Malaysian, French ships join ‘Freedom Flotilla’ to Gaza
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | June 20, 2011
The Prime Minister of Malaysia voiced his support for the upcoming ‘Freedom Flotilla’ of aid ships and 500 supporters from around the world who plan to enter Gaza by sea on June 27th. A ship from Malaysia joins two new French ships added to the roster of a dozen ships set to sail to Gaza next week.
Israeli commandoes have been preparing for the flotilla with war games and new weaponry, including a high-powered water cannon which they plan to fire at the aid ships to prevent them from entering Gaza. Although Israel faced criticism worldwide for its attack on the aid flotilla last year which killed nine aid workers, no changes have been made in Israeli policy and no one has faced charges for the killings.
The two French boats, announced on Sunday, will carry around 40 passengers, including legislators, entertainers and sports stars from France. The flotilla will include ships from the US, England, Estonia, Sweden, Latvia, Portugal, Australia, Kuwait and Portugal, in addition to the French and Malaysian ships.
Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak told a crowd of flotilla supporters in a stadium in Kuala Lampur, “As long as the Palestinian people are oppressed, we will take it upon ourselves to fight for them. We should, even if the world does not.” He said that he will look into a request by the flotilla participants to have the United Nations examine the contents of the ships on the flotilla prior to their departure from Gaza, to pre-empt any claims by the Israeli government that the ships are carrying anything other than their inventoried and inspected loads of humanitarian aid and workers.
The Freedom Flotilla aims to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, imposed four years ago in June 2007. According to the organizers of the Flotilla, “Nowhere else in the world are people required by the international community to accept humanitarian aid instead of freedom. And even that humanitarian aid is not forthcoming, owing to Israel’s blockade. This month, the health authority in Gaza proclaimed a state of emergency due to an acute shortage of vital medicines. Approximately 178 types of medications and 123 types of medical supplies have run out, and an additional 69 types of medications and 70 types of medical supplies are expected to run out within the next three months.”
46 Palestinian aid organizations reiterated their support for the flotilla in a signed statement made earlier this week.
Don’t Look Away: The Siege of Gaza Must End
By Kathy Kelly | Palestine Chronicle | June 17, 2011
In Late June 2011, I’m going to be a passenger on ‘The Audacity of Hope,’ the USA boat in this summer’s international flotilla to break the illegal and deadly Israeli siege of Gaza. Organizers, supporters and passengers aim to nonviolently end the brutal collective punishment imposed on Gazan residents since 2006 when the Israeli government began a stringent air, naval and land blockade of the Gaza Strip explicitly to punish Gaza’s residents for choosing the Hamas government in a democratic election. Both the Hamas and the Israeli governments have indiscriminately killed civilians in repeated attacks, but the vast preponderance of these outrages over the length of the conflict have been inflicted by Israeli soldiers and settlers on unarmed Palestinians. I was witness to one such attack when last in Gaza two years ago, under heavy Israeli bombardment in a civilian neighborhood in Rafah.
In January 2009, I lived with a family in Rafah during the final days of the “Operation Cast Lead” bombing. We were a few streets down from an area where there was heavy bombing. Employing its ever-replenished stockpile of U.S. weapons, the Israeli government sought to destroy tunnels beneath the Egyptian border through which food, medicine, badly-needed building supplies, and possibly a few weapons as well were evading the internationally condemned blockade and entering Gaza.
Throughout that terrible assault, Israel pounded civilians in Gaza, turning villages, homes, refugee camps, schools, mosques and infrastructure into rubble. According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the attack killed 1,385 Palestinians, nearly a quarter of them minors, with an uncountable number more to succumb, in the months and years following, to malnutrition, disease, and suicidal despair, the consequences of forced impoverishment under a still continuing siege that salts Gaza’s dreadful wounds by preventing it from even starting to rebuild.
All I could feel at the time was that the people in the Gaza Strip were horribly trapped, almost paralyzed.
The day of the cease-fire, when the sounds of bombing stopped, my young friends insisted that we must move quickly to visit the Al Shifaa hospital in Gaza City. Doctors there were shaken and stunned, after days of trying to save lives in a hopelessly overcrowded emergency room, with blood pooling at their feet. Dr. Nafez Abu Shabham, head of Al Shifaa’s burn unit, put his head in his hands and spoke incredulously to us. “For 22 days, the world watched,” he lamented, “and no country tried to stop the killing.”
He may well be putting his head in his hands again, today as too many of us have stopped even watching. “Human rights groups in Gaza are urgently requesting international aid groups and donor groups to intervene and deliver urgent medical aid to Palestinian hospitals in Gaza,” according to a June 14 Al Jazeera report. “Palestinian officials say that Gaza’s medicinal stock is nearly empty and is in crisis. This affects first aid care, in addition to all other levels of medical procedures.”
After the attack, I visited the Gaza City dormitory of a young university student with two of his friends. It was a shambles. We sifted through broken glass and debris, trying to salvage some notebooks and texts. Their lives have been like that. They’ve since graduated but there is no work. “The Gaza Strip enters its fifth year of a full Israeli blockade by land, air and sea with unemployment at 45.2%, one of the highest rates in the world,” according to a UN aid agency report. (June 14, 2011). Harvard scholar Sara Roy, in a June 2, 2009 report for Harvard’s Crimson Review, noted that:
“Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers….After Israel’s December (2008) assault, Gaza’s already-compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible. In Gaza today there is no private sector to speak of and no industry.”
When the bombing had stopped, we visited homes and villages where the unarmed had been killed. Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times would later verify that, in the village of Al Atatra, IDF soldiers had fired white phosphorous missiles into the home of a woman named Sabah Abu Halemi, leaving her badly burned and burning to death her husband and three of her children. I visited her in the hospital, watching a kindly Palestinian doctor spend his greatly needed time off sitting at her bedside, offering only wordless comfort as she gripped his hand.
We must not turn away from suffering in Gaza.
We must continue trying to connect with Gazans living under siege.
There is some risk involved in this flotilla. The Israeli government threatens to board each ship in the flotilla with snipers and attack dogs. A year ago the Israeli Navy fired on the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, from the air, then documented its passengers’ panicked response as their justification for executing nine activists, including one young U.S. citizen, Furkhan Dogan, shot several times in the back and head at close range. It then refused to cooperate with an international investigation.
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, amounting to what is internationally recognized as an apartheid system, could end in peace, with Israel abandoning paranoia and racial violence to allow peace. Apartheid ended in South Africa without the wave of bloodshed and reprisals that its supporters claimed to fear as their excuse for holding on to the wealth and power which their system afforded them. They achieved greater peace and safety for themselves and their children by finding the courage to finally allow peace, safety, and freedom to their neighbors. It’s a lesson the U.S. government has all too often missed. This June, the governments of Israel and, (above all), the United States must finally embrace the audacity of hope.
– Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org).
Interview: Mazin Qumsiyeh on popular resistance and breaking the spell of fear
David Cronin – The Electronic Intifada – 16 June 2011
In his latest book Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, Mazin Qumsiyeh counters the conventional wisdom promoted by the Israeli propaganda machine and the mainstream Western media, which conflates the Palestinian struggle against occupation with “terrorism.” Qumsiyeh, a former professor of genetics who taught at Yale and Duke universities, returned to his native village of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem in the occupied West three years ago. He currently blogs at Popular Resistance. The Electronic Intifada contributor David Cronin interviewed Qumsiyeh about his new book and activism.
David Cronin: You were arrested in May in the West Bank village of al-Walaja. I’ve seen a video on YouTube, in which — a moment before the arrest — you are pleading with Israeli soldiers not to use violence against peaceful protesters. What were the circumstances that led you to make that appeal?
Mazin Qumsiyeh: I saw a group of soldiers run up a hill and grab a young guy and start beating him. They were using pepper spray against his head and mouth, even though he didn’t do anything. I walked a few steps so that I was close to him, then they pushed me down.
The accusation that was leveled against me was that I had participated in an illegal demonstration. But it was the presence of soldiers there that was illegal, not the presence of people in the village of al-Walaja.
DC: What happened after your arrest?
MQ: For 24 hours, I was taken to various detention facilities in different places. It was 24 hours of harassment and without any sleep. That was the biggest part of it. When I finally got to the actual prison [Ofer], the prison itself was not that bad in terms of treatment. They tried to get me to sign a paper saying I was not mistreated. I said: “I’m not signing any papers. Go to hell.”
DC: How many times have you been arrested?
MQ: It depends how you define “arrested.” Israel can hold you for hours and hours, days and days, without [charging] you. I have been arrested [and] charged three times. In terms of detention [I have been held], maybe 10 or 12 times.
It has always been for short periods of two days, things like that. When I get arrested, the Israeli government gets thousands of letters, hundreds of inquiries. Palestinian young people, who don’t have the kind of international network that I have, tend to be mistreated more and can be kept in administrative detention for months.
DC: After living in the United States for 27 years, you returned to Palestine three years ago. Why did you decide to go home?
MQ: It was a question of where I could be the most useful [to the Palestinian struggle]. Up to three years ago, I felt I could be more useful outside Palestine. Then, my feeling was that I could be more useful in Palestine. It was a subjective feeling, rather than an objective or scientific feeling.
DC: In your latest book, you explain how both nonviolent resistance and armed struggle involve sacrifice and that neither is risk-free. You appear, though, to have a preference for nonviolent resistance. Can you explain why?
MQ: Whether one uses armed struggle or nonviolence, the aim has to be to liberate oneself. Nobody engages in these things because they love to do these things. My own personal judgment is that the moral issue must enter into the equation. Of course, other people may have a different judgment. And while I respect their backgrounds, I also respectfully may disagree with the tools used.
DC: You have documented how the history of Palestinian resistance has been overwhelmingly nonviolent. What do you say, then, to those Western journalists who tend to regard Palestinian resistance as synonymous with suicide bombing?
MQ: Every anti-colonial struggle, every uprising has been a mixed bag. In South Africa, there were incidents where blacks engaged in horrific acts as individual human beings. But to characterize the Soweto Uprising by saying it was violent and involved “necklacing” [placing tires around the necks of suspected informers and burning them alive] is wrong and crude and reprehensible. You cannot make such generalizations.
DC: You have argued that Jesus Christ may have been the first Palestinian political martyr. Why do you say that?
MQ: Jesus Christ was born in a land called Palestine. He spoke Aramaic, which predated Arabic. He was certainly killed because of his nonviolent resistance.
DC: What is your message, then, to Christian Zionists?
MQ: They must be reading a different Bible to the one I’m reading. Even the Old Testament says the promise of a good life has to do with a moral position, with obeying God and obeying the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill.”
If you do something horrible, how are you deserving of a piece of land? That is totally a contradiction of the sense of morality and justice, that religion is supposed to be about. Is it Judaism to use white phosphorous on unarmed civilians or to kill hundreds of them?
Christian Zionism is an oxymoron. You cannot be a Zionist and a Christian at the same time, in my humble opinion.
DC: You have called the diplomatic initiative to have the United Nations recognize a Palestinian state this coming September dangerous. Please explain.
MQ: Activists and human rights defenders around the world should be very wary of the so-called September initiative. The idea of recognizing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders is fine if it is accompanied with a declaration recognizing the rights of Palestinians. But there is no mention of rights in the way it is being discussed at the moment.
Nowhere in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does it say that Palestinians have a right to raise a particular flag. But it does say we have the right to free movement, we have the right to land, we have the right to be treated equally.
DC: You have outlined parallels between how the issue of Palestinian statehood is being handled and the behavior of the South African government during the apartheid era. In particular, you have drawn an analogy to the type of Palestinian state now being envisaged with the supposedly self-governing Bantustans that the apartheid government established for blacks in parts of South Africa and South West Africa. Can you summarize those parallels?
MQ: Of course, every historical situation is unique but we do have similarities with apartheid South Africa. South Africa said “we do want to recognize South African Bantustans as states” and even approached the United Nations and said “we recognize the Bantustans as states.” For the same reasons, [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu has said “fine, we can have a Palestinian state under certain conditions.”
What the West might be doing is aiding and abetting the notion of apartheid, putting [the Palestinian] people in Bantustans and saying “we recognize you as a state but without the rights to free movement, resources, land, any basic rights.”
DC: What’s the most shocking thing you have seen?
MQ:: The most shocking thing that one cannot ever get accustomed to is the crude racism, the sense of superiority the Zionists have over us. That is always the root of the problem, the sense that God has chosen them and that they have the rights to the land. From this emanates lots of things: land confiscations, the wall, ill-treatment of prisoners.
DC: What role should people of conscience internationally play in resisting the occupation?
MQ: Obviously, Western governments are colluding with Zionism. They have been partners in this crime against humanity going back to the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration [early twentieth century decisions by Britain and France on carving up the Middle East and endorsing Zionist colonization, respectively]. And fully-fledged partners, not merely puppets.
Howard Zinn said “you can’t be neutral on a moving train.” So for the public in Australia or America, being neutral means literally colluding with the occupiers. They have to chose: collude with war crimes or get off the train and engage at a human level to correct this.
One of the first duties of activists is to speak truth to power. This is always repeated ad nauseam in the human rights community, so go do it. People need to break the spell of fear. Once they believe in their own hearts they can do things, then nothing is impossible. That is what the Egyptian people taught us in Tahrir Square.
~
David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.
BBC journalist makes astonishing admission that Greek people have lost faith in mainstream media
Jane Burgermeister | June 16, 2011
From: Greek state starting to lose grip on functions of state, by Paul Mason, BBC
“This is my third blog post in 24 hours from here, and at the risk of repeating myself, I think the level of mismatch between perception and reality within the Eurozone is worrying. Because last year’s protests were mainly leftist; and the strikes mainly token, a pattern of thinking has emerged that dismisses all Greek protest as essentially this.
But a new situation is emerging: Greek people I have spoken to are beginning to express things in terms of nation and sovereignty – and this makes the Greek situation different, for now, to Ireland and Portugal.
While the centre right New Democracy would probably win any snap election, it is hard to find support for pro-austerity politics among ND’s natural support base, the business class. Because austerity for them means getting hammered with a tax bill the like of which they have never dreamed, nor indeed paid.
And I will repeat the point about hostility to the media: it’s not a problem for me and my colleagues to be hounded off demos as “representatives of big capital”, “Zionists”, “scum and police informers” etc. But to get this reaction from almost every demographic – from balaclava kids to pensioners – should be a warning sign to the policymaking elite. The “mainstream” – whether it’s the media, politicians or business people – is beginning to seem illegitimate to large numbers of people.
As one old bloke put it to me, when I said: “Don’t you want us to report what’s happening to you?” – “No.”
He was quite calm and rational as he waved his hand in my face: “It’s too late for that.”
2 hit by live fire critical after Ramallah-area protest
Ma’an – 16/06/2011
RAMALLAH — Seven Palestinians were injured, including two critically, Wednesday after an anti-wall protest was quashed, sparking anger in the village of Deir Qaddis, west of Ramallah.
A rally headed from the village to obstruct Israeli bulldozers digging up private lands for the construction of the separation wall, a Ma’an correspondent reported. Israeli forces were heavily deployed in the area and tried to disperse the demonstrators, beating them with clubs and rifle butts.
The use of live fire was reported, and a military official confirmed that bullets were used after one of the soldiers was attacked by protesters.
“One, a 24 year-old, was shot twice in the pelvis and in the shoulder, and the second, a 22 year-old, was shot in the back of his thigh and will require an operation,” the protest organizers said in a statement.
Aiming to stop the construction of the wall and the destruction of private agricultural lands, several demonstrators managed to pass the line of soldiers and worked to stop the work of bulldozer drivers. They succeeded in stymieing the heavy machinery before soldiers fired high-velocity tear-gas canisters and stun grenades at the demonstrators. … Full article
Napalm Death, please cancel your concert in Tel Aviv
By PSCABI and PYAIA – Gaza, June 14, 2011
Dear Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway, Shane Embury, Danny Herrera, & Mitch Harris of Napalm Death:
We are Palestinian students and youth based in Gaza, among 1.5 million in a tiny Strip of land the size of Britain’s Isle of white, surrounded and kept captive in a medieval siege by the Israeli Occupation Forces, the fourth most powerful army in the world. Over a million of us in Gaza are United Nations refugees, expelled by the Israeli army to make way for the Israeli state to be built over the ruins of our 531 villages and 10 urban neighborhoods destroyed and emptied, in a process that fits the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Over half of us are children.
We are asking you to understand the Israeli Apartheid Regime’s complete subjugation of our lives and adhere to the 2005 call from over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations in Palestine to not perform in Apartheid Israel in Tel Aviv this Friday June 17th. Just as you adhered to the wishes of the African National Congress (ANC) during Apartheid South Africa, we hope you will remember us too.
We love music, we have our own big range of music and dance that we love to play. But we have few instruments. Israel’s air, land and sea blockade of all our borders has meant for years musical instruments were banned from entry to Gaza as the Israeli Apartheid regime decided that we as Palestinians should also be deprived of coriander, nutmeg, ginger, dried fruit, fresh meat, lentils, pasta, chocolate, donkeys, cattle, fishing rods, toys, workbooks and newspapers. Music reminds us of better times when Israeli attacks are killing our loved ones every week. Yet what we have is often drowned out by Israeli-US made F16s, F15s, F35s, surveillance planes, drones, naval gunboats, Merkava tanks and border fire.
When asked in an interview in 2007 about the band name ‘Napalm Death’ Barney Greenway said “we are anti war, and the Napalm is used to make munitions and bombs, you know.”
During Israel’s attacks on Gaza over the winter of 2009 over 1400 people were killed, the vast majority of whom were civilians including hundreds of our children. The United Nations Goldstone report into the attacks declared that the Israeli armed forces had been “systematically reckless” in using the flesh-burning white phosphorous – a modern-day Napalm in built-up areas. Evidence of depleted uranium and other metal toxins were also found and have contributed to a 30% increase in cancers and birth defects in Gaza since the attacks. The already decimated agricultural industries now face enormous land contamination and over 90% of water is not fit to drink. … Full letter
-Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
-Palestinian Youth Against Israeli Apartheid (PYAIA).
Blood in the Amazon: Brazilian Activists Murdered as Deforestation Increases
José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva
Early in the morning on May 24, in the northern Brazilian Amazon, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva got onto a motorcycle near the nature reserve they had worked on for over two decades. As the couple rode past the jungle they dedicated their lives to protecting, gunmen hiding near a bridge opened fire, killing them both.
Brazilian law enforcement officials said that the killing appeared to be the work of hired gunmen, due to the fact that an ear was cut off each of the victims. This is often done to prove to whoever paid for the killings that the job was carried out.
The murder took place the same day the Brazilian Congress passed a change to the forestry code that would allow agribusinesses and ranchers to clear even more land in the Amazon jungle. Deforestation rose 27 percent from August 2010 to April 2011 largely due to soybean plantations. The levels will likely rise if the changes to the forestry code are passed by the Senate.
Ribeiro knew he was in danger of being killed for his struggle against loggers, ranchers and large scale farmers who were deforesting the Amazon. In fact, just six months earlier, in November 2010 at an environmental conference in Manaus, Brazil, he told the audience “I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment. … As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest.”
The life and death of Ribeiro has been rightly compared to that of Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist who fought against logging and ranching, winning international attention for his successful campaigns against deforestation. In 1988, Mendes was murdered by gunmen hired by ranchers.
Just two weeks before he was killed, Mendes also spoke hauntingly about the likelihood that he would be murdered for his activism. “I don’t want flowers, because I know you are going to pull them up from the forest. The only thing I want is that my death helps to stop the murderers’ impunity…”
Yet since the murder of Mendes, impunity in the Brazilian countryside has become the norm. In the past 20 years, over 1,150 rural activists have been killed in conflicts related to land. Of these murders, less than 100 cases have gone to court, only 80 of the killers have been convicted, and just 15 of the people who hired the gunmen were found guilty, according to Catholic Land Pastoral, a group monitoring land conflicts. Impunity reigns in rural areas due to the corruption of judicial officials and police, and the wealth and power of the ranchers, farmers and loggers who are often the ones who order the killings.
The recent murder of Ribeiro and Santo combined with the danger posed by changes to the forestry code are devastating indications of the direction Brazil is heading in the Amazon. For some, the expansion of logging, ranching and soybean operations into the Amazon are inevitable steps toward economic progress. But for others, a different kind of progress is necessary if the planet is to survive. As Chico Mendes explained just days before his death in 1988, he wanted to “demonstrate that progress without destruction is possible.”
***
Benjamin Dangl is the author of the new book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). He edits TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com
Israeli soldier to activists who were detained near Beit Ommar: “I could kill you.”
11 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement
On Saturday June 11 three International Solidarity Movement activists were stopped by the Israeli army when trying to enter the village of Beit Ommar in the southern West Bank. The activists were going to participate in a non-violent demonstration against the illegal settlements in the area.
As the activists tried to enter the village Israeli soldiers stopped them and claimed that the area had been declared a closed military zone. When questioned about not being able to show the official paper needed to prove this, one soldier pointed at a sign which stated that the area is under Palestinian Authority and that no Israelis were allowed to enter the area. The soldier used this as justification for not allowing the internationals to enter. He went on to complain that Israelis were not able to enter the village, despite it being, as he put it, a part of “Israel”.
The activists then attempted to leave the village when the soldiers apparently changed their mind and dragged them from the bus they had boarded. No explanation was given when the activists asked why they were being detained. One of the soldiers had a more aggressive approach than the others, and was interested in discussing politics with the activists. He called them “leftist shits”, and told them “I could kill you”, before spitting at them and cursing them in Hebrew. He also told the activists that Palestinians were terrorists and that Beit Ommar was a dangerous village.
The soldiers lied and told the activists that they would be free to go if they showed them their passports, however they took this back after one of the activists showed her passport. One activist managed to escape detention and left the area, however the other two were asked to step into a military jeep when it arrived. When refusing to do this, since no reason had been given, the soldiers dragged the two activists into the jeep with force, despite them telling the soldiers that they need a female police officer to arrest them. They were taken to the commander of the force who amongst other things accused the activists of being terrorists and Syrian spies, spying on the Israeli military. After being taken to the police station in Kiryat Arba, an illegal settlement in the outskirts of Hebron, the activists were released after a few minutes without charge.
The demonstration in Beit Ommar went ahead as planned and protesters managed to successfully reach and work on the land belonging to the farmers of Beit Ommar.
Bahrain to try 400 peaceful protesters
Press TV – June 10, 2011
Bahrain’s opposition party al-Wefaq says the Manama regime is to put nearly 400 people on trial over their alleged roles in peaceful anti-regime protests.
The party said that up to 50 people have already been sentenced, with penalties ranging from a short prison term to execution, Reuters reported on Thursday.
A Bahraini government official, who demanded anonymity, rejected the opposition’s statement saying al-Wefaq’s trial data was exaggerated.
“It’s much less than that,” he said, but did not specify any number. … Full article
Bahraini activist: Military courts illegal
Press TV – June 10, 2011
A Bahraini political activist says the regime’s decision to put on trial nearly 400 people in military courts for taking part in anti-regime peaceful protests is illegal.
“How can one hold military trials without the martial law, which has already been lifted,” Saeed al-Shehabi, leader of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, told Press TV in an interview Thursday night.
“These courts are trying civilian people while they should be tried only in civilian courts as per law,” he said.
“I know many people are being tried for taking part in peaceful demonstrations,” al-Shehabi stated. “So these trials will backfire.”
When asked about a UN report that said Bahrain has accepted a UN mission in the country to examine reports of human rights violations during protests, Shehabi said that the UN has failed in its test and it has so far done nothing despite several complaints from international human rights organizations of violations committed by the ruling regime.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has been urged by Bahraini activists to send a commission to Bahrain, but nothing has happened, the activist said. … Full article
Stop Scabbing for Apartheid — Withdraw From Israel Bonds “Celebration”
Labor for Palestine (US) – June 7, 2011
“[All of Palestinian labor] calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by. . . . divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid.”Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS), May 4, 2011[1]
The undersigned labor, anti-apartheid and human rights activists call on you — Dennis Hughes (President of the New York State AFL-CIO) and Stuart Appelbaum (President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and head of the Jewish Labor Committee) — to respect the above call from Palestinian labor by withdrawing as “Honoree” and “Chair,” respectively, of the “State of Israel Bonds” fundraiser in New York City on June 13, 2011.[2]
For decades, top U.S. labor officials have effectively scabbed on Palestinian workers by investing billions — the exact amount has not been made public — from union members’ pension funds in State of Israel Bonds, a pillar of apartheid that enjoys tax-exempt status from the U.S. government.
Whitewashing this betrayal is the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation[3], and its “progressive” U.S. mouthpiece, the Jewish Labor Committee.[4]
Obscenely, the Israel Bonds “celebration” on June 13 follows the May 15 Israeli massacre of unarmed Palestinian refugees exercising their right to return, the first anniversary of the deadly May 31, 2010 Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s arrogant U.S. tour.
Meanwhile, the world is inspired by mass, democratic revolutions in the Middle East that challenge U.S./Israeli-backed neoliberalism, dictatorship and oppression. At the heart of this revolution, Palestinian labor has reiterated its longstanding appeal for unions everywhere to support the growing movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
The BDS campaign demands that Israel acknowledge the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with international law by:
* Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied since 1967 (including East Jerusalem), as well as dismantling of the illegal wall and colonies;
* Recognizing the fundamental right of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, as well as ending the system of racial discrimination against them; and
* Respecting, protecting and supporting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
BDS has been endorsed by labor bodies around the world, including the trade union congresses of South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland and the UK, and labor bodies in Australia, France, Canada, Norway, Catalunya, Italy, Spain and Turkey.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which plays a leading role in the BDS movement, hasn’t forgotten Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally. And as veteran South African freedom fighters have observed, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “worse than apartheid.”
US workers have particularly strong reasons to support the movement against apartheid Israel. In the past ten years alone, the US government — with overwhelming bipartisan support — has given Israel $17 billion in military aid; over the next decade, it will give another $30 billion.
As a result, Palestinian workers are killed by US-supplied naval vessels, jet fighters, Apache helicopters, white phosphorous and other weapons. In 2008/2009 alone, such weapons killed 1400 people in Gaza, most of them civilians — a massacre condemned by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations, including those that are Israeli.
Meanwhile, amidst spiraling economic crisis, workers in this country pay a staggering human and financial price for US-Israeli war and occupation from Palestine to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
Thus, following the May 31, 2010 Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, members of ILWU Local 10 in Oakland courageously followed the South African dockers’ example by refusing to handle Israeli cargo.
Their solidarity stands in the proud tradition of West Coast dock-workers who refused to handle cargo for Nazi Germany (1934) and fascist Italy (1935); those in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused shipping for apartheid South Africa; those in Oakland who refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and those at all twenty-nine West Coast ports who held a May Day strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).
Respecting the BDS call is a matter of basic labor solidarity. Indeed, just as trade unionists fight “replacement” of striking workers, we stand against the dispossession, occupation and inequality inflicted on millions of Palestinian working people and their descendants for more than six decades.
Rather than being used to secretly finance racism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and colonialism, union members’ funds should be transparently invested in justice for all workers.
An essential first step is labor divestment from “State of Israel Bonds.”
Notes
[1] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/ptuc-bds-formed-6912
[3] http://www.laborforpalestine.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Histadrut-Briefing.pdf
[4] http://www.laborforpalestine.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/JLC-Briefing-Paper.pdf
Signers (List in formation — ALL UNION BODIES LISTED FOR IDENTIFICATION ONLY.)
Endorse this statement:
Monadel Herzallah, Arab American Union Members Council, San Francisco, CA
Larry Adams, Former President, NPMHU L. 300; Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; People’s Organization for Progress
Michael Letwin, Labor for Palestine; Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Brenda Stokely, Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Co-Chair, Million Worker March Movement
Mohammad Jawabreh, Palestinian Progressive Labor Action Front, Ramallah, Palestine
Progressive Labor Action Front – Palestine
Sameer Matar, Union of Agricultural Engineers, Jenin, Palestine
Sam Weinstein, Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), Washington DC
Marty Goodman, Transport Workers Union Local 100, former Executive Board member, New York, NY
Stanley Heller, 40 year AFT member West Haven, CT, now AFT 933 Retired; New Haven, CT
Joe Iosbaker, SEIU Local 73, Executive Board Member, Chicago, IL
Azalia Torres, Former Executive Bd. Member, ALAA/UAW L. 2325, Brooklyn, NY
Lee Sustar, NWU/UAW L. 1981; Chicago, IL
Steve Zeltzer, Producer, Labor Video Project
Noha Momtaz Tahrir Arafa, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW 2325, Brooklyn, NY
Steve Terry, ALAA/UAW L. 2325, Brooklyn, NY
Steve Gillis, Vice President, USW Local 8751, The Boston School Bus Drivers’ Union
Sherna Berger Gluck, former vice-president, CFA/SEIU 1983
Roger Dittmann, Ph.D., Former Secretary, United Professors of California, Member, SEIU
Jeff Klein, President (retired), SEIU/NAGE Local R1-168
Joe Lombardo, CSEA and Troy Area Labor Council
Bill Preston, President of American Federation of Government Employees, Local 17, Washington, DC
Bill Bateman, Coordinator, RI Unemployed Council
Burnis E. Tuck, AFL-CIO, AFGE, Local 3172, retired, IWW (International Workers of the World), current member
Mike Gimbel, Retired member of Local 375, AFSCME exective Board
Joe Balkis, Teamsters Local 705
Nathaniel Miller, IWW International Solidarity Commission
Howard B. Lenow, Union Attorney, Wayland, MA
Anthony Arnove, National Writers Union
Frank Couget, Shop Steward, National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO
Martha Grevatt, Former Chair, Civil and Human Rights Committee, UAW Local 122
Carl Gentile, National Representative, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) AFL-CIO
Jim Holstun, UUP Buffalo Center Chapter, NYSUT, AFT
Mary Scully, IUE-CWA Local 201 (retired)
Mark Clinton, Massachusetts Community College Council, Massachusetts Teachers Association, National Education Association
Marvin Cohen, American Federation of Teachers (retired)
Patrick J, Finn, Ph. D., UUP United University Professions SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Mary E. Finn, Ph. D., UUP United University Professions SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Manzar Foroohar, Delegate Assembly, California Faculty Association (CFA), Former Chapter President, CFA, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Former State-wide Membership Committee Chair and member of the state-wide bargaining team, CFA
Mark Richey, retired member, United Teachers of Richmond, California
Leslie Cohen, former SEIU Local 285 member
Dave Slaney, former President, USWA Local 2431 (retired)
Dr. Sue Blackwell, member of National Executive Committee, University and College Union, UK
Mike Treen, National Director, Unite Union, Auckland, NZ
Brian Kelly, Belfast Branch Committee UCU (N. Ireland: personal capacity); formerly IUMSWA L 25 (Boston), Carpenters L 33 (Boston)
Andre Powell, Delegate, Baltimore MD Metro AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, AFSCME
Amy Hines, Labor Relations Representative/Organizer, AEU, Concord, CA
John Penetra, Technician, CWA Local 1118, Albany, NY
Dennis Kortheuer, California Faculty Association, Long Beach, CA
Denise Hammond, President, CUPE 1281, Toronto, ON, Canada
Hanspeter Gysin, Unia (Tradeunion Building, Industry, Services), Switzerland
Sid Shniad, Research Director, Telecommunications Workers Union, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Barbara Foley, AAUP, Rutgers University – Newark, NJ
Janice Rothstein, AFSCME 3299, San Francisco, CA
Paul Pryse, Teaching Assistants’ Association, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Steve Leigh, steward, SEIU local 925, Seattle, WA
Glenn Shelton, NPMHU, Detroit, MI
Janet Hudgins, CUPE (retired), Vancouver, BC, Canada
Dennis Laumann, United Campus Workers-Communication Workers Local 3865 of America, Memphis, TN
Edward Stiel, IBEW Local 302, San Francisco, CA
David Laibman, Professional Staff Congress (AFT Local 4331), Brooklyn, NY
Stephen Cheng, Brandworkers International
John Dudley, SEIU, Branford, CT
Richard Krushnic, Steward, Bargaining Committee Member, SEIU 888, Cambridge, MA
Paul Field, Unite the Union, UK
Powell DeGange, organizer, UNITE HERE, San Francisco, CA
Jim Harris, former member, SEIU 535, Richmond, CA
Dr. Russell Dale, PSC CUNY, New York, NY
David Heap, UWO Faculty Association, London, ON, Canada
Bob McCubbin, California Teachers Association, San Diego, CA
Susan Stout, CAW (retired), North Vancouver, BC, Canada
David Klein, California Faculty Association (CFA), Los Angeles, CA
Gregory A. Butler, shop steward, Carpenters Local 157, New York, NY
B. Ross Ashley, former shop steward, former executive council member, local 204, SEIU (retired), Toronto, ON, Canada
Keith Sadler, UAW Local 12, Toledo, OH, USA
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
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- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
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