Peace Groups Slam High Court Ruling on “Terror Support”
By William Fisher | IPS | June 21, 2010
NEW YORK – In the wake of Monday’s Supreme Court decision upholding a law making it a crime to provide any “material support” to an organisation designated as a “terrorist” by the U.S. government, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter charged that the law “actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organisations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence”.
Carter, whose organisation, the Carter Centre, filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case, said in a statement, “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that inhibits the work of human rights and conflict resolution groups.”
“The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom,” he added.
Carter joined numerous civil and human rights advocates in attacking the court’s 6-3 ruling “to criminalise speech” in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. It was the first case to challenge the Patriot Act before the highest court in the land, and the first post-9/11 case to pit free speech guarantees against national security claims.
Attorneys say that under the court’s ruling, many groups and individuals providing peaceful advocacy could be prosecuted, including President Carter, for training all parties in fair election practices in Lebanon.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court’s majority, affirming in part, reversing in part, and remanding the case back to the lower court for review.
Justice Stephen Breyer dissented and read his dissent aloud before his fellow justices – always a sign of an opinion very deeply felt. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
The court held that the statute’s prohibitions on “expert advice”, “training”, “service” and “personnel” were not vague, and did not violate speech or associational rights as applied to plaintiffs’ intended activities.
Plaintiffs sought to provide assistance and education on human rights advocacy and peacemaking to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, a designated terrorist organisation. Multiple lower court rulings had found the statute unconstitutionally vague.
The plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, Georgetown Law Centre’s David Cole, a widely respected constitutional scholar, sees the “material support” paradigm of “preemptively weeding out threats to national security, guilt by association” resurrected from the McCarthy era.
He told IPS, “While it was illegal in the 1950s to be a member of the Communist Party, it is now a crime to support an individual or organisation on a terror watch list, although the government can designate and freeze assets without a showing of actual ties to terrorism or illegal acts.”
Cole asserts that support for the lawful activities of a designated group should not be unlawful, and that the not- for-profit sector needs to insist that constitutional rights apply in the war on terror. He is calling for changes in the enabling legislation when Congress returns from its August recess.
“While the House Un-American Activities Committee once relied on the private sector to mete out punishment through the destruction of reputations and careers, today measures such as the Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines have turned funders into the new enforcers. In this light, he said the nonprofit sector has an obligation to resist such a partnership with government,” he says.
The court rejected the government’s argument that the statute, when applied to plaintiffs’ proposed speech, regulated not speech but conduct, and therefore needed to meet only a low standard – “intermediate scrutiny” – to survive.
Instead, the court found that the statute did criminalise speech on the basis of its content, but then found that the government’s interest in delegitimising groups on the designated “terrorist organisation” list was sufficiently great to overcome the heightened level of scrutiny.
This is one of a very few times that the Supreme Court has upheld a criminal prohibition of speech under strict scrutiny, and the first time it has permitted the government to make it a crime to advocate lawful, nonviolent activity.
One constitutional authority, law professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS that the decision upheld the government’s position as set out by the solicitor general, Elena Kagan, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court.
Boyle said that Kagan “argued this case as solicitor general and maintained during oral argument that any lawyer who filed an amicus brief in a U.S. Court on behalf of a designated terrorist organisation would be violating the material support statute and thus risk criminal prosecution.”
Boyle said Kagan’s arguments in this case “demonstrate emphatically why she must not be confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court. She has driven yet another nail into the coffin of the First Amendment and the U.S. Bill of Rights that was originally constructed by the [George W.] Bush administration with the USA Patriot Act.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the court’s ruling “thwarts the efforts of human rights organisations to persuade violent actors to renounce violence or cease their human rights abuses and jeopardises the provision of aid and disaster relief in conflict zones controlled by designated groups.”
Under the law, individuals face up to 15 years in prison for providing “material support” to foreign terrorist organisations, even if their work is intended to promote peaceful, lawful objectives.
Volunteer in Palestine
International Womens Peace Service in Palestine on June 21, 2010
Since 2002, the International Women’s Peace Service in Palestine (IWPS-Palestine) has been documenting and non-violently intervening in human rights abuses carried out by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank against the Palestinian civilian population. We are the only all women team of internationals working in the Occupied West Bank and we are currently looking for new volunteers to join us on the ground in Palestine.
IWPS – Palestine is located in the Salfit district, a rural area located close to Nablus. The district, as well as the nearby Nablus and Qalqilya districts, are affected by more than 20 illegal Israeli settlements located in the “Ariel settlement bloc”. We were established at the height of the Al Aqsa Intifada in response to a call from the village of Hares for an international presence in their village.
Hares, which is home to 3000 Palestinians (mainly farmers), is located in the heart of the Ariel settlement bloc and was under curfew and almost daily invasion from the Israeli military. During one of these invasions in 2001, our neighbour Issa was shot by an Israeli soldier and paralysed. At the time of the shooting, Issa was attempting to bring to safety a group of small children who had been playing outside when the Israeli military invaded the village.
After 7 years in Hares, we recently relocated to the neighbouring village of Deir Istyia, which like Hares and other Palestinian villages under the occupation, continues to suffer greatly. In the past months, Deir Istiya has been subject to semi-regular curfew and invasion. The village which is home to just over 3100 people has already lost much of its land to Israel’s occupation and is now struggling to keep more of its land being taken by the illegal settlements.
Since our establishment 8 years ago, hundreds of women from around the world have joined us in Hares and now Deir Istiya. They have played a vital role in not only documenting and non-violently intervening in human rights abuses carried out by the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlers, they have also been active in supporting Palestinian non-violent resistance to end Israel’s occupation and to stop the building the apartheid wall. IWPS volunteers over the years have provided regular accompaniment to Palestinian civilians, including to farmers trying to reach their land and who have been prevented by the Israeli military and/or illegal settlers. We have also coordinated internationals teams to assist with accompaniment during olive harvest each year. Our team members have been part of the non-violent civil resistance which has attempted to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and the construction of the apartheid wall.
In the last three years, our team members have been increasingly called on to try and intervene to stop and/or document the increasing number of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian civilians and villages. While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of settler attacks on Palestinians across the Occupied West Bank, many of the worst attacks have occurred in the nearby Nablus district. These attacks by illegal settlers have included the poisoning of Palestinian livestock, the torching and burning of hundreds of dunums of Palestinian agricultural land, the invasion of Palestinian villages by armed settlers, the beating and stoning of unarmed Palestinian residents, the destruction of Palestinian property and the firing of homemade missiles at Palestinian villages on several occasions. In response to these attacks, our team members have regularly provided a temporary international presence in the villages under attack in order to try and stop the attacks, while also documenting the attacks in an attempt to bring them to the attention of the wider public, internationally.
In recent months, IWPS has been active in supporting the non-violent demonstrations in the village of Nabi Saleh. Since December 2009, the village has been holding non-violent demonstrations against the creeping settlement expansion and land confiscation by the illegal Israeli settlement of Hallamish (also known as Neve Tzuf) and each week the demonstrations are brutally attacked by Israel’s military.
IWPS-Palestine is run solely by volunteers from around the world and we have just issued a call for new volunteers to join us on the ground in Palestine. If you would like to find out more about IWPS, you can either visit our website at www.iwps.info or you can contact us as at applyiwps@gmail.com and we will send you details of our application process.
UNHRC forms international committee to probe Israel’s attack on Flotilla convoy
Palestine Information Center – 22/06/2010
GENEVA: The UN human rights council (UNHRC) approved with a comfortable majority a draft resolution to form an international inquiry commission to investigate Israel’s deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla on May 31, which took place in international waters.
The European campaign to end the siege said in a press release that the UNHRC announced Monday the names of the commission’s members, which include prominent international human rights experts and jurists.
The campaign noted that the draft resolution was introduced by Pakistan (on behalf of the Arab group) at the request of Turkey in the aftermath of the Israeli massacre that claimed the lives of nine Turkish nationals aboard one of the flotilla’s ships.
The resolution stressed the need for submitting a comprehensive report on Israel’s violations in the upcoming meeting of the UNHRC next September.
According the resolution, if Israel refused to cooperate with the commission, the latter would have to go ahead with the investigation.
In a related context, the Dutch foreign ministry informed the coordinator of the European campaign to end the siege Amin Abu Rashed and Dutch citizen Anna Da Yong, who participated in the Freedom Flotilla, that it will take care of all expenses of the lawsuit filed by them against Israel.
Abu Rashed, who is also a Dutch citizen, said in a press release that he and Da Yong last Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Israeli government on a charge of kidnapping them at sea and detaining them without the presence of a lawyer and claimed compensation for all material and moral damage done to them during and after the attack.
Lebanon Gives Flotilla Ships Green Light to Set Sail; Organizers to Sail Soon
Al-Manar TV – 21/06/2010
Lebanese Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi confirmed that the ministry allowed organizers of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to sail from the northern port city of Tripoli to Cyprus before heading to the Strip, Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar reported Monday morning.
The vessels will pass through Cyprus so as not to violate UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
The minister added that one of the vessels would undergo a technical checkup before it sails from Tripoli and that the Lebanese government was responsible for the decision.
Diplomatic sources in the United Nations said over the weekend that the UNIFIL headquarters in New York had warned Lebanon that UN naval forces would not allow any violation of Resolution 1701 and would prevent any such violation.
On Friday, Israel warned the UN that the security situation in the Middle East may be undermined as result of the Lebanese flotilla planning to head to the Gaza Strip.
In a letter relayed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev said the “provocative” sail may affect security in the entire region.
Two ships are expected to leave from Lebanon to Gaza: Naji al-Ali – which will be carrying 25 European activists, including parliament members, and some 5 journalists – and Maryam – which is said to carry female activists with chemotherapeutic medications for women and children and humanitarian aid. It is unclear when the vessels will set sail.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that Lebanese sources involved in organizing the flotilla said that their preparations were not yet complete but that activists were on their way to the country to take part in the latest attempt to break Israel’s maritime blockade on the Strip.
The participants, including several nuns, have yet to arrive in Lebanon from various European countries, but will be coming “very soon”, the sources said.
The London-based Al-Hayat reported on Sunday that two ships were in advanced stages of preparation for sailing to Gaza. Lebanese sources told the paper they had received the authorities’ approval for both the passenger list and the cargo.
Flashback: Oakland Police Settle Lawsuits for Bloody Monday
4 April 2006
Almost three years after the bloody police riot at the Port of Oakland, California, that left nine longshore workers and dozens of anti-war demonstrators injured and scores of protesters and one union business agent arrested, the City of Oakland finally settled the lawsuits against the police.
The settlement included not only monetary damages for the injuries and constitutional rights trampled, but new, more restrictive policies on the Oakland Police Department’s use of force during protests.
But the waterfront employers in the Pacific Maritime Association who colluded with the police in those actions have yet to pay for their crimes.
Shortly after the US invaded Iraq, peace activists organised a protest at the port to highlight war profiteering by some ship companies. Stevedoring Services of America received a no-bid contract to operate the Iraqi port of Um Qasr for the occupying forces and American President Lines had a contract with the US Government to ship munitions and other war materiel to Iraq.
Before the first shift on Monday, April 7, 2003, protesters set up picket lines outside the terminal gates. They had organised their action publicly, advertising it through flyers and web postings.
The employers and the police were aware of it and plotted their response in secret. Documents obtained through the lawsuits’ discovery process revealed that representatives of management and the Port of Oakland met with police several days before the demonstration. Oakland Police Department Lieutenant Edward Poulson, in charge of the police response, was granted his request that company and port representatives be present at the police command centre during the protest, and actually deputised an employer representative as part of the police command and support team to assist in arresting people.
The Tribune quoted the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center spokesman Mike Van Winkle justifying his agency’s tactics: If you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest], Van Winkle said. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.
With that kind of information and arguments the OPD greeted the demonstrators in full riot gear and armed with so-called less-than-lethal munitions, including wooden and rubber bullets, concussion grenades and lead-shot filled bean bags.
Longshore workers arriving for their morning shift at the terminals saw hundreds of people picketing the gates and a line of trucks backed up down the road. They stood by a good distance away as local officers had instructed, awaiting the arbitration. But the police did not.
One police officer, using a barely audible bull horn, declared the demonstration an illegal gathering and ordered everyone to disperse. Then the police moved in formation toward the demonstrators with rifles drawn and aimed head high. Suddenly shots rang out and concussion grenades arced overhead and boomed. Protesters and longshore workers alike fell to the fire. Others were run into by cops on motorcycles, beaten and arrested. Local 10 Business Agent Jack Heyman, rushing to help his members get out of harm’s way, was pulled out of his obviously marked ILWU Business Agent car, thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested.
Many of the injuries were severe enough to require hospitalisation and surgery. Video and photos showed the police aiming at people’s heads, in direct violation of the munitions manufacturers’ warnings that such practice could result in death. Injuries to heads and shoulders confirmed the violations were common. The multitude of wounds in the back showed police were shooting at retreating people.
The next day’s New York Times quoted Police Chief Richard Word saying the police dispersed the crowd at the behest of management. Outraged that ILWU members would be shot on orders from the employers, as if this were 1934 and Bloody Thursday once again, the Coast Committee fired off a letter to the Oakland mayor demanding an independent investigation.
While Local 10 and injured and arrested protesters prepared their lawsuits against the city and its police department, Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff moved preemptively. He charged 24 protesters with failure to disperse and interfering with a business, and charged BA Heyman with obstructing justice and failure to comply with a police officer’s order. Those charges were all eventually dropped.
From the day of the event the Mayor and City Council President defended the police action, claiming they were responding to demonstrators throwing rocks and bottles. But the police department’s own video showed no violence on the part of the demonstrators. Rather than go to trial without supporting evidence, the city offered an out-of-court settlement.
In total the police use of excessive force on peaceful citizens exercising their Constitutional rights of free speech, assembly and dissent cost Oakland taxpayers $1.25 million to settle 59 lawsuits, not including attorney and court fees.
City politicians spent all this money to suppress civil liberties and trade union rights when it could have gone to Oakland schools and paid teachers decent wages and benefits, said Jack Heyman.
Closing the deal, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously in February to pay up and get out of this embarrassing mess, all the while claiming they were not admitting guilt.
Local 10 declared victory and voted to accept the settlement. Only the employers have yet to answer for their role in putting ILWU members and protesters lives at risk that day-so far.
The documents we got from the police in this case show without a doubt how today’s employers still turn to the police to enforce their power over workers just as they did in 1934, Heyman said. We won’t forget that.
MUA Solidarity
To Jack, all our brothers and sisters in the ILWU and all progressive men and women who stand in defence of workers’ rights and the rights of people to peacefully protest against corporate war mongering, government corruption and police brutality, the members of the Maritime Union of Australia send you this message of support.
If the profits of war go unquestioned there will be no peace and if police brutality and government deception goes unchallenged, there will be no freedom.
The bloody attack on Monday April 7, 2003 against you, other anti-war demonstrators and longshore workers at terminal gates in the port of Oakland was a gross act of repression, condemned by the UN Rights Commission, progressive Americans and working people worldwide.
That the Oakland government turned its guns on its own people accusing you of terrorism for speaking out against war profiteers, giant corporations American President Lines and Stevedore Services of America is a gross violation of civil rights.
Blood flowed, but you refused to cower.
We congratulate all those involved for taking a stand against your persecutors and for your victory. In so doing you not only defend your rights, but our rights and the rights of all.
Paddy Crumlin
Maritime Union of Australia National Secretary
Police Violence Shocks Activists, Others at Port of Oakland Protest
By Dana Hull |San Jose Mercury News | April 7, 2003
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An anti-war demonstration at the Port of Oakland turned violent this morning when Oakland Police opened fire with wooden dowels, “sting balls,” concussion grenades, tear gas and other non-lethal weapons when protesters at the gates of two shipping lines refused an order to disperse. Scores of protesters ran from a line of police or tried to hide behind nearby big rigs. At least a dozen demonstrators and nine longshoremen who were standing nearby were injured. “Our guys were standing in one area waiting to go to work, and then the police started firing on the longshoremen,” said Henry Graham, the president of ILWU Local 10. “Some were hit in the chest with rubber bullets, and seven of our guys went to the hospital. I don’t want to imply that the police deliberately did this, but it doesn’t make sense.” There have been so many anti-war demonstrations in the Bay Area in recent months that they have almost become routine, and most have been peaceful. Monday’s events mark the first time that local police have used projectiles to disperse crowds, and many demonstrators said they were stunned that the projectiles were fired at such close range. “I was just marching in a big circle and the police lowered their guns at us,” said Scott Fleming, 29, who took off his shirt to reveal four large red and swollen welts on his back. “I turned to run and I started getting hit with wooden bullets. They just kept shooting at us, and I kept running. I’m a lawyer, and I’m seriously considering filing charges.” The early morning mayhem came as a shock to veteran activists and Oakland leaders alike. Oakland was one of the first cities in the region to pass a resolution condeming the U.S.-led war with Iraq, and the City Council has a progressive reputation. Some well known public officials even turned out to participate in the early morning protest. “I got hit a few times with rubber bullets,” said Dan Siegel, an attorney and member of the Oakland School Board. Siegel pulled a sting ball out of the pocket of his business suit and said he was outraged that the police fired on a peaceful protest. “The police totally overreacted. It’s over the top. They were reckless, and I also saw an officer on a motorcycle run over a woman’s foot.” The port protest was one of several anti-war demonstrations held Monday in the Bay Area. Several people were arrested at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, and seven were arrested after they temporarily blocked an off-ramp from Interstate 280 in San Francisco. Other demonstrators walked in a circle in front of the federal building in San Francisco, drumming wooden spoons together as federal employees arrived for work. The action at the Port was the largest. Hundreds of demonstrators met near dawn Monday at the terminals of Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.’s APL unit and Stevedoring Services of America, shipping companies that activists say are profiting from the war. In late March, Stevedoring Services of America won a $4.8 million contract from the U.S. government to manage the Iraqi port Umm Qasr and ensure that urgent food assistance and materials flow smoothly through the seaport. Critics are screaming foul over the process, which excluded any foreign companies from bidding on the lucrative contracts. The demonstrations at the port were planned with the quiet support of the ILWU, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Many rank-and-file members of ILWU Local 10 oppose the war with Iraq, and the local has its own Anti-War Action Committee. Police fired into the crowd after some protesters failed to clear the street in front of the terminals. “At that point, we fired non-lethal munitions,” said Danielle Ashford, an officer with the Oakland Police Department. “There were a few agitators in the crowd. The majority of them were peaceful.” But others said they never saw any evidence of “agitators” and urged any witnesses to come to Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “I was there from 5 a.m. on, and the only violence that I saw was from the police,” said Joel Tena, the constituent liason for Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel. “What happened today was very surprising. It seemed the police were operating under the assumption that they were not going to let any kind of protest happen.”
Copyright 2003 San Jose Mercury News |
Gaza convoy activists claim Israeli soldiers using debit cards stolen in raid
By Haroon Siddique | The Guardian | June 18, 2010
Israeli troops have been accused of stealing from activists arrested in the assault on the Gaza flotilla after confiscated debit cards belonging to activists were subsequently used.
In their raid of 31 May, the Israeli army stormed the boats on the flotilla and, as well as money and goods destined for the Palestinian relief effort in Gaza, the bulk of which have yet to be returned, took away most of the personal possessions of the activists when taking them into custody.
Individual soldiers appear to have used confiscated debit cards to buy items such as iPod accessories, while mobile phones seized from activists have also been used for calls.
Ebrahim Musaji, 23, of Gloucester, has a bank statement showing his debit card was used in an Israeli vending machine for a purchase costing him 82p on 9 June.
It was then used on a Dutch website, http://www.thisipod.com, twice on 10 June: once for amounts equivalent to £42.42 and then for £37.83. And a Californian activist, Kathy Sheetz, has alleged that she has been charged more than $1,000 in transactions from vending machines in Israel since 6 June.
Musaji and Sheetz were on board two separate boats – one the Mavi Marmara, on which nine Turkish activists were killed, the other on the Challenger 1. Both activists only entered Israel when arrested, and were in custody for their entire time on Israeli soil.
“They’ve obviously taken my card and used it,” Musaji told the Guardian.
“When they take things like people’s videos and debit cards and use them, and their mobile phones, it becomes a bit of a joke.
“We were held hostage, we were attacked, and now there’s been theft. If the police confiscate your goods in the UK, they’re not going to use your goods and think they can get away with it.”
Musaji cancelled his card on 7 June, the day after he returned to Britain, where he is a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. His bank has agreed to treat the transactions as fraudulent and he will not be charged for them. His mobile phone was also used for two short calls in Israel after it had been confiscated.
Another American activist, David Schermerhorn, 80, from Washington state, claims his iPhone was used, while Manolo Luppichini, an Italian journalist, said his card was debited with the equivalent of €54 after it was confiscated.
Activists say Israel still has possession of at least £1m of goods and cash, comprising aid and personal possessions, including laptops and cameras.
Some passports, three of them belonging to British citizens, have still not been returned. On Thursday, delegations in 12 countries, including the UK, held meetings with their respective governments to exert pressure on Israeli to return the seized property.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in London advised Musaji to register a formal complaint.
“We regard any misconduct as described in Mr Musaji’s allegations to be utterly unacceptable and intolerable, and suggest waiting until this subject matter is clarified,” she said. “As had happened previously, an Israeli soldier was found guilty of illegal use of a credit card for which he was indicted and sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment.”
Turkey Freezes Defense Deals with Israel in Wake of Gaza Flotilla Raid
Al-Manar TV – 17/06/2010
Turkey has frozen billions of dollars worth of defense deals with Israel in the wake of the Israeli Navy’s deadly raid on a humanitarian bound flotilla to the Gaza Strip, according to Turkish media.
Some of the 16 scrapped projects include a $5 billion deal in which Ankara was to receive 1,000 Merkava Mark III tanks from Israel, a $50 million plan to upgrade Turkish M-60 tanks, and a $800 million agreement to buy two Israeli patrol aircrafts and an Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft.
Turkey has also abandoned a $632.5 million deal for 54 F-4 Phantom, and a $75 million program for 48 F-5 fighter bombers.
Bilateral corporate deals in the private sector would continue as usual unless so decided by the companies, according to Today’s Zaman.
The decision regarding the defense sector was made due to Israel’s refusal to apologize or offer concessions for the deaths of the nine Turkish citizens it killed aboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31, said Zaman.
Turkey said it does not know if or when it would decide to send its ambassador back to the Zionist entity, according to the newspaper, though such a move would depend on Israel’s agreement to send a representative to a United Nations investigatory commission into the raid.
Turkey will refuse to recognize Israel’s internal inquiry into the incident at all levels, according to Zaman. “An apology is Israel’s exit if it really wants to normalize relations with Turkey, and we are firm in our demand for an apology,” Zaman quoted a diplomat as saying.
“Destroying such ties is easier than establishing them. But we are ready to face the negative impact of cutting these ties in an eventual absence of an apology from the Israeli side,” said the diplomat.
Turkey is considering downgrading its ties with Israel to a “charge d’affairs” level, as they were in the 1980s, according to Zaman.
Irish Singer’s Concert In Israel Canceled
By Malak Behrouznami – Palestine News Network – June 17, 2010
Legendary songwriter, performer and peace activist, Tommy Sands’s scheduled performance at the “Festival Bloomsday Concert ” Sunday June 20 has been canceled.
The appearance was canceled after Sands refused to be censored during his performance. Sands was asked by the organizers of the events, the Israeli- Ireland Friendship League, in association with the Municipality of Ramat Hasharon, to not perform “Peace on the Shores of Gaza,” the song he had written as the anthem for the MV Rachel Corrie that set sail from Ireland to Gaza.
This comes shortly after Ireland’s recent decision to expel an Israeli diplomat after an investigation over the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai earlier this year. The investigation proved that the eight Irish passports used by suspects in the assassination, an operation supposedly under Israeli intelligence, had been forged.
Despite the recent increase of artists boycotting Israel by canceling their performances, Sands has taken an alternative approach to the boycott, by performing in Israel, Palestine and Gaza during his tour. Sands recalls friends and colleagues in Ireland urging him not to come after the Flotilla crisis, fearing for his safety as a peace activist.
However, Sands thought it was important to come, “I realized that even though Ireland was seeing Israel in a dehumanizing way, I realized that there are many activists here who may need solidarity from the outside.”
During his performance last week at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem, Tommy received an invitation to play at the weekly Sheikh Jerrah demonstration in East Jerusalem this Friday. Sands accepted the invitation despite the fact that it was not a planned venue for the tour.
Sands is known for his involvement by actively speaking out about the conflict between Northern and Southern Ireland through his music. When asked about his role as a peace activist musician he responded, “Trust me, it would be a lot easier to stay home and make records, but we have a duty to contribute to the betterment of society.”
Canada: Israel’s new defender
Muted support for Palestine, funding cuts for Arab groups, now a ban on the phrase ‘Israeli apartheid’: what’s going on in Canada?
By Jesse Rosenfeld | guardian.co.uk | 17 June 2010
At a time when many countries are becoming more critical of Israel’s policies, Canada seems to be moving in the opposite direction. A general reluctance to engage in open debate about the Palestinian issue is exacerbated by pro-Israel groups’ efforts to shut down discussion and the federal government’s unprecedented penchant for defending Israeli actions.
Since the beginning of 2010, the federal government has systematically cut funding to Arab-Canadian organisations and to UN relief works in Gaza. In March, the Ontario provincial legislature issued a unanimous condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week, while the federal government considered introducing a similar motion.
However, self-censorship reached new heights last month when Toronto’s Pride Committee – which organises one of the world’s largest gay pride celebrations – announced it would be banning use of the term “Israeli apartheid” at the festivities.
Pride week in Toronto is a loud and highly visible public event, with a long tradition of activists linking their own campaigns for sexual rights to other struggles for liberation and social justice; however, this year the organisers caved in to pressure from pro-Israel groups and Toronto city council.
The main effect of the decision is to bar one group in particular – Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) – who have marched in the parade since 2008.
The reason given is that the phrase “Israeli apartheid” violates Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy. But when asked, neither Pride Toronto nor Giorgio Mammoliti – the Toronto city councillor mainly involved – could explain in detail what was discriminatory about describing Israel’s privileging of its Jewish citizens over others as a form or racism and apartheid.
“It’s absolutely bizarre the way they are trying to use the language around diversity and inclusiveness to exclude people,” QuAIA activist Tim McCaskell told me. “It was so 1984.”
Accompanying the onset of a Canadian McCarthyism dressed up as anti-discrimination, the mainstream left in Canada has been unwilling to take a clear political and moral stance on Palestine. Instead it has sought the approach of least resistance, trying to appease rather than take a stand against the silencing of Palestinian voices in Canada and Israel.
Writing in NOW Magazine, a progressive Toronto weekly newspaper, news editor Ellie Kirzner contended that Palestinians and their supporters should simply drop the term “apartheid”. “It’s a vulnerability the movement doesn’t need,” she wrote.
McCaskell, on the other hand, says QuAIA is bringing the fight against Israeli apartheid to pride because that is what Palestinian LGBT organisations have requested, and because Israel tries to present itself as queer-tolerant in an attempt to distract from its ill-treatment of Palestinians.
The two Palestinian LGBT groups, Aswat and al-Qaws (both based in Israel), issued a joint statement saying: “Pride parades started as political marches, and we firmly believe that solidarity should be with human rights first and foremost.” They continued:
We believe that as queers, one of the most disadvantaged and oppressed minorities in human societies, we should protest against all forms of oppression and struggle together to promote the rights of minorities and oppressed groups. As Palestinian queers, our struggle relates to social injustices caused by the discrimination that is deeply rooted in Israel’s policies and practices against the Palestinian people, straight and gay alike …
Over the past decades, Pride parades around the world have been a platform for queers, not only to increase public awareness for [LGBT] rights, but also a platform to promote and defend causes like the feminist struggle, and the fight to end apartheid in South Africa.
Trying to smother this debate in relation to Israel at Toronto pride could easily backfire, according to Ayala Shani, a queer activist with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. She points out that banning a term will only multiply its use and adds: “We are expecting to see ‘Israeli apartheid’ written and spoken all over pride parades around the world, including a parade in Tel Aviv.”
However, with the Canadian mainstream left dodging defence of Palestinians and the country at large continuing its polite silence on the Middle East, Toronto’s establishment may be taking more pride in silencing discussion of Israeli apartheid than even Tel Aviv.
My question for J.J. Goldberg
By Alex Kane on June 17, 2010
During Tuesday night’s “Jewish perspectives on the BDS campaign” debate in New York, the audience had the opportunity to make comments or ask questions. Esther Kaplan, the moderator of the debate and co-host of WBAI’s Beyond the Pale, called on me, and I had a question for the opponents of BDS.
Throughout the discussion, J.J. Goldberg, the columnist for the Forward, and Kathleen Peratis, a J Street board member, emphasized the need for solutions that would “work” to end the occupation. Goldberg made reference to the “peace process” and the 2003 Geneva Accord, seemingly saying that the way to settle the conflict was through dialogue and negotiations.
My question went something like this: The so-called “peace process” that you reference roughly started in 1991, with the Madrid Conference, and we’re now in the year 2010. That’s about 20 years. It appears that the “peace process” has failed and that negotiations have led to nowhere, and that was due to the Israeli refusal to accept a viable two-state solution. I said that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are willing to accept a Palestinian state in only 22% of historic Palestine. Israel, it seems, wants it all.
So, if negotiations have failed, why do you oppose BDS as a tool to end the occupation? BDS is, in fact, slowly working; it hasn’t had a huge impact economically, but that’s not the whole point, as Hannah Mermelstein, a panelist in favor of BDS, pointed out. Mermelstein said that an important part of BDS was that it was an educational tool as well, and that it’s opening up the discourse on Israel/Palestine. The Israeli government is deeply worried about this growing movement, as evidenced by the hysterical reports coming out of the Reut Institute and the latest draconian bill in the Knesset that would criminalize BDS.
Goldberg responded to me by saying something like this (I don’t remember it word for word): The peace process really only went on for less than a decade, during the Oslo years. The negotiations didn’t fail because of the Israelis; no, it was the Second Intifada and the suicide bombings directed at Israeli civilians that killed the peace process. The intifada put the nail in the coffin of the Israeli Left, and now the Israeli public believes that there is no one to negotiate with.
I didn’t get a chance to respond directly, but if I did, I would have said something like this: Mr. Goldberg, it seems that you are omitting some very crucial facts about the Oslo years. During the 1990s, Israel relentlessly continued to colonize the West Bank and Gaza. The occupation, and all of its mechanisms of oppression, didn’t end; Israel just outsourced the responsibilities it wanted to throw off its shoulders to the Palestinian Authority, which, under the boot of Israel, was never a fully functioning government. The Oslo years were more about “normalizing” the occupation rather than ending it.
Yes, the Second Intifada was bloody, but let’s not forget that the Second Intifada began as a nonviolent popular uprising. It only turned violent after Israel brutally suppressed the uprising, firing 1.3 million bullets into the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Israeli security forces were directed to “fan the flames”, as Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar reported in 2004.
As John Dugard wrote in a 2008 U.N. report, the violence perpetrated against Israelis during the Second Intifada “must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation. History is replete with examples of military occupation that have been resisted by violence – acts of terror.”
I think the boat that Goldberg is on has sailed, and that the two-state solution is dead. Soon, Zionism and the idea of an ethnically exclusivist state that denies the rights of its indigenous inhabitants will run out of gas. The BDS movement is being fueled by the fire of history, and will end with justice for Palestinians.
War is no game, so why is it marketed to children as one?
In the post-conscription era, parents have subtler enemies to fight
AVRIL MOORE | Sydney Morning Herald | June 15, 2010
IT’S been nearly 40 years since five Melbourne women – Jean McLean, Joan Coxsedge, Irene Miller, Chris Cathie and Jo McLaine Ross – were sent to Fairlea prison for 14 days for their activities in the Save Our Sons (SOS) movement.
In the 1960s and early ’70s, SOS successfully campaigned against conscription and Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Times are different now; we no longer have such barbaric laws, our boys simply ”volunteer”.
Last week, the front pages of most Australian newspapers displayed heartbreaking images of two young men – Jacob Moerland, 21, and Darren Smith, 25 – who died in Afghanistan from an exploding roadside bomb.
I wonder how I would react in the event that either of my two sons, the same ages as the two dead soldiers, decided to ”join up”?
So it is that mothers today must try to save their sons from themselves.
David Simon and Ed Burns are all too aware of young men and their often-misguided call to adventure. In their award-winning TV series Generation Kill, based on Evan Wright’s embedded reporting for Rolling Stone, the series documents the first three weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In it a new generation of young marines or ”warriors”, who have been raised on hip-hop, heavy metal and video games, request the evacuation of a young Iraqi boy badly wounded by one of their more trigger-happy colleagues.
Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen ”Godfather” Ferrando acknowledges the situation is worse than ”shitty” but refuses their request. He reminds them that ”nobody put a f—ing gun to our heads and forced us to come here. We’re all volunteers.”
But surely this is disingenuous. Every year, the Pentagon spends $US6 billion using the latest digital gaming technology for training for the armed forces. This in turn has given rise to an effective recruitment tool called ”militainment”.
According to Peter W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution, ”America’s Army” is one of the top 10 downloaded games on the internet.
Singer describes it as a ”first-person shooter”, where the player is a soldier who goes out on various missions. However, to access the game online you must sign up and give your personal information, which helps recruiters find you.
Although Singer acknowledges that a large number of the players engage for the fun of playing the game, it has turned out to be, according to one study, ”more effective than any other form of recruiting that the US Army has”.
Furthermore, in another survey of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24, 30 per cent reported they had a more positive view of the US military after playing the game.
We know from studies carried out on young men that the brain is only fully formed at about 24 years and that the last part of the brain to develop is responsible for impulse control and risk assessment.
So what possible influence do parents of Generation Y have when the modern theatre of war is aggressively marketed to their children (who, given this evidence, really do only have half a brain) via the excitement of computer games?
The irony is not lost on Simon and Burns, whose characters, barely 18 years of age, continually parody the idea that they are killing people due to all the ”Nintendo” they played as kids.
However, no amount of Simpson-esque or South Park-style wisecracking saves them from the horror of Iraq.
I live near Irene Miller and whenever I see her at the local shopping strip I am struck by how her tiny stature did not inhibit her maternal instinct to defy authority and protect her offspring.
In John Irving’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, set during the Vietnam War, Owen, in an act of love, removes the right index or ”trigger” finger of his best friend John who has been conscripted, thus ensuring he fails his physical.
Would I deliberately injure one of my children to stop them from joining up? Possibly. How many years do you get for grievous bodily harm?
Given that 30 per cent of men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have a mental health disorder, are nine times more likely to commit suicide than veterans from previous wars and that horrific physical injuries are so prevalent that accurate statistics are unattainable, surely half a finger is a minor disability.
There is a scene in Generation Kill where armed marines who have surrounded a small Iraqi village watch as a fearless but clearly angry woman runs towards them.
“Women are the fiercest,” one of them observes. “You always gotta look out for the women. Doesn’t matter if it’s a black bitch from South Central or some rich white bitch from Beverley Hills. Don’t matter if you got a gun or whatever. They’ll come after you screaming.” Ooh-rah! to that.
Avril Moore is a Melbourne writer who lectures in visual culture at the Photography Studies College, Southbank.
Copyright © 2010 Fairfax Media
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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