NPR interviews two Israel lobbyists for story on settlement squabble
By Philip Weiss | March 16, 2010
The New Jersey Department of State has 19 agencies and divisions, only one of which is devoted to relations with a specific foreign country. Put on your thinking cap, now!
The agency is called, the New Jersey-Israel Commission, whose mission “is to foster economic, scientific, educational and cultural ties with the State of Israel, one of the Garden State’s most important trading partners.” The Commission chair is Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel, now a prof at Princeton.
When NPR’s Michele Kelemen did a story yesterday on the contretemps between the US and Israel, she interviewed Kurtzer as an expert, and also David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Kurtzer said, “Israel did a really in-your-face move with the vice president in town and, I think, it needs to find a way to offset that by responding to what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked for..” Makovsky offered neocon cant: “We do recognize that terrorists exploit this issue, but even if we had progress on this issue, does anyone really believe that al-Qaida would disappear or sectarian differences in Iraq would disappear or Iran would not seek a nuclear weapon?”
I admit that Kurtzer has a broad resume and tends to be reasonable–he also told Keleman that the Israelis are hurting our interests in the region–but back to the lead, he is chairman of an agency that promotes trade with Israel. Should NPR have disclosed this fact? Especially at a time when Gen’l Petraeus is saying that the Arab world regards the US as incapable of being tough with Israel?
Also, just to get on my sociological hobbyhorse, Is it really fair that NPR is interviewing two American Jews on this subject? Are there any other Americans who have expert opinions? What about Steve Walt, who knows this issue backward and forward? Or Helena Cobban, who is as sharp as they come? Or Ali Abunimah, who has followed the peace process forever and is funny? They all have less personal identification with Israel than Kurtzer and Makovsky. Can Americans learn their views?
Israel Seals off West Bank for 48 Hours
Al-Manar | 12-03-2010
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the army to seal off the West Bank for 48 hours until midnight on Saturday, an army spokesman said.
The action was taken “for security reasons” including a risk of attacks, the Israeli spokesman said Friday. The area was sealed off at midnight on Thursday.
Israeli occupation police have also said they would bar Muslim men under the age of 50 from prayers on Friday at occupied Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites, fearing unrest.
The move infuriated worshipers, and the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights condemned the measures as a violation of privacy and freedom to worship. It expected the coming hours to see further restrictions on worshipers after confrontations took place between Palestinians and the Israeli occupation army near Al-Aqsa Mosque ahead of Friday’s prayer.
The moves come after violent clashes at the site during last week’s Muslim prayers when occupation army stormed the holy site and threatened the worshipers. They also come after fresh tensions over Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes for settlers in mostly Arab east Jerusalem.
Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has usually sealed off the West Bank ahead of major holidays, saying the move is necessary to prevent attacks, but only rarely on other occasions. “The Israeli army will continue to operate in order to protect the citizens of Israel while maintaining the quality of life of the Palestinian population in the area,” the occupation military said in a statement.
The Dark Face of Jewish Nationalism
By Dr. Alan Sabrosky | March 10, 2010
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that “Israel is not like other countries.” Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the “Zionist” label on it.
Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya’s had the Mau Mau, etc.).
But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I’ll develop in another article).
The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:
1. Zionism is a real witches’ brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism that places it way outside of a “mere” nationalist context — for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way — and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;
2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements (and even ultra-nationalist movements like Nazism) did not — e.g., a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called “dual loyalty” (to Israel & the US) that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the IDF but NOT in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America — even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces;
3. The “enemy” of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America’s target list); and
4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people (like the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s) — it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US — and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn’t care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native Americans here in a longer & more low-tech fashion.
The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling. The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission — which these days encompasses the US Government, given Israel’s affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama’s visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu’s own “Uncle Tom” come to Washington.
The late General Moshe Dayan, who — Zionist or not — remains an honored part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel’s security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.
Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net
The Obama administration asked for the East Jerusalem fiasco
By Yossi Sarid | Haaretz | March 11, 2010
Don’t believe Benjamin Netanyahu for one moment when he says he “never knew.” The Jerusalem planning committee is only too aware of what the bosses want, and the government has decided to step up construction in greater Jerusalem. Dispossession and taking possession, kicking out and moving in – that’s what it’s all about.
Over the years, a streamlined and generously lubricated machine has evolved, one that makes it possible to take solace in the building of Jerusalem (in the phrase used to console mourners) and to take pride – but also to take cover – behind a facade of disingenuousness and disowning. Yesterday, it was convenient to disown.
No pretext is more dismal than “bad timing.” Ehud Barak immediately put out a press release about the “harmful timing of the publication.” As if there were a proper time for provocations. If the announcement of the 1,600 planned housing units had come before Joe Biden’s trip, they would have said it was aimed at sabotaging the visit, and if it happened after he left, they would have said Biden himself was in on the secret.
But with Barak, that willing slave-minister of Netanyahu’s, everything’s cool, but if only they had kept that call for bids confidential, if only they built apartments in some dark secluded hideaway, like the Western Wall tunnel.
Don’t believe for a moment that they never knew: The chaos works like clockwork. The detonation mechanism is activated remotely and a safety range is carefully observed. It will always be possible to make procedural claims – “it’s a technical matter” or “the political echelon wasn’t involved” or “the timing was purely coincidental” or “three years of deliberations happened to end now.” What judge hearing a case would accept “I didn’t know” as a mitigating circumstance?
This is one visit Joe Biden will not quickly forget. First he was compelled to sit through 25 minutes of an annoying speech in his honor by our president. Shimon Peres really believes that he is the destination for pilgrims from all over the world who drink in his musings and are intoxicated by his vision.
Later, Biden was given a certificate memorializing his mother, but the glass broke. Once again, Bibi didn’t pay attention, leaned on it and shattered it. No fear, his speeches have always diverted attention from such mishaps. And finally, to add a finishing touch of infuriating disgrace, the Haredi neighborhood Ramat Shlomo was dumped on the vice-presidential head.
Truth be told, the Obama administration just about asked for this slap. In Jerusalem, the lesson has been learned that the White House doesn’t fulfill its obligations – it just goes through the motions by issuing insincere rebukes. And now, they’ll begin the “proximity talks” – Orwellian for distance, which is greater than it’s been in 20 years.
If I were Rahm Emanuel, I wouldn’t advise Barack Obama to follow in his Veep’s footsteps and visit Israel soon. It’s safe to predict that on the day he’s addressing the Knesset, they’ll tell him work has begun on the Temple Mount. The first Temple was that of Solomon the Wise, the Second was that of Ezra the Scribe, and the Third of Netanyahu and Eli Yishai. Let the Temple be built, and the home of the nation will be laid waste.
Upset by U.S. Security, Pakistanis Return as Heroes
By JANE PERLEZ | New York Times | March 9, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A tour of the United States arranged by the State Department to improve ties to Pakistani legislators ended in a public relations fiasco when the members of the group refused to submit to extra airport screening in Washington, and they are now being hailed as heroes on their return home.
“People should be thankful, you made them so proud,” said Hamid Mir, the host of a popular national talk show, during an interview in his studio on Tuesday with four of the six politicians, who railed against the security precautions at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Meetings with the Obama administration’s top policy makers on Pakistan, including the president’s special representative, Richard C. Holbrooke, and visits to the Pentagon and the National Security Council, did not allay the anger the politicians said they felt at being asked to submit to a secondary screening on Sunday before boarding a flight to New Orleans. They declined to be screened and did not board the flight.
Pakistan is one of 14 mostly Muslim countries whose citizens must go through increased checks before they fly into the United States, a procedure mandated by the Obama administration in the wake of the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up an airliner flying from the Netherlands to Detroit on Dec. 25.
The inclusion of Pakistan on the list was broadly criticized as an insult to a country that the United States calls an ally.
The leader of the parliamentary group, Senator Abbas Khan Afridi, said in an interview on Tuesday that before they were to board the flight for New Orleans, he and his colleagues were selected from a crowd of passengers at the airport and asked to stand aside.
They were then asked to accept a full-body scan by a machine, he said. Such body-scanning units are in use at 19 airports across the United States, and more are being installed.
One of Mr. Afridi’s colleagues, Akhunzada Chitan, told Mr. Mir on his “Capital Talk” program, “Going through a body scan makes you naked, and in making you naked, they make the whole country naked.”
The lawmakers were chosen to visit the United States by the Political Section of the American Embassy. American officials are eager to reach out to political figures from the underdeveloped and isolated tribal areas where the Pakistani Army is now fighting to reclaim territory from the Taliban.
The United States Agency for International Development pledged two years ago to spend $750 million on various projects in the tribal areas, but residents there complain that they see more of the Taliban than American assistance.
In preparatory briefings for their trip, the politicians were advised that they might have to submit to extra body searches, just as randomly selected Americans must submit to secondary screening by the new machines, two officials from the American Embassy said.
The Pakistanis were specifically warned that the United States was not a “V.I.P. culture,” unlike Pakistan, where politicians are often exempted from unpalatable procedures that other people have to tolerate, the American officials said.
“We are disappointed that the group took offense at the security procedures thousands of Americans and visitors must endure at airports every day,” said Larry Schwartz, the senior communications adviser at the American Embassy in Islamabad. “No offense was intended. Indeed, they were warmly welcomed at high levels in Washington.”
The American Embassy in Islamabad has been endowed with an extra $37 million by Congress to spend on exchange programs intended to show skeptical Pakistanis that the United States is a real ally, a country that wants to help, not hinder, Pakistan.
The people-to-people exchanges between Pakistan and the United States, which include American lecturers and teachers of English coming to Pakistan, is now the most ambitious of such efforts run by the State Department around the globe, Mr. Schwartz said.
About 2,000 Pakistanis are expected to participate in the strengthened educational and cultural programs this year, he said. Indeed, a prime motivation of the protest against the screening procedures by the tribal area politicians appeared to be an effort to appeal to their home constituencies, many of whom regard the United States as an enemy.
“Our people were very disturbed we were going to America,” Mr. Afridi said. “We were under threat for going to the United States. We took the risk to see if America was interested in solving the problems.”
The State Department paid each of the participants $200 a day for accommodations and food during their stay in the United States.
If the American taxpayers wanted the money for the expenses refunded, he would be happy to do so, said Mr. Afridi, 40, who described himself as a major trader in cement, with businesses across Pakistan and in Afghanistan.
“We can pay back the $200 a day, no problem,” he said.
Then, he drove off in his brand-new Hummer — an example of his affection for American autos, he said — to appear on another television program to tell his story of standing up to the American authorities.
Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting.
Peres to Biden: Expel Iran from UN
“There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security — none at all” – Joe Biden
Al-Manar TV – 09/03/2010
US Vice President Joe Biden began his round of talks with senior Israeli officials on Tuesday at the Israeli President’s Residence in occupied Jerusalem.
Biden told Israeli President Shimon Peres that the Iranian regime is isolated more than ever before, both domestically and internationally, claiming that the Iranian people are imposing what he called “moral sanctions” against it.
The Israeli president said imposing moral sanctions on Iran, including its expulsion from the UN, were no less important than taking economic measures. According to Peres, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cannot be a UN member and at the same time call for Israel’s annihilation and hang people in the streets.
Peres, who said Ahmadinejad was trying to delegitimize Israel and the US, said the West should surround Iran with anti-missile batteries.
The American vice president, who is the senior-most Obama administration official to visit the Zionist entity, said he hoped the Israel-Palestinian talks would help the sides overcome the mistrust between them, adding that he believed the points of agreement outnumber the disagreements.
Biden also signed Peres’ guest book. He wrote that the bond between the US and Israel is unshakable, adding that only a joint effort can lead to lasting peace.
The US vice president later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden shook hands with the Israeli PM and signed his guest book as well. He wrote that Israel is lucky to have Netanyahu, and the US is lucky to have Israel as a friend. The two are slated to meet one-on-one with their entourages. After the meeting, they will issue a joint statement.
Later in the day Biden is scheduled to meet with Opposition leader Tzipi Livni. On Wednesday he is scheduled to meet with Mideast Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and then head to Ramallah for talks with Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. On Thursday the vice president will speak at Tel Aviv University.
The right kind of bigotry
By Glenn Greenwald | March 6, 2010
From the long-time Editor-in-Chief and owner of The New Republic, this morning:
There were moments–long moments–during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
The point here is so obvious that it makes itself. In the bolded sentence, replace the word “Arabs” with “Jews” and ask yourself: how much time would elapse before the author of such a sentence would be vehemently scorned and shunned by all decent people, formally condemned by a litany of organizations, and have his livelihood placed in jeopardy? Or replace the word “Arabs” in that sentence with “Jews” or “blacks” or “Latinos” or even “whites” or virtually any other identifiable demographic group and ask yourself this: how many people would treat a magazine edited and owned by such a person as a remotely respectable or mainstream publication (notwithstanding the several decent journalists employed there)? Yet Marty Peretz spits out the most bigoted sentiments of this type — and he’s been doing this for years, as is well known — and very little happens, because, for multiple reasons, this specific type of hate-mongering remains basically permitted in American political discourse. The double standard at play here is as extreme and self-evident as it is pernicious, but it doesn’t matter. And we’ll all wait with bated breath for the next installment of The New Republic‘s righteous, accusatory attacks on the entirely fictitious manifestations of the one strain of bigotry that bothers them, because they’re such credible arbiters and opponents of prejudice.
Would the ‘NY Review of Books’ have printed an article on George Wallace in Alabama without talking to any black people?
By Philip Weiss | March 6, 2010
Josh Hammer has a pretty-good piece in the NY Review of Books about Avigdor Lieberman, called “I’m a Realist.” Any knowledge Americans get about this racist politician is to the good, but the piece is marred by the usual problem: American Jews are afraid to convey the blunt truths that leftwing Israeli Jews convey about their society, let alone what Palestinians say about that society. Israel comes off as a healthy democracy that is struggling with the devilishly charming Lieberman, who has a “controversial” belief in “transferral” of Palestinians, rather than as a society in crisis because of the continuing dispossession of minorities (as Bradley Burston would tell you, or Noam Sheizaf, or Mustafa Barghouti, or Ali Abunimah).
This limitation is typical of the New York Review of Books. The editors can’t give up on the ideals of Zionism, and so they publish Michael Walzer and Avishai Margalit, and keep Tony Judt in the back room, and refuse to review The Israel Lobby. The clearest indication of this bias in the NYRB’s Lieberman piece is the list of people Hammer quotes:
Lieberman
Yossi Beilin
Mikhail Philippov
Gideon Levy
One of Lieberman’s aides
Yair Tzaban
Alex Magidov
Danny Ayalon
Misha from Uzbekistan
Natasha from Siberia
Lily Gallili, reporter for Haaretz
Michal Kupinsky
There is not one Palestinian on the list. The only Palestinian even mentioned in the piece is Azmi Bishara. It doesn’t seem like Hammer tried to talk to him. So a racist politician rises, and a leftwing NY publication makes no effort to talk to the victims of the racism. Huh.
I admit it: I’m an ethnocentric Jew; and in Israel I recognize my tribe, and when I went to Israel and Palestine recently, I talked mostly to Jews. Still, I am stretching, I talked to Mustafa and Omar Barghouti and to Adnan Mahamid; it is essential for Jews to get out of their comfort zone; I try on this site to have Palestinian and other Asian voices. The New York Review of Books is sticking right in that Jewish comfort zone.
Tzipi Livni won’t be visiting the UK any time soon
By Paul Woodward | March 4, 2010
To hear it from the Israeli press you’d think that the British government can now makes changes to the law simply by having the prime minister write an op-ed.
Last December an arrest warrant was issued for former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, when she was expected to arrive in Britain. According to Haaretz, she no longer needs to fear getting hand-cuffed for alleged war crimes — at least not on trips to the UK:
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Thursday plans to stop politically-motivated campaign groups from securing arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials. In a March 3 editorial in the Daily Telegraph, Brown wrote, “Britain will continue to take action to prosecute or extradite suspected war criminals – regardless of their status or power… But the process by which we take action must guarantee the best results. The only question for me is whether our purpose is best served by a process where an arrest warrant for the gravest crimes can be issued on the slightest of evidence.”
Under the current system, British magistrates are obliged to consider an arrest warrant case presented by any individual. Gordon Brown said he will instead propose that only one government department, the Crown Prosecution Service, evaluate the merits of any case brought under international law.
This move follows an uproar last December when Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni canceled a trip to London because a pro-Palestinian group secured an arrest warrant for alleged crimes committed in Gaza. A statement from Livni’s office praised the new changes proposed by Brown and said that “the British legal system has been abused by cynical elements in the United Kingdom.”
From London The Times presents a very different story:
Britain risks a showdown with Israel today when the Government signals it is in no hurry to ease the threat of arrest for visiting politicians and generals.
Ministers will announce a consultation on the principle of universal jurisdiction, under which private citizens can secure arrest warrants for offences such as war crimes committed abroad.
The Government had promised swift action when the Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni cancelled a trip to London last year after a magistrate issued a warrant for her arrest for alleged war crimes in Gaza when she was Foreign Minister.
The issue caused embarrassment for the Government, which promised to remedy the matter quickly. Today’s announcement, however, means that the issue will not be resolved until well after the election, expected in May. When The Times reported last month that a Cabinet split could delay the issue could be delayed for months, Ms Livni threatened to travel to Britain and “take the bullet” as the only way of shaming the Government into action.
After the disclosure that agents suspected of acting for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, used fake British passports to enter Dubai and kill a Hamas commander, however, the balance of diplomatic power has shifted.
The delay is a victory for Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who has argued that the legal point at stake is too important to rush.
Since the British government just voted in support of a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to fully investigate allegations of war crimes committed during its war on Gaza, maybe they should quietly tell the Israelis that the proposed changes on universal jurisdiction aren’t going to happen if Israel keeps running away from the Goldstone report.
Europe’s Alliance with Israel
By David Cronin | March 4, 2010
Avigdor Lieberman meets Javier Solana
One of the pitfalls of specialising in European politics, as I have for the past 15 years, is that certain assumptions become hardwired in your brain. For a long time, my critical faculties shut down when I heard senior EU representatives speak of the Middle East. I happily accepted the official narrative that they were striving for a just resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and that it would be foolish to park the so-called peace process in a “blood-soaked lay-by”, in the words of former EU commissioner Chris Patten.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza just over a year ago illustrated how naive and gullible I had been. In the first instance, Tony Blair blocked the EU from formally calling for a ceasefire because he wanted Israel to be given whatever space it perceived necessary to fight Hezbollah (Israel’s slaughter of Lebanese civilians in that 33-day war elicited no more than statements of “regret” from London).
It is true that the Union did urge a halt to the violence that Israel inflicted on Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants in late 2008 and early 2009. Yet by describing that attack as “disproportionate”, key EU representatives implicitly approved the Israeli version of events – that everything had been provoked by the missiles Hamas was firing on the southern Israeli towns of Ashkelon and Sderot. “Gaza was a crisis waiting to happen,” Marc Otte, the Union’s Middle East envoy, told me. “Do you think the Palestinians could continue to launch rockets on Israel without Israel reacting?”
Otte has resorted to a wilfully selective reading of recent history. Far from merely reacting to what Hamas had done, Israel had created the conditions that prompted Hamas to dust down its crude DIY weapons (no match, it must be said, for the cutting-edge killing machines in the Israeli arsenal). Until a few months earlier, Hamas had observed the cessation of hostilities between it and Israel that Egypt had brokered in June 2008. All that changed on 4 November that year, however. Because most of the world was preoccupied with how America was electing its first black president, Israel’s decision to break off the ceasefire with a raid on Gaza that killed six members of Hamas went largely unnoticed internationally. As a result, most mainstream press ignored how the rockets sent by Hamas into southern Israel were in retaliation for the November raid.
Even worse than its complicity in spreading Israeli falsehoods, the EU has failed to hold Israel to account for its war crimes. The investigation carried out by a UN-appointed team led by Richard Goldstone, a retired South African judge, into the conduct of Israel’s war on Gaza was as thorough as was possible under the circumstances (with Israeli officialdom refusing to cooperate). But when the 575-page it produced was discussed by the UN’s General Assembly in November 2009, 22 of the EU’s 27 countries refused to endorse it. A key finding that there was no “justifiable military objective” behind 10 of the 11 incidents it examined, in which civilians had been targeted by Israel, proved too unpalatable for most EU governments.
In December 2006 Ehud Olmert caused controversy when he was caught on camera instructing Italian PM Romao Prodi what to say in their joint press conference
While some headlines in 2009 conveyed the impression that there was friction between Israeli and European diplomats over everything from the status of Jerusalem to a Swedish tabloid story alleging that Israeli soldiers systematically ripped out the internal organs of Palestinian corpses, the reality is that Israel enjoys extremely cordial and profitable links with the EU. That reality was underscored by Javier Solana, making a farewell trip to Israel in the autumn, shortly before he stepped down as the EU’s foreign policy chief. “There is no country outside the European continent that has this type of relationship that Israel has with the European Union,” he said. “Israel, allow me to say, is a member of the European Union without being a member of the institutions. It’s a member of all the [EU’s] programmes, it participates in all the programmes.”
The most troubling aspect of this cooperation, in my view, is how Israeli arms companies have become eligible for EU funding. With Israel the main external participant in the Union’s “framework programme” for scientific research, the EU has become the second largest source of research grants for the country. Tel Aviv-based officials to whom I have spoken predict that Israel’s participation in the multi-annual programme, which went into operation in 2007, will be worth €500 million by the time it concludes in 2013.
The beneficiaries of these grants include Motorola Israel. Motorola is taking part in an EU-financed surveillance project known as iDetect4All, which uses sensors to detect intruders of buildings or resources of high economic value. The concept behind iDetect4All is similar to that behind a radar system that Motorola has installed in 47 Israeli settlements in the West Bank over the past five years. The Jerusalem Post has described that system as a “virtual fence” that uses thermal cameras to pinpoint people who are not authorised to enter the settlements.
Another recipient of EU grants is Israel Aerospace Industries, the manufacturer of warplanes used to terrorise Palestinian civilians. It is playing a lead role in the EU’s “Clean Sky” project, which aims to reduce aviation’s contribution to climate change by developing less polluting aircraft engines. Because IAI has been given carte blanche by the European Commission to apply for patents on any innovations realised during this project, it is entirely conceivable that planes used in the future bombardment of Palestine will have been developed with the unwitting help of the European taxpayer.
It is highly probable that Israel will be integrated even further into the Union in the near future. During 2008, the EU’s foreign ministers approved a plan to “upgrade” their relations with Israel through a “privileged partnership” that would enable Israel to become part of the Union’s single market for goods and services. Work on giving concrete effect to this upgrade has stalled since then because of the war on Gaza and unease in some European capitals at the hard-line rhetoric of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government. Nonetheless, some significant steps have been taken in the past few months. In November last, for example, an agreement on agricultural trade was finalised; under it, 80% of Israel’s fresh produce and 95% of its processed foods can be exported to the EU free of customs duties. A cooperation agreement between Europol, the EU’s police office, and Israel has also been reached (though still awaits a formal rubber-stamp from the Union’s governments). This is despite numerous reports from human rights organisations that detainees in Israel are routinely tortured and despite rules in force since 1998 that oblige Europol not to process data obtained by cruel methods.
One factor that has helped pave the way for all this cooperation is that a cottage industry of lobby groups dedicated to promoting Israel has started to flourish in Brussels. The American Jewish Committee, the European Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith have all set up EU affairs offices over the past few years, while a cross-party alliance of MEPs (known as European Friends of Israel) was founded in 2006. These groups have responded to the widespread public revulsion at Israeli aggression by branding Israel’s critics, including left-wing Jews, as anti-Semites (an absurd claim, considering that most Palestinian solidarity activists abhor anti-Semitism). They have also contended that it is in Europe’s interest to bond with Israel because it is a prosperous economy, that has proven resilient in the face of global recession.
This well-oiled propaganda machine has helped convince policy-makers that Israel should be viewed as something akin to a Mediterranean Canada, a “normal” industrialised country with many similarities to Europe. But Israel is not a normal country; it is one that illegally occupies the land of another people.
The EU’s ever-deepening relationship with Israel cannot be divorced from the brutality meted out on daily basis to the Palestinians. The deeper that relationship gets, the more that Europe will be accommodating the oppression of Palestine. The EU cannot help solve the problems of the Middle East if it is making those problems worse.
• David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation will be published later this year by Pluto Press. This article originally appeared in the magazine ESharp! (www.esharp.eu)
Gordon Brown in Law Change Bid to Defend Israeli Leaders against Private Arrest Warrant
Al-Manar | March 4, 2010
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is defending his decision to change the law allowing private people to demand arrest warrants against foreign leaders and officers visiting Britain.
The government’s decision to change the law was made following an arrest warrant issued against Israeli Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, who was scheduled to visit London last year.
The former Israeli foreign minister reportedly canceled a trip to Britain in December for fear of being arrested after a court issued the warrant following an application by Palestinian activists.
The affair acutely embarrassed the British government and Brown pledged to change the law that allows judges to consider a case for an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes suspects brought by any individual.
According to a Daily Telegraph report on Thursday, the British government is to announce plans to stop politically-motivated campaign groups using British courts to secure arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials.
Under the proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. It will end the current system in which magistrates are obliged to consider a case for an arrest warrant presented by any individual.
Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Brown said he would set out proposals to put the CPS in sole charge of judging the merits of any case brought under international law. “The only question for me is whether our purpose is best served by a process where an arrest warrant for the gravest crimes can be issued on the slightest of evidence,” he said.
According to Brown, the introduction of the right to prosecute international crimes in Britain had been right and necessary but that the process had been abused by activists.
“As we have seen, there is now significant danger of such a provision being exploited by politically-motivated organizations or individuals who set out only to grab headlines knowing their case has no realistic chance of a successful prosecution. Men and woman can then be held in prison on the basis of ‘information’, when the serious nature of such cases means that in any event they can only proceed to prosecution with the consent of the attorney general.”
Brown, who did not specifically address the warrants issued against Livni or other Israeli officials, hinted that “there is already growing reason to believe that some people are not prepared to travel to this country for fear that such a private arrest warrant – motivated purely by political gesture – might be sought against them.
“These are sometimes people representing countries and interests with which the UK must engage if we are not only to defend our national interest but maintain and extend an influence for good across the globe.”
Attorney General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland Baroness Patricia Scotland visited Israel recently and said that Britain sees an urgent need to change the policy allowing arrest warrants to be issued against senior Israeli officials.
A London court last year issued a warrant for the arrest of Livni over her role in Israel’s 22-day war against the Gaza Strip, launched at the end of 2008 in which more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, including 420 children and over 5300 others were injured. Livni was foreign minister at the time.
Livni was not the only one to be hurt by the legal situation in the United Kingdom. A similar request for an arrest warrant was filed in the past few months against Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, but was rejected. Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon called off a visit to the kingdom for fear of being arrested. Major-General (Res.) Doron Almog avoided getting off a plane in 2005 after being informed that he would be arrested in London.
Judges in Britain can issue arrest warrants for war crimes suspects around the world under the Geneva Convention Act 1957, without any requirement to consult public prosecutors.
Livni on Thursday welcomed the proposed changed and attacked the original decision to issue the warrant as “absurd”. “The current situation in (Britain) enables the more cynical elements to take advantage of the system. The warrant that was issued against me according to the legislation was an absurd use of this law,” she told the paper.
118 UN members reaffirm support for Iran’s N-program
Press TV – March 3, 2010
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) logo
As the West pushes for new sanctions against Iran, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) moves to issue a new statement, voicing its support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
Egypt’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) read the newly-issued NAM statement in a Wednesday meeting of nuclear watchdog’s board of governors.
“NAM confirms the basic and inalienable right of all states to the development, research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations,” the statement said.
“Therefore, nothing should be interpreted in a way as inhibiting or restricting the right of states to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes,” it added.
“States’ choices and decisions including those of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected,” the 118-member movement said in its statement.
“NAM reaffirms the inviolability of peaceful nuclear activities and that any attack or threat of attack against peaceful nuclear activities, operational or under construction, poses a serious threat to human beings and the purposes of the Charter of the United Nation and of the regulations of the IAEA,” it said.
The statement comes as the West is weighing new sanctions on Iran in an effort to force the country into meeting its demands over its nuclear program.
Meanwhile, China — a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council — has shrugged off Washington’s call for harsher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities, arguing that diplomatic efforts have not yet been exhausted.
Tehran has repeatedly declared that sanctions will not force it to give up the Iranian nation’s legitimate right to access nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
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Mossad ‘in contact from very beginning’ with killers of Italian PM, reporter reveals
By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | October 5, 2025
A roving reporter who covered Italy’s top politicians explains to The Grayzone how his country was reduced to a joint US-Israeli “aircraft carrier,” and raises troubling questions about an Israeli role in the killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
For years, Israel’s Mossad monitored and secretly influenced a violent communist faction that carried out the March 16, 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian statesman Aldo Moro, veteran investigative journalist Eric Salerno has documented.
Having worked closely alongside multiple Italian heads of state during his 30-year career as a correspondent, Salerno published an expose of their secret relationship with Israeli intelligence in 2010 called Mossad Base Italy. … continue
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