza. There is currently a campaign to boycott Caterpillar Inc. for its role in supplying the Israeli government with equipment used to enforce the occupation.
As the time for harvesting olives nears and Israeli military and settlers continue to destroy the main agricultural pillar of Palestinian culture and livelihood, International Solidarity Movement will be actively working throughout the harvesting season to safeguard Palestinians and assist in harvesting despite this and other events that have threatened security and access to Palestinian farmland. For more information on ISMs Olive Harvest Campaign, visit our website.
September 7, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism |
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A group of pro-Israel activists, backed by StandWithUs, a national US organization funded by individuals who have played a leading role in stoking Islamophobia, is planning to take legal action to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its historic decision to boycott Israeli products.
The Electronic Intifada has obtained a copy of a 31 May 2011 letter sent to the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op in Olympia, Washington, threatening “expensive” legal action if the pro-Israel activists’ “demands” to end the boycott of Israeli products are not met.
Other documents, supported by interviews, confirm that the Israeli government has taken part in discussions about, and been given advance knowledge of, the planned lawsuit and another planned action against Evergreen State College in Olympia in response to Palestine solidarity activism by students.
Evergreen State is noted for being the school attended by Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli occupation soldier operating a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March 2003.
These developments indicate new, even more aggressive tactics by pro-Israel organizations funded by anti-Muslim agitators including Steven and Rita Emerson to suppress, deter and malign any form of Palestine-related dissent, protest or solidarity action.
An historic vote
On 15 July 2010, the Olympia Food Co-Op (OFC) became the first grocery store in the United States to ban Israeli-made items from its shelves.
The highly symbolic action, which gained global attention, came in response to the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and international law.
From the first moment the boycott resolution was passed, Olympia community members who supported and organized for it were accused of anti-Semitism by the Northwest chapter of StandWithUs.
Now, StandWithUs is taking its assault against the OFC to a new level with its backing for legal action.
Also in June 2010, students at Evergreen State College voted overwhelmingly to back an initiative calling on college administrators to divest the school’s assets from any companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, and specifically Caterpillar Corporation, which makes bulldozers Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes.
It was a Caterpillar bulldozer that Israeli forces used to kill Rachel Corrie as she attempted to prevent such a demolition. According to a StandWithUs flyer (PDF), Rachel Corrie “died in Gaza after interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations.”
Documents show that in addition to targeting the Olympia Food Co-op, StandWithUs is helping to plan a civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College.
Threat of legal action against Olympia Food Co-op
The 31 May letter (PDF) sent individually to members of the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors is signed by five individuals who identify themselves as “members of the Olympia Food Co-op (‘OFC’) who oppose OFC’s boycott of Israeli made products (‘Israel Boycott’) and divestment from Israeli companies (‘Divestment’).”
The five are Kent L. Davis, Linda Davis, Susan Mayer, Susan G. Trinin and Jeffrey I. Trinin. All except for Mayer also appeared in a StandWithUs Northwest video published on YouTube in June entitled “Why BDS Scars Don’t Heal: A StandWithUs Production.”
The video alleges that the BDS effort in Olympia has been motivated by and generated anti-Semitism, and was run by a secretive and conspiratorial “dark organization” from outside the community.
It also claims that the BDS effort in Olympia and a similar initiative in the town of Port Townsend, north of Seattle, last year had generated “a climate of fear and terror for Jews.”
The activists’ letter makes sweeping allegations that the OFC board engaged in “numerous procedural violations” in passing the boycott of Israeli goods, but it does not provide any examples of such violations.
The letter writers claim to have made many sincere efforts to rectify the unspecified “violations” but asserted that their complaints had “fallen on deaf ears as the Board steadfastly refuses to revisit its position on the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies.”
“At this point,” the letter states, “we are left no choice but to demand in no uncertain terms that OFC act in accordance with its rules and bylaws and rescind the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies.”
The letter sets a thirty-day deadline for a response and adds, “Regrettably should the board reject our demand, we are prepared to pursue relief through the court system.”
The pro-Israel activists’ letter concludes, “If you do what we demand, this situation may be resolved amicably and efficiently. If not, we will bring legal action against you, and this process will become considerably more complicated, burdensome, and expensive than it has been already.”
Lawsuit “a matter of time”
Reached by telephone, Avi Lipman, a Seattle-based attorney that The Electronic Intifada learned represents the letter writers, confirmed that two letters had been sent to the OFC board — the 31 May letter obtained by The Electronic Intifada and a follow-up.
However, Lipman said that a lawsuit had still not been filed, and “there is still an opportunity for the board to take the remedial action my clients have asked for.”
Lipman would not specify any procedural violations made by the OFC board. “I don’t want to get into it in any detail,” he said, indicating that the 31 May letter described “in general terms what our concerns are.”
But Lipman did not seem optimistic that the board would rescind the boycott decision as demanded. After the initial thirty-day deadline, Lipman said his clients had given the board an additional fifteen-day period to act.
“That time has also expired,” Lipman said. “The board has indicated that it plans to stand by the actions it has taken, so it seems clear to me that remedial action will not be taken.”
“It’s just a matter of time before we go to court and seek relief from the court,” Lipman added.
Lipman was keen to emphasize that his clients’ complaints were not based on the substance of the BDS decision, but merely the alleged, unspecified procedural violations. “The issue is how the process unfolded and the procedures that were followed and not followed by the board,” Lipman said.
He stressed that if the boycott of Israeli goods was revoked, and then reinstated according to the proper procedures, his clients would abide by it.
“An allegation that doesn’t have an allegation”
“We don’t have any statement on the non-existent lawsuit,” Jayne Kaszynski, Staff Representative to the Olympia Food Co-op Board, told The Electronic Intifada. “It’s pretty much impossible to respond to an allegation that doesn’t have an allegation.”
Kaszynski said that the BDS decision and the procedures used to reach it had generated widespread public debate among Co-op members, especially on the OFC’s blog. She added that any member who was unhappy with a decision of the board had “democratic alternatives” to legal action.
“If you’ve read the bylaws you know that we have a simple member petition process. Any member can create a petition and if they get 300 members to sign it, they can get pretty much any issue put on a ballot,” Kaszynski said.
The OFC has 22,000 active members, according to Kaszynski, “so the 300 signature requirement is not very high. So far no one has exercised this democratic right in relation to the boycott.”
The petition procedure is described in the Olympia Food Co-op Bylaws.
Lipman, however, said his clients did not think they should use this procedure because they see the original boycott decision as illegitimate, and therefore the burden should be on the board, not on his clients, to take remedial action.
Smearing BDS as “anti-Semitism”
At one point, the StandWithUs YouTube video briefly displays an image of a Nazi Swastika superimposed on a Star of David, with a caption above it stating “Actual image from handout.”
The video provides no information on where this handout was supposedly distributed or any evidence that it has anything whatsoever to do with the Olympia Food Co-op.
Yet the smear is clearly meant to tar any and all BDS supporters — presumably including those who self-identify as Jewish — as anti-Semites.
“I really don’t think it’s comfortable for Jews to live in the city of Olympia and be outwardly expressing Jews,” Kent Davis, one of the letter writers, claims in the video. “You know, you can be a closet Jew and that’s fine. I just don’t feel comfortable discussing my religion or my beliefs in a mixed group environment anymore.”
As with the swastika “handout,” no evidence is ever presented of any specific incidents that back up this grave charge likening placid Olympia to 1930s Berlin, or to link the alleged climate of fear to the Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli goods.
A “dark” outside conspiracy
In the StandWithUs video, the letter writers and other speakers allege that the BDS action at the Olympia Food Co-op was planned by a shadowy organization that came in from outside the community, and then disappeared leaving behind acrimony and conflict from which there has been no “healing.”
None of these allegations come with any specifics or facts and the overall tone is conspiratorial.
“It’s amazing that I’ve been pushed aside as a Jew in this town because of the BDS,” says Tibor Breuer, identified as an OFC member in the video. “It’s a very, very dark organization that has no interest in anything that has to do with the two-state solution.”
BDS is, in fact, not an “organization,” but the term given to a set of principles and tactics which have been taken up by independent individuals and solidarity groups all over the world in response to the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions measures on Israel until Israel ends its human rights violations and respects Palestinian rights and international law.
“When BDS comes into these communities, they just divide people in all sorts of ways and then they leave and the community is stuck with having to somehow heal and we can’t heal yet,” Linda Davis, another of the five letter writers, alleges in the video.
“BDS was over there in Europe celebrating their victory, and we’re stuck with this shit,” Breuer adds.
In fact, at the time the OFC boycott was passed, and since, those who initiated it spoke frequently to the media, and all have been local Olympia community and Co-op members.
Ironically, Robert S. Jacobs, the director of StandWithUs Northwest, acknowledges as much.
Refuting suggestions that the pro-Israel counterattack against BDS is centralized, Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada, “Similar to the BDS movement, we’re made up of activists in the community who passionately feel they want to express a certain perspective and hope that opinion leaders will adopt that perspective.”
Jacobs admitted in the interview that there was no such thing as “BDS central.” Yet the video that bears the StandWithUs name and features the letter writers paints an altogether different picture.
Meanwhile, the vilification of Palestine solidarity activists as anti-Semites is not surprising given the views of some of the StandWithUs leadership.
One board member and founder in Los Angeles, Mordechai “Moti” Gur, describes the purpose of StandWithUs in the following terms on the website for another organization he founded: “We combat the soft jihad and local intifadas by Muslim organizations by exposing everyone to the light of truth” (The Moses Project).
Other StandWithUs documents and websites routinely malign Palestine solidarity activists — including the nine civilians killed by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara as “jihadists.”
But while the pro-Israel activists in the StandWithUs video allege — without offering a shred of evidence — that OFC was the victim of a “dark” external conspiracy by anti-Semitic outsiders bent on dividing their community, they themselves are receiving significant external backing.
How StandWithUs describes its role
StandWithUs is a national pro-Israel advocacy organization which has taken a lead in fighting “delegitimization” and BDS.
Pro-Israel groups and the Israeli government have since last year claimed that virtually all Palestinian solidarity work amounts to an effort to delegitmize Israel. In recent policy speeches, US officials have vowed to help Israel combat “delegitmization” — though precisely what this means in practice and how it may affect civil liberties and free speech is unclear.
The Northwest chapter of StandWithUs has been particularly active in combating BDS efforts not only in Olympia but at the food co-op in Port Townsend, north of Seattle, where there was an unsuccessful bid to emulate the OFC boycott. (Disclosure: I was invited to Port Townsend in August 2010 to speak at a community event in support of BDS).
But how deeply involved is StandWithUs, and how does the organization liaise with the Israeli government in mounting these local battles?
Jacobs characterizes StandWithUs Northwest as little more than a small local chapter, “a two-person office,” providing basic support and advice to individuals such as those threatening to sue the Olympia Food Co-op.
Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada his group’s contact with the five letter writers was largely limited to providing printed materials, helping bring in speakers and offering advice. He said he had not seen either of the letters sent to the OFC board.
Although Jacobs did acknowledge working with and meeting repeatedly with the letter writers, he characterized the relationship to any potential lawsuit as arms length:
“Since we’re not actually a party to anything down there, frankly we’re not in any of the loop regarding the legal matters. Just from an attorney-client privilege standpoint anything we would do with anybody would be violating some kind of potential privilege. So, we know that they’re doing some stuff. I know they’ve been working with an attorney. I know which firm it is but beyond that we have not in any way participated in the legal discussion.”
Jacobs acknowledged attending one meeting related to the potential lawsuit.
“We were at one meeting, I don’t know how many months ago, before anything actually happened,” Jacobs explained.
“We had been asked by some of the folks down there if we knew any attorneys up here [in Seattle], so we mentioned a number of names. But I was at a meeting where they had an initial — they had not retained any attorney or developed any permanent relationship with an attorney — when they had someone there talk off-the-cuff about what an attorney could do for them.”
Jacobs was also adamant that his office had not done any fundraising toward a potential lawsuit. “I don’t foresee us putting any money into a lawsuit,” he said, adding, “I don’t know of anybody who’s giving them money. I’ll be that blunt about it.”
Jacobs estimated that the amount of money his office had spent on work related to the OFC boycott — presumably not including staff time — amounted to just hundreds of dollars principally for printing flyers and brochures.
The role of the Israeli consulate
Asked what role the Israeli government plays in StandWithUs Northwest’s work, Jacobs stated that he personally knew Akiva Tor, the Israeli Consul General for the Pacific Northwest, based in San Francisco, and that Tor would be speaking at an upcoming StandWithUs fundraising event. Jacobs acknowledged that StandWithUs had helped to bring Tor’s deputy to speak in Port Townsend.
Jacobs said that the Israeli consulate did not play any “active role” in opposing the OFC boycott, but, he added, “from the information standpoint they want to know what’s going on.”
“We update him [Tor] on what’s happening in the community here,” Jacobs said.
“If what you’re talking about is if there is some sort of central coordination out of Israel for the activity we are doing here, absolutely not,” he added.
Tor had also offered to speak in Olympia, but it had not happened yet, according to Jacobs. “I know he met in a coffee shop with the Corries [Cindy and Craig, the parents of Rachel Corrie]. I heard that from all sorts of people in Olympia,” Jacobs stated.
Yet, this characterization is at best incomplete.
A deeper role for Israeli officials?
Although Jacobs has confirmed reporting to Israeli officials what goes on in the local community, the relationship may be even closer than he acknowledged.
A “Weekly Status Report” of StandWithUs Northwest, for the week of 5-11 March 2011 states that the following meetings took place:
“Rob [Jacobs] and Carolyn in Olympia with Olympia activists, Akiva Tor and Avi Lipman on Thursday – Presentation of legal case, discussion of Evergreen strategy and Olympia community speaker opportunities.”
Carolyn Hathaway is the co-chair of StandWithUs Northwest.
In his conversation with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs did not disclose that Israeli Consul General Tor had not only already traveled to Olympia at the behest of StandWithUs, but had participated in a meeting with the activists threatening to sue the OFC and their lawyer.
The “status update” was posted on a website that archives emails sent to members of a private list of StandWithUs affiliates, but the website itself is unprotected.
It appears that this and other documents may have been published inadvertently, given how revealing they are of StandWithUs Northwest’s activities and strategy and the contradictions with Jacobs’ own characterizations.
Akiva Tor did not respond to a request to speak to The Electronic Intifada left with a staff person at his office.
The attorney, Avi Lipman, would not disclose what was discussed at the March meeting, again citing attorney-client privilege. Lipman said, however, “The Israeli consulate has nothing to do with this action. StandWithUs is not our client. We represent the individual co-op members who have asked the board to take remedial action.”
While all that may technically be true, none of it is inconsistent with a close advisory and an eventual fundraising role for StandWithUs and even the Israeli consulate.
Nor does it explain the presence of an official from a foreign government at a meeting in which legal action against OFC and possibly Evergreen State College was discussed.
Lipman would also not discuss how his clients might be able to afford an “expensive” — as the 31 May letter put it — legal action.
Another worrying possibility is that through StandWithUs, and possibly other organizations, Israeli diplomatic missions may collect intelligence about local activists or people who express views sympathetic to Palestinian human rights in order to exclude such people from visiting the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on political grounds.
In July, for example, Israel detained and deported dozens of individuals who planned to visit the occupied West Bank at the invitation of Palestinians.
StandWithUs remains fully engaged in Olympia lawsuit
Jacobs’ characterization of his organization’s role with the planned lawsuit as almost incidental is flatly contradicted by another document made public via the StandWithUs email archive.
The agenda for an upcoming 27 September 2011 StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee meeting includes the following items:
Project Status
- The civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College
- The law suit against the Olympia Food Co-op
- Working to shut down the “educational” programs that Ed Mast has circulated to all Washington State social studies teachers and librarians
- Speakers Bureau
Thus the OFC lawsuit and the Evergreen State College civil rights complaint are both “projects” of the StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee, and firmly on its agenda.
Ed Mast, it is worth noting, is a Seattle-area activist and playwright who has provided educational resources on Palestine.
In addition to everything else, it would appear that rather than merely providing an alternative, pro-Israeli viewpoint, StandWithUs is working to censor and exclude other viewpoints from schools and libraries and exclusively impose its own.
And, far from being merely restricted to its local area, StandWithUs Northwest is apparently assuming a national role:
StandWithUs Northwest helping other regions
- Helping Avi Posnick in NY oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn
- Helping Gail Rubin in Davis oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Sacramento Food Co-op in Sacramento
It is clear from its agenda that not only is StandWithUs Northwest playing a continuing role in Olympia, but expanding its anti-BDS activities across the country.
Focus on procedure, not substance
During his interview with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs characterized the grievances the letter writers had with the co-op in a manner remarkably similar to the 31 May letter which he said he had not seen. He acknowledged that it was StandWithUs’ advice that the case should focus on procedure, rather than substance.
“Courtrooms aren’t the place to discuss foreign policy and they wouldn’t make a decision based on that,” Jacobs explained. “The same is true with the board members that were on the board [of OFC] at the time. Most of them were sympathetic to the BDS movement and trying to make an argument counter to theirs would be a huge educational effort and probably not very successful.”
This, Jacobs said, was the rationale for focusing on procedure, rather than substantive arguments.
StandWithUs, fundraising and donations from Islamophobic extremists
Jacobs presents StandWithUs Northwest as almost a shoe-string operation. “We’re thought of as this huge, incredibly wealthy organization,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “As far as Jewish community organizations go, even on a national basis, we don’t have anything near the kind of resources of some other organizations such as ADL or AJC. Here frankly, we barely cover our own costs just in operations.”
But public financial filings of StandWithUs, which raises funds under the legal name “Israel Emergency Alliance,” (IEA) tell a quite different story.
The IEA’s mandatory Form 990 financial filings to the Internal Revenue Service (available from the website Guidestar) show an organization with $4.2 million in annual revenue and impressive fundraising capacity, including donations from leading Islamophobic extremists Steven and Rita Emerson.
In 2008, Jacobs himself received an annual salary of $96,923 for an average forty-hour week, more on a pro-rated basis than StandWithUs founder and national executive director Roz Rothstein who received $100,000 for an average sixty-hour week, according to the filings. In 2009, Rothstein’s salary was raised to $150,000.
StandWithUs also has an international presence, with an Israeli office and a European base in Brussels, which together accounted for a million dollars in expenses in 2009.
The largest area of expenditure, however, is for campus advocacy at US colleges and universities, which accounted for $2.6 million in 2009.
The growing role of the Emersons
The growing role of husband and wife Steven and Rita Emerson in StandWithUs is highly significant. The couple have been key supporters of Islamophobic campaigns in the United States, and they have considerable fundraising muscle that could potentially be flexed to support the planned Olympia lawsuit and civil rights complaint against Evergreen State.
US nonprofit organizations are not required to reveal their sources of funding, but IEA’s 2007 IRS filing includes a list of donations with the names of donors redacted. However, some names are still visible.
One donation for $25,000, for example, came from “Friends of Israel Defence Forces” and another, for $15,500, came from Steven J. Emerson.
There are dozens of other five- and six-figure donations from addresses in several states, especially California, New York and Illinois.
While donation amounts for subsequent years are unavailable, other evidence indicates that Steven and Rita Emerson have assumed a growing role in StandWithUs and have likely donated considerably more money.
In 2009, for the first time, the Emersons assumed an official leadership role, Rita as a board member and Steven as vice-president.
StandWithUs also introduced a program named for the couple called “The Emerson Fellowship” — almost certainly indicating a substantial financial contribution by its namesakes.
The Emerson Fellowship is a program to pay for students all over North America to engage in pro-Israel advocacy and agitation on their campuses. The 27 September StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee meeting agenda includes an item about “Completing the 2011-12 Emerson selection process.”
At the center of an Islamophobic network
Steven and Rita Emerson have enriched themselves from fear-mongering, incitement and defamation against Muslims, a phenomenon a recent New York Times op-ed likened to 19th century anti-Semitism (“Don’t Fear Islamic Law in America,” Eliyahu Stern, 2 September 2011).
A 2010 investigative report by The Tennessean newspaper found that in 2008 Steven Emerson paid his own for-profit company $3.4 million in fees from a nonprofit charity he founded, which, according to the newspaper, “solicits money by telling donors they’re in imminent danger from Muslims.”
According to the investigation, Emerson’s nonprofit acted as a front for a lucrative for-profit venture (“Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear,” 24 October 2010).
Unusually, the Emerson nonprofit’s 990 forms do not list any staff, board members or salaries except for Steven Emerson who is the organization’s sole officer.
The alarming rise of virulent Islamophobia in the United States in recent years is not something that just happened. It was the result of assiduous and deliberate campaigns by a well-funded network of donors, organizations and prominent individual ideologues or “misinformation experts,” as a recent report by the Center for American Progress documents (“Fear, Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” August 2011 [PDF]).
Steven Emerson is one of the top five “misinformation experts” named in the report. These individuals, according to the report, “travel the country and work with or testify before state legislatures calling for a ban on the nonexisting threat of Sharia law in America and proclaiming that the vast majority of mosques in our country harbor Islamist terrorists or sympathizers.”
Targeting Evergreen State College for student activism
The planned civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College may be an attempt to use alleged incidents of campus anti-Semitism as the basis for a legal action to discredit the divestment campaign at the school.
On 8 November 2010, a story appeared on the news website MyNorthwest.com under the byline of Alex Silverman with the headline “Pro-Israel students harassed, leave Evergreen State.”
It alleges that Evergreen State, once an oasis of tolerance, had become a place where some students have faced “torment and harassment” and have even left “simply for expressing their opinions about a controversial issue.”
The story claims five unnamed students “transferred out” of Evergreen State because of “harassment,” but the only source is a student named Joshua Levine. “There are days I feel uncomfortable walking across campus alone because I wear a yarmulke [Jewish skull cap] on my head,” Levine alleges.
Levine, president of the campus chapter of Hillel — another national pro-Israel organization — is also a StandWithUs Northwest Emerson Fellow
But what were the examples of “harassment” that supposedly led to this situation? Just like the StandWithUs video, the only ones Levine provides conflate Palestine solidarity with “anti-Semitism”:
“Checkpoints were erected outside the bus stop,” Levine told Silverman. “People claiming to be IDF [Israeli army] veterans shoving toy assault rifles in people’s faces, demanding to see their student ID before they could go onto campus.”
Students have staged similar actions on campuses across North America to highlight the well-documented abuses Palestinians face living under Israeli military occupation.
The article quotes Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor decrying the supposedly dire situation.
The MyNorthwest.com story also notes: “This summer, the student body at Evergreen State voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies with economic interests in Israel, further fueling the anti-Israel fervor on campus.”
That, it would seem, is what is making Levine so uncomfortable.
Laying the ground for a civil rights complaint
Recently, the US Department of Education began investigating precisely such a civil rights complaint stemming from charges of anti-Semitism because of Palestine solidarity activism at the University of California-Santa Cruz.
That federal investigation is the first of its kind, though it may well be the model for targeting Evergreen State College.
Has StandWithUs, through Levine, been carefully laying the ground for a similar effort to use US civil rights protection legislation to suppress criticism of a foreign government that engages in massive human rights abuses and discrimination of precisely the kind civil rights legislation is meant to prevent?
Importing Israeli repression to the US?
What is particularly troubling about the threatened legal action against OFC and Evergreen State backed by StandWithUs and its close collaboration with the Israeli government, is that it appears to import Israeli tactics of political repression into the United States.
Earlier this year, Israel passed a law that imposes heavy fines on anyone who participates in or advocates a boycott of Israeli businesses, universities and social and cultural institutions or illegal West Bank settlements. The law was strongly condemned by human rights organizations as a violation of basic freedoms.
The threatened legal action against the Olympia Food Co-op may be a “do it yourself” version of the law on US soil. Simply taking someone to court imposes a punishment on them through high legal fees before any judgment is ever rendered. That may be the whole point.
It should serve as a red flag that however small and tight-knit a community, powerful pro-Israel groups, backed by racist anti-Muslim demagogues and funders, in coordination with Israeli officials, are prepared to go to any length to smear and harass people.
They’ll do whatever it takes to keep people quiet about Israel’s human rights abuses, war crimes and the international complicity that the BDS movement seeks to expose, challenge and bring to an end.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
September 7, 2011
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Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular |
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The report of the UN Panel of Inquiry on the Gaza Flotilla Incident which was finally released on 2 September is an example of how dangerous a thing ‘a little learning’ can be.
Put into an ivory tower in New York far away from the scene of the crime and restricted to what information the Turkish and Israeli governments fed it, the Panel has exhibited a naïve understanding of the situation in Gaza. In a large part this was the result of the Panel’s implicit belief in the Turkel Report. This report by Israel’s commission of inquiry on the incident was the central part of the Israeli submission. While it boasts an impressive pedigree the report is actually a false witness that is intended to deceive. Despite hearing evidence on the adverse impacts of the closure from doctors who worked in Gaza the report ignored or rejected their evidence in favour of an undisclosed late submission from the military coordinator. Testimony by Israeli passengers on the Mavi Marmara of mistreatment of passengers and the honourable treatment of captured Israeli soldiers was ignored; as was testimony relating to the on-going occupation.
An explanation on the application of the Geneva Conventions to the blockade was rejected in favour of an opinion by Prof Rosenne that was written in 1946, three years before the Geneva Conventions were adopted. Testimony that all commercial sea traffic to Gaza has been prohibited since the beginning of the occupation in 1967 seems to have fallen on deaf ears or empty heads. Much of Turkel is based on written testimony, hearsay evidence and evidence from secret sources that cannot be verified.
It is also self-contradictory, as on a number of points relating to allegations of the use of firearms by passengers, which is a major theme of the report for which no dependable evidence has ever been produced. This report is a major work of misinformation yet it was accepted by the UN Panel without question.
Regrettably the Panel also exhibited its own bias towards Israel. (But after all the vice-chair Alvaro Ulribe was a major purchaser of Israeli arms while President of Columbia, and he is a recipient of the American Jewish Committee’s ‘Light Unto The Nations’ award. The conflict of interest was never explained.) When asserting that Israel has a need to defend itself by imposing the blockade the Panel made a number of references to the firing of rockets from Gaza. While these terror attacks against civilians are very real they do not occur in a vacuum. Yet the report contains no mention of the everyday shooting attacks against Palestinian farmers and fishermen, no mention of the routine bulldozing of crops and buildings and no censure of the widespread attacks on medical facilities and personnel during the war of 2008/9. In fact Gazans get very little mention in this report at all, despite being central to possibly the most important contemporary human rights struggle on the planet and an essential consideration for understanding what the struggle to defeat the blockade is all about.
In condemning flotilla organizers for indulging in a “dangerous and reckless act” the report refers to the offer to transfer all the cargos to Ashdod for onward transport to Gaza. Admittedly this was subsequently done with much fanfare for some of the goods taken from the flotilla. What is not clear is whether the prefabricated buildings and construction materials, amounting to more than half of the total cargos, was ever transferred to Gaza. What has been reported is that at least one truckload of goods was dumped in landfill in the Negev, that new computers intended for educational use in Gaza were stolen as were substantial amounts of cash intended for charitable causes, while mobility scooters were delivered without their batteries. Previous cargoes from the Spirit of Humanity and the Tali have similarly been lost. The Panel was naïve to put its faith in the goodwill of the Israeli authorities while rushing to condemn the flotilla organizers for recklessness.
It is on such unsafe assumptions and false points that the Panel’s endorsement of the legitimacy of the blockade is based. In expressing his dissenting opinion at the end of the report Mr Özdem Sanberk declared that “common sense and conscience dictate that the blockade is unlawful”. Common sense however is not always a very common commodity.
In considering the composition of the flotilla the panel is critical of the number of passengers travelling with such a humanitarian flotilla; seemingly unaware of the importance of publicity to humanitarian activity. This complaint also overlooks the importance of solidarity to the people of Gaza in their enclosure, and fails to acknowledge that many of the passengers were carrying large sums of money for charitable causes along with personal presents and good wishes for orphans and individuals. The importance of this psychological assistance should not be undervalued or belittled.
Although the authors of the report seem to be poorly informed on some matters of the raid, such as the change of course by the Mavi Marmara after the attack began (when the ship turned to go due west at full speed and might reasonably have been allowed to depart the area without capture) they are generally more accurate with their descriptions and assumptions in this section. One might reasonably ask why they did not question the fact that Israel has never released infrared footage taken at the time when the first helicopter arrived over the ship (when commandos are accused of firing on passengers from the helicopter before rappelling onto the ship), but they have at least faced up to the evidence they have seen. Thus the criticism of the level of violence used by the commandos is robust, and this is an unimportant point. Israel had been forced to gamble its public image on this report and it will not be pleased with comments such as “The loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force by Israeli forces […] was unacceptable.” Later the report adds “There was significant mistreatment of passengers by Israeli authorities […]. This included physical mistreatment, harassment and intimidation, unjustified confiscation of belongings and the denial of timely consular assistance.” The US and Israel had tried to get the UN Human Rights Council to pull its excellent investigation in favour of the UN Panel. This report was seen as a safer option than the thorough professional body that was assembled in Geneva. In that assessment they have been correct, but even so the perpetrators have been strongly criticised. Despite this being the work of amateurs (and in places incompetent bunglers) it is not a whitewash. Israel cannot hide behind this report and it cannot proudly show it off to the world community. For that minor piece of justice we should be grateful.
For the authors of this report there is little to be pleased about. Their ultimate goal has been described as “positively affect[ing] the relationship between Turkey and Israel, as well as the overall situation in the Middle East”. This was always a difficult call. Nevertheless some amelioration of the diplomatic situation might have been hoped for. The immediate aftermath to the release of this report has seen a strong reaction in Turkey to the refusal of the Israeli Government to apologise for the deaths and injuries to Turkish citizens. Turkey will now downgrade its diplomatic and economic relations with Israel and seems intent on dramatically upgrading its support for the people of Gaza. From its declarations so far it would seem that Mr Erdoðan’s government has little time for the recommendations of the Panel that the blockade should be respected and that humanitarian missions should follow established procedures in consultation with the Government of Israel. Maybe he is right given that respect for these procedures has only seen a long term decline in conditions in Gaza. Perhaps a little more common sense from the Panel may have helped the realpolitik of confronting harsh realities in Gaza as a means to aiding prospects for peace in the region.
~
– Richard Lightbown is a writer and researcher. He has previously written reviews on the UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission report and the Turkel Commission Report Part 1.
September 5, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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A prominent political activist says the annual Proms concert in London has hosted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for clearly political reasons.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a member of Beethovians for Boycotting Israel (BBI), says that Western governments and media listen to the Israel regime but ignore the Palestinian people.
Press TV: Please tell us about the event. 40 people, pro-Palestinian protesters, arrived at the Royal Albert Hall, what took place?
Wimborne-Idrissi: Organized with a lot of planning in advance by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, BRICUP – that’s the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine – and people in the Boycott Israel Network (BIN), people arrived prepared for heightened security because, although the Prom’s organizers said that the decision to invite the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra is purely musical, it was clearly a political decision.
They sent out letters to ticket holders telling them that bags will be searched, no flags will be allowed in. They were obviously quite aware of what they’ve done.
We expected it to be harder than it actually turned out to be. We all had tickets in different parts of the hall in a number of small groups. There was about nine or ten groups, altogether, one of them very large.
This large group made the first intervention. What we did was we had prepared in advance a song adapting the tune of Beethoven’s very famous Ode to Joy. And what we sang was, “Israel and your occupation…” and we went on from there with some words which people can find online, on some of the reports.
And we sang this in a quiet moment on the first piece while unveiling a slogan reading “free Palestine”. So, on some of the reports you’ll read there’s a lot of confusion about this. But this is actually what happened.
And we kept on singing our four lines of text over and over again while the audience reacted, people snapped the letters of the slogan out of our hands, people started to push us. And, gradually, the Royal Albert Hall security staff made their way over to us. They did their job, they weren’t aggressive. They said come on you’ve made your point, please go.
Gradually, because of the pushing and the shoving, and the angry response of the audience, we made our way out and we went out still singing. And we went out and joined the public protests outside and continued singing there as well. So that was the first intervention.
Then after that, that piece was finished and the next piece began. We started again on a rather beautiful violin concerto.
Press TV: What do you think you’ve succeeded in doing? What was this boycott intended to do?
Wimborne-Idrissi: What we’ve intended to do was give Palestinians a voice.
The reason that the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) and PACBI – the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – have called for a South African apartheid-style campaign of boycotts because nobody listens to the Palestinians, nobody listens to the victims in this struggle.
Israel has the ear of Western governments, newspaper editors, you name it…
Press TV: Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, thank you very much for that. And people can look up your protest on YouTube.
So, as with cricket, now with classical music.
September 5, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Solidarity and Activism |
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Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched the first turbine of Tajikistan’s 220-megawatt Sang Toodeh II Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant.
President Ahmadinejad attended the launching ceremony along with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and other high-ranking officials from both countries on Monday, IRNA reported.
The Iranian president traveled to Tajikistan on Sunday for an official two-day visit.
Ahmadinejad lashed out at global powers for interfering in domestic affairs of Asian and African countries. “We believe it is against the interests of the nations, their dignity and prosperity,” he said at the opening ceremony of the station.
“This is a project of mutual friendship and brotherhood, we’re happy with Tajikistan’s success,” Ahmadinejad said in televised remarks. “Our cooperation is aimed at peace and stability in the region.”
The Sang Toodeh II project can greatly help Tajikistan in its industrial and agricultural sectors and in meeting its energy needs, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
Iranian Sangab Company began construction of the power plant in 2006 in the southwestern Khatlon province.
Iran has invested around USD 180 million in the project, along with Tajikistan’s $40-million investment, and is expected to carry out management of the plant for 12 years. Tajikistan’s national power company will then take over the management from Iran.
Rahmon has described the project as “Iran’s biggest gift” to the Tajikistani nation.
September 5, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism |
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The brave Walmart workers who belong to OUR Walmart say fear is the main thing stopping their fellow retail workers from organizing. As an assistant store manager at Walmart, I saw how managers were trained to put that fear into hourly workers’ heads.
When I was hired four years ago, new assistant managers had to complete eight weeks of training. We got a $500 prepaid credit card for meals and were thrown into a hotel, with weekends off to go home.
I thought we would get a crash course in Walmart history and then get into learning the computer systems, the policies, how to schedule people. I was far off track. I was now in an eight-week indoctrination into how Walmart is the unsurpassed company to work for, and how to spot any employee who was having doubts. I was supposed to be happy at all times.
The training was done at “Stores of Learning.” The assistant managers were new hires to Walmart, like me, or about one-third had been promoted from within.
Training activities included the Walmart cheer. Every morning, as store associates do, we would participate in the cheer. A few people stood up to read the daily numbers, then break out into a chant—“Give me a W-A-L-M-A-R-T,” with the rest of the people in the room shouting back the same letter. Back then, Wal-Mart still had a hyphen, so between the L and the M they would yell, “Give me a squiggly!” and everyone would do a butt wiggle.
Whenever it was my turn to lead, let’s just say I was less than thrilled, an early warning system for upper management on who was not Walmart material.
You, Too, Can Rise
Most days we watched videos of the CEO telling us what a good choice we’d made to come to Walmart. Other videos showed folks who are now top management in Bentonville, Arkansas, but started out as a cashier when they were young.
We were all given Sam Walton’s book to read: Sam Walton: Made in America. We were allotted 15 to 30 minutes a day for silent reading, or instead you could help out in the store. I was one of the few that chose to fetch carts in the parking lot or help throw freight around in the back. Since the Store of Learning was also going to be the store I would work at, I wanted to take the opportunity to get to know the workers and other managers. I wanted to see if anybody could tell me what an assistant manager’s role was, considering there wasn’t much of that going on in the classroom.
We had a week-long schedule of anti-union sessions. They didn’t call them that, but essentially it was how to spot uprising employees.
We had an entire day devoted to word phrasing, looking at how employees use words and what key words to look for. A computer test consisted of a “what’s wrong with this picture?” game. You were shown the area near a time clock, and different handmade and computer-made signs. One sign said “Baby shower committee meeting Jan. 26, 8 pm.” Another said “Potluck Wednesday all day in break room.” Which one of those signs should raise alarms with management?
“Baby shower committee.” Because of the word “committee,” a manager would have to find the person who made the sign, find out why they used that word, then determine if the action got a warning or a write-up. If it was the store manager who found the sign, a write-up was almost guaranteed. They called it unlawful Walmart language, unbecoming a Walmart employee—words like “committee,” “organize,” “meeting.” Even “volunteer” was an iffy word, and they would raise an eyebrow at “group.”
The anti-union training was the biggest part of our reading and training material. We watched videos about why unions are bad and how proud Walmart was for not allowing unions into its system. I let all that go in one ear and out the other. I felt that if I gave those videos even five minute’s worth of attention, I was betraying my union parents.
We did get a day and a half of loss-prevention training; how to spot shoplifters, what happens if you catch an employee stealing, and routine loss-prevention. They brought in a loss-prevention district manager whose 30-minute talk was to put the fear of Sam Walton in us. He told the class that if he found out we let anything fall through the cracks, he would show up at the store with a pink slip in hand.
Nothing from that eight weeks of brainwashing was geared to help you do your job as an assistant manager. Essentially it was more of a police academy, training the managers to be police officers for Walmart. We were being trained to put fear into the hourly workers’ heads. Step out of line, and you lose your job.
After graduating (they held a makeshift ceremony), I had no clue what exactly my job was. I had to learn from the other assistant managers in my store how to operate the scanner, how to schedule my departments, and the other operational items that weren’t covered in the training. The only thing I learned was how to fake being happy around customers and my subordinates.
Segregation
The trainers told us that assistant managers are only allowed to hang out or go to break or lunch with other assistant managers, not with hourly associates, not with co-managers, not the store manager. Once I was on the job, half the time I went to a diner with another assistant manager. If I stayed in for lunch, I would turn my walkie-talkie off, sit in the break room with the associates, and talk with them. That was frowned upon.
One day of training was about attire. There were separate rules for dress policy according to job title. Assistant managers and higher have to wear a collared blue shirt. No collar, no job.
Hourly people get a little more free play and are not required to wear a collar shirt. Management has to wear khakis; hourly can wear jeans. I heard one trainer say, “Well, the hourly folks probably can’t afford khakis, even with their discount.”
How anti-union is Walmart? I wore a UAW jacket that my mom had bought for me. When I wore it into the store, the store manager broke into my locker and took it. He said it would encourage others, and I was written up for conduct unbecoming a Walmart employee. I called Human Resources, but I got nowhere. Walmart says they have an open-door policy, but like OUR Walmart members have testified, it’s closed to most of us.
Prior to my employment with the largest retailer in the world, I worked for a union-friendly Midwest competitor, in the same management position. The differences were amazing. It was nothing for me as a manager to go out for a few beers with my people. At the competitor, the hourly workers are union. As a manager, it’s a breeze to write out your weekly schedules when you follow the contract!
September 5, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism |
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Last June, as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2 was preparing its attempt to break the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza, many were dismayed when the Mavi Marmara was withdrawn from the flotilla. Why did this happen?
The Mavi Marmara is the Turkish-operated ship that Israel attacked on 31 May 2010 in international waters during the previous flotilla, killing 9 people and injuring dozens more.
Israel’s refusal to apologize for the attack, and to meet other Turkish demands led to yesterday’s unprecedented sanctions by the Turkish government.
In the wake of a deeply flawed, biased and non-credible UN report justifying the Israeli siege of Gaza and white-washing the Israeli attack, Turkey has downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel to the lowest level, suspended all military agreements between the countries, and vowed to take other measures to seek justice for the victims of the Israeli attack and to challenge the Israeli siege.
Why did Turkey stop the Mavi Marmara?
Although the Mavi Marmara was operated by the independent charity IHH, it seems highly likely that the decision to withdraw from the flotilla in June was taken at the suggestion of the Turkish government. The reasons given publicly for withdrawing the ship were “technical.”
We cannot know what private communications may have taken place, but in early June Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu publicly suggested that the flotilla organizers should “rethink” their plan to break the siege by sea. Whether the decision was at the behest of the Turkish government or not, it suited its needs at the time. Why?
At the time many observers – myself included – feared that Turkey was softening its stance toward Israel and seeking to “mend fences” without Turkey’s demands being met.
The suspicions of many were encapsulated in a drawing by celebrated political cartoonist Carlos Latuff that showed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declaring “I love Palestine” to win votes in the Turkish general election, while his shadow shakes hands with Israel.
Many were convinced that the withdrawal of the Mavi Marmara meant Turkey’s policy was no different from the abject complicity of Greece, which worked hand in glove with Israel, to prevent the remaining flotilla ships from reaching Gaza.
It is now clear that this analysis was wrong. For one thing, Turkish-Israel relations featured little in the June Turkish election campaign, and if Turkey’s stance was about winning votes, the government would presumably have announced its measures against Israel before the election rather than months afterwards.
A tactical move in a long strategy?
In light of the relative severity and decisiveness of Turkey’s sanctions on Israel, it is certain that withdrawing the Mavi Marmara was a tactical step, as negotiations between Israel and Turkey were ongoing, to avoid giving Israel the excuse of another “provocation” which would let it off the hook for the previous attack.
Sending the ship could also have led to unknown consequences from Turkey’s perspective: either allowing Israel to seize the ship again, or escalating into a military confrontation.
“Wasted opportunities”
In his uncompromising 2 September statement laying out the sanctions on Israel, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu said:
Turkey’s stance against this unlawful act of Israel from the first moment has been very clear and principled. Our demands are known.
Our relations with Israel will not be normalized until these conditions are met.
At this juncture, Israel has wasted all the opportunities it was presented with.
Now, the Government of Israel must face the consequences of its unlawful acts, which it considers above the law and are in full disregard of the conscience of humanity. The time has come for it to pay a price for its actions.
This price is, above all, deprivation of Turkey’s friendship.
Turkey’s gesture of stopping the Mavi Marmara from sailing in June is almost certainly one of the “wasted opportunities” to which Davutoğlu alluded. Another would have been Turkey’s assistance in extinguishing last’s year’s Carmel wildfire.
Laying the ground for a decisive step
By giving Israel all these opportunities and avoiding anything that Israel could present as a provocation, Turkey has established beyond any reasonable doubt Israel’s total intransigence and unwillingness to assume responsibility.
Thus, the measures taken yesterday by Turkey appear to have been well-studied and carefully prepared. This suggests that Davutoğlu was serious when he said there would be no retreat from Turkey’s position and no normalization of relations until Turkey’s demands are met.
The cost to Turkey?
One calculation Turkey certainly would have had time to consider is the price it might pay in terms of retaliation from the United States, Israel’s protector and patron. Turkey, unlike Israel, is a formal ally of the United States, a member of NATO, and thus has a mutual defense pact with the United States.
The Turkish government must have concluded that it can withstand whatever wrath the United States might mete out, especially since the US still feels it needs Turkey to help maintain its faltering hegemony in the region.
On the same day it announced sanctions on Israel, Turkey also revealed that it had reached agreement to host radar installations as part of the American-sponsored and conceived NATO “missile defense” program.
Press reports indicate that as part of the deal, the US acceeded to a Turkish demand that data from the Turkish-hosted radars not be shared with Israel.
Turkey, it turns out, is still of more practical benefit to US regional hegemony than Israel, which is increasingly a strategic and political burden to the United States.
In terms of regional implications, Turkey has demonstrated to supine Arab regimes, particularly Egypt’s ruling military junta, that imposing a cost for Israel’s aggression is an option despite US support.
Will the Mavi Marmara sail to Gaza again?
Now that Turkey has shown its hand toward Israel, the question arises: will the Mavi Marmara sail to Gaza again? That is a question I cannot answer, but Davutoğlu also made clear that Turkey does not recognize the siege or maritime blockade of Gaza and would continue to challenge it:
As a littoral state which has the longest coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey will take whatever measures it deems necessary in order to ensure the freedom of navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey does not recognize the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel. Turkey will ensure the examination by the International Court of Justice of Israel’s blockade imposed on Gaza as of 31 May 2010. To this end we are starting initiatives in order to mobilize the UN General Assembly.
What these measures will mean in practice – and whether they will involve the Mavi Marmara returning to Gaza, remains to be seen.
September 3, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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The National Strike of 24th-25th August was celebrated as a great success by the President of the Chilean Workers United Central (CUT) trade union federation, Arturo Martinez. In a statement Mr Martinez said “we salute the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who have mobilized across the country to show their will and their hope to build a new, different Chile.” The National Strike was called to push for deep changes to Chile’s Constitution which would allow reforms to education, healthcare, labor laws and the economy.
The strike affected over 90 towns and cities the length of the country, with demonstrations, road blockades, human chains, concerts and cultural activities, public meetings and the famous ‘cacerolazos’ – the banging of pots and pans to show discontent which were a feature of the struggle against Pinochet.
As in those dark years, the Chilean government has met social mobilization with brutality and slander. The Minister of Interior has threatened to re-introduce martial law, and the government and its supporters have abused the leaders of the demonstrations, repeatedly calling the demonstrators subversives and accusing them of fomenting disorder. Some government supporters have been even less measured, showing how near to the surface the Pinochet legacy of the Chilean right is. One functionary tweeted that Camila Vallejo, the leader of the students’ union ought to be killed, the Intendant of the 8th Region (a member of Opus Dei) even ridiculously declared that the demonstrations were the result of too many children being born out of wedlock.
During the strike police resorted to the old tactics of repression. In Macul, Santiago, a 16 year-old boy, Manuel Gutierrez was shot in the chest. With two friends he had gone out to observe the bonfires and barricades built in his neighborhood. A police truck drove by, the window opened, three shots were heard and Manuel fell to the ground crying “I’m hit!” He later died in hospital from the wound to his chest. His family has called for justice but the Carabineros are denying any participation and hence refusing an investigation. Human rights groups have condemned this move to cover up the crime. In another area of the city police tear-gassed a postal workers union branch office full of local people, forcing them to flee and putting one elderly lady in hospital.
In another case, Cristian Andrade Cardenas, a student in the port city of Valparaiso, was brutally tortured by police. Seized off the street by a squad of 10 Carabineros, he was forced into a police bus where the police began to beat him severely, jumping on his face, arms and torso, beating him with batons and punching him repeatedly. They then squeezed lemon juice into the open cuts on his face before forcing him to inhale tear gas. They also threatened to rape his mother. He was released after being forced to sign a false declaration stating that he had assaulted a police officer. At the same time, demonstrators in the city discovered suspected a police infiltrator amongst them when he began throwing stones at police. When the crowd tried to detain him, the man fled and took refuge with police guarding the Chilean Congress. The incident was filmed and the opposition are asking the police to help identify the man.
In the same city another student was threatened by police simply for carrying the flag of the Chilean Communist Party, which has once more, as in the years of the dictatorship, borne the brunt of the ire and desperation of an establishment that has lost control. In parliament, right wing deputies Cristián Monckeberg and Víctor Pérez, accused the Communist Party of inciting public disorder, an accusation that could see the Party’s deputies barred under a law dating back to the Pinochet era. Meanwhile, in Santiago police special forces raided the house of a Communist Mayor in the neighborhood of Pedro Aguirre Cerda at 1.30am. According to Mayor Claudina Nuñez, her door was broken down, her nephew was beaten, and when neighbors came out to protest they were also attacked, including a 78 year-old woman who was beaten to the ground and knocked unconscious. The incident was filmed.
These abuses are reminders that the legacy of the dictatorship were never properly dealt with by the governments of the Concertacion. This Christian Democrat and Socialist Party coalition accepted Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution (the rejection of which had until the late 1980s been a central demand of the opposition) in return for a severely limited democracy. This, among other features, included impunity for human rights abuses committed under the dictatorship. Indeed there are 800 cases open against agents of the dictatorship, but so far only 71 have resulted in a sentence, meaning that most of the crimes of that period still go unpunished.
This was the message of human rights groups when recently greeting the results of the second Valech Report which cataloged thousands of new cases of abuses, accepting 9,800 of them, including 30 new cases of people disappeared or executed. Lorena Pizarro, the President of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared said that the measure recognizes “victims but not perpetrators” and that despite the compensation provided by the state, justice would be the only true compensation for the victims. One wonders how many more victims might come forward if the country’s institutions were not so heavily permeated by the dictatorship’s noxious legacy.
The recent demonstrations have shown how the legacy of the Pinochet era remains especially strongly entrenched in the police and the armed forces. Following the return to a very limited democracy in 1990, there was no purge of Pinochet supporters, or of those who had committed human rights abuses from either of these institutions. The officers now at the top of both were trained and forged in the years of the dictatorship, and their attitudes towards social protest conditioned in a period when violence was routinely applied against the defenseless population. Despite measures taken to reform training programs under the Concertacion governments, unfortunately the police remain an instrument of repression, conditioned to see demonstrators as subversives rather than citizens exercising their right to protest. This view is clearly shared by the current government, much as it tries to hide its connections to the past.
The Piñera government currently has a 21% approval rating, and has been severely criticized for its failure to look after the victims of the 2010 earthquake which has plunged at least half a million Chileans into poverty and homelessness. It has also failed to consider long-standing concerns such as the list of points presented to the government by the CUT in June 2010. This intransigent position and the ever more obvious injustices of Chilean society, have exacerbated the social tensions caused by the government’s continual rejection of negotiations with the social movements. This opposition has now galvanized around the reform of the country’s severely restrictive Constitution, a position that has terrified the current government, which is scrabbling around for a response. The government initially cataloged the strike as a complete failure, and yet has now agreed to meet with representatives of the protest movement in order to negotiate. However, whilst welcoming this change in position, the opposition understandably remains skeptical as to the government’s good faith.
It is hard to see how the ‘Chilean model’ can survive the present situation. The governing coalition includes the UDI, the party of Pinochetismo, and an ardent defender of the socio-economic legacy of the dictatorship. Even the more moderate elements of the government are aware that their economic position is completely dependent on the maintenance of an exporting economy with weak labor organization. This economic model is only sustainable under a limited democracy. This limits the government’s scope for flexibility in dealing with an opposition united around the desire for profound changes to the legal and institutional framework that underpins this economic model.
Worryingly for the government and for supporters of Pinochet’s model, even the more centrist parties historically linked to the Concertacion are now beginning to jump ship, opening talks with the leaders of the opposition. This shows just how far the opposition have advanced in creating a common perception that the entire social, economic and constitutional structure must be reformed in order to create a new Chile governed by democracy and social justice.
September 2, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism |
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