Shuafat checkpoint that was inaugurated a few days ago disconnects the residents of the refugee camp from the center of their lives. It separates family members, employees from their place of work, patients from clinics, children from educational institutions and restricts the free movement of tens of thousands of human beings, for the ultimate goal set by its inventors and constructors to create a “strictly Jewish Jerusalem”.
The architecture of the checkpoint correlates to the principles of modern prisons, the Panopticon, the concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched, according to Michel Foucault’s definition:
“A metaphor for the modern disciplinary power which is based on isolation, individualization and supervision… the construction is divided into cells that provide the supervisors a clear view of the prisoners- so as to enable the creation of hierarchy and power. In this instance, the custodians (prison directors, wardens) are able to observe and control the space through different devises (closed-circuit televisions, patrols and so on) and they have control over and access to the entire site. In contrast, the prisoners’ movement is restricted to a defined and narrow space, and their accessibility, as well as their ability to observe, is partial and limited according to the regulations of the administration”.
When entering this lion’s den one is sure to lose his way in the concrete monster, adorned with the hidden eyes of countless cameras and the revealed eyes of the men in uniform, who are seated in a room separated by bullet proof glass.
The walls of this construction are impenetrable to sun beams, the vast space is lighted artificially, which causes the person walking in the meandering labyrinth to feel uncertain whether he is located on ground level or under it. In this atmosphere, in which one can’t tell if he is above or under, whether it is day or night, of estrangement and isolation from natural surroundings, and in which in each moment a side door might open and the person might disappear to god knows where, it’s no wonder that there is a sense of distress and suffocation.
A protest was supposed to be held on the inauguration ceremony. But the long arm of the occupation was quicker than the protest leaders, and in the dead of night it visited tens of houses and only at morning was it known that thirty five men were arrested. In the absence of the protest leaders children and teenagers took their places. Some had their faces bear and others covered them for fear of the cameras above that immortalize every movement made in the open space, as well as the long sighted camera that was attached to the military jeep patrolling at the side of the protest. Years of experience have taught them that after the cameras come hunters that do not distinguish between children and adults, to them they are all prey that can be arrested and locked up.
The children protested and threw stones and in response a burst of rubber bullets was fired, after which a group of armed men with drawn riffles came out of the checkpoint and stood at the center of the main street. Once they finished notifying every one of their presence- they headed back.
By the new pillbox, on the road heading out of the checkpoint, like a memoranda is the soldier post which was the symbol of the old checkpoint. The old checkpoint wasn’t more humane than the new one, but it gave a sense of impermanence, and with impermanence comes hope. Unlike the new one, the actual construction of the old one enabled a physical encounter between occupier and occupied, without the alienating sterility which is typical to the new checkpoints.
A checkpoint isn’t just a construction implemented for blocking and imprisoning, its essence isn’t architectural; it is also and perhaps mostly there to mold consciousness and ideology.
~
(Translated by Ruth Fleishman)
As a member of Machsomwatch, once a week Tamar Fleishman heads out to document the checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This documentation (reports, photos and videos) can be found on the organization’s site: www.machsomwatch.org. She is also a member of the Coalition of Women for Peace and volunteer in Breaking the Silence.
There are a few facts to keep in mind to understand what’s going on in the wake of the death this week of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
#1. US foreign policy vis-a-vis North Korea has always sought to force the latter’s collapse to pave the way for its absorption into the US-dominated South [1] — and did so well before Pyongyang began to work on nuclear weapons. US hostility toward North Korea has never been about nuclear weapons. On the contrary, North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a consequence of US hostility. US hostility, now in its seventh decade, is about what it has always been about: putting an end to what Washington mistakenly calls North Korea’s Marxist-Leninist system (Marxism-Leninism has been replaced by Juche ideology—a home-grown doctrine of self-reliance), its non-market system, and its self-directed economic development [2]. None of these offer much latitude for US profit-making at North Korea’s expense, and hence are singled out for demolition.
#2. North Korea only began to seek nuclear weapons after the United States announced in 1993 that it was re-targeting some of its strategic nuclear missiles from the former Soviet Union to North Korea. Since then the country has only been able to develop its nuclear capability to a kindergarten level. [3] The plutonium devices it tested in 2006 and 2009 produced only one-tenth the power of the Hiroshima blast. There is no evidence it has miniaturized a warhead to fit atop a missile. And its missile program is plagued by problems. [4]
#3. North Korea is a military pipsqueak, whose personnel are deployed in large numbers to agriculture. The military budgets and weapons’ sophistication of its adversaries, the United States, South Korea and Japan, tower over its own. If the Pentagon’s budget is represented by the 6’ 9” basketball player Magic Johnson, North Korea’s military budget is 1”, about the height of a small mouse. South Korea’s is 4.5” and Japan’s 3.9”, multiple times larger than the North’s. [5]
#4. North Korea has no more military heft to mount a provocation against the United States than a mouse has to beat Magic Johnson on the basketball court. Nor has it the capability to wage a civil war against its southern compatriots and expect to win. North Korea is not an aggressive threat. “In the Obama analysis,” writes New York Times reporter David Sanger, “the North is receding into what the president’s top strategists have repeatedly called a ‘defensive crouch,’ trying to stave off the world with a barrage of missile and nuclear tests…Constantly on the brink of starvation, its military so broke that it cannot train its pilots, it has no illusions about becoming a great power in Asia. Its main goal is survival.” [6]
#5. Because the United States is a military Gargantua compared to North Korea, and South Korea and Japan have better equipped militaries, they can safely stage provocations against the North, forcing Pyongyang into a defense-spending drain of its treasury, bringing closer the realization of the US goal of tipping the country into crisis and possibly collapse. On the other hand, North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party wants to avoid confrontations at all costs, short of surrendering to the demands that it close up shop, and re-open under South Korean management.
#6. Provocations, then, are all on the other side. There are few acts more provocative than the United States’ targeting of North Korea with strategic nuclear missiles, nor former US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s warning that the Pentagon could turn North Korea into a charcoal briquette [7]. Six decades of Washington-led economic warfare against the country is equally provocative, and a principal cause of North Korea’s impoverishment. Tens of thousands of US troops are deployed along the North’s southern borders, US warships and nuclear missile-equipped submarines prowl the periphery of its territorial waters, and US warplanes menace its airspace. Pyongyang is only the immediate architect of North Korea’s Songun (military-first) policy. Washington is the ultimate architect. Finally, US and South Korean militaries conduct regular war games exercises, one of which, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, is an exercise in invading North Korea. Who’s provoking who?
#7. Kim Jong Il, the recently deceased North Korean leader–literally depicted in South Korean children’s books as a red devil with horns and fangs [8]–has been equally demonized in the Western mass media for starving his people. It is true that food shortages have plagued the country. But the vilifying Kim obituaries don’t mention why North Koreans are hungry. The answer is sanctions. [9] US foreign policy, like that of the Allied powers in WWI toward Germany, has been to starve its adversary into submission. This isn’t acknowledged, for obvious reasons. First, it would reveal the inhumane lengths to which US foreign policy is prepared to reach to secure its goals. And second, North Korean hunger must be used to discredit public ownership and a central planning as a workable economic model. North Koreans are hungry, the anti-Communist myth goes, because socialism doesn’t work. The truth of the matter is that North Koreans are hungry because Washington has made them so. Not surprisingly, calls by humanitarian groups for the United States to deliver food aid are being brushed aside with a litany of bizarre excuses, the latest being that food aid can’t be delivered because Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-eun, has succeeded him. [10] Huh? The real reason food aid won’t be delivered is because it would contradict US foreign policy. The United States once considered the death of half a million Iraqi children “worth it”. [11] Its leaders would consider the sanctions-produced demise through starvation of as many North Koreans worth it, as well.
#8. The death of Kim Jong-il is a potential boon for US foreign policy. There is a possibility of disorganization within the leadership, and internal conflicts leading to a fraying unity of purpose. Rather than focusing on external threats, the leadership may be divided, and pre-occupied with succession. If so, this is, from the perspective of the United States and South Korea, a pivotal moment—a time when the country may be tipped into collapse. And so, at this moment, who would you expect to unleash a provocation: Pyongyang? Or Washington and Seoul? At the best of times, Pyongyang wants to avoid a fight. At this critical juncture, it absolutely needs to. But the calculus works the other way round for the predators. Now is when North Korea is most vulnerable to predation.
#9. Predators never let on that they’re the hunters. Always they portray themselves as seeking to safeguard their security against the multiple threats of a dangerous world. Through guile and cunning, the mouse might just outmaneuver Magic Johnson and sink a basket or two. So it is that the United States, South Korea and Japan are said to be on high alert, in case the North Koreans stage another “provocation,” like the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan (for which the evidence of North Korean involvement is laughably thin at best [12]) or another Yeonpyeong Island artillery barrage (which the South set off by firing its own artillery into disputed waters, that, under international customary law, belong to the North. [13])
But as we’ve seen, it makes no sense to expect the scenario of a North Korean-furnished provocation to unfold. The more likely explanation for why US, South Korean and Japanese militaries are on high alert is because now is an ideal time for pressure on Pyongyang to be intensified, and because the triumvirate might be preparing to intervene militarily if conditions become propitious.
1. New York Times reporter David Sanger (“What ‘engagement’ with Iran and North Korea means,” The New York Times, June 17, 2009) notes that “American presidents have been certain they could … speed (North Korea’s) collapse, since the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.” At the same time, Korea expert Selig S. Harrison has written that “South Korea is once again seeking the collapse of the North and its absorption by the South.” (“What Seoul should do despite the Cheonan”, The Hankyoreh, May 14, 2010.)
2. According to Dianne E. Rennack, (“North Korea: Economic sanctions”, Congressional Research Service, October 17, 2006) many US sanctions have been imposed on North Korea for reasons listed as either “communism”, “non-market economy” or “communism and market disruption.”
3. In an article on Newt Gingrich’s fantasies about North Korea or Iran setting off a nuclear device far above US territory in order to unleash an electromagnetic pulse attack, New York Times’ reporter William J. Broad cites a US military expert who characterizes “the nations in question (as being) at the kindergarten stage of developing nuclear arms.” (“Among Gingrich’s passions, a doomsday vision”, The New York Times, December 11, 2011.)
4. Keith Johnson, “Pyongyang neighbors worry over nuclear arms”, The Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2011
5. The annual military budgets in billions are: United States, $700; North Korea, $10; South Korea, $39; Japan, $34. With the exception of the Pentagon’s budget, annual military expenditures were estimated by multiplying a country’s GDP by its military spending as a percentage of GDP, as estimated by the CIA and reported in its World Factbook. The source for the Pentagon’s military budget is Thom Shanker and Elisabeth Bumiller, “Weighing Pentagon cuts, Panetta faces deep pressures”, The New York Times, November 6, 2011.
6. David Sanger, “What ‘engagement’ with Iran and North Korea means,” The New York Times, June 17, 2009.
7. “Colin Powell said we would…turn North Korea into a ‘charcoal briquette,’ I mean that’s the way we talk to North Korea, even though the mainstream media doesn’t pay attention to that kind of talk. A charcoal briquette.” Bruce Cumings, “Latest North Korean provocations stem from missed US opportunities for demilitarizaton,” Democracy Now!, May 29, 2009.
8. David E. Sanger, “A ruler who turned North Korea into a nuclear state”, The New York Times, December 18, 2011.
9. See Stephen Gowans, “Amnesty International botches blame for North Korea’s crumbling healthcare”, What’s Left, July 20, 2010. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/amnesty-international-botches-blame-for-north-korea%E2%80%99s-crumbling-healthcare/
10. Evan Ramstad and Jay Solomon, “Dictator’s death stokes fears”, The Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2011.
11. Asked about a UN estimate that sanctions had killed 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said infamously, “It’s a hard choice, but I think, we, think, it’s worth it.” 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4. Retrieved June 19, 2011
12. See Tim Beal’s Crisis in Korea: American, China and the Risk of War. Pluto Press. 2011.
13. See Tim Beal, “Theatre of war: Smoke and mirrors on the Korean peninsula on the anniversary of the Yeonpyeong incident,” Pyongyang Report V13 N2, December 6, 2011 http://www.timbeal.net.nz/geopolitics/Theatre_of_War9.pdf and Stephen Gowans, “US Ultimately to Blame for Korean Skirmishes in Yellow Sea”, What’s Left, December 5, 2010. http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/us-ultimately-to-blame-for-korean-skirmishes-in-yellow-sea/
A human rights body says more than 1,500 people died in custody in India in 2010, most of them from being tortured.
According to the data released by India’s Human Rights Commission, most of the deaths in prison and police custody took place in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
After Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharasthra recorded most deaths in custody with 136 and 130 counts respectively.
Twenty-two custodial deaths were also reported from the capital, New Delhi.
This is while the Indian government routinely attributes deaths in custody to illness, attempted escape, suicide and accidents.
The New Delhi-based Asian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) said in a report released on November 28, 2011, that 12,727 also died in judicial custody across India between 2001 and 2010.
“A large majority of these deaths are a direct consequence of torture in custody,” the ACHR said. “These deaths reflect only a fraction of the problem with torture and custodial deaths in India.”
“Torture remains endemic, institutionalized and central to the administration of justice and counter-terrorism measures,” the report added, urging the Indian government to demonstrate the “political will” to end the abuse.
Christmas cheer came a bit early for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ (COGAT) announcement of goodwill gestures for Christians during the holiday season. It would appear that Santa has decided that 500 Palestinian Christians from Gaza who are under the age of 16 and over the age of 46 have been nice this year and so deserve a chance to visit family in Israel and the West Bank and participate in religious festivities at holy sites outside the Strip.
It’s a welcome gesture and certainly important that the principles of freedom of movement and freedom of religious worship, as well as goodwill, find expression in COGAT’s actions.
But a closer look at the goodwill gesture suggests that the Grinch – and not just Santa Claus – has been at work. In this year’s stocking for Gaza’s Christians is a rollback of their ability to access holy sites on the holidays, relative to past years: Israel has raised the age of those banned from traveling to 46 years old, rather than 35 years old, and has set a quota of just 500 people being allowed to travel, even though about 600 Christians traveled last year.
Whether they have been naughty or nice, at least two-thirds of Gaza’s approximately 1,500 Christians, including all those between the ages of 16-46 who are excluded from the gesture, won’t be able to celebrate the holiday with their family members who meet the criteria and do squeeze into the quota. That means a family of six, with mom and dad over the ages of 46 but with children aged 20, 16, 14, and 7 will either have to forfeit the chance to travel or the option of spending Christmas together.
Last year at Christmas, and even this past Easter, the criteria stipulated that those over 35 years of age could receive permits. It’s not clear why this Christmas only those over 46 can travel. Israel’s policy is even more restrictive for Muslims in Gaza: Muslims of any age can’t travel to holy sites, a policy approved in the courts earlier this year, so I guess we have to be grateful for small miracles. In any case, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
NABLUS – A child was seriously injured on Sunday after being run over by a settler bus on a road south of Nablus.
Palestinian official Ghassan Douglas said that a bus belonging to settlers hit Muhammad Munjid, a student at elementary school, while he was crossing the street.
Witnesses in Nablus told Ma’an that Israeli police had shut the road and were investigating whether the incident was accidental or not.
The child was taken to hospital and is in a serious condition.
Witnesses said that a group of settlers also exited the bus and attacked a man named as Fadi Ahmad Samara, 32, who was at the scene of the incident.
Settler attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians have increased by more than 50 percent this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Israeli settlers number 500,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, living in Jewish-only communities that are illegal under international law.
Ramallah – Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have arrested nearly 470 Palestinians since 18 October 2011, when 477 Palestinian political prisoners were released in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as part of the first phase of the prisoner exchange deal concluded by the Israeli government and Hamas authorities. This wave of arrests reveals that the exchange deal has not deterred Israel’s policy of detention of Palestinians; rather, Israeli prisons are being refilled with almost the exact number of Palestinians that were released in October. Even the released prisoners were not safe from harassment, as the IOF has regularly raided their homes, issued summons to meet with Israeli intelligence and re-arrested one individual.
The 470 Palestinians who were arrested between 18 October and 12 December include about 70 children and 11 women. The IOF continued to employ brutal methods of arrest, including the use of undercover Israeli forces, commonly known as musta’arabeen, who dress as Palestinian civilians in order to carry out ambushes and arrests of Palestinians from their homes and places of work. In many cases, joint army and intelligence raids occurred after midnight, where soldiers deliberately destroyed contents of the houses they were searching. Of the 70 children arrested during this period, the majority are from Shuafat camp in Jerusalem and Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem. In the past two weeks alone, 11 children were arrested in Shuafat and 10 in Dheisheh. Two of the 11 women arrested in the past two months remain in detention. One of the released women is Isra Salhab, a journalist who spent more than 20 days in Moskobiyyeh interrogation center. Six of the women were arrested during a demonstration outside Hasharon prison, where they were calling for the release of female prisoners not included in the first phase of the prisoner exchange. Three of these women were released shortly after their arrest, and three were sentenced to house arrest.
Political activists were especially targeted for arrest during this period. Approximately 150 arrests of alleged party members occurred, particularly including those whom the IOF claims are active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), some of whom received indictments issued against them, while others received administrative detention orders. The IOF has continued to arrest and renew administrative detention orders of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Two PLC members were arrested since 18 October, the administrative detention orders of 6 PLC members were renewed and one PLC member received a 30-year sentence. Furthermore, on 27 October, following a mass hunger strike protesting punitive measures against prisoners including the use of isolation, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) renewed the isolation order for Ahmad Sa’adat for another year. At the beginning of December, Ahmad entered his 34th consecutive month in isolation.
The IOF also continued to carry out arrests against human rights defenders in order to further repress the popular resistance movement. During the past two months, arrests of protestors participating in peaceful demonstrations occurred in almost all of the villages with an active weekly demonstration. These arrests include at least 2 from Bil’in, 3 from Nabi Saleh, 17 from Beit Ummar, 3 from Al-Ma’asara, 1 from Kufr Qaddum and 2 from Al-Walajeh, with arrests in East Jerusalem and the South Hebron Hills as well. In addition to these arrests, the IOF used extreme violence to disperse demonstrations, resulting in the death of protestor Mustafa Tamimi, 28, on 10 December. Mustafa was fatally injured when hit by a teargas canister in the head fired at close range by an Israeli soldier on 9 December, during the weekly demonstration against the Israeli settlements and Annexation Wall in Nabi Saleh. The arrests of human rights defenders, use of violence against peaceful protestors and threats to family members of activists are in clear violation of Palestinians’ right to freedom of expression and assembly.
In light of this heightened wave of arrests, Addameer is concerned about what will happen after the conclusion of the second phase of the prisoner exchange deal. The IPS has announced that 550 prisoners will be released on Sunday 18 December. Addameer calls for the implementation of the rights of released prisoners and urges the international community, including the United Nations and European Union, to intervene rapidly to prevent Israel from its continued practice of brutal and arbitrary detention.
Liberals in Congress and in the general public have allowed their blind devotion to Obama obscure their understanding of the dramatic parallels between this administration and the previous one. Obama’s high-minded idealistic rhetoric (which Bush also engaged in, it should be pointed out) may sound great to establishment liberals, but it masks the same contempt for the rule of law that was displayed so often in the Bush imperial presidency. Now, Obama’s contempt for the Constitution is on display for all to see, although many will not like what they see.
Nowhere is this contempt for the highest laws of the land clearer than in Obama’s complete refusal to protect basic due process rights for alleged terrorists and detainees in the “War on Terror.” Case in point: Obama’s commitment to illegally detain American citizens under the name of fighting terrorism (more on this in a bit).
Before getting into Obama’s most recent attacks on the Constitution, I should note that they are part of a larger historical pattern of contempt for basic civil liberties. Count among Obama’s previous transgressions:
1. The decision to refrain from prosecuting the Bush administration for its many violations of the law, including the NSA wiretaps scandal, the Guantanamo-enemy combatant fiasco, the systematic lying about the reasons for war in Iraq, and the willful skirting of the Geneva Conventions as seen in the Abu Ghraib scandal, among other deceptions;
2. The decision to continue using rendition, where terrorist suspects would be sent to third world dictatorships to be interrogated, coupled with the absurd promise that these governments would no longer torture detainees (as they did under Bush), because the new interrogations were in service of the noble and selfless Obama, unlike Bush, who was a bad, bad man; and
3. Obama’s expanded “War on Terror” as seen in the Afghan surge, which would have been protested endlessly if it occurred under the Bush administration.
The Los Angeles Times’ reporting in early 2009 perfectly symbolized the naiveté of liberal aspirations for the president, as the paper reported on Obama’s tortured promise (no pun intended) that the CIA would continue to use rendition, but that foreign interrogators simply wouldn’t torture anymore. Such a promise was outlandish on the face of it, since the whole point behind rendition is to outsource torture to allied governments which are better able to hide their use of torture in interrogations (this was the lesson learned at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, where U.S. interrogators were eventually implicated in coercive interrogations and torture).
As the LA Times optimistically reported at the time of Obama’s inauguration: “The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba… Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism… for taking suspected terrorists off the street.” The LA Times continued: “Obama created a task force to reexamine renditions to make sure that they ‘do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture,’ or otherwise circumvent human rights laws and treaties. The CIA has long maintained that it does not turn prisoners over to other countries without first obtaining assurances that the detainees will not be mistreated.” Such naiveté was no doubt embraced by Obama supporters who wanted to believe that Obama could never engage in the kind of torture of detainees that so regularly characterized the actions of the Bush administration.
Now Obama appears to be ready to strengthen his contempt for the rule of law via his expansion of the enemy combatant system, while slyly refusing to refer to those detained as “enemy combatants.” Much was made of Obama’s initial attempts (in 2009) to shut down Guantanamo and send detainees there to U.S. civilian courts, where they would be granted basic due process rights. That plan was shut down by Democrats in Congress, which have long displayed their basic distaste for basic Constitutional and other legal protections for “terrorist suspects.” Obama kowtowed to Congressional criminality in 2009, and is set to do it again this year. As the New York Times recently reported, Obama has now abandoned his promise to veto the “military authorization bill” being considered in Congress, which threatens to extend denial of due process to American citizens who are suspected of terrorist activities. Let me repeat that in case you missed it: Obama has now gone on record as openly supportive of denying American citizens (not only non-citizens) basic due process rights such as the right to trial, trial by peers, and right to legal representation.
As the New York Times reports: “The administration had threatened to veto versions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 passed by the House and the Senate, arguing that provisions would open the door for the military to perform policing functions inside the United States…But the bill includes a narrower provision, drafted by the Senate, authorizing the government to detain, without trial, suspected members of Al Qaeda or its allies — or those who ‘substantially supported’ them — bolstering the authorization it enacted a decade ago against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks…Another section would require officials to hold noncitizens suspected of being Qaeda operatives in military custody.”
Of course, the traditionally slavish U.S. media spared Americans the worst details of the new legislation. The Guardian reports that the new law potentially “allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.” Neither of these details was acknowledged in the New York Times’ report on the National Defense Authorization Act, to the delight of the Obama administration.
It’s truly tragic and sad that this “debate” over circumvention of basic rights granted in the Constitution has to be replayed yet again in the United States. The Bush administration was rightly condemned for its complete contempt for the Constitution, but American liberals seem content to ignore these same transgressions when engaged in by Democrats.
For the record, there is nothing remotely controversial about the conclusion that denying citizens and non-citizens alike basic due process rights in civilian courts is illegal under national and international law. As the Supreme Court ruled in the 2004 case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, military tribunals for terrorist suspects clearly violate basic protections granted under the Geneva Conventions, which require that suspects be tried in “regularly constituted courts.” A regularly constituted court is widely understood to be the equivalent of a civilian court, conferring within it basic protections to confront accusers, benefit from a trial of one’s peers, and to be protected against hearsay, majority (rather than unanimous voting), and to confidential attorney-client privileges. All of these protections are circumvented in military tribunals, which afford a far lower level of basic protections to the accused. Such due process protections carry the force of domestic law, in light of the fact that the Geneva Conventions are U.S. ratified foreign treaties, and are protected under the Constitution’s “supremacy clause,” which places foreign treaties on par with national laws and the Constitution itself as the highest form of law in the land. The Supreme Court also found that the Geneva Conventions protections for non-citizens (to have access to a trial in a civilian court) were protected via the Uniform Military Code of Justice, which also incorporates basic Geneva Conventions protections.
The outlawing of the “enemy combatant” designation and the indefinite detainment of non-citizens was also reinforced in the Supreme Court’s 2004 Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld decision, which declared the Bush administration’s detainment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo to be illegal and unconstitutional. The Constitution states explicitly in the 6th Amendment that: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury… and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Critics will no doubt point out that the 6th Amendment refers to basic protections granted to those who are charged with crimes allegedly committed within (rather than outside) the United States. This criticism is irrelevant, however, with regard to the new legislation being considered in Congress, which is set to apply to American citizens and their (alleged) illegal activities committed on U.S. soil. Furthermore, the Constitution does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in the case of alleged crimes and due process rights, as addressed in the Fifth Amendment, which explicitly states that “no person [rather than no citizen]… shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This provision essentially makes illegal and unconstitutional any attempts by presidents or congress to deny basic due process to citizens and non-citizens.
Obama’s lawless infringements on basic Constitutional principles are (fortunately) opposed by a strong majority of Americans, who still maintain a commitment to the rule of law. Polling on the denial of due process is in short supply, but what little evidence exists suggests strong rejection of the circumvention of the Constitution. A 2006 poll published by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, for example, uncovers the following findings:
– 73 percent of Americans believe terrorism “suspects should have the right to request and receive a hearing.”
– 66 percent think that the “home government and families [of detainees] should be informed of their capture and location.”
– 73 percent feel that detainees “treatment should be monitored by the Red Cross or another international organization” to ensure that they are treated humanely
– 75 percent (contrary to Obama’s reliance on rendition and torture) feel that detainees “should not be tortured,” while 57 percent think that detainees “should not be threatened with torture.”
– 63 percent agree that “the rules for treating someone who is being detained because they are suspected of terrorist activities should be the same for citizens and non-citizens.”
– 57 percent feel “the United States should not permit U.S. military and intelligence agencies to secretly send terrorism suspects to other countries that are known to use torture.”
– 78 percent believe that it would be “somewhat” or “very likely” that these suspects “were tortured even if officials [as Obama has done today] say they would not be.”
American majority sentiment is very clearly opposed to the Obama administration’s continuation of the illegal attacks on the Constitution and basic due process rights. We have an opportunity today to send a message to our members of Congress that denial of due process is unacceptable regardless of the party of the president. Simply because Congress decides to initiate illegal acts doesn’t mean that they are any less unconstitutional. Political elites may have no interest in this basic lesson, but that doesn’t mean that Americans have to accept such draconian, authoritarian arguments. I strongly urge all those committed to the rule of law to contact their legislators in the House and Senate and urge them strongly to vote no against the authorization of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
To look up your members of Congress, see the following links:
Anthony DiMaggio is the author of numerous books, including most recently The Rise of the Tea Party, and other works such as Crashing the Tea Party (2011); When Media Goes to War (2010); and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008). He has taught American politics and International Relations in Political Science at a number of colleges and universities, and can be reached at: adimag2@uic.edu
Three sisters, moments before a home demolition in Al Aqaba, in the West Bank (photo: flickr/frecklebaum)
Surrounded by two training military camps, in Area C, Al Aqaba’s population has gone from 1000 in 1967, the beginning of the Israeli military occupation of West Bank, to the current 300.
Al Aqaba is part of Tubas district, in the northeastern area of the West Bank, near the entrance of the Jordan Valley. A fertile land, rich with water resources, its geography attracted the attention of the Israeli Army which has used the area for military training of all kinds. Sami Sadiq, head of the Al Aqaba local council, explains, “Al Aqaba is surrounded by two military camps, used for the training of ground forces, tanks and air force. After the 1967 war, the village area was declared a closed military zone for ‘security reasons.’ Since that moment, they started building three training camps that host thousands of soldiers every year. They come here for one or two months and then they are sent to their respective units.”
“From 1971 to the present,” Sadiq adds, “the soldiers killed 13 Palestinians and injured at least 50.”
Sadiq is among them, having taken three bullets to his back. One is too close to his heart to be extracted. He has spent the past 38 years in a wheelchair. But, still, he continues to protest against the occupation.
After a petition was submitted by the residents of Al Aqaba in 2003, one of the three camps was closed: it was located exactly in the entrance of the village, making life impossible because of dangerous trainings and movement restrictions. But the two other bases remain and, Sadiq says, “The hills around Al Aqaba are a closed military zone. The aim of the Israeli Civil Administration is to declare the village a closed military zone, in order to force all the inhabitants to leave their own houses.
According to the Israeli law civilians are strictly forbidden from accessing closed military zones.
“The Israelis’ goal is obvious,” Sadiq says. “This land is very fertile and rich in water resources. They want to empty the area of its original Palestinian inhabitants and colonize it, confiscating the land and water.”
A “quiet transfer” is already happening, through demolitions, land confiscations, and the denial of basic services, such as running water.
“In Al Aqaba the water system doesn’t exist,” Sadiq says. “It has never been authorized by the [Israeli] Civil Administration, which has total control of the area: the village is forced to buy water tanks and to fill the wells. And the connection to the electricity network was allowed just three years ago. Before we were using a generator.”
“The oldest house in Al Aqaba dates back to 1930 [18 years before the state of Israel was established],” Sadiq continues. “Nevertheless, Israeli authorities accuse every single family of the village of building their homes illegally. So, they carry out demolitions. This year they destroyed Salam Street twice, in April and in September.”
95% of the buildings in the village are under demolition order. Among them the health center, the kindergarten and the mosque. A petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, submitted in 2004 by Al Aqaba residents in order to cancel the orders, was rejected on the 7 of April 2008. The lawyer for the village, Tusja-Cohen, asked a team of experts to come up with a new plan, to make the buildings “legal” under Israeli law and to obtain the required permits for the owners.
But the Court didn’t accept this petition and authorized the demolitions. The last ones date back on 15th of September: the Army destroyed two kilometers of the only road connecting the village to the Jordan Valley and demolished two houses along Salam Street. In addition, there are the land confiscations: “Thousands of dunams were confiscated by Israel in order to build the three military camps,” Sadiq explains. “During the trainings, the soldiers destroy olive trees and agricultural lands. It seems to be war [training]: once they simulated the fall of a plane.”
According to Sadiq, soldiers sometimes use houses and streets inside the village for military training, “Dozens of soldiers enter suddenly and exercise as though they are preparing for war in the middle of a city, between narrow roads. Over the years, this has caused Palestinian residents [to leave].”
House demolitions, land confiscations, lack of services, and accidental deaths due to military training have effectively depopulated Al Aqaba as many families have moved to Tubas and Nablus.
After Haifa University canceled a lecture on the book “King’s Torah” (Torat HaMelech)–which discusses religious regulations on killing non-Jews–the event will be held Monday, December 12, 2011 at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
The head of the Department of Jewish Philosophy, Avinoam Rosenak, will speak at the event as will Rabbi Israel Ariel of the Dorshei Yehudcha yeshiva, which was recently shut down on the advice of Israeli General Security Services (Shin Bet or Shabak). According to the Shin Bet, students of the yeshiva, which was located in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, “are involved in illegal and violent activities against Palestinians and the security forces.”
In addition to his affiliation with the closed yeshiva, Rabbi Ariel was also a Knesset candidate from the Kach Party, which was founded by right-wing extremist Meir Kahane and promoted the deportation of all Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. Israel outlawed the Kach party and both the United States and Israel categorize it as a terrorist organization.
“King’s Torah” was written by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elizur who also live in Yitzhar and who, according to Israel’s Channel 10, have recently joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. The book discusses religious regulations related to killing of gentiles in both peace and war. For example, in Chapter Four, “Jewish and Gentile Souls,” the authors say that wherever the presence of a gentile threatens the life of Israel it is permitted to kill the gentile even if he is a righteous person and should not be blamed for the situation.
In the chapter regarding the killing of non-Jews during war, the authors claim that in Judaism it is permissible to kill enemy combatants, as well as those who help and support them and those who encourage them, because all of them are enemies of Israel. The chapter adds that it is permitted to hit enemy targets even if innocent gentiles will be harmed in those attacks.
Hebrew University claims that the event is not organized by the university, but by Beit Hillel. However, the invitation to the event includes the logos of the Hebrew University, the Faculty of Humanities, and the Department of Jewish Philosophy.
After declaring that Palestinians are an “invented people,” US presidential hopeful and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, has said that he would instruct the CIA to hunt down Palestinian prisoners released last October in an exchange negotiated by Israel and Hamas, presumably to kill them.
Gingrich made the comments in a conference call organized by the National Council Young Israel posted on YouTube by the website The Yeshiva World News, in response to a question about whether he had been in favor of the prisoner exchange:
I refuse to second guess the people of Israel doing what they believe is necessary both on a humanitarian level and out of their love for one of their children. I would say flatly that we made no such deal. I’m told that at least thirty of the people released were involved in killing Americans, and I would instruct the CIA to hunt down those thirty.
Gingrich provided no evidence for his claim about the Palestinians being involved in killing Americans. Since the 1990s, the CIA has worked closely and openly with the Palestinian Authority both under the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But the CIA’s role has been to assist the Palestinian Authority to collaborate more effectively with Israel, rather than to carry out extrajudicial executions of Palestinians.
It is unknown how Israel would view the United States carrying out assassinations within territory it controls.
Support for settlements
In the interview, Gingrich also stated that he had no problem with Israel building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
GAZA — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have killed 19 Palestinian children and wounded 200 others during attacks on the Gaza Strip in the course of 2011, medical sources said on Saturday.
Adham Abu Salmiya, the spokesman for the ambulance and emergency department, said in a statement that the youngest of those killed was two-year-old Malek Shaat followed by three-year-old Islam Quraqai.
He said that one third of the wounded in IOF attacks on Gaza in 2011 were children, noting that one of them, ten-year-old Yousef Al-Za’lan, was still in intensive care after the Israeli raid on Friday in which his father and younger brother were killed.
Abu Salmiya charged the IOF with deliberately targeting civilians especially children, adding that the IOF shelling of residential neighborhoods in Gaza at a late night hour has serious psychological impacts on children.
He asked all human rights groups and those concerned with child welfare to urgently intervene and pressure Israel to halt its crimes against children in Gaza and to secure a safe life for them.
JENIN – Israeli soldiers manning a West Bank crossing to the Jenin village of Barta assaulted a taxi driver on Saturday.
Haitham Ibrahim Kabha, 37, is in al-Razi hospital suffering from bruising on his neck and back, a Ma’an reporter said.
Official news agency Wafa reported that Kabha suffered a fracture in his back.
“I was planning to go to Jenin through Barta crossing which is the only entrance and exit to the town,” Kabha, a taxi driver, said, but he was prevented from leaving by soldiers.
He then asked to speak to a senior official.
“When the officer came, he accused me of insulting a soldier. He asked me to step out of the car and with 8 other soldiers they beat me with their feet, hands and the back of their guns.
“After that I didn’t feel a thing until I woke up in the hospital,” Kabha said.
Kabha’s brother, Baha, said that despite screaming in pain, soldiers kept on beating him until he passed out. A Magen David Adom ambulance was close by but didn’t offer any help, Baha added.
“Israeli soldiers prevented any Palestinian ambulance from helping Haitham when he lost consciousness; they kept back the ambulance for half an hour until they were pressured by protests at the crossing,” he said.
The eastern section of Barta is completely enclosed by the separation wall and there are two crossing points to the village.
An Israeli military spokeswoman deferred calls to the Israeli Defense Ministry who did not answer a call from Ma’an seeking comment.
How powerful is the Rothschild banking family? How did they amass their fortune? Just how rich are they? Do they secretly control the world? Sputnik explores. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News
