The water crisis in Palestine is 100% human-made, not a climate change catastrophe, not an issue of deforestation or drought. Don’t let the location fool you; as Ziyad Lunat from the Thirsting For Justice campaign pointed out, “Palestine and Israel get the same amount of rainfall as England.”
We say Palestine, mind you, not the West Bank and/or Gaza and/or the Occupied Territories. When we say Palestine, we mean all of it. The Palestine that is Gaza, the West Bank, the 64+ year flood of refugees in Jordan and Syria and Turkey and Chicago, the largest flood of refugees in modern history that span across the globe.
This water catastrophe — this other type of nakba — is definitively the result of Israel’s apartheid policies that are being conducted continuously, evident in the waterborne disease spreading throughout Palestinian refugee camps that are perhaps not an accident, an inconvenient oversight. Perhaps they are part of the continuing collateral damage of a so-called unsolvable crisis that in person, feels much more like the combination of a big lie and a large land grab. And as in other places, behind every land grab is a water grab.
Israeli policies and practices limit Palestinians’ access to the water they are entitled to under international law. Israel controls all sources of freshwater in the West Bank. In Gaza, 90 to 95 percent of the coastal aquifer, on which Gaza inhabitants are dependent for water, is contaminated due to over extraction and sewage contamination, making it unfit for human consumption. For most Palestinians, this ongoing and catastrophic water crisis is what they face daily, when they wash clothing, need a glass of water or try to water their crops.
In Palestine, MECA was working to further our partnership with UNRWA to sustain and support MECA’s ongoing Maia project, which provides clean drinking water for children throughout kindergartens and UN schools in Gaza. As a natural extension of MECA’s humanitarian efforts, they are a member of the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a coalition of 30 leading humanitarian organizations that launched this Thirsting for Justice Campaign. These groups have realized that demand for clean water will only increase unless there is some component where they do not just respond to the overwhelming need for clean water, but they advocate for a change in Israel’s water policy, which in my view amounts to liquid apartheid.
Taking the Challenge
I am not going to lie to you for a moment. This challenge is an impossible and completely symbolic task. How does one in the places in which we live respond to such a challenge? I, for one, procrastinated and delayed, as such is my privilege, since this is a symbolic nothingness, a gesture, a shoulder shrug. Solidarity? Perhaps. But solidarity means nothing when the 6.3 gallons I consumed during my allotted and chosen 24 hours were highly purified, compared to the water in Gaza, where I know from experience that if you take a hot shower the salt in the water burns your skin, that friends invite you to brush your teeth with their own bottled water so that your teeth won’t begin to erode for use of tap water. Water in Palestine is often so heavily salinated or in short supply that blue baby syndrome, liver afflictions, and kidney problems are all too commonly spoken on the lips of mothers when talking about their children.
Yet still I delayed. A 6.3 gallon challenge? Are you kidding me? I flush the toilet twice in the same day and I fail. If I do a load of laundry, or turn on the dishwasher, I fail. One shower, failure. I am American, therefore entitled to unlimited resources, am I not? Isn’t the American way of life not up for negotiation?
I finally acquiesced and undertook the Thirsting For Justice Challenge. Yesterday, instead of showering, I swam in the ocean. I pissed outdoors — I never flushed. I did not use dishes, except for one glass. I attempted the challenge and in the process spent countless gallons of oil and even more kilowatts of electricity, especially if you are reading this, all to communicate to you the importance of the Thirsting for Justice campaign, all to attempt to wash off the guilt and the default complicity we share in this occupation, all to complete a promise.
Taking part in the Thirsting for Justice Summer Challenge did make me think more about what it means to consume. Consume. Consume. The American mantra. We consume and destroy, and we do not question policies like the ongoing occupation and division of Palestine that we fund every day with US tax dollars. All of this, of course, is completely absent from debates, from dialogue, from the ongoing election cycle that makes one nauseous enough it makes it difficult to swallow. Even this symbolic feeling of being deprived of water, if just for one day, gives one pause to think about things such as this.
This symbolic challenge is a challenge nonetheless, one I invite you to consider, to embrace, to make you pause, despite all the noise, and join in the walk with the peoples of Palestine. Those who join the walk will be haunted as am I by Martin Luther King’s words: “ In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
What now?
When I left Palestine weeks ago and returned home, (as is my privilege, I have freedom to travel, I am not Palestinian)sometimes things seemed more silent than ever. Sometimes I thought about how much harder it is to speak when you are thirsty. Sometimes I wished there was an easy way to be be heard by you, Israel. Because you are choking Palestine. There literally is no Jordan River anymore. You dam(n) the waters from the underground aquifers that provide water to Palestinians, you poison their wells, you have built walls to encompass the high ground, you redirect the streams to fill swimming pools of settlers born of other lands with other privileges, many of whom are surprisingly well armed. With US weapons no less.
6.3 gallons. Per person. Per diem. I grab at the easy words in easy reach, carpe diem, to louden the call to jointhisThirstingforJusticecampaigntoday, but I cringe now at this phrase. Being in Palestine makes you realize seizure means something different when you are on the receiving end of being seized.
Lessons learned?
What is 6.3 gallons? It is Israeli water torture. It is part of the occupation. It is part of maintaining the stalemate, the status quo, the divide and conquer, the non-solution is a solution. In the meantime, in the never ending interim, if you are Palestinian, just keep your water consumption under 6.3 gallons a day or there will be hell to pay.
I now know more deeply that expecting one to live on 6.3 gallons of water in a day is an insult. It’s collective punishment. It’s fucking horrible. An allotment of 6.3 gallons of water a day makes you want to flee.
This is not about me or you joining the Thirsting for Justice Summer campaign. This is about Israel using allotment of water resources as one of the many weapons in their arsenal to maintain their ongoing occupation. This is about making Palestine unlivable. This is about creating a different kind of Exodus. This is about a new Trail of Tears. But this is a controlled amount of tears, and it is controlled at the water spigots, controlled at the borders, controlled in the halls in Washington and the Knesset and in the lack of news you hear about the unwillingness of many Palestinians to be truly part of their two paltry puppets, the PA and Hamas.
This other Trail of Tears is drier and longer and older than you think. Listen. Do you hear the footsteps? More feet down the trail every day, with our silence. More tears. All happening in real time, all with the blind allegiance and support of the USA.
By no means, do I know what it is to walk any Trail of Tears. All I can think is to try to strive to accompany in some small way those who have been forced on this path by no choice of their own. That many of those walking are children. That there are choices before all of us, that we can, in fact, ourselves thirst for justice in our own way and shrink the gap between those on the receiving end, those whose lives know only war and occupation and those of us who, by default, by waking up in America, are the ones who are partly responsible.
Danny Muller has worked with the Middle East Children’s Alliance since they were jointly breaking the economic sanctions against Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness in the 1990’s. He is raising money to build a water treatment unit at the UNRWA Rehabilitation Centre for Visually Impaired (RCVI) where almost 500 students come for training and treatment but have no access to clean water, and asks that you consider making a donation and support Palestine.
CNN’s Nicole Dow featured Hillary in an interview on “Iran’s Soft Power Messaging” last week in connection with the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, see here. Hillary also appeared on Al Jazeera over the weekend to talk about the new United Nations/Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, and the prospects for progress toward resolving the conflict there (click on video above to view). Her two interviews bring together a number of important points about Iranian foreign policy and the requirements for a political settlement in Syria.
Twenty years ago, Harvard University’s Joseph Nye famously defined soft power as the ability to get others to “want what you want,” which he contrasted with the ability to compel others via “hard” military and economic assets. Hillary’s CNN interview explores what we have called the Islamic Republic’s “soft power offensive” in the context of the geopolitical and sectarian (Shi’a-Sunni) rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the interview, Hillary notes that the rise of Tehran’s regional influence over the last decade has little to do with hard power. (As CNN’s Nicole Dow documents, “the numbers would certainly seem to bear this out. Last year, Saudi Arabia reportedly purchased as much as six times as much military equipment from the United States as Iran’s entire official defense budget.”) Rather, as Hillary points out, Iran’s rise is fundamentally about soft power. “We always think of Iran as a military dictatorship, but the Iranian message is clear: they want free and fair elections” in countries like Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq. “The Iranian message and belief is—if a country has free and fair elections, it will pursue independent policies that are in that country’s national interest. The Iranian belief is that if they pursue independent policies, they will inevitably be unenthusiastic about pursuing U.S. or Western policies.”
Hillary argues that Tehran can apply this approach even in Syria. Saeed Jalili, the secretary-general of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme National Security Council, has made clear that “Iran will not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be an essential part, to be broken in any way.” But, as Hillary points out, “The two big points of the Iranian push” [on how to deal with the Syrian situation] were for there to be a ceasefire in Syria for three months at the end of Ramadan, and that there should be free and fair elections.”
Iranian policymakers are willing to roll the dice on elections in Syria because, first of all, they judge (correctly) that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to retain the support of at least half of Syrian society. Thus, it is not at all clear that he would lose an election. But Hillary underscores that, even if Assad were to leave office as part of a democratic transition, “a free and fairly elected successor to Assad would not be interested in strategic cooperation with the U.S. and would not be interested in aligning itself with Israel. That would be completely against the views and histories of the people.”
On the other side of the Middle East’s geopolitical and sectarian divide, Saudi Arabia is pursuing a very different strategy, in Syria and elsewhere in the region. The Saudi strategy emphasizes the funding and training of fundamentalist Sunni groups ideologically aligned with Al-Qa’ida—groups that, in contrast to mainstream Sunni Islamists “who are not interested in killing other Muslims,” take a strongly anti-Shi’a stance. This is, of course, the strategy that Saudi Arabia followed when it joined with the United States to fund largely Pashtun cadres among the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—and then fueled the rise of the Taliban during the 1990s, after the Soviet withdrawal.
In Hillary’s assessment, “The Saudis cannot call for a ceasefire or for free and fair elections because the Saudis haven’t had free and fair elections in their own country. It doesn’t sound genuine, so they can’t do it, and they don’t want to do it. No precedent has been set to have everyone else doing it except them.” More fundamentally, though, “the Saudis aren’t interested in an outcome in Syria that leads to a government that carries out the interests of the people of Syria. What the Saudis are interested in is a head of state who will be on their side. And their side is against Iran and its influence in the region. This is a big albatross that Saudi Arabia has on its neck.”
Hillary elaborates on the point: The Saudis want to convince others in the region that “the Iranians don’t stand for Muslim causes, beliefs, independence or nationalism. The Saudis want others in the region to see the Iranians as Shiite, Persian, non-Arab, non-Sunni, and that what the Iranians are doing has nothing to do with democracy or freedom, but rather promoting a narrow sectarian vision… the Saudi message is that the Shiites are infiltrating Arab affairs to undermine the Sunni community and Sunni states. They see the Shiites as heretical, non-believing, non-Arab Persians. Some Sunnis believe that”—and some Saudis try to play on that “with a tremendous amount of money and weapons.”
But polls and other objective indicators suggest that regional publics are not buying the Saudi message. As Hillary concludes, “That’s where the conflict is today. It’s a battle today between this message that Iran has to promote of freedom,” in the sense of real independence, “and the Saudis that are really trying to fight that message.”
In Hillary’s reading, dealing with the contrast between the Iranian and Saudi approaches to Syria will be crucial to Lakhdar Brahimi’s chances of success in stabilizing the conflict there. On Al Jazeera, she highlights “two critical points” that Brahimi has made since taking over from former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the U.N./Arab League Syria envoy.
First, Brahimi “has come out clearly against foreign military intervention. That is critically important because that could prevent the escalation of the civil war in Syria, and it could even start to dial back some of the armed support for opposition fighters.” Second, Hillary highlights Brahimi’s “refusal to simply parrot the White House talking point that Assad has to go and that Assad has lost all legitimacy. That is really a ridiculous point that is not going to lead to a negotiated outcome, and he has stood up courageously and refused to parrot it.”
Recalling her own experience working with Brahimi on post-9/11 Afghanistan, Hillary notes that his “track record” in the various civil wars and conflicts where he has been a mediator—Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti—is to focus on “power sharing. He focuses on getting together all of the critical players inside a country that need to be part of a solution. That’s power sharing. That’s not saying who goes and who leaves. That’s putting everybody into the same pot and having them work together. And then it’s critically important for him to work with the outside players.”
When challenged with an assertion that neither the Assad government nor the opposition is willing to talk, Hillary pushes back by observing that, just as the Islamic Republic supports a political solution in Syria, President Assad has been willing to talk with opponents since virtually the beginning of unrest back in March 2011. (So just who is it that it really blocking movement toward a possible political solution?) Furthermore, she underscores that it is largely the external Syrian opposition that has demanded Assad’s ouster up front; the internal opposition has not insisted on that.
In this context, she points out, Brahimi’s track record suggests that he will “focus on the players that are in Syria… He doesn’t actually have much time or patience for expatriates who sit in cafes in London or Paris. He doesn’t really think they’re players. He focuses on people who are in country.”
That is certainly a very different approach to post-conflict stabilization than that pursued by the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and, now—in collaboration with Saudi Arabia—in Syria.
On October 11, a Franco-German TV channel, ARTE, broadcast an Anti Syrian documentary called “Syria, in the hell of repression (Killing license in Syria)”. People from France and Germany were able to watch it, as well as millions around the globe through satellite and / or VOD.
This TV channel is very well-known but has, most of the time, limited market shares. Indeed, this channel is highly believed to be a ” cultural channel”, hence, in regular people’s minds, it is only “intellectually accessible” to very smart people. This image provides the channel a very high credibility – although it is another propaganda and deception tool…
THE TRICK
The regular woman/man, will not watch it often because she/he thinks they are not able to understand all its programs (mainly about art, politics and history). Though, sometimes, just like on October 11, the channel broadcasts programs that seem to be within everybody’s intellectual reach. Very populist and arrogant attitude.
You might be wondering how they get the masses to watch it when they have a special propaganda message to impress upon people. The way they do it is the following: They advertise about this type of programs just like other “dumbing down” channels do, by showing appealing extracts (violence, choking revelations, etc.). They also make sure newspapers talk about it, insisting on the accuracy of the information provided by this channel.
They never proceed this way when the topic is about e.g. France’s role in slavery, France’s colonization of Africa, France brutal and inhuman war on Algeria… (Those programs are not broadcast often; a few times a year, likely just to make people believe in the neutrality of the channel). It broadcasts almost weekly programs about the SHOA though.
Also, on the above mentioned documentary webpage, we learn that Sofia Amara, the lady who actually films and comments on the documentary, spent her entire time filming and interviewing various “coordination committees of the revolution”.
A question immediately comes to my mind: How can a documentary be considered as fair and objective, when the documentary maker recognizes having spent her whole time with only ONE side of the conflict? A bit too one-sided to be intellectually honest …
The channel, of course, couldn’t miss this opportunity to spread more lies about Israel’s eternal enemies: Hezbollah and Iran. Indeed, on this same presentation page, the last paragraph read: “These images and testimonies show for the first time the direct implication of the Hezbollah and the Iranian guardians of the revolution in the massacres.” The images they show are the same ones that have been exposed as blatant lies a hundred times on the Internet, when they show Lebanese men talking amongst themselves saying that this was filmed in Syria when it was actually filmed in Lebanon a few years ago (2005 – 2006), when Hariri’s Mostaqbal militias and Lebanese forces were attacking Syrians in Lebanon to avenge Rafic Hariri’s death. In this video they say “This is the Syrian guy” which actually means they were in Lebanon fighting against Syrians. Because in Syria, everyone is Syrian…
Who are ARTE and Bernard Henri Levy trying to fool? Who could possibly believe that this documentary exposes the REAL situation? This documentary, as most of what is being said about Syria by the Mainstream Media, is false and only serves Israel’s and the USA’s interests in the region.
Manufacturing Dissent is a documentary about the psychological-warfare by the media and political establishment of the west and their allies aimed at facilitating the US, European and Israeli agenda of getting rid of the current Syrian government. It demonstrates how the media has directly contributed to the bloodshed in Syria.
The documentary de-constructs the main allegations those actors have presented, namely that the Syrian government was systematically repressing peaceful protests and that it has lost legitimacy. It shows how such claims are supported by scant evidence and are therefore little more than propaganda to serve the foreign policy interests of their countries.
Manufacturing Dissent includes evidence of fake reports broadcasted/published by the likes of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others and interviews with a cross section of the Syrian population including an actor, a craftsman, a journalist, a resident from Homs and an activist who have all been affected by the crisis.
Produced by journalists Lizzie Phelan and Mostafa Afzalzadeh.
“You can’t exclude any hypothesis … It’s practically impossible that here in an [oil] installation like this which is fully automated everywhere and that has thousands of responsible workers night and day, civilian and military, and that there is a gas leak for 3 or 4 days and nobody responds. This is impossible.”
President Chavez responding to US media and opposition charges that the explosion and fire at the oil refinery was due to government negligence.
Introduction
Only 43 days before the Venezuelan presidential election and with President Chavez leading by a persistent margin of 20 percentage points, an explosion and fire at the Amuay refinery killed at least 48 people – half of those were members of the National Guard – and destroyed oil facilities producing 645,000 barrels of oil per day.
Immediately following the explosion and fire, on script, all the mass media in the US and Great Britain, and the right wing Venezuelan opposition launched a blanket condemnation of the government as the perpetrator of the disaster accusing it of “gross negligence” and “under-investment” in safety standards.
Yet there are strong reasons to reject these self-serving accusations and to formulate a more plausible hypothesis, namely that the explosion was an act of sabotage, planned and executed by a clandestine group of terrorist specialists acting on behalf of the US government. There are powerful arguments to sustain and pursue this line of inquiry.
The Argument for Sabotage:
(1) The first question in any serious investigation is who benefits and who loses from the destruction of lives and oil production?
The US is a clear winner on several crucial fronts. Firstly, via the economic losses to the Venezuelan economy – 2.5 million barrels in the first 5 days and counting – the loss will put a dent on social spending and delay productive investments which in turn are key electoral appeals of the Chavez presidency. Secondly, on cue the US joined by its client candidate,Henrique Capriles Radonski, immediately launched a propaganda blitz aimed at discrediting the government and calling into question its capacity to ensure the security and safety of its citizens and the principle source of the country’s wealth. Thirdly, the explosion creates insecurity and fear among sectors of the electorate and could influence their voting in the October presidential election. Fourthly, the US can test the effectiveness of a wider destabilization campaign and the government’s capacity to respond to any further security threats.
(2) According to official government documents the US has Special Forces operations in over seventy-five countries, including Venezuela, which is targeted because of an adversarial relation. This means that the US has operative clandestine highly trained operatives on the ground in Venezuela. The capture of a US Marine for illegal entry in Venezuela with prior experience in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan is indicative.
(3) The US has a history of involvement in violent destabilization activity in Venezuela – backing the military coup of 2002 and the bosses’ lockout in the petroleum industry in 2003. The US targeting of the oil industry involved sabotage of the computerized system and efforts to degrade the refineries.
(4) The US has a history of sabotage and violence against incumbent adversarial regimes. In Cuba during 1960, the CIA torched a department store and sugar plantations, and planted bombs in the downtown tourist centers – aiming to undermine strategic sectors of the economy. In Chile following the election of Socialist Salvador Allende, a CIA backed right-wing group kidnapped and assassinated the military attache of Socialist President, in an effort to provoke a military coup. Similarly in Jamaica in the late 1970’s under democratic socialist President Manley, the CIA facilitated a violent destabilization campaign in the run-up to the elections. Sabotage and destabilization is a common weapon in the face of impending electoral defeats (as is the case in Venezuela) or where a popular government is firmly entrenched.
(5) Force, violence and destabilization campaigns against incumbent regimes have become common operation procedure in current US policy. The US has financed and armed terrorist groups in Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Chechnya; it is bombing Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. In other words US foreign policy is highly militarized and opposed to any negotiated diplomatic resolution of conflicts with adversarial regimes. Sabotaging Venezuela’s oil refineries is within the logic and practice of current global US foreign policy.
(6) Domestic politics in the US has taken a further turn to the far right in both domestic and foreign policy. The Republican Party has accused the Democrats of pandering to Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria – of not going to war.
The Obama regime has responded by escalating its military policies – battleships, missiles are aimed at Iran. He has supported Miami’s demand for “regime change” in Cuba as a prelude to negotiations. Washington is channeling millions of dollars via NGO’s to the Venezuelan opposition – for electoral and destabilization purposes. No doubt the opposition includes employees, engineers and others with security clearance and access to the petroleum industry. Obama has consistently taken violent actions to demonstrate that he is as militarist as the Republicans. In the midst of a close election campaign, especially with a tight race in Florida, the sabotage of the Venezuelan refineries plays well for Obama.
(7) With a little more than a month left before the elections, and President Chavez is showing a 20 percentage point advantage; the economy is on track for a steady recovery; social housing and welfare programs are consolidating massive low income support or over 80%; Venezuela has been admitted into MERCOSUR the powerful Latin American integration program; Colombia signed off on a mutual defense agreement with Venezuela; Venezuela is diversifying its overseas markets and suppliers. What these facts indicate is that Washington has no chance of defeating Chavez electorally;it has no possibility of using its Latin neighbors as a springboard for territorial incursions or precipitating a war for regime change; and it has no chance of imposing an economic boycott.
Given Washington’s declared enmity and designation of Chavez as “a threat to hemispheric security” and faced with the utter failure of its other policy tools, the resort to violence and, in this specific case, sabotage of the strategic petrol sector emerges as the policy of choice. Washington, by revealing its resort to clandestine terror, represents a clear and present danger to Venezuela’s constitutional order, an immediate threat to the life blood of its economy and of the democratic electoral process. Hopefully, the Chavez government, backed by the vast majority of its citizens and constitutionalist armed forces will take the necessary comprehensive security measures to ensure that there is no repeat of the petrol sabotage in other sectors, like the electrical grid. Public weakness in the face of imperial belligerence only encourages further aggression. No doubt heightened public security in defense of the constitutional order will be denounced by the US government, media and their local clients as “authoritarian” and claim that protection of the national patrimony infringes on ‘democratic freedoms’. No doubt they prefer a weak security system to ply their violent provocations. Subsequent to their decisive electoral defeat they will claim fraud or interference. All this is predictable, but the vast majority of voters who assemble, debate and cast their ballots will feel secure and look forward to another four years of peace and prosperity, free from terror and sabotage.
Foreign Policy magazine has compiled a list of the 50 Republicans who have the greatest influence on the GOP’s foreign policy. “Politics is mostly about people — and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to foreign policy,” explains Foreign Policy in its introduction. With the U.S. presidential election looming, the magazine offers “to peel back the curtain on this rarefied part of the Establishment” to better inform American voters about “the advisers who will determine the country’s course in the world” in the event that they elect Mitt Romney. The FP 50, it says, are “all GOP partisans” from the different “ideological traditions” — namely, realism, neoconservatism, and “even” isolationism — that are “currently fighting for the soul of their party’s foreign policy.” A cursory look at the list, however, shows that a far more influential ideological tradition — Zionism — holds sway over the Republican Party.
Although only about 20% of American Jews supported the GOP in 2008, the FP 50 features as many as 20 Jewish partisans of Israel, including Weekly Standard editor William Kristol (#2), Brookings Institution senior fellow Robert Kagan (#4), and casino mogul and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson (#9) who make its top 10 most powerful Republicans on foreign policy. Also at number 8 is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the stridently pro-Israel chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose maternal grandfather was a “pillar” of Cuba’s Jewish community who helped found several synagogues there. More importantly, several of the most passionate Israel partisans are close advisors to the Romney team, including Kagan, Dan Senor (#13), Dov Zakheim (#27), Eliot Cohen (#29), and Elliott Abrams (#35).
Moreover, the careers of many of the non-Jewish individuals on Foreign Policy’s list have been inextricably linked to their staunch support of the Jewish state. Topping the FP 50 is Senator John McCain who not only continues the family tradition of covering up Israel’s deliberate June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty but invariably leads the call — in unison with Senator Joe Lieberman — for U.S. intervention in countries surrounding the Jewish state. At number 26 is Senator Mark Kirk, “the Israel lobby’s favorite senator” whose office this year served as a conduit for an Israeli initiative to redefine Palestinian refugees out of existence. And coming in in 46th place is John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, which, as FP points out, “has done more than just about any other organization to make Israel a defining foreign-policy issue for evangelical Christians in the United States.”
Indeed, out of the 50 Republicans who have the greatest influence on the GOP’s foreign policy, Congressman Ron Paul — who, along with his son, Senator Rand Paul, is ranked #25 — appears to be one of the very few who could be relied upon to put U.S. interests ahead of Israel’s. Yet Foreign Policy, a division of the pro-Israel Washington Post, never explicitly refers to the decisive — and potentially catastrophic — influence Tel Aviv would have over a Romney administration. However, those familiar with the operations of the Israel lobby know that, as the magazine puts it, “the relentless lobbying and insider machinations of surprisingly few people can often end up defining the foreign policy of entire administrations.”
We Palestinians have been struggling for a long time. I am not speaking of the struggle to be recognized as an independent state, or the struggle to be recognized in the United Nations, or even the struggle to be recognized in international courts. I am speaking, rather, of the struggle to be recognized as human beings.
I am a comedian, and I travel to Israel and Palestine often to perform, visit, and conduct workshops. I have, to this point, done all of my work for Palestinian audiences and participants. My first job is to be funny. But I also hope to show that Palestinians can laugh just like everyone else, especially at ourselves. If I do my job well, maybe I can show that we can be funny too.
The legal decision handed down yesterday in Israel, absolving the government of any and all responsibility in the 2003 death of American Rachel Corrie in Gaza, confirmed something to the world that we Palestinians are already acutely aware of: We, and those who dare to stand with us, are simply not human beings.
In the past few weeks, this phenomenon has become all too clear in Israel. On August 16, a group of teenagers beat a Palestinian boy to near death in a Jerusalem square. One of those arrested for that crime publicly declared his astonishment for being held accountable for beating an Arab. On that same day, a taxi carrying a family of Palestinians was firebombed near Hebron in the southern West Bank. Six Palestinians were injured in that attack.
Rachel Corrie was killed while she was decrying the demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip. She was engaging in something that we Americans have been politically and socially bred to have pride in: non-violent protest. She stood in front of a bulldozer, only to have the driver run her over, viewing her life as no more worthy than the owners of the house he was destroying.
It is no small thing to say that the state of Israel views Palestinians as subhuman. I do not say it lightly. I have traveled to Israel many times, encountering the various checkpoints, border crossings, and security personnel. I am always shocked by how Palestinians deal with this everyday. I am never shocked by, sadly, the subhuman manner in which Israel treats them.
The Qalandia checkpoint from Ramallah to Jerusalem consists of cages and steel revolvers. Palestinians are let through at the whim of the Israeli soldiers manning their stations. The checkpoint itself is filthy and unsanitary. Arab towns inside Israel are many times rundown, almost completely neglected by the Israeli government, while Jewish towns are generously funded and kept up, resembling upscale American suburbs. Studies have shown that the Israeli government spends three times as much on schools populated by Jewish students as it does on schools with Arab students.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once referred to the Palestinian citizens of Israel as a “demographic threat.” That remark, is, of course, utterly racist. But one has to wonder how someone like Mr. Netanyahu, who graduated from both high school and college in America, could refer to a group of people that existed in that land for centuries before the establishment of Israel as a “demographic threat.” The answer is simple: Palestinians are simply not human.
Newt Gingrich has called us “invented,” Barack Obama was attacked in 2008 for having a “Palestinian friend,” Ehud Barak referred to us as “crocodiles,” and former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who famously made peace with Egypt, said that Palestinians were “beasts.” Why would we expect Israel to hold anyone responsible for killing a young woman foolish enough to protect the rights of these creatures?
Amer Zahr is a Palestinian-American residing in Dearborn. He is a comedian and graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.
In coming days, ten ships will take part in a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Among the ships will be the U.S.-flagged “Audacity of Hope,” carrying 36 U.S. citizens. Last year, the Israeli navy attacked a previous humanitarian flotilla in international waters, killing nine passengers, including one American.
Passengers on the “Audacity of Hope” have contacted the State Department, the White House, and members of Congress to notify them of the flotilla. They have urged the government to work to ensure the safety and free passage of the ships and to warn Israel against attacking unarmed civilian vessels with U.S. citizens on board who are exercising their legal rights. Instead, the State Department – whose mission in part is to protect and assist U.S. citizens traveling abroad – has issued numerous statements labeling the flotilla as an “irresponsible and provocative” action that risk[s] the safety of their passengers” and “creat[es] a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves”. The administration has also alluded to prosecuting the passengers, who will be delivering thousands of letters of solidarity and friendship to the people of Gaza, for providing material support to a designated terrorist organization. [3]
Though Israeli state violence against foreign nationals is often portrayed as an aberration, over the past 8 years alone, Israel has killed and/or severely injured a number of American citizens. Below are 10 such examples:
Furkan Dogan
Troy, NY
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19 year-old American Furkan Dogan was on the Mavi Marmara, a 600-passenger ship sailing as part of a flotilla headed to the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid. In the early hours of May 31st, 2010, Israeli commandos dropped onto the ship in international waters and attempted to commandeer it, leading to a struggle for control of the ship. Among others, Dogan was shot at close range with 4 bullets to the head and 1 to the chest.
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Emily Henochowicz
New York, NY
(After attack)
~
On May 31st, 2010 21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration at the Qalandiya checkpoint. Henochowicz was taking part in a demonstration against the widely-condemned Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla. As a result of the attack, Emily lost her left eye.
~
Tristan Anderson
Oakland, CA
(After attack)
~
On March 13th, 2009 in the Palestinian village of Ni’lin, American peace activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister. Anderson, 37 years old and from California, was taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv.
He was unconscious and bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in the right part of his forehead where he was struck by a tear gas canister. After 15 months in Tel Hashomer, some of that time in a coma, and at least one surgery, Tristan recently returned to his home in Northern California, still quasi-paralyzed.
Brian Avery
Albuquerque, NM
(After attack)
~
On April 5, 2003, Israeli troops shot peace activist Brian Avery in Jenin. Avery, a 24-year-old American citizen from Albuquerque, New Mexico, experienced serious wounds to his face after Israeli troops shot at him with heavy machine gun fire from an armored personnel carrier (APC).
There were no reports of clashes on the street where the shooting took place and Avery was clearly marked as an observer. Avery’s cheek was torn and his eye socket and jaw bones were smashed, leading to at least 6 rounds of surgery. In a rare occurrence in November 2008, the Israeli government paid Avery $150,000 to settle a lawsuit he filed against them.
Rachel Corrie
Olympia, WA
~
On March 16th, 2003 in Rafah, occupied Gaza, 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie from Olympia, Washington, was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver. Rachel was in Gaza opposing the bulldozing of a Palestinian home as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.
According to a Palestine Monitor report of the incident, “Other foreigners who were with her said the driver of the bulldozer was aware that Rachel was there, and continued to destroy the house. Initially he dropped sand and other heavy debris on her, then the bulldozer pushed her to the ground where it proceeded to drive over her, fracturing both of her arms, legs and skull.”
~
Zaid Khalil
New York, NY
In April of 2002, while participating in a peaceful march along with other internationals in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, New York City resident Zaid Khalil was struck in the leg as Israeli soldiers opened fire.
Lucas Koerner
During Arrest
~
On June 1, 2011, 19-year-old Tufts University student Lucas Koerner was assaulted and arrested by Israeli police while he peacefully protested the annual Jerusalem Day march, an official Israeli holiday when Israelis parade through occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate its 1967 occupation by Israel. Police grabbed, punched, choked and then threw Koerner to the ground. After being arrested he was taken to the emergency room to be treated for the wounds inflicted by police.
~
Munib Masri
~
A 22-year-old Geology student at the American University of Beirut, Munib Masri was shot in the back with live ammunition by Israeli forces along the Lebanon border on May 15, 2011. Participating in a march to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba – the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes during the establishment of Israel – Masri was leaving the demonstration when he was shot. Treated in a Beirut hospital, the bullet destroyed Masri’s left kidney, his spleen and broke apart in his spine. During the demonstration, eleven people were killed by Israeli forces and more than 100 wounded.
Christopher Whitman
Whitman’s injury
~
On May 13, 2011, 25-year-old Christopher Whitman, a Master’s student of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University, was shot in the head at close range with a high-velocity tear gas canister by Israeli Border Police. He was in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, at the weekly nonviolent demonstration against the construction of Israel’s separation wall in the village. That week’s demonstration also commemorated the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba – the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes during the establishment of Israel. Whitman was treated at Ramallah Hospital.
Sandra Quintano After assault
~
On May 1, 2011, Sandra Quintano, 60, was assaulted by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Izbet al-Tabib in the Qalqilya district during a peaceful demonstration against the construction of a fence which would cut off villagers’ access to their land. She suffered a gash to the top of her head and both her wrists were broken, one severely. She was treated in an Israeli hospital and continues to undergo physical therapy in the U.S.
Judge Oded Gershon’s ruling earlier this week that the state of Israel is not to blame for the death of Rachel Corrie, came as no surprise. In fact it reaffirms everything we know about the Jewish state – its politics, legal system and spirit. Israel is surely a most peculiar state – it is impervious to ethical thinking and humanist thought. Accordingly, Judge Gershon gave this week a kosher stamp to a cold-blooded murder and by so doing, he proved, once again, that Israeli criminal actions are consistent with the most vile interpretations of Old Testament and Talmudic Goy-hating.
As one would predict, Judge Gershon, restricted himself to legalism and litigation as opposed to ethical thinking – he actually blamed Corrie for not ‘behaving reasonably’. Yet, one may wonder what is this ‘reason’ or more precisely, what does an Israeli mean when he or she refers to ‘reason’.
Rachel Corrie was bulldozed to death by an Israeli military D9 Caterpillar on 16 March 2003. She was part of ISM (International Solidarity Movement), a non-violent pro-Palestinian peace activist group. Being an American youngster, Corrie mistakenly believed that Israeli soldiers were humanly driven. Being a reasonable person she must have believed that an Israeli bulldozer driver would never drive over her body. She was wrong. Corrie clearly failed to grasp that Israeli ‘reasoning’ was lethally fuelled by psychosis and fantasies of destruction.
Corrie failed precisely where so many solidarity activists fail. Israel is no normal state. It is a state of one people only – and a people who believe themselves to be chosen. The meaning of this is both simple and devastating. The people of Israel believe that their lives and security is a cosmic asset that must be maintained at the expense of the rest of humanity. However, make no mistake, Israeli psychosis is consistent and even driven by reason, but this ‘reason’ is somewhat different to that of the rest of us. It is certainly far from being universal.
Rachel Corrie, on the other hand, is a universal symbol. She is the epitome of solidarity, empathic thinking and courage, but her tragic death is also a clear indication that something is fundamentally wrong with Israel. Rachel Corrie’s death makes it clear that it isn’t just the Israeli leadership or military elite who are blind to human life and moral conduct. It isn’t just Netanyahu or Barak who are in a state of dismissal of human life. We are dealing here with a murderous continuum; it is the leadership, the anonymous soldier, the bulldozer driver – and also Judge Gershon and the Israeli legal system.
Israel could have used Corrie’s family legal appeal to mend its ways. But Judge Gershon was actually honest enough to admit that the murder of Rachel Corrie was the ‘right thing to do’. It was her fault, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place, he said. Judge Gershon provided us this week with the true meaning of ‘Israeli reasoning’. The murder of Corrie was consistent with Israeli survival philosophy and with Israeli interpretation of Jewish statehood. This week, Judge Gershon left us with a kosher stamp for a cold-blooded murder.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei called on the United Nations to assume a more decisive role in creating a nuclear-free Middle East.
During the meeting he held with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his accompanying delegation in Tehran on Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to nuclear disarmament as the common concern for all of humanity.
He highlighted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates its stance on a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, and the UN should make serious efforts to allay the concerns with regard to nuclear arms.”
Imam Khamenei warned about the ongoing attempts made by the United States and some world powers to equip “Israel” with more nuclear weapons, noting that the issue “constitutes an extreme danger for the region and the UN is expected to adopt measures in this respect.”
Moreover, Imam Khamenei criticized the “defective structure” of the UN and regretted how “the world’s most bullying powers, who possess nuclear weapons and have used them before, have dominated the Security Council.”
Referring to the US-engineered allegations against Iran’s nuclear energy program Imam Khamenei stated “The Americans are fully aware that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons and [they are] merely looking for a pretext.”
Imam Khamenei condemned US and “Israeli” attempts to launch cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities and criticized the IAEA over its inaction with regard to such aggressive measures.
Ayatollah Khamenei also criticized the United Nations for its inaction toward the US military threats against Iran, reminding that the world body “was expected to promptly counter the threat.”
Addressing the Syrian unrest, Leader of the Islamic Revolution described the crisis as a “very bitter issue” which has been taking a heavy toll on the “innocent people of the country.”
“Based on its religious teachings and beliefs, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to make every effort to solve the Syrian crisis,” the Leader added.
Ayatollah Khamenei deplored the arming of the Syrian insurgents by foreign elements and perpetuation of a “proxy war” against the Syrian government by certain countries as the major obstacle in the way of settling the Syrian crisis.
When U.S. corporate media operatives use the term “police state,” they invariably mean some other country. Even the so-called “liberal” media, from Democracy Now to the MSNBC menagerie, cannot bring themselves to say “police state” and the “United States” without putting the qualifying words “like” or “becoming” in the middle. The U.S. is behaving “like” a police state, they say, or the U.S. is in danger of “becoming” a police state. But it is never a police state. Since these privileged speakers and writers are not themselves in prison – because what they write and say represents no actual danger to the state – they conclude that a U.S. police state does not, at this time, exist.
Considering the sheer size and social penetration of its police and imprisonment apparatus, the United States is not only a police state, but the biggest police state in the world, by far: the police state against whose dimensions all other police systems on Earth must be measured.
By now, even the most insulated, xenophobic American knows that the U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world. He might not know that 25 percent of prison inmates in the world are locked up in the U.S., or that African Americans comprise one out of every eight of the planet’s prisoners. But, he is probably aware that America is number one in the prisons business. He probably approves. God bless the police state.
For the American media, including lots of media that claim to be of the Left, it is axiomatic that China is a police state. And maybe, by some standards, it is. But, according to United Nations figures, China is 87th in the world in the proportion of its people who are imprisoned. China is a billion people bigger than the United States – more than four times the population – yet U.S. prisons house in excess of 600,000 more people than China does. The Chinese prison population is just 70 percent of the American Gulag. That’s quite interesting because, non-whites make up about 70 percent of U.S. prisons. That means, the Black, brown, yellow and red populations of U.S. prisons number roughly the same as all of China’s incarcerated persons. Let me emphasize that: The American People of Color Gulag is as large as the entire prison population of China, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.
However, police states must be measured by conditions behind the bars, as well as raw numbers of inmates. And, by that standard, the American Gulag is even more monstrous.
Civilized people now recognize that solitary confinement is a form of torture. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, reports that solitary confinement beyond 15 days at a stretch crosses the line of torture, yet, as Al Jazeera recently reported, it is typical for hundred of thousands of U.S. prisoners to spend 30 or 60 days in solitary at a stretch. Twenty thousand are held in perpetual isolation in so-called supermax prisons – that is, they exist in a perpetual state of torture. Studies now show that, all told, 80,000 U.S. prisoners are locked up in solitary on any given day.That’s as many tortured people as the entire prison system of Germany, or of England, Scotland and Wales, combined.
If that is not a police state, then no such thing exists on planet Earth.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
On Sunday, as reported by Reuters, a senior US logistics commander in charge of transferring excess non-military equipment to Afghan forces Brigadier-General Steven Shapiro rejected accusations from front line combat troops that the complicated rollback from bases across Afghanistan was disrupting NATO-led operations against insurgents.
He said that around 400 bases had been already successfully closed or handed to Afghan security forces from a high of around 800 last October as part of a withdrawal of foreign troops from combat operations winding up in 2014.
The story goes on to say that the pullout of more than $60 billion worth of war-fighting equipment from Afghanistan is expected to be one of the most complicated logistical exercises in recent history, much more difficult than the pullout from Iraq.
By September the US administration is planning to cut the number of the US troops by 28,000 servicemen, which is regarded as a major PR action ahead of November presidential elections.
All this hardly makes the US servicemen remaining in Afghanistan too happy.
“It’s a nightmare. We barely have enough guys to cover our area, let alone get ready to pack up,” a US officer recently told Reuters in volatile eastern Kunar province.
Indeed, the whole situation poses too many questions, for most of which there are no ready answers.
First, the only visible result of the already started pullout process is the increasing number of defections among Afghan military and security force, and correspondingly – a growing number of insider (so called “green-on-blue”) attacks by people clad in Afghan uniform on NATO soldiers.
The diminishing number of Western troops is likely to encourage Afghans trained and equipped by their mentors to turn the arms, even more frequently, against their former patrons.
Second, all military – combat and non-combat – equipment has been accumulated in Afghanistan for more than two years. Now the task is to withdraw it in less than two years. The task itself seems unrealistic, especially with the strained relationship between the US and Pakistan – the only country capable of providing the shortest way for the pullout.
Despite the fact that recently Pakistan agreed to reopen the southern supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan, even the present Pakistani leadership is under constant pressure from the society and political parties in order to reassess the relationship with the US. And taking into consideration that no later than 2013 the current leadership is more than likely to lose power, the prospects for a much more anti-American forces leadership to prevail is more than real. This will definitely pose additional difficulties for the NATO command.
This leaves few options open. One of them is using the northern route via Central Asia and Russia, which is much more expensive and not likely to make most of the transit countries happy. The other implies leaving most of the equipment at the Afghans’ disposal. But this variant is fraught with the risks that the equipment and arms will be used by those very forces the US is taking so much pain to fight.
Taking all these factors into consideration, one may easily come to a conclusion that whatever is explicitly said about the US plans concerning Afghanistan hardly reflects the truth.
And the truth is that the 400 bases allegedly “closed or handed to Afghan security forces” are small combat outposts and observation positions of minor importance. The big ones, like Shindand air base in Herat province (in close vicinity to Iran), or Kandahar and Bagram air bases remain basically untouched. And there is all reason to believe that the highly publicized pullout does not concern these major installations which play a crucial role in the US strategy of establishing its dominance in the “Greater Middle East” enabling American military to control a vast territory far beyond Afghanistan.
This also explains why both contenders in the US presidential race keep mum on the issue of Afghanistan. In reality, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney is going to fulfill Obama’s imprudent promise to withdraw from Afghanistan. However unpopular the war might be, the role of the global gendarme is much more important than the public opinion.
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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