Mobile phones have become a major part of our modern civilization. These hand-held computers have reached a level of sophistication that allows us to instantly communicate through text, voice and video. This same technology is also being used to amass a situational awareness and sensory system that will track you and the world around you. You and your cell phone are nodes in a grid of sensors that paints a virtual picture of the world.
We are offering a huge amount of “human intelligence” to whoever is watching. In days gone by, this information was uncovered by finding the right paperwork and other hard intel. Now that the public has become acclimated to social media, advancing technology and a lesser expectation of privacy, we are collectively offering freely and openly information that is valuable to corporations, marketers, and especially governments. Cell phones are a nexus point for all of this information. As the Economist reports,
“…imagine [your cell phone] being able to aggregate this sort of information from large numbers of phones. It would be possible to determine and analyse how people move around cities, how social groups interact, how quickly traffic is moving and even how diseases might spread. The world’s 4 billion mobile phones could be turned into sensors on a global data-collection network.”
You post facebook updates from your phone, you post tweets, and you send texts. This information is being used to track social movements, predict crime, and build psychological profiles on individuals. Some phones are even being made that act as breathalyzers.
We have all likely heard about the NSA wiretapping of phone calls, but cell phones and mobile devices offer an entirely new level of real time information. “Social awareness” and geolocation, i.e. the “tagging” of your location with the popular Foursquare app is an example. Police are also scanning cell phones with wireless devices during routine traffic stops. The device can retrieve all photos and video from a cell phone and “…works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.”
The Air Force is developing a “Social Radar” that will track social developments and aid counter insurgency operations. An earlier model was developed by the Pentagon called the “Sentient World Simulation” that predicts “…how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.” In 2010 Dr. Mark Maybury, an artificial intelligence specialist, wrote his paper on the proposed Social Radar for the MITRE Corporation. Wired magazine’s Danger room reports,
“Using sociometrics, it will pinpoint groups. Facebook timelines, political polls, spy drone feeds, relief workers’ reports, and infectious disease alerts should all pour into the Social Radar, Maybury writes, helping the system keep tabs on everything from carbon monoxide levels to literacy rates to consumer prices.”
The NSA is developing an artificial intelligence system called Aquaint (Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence). James Bamford, who helped expose the NSA’s illegal wiretapping under the Bush administration, covered the story in 2009. Bamford quotes one researcher who worked on the system – and quit after finding out how intrusive the technology was – as saying, “Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL.” As Bamford reports, this system will use “…phone calls, credit card receipts, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, GPS tracks, cell phone geolocation, Internet searches, Amazon book purchases, even E-Z Pass toll records…”
Not only can the government monitor your cell phone, it can now seize control of it through mandatory chips installed in new phones. Most major cell phone providers have signed on to the government program. Terror alerts, Amber alerts, public safety and presidential messages can now be sent to your phone. “Users can opt out of any of the alerts except the presidential messages,” notes the New York Times. An unannounced test of this system caused panic in New Jersey in December of 2011 when Verizon customers received an alert warning of a civil emergency.
The BBC Trust has announced that it is satisfied with the decision to censor the word Palestine from a freestyle performance by the rapper Mic Righteous.
In the show, which aired 11 February last year, Righteous rapped:
“I still have the same beliefs
“I can scream Free Palestine,
“Die for my pride still pray for peace,
“Still burn a fed for the brutality
“They spread over the world.”
The production team made the decision to put a sound effect, of glass smashing, over the word Palestine. You can listen to the whole performance here, or the offending section here.
In response to the original complaints, the BBC executive argued (pdf)
that BBC Radio 1Xtra and the BBC as a whole had a duty to be impartial. In this instance, the production team felt that Mic Righteous was expressing a political viewpoint which, if it had been aired in isolation, would have compromised impartiality.
The BBC’s guidelines on impartiality state:
The audience expects artists, writers and entertainers to have scope for individual expression in drama, entertainment and culture. The BBC is committed to offering it.
Where this covers matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or other “controversial subjects”, services should normally aim to reflect a broad range of the available perspectives over time.
Interestingly, the BBC apparently considers “scream Free Palestine” to be more of a controversial statement than “burn a fed”. The Trust has now released its adjudication of the matter, but in so doing has dodged the question.
They write:
The Committee agreed that it is for the Executive to decide what to include and what not to include in a broadcast, provided the result does not lead to a breach of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines.
The Committee agreed that its duty was to assess whether the material as broadcast was likely to have been in breach of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines, in this case those relating to impartiality.
In other words, in response to complaints that the BBC was unfairly censoring an artist, the Trust has instead examined whether the finished program breached impartiality guidelines. Given the potential breach was never aired, the result of assessment was a foregone conclusion.
Amena Saleem, of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, argued:
“The BBC Trust has moved the goalposts and decided to look at the censored content that was broadcast in February and April 2011.
“And the Trustees have decided that the content from which the word ‘Palestine’ had been edited was not biased against Palestine. This level of manipulation and duplicity would not be out of place in Catch 22.“
The BBC needs to answer the real question; not whether the finished show was impartial, but whether it is acceptable policy to censor the word Palestine.
It would be nice if the U.S. kept its word when it signs those international agreements that are in some kind of accord with rights and advance the international maintenance of rights.
The U.S. has not done this with Iran.
The U.S. and Iran signed the Algiers Accords in 1981 to end the hostage crisis. See also here. Point 1 of the accords is titled “Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs”. It reads (in full):
“The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”
This is a pragmatically wise policy. Moreover, it is in the direction of respecting the rights of Iranians and also those non-Iranians who have dealings with Iranians. Overall, it is an agreement that settled a potentially explosive situation. It moved toward peace.
It’s too bad that the U.S. didn’t continue the motion toward peace. The U.S. had other ideas.
The U.S. didn’t want to make peace between it and Iran a policy. It wanted to un-do the Iranian Revolution. The U.S. did not follow up the Algiers Accords with further moves toward peace.
It did just the opposite.
The U.S. didn’t keep the bargain. It sided with Iraq after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. It imposed sanctions in 1984, 1987 and in the 1990s. A review of sanctions is here. The U.S. tried to destabilize the Iranian government, isolate it and keep it out of the World Trade organization. See here.
Economic sanctions enacted by Congress are politically-caused interference. The Senate Banking Committee is about to enact more of these sanctions. Their open aim is “to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions”. This is political interference. This violates the Algiers Accords.
There is a rather long list of measures that the Committee says is “designed to increase pressure on Iran’s government.” The political interference of these sanctions is evident from the latter statement. In addition, the Senate measure directly targets the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps). This is a branch of Iran’s military, with obvious political importance.
The U.S. government is once again violating the Algiers Accords, as it has in the past. However, the U.S. has not officially abrogated the Algiers Accords. It will only do so when it decides it can gain from doing so. It wants to maintain the option, for example, to seize Iranian assets.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is acting hypocritically as explained here by supporting the Accords’ provisions against lawsuits brought by the hostages.
Experiencing the sanctions for decades, observing all this and knowing what happened to Gaddafi, how can Iran trust the word of the U.S.? How can it view the U.S. as anything but a hostile power that is aiming to un-do its revolution? And when Israel, an ally of the U.S., makes strong and plain threats against Iran, what else can Iran think but that the U.S. and Israel are out to get it, not just halt its nuclear program, but overturn it and introduce the regime change that some like Tom Ridge have openly advocated?
The U.S. Banking Committee acknowledges that previous U.S. sanctions haven’t achieved their objective. They say “it is now clear that the steps taken thus far by the international community have not been sufficient to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.”
It has been argued by Lieutenant Colonel George T. Doran of the United States Air Force that economic sanctions are futile. Others have reached similar conclusions after studying many cases of economic sanctions.
It is not hard to understand why economic sanctions might hurt a country’s economy or hurt companies that deal with a sanctioned country but still not cause the leaders of that country’s state to alter a targeted policy or policies. One reason is that the leaders of a state are only indirectly affected by sanctions. They stand in a rather insulated and remote relation to political pressures from below that arise from sanctions. Any country has many political currents of which sanctions are only one. Another is that people in the country may rally around their government. A third reason is that sanctioned countries find ways around the sanctions, using other markets or trades.
Sanctions have other negative effects such as reducing the likelihood of diplomacy, raising the chance of war, raising the chance of retaliation, reducing trade and human exchanges, and driving a state to become isolated and more self-sufficient.
U.S. sanctions are said by the Senate Banking Committee to have slowed Iran’s nuclear program, a program that is allowable and legal under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (another accord that the U.S. has not lived up to), but where is the evidence that this is the case? How could the senators know this when that program has been interfered with by computer viruses introduced from without and from assassinations of nuclear scientists?
And even if Iran’s peaceful nuclear program has been slowed by sanctions, what does that mean when we consider the objectives of the U.S. government? If Iran appears still to be achieving its objective but on a slower time frame, does that mean that the U.S. or Israel will ratchet up their actions and start a war to force Iran to stop what sanctions have failed to stop? In other words, once the U.S. has set forth on a path to interfere with Iran politically, if only by sanctions and then stiffer sanctions, it appears to have committed itself to continue on that path, even if the eventual outcome is outright war. That was the outcome in Iraq and Libya.
More and stiffer sanctions will not cause Iran to change its tune, not if the following accurately reflects the views of Iran’s most important leader:
“Khamenei has been described as consistent in his opposition to the United States and the Western World in general, reportedly including this theme into his speeches no matter whether the topic is foreign policy, agriculture or education. He has declared that it is ‘clear that conflict and confrontation between’ Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. ‘is something natural and unavoidable’ since the United States ‘is trying to establish a global dictatorship and further its own interests by dominating other nations and trampling on their rights.’ However, while ‘cutting ties with America is among our basic policies,’ and ‘any relations would provide the possibility to the Americans to infiltrate Iran and would pave the way for their intelligence and spy agents,’ Khamenei holds the door open to relations with the U.S. at some future date, saying ‘we have never said that the relations will remain severed forever. Undoubtedly, the day the relations with America prove beneficial for the Iranian nation I will be the first one to approve of that.’ However, in a speech to Iranian students on October 29, 2008, which was quoted on Iranian TV (as translated by MEMRI), Khamenei stated that ‘the Iranian people’s hatred for America is profound. The reason for this [hatred] is the various plots that the U.S. government has concocted against Iran and the Iranian people in the past 50 years. The Americans have not only refused to apologize for their actions, but have continued with their arrogant actions.’”
This passage does not depict a man willing to be humiliated. Why should he back off of a peaceful nuclear program? Why should he implicitly acknowledge a kind of guilt or wrong-doing when Iran is blameless?
If sanctions do not have their intended effect, then war with Iran comes closer. Sanctions should be stopped.
Even forgetting sanctions, Israel is a loose cannon unless restrained by the U.S., or so it appears to us who are not privy to the secret communications between these two governments.
The situation is dangerous and getting more dangerous. Stop the sanctions against Iran. Sit on Israel. Shift onto the road to peace. Get off the road to war.
Beirut – A USAID initiative which is ostensibly geared toward rehabilitating schools and improving education in Lebanon is raising suspicions that it will act as little more than a cover for collecting intelligence.
On 20 December 2010, the Lebanese government under Saad Hariri and the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Maura Connelly, signed a memorandum of understanding between the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Lebanon and the Lebanese education ministry. The memorandum was billed as a means of supporting the rehabilitation of public schools and enhance teachers’ skills as part of a project known as D-RASATI (“my studies” in Arabic), funded by a US$75 million grant over five years.
The stated aim of this project is to improve public education by addressing four areas: repairing and equipping schools, improving the qualifications of teachers in subjects taught in English, engaging Lebanese students in extracurricular activities, and motivating parents and the community to be more involved in the schools their children attend.
According to the memorandum, USAID reserves contractual power with the partner implementing the project, while selection of the latter is exclusively dependent on USAID. Those partners include the American University of Beirut, AMIDEAST, the Cooperative Housing Foundation, the International Orthodox Christian Charities, and the Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development.
The formulas adopted in implementing the project, which the education ministry in the current government consented to, has raised suspicion among observers and educators.
Skeptics say that representatives from the ministry were absent from “talks” with teachers that preceded the training sessions, which are expected to take place soon. They also question how interviews conducted by “non-Lebanese foreign nationals whose affiliations [are not known]” were used.
Sources close to the project’s implementation claim that audio recordings with teachers include inquiries about issues unrelated to the goals of the project. One participant asked: “What does enhancing teachers’ skills and evaluating their need for educational training have to do for example with whether they are attached to their community or resentful of it, whether they like to travel and to what country, and if this person or that person is their relative?”
This participant later continued, saying: “We sensed an intelligence gathering approach that went beyond the text of the agreement and the instructions of the Education Minister Hassan Diab who assured us he did not agree to collecting this kind of information.”
This approach led many of the teachers to boycott the evaluation test conducted for those targeted by the training courses.
Training the teachers was not the only source of concern. So was the detailed “intelligence” report distributed to schools in order to determine their repair needs as well as what resources are necessary to provide extracurricular activities. Last year’s summer camps raised questions over the geographical distribution of participating public schools as there was a clear focus on Dahiyeh (the southern suburbs of Beirut) and South Lebanon.
A number of teachers active in union work went even further in their skepticism and analysis asking: “Who protects the individual and legal rights of teachers and guarantees that their personal data, which belongs to them, won’t be used for political as opposed to educational purposes? Did the education ministry outsource its authority to the private sector and allow a foreign country to run amok in public schools as they wished without consulting teachers or asking for the opinion of their representatives in associations and trade unions? And is education such a neutral issue in the first place so as to allow the US to interfere in the Lebanese educational system, transfer its technical expertise to teachers and participate in evaluating them when this role is supposed to be the responsibility of local educational bodies and watchdog agencies? Is this project part of a US diplomatic campaign to improve its image and promote its policies in the region especially now that USAID is not a charity that provides grants and assistance? What if one of the long-term goals of the project is to change the educational curriculum?”
The teachers are demanding that the project’s parameters should at least be well defined and its goals clear and transparent.
Many of these critics realize that strengthening public education requires a political decision. Neither USAID, nor any other project can achieve this goal. The Lebanese state needs to make this decision by using a strategy which includes political and sectarian contracting with teachers, ending government subsidies of free private schools, and developing a national curricula every five years.
The funds allocated, according to these observers, whether from the US or other sources, disappear in the process, especially since the implementing partners are for-profit organizations.
Al-Akhbar spoke to Diab and the Director General of Education, Fadi Yarak, who is also the head of the coordination committee – the primary comptroller in the education ministry – to inquire whether the implementing partner of the project is adhering to the laws, standards, and mechanisms of the ministry.
Diab asserts that these concerns are misplaced even though he heard conversations over the summer about collecting data. He says he gave strict instructions banning the use of any personal information outside the scope of the project. “Practically, that is how things are. No one is taking data of this kind as far as we know,” he said firmly.
The audio recordings and iris print technology rumored to have been used in interviews with teachers are, according to the minister, unconfirmed.
Diab is dismayed that some would think this project may lead to changing the educational curricula. According to Diab, the curricula are not even part of the text of the agreement. The curricula are set exclusively by the Center for Educational Research and Development.
The minister adds that “the project is implemented through a grant, not a loan, and there is a difference between the two.”
When asked about the teachers’ boycott of the language evaluation test, he answered: “I don’t know. There might be issues other than the data, such as the teachers’ fear of the test due to their lack of proficiency.”
Yarak confirms in his interview with Al-Akhbar that the training material for principals takes into consideration legal standards in the education ministry and its various bodies, especially the Faculty of Education at the Lebanese University and the Educational Center for Research and Development.
He adds that it is not the first time there has been cooperation with foreign parties to train teachers. The French and the British preceded the Americans and there were similar projects in coordination with them.
While the director general points out that the training targets 6,000 teachers, he reassures us that the evaluation tests are not related to the teachers’ employment status, that is, they will not affect their professional standing. It merely measures their level of competence to determine the number of training hours they need. That is why participation is mandatory and not by choice.
Yarak seems confident that the issue of data management will be under control as long as the planning is carried out by the education ministry and the implementation of the project is overseen by a monitoring committee. The committee is under the leadership of the education minister in addition to the director general, the head of the Educational Center for Research and Development, the director of the secretariat for the development of the educational sector, and the principal adviser to the education minister.
Intelligence Gathering in Public Schools
Pedagogical commentators have recently noticed many attempts to infiltrate Lebanese public schools through various extracurricular activities. Upon examining their goals, it becomes clear that the common denominator among these projects is to collect personal data about the students and their parents and community.
A civil society association organized an educational contest in the schools throughout South Lebanon. It was noticeable that it included detailed questions having to do with the nature of their parents’ work.
Critics also note the insistence of one well-established private university on promoting itself in the high schools of Nabatieh, a town in southern Lebanon, by providing public school students with tempting, though illogical, offers given their parents’ financial inability to send them to this university.
It is also noteworthy that an international organization distributed cameras to 20 students in south Lebanon asking them to take pictures of scenes that stand out in their milieu. On the surface, this project might seem educational, serving students and teachers alike but observers say, “there is an intelligence gathering background to it.”
Sri Lanka has lashed out at the recent US-backed sanctions targeting the Iranian energy sector, stressing that the bans will inflict heavy losses on the country’s economy.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said Tuesday that the island’s only oil refinery is designed to work with Iranian light crude and any disruption to oil imports from Iran deals a blow to Colombo.
He also noted that by imposing an embargo on the Iranian oil industry, the US and its Western allies “are not punishing Iran, but us… the small countries.”
On December 31, 2011, US President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions which seek to penalize countries importing Iran’s oil or doing transaction with the country’s central bank.
In their latest meeting in Brussels on January 23, EU foreign ministers also imposed new sanctions on Iran which include a ban on purchasing oil from the country, a freeze on the assets of Iran’s Central Bank within the EU, and a ban on the sale of diamonds, gold and other precious metals to Iran.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to impose four rounds of international embargos and a series of unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has a right to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.
Last week, as Jewish Lobbies continue to invest enormous efforts in dictating and imposing a rigid and unquestionable Holocaust narrative, Israeli Haaretz published a short, succinct and courageous report challenging the validity of the Wannsee Conference as proof of the Nazi ‘final solution’.
Just ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Israeli paper reported that Dr. Norbert Kampe (63), director of the “Wannsee Conference” Memorial Centre in Berlin, has challenged some of the most widely-accepted historical ‘facts’ associated with the conference and its meaning.
Jewish Holocaust scholars have always insisted that the master plan for the Nazi Judeocide was conceived at the Wannsee Conference but Dr. Kampe is quoted as saying that the conference dealt only with “operational matters” instead of being a platform of any form of “decision making”. To prove his point, Kampe pointed to the fact that Hitler and his ministers were not present at the conference. Furthermore, he says, “At the time, January 1942, there was no organized plan for extermination camps.”
And yet, Haaretz admits, “Make no mistake. Kampe is not anti-Semitic. Certainly not a Holocaust denier. On the contrary. As expected of a professional historian, he studied countless relevant texts, documents and testimonies on the particular event… His conclusion is the direct outcome of an educated analysis of written material in his possession.”
So courageously, a Hebrew paper praises Kampe and his “fascinating historical lesson” and also acknowledges that the Israeli Ministry of Education lacks the capacity to engage in any form of informed Holocaust debate. Haaretz clearly admits that
“to this day no one knows with complete certainty and confidence what exactly happened on 20 January 1942, in this pretty villa in the wealthy suburb of Berlin.”
Only one copy of the Wansee Conference protocol, found in 1947, survived the war, others having been deliberately destroyed by the Nazis in an effort to conceal evidence. This protocol is the only authentic documentation as to what happened in Wannsee and one of the few that made explicit use of the term “final solution”. However, Haaretz concedes that, like any historical document, the Wannsee document should be read carefully. The words “death” or “murder” do not appear in the conference protocol. Instead, it refers to “natural diminution”, “appropriate treatment”, “other solution options” and “different forms of solutions.” In fact, the only explicit references in the document deal with deportation rather than extermination. Even the famous table attached to the protocol that counts the Jews in each occupied country, does not state that those Jews are destined to be destroyed.
Just a few days ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, a Hebrew paper found the courage to admit that “decades of Holocaust research could not find a clear and explicit command made by high-level Nazi officials to engage in systematic mass extermination of Jews.”
According to the Israeli paper, the Nazis disguised their true intentions in some “ambiguous orders” and “secret codes”, which were supposed to lead officers to interpret and to react upon what they believed to be Hitler’s will.
The moral here is simple. Once again we learn that some Israelis are far ahead of the Western press and academia in their criticism of Jewish ideology in general and the Zionist Holocaust narrative in particular.
US President Barack Obama has acknowledged Washington’s unauthorized surveillance drone operations in Iraq where the un-mandated move has sparked outrage among senior Iraqi officials and the public.
“The truth is we’re not engaging in a bunch of drone attacks inside Iraq. There’s some surveillance to make sure that our embassy compound is protected,” said Obama in a chat with web users on Google+ and YouTube on Monday.
The confirmation came after The New York Times disclosed that the US State Department began operating some drones in Iraq last year on a trial basis to help protect the US Embassy and that it stepped up their use after the last US troops left the country in December.
The report has infuriated senior Iraqi officials who say Washington must respect the country’s sovereignty and consult with the Baghdad government before carrying out any operation now that “the war is over.”
“I think that there’s this perception that we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes, willy nilly,” Obama said, adding, “It is important for everybody to understand that this is kept on a very tight leash.”
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also claimed that her department uses unmanned aerial vehicles to take pictures of US facilities and personnel abroad.
Meanwhile, The Times said that senior Iraqi officials told the newspaper that the US had not consulted with Iraqi government about the drone operations and that despite the official US withdrawal from Iraq, it maintains a strong presence in the country.
The daily said that since getting the approval for using surveillance drone aircraft over Iraq might be hard given the political tensions between the two countries, the US continues drone operations in the country without formal approval from Iraq.
It added that Washington plans to take bids for the management of drone operations in Iraq over the next five years.
“This is the life of Palestinian people,” Obada Saed Bilal said one recent morning. “If I hadn’t been detained, I would have been wounded or martyred. I was in detention for over nine years, but I still resist. My marriage and university studies are my ways to keep fighting now.”
Obada and his wife, Nili Zahi Safad, sat in the lobby of the Commodore Gaza Hotel. The Ministry of Detainees in Gaza has temporarily housed them there, along with a number of other former political prisoners who, like Bilal, were freed in the prisoner exchange on 18 October 2011.
Israel forced Bilal, a native of Nablus in the West Bank, to relocate to Gaza following his release, along with 204 other prisoners expelled from their homes in the West Bank.
Safad moved to Gaza shortly after her husband’s arrival. They had been married for only twenty days when his arrest separated them on 16 April 2002.
“I was brutally beaten for two hours,” Bilal said, recalling the 1am military raid in the West Bank village of Aghwar in which he was detained. “Then I was taken to the Petach Tikva detention center in Tel Aviv. They interrogated me for ninety days. This was my most difficult time as a prisoner. I was kept in isolation, handcuffed and blindfolded, and interrogated for about twelve hours every day.”
After his interrogation, the Israeli authorities sent Bilal to Ashkelon, where a military court sentenced him to 26 years.
Isolation
Safad, also a former political prisoner, told a similar story.
“I was detained at a checkpoint,” she said of her arrest on 11 November 2009. “I was returning from Hebron to Nablus, when they arrested me and sent me to detention. They kept me in isolation for ninety days before transferring me to the HaSharon prison for women. About 17 women were detained at HaSharon then; now there are only seven.
“While being interrogated, women are treated exactly like the men,” she added. “We were deprived of food, sleep and even access to the toilet. They shouted insults at us. I was kept handcuffed and blindfolded. Once they chained my hands to the ceiling for four days.”
Bilal and Safad told The Electronic Intifada that their conditions barely improved after they were transferred to prisons following their ninety-day interrogation periods.
“Our daily life was harsh and difficult,” Bilal said. “Our basic human and medical needs were routinely denied. The jailers treated us poorly, the food was awful and we were routinely denied any contact with our families. I wasn’t able to see mine for three years. We were kept handcuffed for ten hours a day, and only given one hour for recreation. Sometimes they punished us by denying even this.”
The Israeli authorities seemed determined to prevent contact with family members inside the prison. “Once I met my two brothers in prison. But when the jailers learned that we were brothers, they separated us,” Bilal said. “And when my wife was arrested, I asked to be placed with her, but the prison administration refused.” Their reunion seemed less likely after Safad completed her sentence and was released on 10 July 2011.
Renewed vows
The authorities also tried to prevent inmates from forming any bonds with each other. “They transferred us among prisons only to confuse us. As soon as we made new friends, they would transfer us again. This was psychological punishment,” Bilal explained.
He had a problem with his eyesight before his arrest, and it became worse in prison. “But they refused to treat it,” he said. “It deteriorated until I couldn’t see at all.”
The International Middle East Media Center reported in late November that there were at least forty persons living with disabilities, such as Bilal’s blindness, among the prisoner population. Many prisoners have died due to systematic medical negligence and torture (“Forty disabled Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel,” 30 November 2011).
Today, Bilal and Safad’s lives go on in a new city, far from their families and community in Nablus.
Bilal, an An-Najah National University public relations student when arrested, has returned to his studies, this time in politics and religion at the Islamic University of Gaza. He and Safad continue supporting Bilal’s brothers, Moad and Othman, both current political prisoners.
The couple also marked the end of their separation by renewing their marriage vows. “We held another wedding party after I was released and my wife came to Gaza, to celebrate our life and resistance,” Bilal said. “This is our message to the world, that we must celebrate our struggle and keep fighting.”
Joe Catron is an international solidarity activist and boycott, divestment, and sanctions organizer in Gaza. He blogs at joecatron.wordpress.com and tweets at @jncatron.
Most comprehensive and penetrating analysis available ..
The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. Nur Masalha. (London: Zed Books, January 2012). 288 pp. Hardback. ISBN: 978-1848139718
2012 marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba – the most traumatic catastrophe that ever befell Palestinians. This book explores new ways of remembering and commemorating the Nakba. In the context of Palestinian oral history, it explores ‘social history from below’, subaltern narratives of memory and the formation of collective identity. Masalha argues that to write more truthfully about the Nakba is not just to practise a professional historiography but an ethical imperative. The struggles of ordinary refugees to recover and publicly assert the truth about the Nakba is a vital way of protecting their rights and keeping the hope for peace with justice alive.
This book is essential for understanding the place of the Palestine Nakba at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the vital role of memory in narratives of truth and reconciliation.
Reviews
‘As a meticulous scholar, historian and above all Palestinian, Nur Masalha is eminently suited to write this excellent book. He has produced a marvellous history of the Nakba which should be essential reading for all those concerned with the origins of the conflict over Palestine.’ — Ghada Karmi, author of ‘Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine’
‘Nur Masalha has a distinguished and deserved reputation for scholarship on the Nakba and Palestinian refugees. Now, with his latest book, his searching analysis of past and present makes for a powerful combination of remembrance and resistance.’ — Ben White, journalist and author of ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’
‘Nur Masalha’s ‘The Palestinian Nakba’ is a tour de force examining the process of transformation of Palestine over the last century. One outstanding feature of this study is the systematic manner in which it investigates the accumulated scholarship on the erasure of Palestinian society and culture, including a critical assessment of the work of the new historians. In what he calls ‘reclaiming the memory’ he goes on to survey and build on an emergent narrative. Masalha’s work is essential and crucial for any scholar seeking this alternate narrative.’ — Salim Tamari, Visiting Professor of History, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University
‘This book is the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis available of the catastrophe that befell Arab Palestine and its people in 1948, known as the nakba. It shows how the expulsion and physical obliteration of the material traces of a people was followed by what Masalha calls ‘memoricide’: the effacement of their history, their archives, and their place-names, and a denial that they had ever existed.’ — Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies Department of History, Columbia University
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Zionism and European Settler-Colonialism
2. The Memoricide of the Nakba: Zionist-Hebrew Toponymy and the De-Arabisation of Palestine
3. Fashioning a European Landscape, Erasure and Amnesia: The Jewish National Fund, Afforestation, and Green-washing the Nakba
4. Appropriating History: The Looting of Palestinian Records, Archives and Library Collections (1948-2011)
5. New History, Post-Zionism, the Liberal Coloniser and Hegemonic Narratives: A Critique of the Israeli ‘New Historians’
6. Decolonising History and Narrating the Subaltern: Palestinian Oral History, Indigenous and Gendered Memories
7. Resisting Memoricide and Reclaiming Memory: The Politics of Nakba Commemoration among Palestinians inside Israel
Epilogue: The Continuity of Trauma
About the Author:
Nur Masalha is Professor of Religion and Politics and Director of the Centre for Religion and History at St. Mary’s University College, London, and Professorial Research Associate, Department of History, SOAS. He is also Editor of ‘Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal’ (published by Edinburgh University Press).
The trailer of the documentary We are Nabi Saleh!
Check out http://www.wearenabisaleh.com/ for more info.
Stay tuned: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jan-Beddegenoodts/211554788917904
We are Nabi Saleh is still looking for Co-funding, screening places and help with translation: Arabic-English. If you wan’t to collaborate, write an email to jan.beddegenoodts@hotmail.com. We can make it real together. Bless.
The essence of the Palestinian struggle is the battle against Zionism. It is a battle against its racism, against its murderous war crimes, against its insatiable territorial hunger, against its disdain for non-Jewish human rights, and against its devoted attempts to destroy Palestinian national identity. As voices of normalization are on the rise, and social media is invaded by paid pro-Zionist bloggers, there is an increased need for anti-Zionists to draw attention to the crimes committed by ‘Israel’, and to speak up against the ongoing media silence and the apologist activities of those misleadingly portraying themselves as ‘peace doves’. Let us first look briefly at the history of the anti-Zionist struggle, and then see where we stand today.
The Ideology of Zionism
Years before the creation of the state of ‘Israel’, there was already a full-blown battle going on against Zionism. On one side, the Palestinians were resisting against the usurpation of their land, having grown aware of the far-stretching implications of the Balfour declaration of 1917, which laid the foundation for the mass-immigration of European Jews into Palestine. In those same decades, there was also an ongoing struggle within the Jewish communities in Europe, where many were opposed to the tenets of Zionism either on a religious basis, or on the realization that colonizing an inhabited land would inevitably cause an injustice that would continue to reverberate for many years to come. A famous example of this in that period of time was the famous genius Albert Einstein, who in 1938 already expressed his opposition to the creation of a ‘Jewish state’, and in a letter to the New York Times that he wrote together with a number of prominent Jews in 1948, strongly denounced the horrendous Deir Yassin massacre.
The ongoing struggle of the Palestinians against Zionism and the continuing expropriation of their land is well-known, but not everyone is aware that within Jewish ranks, true ideological opposition against Zionism still exists. The most well-known group among these is Neturei Karta (‘Guardians of the City’), an organization of international Jews united against Zionism. On another note, within the current framework of the Zionist state, a coalition of groups that call themselves ‘Campus Watchdogs’ recently went as far as labeling 10 % of Israeli academics as ‘anti-Zionist’. It is likely that this number is highly overrated, since this McCarthyism-like approach can be expected to have lumped together a wide variety of people who expressed criticism at their government’s actions. In a similar way that outside criticism of ‘Israel’ quickly gets labeled as ‘anti-Semitism’, many of the one thousand mentioned academics, publicists and journalists are likely to have received the label of ‘anti-Zionist’ despite adhering to many of Zionism’s principles.
Tribal, Religious, or Ideological?
For some, the ongoing misery is a war between two peoples, basically a ‘tribal war’. Others prefer seeing it as a war between religions, with Judaism on one side and Muslims on the other side. Those who adopt this view are ignoring the pluralistic ethnic and religious composition of the Palestinian people, and are for instance ignoring the fact that many Palestinians are Christians, who have not been spared the gruesome fate of their Muslim compatriots. Thirdly, there are those who view the struggle as a battle between ideologies: Zionism on one side, and anti-Zionism on the other.
As the original PLO manifesto (28 May 1964) stated, the organization declared that “Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit” and that it sought to “prohibit the existence and activity of Zionism”. It also contained statements calling for a right of return and self-determination for the Palestinians. When reading the manifesto, it becomes clear that the PLO, the first more officially organized Palestinian movement against the land theft and expulsion committed by the Zionist terrorist organizations that later declared the Zionist state, was an explicitly anti-Zionist movement. The PLO incorporated the various existing political movements in one body, and was declared to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This was widely accepted by an overwhelming majority of Palestinians.
The Oslo Disaster
As illustrated above, the foundations of the Palestinian struggle were based on the territorial integrity of Palestine (i.e. the one state solution) and the right of return of all expelled Palestinians. These original foundations became embedded in an entire generation of Palestinians worldwide. In 1993, the leadership under Yaser Arafat adopted the two-state solution instead, which largely happened in a top-down manner and led to the Oslo accords, However, it soon became clear to all that the Oslo accords were only accepted by ‘Israel’ as a deceptive method to hypnotize the Palestinians as well as the masses of the world into an illusion of Israeli willingness for territorial concessions, while in truth confiscating huge swathes of land, building a separation wall and almost tripling the settler population (from 250,000 to 700,000). It should be no surprise that even early on, as the scam became blatantly clear to all except seemingly to the leadership of the newly created Palestinian Authority, the original tenets of the struggle were yet again embraced by many Palestinians inside of Palestine as well as in the diaspora.
Return to the Struggle
As the state of confusion created by the Oslo accords lingered on, some defeatist voices however also turned to normalization, instead of returning to the basics of the struggle. It is not to be wondered at that disillusion and opportunism play their role in such a complex situation, wherein many lose hope when faced with the overwhelming military, economical and strategic dominance of the Zionist state. Nevertheless, youth movements that are currently active in keeping the struggle for Palestinian rights alive, predominantly see anti-normalization as one of their main strategic goals. They adhere to the above-mentioned basic tenets of the struggle, and reject the failed formula of negotiations that is still pursued by the Palestinian Authority, despite its lack of popular mandate for it. For most Palestinians it is blatantly clear, that the so-called ‘Peace Process’ has only caused damage to their cause and has not brought even the slightest prospects of a better future, let alone of self-determination or independence.
Internationally, pro-Palestinian activists also largely adhere to the basic tenets of the Palestinian struggle, namely the one-state solution and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. There are other issues as well that are deemed non-negotiable to the majority of Palestinians, such as strong opposition against the Judaization of Jerusalem (Al Quds) which is projected as the future capital of liberated Palestine, and the release of all thousands of Palestinian political prisoners.
There is definitely also a group of ‘two-staters’, but their numbers are dwindling fast, and they rarely engage in activism since their views are largely represented by the Palestinian Authority. The strongest cure for the fallacy of the two-state solution was seeing the Palestinian side of that solution being gobbled up by the Zionist state over the years, faster than one could issue statements of protest against them.
New Shape of the Struggle: Back to Anti-Zionism
It is clear nowadays that the Palestinian Authority is not a useful apparatus for waging any form of struggle, but an administrative body that functions mainly as an extension of the Israeli security apparatus, in a framework inherited directly from the Oslo agreements. This does not mean that the people have stopped struggling. The modern Palestinian struggle has moved towards preferring popular resistance over armed struggle, and employing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) as a main strategy of generating pressure against the Zionist state. What has also changed, is that this struggle has gained large numbers of international supporters all over the world, who support the Palestinians in their pursuit of freedom from Zionist oppression.
These changes have also brought anti-Zionism back to the forefront, and this has far-reaching implications. Whereas a two-state solution almost automatically implies the undertaking of steps towards normalization, since it implies an acceptance of Zionism and relinquishing the claim of 78 % of Palestinian territory to it, a one-state solution which aims to create a state for all of its inhabitants that does not discriminate on the basis of race of religion, requires a strong and uncompromising return to anti-Zionism as a unifying strategy.
Anti-Zionism versus Normalization
In a struggle that aims to achieve this, normalization is an extremely damaging concession that can never be combined with the dismantling of Zionism, which is the ultimate goal of its strategy. After all, a struggle against racism cannot be successful if the inherently racist tenets of Zionism are accepted. The ‘Oslo-period’ has however sown its sorrowful seeds in more places than may directly become apparent. The vast majority of the Arab masses have not accepted Zionism in their midst, but there are stubborn strands of normalization that seem to be enjoying an increasing momentum within ‘progressive’ ranks of various Arab communities.
Two Egyptian examples can be mentioned in this context. One is Mona Eltahawy, who seems to consider ‘Israel’ to be a civilized state and refused to condemn the genocidal massacre in Gaza that claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians (including at least 300 children) by massive attacks from drones, tanks, Apaches and F-16’s – on a population that possesses no bombing shelters or anti-aircraft artillery. Another even more mind-blowing example is Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger who enjoyed wide campaigns for his release when he was arrested for criticizing the SCAF military junta of post-Mubarak Egypt. He expressed his love for Israel on his blog and in Israeli media with an enthusiasm rarely ever seen before in the Arab world. There are other examples too, such as Arab-American comedian Ray Hanania of Palestinian origin, who proclaimed himself a candidate for Palestinian presidency in a video that he posted on Youtube, wherein he called for an acceptance of Israeli settlements, and an end to the Right of Return.
The Only Ziocracy in the Middle East
It is true that these examples do not represent the sentiments of the majority of Palestinians and other Arabs, whether in the Arab world or outside of it, but these voices cannot be ignored either. The main reason for this is that voices of normalization like the ones mentioned above often receive disproportionate attention in Western-dominated mass-media, and thereby have a number of insidious destructive effects upon the struggle.
First of all, they make those who are true to the anti-racist struggle against Zionism seem extremist, by offering alternatives that at first sight strike the general public as being more inspired by peaceful motives. This is a distortion of reality: support for ‘Israel’, the most belligerent state in the Middle East, the only state in the region in possession of (over 300) nuclear arms, and the only ‘Ziocracy’ where ones ethnic background automatically categorizes one as having less rights than others, can never be truthfully designated as ‘peace-loving’.
Secondly, the apparently human inclination of the masses to flock around the famous without delving deeply into their philosophies, brings multitudes of people close to positive truth-distorting evaluations of the Zionist state. For example, progressive Arabs who embrace Mona Eltahawy’s feminist activities, are inclined to also automatically defend their idol’s views on ‘Israel’, simply because they are already in a state of adoration of her person. Another example involves Maikel Nabil: when progressive activists rallied for him due to his unjust incarceration by SCAF, his shocking pro-Israel views seemed to be lumped together with his anti-SCAF views under the label of ‘freedom of speech’, effectively paving the way for the perceived ‘right’ of Egyptians to view ‘Israel’ in an undeservingly positive and gruesomely distorted loving manner.
The Struggle Goes on
The true and original struggle of the Palestinians is a struggle against Zionism, and this is entirely incompatible with the views mentioned above. Normalization must therefore be opposed, vocally, directly, loudly and clearly. There is definitely a need for increased activity on this front, since anti-normalization and BDS do not enjoy the support of mass media, unlike the voices of normalization.
If this means that these voices need to be confronted even on a personal level, then so be it. It may not be a pleasant thing to do, and some might argue that it distracts from calling attention to the continuing atrocities that the Zionist state is inflicting on a daily basis upon the defenseless Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. However, as has been argued in the article “Anti-normalization: an necessary part of BDS campaigning”, calling attention to these injustices will remain highly ineffective if the public is simultaneously exposed by mass media to Arab voices that aim to paint a misleading image of ‘Israel’ as if it were a beacon of civilization, and a saviour for mankind.
In other words: if you value BDS and wish it to be effective, and if you believe in opposing the racist ideology of Zionism, one of your tasks is also to confront those who suck up to power for their own personal gain. And since their number is increasing, it looks like you have work to do.
– Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years.
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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