James Abourezk represented South Dakota in Congress from 1971 to 1979. CNI asked Senator Abourezk about his experiences with the Israel Lobby. In his first response he told of an Israeli plot to assassinate him. In this column he discusses threats to his family, Alan Dershowitz, and Israeli lobbyists embedded in the U.S. State Department:
When I was Chairman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), we had two bombing incidents. I had no idea who was responsible, but I had a guess. Someone unknown placed a bomb in the doorway of ADC’s Boston headquarters. The staff there called the Boston police, who came and were in the process of disarming the pipe bomb that they found there. If I recall correctly, the police had put the bomb in a metal barrel, and it exploded in the face of one of the police officers, seriously injuring him. We all felt terrible about the policeman being injured and we tried as best we could to console his family. The whole incident was covered by a Boston TV station, and I assume they still have the footage of the explosion on file.
At around the same time, someone unknown firebombed the ADC headquarters in Washington, D.C. I was out of town at the time, but no one was hurt, and I was able to get back in time to accompany the arson expert with the D.C. police department, who showed us exactly where the bomb was thrown and how the fire had spread from that point.
Because we were all gripped with fear of what might be next, I decided to tighten up the security on my home, if nothing more than to calm down my family. I had bought a Rottweiler dog sometime earlier both for protection of my family and of our home. I learned that Rottweilers would automatically attack anyone who came near our home, unless we had introduced the dog to the person visiting. I had a security expert—someone who had once worked as a Secret Service agent in the White House—make recommendations to insure that we would be a difficult target for someone who would wish us harm. We followed his advice and made the house a bit more invulnerable. He also told us that it would be impossible to make any home 100 per cent safe, but we could make it so a potential bomber would be discouraged enough to give up trying.
I also hired a 24 hour guard for the house. The first night the guard, a young man wearing a blue blazer and armed with a weapon situated himself inside, near the front door. At one point during the night, he ran upstairs to our bedrooms and shouted that there was something making noises outside. I suggested that, since he had the gun, that he should check it out, but he wanted me to go with him. So I dressed, took the Rottweiler with me on a leash and the guard and I did a search around the house. Finding nothing we went back in. The guard spent the rest of the night immediately outside my bedroom door, I suspect more frightened that I was, and the next day, I fired the security service.
After the bombing of the ADC headquarters in Washington, I was still extremely nervous about what might happen, but I put on my brave face and held a press conference, announcing to the world that “we would not be intimidated” by these kinds of terrorists, and that we were going to work harder than ever to bring justice to the Palestinians and others in the Middle East who were victims of Israel’s aggression. But I honestly had a hard time staying calm and preventing myself from running out of the room to find a safe place to hide.
What Has Been Your Experience with Alan Dershowitz?
I remember Alan Dershowitz, not as a Harvard Law Professor, but as the person who wrote an op-ed column in one of our national newspapers in which he said that Palestinians need not worry about justice in the Occupied Territories, as the Israeli Supreme Court would always make certain that they were fairly treated. I’ve been reading Mondoweiss online, which has a daily list of Palestinians whose homes are leveled by U.S.-made bulldozers, of land outright stolen by Israeli settlers for the use of the settlers, most of whom come from the United States to live in the West Bank. I know that Dershowitz’s words about the Israeli Supreme Court are a great comfort to those Palestinians in the West Bank who have been killed, maimed, and their property stolen.
A few short years ago when I was in Damascus, I did an interview on Al Manar Television, which is Hizbollah’s channel in Lebanon. During the interview I mentioned that Alan Dershowitz was a “snake.”
There is a pro-Israeli group here in the U.S. which calls itself “MEMRI” which tapes television shows broadcast in the Middle East. They had taped my interview, which I suppose is where Alan Dershowitz heard about my description of him. He thereupon wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post in which he called me an “anti-Semite.” That slur is the favorite of Pro-Israeli Lobbyists and it works a lot of the time, often succeeding in silencing critics of Israel or of its policies.
Later, when I was invited to speak to the ADC gathering in Washington honoring Helen Thomas, who was herself the target of the same smear, I spoke about Dershowitz’s attempt to silence me by calling me an anti-Semite. I told the audience at that dinner that anti-semitism means that the person charged disliked Jews as Jews. I further said that I do not dislike Jews, but I only disliked Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman, the head of the B’nai B’rith, and that my dislike of them had nothing to do with anti-semitism, but with how they operated.
My speech that night was later published on the Counterpunch site, which prompted the ever vigilant Dershowitz, after he had read the speech, to vehemently deny that he had labeled me an anti-semite. The co-editor of Counterpunch, Alex Cockburn, somehow located the old Jerusalem Post column written by Dershowitz, and there it was, plain as day, with him very cleverly saying about me that, when it comes to anti-semitism, “if the shoe fits, wear it.”
Here is the relevant portion of Alexander Cockburn’s column, quoting Dershowitz:
“In his [CounterPunch] article entitled ‘Honoring Helen Thomas’ dated November 22, 2010, James Abourezk makes the following statement:
‘I once called Alan Dershowitz a snake on Al Manar television. Al Manar is Hezbollah’s news channel in Lebanon. When he found out what I had said, he wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post, calling me an anti-Semite.’
[That] is a lie. Here is a link to my article to which he refers. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/a-real-snake_b_65194.html?view=print) I challenge him to find the term ‘anti-Semite’ in the article. I also challenge your readers to read the article and judge Abourezk’s credibility. Now I will characterize Abourezk: He is a liar.”
Cockburn went on:
“I duly clicked on the Huffington Post link thoughtfully provided by prof. Dershowitz and indeed, there is no use of the term ‘anti-Semite’ in the column by the noted Harvard law professor, published on September 21, 2007. But since the prof. is a notoriously slippery fellow, I put a couple of sentences from that same column into the google search engine, pressed button A and, hey presto, up came the same Sep 21, 2007 Dershowitz column, printed that same day on the site of the United Jewish Foundation. And lo! there was a final paragraph, omitted from the Huffpost version. Here it is.
‘Well maybe former Senator Abourezk isn’t so different from the late Senator Bilbo after all. He uses the word ‘Zionist’ in precisely the same bigoted way Bilbo used ‘kike.’ [Huffington Post version ends here.]
‘It is true that not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, but just because it is anti-Zionist does not mean it is not also anti-Semitic. If the shoe fits…’ (C2007 FrontPageMagazine.com 09/21/07).
“Anti-Semite”… “anti-Semitic” … A minute difference on which the slippery prof. would no doubt try to hang his hat, but to any impartial observer it’s plain enough that Abourezk’s memory is true. Dershowitz was sliming the former distinguished Senator from South Dakota as an anti-Semite. It’s maybe why Huffington Post dropped the final paragraph as libelous, unless Dershowitz reserved the slime for the version he sent FrontPageMagazine which, the vigilant reader will have noted, was credited as its source by the United Jerusalem Foundation.”
And here is my response to Alex after he found the “anti-semite” article:
Alex:
Dershowitz is neither a good lawyer nor a good liar. He is trying to slither out of what has become nearly a full time occupation–that of branding any criticism of Israel as coming from someone who hates Jews. That does not work on me, as I’m secure in my anti-racist feelings. I’ve had any number of Zionists who are devoid of any reasonable argument throw the anti-Semitism charge at me. Sorry, but it doesn’t work, and Dershowitz is not clever enough to make the “shoe fit” no matter how hard he tries. Does he think that pointing to an incomplete article reprinted in Huffington Post will do the trick? Obviously he does, which makes his lie even more prominent. That’s a trick that even a first year law student would be smart enough not to try. He’s been caught lying and no amount of his flailing about will make that vanish. I hadn’t realized that it would be that easy getting a job teaching law at Harvard. Had I been, younger and armed with this knowledge I would have applied for the job.
Jim Abourezk
We’ve heard nothing from Dershowitz since that time, but he’s still out there somewhere, apologizing for Israel’s dirty deeds.
Letters of 76 Senators
When Gerald Ford was President and Henry Kissinger was his Secretary of State, the two decided, during U.S. backed peace talks to bring Israel around to U.S. thinking by withholding American aid to Israel. That effort ended quickly when 76 U.S. Senators signed an AIPAC drafted letter to President Ford containing a thinly veiled threat to Mr. Ford if he continued to withhold military aid to Israel. The letter prompted President Ford to give in to the Lobby’s demand and to resume aid to Israel.
What happened leading up to the publication of the letter in the U.S. press is an interesting story. I had dinner with one Senator—who shall go unnamed here—the night before the letter was released to the press. He told me that he had no intention of signing it.
The next day, when the letter appeared in the Washington Post, I asked my friend what had happened.
“Jim, I received phone call after phone call all during the day yesterday, calls from people who had gone beyond just supporting me in my election, but people—lawyers, doctors, professional people and businessmen—who had interrupted their careers to work in my campaign. I couldn’t say no to them, which is why you saw my name on the letter.”
Later, in the Senate cloakroom, a number of us were standing together, talking about the letter. Ted Kennedy spoke first. “I knew that’s what would happen when I was approached to sign the letter, and I don’t like it at all. We should, next time, get together before signing such a letter, and all of us say no at the same time.” What Kennedy was referring to was the Israeli Lobby’s practice of picking off the Senators by going to one Senator, saying, “Senator So- and-so has signed, and you’d better not be the only potential presidential candidate not on the letter.” They would then go to Senator So-and-so and say the same thing. Ultimately, all of the leading Senators—especially those who wanted to run from President—would put their signature on the letter.
Kennedy’s statement was what spurred me to say something, during a mini-debate I had with Hyman Bookbinder before a section of the D.C. Bar Association’s meeting in D.C. We were promoting a book we had written together as a debate on the Middle East—Through Different Eyes—and I mentioned that Senators would cheer on Israel in public but would bad mouth both Israel and the Lobby in private. One lawyer raised his hand and asked, “name just one U.S. Senator who would do that.”
I said, simply, “Ted Kennedy,” hoping he was politically strong enough to resist the Lobby’s counter-attack.
Two or three days later, Ted Kennedy called me and said, “Abourezk, what the hell have you done to me?” I guess Ted had underestimated his own political strength, or at least, did not want any of it diluted in a tiff over the Middle East. And he for sure did not want to spend his time defending himself from the Israeli Lobby.
Getting help from the lobby
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1948, at age 17, immediately after I graduated from High School. After training in San Diego, I was ordered to Japan to become a member of the occupation. I was stationed on quasi-shore duty in Japan, actually aboard a non-propulsion barracks ship tied up in the heart of Tokyo, on the Sumida River. The ship was essentially the barracks for members of the Admiral’s staff. Early on in my tour there, the Kodokan Judo University in Tokyo sent a few Judo instructors to our ship in order to recruit students for their Judo school. The delegation included the then world champion, Ishikawa-san, and a slightly built man in his eighties, named “never fall Mifune.” We converted a large empty cabin on the ship into a Judo room, with mats on the metal floors to break our falls.
There I learned the essence of the art of Judo—using your opponent’s strength and momentum against him in order to win.
That lesson was very useful in helping me get a Committee assignment I wanted while in the Senate. When North Carolina’s celebrated Senator Sam Ervin retired from the Senate after masterfully chairing the Senate Watergate Committee, I decided to try for his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Jim Allen, from Alabama, also decided to try for the seat. But he was senior to me so it was obvious to everyone that I had an uphill battle.
With the lessons I learned studying Judo in mind, I caught David Brody, one of the Israeli Lobbyists, in the corridor, telling him that I was trying for the Judiciary Committee seat that Sam Ervin was vacating. I casually mentioned that if I didn’t get on Judiciary, I would then try for Foreign Relations. That, I knew, would get his attention.
Although I never saw any evidence of the Lobby’s actions, even though Allen was senior to me, I surprisingly got the most votes from the Senate Steering Committee, which makes Committee assignments. So I later thanked Dave Brody for his help, but he never acknowledged that he had done the job.
Embedded Lobbyists.
It is difficult to describe how deep into the U.S. Government the Israel Lobby is embedded, but occasionally signs of the depth of its penetration become obvious. I can cite two instances where it was more than obvious.
I received a call one day from a career State Department diplomat, someone I had met during a trip I had made to the Middle East. He was my “control officer” when I was in Egypt on that trip, the diplomat whose job it was to stay with me during my stay there.
His call came out of the blue, at least two or three years after having met him in Cairo. He sounded both desperate and frantic, telling me he had to come to my apartment to talk to me about something.
When we met, he was totally different than when I had met him in Cairo, then a very suave professional diplomat. The day he came to my apartment he was both nervous and frantic, telling me that someone had to do something about the Israeli Lobby. They were “everywhere” in the State Department, he said, leaning on anyone who had anything to do with the Middle East. By that, he explained, he had witnessed both Lobby representatives and Israeli officials working over U.S. diplomats in every kind of setting, that is, he saw them doing so in restaurants, in State Department offices, virtually everywhere. All he wanted to do, he said, was to stop it, and he didn’t know how. I had to confess that I didn’t either.
I’m not certain that anyone in Washington, D.C. knows the total amount of money and favors our government gives to Israel, largely due to its Lobby. Aside from the several billions of dollars in aid that goes from our Treasury to Israel, there are a great number of top secret contracts that we sign with the Israeli government that could not stand the light of day should they be disclosed. I do remember that our taxpayers funded the “Arrow” air defense system Israel has now to deter incoming rockets and missiles.
I also knew about Israeli Aircraft Industries having an office at the airport in Wilmington, Delaware, presumably to handle air force contracts between Israel and the U.S. government. Why else would there be such an office in Delaware?
Other avenues for the Lobby to Pursue?
After I left the Senate and began practicing law in Washington, D.C. I was retained by a very wealthy Palestinian who had spent a number of years attending schools in the United States. He received a PhD from Columbia University in New York, and had spent a lot of time making money and investing it in real estate in various parts of America, as well as in Europe. He was married to a Palestinian woman and they had two sons, both of whom were born in New York during his schooling there.
My client was building a satisfying life, traveling in Europe and the United States to tend to his business interests, until, one day, he was surprisingly denied entry into the United States. He was accused of being a member of the PLO. Other than all Palestinians considering themselves belonging to the Palestinian liberation movement, he had never done anything that would brand him as a terrorist. He suspected that someone who was an enemy had deliberately told the U.S. government that he was a PLO member, hoping to cause him problems.
This was during the Reagan Administration, so my first move was to hire a Republican law firm to help lobby for a visa for him. He not only had business interests in the United States, but his two sons were both in college here, so not being allowed to come into the U.S. was a decided handicap.
Aside from the law firm charging great amounts of money for whatever time they spent on his case, the lawyer assigned to his case was ultimately never able to get him cleared to enter the U.S. Finally, the lawyer/lobbyist told my client that he had a Jewish partner in the firm who was well connected in Israel, and would be able, he said, to travel to Israel to plead his case and to obtain Israel’s approval for his entry visa into the United States. He was told that the cost would be extra for the service.
My client looked at him, dumbfounded, and to his credit, said that he would prefer not to enter the U.S. if it came to relying on the Israeli government’s intervention to get him a visa.
Heads of states and representatives of 70 countries gathered on Friday 2/24/2012 in Tunisia in what they propagandized as “Friends of Syria Conference”. They came together, each has his own individual agenda different than the others’, yet they all agreed on one common goals; the removal of the present Syrian Bashar al-Assad’s political regime, the division of Syrian society into conflicting sectarian minorities, and the establishment of a new pro-Western/pro-Zionist and anti-Iran/anti-Hezbollah/anti-Palestinian regime similar to those in other Arabic Statelets such as Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen and other Gulf States.
Frustration and helplessness were highly apparent in the speeches and decisions of the major players in this conference. The frustration was due to the failure of Libyanizing Syria, the failure of all political pressures on Syria during the last eleven months, and the failure of Syrian armed militias to gain any popularity within the country and to affect any division within Syrian governmental institutions. The highest frustration came due to their failure of manipulating the United Nations and the Security Council against Syria because of the Russian and Chinese vetoes against any UN resolution attempting to legitimize any foreign military intervention in Syria.
Since its independence from the French mandate in 1946, Syria had marched slowly, though faster than many other Arab states, towards political reforms, human rights, freedom and economical growth. Syria has been governed by a constitution since 1973 unlike many Arab states that are still ruled by oppressive authoritarian absolute familial tribal monarchies such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia who pretend to call for democracy in Syria. Like all other Arab ruling regimes in the region Syria has need for more improvement. Yet foreign induced rebellions and civil wars would bring chaos, destruction, and more authoritarian regimes (Tunisia, Egypt and Libya) rather than steady gradual reform. Syria had moved towards such gradual reform during the last eleven months, further than what most Arab States had gone for the last forty years.
Syria had played a major positive role in the Arab World. It was a major founder of the Arab League in 1945 and had supported many of the Arab causes especially the Palestinian cause. In 1975, Syria got involved in the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war in an attempt to preserve peace. Syrian troops left Lebanon in April 2005, allowing the Lebanese to form their own independent government. Syria and Iran supported Hezbollah’s struggle against Israeli occupation of Lebanon until liberation in 2000 when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. In 2006, Israeli aggressed Southern Lebanon in an attempt to wipe out Hezbollah; some Arab States stood utterly silent while Qatar and Saudi Arabia cheered on, but Syria kept arming Hezbollah and hosted thousands of Lebanese refugees. Syria had also hosted around two million Iraqi refugees after the 2003 American occupation and destruction of Iraq. When Israel sent all its military might in December 2008 to destroy the already besieged, impoverished, and hungry Gaza, Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia cheered on again; Gaza Palestinians and the democratically elected Hamas did not receive help from any Arab state except Syria.
Although Syria accepted, and joined in, the American alleged fight against global terrorism (Al-Qaeda), its leaders had rejected and opposed the American New Middle East Project bringing on itself American anger. This anger intensified when Syria joined Iran in military and economical alliance. This alliance brought on also the hostility of Gulf States notably Saudi Arabia and the American base host, Qatar.
Syria has been a main resistance and oppositional front against the Zionist expansionist dream, a major opponent to the American hegemonic plans for the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, and an important ally to Iran that is considered a major enemy by USA and Israel. To get rid of Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel needs to weaken Syria. To control the oil-rich Gulf region the USA needs to get to Iran through Syria. There arose, therefore, in the West a decision to destroy the Syrian secular state, to divide it into smaller conflicting sectarian regions, to displace or co-opt the Syrian national elite, and eventually to install a pro-Western/pro-Zionist regime similar to that in Qatar and Saudi Arabia or at least an American-compliant Islamic republic similar to that in Tunisia and Egypt. Qatar and Saudi Arabia became the instruments used to manipulate the Arab League towards regime change in Syria.
Since Syria is free from American domination (it does not depend on American financial aid, does not buy weapons from any Western country, and it is not dependent on any Western economy or trade agreement), it becomes very difficult for any Western interference to affect a regime change. So a sinister plan was put together to urge Syrians to revolt against their government. This plan was called “Arab Spring”. It was hoped that Syrians would be encouraged to revolt against their government after witnessing the seemingly successful revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.1
To avoid the fate of Libya, the Syrian regime hastened to speed up reform. The regime lifted the state of emergency right away, declared measures for reform, cooperated with the mandates of the Arab League to the surprise of other Arab leaders, allowed Arab observers in the country, and called for dialogue with the opposition within Syria and later in Russia, and finally introduced a new, more democratic constitution and offered it to the masses for a referendum. The majority of the Syrian people countered the anti-regime demonstrations with massive pro-regime demonstrations. But the protesters and the movers behind them have evidently much more far-reaching goals in mind. They had refused all the compromising gestures offered by the regime, and demanded regime change before any dialogue. I wonder whom are they going to engage in dialogue with if the regime is not there!
When demonstrations did not gain popularity, the extremists of the opposition were pushed towards forming what is called Free Syrian Army (FSA) to commit violent acts, whose objective is to draw in armed security forces including the deployment of tanks and armored vehicles in order to give the Security Council the justification of foreign military intervention under NATO’s “Responsibility to Protect” mandate. Sophisticated weapons were smuggled in through Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The FSA attacked government institutions, police and army personnel, murdered some demonstrators, and bombed facilities and infrastructure in order to accuse security forces of these acts. Some were trained and armed by Qatari, Turkish, and British special operations units, who have been fighting in Homs alongside the rebels. Captured Turkish officers confessed to being trained in Israel according to Syrian MP Khaled el-Abbod. Members of the Turkish Parliament Human Rights Committee declared that Syrian militias are being trained in guerilla warfare in camps in Antioch, Turkey. The unfortunate FSA were not a match for the well-trained and well-equipped Syrian security forces. Some of them got killed in battle, others were captured, and many of them are now dropping weapons and surrendering to the army. Their leaders are urging their foreign operatives to seek a cease-fire, thus we witnessed the so-called Friends of Syria Conference calling for a cease-fire to allow alleged humanitarian aid to reach needy civilians (militias).
It is important to recognize that the Syrian opposition is comprised of at least two major factions: the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC). The SNC, whose leaders are outside of Syria in Europe and the US, was established in Istanbul, Turkey and seems to be the driving force behind the Free Syrian Army. It calls for the immediate and non-negotiable end of Bashar el-Assad’s regime and the establishment of a western-style democracy. The SNC calls for and welcomes Western intervention, and many of its leaders had openly called for Western and even Israeli military intervention. The SNC is supported by many Western countries and has been recognized on February 24 as “a, but not the only, representative” of the Syrian people.
The NCCDC, which was formed at a congress in Damascus, is largely based inside Syria with few members abroad. It is more moderate in its oppositional approach than the SNC. The NCCDC is strongly opposed to Western intervention although it is open to Arab intervention. It believes that the best solution to the Syrian crises is through dialogue with the Syrian regime in order to achieve a peaceful transition to a democratic rule. Although the NCCDC had, initially, sent a delegation to what is called the “Friends of Syria” conference it boycotted the conference criticizing it of hijacking the will of the Syrian people through imposing and legitimizing who represents the people, and of escalating calls for military intervention.
The Friends of Syria Conference was doomed to failure since the planning. Thousands of Tunisians picketed the conference calling it “Friends of Israel” conference, denouncing the attendees, and chanting for Syria. Saud bin-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, withdrew from the conference complaining of its inefficiency because it did not support his call for foreign military intervention to protect the Syrian people by ousting al-Assad’s regime. His hypocrisy is so apparent in his oppressive absolute familial monarchy that is murdering demonstrators daily in Qatif and Awamiyah demanding justice, freedom, and democracy. Saudi Interior Ministry’s Prince Naif bin Abdulazziz described these demonstrators as terrorists and threatened to use an iron fist against them. Close to 25% of Saudis, according to official consensus, are living under the poverty line; a scandalous fact in a super rich oil-producing country, where all citizens could live leisurely had their rulers not horded the oil revenue for themselves. (Check youtube’s poverty in Saudi Arabia). Saudi’s alleged support for democracy does not appear in its sending the Peninsula Shield Forces to savagely murder freedom-seeking Bahraini peaceful demonstrators. Saudi’s sympathy for other Arab citizens was not apparent when its leaders cheered on Israeli troops attacking South Lebanon in 2006 and in late 2008 when Israeli phosphorous bombs rained on helpless hungry Palestinian children in Gaza Strip.
Thrown by Syria’s cooperation with the mandates of the Arab League and by the failure of his financing of terrorist armed militias (Free Syrian Army) and their recent calls to be saved from the attacks of the Syrian army by demanding a cease-fire, Hamad bin Jassim, the Prime Minister of Qatar, called for safe passage in Syria for what he claimed to be humanitarian aid to needy Syrian people, a ploy he used in the past in Libya’s case to smuggle weapons and to justify NATO’s military intervention. He also called for the formation of a joint international and Arab military force to intervene in Syria. It is known to many that Qatar, the host of the largest American base, has been playing a major pro-American/pro-Zionist role in the region. This role could be seen in the destruction of Libya, in oppressing the Bahraini freedom-seeking demonstrators, in arming the so-called Free Syrian Army, and lately in manipulating the Palestinian (Fatah/Hamas) reconciliation efforts. According to Al’alam TV reports, Saudi Prince Talal bin-Abdulaziz, the brother of Saudi king Abdullah bin-Abdulaziz, has exposed a Zionist-Qatari conspiracy to subdivide Saudi Arabia into smaller chunks, to destroy Syria and its regime, and to designate a part of Saudi northern desert as refugees camp-ground for Palestinians who will be evicted from occupied Palestine. It is worth noting here that the internet is full of pictures of Hamad bin Jassim and his absolute monarch Hamad bin Khalifa warmly shaking hands with Israeli criminal leaders such as Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni.
The Tunisian position had caused some French and Qatari resentment even days before the conference convened. Tunisia wanted to invite, in particular, Russia and China, stating that without them the conference would have no real value. Also Tunisia, alongside Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan, rejected Qatar’s request to recognize the SNC as the only legitimate representative of Syrians. At the opening of the conference, Moncef Marzouki, the Tunisian president, rejected the idea of any military intervention in Syria and called for the formation of an Arab-only peace keeping force in Syria accompanied by political efforts to convince al-Assad to leave the country by offering him judicial immunity and political asylum, such as in Russia.
The Western countries, including the USA, have not yet found a suitable heir to al-Assad. Therefore, none of them is volunteering any of its troops as a peace keeping force or calling for any military solution. They wanted to spare their troops by having a Libyan-style civil war where Arabs fight Arabs. The contrasting division between the different Syrian oppositional groups was not encouraging either. The only things they could offer are accusations of, and warnings to the al-Assad regime. President Obama threatened that he would use “every tool available to stop the slaughter in Syria,” calling for further international pressure on al-Assad’s regime. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had nothing to offer except false predictions that al-Assad’s regime is getting closer to collapse. Obama and Clinton left it to pro-Zionist senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman to call for “tangible actions” to be taken, such as providing Syrian opposition (SNC and its FSA) with weapons, intelligence tools, and aerial drone surveillance to “ensure that the Syrian people have the means to protect themselves against their attackers”.
Meanwhile al-Assad’s regime is moving along with political and social reforms. A draft of a new constitution was offered to the people in a referendum to be voted on Sunday 2/26. This draft deletes Article 8 of the old constitution stating that the Ba’ath party is the only ruling party in the country. It also offers a state system based on political pluralism, multiple political parties, political rule exercised through democratic vote, and assures the independence and free functions of executive, judicial and legislative powers. It also provides that society will be based on solidarity and respect for the principles of social justice, freedom, equality and preservation of human dignity of every individual, and that citizens have equal right and duties without discrimination based on sex, origin, language, religion or creed. It also ensures the freedom of press and publications as well as the independence of the media. Similarly, women are provided all opportunities that will enable them to contribute fully and effectively in all avenues of the country including political, economic, social, and cultural life.
Most importantly, the new constitution also stipulates that the presidency will be open to candidates above 40 years old who will be elected by universal and secret elections, with a seven-year term limit, with the option for a second term only if voters deem it worthy.
Despite calls for boycotting the referendum, by 5:00 pm Syria time it was estimated that between 70-75% of the population had a taste of their new democratic right to vote. Peaceful achievement of democracy is triumphing in Syria.
Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala and now living in the US. He can be reached at: eakleh@ca.rr.com.
The film addresses the story of Israel’s illegal appropriation of Palestinian land and water resources in the Jordan Valley since 1967 and how Israeli policies, historically and through the present day, seek to minimise the number of Palestinians in the area’.
As the news spread, everyone went out to the streets. Students left their classrooms and rushed to the streets. Employees left their offices and rushed to the streets. Workers and farmers stopped working and rushed to the streets. Everyone left whatever they were doing and rushed to the streets. You could hear the anger in the chants that echoed in the streets of Nablus, Bethlehem, Acca, Um Il-Fahim and Gaza. You could smell the anger in the tens of burning tires that appeared out of nowhere in almost every street, at the entrance to every village, every town, every refugee camp and every city in occupied Palestine. You could see the anger in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands that marched in the streets of Jenin, Yaffa, Ramallah, An-Nasreh and Rafah. Spontaneous demonstrations spread across occupied Palestine. Men, women, young, old, all marched towards Israeli checkpoints, armed with stones, armed with the flag of Palestine, armed with the love of Jerusalem, armed with the love of Palestine.
In Ramallah, in Bethlehem, in An-Nasreh, in Um Il-Fahim, in Heborn, in Haifa, in Yaffa, in An-Naqab, in Gaza, in Rafah, in Jenin, in Al-Lydd, in every village, in every refugee camp and in every town Palestinians marched. The news had spread like fire, and not only in occupied Palestine. In the Arab world protesters came out to the streets, they were marching, angry, roaring and burning the blue and white flag that symbolizes Injustice and Terror. Palestinian flags were on every rooftop, and a sea of red, black, green and white marched in every Arab capital from the ocean to the gulf, towards one point, with one destination on their minds. Elsewhere in the world, groups of justice-supporters gathered to protest in squares, in front of Zionist embassies, in front of American embassies and in front of the UN offices. The time has come for the world to regain its conscience, to find its voice and to declare that enough was enough. The time for justice has come!
PA and PLO officials sit in their offices, follow the events on TV screens, hear the roaring voices that penetrate the thick walls of the imperial palace. They know that they could do nothing and say nothing to stop the waves of marchers. They know that their negotiations-till-death policy has come to an end and wondered if it was still possible to cross the bridge and leave occupied Palestine before the borders were closed and things got even worse. They looked at each other and realized that the days of Israeli VIP-permits were over, that the days of being treated as “kings” and welcomed on red carpets all over the world were over, that the days of trading the blood of Palestine for US dollars and European Euros and all other currencies were over. They realized that even if they send their American-trained “security forces”, they could never stop the anger, the outrage, the marching masses. And while some PA officials took turns in appearing on TV stations and fanatically demanding international action and begging the US to intervene, to protect them and poor little Israel from the marching waves, others, still hoping that the PA will survive this one, said that its Israel’s way of dragging the Palestinians into violence, replaying the usual record: “we shouldn’t be fools enough to fall into the Israeli trap. With such an action they want to drag us into a new cycle of violence, we should just go back to our homes and not give them a chance to drag us into violence”. Yes, the same old record, played over and over and over: “don’t react to Israeli terror, don’t defend yourself, don’t show your anger, don’t show your outrage, don’t protest the occupation, don’t shout, don’t frown, don’t breath, don’t live or they will accuse us of existing.”
The Arab League remains blind, deaf and mute, as it is always when it comes to Palestine. It remains silent, silent that you can hear the crickets in its billion-dollar ballrooms otherwise known as conference rooms, the same rooms that only become noisy when Arab emperors and caliphs gather to legitimize another Nato invasion of an Arab country under various names. Arab emperors and caliphs send their armies, who are only programmed to oppress their own people, to the street to prevent the people from protesting. They decide not to make any official comments on the events and to wait till the storm passes or cools down or at least till after their armies force the people off the streets and impose curfews everywhere. They sit in their palaces and hope, that despite the gravity of what had happened that morning, that it will pass away and become nothing more than a mere memory, just another day to hold fiery speeches and swear to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem, just another day to commemorate like every other catastrophe that befell the Palestinians. As they watch the crowds, they wonder if maybe, just maybe, this time it will be different. But, they comfort themselves with the fact that after a month or two, to clam things and shut up any protesting voices still to be heard, they will meet, and pledge a million dollars here and a million dollars there to repair what they know can never be repaired. Yes, they will throw a few crumbs at the PA in return for its silence and in return for its iron fist over its people, for in this new world order there is no place for “chaos”, no place for “disorder”, no place for Palestinians demanding their rights, no place for Palestine. And with the crumbs of the oil-dynasties, the PA will replace the demolished homes with sardine-cans in newly established refugee camps, they will replace the destroyed fields with enslavement in labour camps or so-called industrial zones, they will replace Palestinian aspirations with Zionist dictations, they will replace Palestinian identity with one that will suit their masters, they will replace Palestine with a Zionist entity and they will tell the Palestinians: you’ll get your salary at the end of the month, so shut up or else!
The European Union members, after numerous telephone calls between Tel Aviv and Berlin, Tel Aviv and London, Tel Aviv and Paris, Tel-Aviv and every European capital, finally at the end of the day, issue a statement saying that what has happened has happened, in other words: so what, another minor catastrophe that befell the Palestinians, just add it to the list! They will add that, nonetheless, what had happened does not serve the peace process, that both parties should do their utmost to prevent the escalation of violence and that the Palestinian leadership should restrain its people. They will stress, again and again, and again, in all possible languages, that negotiations are the only solution to the conflict, and will advise both parties to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible, so as not to give a chance to anyone who wants to destroy the peace process. And in telephone calls with Ramallah, the leaders of Berlin, London, Paris and every other European capital will order Al-Muqata’a to do whatever is needed to calm the situation, to enforce calm, or else there won’t be any Euro-Transfers at the end of the month. They plan meeting the following week to condemn what had happened, albeit in a very soft tone lest Israeli leaders be offended or hurt by the condemnation. And upon demands of certain European capitals, who have gladly appointed themselves as the Zionist entity’s ambassadors in Europe, the EU decides to add a harsh condemnation of the violent Palestinian protests in reaction to Israel’s action, just to make the statement to Israeli leaders liking. Better still, they decide to let Israeli leaders word the statement, so as to make sure it’s agreeable to the Zionist entity and that it follows the acceptable general line of blaming the victim.
Meanwhile, the White House spokesperson replies to journalists’ questions on the events in occupied Palestine and elsewhere in the world with: both Israelis and Palestinians must restrain themselves, and stresses five or six times in a 2-minute-statement that the US government stands with Israel. Zionist-financed US media outlets race to report on Palestinians out in the streets in the hundreds of thousands and how the unarmed Palestinian marchers endanger the lives of the fully-armed Israeli occupation soldiers at the checkpoints. They report how the tiny, poor, vulnerable, surrounded-by-a-sea-of-monsters, Jewish, democratic, light-unto-nations, little nuclear island of Israel is under attack again by its 20+ uncivilized, hate-filled neighbours. They report how Anti-Semitism, disguised as criticism of the Zionist entity and its crimes, is on a record rise and how the crowds everywhere in occupied Palestine and in the Arab world are burning the blue and white flag of racial superiority.
The leaders and spokespersons of the Zionist entity do what they do best: they appear on TV screens, whine and shed tears, whine again, mention the word holocaust a thousand times within 5 minutes, tell the story of little Israel rising against all odds as a shining star amidst the surrounding darkness. They explain, while more tears fall, how the desert starting to bloom and the Jordan River started yielding milk and honey after the first Zionist set foot in the empty barren land called Palestine. They whine a little bit more, and describe how the Zionist entity was attacked again and again by evil Arabs and how the democratic little island, the tiny bit of a peace-worshiping nation, the world most law-abiding entity, is surrounded by monsters, by terrorists, by invaders. Then the leaders of the Zionist entity, together with their agents in the US and Europe, demand that the world protect the existence of poor little Israel, with its nuclear weapons and its fifth strongest army in the world, which is threatened by the angry marchers, in occupied Palestinian and elsewhere, who are demanding freedom, justice, an end to Zionism and a return of all Palestinian refugees to a free Palestine from the River to the Sea.
World media outlets, including Arab media, financed with Zionist and oil-money, count the number of Israelis injured emotionally, – but no need to mention that fact – by the sight of Palestinians marching in the streets of occupied Palestine. They count the number of car tires that are burning and “polluting” the air over Israeli settlements and preventing the fully-armed settler snipers from hunting down the marching unarmed Palestinians. They count the number of stones flying towards armoured bulldozers and tanks and “threatening” the lives of Israeli soldiers inside them. They count the number of songs, slogans and poems the Palestinians sing and shout as they march and decide that singing for freedom and legitimate rights is “anti-Semitic” and a “threat to the Zionist entity’s existence”. They measure the volume of the protesters’ voices and declare that the songs are weapons of mass destruction since their volume is capable of destroying whole settlements. But these world and Arab media outlets, somehow fail to mention one word about the tear gas canisters that are fired directly inside Palestinian homes or those fired directly at the heads and chests of unarmed Palestinian protesters. They fail to mention one word about the Palestinians who are being hunted down by Israeli snipers close to checkpoints and elsewhere. They fail to mention why these Palestinians are marching and to what place they are marching.
The protests grow stronger with every passing minute, with every passing hour. Palestinians old and young, men and women, all marching towards one point, throwing stones, burning tires, defying the fully-armed Israeli occupation soldiers at checkpoints. And as they march, they break the barriers that prevented them from reaching the heart of Palestine, the walls start falling down, the checkpoints and the roadblocks are removed. They continue to march towards that one point. And when they reach their destination, they stand and ask themselves: how did we allow this to happen? They stand speechless in front of the nightmare that befell them:
After decades of Israeli deliberate excavations and diggings underneath Al-Aqsa mosque, after decades of weakening the foundations of Al-Aqsa, after decades of planning to demolish, remove and erase one of the few last remaining symbols of a Palestinian Jerusalem, one of the last few remaining symbols that defies the myth and the Zionist dream of an exclusively Jewish Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa fell down.
What I just described is one possible scenario of what will happen to Al-Aqsa, because, unless we finally act and do something to prevent it instead of only talking about doing something, Al-Aqsa will one day be a mere memory. Almost every week we read reports from experts, architects, specialists who warn of what is to come. And even without these warnings, we don’t need a crystal ball or a cup of coffee to tell us what will happen: considering that the Israelis have been digging and building tunnels beneath Al-Aqsa compound since the Naksa of 1967, it is only a matter of time when the last pillar now holding Al-Aqsa will fall and bring the mosque down.
source: google images
The diggings, construction work and attacks on Al-Aqsa are part of the on-going ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and its Judaization. This includes taking over the Noble Sanctuary. The Zionists are not interested in Al-Aqsa, they want it removed, want it to disappear. They want an exclusively Jewish Jerusalem, and one main target is to turn the Noble Sanctuary into a modern-day Jewish temple; Palestinian neighbourhood around the Noble Sanctuary are being ethnically cleansed to make place for Jewish theme parks, occupation of Palestinian homes in the old city by Zionist colonists is on a rise, Muslim sites adjacent to the Noble Sanctuary are being confiscated and declared ancient Jewish sites, Zionist religious groups are allowed into the Noble Sanctuary to perform Jewish rituals and prayers. But while some Zionist organizations campaign for the destruction of Al-Aqsa and building the “Third Temple” in its place, others have their eyes fixed on the Dome of the Rock and want it turned into a synagogue. Jews consider the location of the “Foundation stone” as the site of the “Holy of Holiest”, and many scholars and rabbis believe it to be in the raised platform on which the Dome of the Rock is built. On one printer’s mark, the Temple is depicted as the Dome of the Rock.[1] Praying and performing Jewish religious rituals in the Noble Sanctuary compound are intended to make way for a division and a later complete take-over of the compound, in a scenario very similar to what they did with the Ibrahim mosque, where today Palestinians have control over only 10% of the mosque and the rest has been turned into a synagogue and other Jewish facilities. The Zionists had their eyes on the Ibrahimi mosque for a longtime, but it wasn’t until the Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre on 25.02.1994, and killed at least 29 Palestinian worshippers while praying in the mosque, that the Zionist entity saw its chance to steal the Ibrahimi. Following the massacre, the Ibrahimi mosque was closed in the face of Palestinians worshippers for 8 months, and only reopened with new measures that included dividing the mosque physically between the indigenous Palestinian population and the Zionist colonists who got the control over the larger part of the mosque and Judaized it. In addition, tough security arrangements have been imposed on Palestinian worshippers: the number of Palestinian worshippers allowed into the mosque is determined by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF); they decide who enters, how many and when, while fanatic Zionists can enter and leave the mosque as they wish and when they wish. On Jewish holidays, the Ibrahimi is closed to Muslims and the Zionists have the right to use the whole mosque, and countless are the times when Israeli occupation forces prevent the calling of the prayer from the Ibrahimi mosque.
And when one of these scenarios becomes a reality, we will cry over our loss, we will be outraged, will march, will revolt, will look at each other and ask ourselves: how did we allow things to reach this point? We will turn to everyone for answers, for actions. And we will blame everyone for not acting earlier, for not doing everything possible to save Al-Aqsa, for not liberating Jerusalem and Palestine, for allowing this to happen when we had often been warned, and we ourselves warned that this will happen one day.
We will look at Arab emperors and caliphs and blame them for doing nothing to liberate Palestine. But why should we expect them to do anything for Palestine when they never cared about Palestine, so why should they care about Jerusalem or about the Noble Sanctuary? I don’t expect them to do anything to liberate Palestine because I have learned over the last few decades that you should never expect someone who handed you over to your killer to come and save you one day. I don’t expect them to do anything to liberate Palestine because I have learned that those who divided and sold Palestine the first time, will sell Palestine a second and a third and a fourth time without a wink of the eye. I don’t expect them to do anything to liberate Palestine because I don’t expect someone who is enslaved and accepts it to come and free me. I don’t expect them to do anything to liberate Palestine because I don’t expect those who watched for 60+ years as Jerusalem was being usurped and did nothing to stop the tears of Al-Aqsa, or stop the bloodshed in the courtyard of the Noble Sanctuary to finally wake up and find their dignity and courage. I don’t expect those who welcome imperialists and Zionists in their lands, those who donate their lands and wealth to colonial powers while their people hunger and those who put their hands in the hands of Zionists and imperialists to understand what dignity is, what steadfastness is, what freedom is, what homeland is, what Palestine is. I don’t expect them to do anything to liberate Palestine because they are partners in the crimes of Zionism.
We will look at Europeans and Americans emperors and lords and blame them for doing nothing to stop Zionist terrorism. But why should we expect them to do anything for Palestine when they never cared about Palestine or about Palestinian lives? I don’t expect them to do anything to stop Zionist terrorism because they were the ones who promised to build a Zionist racist terrorist entity in my homeland and planted it in the heart of the Arab world. I don’t expect them to do anything to stop Zionist terrorism because they are the ones who built the Zionist entity over the bodies of the Palestinian people, over the bones and the blood of the Palestinian people, over the homes of the Palestinian people. I don’t expect them to do anything to stop Zionist terrorism because they fund the Zionist entity that is massacring us, they provide it with the weapons to kill us, to oppress us. I don’t expect them to do anything to stop Zionist terrorism because while they speak non-stop of human rights, while they champion the human rights of every other nation, they ignore ours, they deny us our rights and deny us the right to defend ourselves and to struggle for freedom. I don’t expect them to do anything to stop Zionist terrorism because they are partners in the crimes of Zionism.
I don’t expect any of them to support justice for Palestine because they helped create the Zionist entity, they are partners in the crime being committed against Palestine and the Arab people since over 63 years.
I don’t expect them to do anything, so I don’t blame them, I blame us! I blame us because it is our land, our home, our Palestine and we shouldn’t wait for colonial powers or their obedient servants to come and liberate our land for us!
On the morning of 08.10.1990, and after calls from fanatic Jewish organizations some, 200,000 fanatic Zionist Jews marched to the Noble Sanctuary to place the foundation stone of the “Third Temple”. Thousands of Palestinians from Jerusalem and the rest of occupied Palestine gathered in the Noble Sanctuary to protect their holy places. Israeli occupation soldiers and armed fanatic colonists shot randomly at the unarmed Palestinians, killing at least 17 and injuring some 900 (Al-Aqsa massacre). This was only one of many attempts by fanatic Zionist terrorists to storm the Noble Sanctuary with the aim of damaging the compound, or even blowing up Al-Aqsa. And although during the hundreds of registered attacks, the IOF always gave cover to and protected the Jewish attackers and participated in the massacres committed by these fanatic Zionists against unarmed Palestinians, Palestinians from everywhere always rushed to protect the Noble Sanctuary, and attempts by Jewish extremists were often prevented by hundreds, by thousands of Palestinians who would leave their work, their school, their homes and rush to protect their holy places, their symbols. Any attack on Al-Aqsa was considered an attack on all of Palestine, on every Palestinian, on the heart of Palestine.
And today…
Every day we hear that new housing units will be built for the illegal Zionists colonizing Jerusalem.
Every day we hear that Israeli occupation forces and police attack villages, worshippers, farmers in Jerusalem.
Every day we hear that the Israeli occupation army is constructing walls and roadblocks to isolate Jerusalem.
Every day we hear that another Palestinian home was demolished in Jerusalem.
Every day we hear that another Palestinian was forced to demolish his own home in Jerusalem.
Every day we hear about Palestinian land being confiscated in Jerusalem.
Every day we hear that new Jewish-only roads are built on confiscated Palestinian land.
Every day we hear that Palestinian fields are destroyed in Jerusalem.
Every day we hear of plans to demolish Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem to build Jewish theme parks.
Every day we hear about Palestinians being expelled from Jerusalem, their birthplace and home.
Every day we hear that Zionist colonizers enter the Noble Sanctuary, tour it, conduct rituals.
Every day we hear that Israeli occupation soldiers, fanatic members of the Zionist Knesset “tour” the Noble Sanctuary and distribute posters of Jerusalem with a temple in place of Al-Aqsa.
Every day we hear of new cracks and collapses in the streets of the Old City, in Silwan and around Al-Aqsa.
Every day we hear of new tunnels and new diggings beneath the Noble Sanctuary, especially beneath Al-Aqsa.
Every day we hear of how Israel is destroying our Jerusalem, the heart of Palestine, and ethnically cleansing it.
Every day we hear all this and do very little and say we did something, we talk about it and we say we did something. We do nothing. While the Zionists continue the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, Jerusalem has become but a mere slogan raised during rallies, a song in a march, a mere name to be added to a wish-list, a bargaining chip during negotiation rounds.
While Jerusalem is drowning in the Zionist project of disfiguring the city and changing it into one large biblical park, we hear Fateh and Hamas talking about “unity”, new government and new titles and watch as they go on regional and world tours, being welcomed as heroes, as revolutionaries, when Palestine is still occupied, when Jerusalem is still under daily threat, when Zionist colonial activities continue to destroy the Palestinian landscape. Those who claim to represent us, from the various factions, are busy touring countries and collecting money in our name, money we never see but is the price for our silence and our little action, if any action at all. Our only worry has become the budget, the aid, the salary and whether it will be paid in time. Our only struggle has become to get funds for our ministries, the thousands over thousands of NGOs, and the hundreds over hundreds of resistance groups and committees. Yes, even popular resistance has become a business, in some cases even a private family business and a ticket to quick “fame”. So what makes us think that we are better? Because we condemn more often? Even our voice for Jerusalem has become weaker and weaker. Yes, many Palestinians are not allowed into Jerusalem, but are we to wait for the full Judiazation of our beloved Jerusalem, the birthplace of many of us who aren’t allowed into the city anymore? Are we to watch as the heart of Palestine vanishes and transforms into something that is alien to us, and then cry over what once was? I don’t want to read about my Jerusalem from books and memoires and historians as we read about Palestinian Beisan and Palestinian Tabaria. They have already erased over 80% of original Jerusalem and transformed it into residential suburbs for European colonists, malls and natural parks that are built on the remains of our villages, on the graves of our ancestors, on the bones of our grandparents. The Zionist entity has managed to isolate Jerusalem, and to an extent remove it from our agendas and the agendas of those who claim to represent us or the agendas of those who claim to support us. Reducing Jerusalem to a slogan, to a song, to a prayer will not liberate Jerusalem.
And when the PA started talking about so-called “land-exchange” as an option “in the interest of peace”, we did nothing. And when the PA stopped talking about “land-exchange” as an option, and started treating it as a fact, as a reality, as a Palestinian demand, we kept silent. And while it is the Zionist colonists who are refusing to give up one inch of Jerusalem, the PA is the one willing to give up every bit of Jerusalem, and leave us with Abu Dees as Al-Quds, for the sake of a prison within a prison. And we remain silent. Those who remember Jerusalem when it suits them or when their complicity in and their silence over Zionist crimes become too damning are not the guardians of Jerusalem, are not the representatives of the Palestinian people and will never be.
It is only when the “PA” tries in vain to cover up its complicity in Zionist crimes that it finally remembers there is a Jerusalem and calls for Palestinians to “direct their eyes and their efforts towards the –forgotten- Jerusalem”. It is only with the exposure of “PA” scandals that it finally remembers Jerusalem and calls Palestinians “not to forget the holy city”. And when Jerusalem cries out for help, it is the ”PA” that is only second to the Zionist entity in trying to silence that cry. And when the Israeli aggression on Jerusalem intensified and when the city cried blood, it was the “PA” who prevented demonstrations in support of Jerusalem and prohibited any signs of solidarity with the city, the future capital of the Palestinian state they keep fervently talking about, it was the “PA” who prevented any protest against the Israeli occupation they keep saying they want to free us from. And when Jerusalem cried out for help and Palestinians everywhere in occupied Palestine rushed to answer its call, it was the thugs of the “PA” who stood as a wall of shame between Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine, and it was one PA “official” who was quoted saying: “if they want to demonstrate for Jerusalem, let them go there, there will be no demonstrating here.” (This was said while they were preventing people from reaching the checkpoints). As if Jerusalem is in another continent, or another galaxy. As if Jerusalem wasn’t the heart of Palestine. In fact, this PA official was actually saying things as they are: the PA’s duty is to protect the “borders” of the Zionist entity, and according to the PA, Jerusalem was “there” and not “here”, as in: Jerusalem is not in PA territory, so it’s not our business what happens there; You want to protest, go there. You want to liberate Jerusalem, go there! He was saying the reality of what the PA considers “ours” and what is to be part of the “future Palestinian state” and what the PA considers “theirs” and what is to be sold to the Zionists. And when the PA decides that Palestinians of the West Bank are not allowed to protest in solidarity with Jerusalem in Ramallah or Bethlehem, then it is clear that according to the PA: Jerusalem is to be “theirs”. This is how much they want Jerusalem. This is how much they want the freedom of Jerusalem. This is how much they stand with the people of Jerusalem. Most recently, one official demanded the establishment of a Jerusalem ministry. Yes, as if liberation is achieved behind desks, as if we don’t have enough corruption-infested ministries, as if we don’t have enough money being stolen in the name of the Palestinian people. Will a “ministry” liberate Jerusalem? Did any of the ministries liberate one inch of Palestine? Did the whole cabinet liberate one inch of Palestine? Or were these ministries just swamps for corruption, nepotism, favouritism, you just name it. As if more employees sitting behind desks doing nothing will liberate Palestine, as if an extra minister, a couple of director generals and directors will liberate Jerusalem. What will the titles of these new posts be? The minister of Jerusalem? Which part of Jerusalem? The General Director of Abu Dees? The General Director of Al-Aqsa?
source: palestineremembered.com
I remember once on social networks when one Diaspora Palestinian commented that he doesn’t really care if Al-Aqsa is destroyed, adding that it is only a building and that we shouldn’t give it much attention. A number of non-Palestinian solidarity activists agreed with what he was saying. I could only shake my head at how everything, every single thing that is our symbol, our right, our identity, has become in one way or another “not really that important”, and all you hear is the talk about “morality”, a discussion initiated by Israeli “activists”, as if the only way to show we are “morally equivalent” to the “civilized world” is when we say adieu to our national identity, adieu to our national constants, adieu to our inalienable rights, adieu to our resistance, whether armed or popular and as we define it and as we see it, adieu to us being Palestinians, because according to some it should only be about rights, about morality, about us all being humans. Yes, we are all humans, we all have legitimate rights, we all should be treated equally as we are all born equal, but I don’t see anyone, except us the Palestinians, being asked to give up our aspirations, our identity, our legitimate rights “to prove our morality and humanity”. We are to give up everything that defines us, everything that defies the lies of the Zionists. These same Israeli “conditional activists” mention how if they were living under the same oppression as we are, they would never be able to just protest peacefully, and here, according to them, lies our high morality. I wonder how these same “activists” would react were we to decide one day that the experiment of flying balloons and marching in Hollywood costumes isn’t effective in defeating a brutal military occupation, would they still think us “morally equivalent” to their “morality”? The answer to that is as clear as the sun on a summer day in occupied Palestine. And the Zionist entity’s intent on destroying Al-Aqsa should alarm not only Muslim Palestinians, but every Palestinian, every Arab and every justice-seeking person. Because:
1. If buildings don’t matter, as that Diaspora Palestinian claimed and those “solidarity activities” agreed to, then why did the Zionist entity rush to demolish entire Palestinian villages (over 500 villages were wiped off the face of the earth during the Nakba)?
2. If buildings don’t matter, then why did the Zionists rush after the Naksa to demolish more Palestinian villages and entire neighbourhoods in the Old City of Jerusalem? (one example are the three Latroun villages)
3. If buildings don’t matter, then why did the Zionists start digging networks of tunnels underneath Al-Aqsa and continue to do so after 45 years despite finding nothing of what they are so eagerly looking for?
4. If buildings don’t matter, then why did the Zionists build and continue to build Zionist colonies everywhere in occupied Palestine, whether it is in Jerusalem, Al-Jalil or Hebron?
5. If buildings don’t matter, then why do Zionists demolish entire Palestinian communities all over occupied Palestine, whether it is in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley or An-Naqab?
6. If buildings don’t matter, then why do the Zionists prevent Palestinians from building homes, and send their troops to demolish the least sign of a building, whether it is a house, a mosque, a room, a goat barn, even a small shack?
The answer is very simple: Because these buildings, the ones some consider irrelevant and unimportant, connect us to this land. These building expose the lies of Zionism that Palestine was “a land with no people for a people without a land” and that the Zionists “made the desert bloom”. These building expose the lie that this land is an exclusively Jewish island. These building expose the lie that there is nothing called Palestinians, Palestinian culture, Palestinian existence. These building expose the lie that the Palestinians are invented. These buildings, these homes, these villages, these mosques, these churches, these barns, even the stones of the ethnically cleansed villages expose the lies of Zionism and scream: here lived the Palestinians, here live the Palestinians, here the Palestinians will remain.
Note: depending on my free time and on the topic at hand, writing a blog post might take me a day, a few days, or even a few weeks. I started writing this blog post early January, while following up the Israeli actions in Jerusalem and the not-so-surprising silence and blindness of the world and the Arab League.
The ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and its Judaization occurs on a daily basis and with increasing intensity. Not a day passes when there is no confiscation of Palestinian land in Jerusalem, when there is no occupation of Palestinian homes by Zionist colonists, when they is no revocation of Jerusalem IDs of Palestinian Jerusalemites. And with the exception of the very shy “condemnations” here and there, Zionist ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem is accompanied with world silence and complete inaction. It continues with the approval of the US, the EU, the Arab regimes and the complicity of the so-called PA which with every passing day only proves to us that it was only created for the sole reason of providing a sort of “legitimacy” to the sell-out of Palestine and Palestinian rights.
According to Al-Aqsa Foundation, the Israeli high court issued a ruling on 01.02.2012, in which it allowed Gershon Solomon, the leader of the Jewish fanatic terror group “Temple Mount Faithful”, to enter Al-Aqsa. In its ruling the court stated that Jews have the right to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque. Just imagine what will happen if a Muslim entered a synagogue and performed Muslim rituals there. Various sources also reported that proposals were presented to the Zionist municipality of Jerusalem for the establishment of a huge Jewish centre to the east of Al-Aqsa mosque, which is to be built over the ruins of Islamic and Arabic historic buildings that were demolished over the years by the Israeli Antiquities Authority in its useless efforts to prove that the city is exclusively Jewish. In addition, a commercial centre and a parking lot will be built on lands that belong to the Armenian Monastery.
Allowing Jewish rituals in Christian and Muslim religious sites is only one step towards annexing them, declaring them Jewish and turning them into synagogues. And under the guise of protecting Jewish worshippers, Palestinian neighbourhoods surrounding these sites are being ethnically cleansed. In Hebron, complete areas, neighbourhoods and streets are off limits to the Palestinians, and the homes of Palestinians in these areas stand empty. Their residents are either expelled or forced to leave after continuous attacks from the Zionist colonists who are protected by the Israeli occupation army. In the Old city of Jerusalem and its surroundings, whole areas are being ethnically cleansed in the name of the Jewish religion and establishing Jewish theme parks. These actions have only one goal: to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem. In the last couple of years, Israeli occupation soldiers have intensified their so-called “tours” in the Noble Sanctuary and the calls of the fanatic Jewish groups for their followers to storm the Noble Sanctuary and conduct Jewish rituals have become a weekly matter. While writing this blog post, a number of such “tours” and “marches” took place, for example, on 08.02.2012, a group of 26 Israeli occupation soldiers and 12 Israeli intelligence officers “toured” the surrounding of the Dome of the Rock. In a call for their supporters to storm the Noble Sanctuary on 12.02.2012, Likud members declared: “we call on everyone to go the Temple Mount to announce a proper leadership that confirms the full control over the Temple Mount, in order to cleanse this site from the enemy, the land thieves, and to build the Temple on the ruins of mosques.”[2] On 14.02.2012, 29 Israeli occupation soldiers and 44 occupation policemen entered inside the Dome of the Rock for the first time and “toured” it, and when they were asked by one of the mosque guards about the reason for their presence inside the mosque, they replied that it was an “educational tour”. On 19.02.2012, confrontations erupted between Palestinians worshippers and Israeli occupation forces as Zionist colonists attempted to storm Al-Aqsa and perform Jewish rituals there. This attempt came after calls were made by Temple Mount Faithful and other fanatic Jewish groups to storm the mosque in order “to strengthen Jewish sovereignty over it”[3] as they claimed. On 22.02.2012, confrontations erupted when a group of Zionist colonists were escorted by more than 40 Israeli occupation soldiers into the Noble Sanctuary. Another group of 22 female Zionist colonists entered Al-Aqsa later that day, following a call by a fanatic Jewish women’s group to storm Al-Aqsa mosque and pray there. This group also announced that it was planning similar “visits” twice a month.
In a recent study, Al-Aqsa Foundation revealed that during 2011 Al-Aqsa mosque and its surroundings were subjected to 100 attacks and was stormed by 5,000 Zionist colonists. This has been accompanied with an escalation in the number of incursions by Israeli occupation soldiers and intelligence officers. Excavations beneath the Noble Sanctuary and settlement activities around it continue and increase while essential maintenance work inside Al-Aqsa is prohibited by Israel.
A test flight for the Air Force’s Project Banshee, located at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, is set for 8:30 a.m. Banshee is an attempt begun in 1946 to develop and deploy a long-range missile ahead of both the Soviet Union and rival US military branches. The airplane used in the test flight crashes less than an hour into its flight, killing 9 of the 13 aboard. Maintenance Problems – The plane assigned for the flight is a B-29 Stratofortress, a bomber made famous by its delivery of the atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. B-29s are notoriously difficult to fly and maintain: their four wing-mounted engines almost routinely overheat and catch fire, causing engine shutdowns, sudden drops in altitude, and, often, crashes. The engines’ eighteen cylinders lack sufficient airflow to keep them cool, and the overheating often causes the crankcases, made of light but highly flammable magnesium, to burst into flames. Like so many of its brethren, the plane has suffered its share of maintenance issues, and is flying without numerous recommended maintenance and repair tasks being performed. Just five days before, it had been designated “red cross”—grounded and unfit for service. It was allowed to fly through an “exceptional release” signed by the squadron commander. Crew Difficulties – The flight is moved back to the afternoon after some crew members fail to show up on time, and to allow last-minute repairs to be made. By takeoff, the flight crew is assembled: Captain Ralph Erwin; co-pilot Herbert W. Moore; flight engineer Earl Murrhee; First Lieutenant Lawrence Pence, Jr, the navigator; Sergeant Walter Peny, the left scanner; Sergeant Jack York, the right scanner; Sergeant Melvin Walker, the radio operator; and Sergeant Derwood Irvin, manning the bombsight and autopilot. The crew is joined by civilian engineers assigned to Banshee: Al Palya and Robert Reynolds from RCA, William Brauner and Eugene Mechler from the Franklin Institute, and Richard Cox from the Air Force’s Air Materiel Command. In violation of standard procedure, none of the crew or the civilians are briefed on emergency procedures, though Murrhee will later say that the crew were all familiar with the procedures; he is not so sure about the civilians, though he knows Palya and Reynolds have flown numerous test flights before. In another violation of Air Force regulations, none of the flight crew have worked together before. As author Barry Siegel will note in 2008, “The pilot, copilot, and engineer had never shared the same cockpit before.” Engine Fire and Crash – Less than an hour into the flight, one engine catches fire and two others lose power, due to a combination of maintenance failures and pilot errors. The civilians have some difficulty getting into their parachutes as Erwin and Moore attempt to regain control of the aircraft. Four of the crew and civilians manage to parachute from the plane, but most remain on board as the airplane spirals into the ground on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, near Waycross, Georgia. Crew members Moore, Murrhee, and Peny survive, as does a single civilian, Mechler. Four others either jump at too low an altitude or die when their chutes foul the airplane; the other five never manage to leave the plane and die on impact. Widows File Suit – Several of the civilians’ widows will file suit against the US Air Force, asserting that their husbands died because of Air Force negligence (see June 21, 1949). Their lawsuit will eventually become US v. Reynolds, a landmark Supreme Court case and the underpinning for the government’s claims of state secrets privilege (see March 9, 1953). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 3, 14-17, 33-49]
Initial Associated Press reports of a crash in Georgia of a B-29 that had been on a test flight for the Air Force’s secret Project Banshee (see October 6, 1948) acknowledge that “the plane had been on a mission testing secret electronic equipment which RCA developed and built under an Air Force contract… Full details of the plane’s mission were not disclosed.… The Air Force would say only that the bomber was engaged in ‘electronic research on different types of radar…’” Local papers have a bit more detail, with survivor accounts hinting at confusion and some contradictions between their versions of events and that being given out by official Air Force spokesmen. Later reports from the Air Force will downplay the B-29’s involvement in Project Banshee. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 56-58]
The Army Air Force’s Air Materiel Command receives the initial report on an investigation of a B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948). Perceptions of the crash are colored by the fact that the bomber was carrying equipment from Project Banshee, a secret Air Force missile development initiative. The initial report is meticulously factual, providing an almost minute-by-minute account of the events preceding the crash as told by the four survivors and intensive examination of the debris. The report concludes that it would benefit future B-29 pilots to have more training on flying the plane when it has lost both engines on one wing, and a general recommendation that the pilot and crew should give civilian passengers better instruction in emergency procedures. Though the report is circumspect in the extreme in finding fault with the pilot and military personnel for the crash, and gives only vague and generalized recommendations to help prevent future crashes, the Air Force will heatedly deny that the pilots or crew could have been in any way responsible for the crash. In 2008, reporter Barry Siegel will write, “Years later, this particular claim, in fact Air Materiel Command’s entire position, would cause various veteran aviators to hoot.” Pilot error causing the crash is obvious, they will conclude. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 62-65]
Frank Folsom, the executive vice president of the Radio Corporation of America’s RCA Victor Division, writes a letter to General Hoyt Vandenberg, the commander of the US Air Force. Folsom is inquiring about the deaths of two RCA employees in a recent B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948). The plane had been on a secret test mission for the Air Force’s Project Banshee, a missile development project in which RCA is heavily involved. Folsom believes that the Air Force is downplaying the likelihood that pilot error caused the crash (see October 18, 1948), and tells Vandenberg that “certain steps will [need to be taken] if we are to participate in the future in Air Force flight test programs.” Folsom wants more pay and compensation for RCA employees participating in Air Force test programs, as well as newer and safer airplanes to be used in the test flights and a higher caliber of test pilots and crew members. Perhaps the portion of the letter that causes the most consternation among Air Force officials is Folsom’s request to read over the official accident reports. “When a crash has occurred, a copy of the official report… must be made available promptly to us,” he writes. “Needless to say, the report will not be disclosed except to those who are directly concerned.” Folsom’s letter will spark a new round of Air Force investigations into the crash, in hopes of mollifying Folsom. However, the report from this investigation will be classified at the highest level of security and not provided to RCA. Additionally, though the second investigation will find a strong likelihood of pilot error causing the crash, the Air Force will not admit any such findings to RCA. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 65-80] These accident reports will play a key role in the lawsuit filed against the US government by three widows of killed crew members (see June 21, 1949 and August 7-8, 1950).
Phyllis Brauner and Elizabeth Palya, who both lost their husbands in the “Project Banshee” B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948), file a civil action lawsuit against the US government in regards to the crash. The lawsuit claims that the US Air Force, in the person of the pilot and military crew members of the B-29, caused the deaths of their civilian husbands by “the negligence and wrongful acts and omissions of the officers and employees” of the US. The widows’ lawyer, Charles Biddle, asks the government for $300,000 per family. A third widow, Patricia Reynolds, will join the lawsuit in September 1949. One of the biggest issues surrounding the case is the lawsuit’s request that Biddle and his lawyers be given access to the official accident reports, which the government will claim cannot be revealed because they may contain classified information (see October 18, 1948 and August 7-8, 1950). Biddle’s promise that no one else will see the reports makes no impression on the government’s lawyers. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 100-101]
A federal judge orders the Air Force to turn over copies of its classified accident reports about a B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948) as part of a lawsuit filed by three of the widows of crew members killed in the crash (see June 21, 1949). Claiming that the reports may contain classified information about a secret missile development project, Project Banshee, the Air Force not only refuses to turn over the accident reports to the widows’ lawyer, it refuses to allow even the attorney general to view the documents (see August 7-8, 1950). The lawyer for the widows, Charles Biddle, will continue to press for the release of the accident reports. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 120-123]
The Air Force refuses to meet the court-imposed deadline to turn over accident reports of a 1948 B-29 crash in Georgia (see October 6, 1948) to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the government (see July 26, 1950). Instead, the Justice Department argues before the court that because the accident reports might contain “state secrets” that might imperil “national security” if made available to anyone outside the Air Force, the reports cannot be made available. “[T]he aircraft in question, together with the personnel on board, were engaged in a highly secret mission of the Air Force,” the government lawyers argue. “The airplane likewise carried confidential equipment on board and any disclosure of its mission or information concerning its operation or performance would be prejudicial to this department and would not be in the public interest.” Such a claim—that the production of the reports would “seriously hamper national security”—renders the reports “beyond judicial authority,” the Justice Department lawyers claim. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 124-126]
Weeks after the Justice Department refused to make accident reports of a 1948 B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948) available to the plaintiffs in an ongoing wrongful death lawsuit against the government (see July 26, 1950) because the reports are so highly classified that their disclosure might “seriously hamper national security” (see July 26, 1950 and August 7-8, 1950), the Air Force, in a routine review, drastically lowers the classification of the accident reports from top-level “Secret” to third-level “Restricted.” Whereas “Secret” documents supposedly contain information that “might endanger national security” if revealed, “Restricted” documents are “for official use only” and should not be disclosed “for reasons of administrative privacy.” The Air Force apparently no longer considers the documents a threat to national security. However, neither the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the judge hearing the lawsuit, or even the Justice Department lawyers are aware of the reports’ reduction in status. They continue to argue the merits of releasing the reports as if they are still highly classified. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 133]
Federal judge William H. Kirkpatrick rules that the US government must turn over the disputed, and supposedly highly classified (see September 14, 1950), accident reports from a 1948 B-29 crash (see October 6, 1948)—not to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over the crash (see July 26, 1950), but to Kirkpatrick himself. He wishes to review the reports to determine if they contain any information that might threaten national security, and, before turning the documents over to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, will personally remove that information. In mid-October, when the government again refuses to turn over the documents, Kirkpatrick will find in favor of the plaintiffs (see October 12, 1950). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 133-134]
Federal judge William H. Kirkpatrick rules in favor of the plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit against the US government (see October 6, 1948, June 21, 1949, and July 26, 1950), after the government refuses to turn over classified accident reports that have a direct bearing on the plaintiffs’ case (see September 21, 1950). Judge Kirkpatrick orders the government to pay the plaintiffs, three widows who lost their husbands in a 1948 plane crash, a total of $225,000. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Charles Biddle, expects the government to balk at paying out the money, and to instead continue to challenge the court’s attempt to compel it to turn over the accident reports (see October 19, 1951). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 134-139]
The government, represented by a team of Justice Department lawyers, appeals the recent ruling against it in the ‘Banshee’ B-29 plane crash lawsuit (see June 21, 1949). In the Third US Circuit Appeals Court, the government argues that the lower court had no business demanding that the Air Force turn over classified accident reports about the crash, because the reports may contain information that would potentially compromise national security (see October 12-18, 1948 and September 14, 1950). The government had twice defied court orders to produce the documents, and as a result had lost the lawsuit (see October 12, 1950). The Justice Department’s arguments come down to the assertion that the judiciary has no constitutional right to compel the executive branch to turn over documents it considers privileged. In 2008, author Barry Siegel will write, “For the first time in the B-29 litigation, the government directly argued that the judiciary could not review [the government’s] claim of privilege.” The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Charles Biddle, counters that the executive branch has no such sweeping claim of privilege, and that a judge should be allowed to review documents in dispute to determine both their bearing on a case and the possibility that releasing those documents could jeopardize national security (see September 21, 1950). Three weeks later, the appeals court will rule unanimously against the government (see December 11, 1951). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 149-153]
A three-judge federal appeals court unanimously rejects the government’s claim of unfettered executive privilege and secrecy in regards to classified documents (see October 19, 1951). In an opinion written by Judge Albert Maris, the court finds that the government’s claim that the judiciary can never compel the executive branch to turn over classified documents to be without legal merit. The plaintiffs in the case, three widows who lost their husbands in the crash of a B-29 bomber carrying classified materials (see June 21, 1949), had a compelling need for the documents in question, the downed B-29 accident reports, to further their case, Maris writes (see October 12, 1950). No Legal Basis for Claim of Privilege – Maris goes further than the parameters of the single lawsuit, writing: “[W]e regard the recognition of such a sweeping privilege… as contrary to a sound public policy. The present cases themselves indicate the breadth of the claim of immunity from disclosure which one government department head has already made. It is but a small step to assert a privilege against any disclosure of records merely because they might prove embarrassing to government officials. Indeed, it requires no great flight of imagination to realize that if the government’s contentions in these cases were affirmed, the privilege against disclosure might gradually be enlarged… until as is the case in some nations today, it embraced the whole range of government activities.… We need to recall in this connection the words of [Revolution-era jurist] Edward Livingston: ‘No nation ever yet found any inconvenience from too close an inspection into the conduct of its officers, but many have been brought to ruin, and reduced to slavery, by suffering gradual imposition and abuses, which were imperceptible, only because the means of publicity had not been secured.’” He also quotes Revolutionary War figure Patrick Henry, who said, “[T]o cover with the veil of secrecy the common routine of business is an abomination in the eyes of every intelligent man and every friend to his country.” Rejecting Claim of ‘State Secrets’ – Maris is even less respectful of the government’s claim of a “state secrets” privilege. He notes that the government did not make that claim until well into the lawsuit proceedings (see October 19, 1951), indicating that it was a “fallback” argument used after the original government arguments had failed. Maris is also troubled, as author Barry Siegel later writes, in the government’s “assertion of unilateral executive power, free from judicial review, to decide what qualified as secret.” The lower court judge’s ruling that he alone should be given the documents for review adequately protected the government’s security interests, Maris writes: “[But] the government contends that it is within the sole province of the secretary of the Air Force to determine whether any privileged material is contained in the documents and that his determination of this question must be accepted by the district court without any independent consideration.… We cannot accede to this proposition. On the contrary, we are satisfied that a claim of privilege against disclosing evidence… involves a justiciable question, traditionally within the competence of the courts.… To hold that the head of an executive department of the government in a [law]suit to which the United States is a party may conclusively determine the government’s claim of privilege is to abdicate the judicial function to infringe the independent province of the judiciary as laid down by the Constitution.” Fundamental Principle of Checks and Balances – Maris continues: “The government of the United States is one of checks and balances. One of the principal checks is furnished by the independent judiciary which the Constitution established. Neither the executive nor the legislative branch of the government may constitutionally encroach upon the field which the Constitution has reserved for the judiciary.… Nor is there any danger to the public interest in submitting the question of privilege to the decision of the courts. The judges of the United States are public officers whose responsibilities under the Constitution is just as great as that of the heads of the executive departments.” Government Appeal – The Justice Department will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court (see March 1952 and March 9, 1953). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 153-156]
The Justice Department appeals the ruling of the US Appeals Court in the B-29 “Banshee” case (see December 11, 1951). The appellate judges found that the executive branch of government could not unilaterally refuse to hand over classified documents requested during the course of a trial, and justify its decision merely by its own say-so (see October 12, 1950). Solicitor General Philip Perlman argues that the appellate ruling erroneously interprets the law “so as to permit encroachments by the judiciary on an area committed by the Constitution to executive discretion.” The claim of “state secrets,” “executive privilege,” and, ultimately, “national security” must trump judicial concerns, Perlman argues, and he goes on to say that the judiciary should not be allowed to “substitute its judgment for the judgment of the executive.” The case will be labeled United States of America v. Patricia Reynolds, Phyllis Brauner, and Elizabeth Palya, and will usually be shortened to the more colloquial US v. Reynolds. The Vinson Court – In 2008, author Barry Siegel, in his book Claim of Privilege, will note that the recent ascension of Fred Vinson as the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice does not bode well for the plaintiffs in the case. President Truman placed Vinson, whom Siegel calls Truman’s “poker and drinking buddy,” as Chief Justice to try to achieve consensus between the two contentious blocs of justices on the Court. Siegel notes that Vinson is widely considered an intellectual and legal lightweight, with a tendency to take the side of the government on issues in which he lacks a full understanding. Siegel will write that in many instances, Vinson functions “as part of the executive branch.” ‘Dennis’ Case Preview of Court’s Tendency to Favor Executive Branch – Vinson had written the opinion in a 1951 ruling, Dennis et al v. United States, where the Court had upheld a lower court ruling that twelve acknowledged American Communists were sent to jail under the Smith Act—not for breaking the law, but for “teaching and advocating,” in the words of the original indictment. Siegel will call that ruling “the nadir of the Vinson Court.” According to Siegel, the Dennis ruling showed the Court’s predisposition to give the government, and particularly the executive branch, plenty of leeway in its findings in subsequent cases such as Reynolds. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 157-162]
Lawyers make their opening arguments before the Supreme Court in the case of US v Reynolds, the lawsuit that finds the government had no overarching right to unilaterally refuse to deliver classified documents in the course of a wrongful death lawsuit against the government (see December 11, 1951). The government has appealed the appellate court ruling to the Supreme Court (see March 1952). Because four of the nine justices had voted not to hear the case—in essence to let the appellate court ruling stand—the defense is cautiously optimistic about the Court’s decision. Judiciary Has No Right to Interfere with Powers of the Executive, Government Argues – Acting Solicitor General Robert Stern tells the Court that the appellate judges’ decision, written by Judge Albert Maris, “is an unwarranted interference with the powers of the executive,” and that the decision forced the government to choose “whether to disclose public documents contrary to the public interest [or] to suffer the public treasury to be penalized” (a reference to the decision to award the plaintiffs monetary damages—see October 12, 1950). The judiciary “lack[s] power to compel disclosure by means of a direct demand [as well as] by the indirect method of an order against the United States, resulting in judgment when compliance is not forthcoming.” Executive Has No Right to Unilaterally Withhold Information, Defense Counters – Stern’s arguments are countered by those of the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Charles Biddle, who writes, “We could rest our case with confidence on the clear opinion of Judge Maris,” but continues by arguing that if the government asserts a claim of executive privilege on the basis of national security, it must make the documents available to the Court for adjudication, or at least provide enough information for the Court to judge whether the documents present in fact a threat to national security if disclosed. This is particularly true, Biddle argues, “where there is no showing that the documents in question contain any military secret” (Biddle is unaware that the documents’ classification status had been reduced two years before—see September 14, 1950). “The basic question here is whether those in charge of the various departments of the government may refuse to produce documents properly demanded… in a case where the government is a party (see June 21, 1949), simply because the officials themselves think it would be better to keep them secret, and this without the Courts having any power to question the propriety of such decision.… In other words, say the officials, we will tell you only what we think it is in the public interest that you should know. And furthermore, we may withhold information not only about military or diplomatic secrets, but we may also suppress documents which concern merely the operation of the particular department if we believe it would be best, for purposes of efficiency or morale, that no one outside of the department, not even the Court, should see them.” No Basis for Claims of Military Secrets – Biddle argues that because of responses he has received to his demands over the course of this lawsuit, he is relatively sure there are no military secrets contained within them. “[T]he proof is to the contrary,” he says, and goes on to say that had the Air Force disclosed from the outset that the plane crash, the fatal accident that sparked the original lawsuit (see October 6, 1948), was probably caused by pilot error and not by random chance, the plaintiffs may have never needed to ask for the disclosure of the documents in question, the accident reports on the crash (see October 18, 1948). “The secretary [of the Air Force]‘s formal claim of privilege said that the plane at the time was engaged in a secret mission and that it carried confidential equipment,” Biddle says, “but nowhere was it asserted that either had anything to do with the accident. The whole purpose of the demand by the respondents was for the purpose of finding out what caused the accident.… They were not in the least interested in the secret mission or equipment.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 165-170]
In their regular Saturday conference, the nine Supreme Court justices discuss the issues and arguments surrounding US v Reynolds (see October 21, 1952). According to the notes from the discussion, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, a strong advocate for expansive executive powers (see March 1952), says the case “boils down to Executive Branch determine privilege.” Other notes by Justice William O. Douglas suggest that Vinson isn’t convinced that the US must “be forced to pay for exercising its privilege” (see October 12, 1950). A straw vote taken at the end of the discussion shows five justices in favor of the government’s position to unilaterally withhold classified documents—overturning the appellate court decision (see December 11, 1951), and four in favor of allowing the decision to stand. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 171]
The US Supreme Court upholds the power of the federal government’s executive branch to withhold documents from a civil suit on the basis of executive privilege and national security (see October 25, 1952). The case, US v Reynolds, overturns an appellate court decision that found against the government (see December 11, 1951). Originally split 5-4 on the decision, the Court goes to 6-3 when Justice William O. Douglas joins the majority. The three dissenters, Justices Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and Robert Jackson, refuse to write a dissenting opinion, instead adopting the decision of the appellate court as their dissent. ‘State Secrets’ a Valid Reason for Keeping Documents out of Judicial, Public Eye – Chief Justice Fred Vinson writes the majority opinion. Vinson refuses to grant the executive branch the near-unlimited power to withhold documents from judicial review, as the government’s arguments before the court implied (see October 21, 1952), but instead finds what he calls a “narrower ground for defense” in the Tort Claims Act, which compels the production of documents before a court only if they are designated “not privileged.” The government’s claim of privilege in the Reynolds case was valid, Vinson writes. But the ruling goes farther; Vinson upholds the claim of “state secrets” as a reason for withholding documents from judicial review or public scrutiny. In 2008, author Barry Siegel will write: “In truth, only now was the Supreme Court formally recognizing the privilege, giving the government the precedent it sought, a precedent binding on all courts throughout the nation. Most important, the Court was also—for the first time—spelling out how the privilege should be applied.” Siegel will call the Reynolds ruling “an effort to weigh competing legitimate interests,” but the ruling does not allow judges to see the documents in order to make a decision about their applicability in a court case: “By instructing judges not to insist upon examining documents if the government can satisfy that ‘a reasonable danger’ to national security exists, Vinson was asking jurists to fly blind.” Siegel will mark the decision as “an act of faith. We must believe the government,” he will write, “when it claims [the accident] would reveal state secrets. We must trust that the government is telling the truth.” Time of Heightened Tensions Drives Need for Secrecy – Vinson goes on to note, “[W]e cannot escape judicial notice that this is a time of vigorous preparation for the national defense.” Locked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and fighting a war in Korea, the US is, Vinson writes, in a time of crisis, and one where military secrets must be kept and even encouraged. [U. S. v. Reynolds, 3/9/1953; Siegel, 2008, pp. 171-176] Future Ramifications – Reflecting on the decision in 2008, Siegel will write that while the case will not become as well known as many other Court decisions, it will wield significant influence. The ruling “formally recognized and established the framework for the government’s ‘state secrets’ privilege—a privilege that for decades had enabled federal agencies to conceal conduct, withhold documents, and block civil litigation, all in the name of national secrecy.… By encouraging judicial deference when the government claimed national security secrets, Reynolds had empowered the Executive Branch in myriad ways. Among other things, it had provided a fundamental legal argument for much of the Bush administration’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Enemy combatants such as Yaser Esam Hamdi (see December 2001) and Jose Padilla (see June 10, 2002), for many months confined without access to lawyers, had felt the breath of Reynolds. So had the accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui when federal prosecutors defied a court order allowing him access to other accused terrorists (see March 22, 2005). So had the Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar (see September 26, 2002), like dozens of others the subject of a CIA extraordinary rendition to a secret foreign prison (see After September 11, 2001). So had hundreds of detainees at the US Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, held without charges or judicial review (see September 27, 2001). So had millions of American citizens, when President Bush, without judicial knowledge or approval, authorized domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency (see Early 2002). US v. Reynolds made all this possible. The bedrock of national security law, it had provided a way for the Executive Branch to formalize an unprecedented power and immunity, to pull a veil of secrecy over its actions.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. ix-x]
A federal court rules that because of the government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953), a civilian plaintiff suing the US Navy over a contractual agreement cannot even access “non-privileged,” or unclassified, information from the Navy because to do so might “threaten disclosure” of material that goes against “the overriding interest of the United States… preservation of its state secrets privilege precludes any further attempt to pursue litigation.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 196-197]
In the second of two rulings in the case of Halkin v Helms, the judiciary comes down squarely on the side of the US government against charges of illegal surveillance and wiretapping leveled against American anti-war protesters. The district and appellate courts uphold the federal government’s “state secrets” claim as codified in US v Reynolds (see March 9, 1953), thereby denying the plaintiffs the right to see government information that they claim would prove their case. The DC Court of Appeals writes that the federal courts do not have any constitutional role as “continuing monitors of the wisdom and soundness of Executive action,” and instead the courts “should accord utmost deference to executive assertions of privilege on grounds of military or diplomatic secrets… courts need only be satisfied that there is a reasonable danger” that military secrets might be exposed. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 196-196]
The DC Court of Appeals rejects a claim by civilian plaintiffs to force the government to disclose classified information as part of a lawsuit, citing the “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). Furthermore, the court broadens the definition of “state secrets” to include “disclosure of intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities and disruption of diplomatic relations.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 197]
A lawsuit against the FBI’s investigation of a sixth-grade boy and his school project to create an “encyclopedia of the world” is stopped when an appeals court rules that the agency is shielded by the “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). Unable to secure information from the FBI as to why it investigated him, the child had therefore “failed to sustain his burden of proof [and] the cause of action was properly dismissed.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 197]
A US appellate court refuses to find a number of military contractors liable in the death of Earl Patton Ryals, who died with 36 of his fellow crewmen in the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark (see May 17, 1987 and After). Ryals’s estate claims that he and his fellows died in part because of negligence on the part of the contractors who designed, manufactured, tested, and marketed the weapons system on board the Stark, including the Phalanx anti-missile system. In turning down the estate’s claim, the court cites the government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953), saying that the facts of the issue could not be resolved without examining classified Navy documents. And even without this reason, the court rules, Ryals’s estate cannot see the documents because the case presents “a political question” about military decision-making that is not subject to judicial review. [Zuckerbraun v. General Dynamics Corp., 6/13/1991; Siegel, 2008, pp. 197-198] A year later, a similar case will be dismissed on the grounds that a trial might conceivably reveal “state secrets” (see September 16, 1992).
A federal appeals court upholds the dismissal of a lawsuit filed on behalf of 23 Navy sailors killed in the attack on the USS Stark (see May 17, 1987 and After) against a number of defense contractors. A similar lawsuit on behalf of one of the sailors killed in the attack was dismissed a year before (see June 13, 1991). This time the plaintiffs file over 2,500 pages of unclassified documentary evidence supporting their claims that the contractors were negligent in their design and implementation of the weapons systems aboard the Stark. The appeals court finds that regardless of the amount of evidence entered, to allow the trial would be to potentially infringe on the US government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). “[N]o amount of effort could safeguard the privileged information,” the court rules. The court adds that “classified and unclassified information cannot always be separated, and therefore courts must restrict access not only to classified material, but to “those pieces of evidence” that “press so closely upon highly sensitive material that they create a hgh risk of inadvertent or indirect disclosures.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 198]
Sheila E. Witnall, the secretary of the Air Force, declassifies all Air Force accident reports prior to January 25, 1956. The declassification includes the 1948 crash of the B-29 bomber that killed nine of 13 crew members during a secret “Project Banshee” mission (see October 6, 1948). The formerly classified reports had been at the heart of the case of US v Reynolds (see March 9, 1953) that sparked the so-called “state secrets” privilege. Four years after the declassification, the daughter of one of the slain civilians on board, Judy Palya Loether, finds the accident report on the Internet; the discovery spurs her to begin looking into the circumstances of her father’s death, and ultimately will result in a second lawsuit being filed on behalf of the families of the slain crewmen (see February 26, 2003). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 205-208]
Judy Palya Loether, the daughter of a civilian engineer killed in a 1948 plane crash while on a secret government mission (see October 6, 1948), reads over the voluminous reports of the accident that claimed her father’s life. The reports, now declassified (see January 1996), had been at the heart of a landmark lawsuit that gave judicial recognition to the government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). Loether is shocked to find that the reports contain nothing that could be construed as military or tactical secrets of any kind, though for decades the government has insisted that they could not be revealed, even to a judge (see October 18, 1948, July 26, 1950, August 7-8, 1950, September 21, 1950, and October 19, 1951). What they do contain is a compendium of witness statements and expert findings that indicate a number of mistakes and errors led to the crash. Loether begins contacting the families of the widows who had filed the original lawsuit against the government (seeJune 21, 1949) to share her findings. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 210-211] Loether is confused and angered over the contents of the reports, and the government’s response to the lawsuit. She cannot understand why the government pressed so hard to keep the reports classified, knowing that they contained no sensitive information about the secret missile program, and is particularly troubled by the fact that at least two senior government officials signed affidavits affirming the reports’ inclusion of such information while knowing that the reports contained nothing of the sort. She wonders if government officials had perhaps decided to lie about the reports in order to establish some sort of state secrets privilege. In September 2002, lawyers Wilson Brown and Jeff Almeida, retained by Loether and others who lost family members in the crash, come to the same conclusion. As Almeida will say to Brown: “I’ve read this report. There’s nothing in there.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 219] As time goes on, Loether and her colleagues files a second lawsuit seeking to overturn the first Supreme Court verdict (see February 26, 2003).
Lawyers Wilson Brown and Jeff Almeida file a request with the Supreme Court, asking it to reconsider its landmark 1953 case, US v Reynolds (see March 9, 1953). The lawyers are representing several family members who lost fathers (and, in one case, a husband) in the airplane crash that led to the original case (see October 6, 1948). The lawyers note that the government’s original claim that the accident reports could not be released due to the inclusion of “military secrets” (see July 26, 1950) is false, as the accident reports have been declassified and examined for such secrets (see February 2000). “Indeed,” the lawyers write, “they are no more than accounts of a flight that, due to the Air Force’s negligence, went tragically awry. In telling the Court otherwise, the Air Force lied. In reliance upon that lie, the Court deprived the widows [the three original plaintiffs] of their judgments. It is for this Court, through issuance of a writ of error coram nobis and in exercise of its inherent power to remedy fraud, to put things right… United States v. Reynolds stands as a classic ‘fraud on the court,’ one that is most remarkable because it succeeded in tainting a decision of our nation’s highest tribunal.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 249-251] On July 26, 2002, one of the plaintiffs, Judy Palya Loether, wrote in an e-mail to Brown: ”US v Reynolds has come to be a landmark case that is used by the government when it claims that documents cannot be turned over to the courts because of national security. Yet this very case is now proven, in my mind, to be based on a lie that did injury to 3 widows and 5 little children (see February 2000)… It allowed the government an area of no checks and balances (see December 11, 1951). How many times has the government used this decision, not to protect national security, but for its own purposes?” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 237-238]
Wilson Brown, who has filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking that it reconsider its landmark 1953 US v Reynolds case (see March 9, 1953), receives an e-mail from Alison Massagli of the White House’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Massagli, who learned of the petition from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, wants a copy of Brown’s petition. Brown notices that Massagli sent a copy of the e-mail to Catherine Lotrionete of the National Security Council. Brown is pleased that the case has garnered some attention. He e-mails the plaintiffs he is representing, saying, “I thought you would find it interesting that at least one arm of the Executive Branch is interested in our case.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 257]
Solicitor General Theodore Olson submits a response to the request that the Supreme Court reopen the 1953 state secrets case US v Reynolds (see February 26, 2003). Olson argues that once a decision has been made, it should be respected—“the law favors finality,” he writes. More surprisingly to the plaintiffs and their lawyers, Olson argues that there was no fraud perpetuated in the original case, a position hard to defend in the face of the declassified accident reports that were the heart of that case (see February 2000 and February 26, 2003). The accident reports never contained military secrets or secret information of any kind, a claim that the Court’s 1953 decision hinged on, but Olson argues that because of the wording of the claims—releasing the reports to the original plaintiffs “might lead to disclosure” of classified information—then the old claims of protecting state secrets are still technically valid (see March 9, 1953). Olson echoes the author of the original Supreme Court opinion, Fred Vinson, by reminding the Court that “[t]he claim of privilege in this case was made in 1950, at a time in the nation’s history—during the twilight of World War II and the dawn of the Cold War—when the country, and especially the military, was uniquely sensitive to need for ‘vigorous preparation for national defense.‘… The allegations of fraud made by the petition in this case… must be viewed in that light.” The lawyer for the plaintiffs in the petition, Wilson Brown, is both angered and impressed by what he calls Olson’s “remarkable obfuscation.” By hiding behind the vague wording of the original claims of state secrets, Olson is implying that this case must turn on factual issues—and therefore should be heard in a lower court, not the Supreme Court. Brown, in his response co-written by colleague Jeff Almeida, calls Olson’s arguments “disingenuous” and insists that the plaintiffs’ original case “had been vitiated through fraud.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 261-264]
Constitutional lawyers and experts believe that the Supreme Court will not accept the petition to reopen the landmark US v Reynolds case (see February 26, 2003 and May 30, 2003). Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies says that the petition is essentially frivolous, and says of the claim that Reynolds was decided on the basis of a fraudulent government presentation: “That the facts of the original case are not true is irrelevant to the state secrets privilege (see March 9, 1953). The idea that it undercuts the privilege is ridiculous. Often in cases, after they’re decided, the facts are proven not to be true. That’s the nature of the legal system. Sometimes people lie. Sometimes there’s new information.” Law professor Jonathan Turley is more sympathetic to the petition, but agrees that the Supreme Court will probably not hear it: “For the Supreme Court to address the fact clearly that it had been lied to would open difficult issues.… The Court used the facts of Reynolds to say the government could be trusted.… Reynolds was based on trust, on willful blinders. There’s much danger in going back now, in recognizing that the government routinely lies. They’re not going to face that. They won’t reopen this. I think Reynolds is like discovering an unfaithful wife after fifty years of marriage. You’re hurt by the betrayal, but you can’t turn back half a century. You preserve the marriage for the children’s sake” (see December 1980, September 1982, November 1984, January 1990, June 13, 1991, and September 16, 1992). [Siegel, 2008, pp. 266-267]
The Supreme Court refuses to hear a petition to reopen the 1953 state secrets case US v Reynolds (see February 26, 2003). It issues a one-sentence ruling: “The motion for leave to file a writ of error coram nobis is denied.” Plaintiff Judy Palya Loether says: “Maybe the law isn’t about right or wrong. The concept that the government lied to the Supreme Court (see February 2000) seemed to me a terrible thing to do. It appears that the justices were not as appalled as I was.” Further attempts to reopen the case in lower courts will also fail. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 267-298]
Lawyers for accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, battling to force the US government to allow them to depose other accused terrorists as part of their defense (see May 14, 2003), contact Jeff Almeida, the lawyer for the plaintiffs who sought to reopen the 1953 state secrets case US v Reynolds. They ask how his petition for coram nobis—a request for the court to “right a wrong”—went. Almeida tells them that the Court turned the petition down without comment (see June 23, 2003). Moussaoui’s lawyers tell Almeida that the government prosecutors were so reliant on Reynolds that “they had been waving it around the courtroom any chance they got.” Plaintiff Susan Brauner later says that she is glad Moussaoui’s lawyers contacted Almeida, and says she finds their interest “most encouraging.” She will add, “If we eventually walk away with nothing more than one concrete example where the case was of possible use to someone else… then I will believe we have done some good in impacting or at least raising the issue.” [Siegel, 2008, pp. 272-273]
The Bush administration submits a legal brief arguing that the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against AT&T, alleging that firm cooperated with the NSA’s domestic surveillance program (see January 31, 2006), should be thrown out of court because of the government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). Justice Department lawyers want Judge Vaughn Walker to examine classified documents that they say will convince him to dismiss the lawsuit. However, the government does not want the defense lawyers to see that material. “No aspect of this case can be litigated without disclosing state secrets,” the government argues. “The United States has not lightly invoked the state secrets privilege, and the weighty reasons for asserting the privilege are apparent from the classified material submitted in support of its assertion.” [CNET News, 5/26/2006]
Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder says that if he is confirmed, he intends to review current litigation in which the Bush administration asserted the so-called “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953), and that he intends to minimize the use of the privilege during his tenure. “I will review significant pending cases in which DOJ [the Justice Department] has invoked the state secrets privilege, and will work with leaders in other agencies and professionals at the Department of Justice to ensure that the United States invokes the state secrets privilege only in legally appropriate situations,” he writes in a response to pre-confirmation questions. (Shortly after Holder’s testimony, the Justice Department again asserts the “state secrets” privilege in a case involving a Guantanamo detainee—see February 9, 2009). Holder adds: “I firmly believe that transparency is a key to good government. Openness allows the public to have faith that its government obeys the law.” To a related question, he asserts his belief that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) must disclose as many of the opinions it generates as possible: “Once the new assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel is confirmed, I plan to instruct that official to review the OLC’s policies relating to publication of its opinions with the [objective] of making its opinions available to the maximum extent consistent with sound practice and competing concerns.” [Federation of American Scientists, 2/2/2009; Senate Judiciary Committee, 2/2/2009] Weeks later, the Justice Department will release nine controversial OLC memos from the Bush administration (see March 2, 2009).
A Justice Department official says that the Obama administration will continue to assert the so-called “state secrets privilege” (see March 9, 1953) in a lawsuit filed by Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed (see February 8, 2009). In the case Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc, Mohamed and four former detainees are suing a Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, for cooperating with the CIA in subjecting them to “extraordinary rendition,” flying them to foreign countries and secret overseas CIA prisons where, they say, they were tortured. The case was thrown out a year ago, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has appealed it. According to a source inside the Ninth US District Court, a Justice Department lawyer tells the presiding judge that its position has not changed, that the new administration stands behind arguments that the previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. The lawyer says the entire subject matter remains a state secret. According to Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller, “It is the policy of this administration to invoke the state secrets privilege only when necessary and in the most appropriate cases, consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Reynolds that the privilege not ‘be lightly invoked.’” Miller adds that Attorney General Eric Holder is conducting a review of all state secret privilege matters. “The Attorney General has directed that senior Justice Department officials review all assertions of the State Secrets privilege to ensure that the privilege is being invoked only in legally appropriate situations,” Miller says. “It is vital that we protect information that, if released, could jeopardize national security. The Justice Department will ensure the privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information about their government’s actions that they have a right to know. This administration will be transparent and open, consistent with our national security obligations.” The ACLU’s Anthony Romero says that the Obama administration is doing little besides offering “more of the same.” He continues: “Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition, and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.” ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, who argued the case for Mohamed and the other plaintiffs, adds: “We are shocked and deeply disappointed that the Justice Department has chosen to continue the Bush administration’s practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition and torture. This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course. Now we must hope that the court will assert its independence by rejecting the government’s false claims of state secrets and allowing the victims of torture and rendition their day in court.” [ABC News, 2/9/2009]
A federal appeals court rejects the Obama administration’s assertion that a potential threat to national security should stop a lawsuit challenging the government’s warrantless wiretapping program. The Justice Department had requested an emergency stay in a case brought by a defunct Islamic charity, the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (see February 28, 2006). Al Haramain has asked that classified information be made available to the court to prove its case that the electronic surveillance brought to bear against it by the government was illegal; Justice Department lawyers contend that the information needs to remain classified and unavailable to the court, and cite the “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953) as legal justification. Although the court rejects the request for the stay, Justice Department lawyers say they will continue fighting to keep the information secret. “The government respectfully requests that the court refrain from further actions to provide plaintiffs with access to classified information,” says a filing made by the Justice Department in regards to the ruling. A lawyer for Al Haramain, Steven Goldberg, says: “All we wanted was our day in court and it looks like we’re finally going to get our day in court. This case is all about challenging an assertion of power by the executive branch which is extraordinary.” The American Civil Liberties Union’s Ann Brick says the court has now crafted a way to review the issue in which “national security isn’t put at risk, but the rule of law can still be observed.” [Associated Press, 2/27/2009] Days later, the Justice Department will file a brief announcing its intention to refuse to honor the appeals court’s decision (see March 2, 2009).
The Justice Department defies a recent court order (see February 27, 2009) and refuses to provide a document that might prove the Bush administration conducted illegal wiretaps on a now-defunct Islamic charity. The Justice Department files a brief with a California federal district court challenging the court’s right to carry out its own decision to make that evidence available in a pending lawsuit. Even though the document is critical to the lawsuit, the lawyers can obtain the necessary top-secret clearances, and the document would not be made public, the Justice Department claims that the document cannot be entered into evidence. The lawyers for Al Haramain, the Islamic charity and the plaintiffs in the suit, calls the Justice Department’s decision “mind-boggling.” Government’s Position – For its part, the Justice Department writes in a brief that the decision to release the document “is committed to the discretion of the executive branch, and is not subject to judicial review.” The document has been in the possession of the court since 2004, when the government inadvertently released it to the plaintiffs. In the same brief, the Justice Department writes: “If the Court intends to itself grant access to classified information directly to the plaintiffs’ counsel, the government requests that the Court again provide advance notice of any such order, as well as an ex parte, in camera description of the information it intends to disclose, to enable the government to either make its own determination about whether counsel has a need to know, or to withdraw that information from submission to the Court and use in this case. If the Court rejects either action by the government, the government again requests that the Court stay proceedings while the government considers whether to appeal any such order.” The statement is an implied threat that the Justice Department lawyers will themselves physically remove the document from the court files if the judge says he has the right to allow Al Haramain’s lawyers to see it. Response from Plaintiff’s Attorney – Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer for Al-Haramain, says in an e-mail: “It’s a not-so-thinly veiled threat to send executive branch authorities (the FBI? the Army?) to Judge [Virginia] Walker’s chambers to seize the classified material from his files! In my view, that would be an unprecedented violation of the constitutional separation of powers. I doubt anything like it has happened in the history of this country.” Eisenberg says that the Obama administration, through the Justice Department, “seems to be provoking a separation-of-powers confrontation with Judge Walker.” Administration’s Second Use of State Secrets – This is the second time the Obama administration has invoked the “state secrets” privilege to keep information secret (see February 9, 2009). Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says: “In the Bush administration, the state secrets doctrine was used to buttress the power of the president and make it difficult if not impossible to contest such issues as presidential authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping in the United States. We would think that when such disagreements occur, it’s properly before the judiciary to resolve them. But the Bush administration asserted the state secrets doctrine for the purpose of making it effectively impossible for courts to review the matter.” The Al Haramain case is significant because of “the apparent willingness of the Obama administration’s Justice Department to carry further that same argument in federal court. It is of great concern.” [Washington Independent, 3/2/2009]
High Noon is a 1952 morality play about people deciding whether or not to stand up to the forces of corruption and criminality. Scenes from it often come to mind, since I’ve repeatedly seen people around me facing up to analogous situations here in Oakland, at the docks and also in the plaza.
The setting for this movie is a western town around 1880, and the bad guy, Frank Miller, has just been released from prison. He’s a nasty, hands-on, in-charge figure who previously controlled everything that went on in the town. He’ll be returning on the noon train, and the townspeople will either have to stop him, or else resign themselves to living under his corrupt tyranny.
Such scenes were part of the real life of the screenwriter, Carl Foreman, formerly a member of the Communist Party. Being a leftwing activist was not easy. In the 1930′s he and his comrades walked picket lines under the threat of being clubbed or shot by police and company thugs. Although he was no longer a member of the Communist Party, he was nevertheless later targeted by the vengeful one-percenters and their Congressmen. In 1951, while he was writing the script for High Noon, he was summoned to appear before HUAC and name names. He refused and was therefore blacklisted by the Hollywood studio bosses. The movie was, Foreman later said, “a parable of what was happening in Hollywood.”
This movie, made in the early 1950s and set in a small frontier town of the previous century, presents a relatively simple world where solutions are uncomplicated. The characters are well-defined and the dialogue is concise. The answer to the question posed by the movie, as the theme song puts it, is “to shoot Frank Miller dead.”
Will Kane, the town marshal, is stuck with the task of dealing with Miller and his trio of gunslingers. It’ll be four against one, a very uneven fight, unless Kane can muster up a bunch of people to join him in the battle. It’s Sunday morning, so Kane goes to the church to interrupt the service to ask for volunteers. As he enters, the choir is singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and they’re on the verse that goes: “He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgement seat.” In the course of the movie, all the people in the town get sifted as they decide to fight or give in to the bad guy.
Life and art often follow the same script. I remember a scene here in the East Bay, shortly after the police had attacked antiwar protesters at the Port of Oakland, injuring fifty-nine people including demonstrators, longshoremen, and journalists. That was in April 2003. The message from the police, the shipping companies, and the mayor was very clear: “Don’t ever set foot in the port again! Don’t even think of it!”
Our 1st Amendment rights were at stake. A rally was held at the Oakland Plaza to protest the police violence. Each speaker spoke his or her piece, leading up to the last speaker, Sasha Wright, who said: “We’re thinking of returning to the Port to shut it down. If we do, how many of you would go with us?”
I stood there, thinking at the time how much this resembled a scene from High Noon, and was moved to see a substantial show of hands. Five weeks after the attack, on May 12, 2003, several hundred people marched back into the Port of Oakland and set up a picket line at the terminal where people had been attacked and injured. Thus the First Amendment rights of the community were reaffirmed; it was an amazing experience, an amazing day to be alive.
But that’s not at all how the movie script goes. When the protagonist Will Kane appeals to the townspeople, they find reasons to decline. They rationalize. Bad Guy Miller isn’t all that bad, they seem to conclude. They can reason with him, work things out. Some are afraid of him, while others actually seem to be in cahoots with him.
Will Kane is on his own. And because this is a 1950s western, the hero always wins, no matter what the odds. Then, after having won, he looks scornfully at the cowardly, opportunistic, and undeserving townspeople and leaves in disgust. That’s how it ends.
The ending seems simplistic, the weak part of an otherwise excellent script. In reality, there are often at least a few brave men and women who’ll join together in standing up to the bad guys, to the Frank Millers of this world. That I saw back in 2003, and again last fall (2011), when perhaps a hundred Occupiers linked arms at the Oakland Plaza on the morning of October 25th. And again that afternoon, and in the days that followed. People faced those dangers together, even though several were injured. Scott Olsen was injured critically.
Tens of thousands took part in the port shutdowns of November 2nd and December 12th — despite rumors and fears of more police violence.
Those actions energized rank-and-file workers in their struggles against the one percent, most notably the embattled dockworkers in the small town of Longview, Washington. ILWU Local 21 President Dan Coffman of Longview told Occupy Oakland, “You cannot believe what you people did [on November 2] for the inspiration of my union members who have been on the picket line for six months.”
The outcome of the battle on that relatively small stretch of waterfront on the Columbia River would probably determine the future of the longshore union on the West Coast. Both sides turned to allies. The union-busting shipping company EGT had the backing of the police, and the Obama Administration was sending the Coast Guard. This was the first time since 1970 that military units were intervening in a labor dispute. The dockworkers called out to other unions and also to Occupy for support in the upcoming showdown.
A struggle such as this isn’t won by a lone superhero; it takes large numbers of committed men and women. Although that may seem obvious, it’s easy to overlook the obvious. The myth of the superhero has been with us since Homer composed the Iliad; it survived the Middle Ages in stories of knights in white shining armor, and lived on to become a Hollywood cliché, particularly in Westerns. In today’s world it fits perfectly with the concept of capitalist individualism, justifying the huge salaries and bonuses of greedy CEOs at the expense of the 99%–the supposedly undeserving townspeople.
There are indeed a lot of real-life heroes in this world, but not every player is a hero, and Carl Foreman did an excellent job of portraying those who are not. They’re the town’s leading citizens, mostly well meaning people–but giving in to Frank Miller is the easy way out. We see plenty of them in Oakland, starting with the Mayor, a former Maoist who waffled back and forth, finally caving in to the 1%. In the weeks leading up to the West Coast Port shutdown of December 12, labor bureaucrats actually urged dock workers to cross picket lines. And even supposedly “leftist” journalists adopted the one-percenters’ talking points against Occupy. It’s in presenting those non-heroes, “leaders” who mislead, that Foreman’s script is at its best.
“If [Kane’s] not here when Miller comes in, my hunch is there won’t be any trouble, not one bit,” says a prominent citizen in Foreman’s movie script, and that’s essentially what a lot of liberals and labor bureaucrats have been saying of Occupy, first in December, and again this January regarding events up north in Longview.
Action in the movie focuses on the arrival of the 12 o’clock train, when Miller and his escort of gunslingers will make their move. In the Port of Longview, the focus was on a ship, which was about to arrive, escorted by the Coast Guard. Dockworkers had sent out a broad appeal for support, and Occupy and labor responded with caravans ready to rush to Longview to meet the present-day Frank Miller. Mostly they’d be from Seattle, Portland and other cities of that region; there would also be a contingent from Occupy Oakland.
“We can expect cold weather and cops,” Barucha Peller told a meeting in Oakland on the eve of our expected departure. Snow was reportedly on the ground in Longview. People shivered visibly at the very thought of going north to do battle in snow, slush and freezing rain, but nobody seemed to be backing out either. 150 from the Bay Area had so far signed up for the caravan, and the list was growing. Then, came the news: EGT, the shipping company, had given in and signed a contract that the dockworkers of Local 21 found acceptable.
The victory was won by the determination of a large number of courageous people who were willing to fight the battle. This suggests another possible ending to High Noon. In this scenario, as the hour approaches, a dozen or so of the townspeople head out to the train depot. Frank Miller sees them coming, gets back on the train, and sets out for parts unknown.
Daniel Borgström is an ex-Marine against the war, a veteran occupier. He writes about progressive actions. He can be reached at:daniel@borgstrom.com.
Today, the blogosphere was atwitter with the news that bow-tied super-douche Tucker Carlson, last night on Fox News, declared that “Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.”
Carlson’s call for genocide was revealed to the non-Fox News-watching world by ThinkProgress‘s intrepid Eli Clifton and was quickly lambasted by numerous commentators. Even Jeffrey Goldberg has weighed in.
Goldberg, who has made a career of leading the charge for illegal war, didn’t much like Carlson’s comments. Writing on his blog today, Goldberg – after noting that he is “on friendly terms” with Carlson – condemns Carlson’s murderous outburst as “the sort of rhetoric that leads to war” and states that “language like this — careless or premeditated — is inhuman and sets back America’s interests.”
This is all very noble and humane of Goldberg, but it’s also completely disingenuous and hypocritical.
A mere four sentences after Goldberg quotes Carlson as saying, “I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil,” Goldberg himself writes:
It should go without saying that Iran does not “deserve” to be annihilated. I wish, of course, that Iranian citizens will one day soon be free of the evil regime that rules their lives, and that Iran’s neighbors, Arabs, Jews, everyone, will be able to live without fear of Tehran’s aggressiveness.
Get it? No, not the fact that Goldberg’s glorious hope for Iranians doesn’t transfer to Palestinians who live under a two-tiered Israeli legal system, both within Israel and under occupation. And no, not the other fact that Iran’s “aggressiveness” has translated into exactly zero military invasions of other countries in roughly two hundred years. The difference is that Carlson doesn’t specifically make clear that he’s referring to the “annihilation” of the Iranian “regime,” rather than all 74 million Iranian citizens. (If he is forced into doing so, one can assume Carlson will make this very distinction when back-peddling. [UPDATE:Or not.]
Yet, unsurprisingly, Goldberg doesn’t even play by his own rules, often using the shorthand term “Iran” to refer to the country’s government.
In his much-discussed and totally wrong September 2010 blockbuster, “The Point of No Return,” Goldberg hysterically referred to “the immediate specter of nuclear-weaponized, theologically driven, eliminationist anti-Semitism,” meaning, of course, the Iranian government.
In an interview with Stephen Colbert shortly after its publication, Goldberg repeated the long-debunked claims that “Iran says they seek the destruction of Israel” and is “trying to gain nuclear weapons.” He added:
Now, obviously, Iran poses threats to other areas of the Middle East and they pose a national security threat to the United States, but for Israel, they feel because of their history, because of their location, because of their vulnerability, they feel that this is an especially urgent threat.
Goldberg also described the Iranian government as “an unstable leadership, they are a crazy leadership” and explained, in the most paternal and patronizing manner possible, that “if they give up this path, if they stop seeking nuclear weapons, good things will happen to them.”
In a totally incoherent rant published last June and amazingly headlined “Iran Wants the Bomb, and It’s Well on Its Way,” Goldberg decided to discuss “the reality-based worry that bloody-minded mullahs bent on dominating the Middle East aren’t the sort of people who should have the bomb.”
Goldberg also rehashes the baseless allegations that the Fordo enrichment plant was “exposed by Western intelligence agencies in 2009” and that “peaceful, internationally supervised nuclear program presumably would have no need for secret uranium-enrichment facilities buried inside mountains” Not only did Iran itself announce the existence of the site in accordance with its obligations under the safeguards agreement it has with the IAEA, but the site itself is under round-the-clock surveillance and subject to more intrusiveinspections than nearly any nuclear site on the planet. Additionally, one might assume that with near daily threats of and rumors about an imminent, unprovoked Israeli or American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, even sites under safeguard (and in which the IAEA has repeatedly and consistently confirmed – multiple times a year, year after year – that there has been no diversion of nuclear material), should be defended from potential, illegal aggression. For Iran not to staunchly defend facilities and technology (in which it has invested billions) from attack would, in fact, be profoundly irresponsible, negligent, and dangerous.
On October 17, 2011, Goldberg described the Iranian government as “chaotic” and the Revolutionary Guard Corps as “protectors of Ayatollah Khomeini’s dystopian vision for a radicalized Muslim world, enthusiastic exporters of terrorism, and rulers of a state within a state” and wasted multiple paragraphs on the supposed threat to American warships in the Persian Gulf by “a couple of true believers in an explosive-laden speedboat.”
The next month, Goldberg wrote a piece for Bloomberg called “Why Obama Might Save Israel From Nuclear Iran.” In it, Goldberg claimed that the IAEA “is set to release a report…offering further proof that the Iranian regime is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.” Well, that didn’t actually happen.
Furthermore, Goldberg once again stated that “[t]he leaders of Iran are eliminationist anti-Semites” and “mystically minded, mesmerized by visions of the apocalypse” and who “have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction and worked to hasten that end” by backing resistance groups which, Goldberg declares, “specialize in the slaughter of innocent Jews.” In short, Goldberg sums up, “Iran’s leaders are men who deny the Holocaust while promising another.” Again, one assumes Goldberg doesn’t find his own absurd rhetoric to be “the sort…that leads to war.”
A few days later, in a blog post with the header “Is an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Program a Bad Idea?“, Goldberg did his phony hand-wringing thing again. “As for me, well, I don’t know which one is worse: A preemptive attack, or a nuclear Iran,” he opined. “An attack would be disastrous on many levels, but I also think that a nuclear Iran would not be fully containable.”
On January 23, 2012, Goldberg declared, “It’s beyond a doubt that the Iranian regime would like to bring about the destruction of Israel.” In the same piece, embarrassingly entitled “How Iran Could Trigger Accidental Armageddon,” Goldberg concluded that “opponents of military action make a mistake in arguing that a nuclear Iran is a containable problem. It is not.” Reading this determination, one wonders whether Goldberg thinks “[t]his is the sort of rhetoric that leads to war” or not.
On February 6, 2012, Goldberg was back making his constant ridiculous and shameful analogies between Iran and Nazi Germany, replete with heavy-handed Auschwitz references, and speculating about Iranian intentions with no evidence to support his lurid claims. He wrote:
Iran represents the definitive, post-Nazi Jewish nightmare: a regime that openly argues for the destruction of Israel and is seeking nuclear weapons. The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said just last week, “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that should be removed and will be removed, God willing.” The regime seems bent on building weapons that could actually bring about the obliteration of Israel and its six million Jews.
Just the other day, Goldberg once again exploited the Holocaust, through around the Nazi analogy and decided that “Iran is run by a regime whose first, defining act was of mass hostage-taking.” Anyone with even cursory knowledge of the Iranian Revolution would know that the actual “first, defining act” of the Islamic Republic would better be described as the drafting and adoption a complex constitution which was approved by popular referendum mere months after toppling the quarter-century tyranny of the U.S.-backed Shah. But for Goldberg and others like him, Iranian history began on November 4, 1979. Goldberg continued to describe Iran as “comprehensively evil” and, more generally, “evil people.”
So, according to Goldberg, when an Iranian official uses the specific term “regime” (as in, say, “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”), he secretly means “every single Jew on planet Earth,” but when Goldberg himself uses the term he’s really only describing the “crazy” or “evil” or “bloody-minded” or “eliminationist” Iranian government.
So, let’s see here. Why might Goldberg be frustrated with Tucker Carlson’s outlandish verbal diarrhea? Perhaps it’s because he’s stealing Goldberg’s thunder.
There are few crimes more despicable than stealing your neighbour’s water, and polluting what’s left, then watching him and his children suffer thirst, disease and ruin. Most of us would want nothing to do with the perpetrators of such evil.
British Water describes itself as the voice of the water industry. It talks about best practice and corporate responsibility, and lobbies governments and regulators on behalf of its members. No doubt it does a good job. It also has international ambitions including in the Middle East. So presumably it knows what’s going on water-wise in the Holy Land.
British Water should know, for example, that the 400-mile long structure known worldwide as Israel’s Apartheid Wall bites deep into the Palestinian West Bank dividing and isolating communities and stealing their lands and water.
If the wall was simply for security, as Israel claims, it would have been built along the internationally-recognised 1949 Armistice Green Line, although not even this is an official border. The wall’s purpose is plainly to annex plum Palestinian land and water resources for illegal Israeli settlements, and to that end it closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer.
In 2004 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the construction of the wall is “contrary to international law” and Israel must dismantle it and make reparation for damage caused. The ICJ also ruled that “all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”.
But the wall marches on, aided by American tax dollars and America’s protective veto, so that Israel can wield complete control over the water resources it sees as necessary to the regime’s present and future needs. This makes the Palestinians, who sit on top of enough water to be self-sufficient, entirely dependent on Israel for God’s life-giver. Israel also consumes most of the water from the Jordan River despite only three per cent of the river falling within its pre-1967 borders. Palestinians now have no access to it whatsoever due to Israeli closures.
Most of the Coastal Aquifer, on which Gaza’s inhabitants rely for water, is contaminated by sewage and nitrates, and is unfit for human consumption. Children particularly are at great risk. The aquifer is depleted and in danger of collapse. The damage could take generations to reverse, say experts.
During Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead) in 2008-09 over 30km of water networks were damaged or destroyed in addition to 11 wells. A UN fact-finding mission (the Goldstone Report) considered the destruction “deliberate and systematic”. Proper repairs have been impossible these last three years because Israel blocks the import of spare parts.
“Thirsting for Justice” is an aptly-named campaign by the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group, a coalition of 30 Palestinian and European humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam. It calls on European governments to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and the Palestinians’ basic rights to water and sanitation.
Under the warped arrangements of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (1995) Palestinians are only allowed to extract 20 per cent of the “estimated potential” of the mountain aquifer beneath the West Bank. Israel not only takes the balance (80 per cent) but overdraws its sustainable yield often by more than 50 per cent. A Joint Water Committee was set up to implement the agreement but Israel was given veto power and the final say on decisions. As a result, a number of essential projects for Palestinians have been denied or delayed. To make up for part of the supply shortfall, Palestinians are forced to buy water from the Israeli national water company Mekorot, some of which is extracted from wells within the Palestinian West Bank. In other words they are having to buy their own water, and at inflated prices.
Oxfam, which is very active on the ground in Gaza, confirms that 90-95 per cent of water from Gaza’s only source, the Coastal Aquifer, is undrinkable. At the current rate the aquifer will be unusable by 2016 and the damage irreversible by 2020.
Gaza residents are restricted to an average of 91 litres of water per day compared to 280 litres used by Israelis. 100-150 litres a day are required to meet health needs, says the World Health Organisation. Marginalised Palestinian communities in the West Bank survive on less than 20 litres per capita per day, the minimum amount recommended by WHO to sustain life in an emergency.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are said to have full legal rights to nearly 750 million cubic metres of water but they have to make do with a trickle, or go without, while Israelis fill their swimming pools, sprinkle their lawns and wash their cars. In Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp the water is turned off for days. When the street taps come on again, usually for a few hours, there’s a desperate scramble to refill domestic tanks and other containers before the next cut.
Haaretz last month reported the French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee findings on the geopolitical impact of water in confrontation zones like Israel-Palestine.
According to the report, water has become “a weapon serving the new apartheid. Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the [illegal] settlers get priority for water”.
Israel is waging a “water occupation” against the Palestinians, says the report accusing the Israelis of “systematically destroying wells that were dug by Palestinians on the West Bank” as well as deliberately bombing reservoirs in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. Furthermore, “many water purification facilities planned by the Palestinian Water Ministry are being blocked by the Israeli administration.”
Head of the Palestinian Water Authority Shaddad Attili observed: “Palestinians need to be able to access and control our rightful share of water in accordance with international law. The Oslo Accords did not achieve this. Without water, and without ensuring Palestinian water rights, there can be no viable or sovereign Palestinian state.”
Not content with robbing the Palestinians of their water, the Israelis are in the habit of flooding Palestinian fields and villages with untreated sewage from their hilltop settlements.
Against this background British Water has decided to cooperate with MATIMOP, an Israeli government agency that has been ordered to enter into international agreements and “aggressively expand opportunities for Israel’s industry”.
Always eager to oblige, the UK Trade and Investment Department’s briefing on Environment Opportunities in Israel contains this advice: “Israeli companies are keen to form alliances with companies abroad, and this is where the UK can benefit. In addition, growing development and marketing costs compel Israeli environmental companies to seek cooperation with foreign partners. The UK are world leaders in many aspects of the environment and so the UK and Israel complement each other and have much to offer each other in this sector. Teaming up with Israeli environment companies will give UK companies access to innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. UK companies can also benefit by providing their experience in marketing and management for Israeli companies.”
British Water signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MATIMOP on 21 December, so close to the Christmas holidays that it went unnoticed here. The event was not even recorded on British Water’s website but it was proudly featured on the embassy of Israel site and treated by the Israeli press as a triumph. MATIMOP calls it “a strategic cooperation agreement”. Executive Director Israel Shamay said: “We are pleased to be working closer with British Water than we have worked with any foreign trade organisation before. The UK water sector is well respected internationally for its world-leading capabilities, solutions and services, making it the perfect partner to help commercialise and market Israeli innovation and R&D in this sector.”
British Water agreed the text for an announcement by the Embassy of Israel but didn’t release it themselves, apparently happy for Tel Aviv’s propaganda boys to take care of it. In the press release MATIMOP says: “Israel has been coping with water scarcity since its founding.” Yes, coping by thieving.
The Palestinians have been subjected to the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern times and are held prisoner within the fragmented remnants of their own country, unable to develop its resources or travel freely within it to find work, attend university, visit family, or worship at their holy places in Jerusalem. Is helping Israel to become a water superpower really the right thing for British Water to be doing?
British Water’s CEO David Neil-Gallacher was asked: “EU agreements require Israel to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” and provide for the agreement to be suspended otherwise. Does the MATIMOP agreement include similar good behaviour conditions?”
His reply: “The agreement with MATIMOP is a Memorandum of Understanding. Both parties are professional organisations with admirable aims and objectives.”
Another question: “British Water will be aware that Israel illegally occupies its neighbour Palestine and has seized control of its water resources. The path of Israel’s 400-mile separation wall closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer and encloses key supplies. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the wall in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is ‘contrary to international law’ and ‘all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction’. In the circumstances, should ethically-minded British companies allow themselves to become embroiled?”
Neil-Gallacher was unfazed: “I’m not sure what you mean by ’embroiled’ or ‘ethically-minded’. The aim of the MoU is for businesses to work together for the good of the global water industry. It’s no part of our role to exchange philosophical concepts with you. The arrangement with MATIMOP is one of commercial intent for the benefit of UK and Israeli companies.”
Finally, “is British Water being evenhanded in this Holy Land confrontation zone? Are you offering help to the Palestinian Water Authority? Have you responded positively to the sea-water desalination project for Gaza and other programmes for West Bank towns and villages?”
Neil-Gallacher: “We notify our member companies of potential commercial opportunities wherever they may arise, leaving them — as they’re best-qualified — to weigh the relative attractiveness of different markets.”
David Neil-Gallacher is also Director-General of Aqua Europa, which does the same sort of job on a Europe-wide basis. This was his parting shot:
“Regions of tension are bound to engender strong views and conflicting principles, and it’s usually notoriously difficult to discern unequivocal moral ascendancy on the part of any of those involved. In my dealings with our companies active in the region, however, I’ve never seen any evidence that they are lacking in principle or moral locus. British Water’s perspective has to be a commercial one. We do our best to conduct our activities in the best interests of our part of British industry and strictly within the requirements of the law.”
How will British Water avoid complicity with Israel’s endless oppression of the Palestinians and the deadly strife with its other neighbours in the region? Perhaps Neil-Gallacher should ask one of his own member companies, Veolia, what can happen if caught up in Israeli projects that violate international law. Veolia dumps Israeli waste on Palestinian land and is helping to build and run a tramway connecting Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements. The company must rue the day it crossed the line to fall foul of those nice folks at BDS — the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement.
Iran has delivered a protest note to the UN Security Council (UNSC), condemning Israel for carrying out a host of hostile activities with “impunity” against the Islamic Republic.
In a protest letter on Wednesday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei censured Israel’s countless acts of crime against Tehran, saying Tel Aviv has carried out “covert operations, cyber warfare, psychological war and assassinations of nuclear scientists,” on top of threatening to wage a war on Iran.
“These operations, as well as attributing the violent acts, are part of the general war game waged by this regime against Iran,” the letter added.
“Regrettably, the impunity with which the (Israeli) regime has been allowed to carry out its crimes thus far, has emboldened it to continue and even increase its blatant defiance of the most basic and fundamental principles of international law and the United Nations Charter,” it went on to read.
Khazaei also made reference to a string of recent bomb attacks on Israeli diplomatic targets in several countries and refuted Tel Aviv’s allegations that Iran was involved in the incidents.
Iran “categorically rejects the allegations concerning any involvement of its officials or organizations in the recent purported terrorist operations against Israeli targets in a number of countries, namely Thailand, India, Georgia or Azerbaijan,” the envoy’s letter further said.
On February 14, a man hurled a grenade at Thai police and a cab in Bangkok. The attacker was injured seriously in the blast. Bangkok police say they found Iranian identification documents on the maimed man.
Earlier in the day, a house rented by three men, who police say were Iranians, exploded when a cache of explosives reportedly went off by accident. Soon afterwards, there was a third blast on a nearby road, Thai police said.
The three explosions in Bangkok happened a day after bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was swift to accuse Iran of orchestrating the attacks.
Five years ago Abed Seder’s wife, Kefah, was shot five times in the chest by Israeli soldiers as she went onto her roof to check her water tank. She was 23 years old and left three sons motherless. He tells me his sons are afraid to go on the roof, which overlooks the illegal Zionist settlement of Beit Hadassah. To an international community, Abed’s struggle is one of trauma and loss, but he tells it with shockingly familiar regularity.
Abed´s home is sandwiched inbetween Beit Hadassah and Beit HaShisha settlements, from which he receives regular torrents of abuse and violence. Rubbish and broken glass bearing Hebrew writing litters the path to his front door, bypassing the nets which attempt to catch the used nappies and toilet roles. His windows have been boarded up from the outside by Israeli soldiers in an attempt to prevent settlers from throwing molotov cocktails into Abed´s home. Abed shows me the view from his caged bedroom window, which looks directly onto a neatly planted playground, complete with basket ball court where the children of immigrant Zionists can enjoy the sunshine. As one of them raises their middle finger, Abed tells me that they regularly throw water and beer bottles so they try to keep the window closed.
Perhaps the saddest victim of this has been Abed´s 6 year old son Wadia, who was left blind after Abed´s neighbours threw chloric acid from their rooftops two years ago. He was just four years old. Wadia has since been seeking treatment in a hospital in Jordan while Abed and his wife can only afford to visit him once every three months.
In 1967 Israel occupied Hebron along with the rest of the West Bank. The settlement of Kiyat Arba was established on the outskirts of Hebron in 1968, later allowing for communities of settlers to illegally occupy properties such as the Hadassah Hospital and other Palestinian neighbourhoods such as Tel Rumeida. Hebron is currently home to over one hundred thousand Palestinians, who are suffering at the hands of some 500-800 settlers protected by a constant Israeli military presence.
Since the Second Intifada, settler violence has escalated in the city of Hebron with illegal settlers routinely attacking and violating the rights of their Palestinian neighbours. B’tselem has recorded incidents of physical assaults, including beatings, stone throwing and hurling of refuse, sand, water, chlorine and empty bottles. Settlers have destroyed shops and doors, committed thefts and chopped down fruit trees. Settlers have also been involved in gunfire, attempts to run people over, poisoning of a water well, breaking into homes, spilling of hot liquid on the face of a Palestinian, and the killing of a young Palestinian girl.
“Price Tagging” has become a coined phrase for the violent, illegal, Zionist settlers “struggle” as they continue to illegally steal land throughout the West Bank. On 24 July 2008, after Israeli security forces removed a bus that had been placed in the Adey Ad outpost, the head of the settlers’ struggle headquarters in Yitzhar was quoted in Ha’aretz as saying,
“The police have to understand that there will be a very high price tag on any event of this kind.”
He described the harm to Palestinians as “a display of good citizenship that is intended to help the police enforce the planning and building laws in the area on Palestinians, too.” Collective punishment is illegal under international law and is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
B’Tselem has investigated many incidents of settler violence and stated to have found that “Israeli forces intervened late, usually when Palestinians begin throwing stones at their attackers. The late response cannot be justified, as these incidents are part of a pattern and can be predicted. They conclude that “the security forces must prepare in advance in a way that will enable them to prevent harm to Palestinians.” B´Tselem stated that the authorities have systematically failed to enforce law and order against violent settlers attacking Palestinians.
Abed Seder stands before his home in Al Khalil
Human rights worker Hisham Shabarati explains the relationship between the soldiers and the settlers as a kind of role play, whereby “settlers are able to make the actions the military can’t.” He describes settlers as a political instrument able to carry out random and brutal attacks under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
“They have the same agenda; to make life unbearable for the Palestinians.”
Abed Seder’s home in the Old City of Hebron is four hundred years old. His brother and four children live above him and his great-grandfather lived here before them. For Abed, the act of resisting occupation stretches for as far as he can continue to live in the home which he legally owns. Its traditional arched doorways and original winding stairways make his home a desirable target for many settlers looking to move into an area which former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion described as “more Jewish even than Jerusalem.”
As long as Israel protects the rights of illegal settlers in Hebron over the rights of the Palestinian people, Abed and his family will suffer.
London – Palestinian activists and their supporters have condemned a recent fundraising campaign by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) as a “greenwashing” cover for ethnic cleansing.
The JNF “Green Sunday” fundraiser took place in several countries on 5 February. In publicity materials, JNF UK asked volunteers to “give two hours of your time to help turn the Negev green” and “make the Negev a livable place.”
But Palestinian citizens of Israel who already live in the southern Naqab desert (Negev in Hebrew) say the JNF has a colonialist agenda.
Usama Uqbi, head of the Naqab Bedouin Committee, told The Electronic Intifada that the impression of an empty desert the JNF portrayed was “a big lie.” Palestinian Arabs have been living on their land in the Naqab for hundreds of years, he said. He mocked the JNF flyer giving the impression of an empty land as “empty words.”
The JNF’s real goal is to demolish the homes of Palestinians who already live there, and bring Jewish settlers from the center of Israel to live on the expropriated land, he said.
The Electronic Intifada asked the JNF UK for their response to Uqbi’s criticisms.
A spokesperson replied: “You’re asking do we have a secret agenda to Judaize the desert and steal Palestinian homes?” The word “Judaize” was not used in The Electronic Intifada’s question. He said he would send an official response via email, but failed to follow up on this promise.
Uqbi said that the Bedouin style of life in the Naqab has been eroded by Israel over the years. Bedouins have been forced to sell their cattle, as Israel has confiscated more and more of their land. The state established seven Bedouin resettlement projects in the Naqab in exchange for abandoning our land, he said. The houses offered in these modern-day reservations are rented, and the Palestinian citizens resettled there are stripped of land rights, he said.
Uqbi himself lives in an “unrecognized village,” which the state refuses to connect to even the most basic public utilities such as water, roads, electricity or schools. Uqbi said this was a deliberate policy to force him to abandon his home.
Sofiah MacLeod from the campaign group Stop the JNF told The Electronic Intifada that Green Sunday was a “propaganda exercise” to cover-up JNF involvement in establishment of “Jewish-only settlements” which are an attempt to “exclude the Palestinian population.”
MacLeod says she visited al-Araqib in December. The now-famous Naqab Bedouin village has been destroyed by the Israelis approximately thirty times since July 2010. Each time the villagers insist on rebuilding.
MacLeod says the villagers were left only with the graveyard in December. Their olive trees have been uprooted and replaced with eucalyptus trees, she says, but despite this, olive tree saplings had started to grow back.
The JNF says it wants to “develop” the area as part of its “Blueprint Negev” initiative.
In a recent press release, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network condemned “Green Sunday,” saying the JNF “shamelessly exploits Tu B’shvat [the Jewish holiday that celebrates fruiting trees] as an opportunity to raise money to fund their ongoing colonization of Palestine and displacement of Palestinians … As Jews of conscience, we stand against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine” (“Jewish Call: Stop the JNF – Trees should be sacred, not profane”).
Palestine solidarity groups should start thinking more about the JNF, says MacLeod. A March 2011 parliamentary motion — called an Early Day Motion (EDM) — signed by more than sixty members of British parliament has helped raise awareness, she says. Initiated by left wing Labor Party MP Jeremy Corbyn, the EDM welcomed the Stop the JNF campaign and condemned the JNF for “its ongoing illegal expropriation of Palestinian land” while calling for its charitable status to be revoked (“Early Day Motion 1677”).
Speaking to The Electronic Intifada at the time, a spokesperson for Cameron downplayed the move as “not a particularly recent decision” and that the JNF had been one of a “number of charities” dropped. But in June, this line shifted when a spokesperson told The Jewish Chronicle that the JNF’s ties to Israel had in fact been the issue. The Zionist paper reported the spokesperson as saying it was “nothing to do with a policy issue and was based around the fact he is now prime minister rather than leader of the opposition” (“Cameron’s JNF split: it was Israel,” 2 June 2011).
In a 31 May 2011 letter to The Jerusalem Post, former JNF president Gail Seal wrote that “a British prime minister has been an honorary trustee since” 1901 when the JNF was founded. “How sad it is that, whatever the reason, David Cameron has broken this chain,” she lamented.
Writing in The Jewish Chronicle, JNF Chairman Samuel Hayek criticized Cameron more robustly: “The Prime Minister’s words of support for Israel to Jewish audiences are too often contradicted by those said in front of more hostile crowds. Actions speak louder than words. The decision to resign from JNF has reverberated around the world” (“Why David Cameron – and the community – got it so wrong,” 10 June 2011).
The Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister and the leader of the Labour Party opposition have also declined to become JNF honorary patrons, said MacLeod. Stop the JNF wrote to both Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband asking about the issue and both replied that they had no plans to associate themselves with the JNF, although they gave no reasons, says MacLeod.
Both Scottish Friends of the Earth and the Scottish Green Party have now condemned the JNF and endorsed the campaign against it, says MacLeod. In a statement, The Scottish Greens condemned the JNF “for using the ‘green label to practice crimes against the Palestinian people” (“Scottish Green Party reject ‘green’ claims of charity involved in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” 31 October 2011).
MacLeod also says that the Green Party of England and Wales is set to discuss the issue at the upcoming conference.
JNF worried about campaign’s gains
Although parliamentary Early Day Motions are often criticized as impotent, a leaked document shows that JNF chief executive David Goodman is worried about the “legitimacy granted to this campaign by the EDM.” In a December letter sent to most of the MPs signed onto the EDM, Goodman smeared Stop the JNF, asking to meet each MP in private to “discuss the issues.”
Stop the JNF responded to Goodman’s letter by publishing it on their website, refuting its accusations point by point and challenging Goodman to a debate in an “open forum” in Westminster, the seat of the UK parliament (“JNF denies it works to dispossess Palestinians, smears critics,” 2 January 2012).
MacLeod points out that the EDM has yet to lose the signature of a single MP, despite this JNF counter-lobbying.
Goodman’s letter denies treating Palestinian citizens of Israel in a racist way, but admits the “Israeli state has made extensive efforts to encourage the permanent settlement of the Bedouin in recent years” in “additional towns in the Negev to smooth the transition to permanent settlement.”
Future plans
Stop the JNF is optimistic about the future of the campaign, saying in a recent press release that 2012 could be “perhaps its last year holding charity status in the UK” for the JNF.
According to the Charity Commission, the JNF’s last reported annual income was over £12 million ($7.6 million) in the UK alone. Loss of UK charity status would be a massive political blow to Israel as well as a significant financial blow. Registered charities have significant exemptions from UK taxes.
Over the years, many groups and activists have written to the Charity Commission to complain about the JNF, says MacLeod. Through freedom of information requests, Stop the JNF has learned about some of the internal thinking on the issue. The campaign is currently working on putting together a more solid case that it hopes to submit towards the second half of year, she says.
Although the JNF held “Green Sundays” in the UK, France, Australia, the US and Israel this month, there were no public event in the UK, says MacLeod. A few years ago they were very proud to hold public events, even bringing famous names like former US President Bill Clinton and actress Goldie Hawn. But in recent years they are now “on the retreat,” the campaign argues. Their events are held in full or partial secrecy, with publicity often containing vague directions like “London venue” — presumably to throw off potential protests.
MacLeod says the JNF are planning a “charity shoot” event on 11 May, very close to Nakba Day, the annual Palestinian commemoration of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Stop the JNF will protest the Glasgow event and is also holding a conference in Edinburgh on 12 May.
JNF’s long historical connection to Israeli colonialism
The JNF has quasi-governmental status in Israel, and describes itself on its website as “the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners — Jewish people everywhere” (Jewish National Fund, Essence of Life Campaign).
After Israel was established in 1948, the JNF purchased expropriated Palestinian land from the state, and since then has played a key role in an exclusionary land regime that discriminates against Palestinian citizens.
According to Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, a new book by Ben White: “Since 1948, over 700 Jewish communities have been established in Israel’s pre-1967 borders. In the same period, not one new city, town or village for the Palestinian minority has been created, except for seven townships in the Negev intended to ‘concentrate’ the Bedouin population” (p. 38).
In the last accounts and annual report document filed with the Charity Commission (December 2010) JNF UK said it had “supported Israel since 1901, helping to build a country out of nothing” (my emphasis).
This kind of language invokes the old pre-state Zionist slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land,” suggesting the JNF’s agenda in 2012 has changed little since those days.
In his book Expulsion of the Palestinians, Palestinian scholar Nur Masalha wrote of this infamous slogan that it was not intended as a literal demographic assessment: “[Zionists] did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European supremacy that then held sway” (p. 6).
In a 2005 US diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks, current Israeli President Shimon Peres is reported as saying Israel had “lost one million dunams [a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters] of Negev land to the Bedouin” (i.e. supposedly equal Palestinian citizens of Israel). Peres slurred the “Arab sector in both the Negev and the Galilee” as a “demographic threat,” reported the cable (“05TELAVIV1847, Shimon Peres on disengagement, Palestinian social”).
Uqbi emphasized to The Electronic Intifada that Peres went on to play a key role in the confiscation of Palestinian land in the Naqab from his time as development minister between 2006 and 2007.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who has lived and worked in occupied Palestine. His website is www.winstanleys.org.
James Abourezk represented South Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1973 and in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 1979. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including Advise & Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. CNI asked Senator Abourezk about his experiences with the Israel Lobby while he served in Congress. In his response he told of an Israeli plot against him that has received perplexingly little coverage in the U.S. press. Below is his description of this and other incidents:
Q: Despite such books as Paul Findley’s They Dare to Speak Out, Edward Tivnan’s The Lobby, and Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby, some people still tend to downplay the power of the Israel Lobby. Can you tell us about some of your experiences with it?
A: I’m an eyewitness to what the Lobby does to Members of Congress, including to me during the time I spent in D.C. I was threatened, marginalized, attacked, lied about, among other matters in an effort to silence my criticism of Israel’s policies and of the Lobby.
At one time Bob Cordier, from the Washington FBI office, called me to tell me that, during the investigation into Alex Odeh’s murder (Alex was one of my staff people) the FBI had uncovered a “plot” on my life. Not a threat, but a plot, but, he said it’s OK now, as the guy who intended to murder me had now gone back to Israel. Alex Odeh’s murder came not long after I had run four full page ads in the Washington Post asking for support against the Israel Lobby. My assumption was that, reading the ads had enraged the plotter, which led him to bomb the ADC office in Orange County, California.
I also assume that the plotter was Robert Manning, a hit man who was later convicted of the murder of the secretary of a Jewish businessman in California. Apparently Manning had been hired by another Jewish businessman who was a competitor. They found the fingerprints both of Manning and of his wife on remnants of the letter bomb that was sent to his target, but opened by his secretary, who died as a result of the explosion.
Manning and his wife were safe from extradition from Israel, due to Israeli policy of not extraditing Jews for any reason, until Peter Jennings on ABC nightly news did a story on how Manning was running free in his West Bank settlement. The news story so embarrassed the U.S. government as well as the Israeli government that he was allowed to be extradited to California, but on the condition that he not be tried for killing Alex Odeh, but only for the Secretary. That condition was tantamount to a confession that he had murdered Alex Odeh. Manning’s wife died of a heart attack in an Israeli jail while awaiting extradition.
James Bamford, now a writer living in Washington, D.C., and who was Peter Jennings’ producer then, has film clips of the news story that he shows at lectures he gives on the subject. He went to the West Bank and filmed a machine gun toting Manning for the news story.
Lobby-engineered mud-slinging
I was under continual attack by the Lobby while I was in politics. Because I kept myself clean during my time of service, someone in the Lobby dug up a story designed to embarrass me by exposing my oldest son to ridicule. He was, at the time, living on an Indian reservation in South Dakota on food stamps. The Lobby got Spencer Rich, who was a political reporter for the Washington Post, to do a story on him. Rich several times called both my wife and me trying to get us to comment, but we refused. So he ran the story, headlined, “Senator’s Son Living on Food Stamps.” That set off a fire storm of criticism against the Post, and against Ben Bradlee, who was then Editor in Chief. Larry Stern, who was one of my friends, and an editor of the Post, complained bitterly to Bradlee. Senators McGovern and Ribicoff both took to the Senate Floor denouncing the article, saying the Post was trying to destroy the food stamp program.
One of the Style section writers, Tom Zito, whom I had never met, called me one day and told me the story about his protest to Bradlee over the story. Bradlee finally said, “Alright, go find some other famous people whose kids are living on food stamps and we’ll run it.” Zito told me that he had found that Bradlee’s daughter was living on Food Stamps out in Oregon, causing Bradlee to kill the story on the spot.
Years later I ran into Spencer Rich in a store in DC. He confessed to me that he still felt bad about doing the story on my son’s food stamp adventure.
“We’re going to get him”
Si Kenen, who was then Executive Director of AIPAC, used to tell anyone who knew me, to tell Abourezk “we’re going get him.” And when I returned from a trip through the Middle East, I spoke about the trip at the Federal Press Club (reserved for women and blacks) and talked about how every Middle East leader I met with said they would be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel if Israel would go back to the 1967 borders. A young fellow named Wolf Blitzer, who was then writing for AIPAC, rose to ask me several hostile questions before he walked out. The next issue of the AIPAC newsletter headlined that “Abourezk Sells Out to the Arabs.” That was the beginning of the war, as I failed to collapse after that broadside, and worked to make AIPAC regret their unfair attack on me.
I used to take the lead in human rights legislation in the Senate. I once offered an amendment to a bill that would cut off American money for any country violating the human rights of their people. Before anyone would vote, I was asked during debate “whether the amendment would apply to Israel.” When I said “no” I would get that person’s vote.
I also had all kinds of pressure put on me by rabbis who would come to visit me. Once an Iraqi Jew, a woman, came to visit me to tell me how bad it was for Jews in Iraq, I suppose trying to get me to change my mind on the Palestinian issue. She said she was constantly beat up and called a “dirty Jew” when she lived in Iraq. I told her I knew her feeling, because when I grew up in rural South Dakota, other kids would beat me up and call me a “dirty Jew.”
I was invited to speak at Yeshiva University when I was in the Senate. Before the time came for me to travel to New York, I was visited by a Rabbi Miller, who was from Yeshiva, and who advised me that “the students were marching against me and my speech,” and that, “It would calm things down if I would just make a public statement that I was for face to face negotiations between the Palestinaians and the Israelis.”
I told Rabbi Miller that, while I was for such negotiations, I recognized that requested statement was part of Golda Meier’s propaganda initiative, and that I had no interest in being a part of that. He kept coming on strong about the statement, so I finally asked him if it would be better if I cancelled my appearance at Yeshiva. He agreed, and that was the end of that. One of my friends from New York commented that, “They are in favor of face to face negotiations in the Middle East, but not in New York.”
After I left the Senate, Art Meggido, a writer for the Baltimore Jewish newspaper asked me for an interview. When I asked him why I should give him an interview, he told me that the Jewish community would eventually have to deal with me when it came to making peace in the Middle East. So I agreed. When the article came out, he related a story that an unnamed Ted Kennedy staffer told him that I had approached Kennedy and asked for money to go to Iran and free some hostages to help him in his 1980 primary campaign against Jimmy Carter.
The truth of that libel was that Kennedy sent three of his supporters to me to ask if I would go to Iran to free some hostages in his name. One was Jan Kalicke, one was Sen. John Culver and the other was Ted Sorensen. I supported Ted for president, so I agreed. The only thing I asked for was that they buy my ticket to Tehran, which they agreed to do.
When I read Meggido’s article I wrote to him telling him that unless they retracted the lie, I would sue him and the newspaper. They ran the retraction. Because we had agreed that we would not talk on the phone about this, we decided to talk only in person about the trip. No one knew about our deal except Kennedy and his staff, which included Tom Dine, who had been working for AIPAC earlier. It had to be Dine who talked to Meggido with the lie. And during the kerfuffle, I had a hard time getting Kalicke to call Meggido to verify my story, but it all came out in his retraction.
Although I was afraid that either my phone or Kennedy’s phone was being tapped by the Carter people, we avoided speaking about the trip over the phone, except for one occasion when I called Kalicke to talk to him about it. Almost the next day, a Lebanese journalist who covered the State Department told me that he had overheard both Marvin Kalb and the Israeli TV journalist there talking about “Abourezk acting as a messenger for Ted Kennedy over in Iran.”
There are other stories that I could tell you at the risk of boring you to death, but the Lobby had every Senator, except me, scared shitless.
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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source: palestineremembered.com
I also assume that the plotter was Robert Manning, a hit man who was later convicted of the murder of the secretary of a Jewish businessman in California. Apparently Manning had been hired by another Jewish businessman who was a competitor. They found the fingerprints both of Manning and of his wife on remnants of the letter bomb that was sent to his target, but opened by his secretary, who died as a result of the explosion.
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