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Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian woman in Silwad

IMEMC News – December 25, 2015

mahdiyya_hammad1Israeli soldiers killed, on Friday evening, a Palestinian woman while driving her car near the main entrance of Silwad town, northeast of the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

The slain Palestinian woman has been identified as Mahdiyya Mohammad Ibrahim Hammad, 38. She is a married mother of four children.

Although the Israeli army claimed “she attempted to ram soldiers with her car,” eyewitness confirmed she was at least 30 meters away from the military roadblock, when the soldiers opened fire on her.

They added that the woman was not even speeding when the soldiers opened fire on her car, and that the army fired many live rounds at her.

Following the shooting, the soldiers left the woman to bleed to death, and held her body for more than two hours before handing her to the Palestinian side, near the Beit El military roadblock.

The family said the funeral ceremony and procession will be held on Saturday, after the noon prayers in Silwad.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Hammad was shot with two live rounds in her face, five rounds in the chest and two in the pelvis.

Also on Friday, the army killed a young Palestinian man, identified as Hani Rafeeq Wahdan, 22, east of Gaza City. Wahdan was shot with a live round in the head.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 137 Palestinians, including 26 children and 7 women, have been killed by Israeli fire since October 1, while more than 15000 have been injured, including 4500 who were shot with live fire and rubber-coated metal bullets.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

9/11 Generation Needing ‘Safe Space’ for Sacrosanct Myths

By Jonathan Taylor | CounterPunch | December 25, 2015

safespaces

Does Generation Safe Space need the military to protect them from hurt feelings? Recent polls indicate increasing support among young people for military rule. Given the constant assault on their fragile identities posed by such atrocities as ethnic Halloween costumes, culturally insensitive Banh Mi sandwiches and the like, who can blame them for craving a new authoritarianism?

Critics on the right have increasingly bemoaned the oversensitivity of the not-so-greatest generation but this critique is starting to show up all over the place. Liberal professors are, somewhat hyperbolically, terrified. Eminent sociologists are deeply concerned. Radical environmentalists allege a new liberal McCarthyism. When some of the saner voices on both the right and left start to agree so broadly, it’s past time to pay attention.

Who is to blame? Helicopter parents? Nanny-state bureaucrats? Rule-obsessed educrats? A rhetorical coup in academic discourse in which disagreement becomes disrespect or insult? Widespread mental illness with a lack of corresponding cognitive therapy? Economic insecurity and the increasing impoverishment of the middle class? Increasing job instability for the young? Accusations fly all over the place as we try to understand why the insufficiently trigger-warned would throw out free speech because of the existence of hate speech, or move to reject democracy itself in favor of authoritarian rule. Few though examine the broader political atmosphere of fear and intolerance since 9-11 that our young people have grown up in, and the role of mass surveillance and the militarization and securitization of political discourse. Could broader notions of vulnerability be leading to an increased sense of personal vulnerability? Or perhaps, a little bit of all of the above?

Whatever the cause, there is no doubt a backlash is brewing, and trending in an unfortunate direction. While the Ivy Leaguers purge a few token administrators (while simultaneously creating new administrative positions that students demand), hate crimes outside of universities are on the rise. While in the classroom each utterance is more and more carefully subjected to scrutiny for microaggressions, populist pundits and politicians are increasingly open about their racism and xenophobia. What do the students expect? With some campus activism devolving into 50% group therapy and 50% primal screaming at hapless administrators, does anyone think this is actually helping create safe spaces for the sort of nuanced, open-minded public debate necessary for real learning and growth? Why create a movement that allows yourself to be viewed as a mass of coddled, over-sensitive elitists, unless of course the problem is that this is what you are?

Watching authoritarianism on the right grow simultaneously with authoritarianism from the campus liberal-left produces anxiety, but anxiety itself fuels these attacks on free speech. Is it time for another Free Speech movement ala Berkeley 1964-6? Or would that potentially hurt somebody’s feelings?

Jonathan Taylor is a Professor in the Geography Department at California State University, Fullerton.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Amnesty Publishes a Biased Report About Russia’s Campaign in Syria

Report makes wild allegations of war crimes without substantiating evidence

By Alexander Mercouris | Russia Insider | December 24, 2015

Amnesty International has just released a report accusing the Russian authorities of “shamefully concealing” large numbers of civilian deaths caused by Russian air strikes in Syria.

The report also says the Russians might be committing war crimes in Syria.

The Russians have responded to the report by saying it is littered with cliches.

Having read the report, I can say it provides no evidence a court could use.

As Amnesty says, its report was researched “remotely”.

That means there was no field work. No investigators visited the six places where Amnesty says the attacks by the Russians discussed in the report took place.

The report is based entirely on reports of alleged eye witnesses and video evidence provided to Amnesty by third parties.

This in itself is worrying. Given that Syria is in a state of civil war with a long history of evidence being manipulated by both sides – especially by the rebels – in pursuit of their objectives, this is a fragile reed upon which to build a report like this.

As it happens, detailed examination of the six incidents shows there is no conclusive evidence linking the Russians to any of them.

An attack on Talbisseh on 30th September 2015 is said to have been the result of “suspected Russian air strikes on Karama Street”. Use of certain munitions is attributed to the Russians because “Syrian government forces are not considered capable of delivering them” (“considered” by whom and what if that assumption is wrong?). An attack on Darat Izzah is attributed to a “suspected Russian sea-launched cruise missile”. Civilian deaths on Nuqeyr “purportedly involved cluster munitions”. An attack on Al-Ghantu involved “suspected Russian air strikes”. Two missiles that attacked Sermin were “fired by suspected Russian warplanes”.

Lastly, the report discusses an attack on Ariha without mentioning the Russians or providing any evidence they were involved at all.

Given the myriad number of air forces now operating in Syria, it is impossible to see how Amnesty can be sure that any of these incidents – if they even happened – involved the Russians.

Amnesty tries to get round this by saying the volume of noise of some of the attacks, and comparisons with post-attack reports provided by the Russians, indirectly confirms their involvement.

To say this is unconvincing would be an understatement.

As any investigator knows, relying on what a witness claims to have seen is problematic enough. Drawing deductions from the volume of sound a witness claims to have heard is hopeless.

As for the coincidence of some of the incidents to the post-attack reports the Russians have provided, that is interesting but hardly conclusive.  It would after all be an obvious step for someone trying to fabricate evidence of atrocities by the Russians to try to match incidents to attacks the Russians have admitted being involved in.

In a particularly farfetched piece of reasoning, Amnesty tries to use a Russian denial of the destruction of the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque in Jisr Al-Sughour in order to “prove” its claim the Russians did actually destroy the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque.

The argument is that because the Russians denied they destroyed the mosque, but supported their denial by showing a picture of a different mosque, that somehow “proves” they destroyed the mosque.

That is a classic example of a non sequitur (“it does not follow”).

To see how bad this reasoning is, just consider what Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa programme, has said about this incident:

“By presenting satellite imagery of an intact mosque and claiming it showed another that had been destroyed, the Russian authorities appear to have used sleight of hand to try to avoid reproach and avert scrutiny of their actions in Syria. Such conduct does not cultivate confidence in their willingness to investigate reported violations in good faith. Russia’s Ministry of Defence must be more transparent and disclose targets of their attacks in order to facilitate assessment of whether they are complying with their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

If there is a “sleight of hand” it is in this argument.

Firstly, it is a huge – and unwarranted – leap to say it proves bad faith because the Russians provided a photograph of the wrong mosque.

It is equally possible there was simply a mistake. That would be very likely if the Russians were confused about which mosque they were supposed to have destroyed – because they didn’t in fact destroy any mosque.

More fundamentally, what this argument does is try to prove a positive – that the Russians destroyed the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque – out of a negative –  that the Russians showed a satellite image of the wrong mosque.

This is flawed reasoning by any measure, and it proves nothing. It does not prove that the mosque – if it was destroyed – was destroyed by the Russians. It could equally well have been destroyed by someone else. In a conflict like the one in Syria there is no shortage of others who might have done it.

The entire report is in fact riddled with this sort of bad reasoning. Besides its repeated use of the word “suspected” (“suspected” by whom?) exposes it for what it actually is – a tissue of guesses and suppositions.

The real concern must however be about the provenance of the information – such as it is – upon which the report is based.

When discussing the attack on Maasran the report says it arrived at its conclusions based on “images and reports sent to it by Syrian human rights activists and also documented by military and security organisations”.

Though Amnesty claims to have spoken to some of the alleged witnesses, it is likely most of the information in the report – and all the video evidence which Amnesty claims to have seen – comes from these sources.

This begs the obvious question of who these “Syrian human rights activists” and “military and security organisations” are, and how much reliance can be placed on them?

What criteria does Amnesty use to determine whether someone reporting out of Syria is a “human rights activist”?

The expression “human rights activist” implies someone whose primary concern is for human rights and who is therefore in some way detached from the political struggle.

Anyone who has followed the Syrian conflict with any care knows that no such people exist. Individuals and organisations who report about Syria claiming to be “human rights activists” – such as the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights – turn out invariably to be anti-Assad activists and members of the Syrian opposition. As such they cannot be assumed to be unbiased or impartial reporters of what is going on.

A reporter does not have to be impartial to be objective and accurate. Gleb Bazov and Colonel Cassad who report about the Ukrainian war from a militia perspective are neither unbiased nor impartial and make no pretence to be. However experience has shown them to be extremely reliable and accurate.

The same unfortunately is not true of the Syrian conflict. This has been proved countless times (see for example here my discussion about the Ghouta chemical attack of August 2013) whilst the fact that the people Amnesty is in contact with claim to be “human rights activists” as opposed to “opposition supporters” – which is what they really are – is in itself good reason to doubt what they say.

Far more disturbing than this reliance on “Syrian human rights activists” is however the reference to “military and security organisations”.

Who are these “military and security organisations”?  Are they perhaps the intelligence agencies of the Western powers?  If so, should Amnesty be getting its information from such a source?

It is comments like this that explain the concern of many people like me, who have strong historic links to Amnesty, and who are left wondering whether it bears any resemblance to the organisation they once knew?

I have dissected Amnesty’s report on the Russian campaign in Syria to expose its obvious flaws.

Doing so in a sense is however hardly necessary. There is no need to get lost in the detail.

The reality – as everyone knows – is that it is hardly conceivable Amnesty would ever publish a report about the Russian military campaign in Syria that gave it a clean bill of health.

The report in fact brings together two of Amnesty’s perennial villains – the Russian government and the Syrian government – and given what Amnesty routinely says about each of them, nothing different from the report Amnesty has just published could have been expected.

Ever since the start of the Syrian conflict Amnesty has campaigned against the Syrian government, calling for Western military intervention in Syria to “protect civilians”, for the establishment of “safe havens” and “no-fly zones” (as to what all that means see my discussion here) and has tried to orchestrate public campaigns against Russia’s support or perceived support for the Syrian government.

To expect Amnesty not to find fault with a Russian military intervention in Syria that is defeating all those objectives would be naive.

This is quite apart from the fact that Amnesty has a long history of hostility to the Russian government.

It has backed groups like Pussy Riot. It named people like the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky – an individual the European Court of Human Rights says is guilty of massive tax evasion – “prisoners of conscience”.

Amnesty’s reporting of the Ukrainian conflict has also leaned heavily in favour of the Ukrainian government and against the east Ukrainian militia  and Russia.

It has for example laid heavy stress on individual human rights violations it claims were committed by the militia whilst all but ignoring the Ukrainian army’s indiscriminate shelling of cities and its attempts to besiege them.

Amnesty has also vigorously supported the claims of Western governments that the Russian army is intervening on the militia’s side in the Ukrainian war – to the point of publishing actually inconclusive satellite pictures to prove it – as if it was itself an intelligence agency.

The report on the Russian campaign in Syria has to be read in this context.

It is not an impartial fact-based study carried out after careful field work on the ground. Rather it is simply part of the ongoing campaign in the West to turn Western public opinion against Russia’s military campaign in Syria.

That this is so is shown by the claim in the report that the Russians are deliberately targeting civilians and are therefore committing war crimes – an incendiary allegation Amnesty has also made against President Assad.

In the case of the Russians it makes no sense. Why would the Russians deliberately target civilians – something that can only provoke them to join the rebels – at the same time as they have been working hard to get a political process started to end the Syrian war?  Surely the one contradicts – and completely undermines – the other?

None of this is to say that no civilians have died in Syria as a result of Russian air strikes. Some have certainly died and it would be absurd to pretend otherwise. However to claim there is a deliberate policy of targeting civilians defies logic, and finds no support in anything the Russians have said or done, or which appears in the report whose flaws I have dissected.

As it happens the report does give an account of one incident which might – if true – show how civilians might have been killed during a Russian air strike without the Russians intending it.

This is the attack on Al-Ghantu, in which several members of a single extended family sheltering in the basement of what the report calls a civilian building are alleged to have been killed as a result of a Russian air strike.

The report says the family “were related to a commander of a local armed group who was away at the time of the attack”.

Amnesty does not identify the man in question or the group he leads. One wonders why?

Regardless, this account sounds very like an attempt to kill a rebel commander which missed him but which killed instead members of his family.

The Russians have claimed on several occasions that they have killed rebel commanders in air strikes.  It is entirely plausible that they target rebel commanders intentionally, and that this was an attempt to kill one.

If so then it obviously was not intended to kill civilians since the intended target was not the civilians but the rebel commander.

The Russians might have been guilty of recklessness about whether civilians were in the basement when they attacked it in the belief the rebel commander was there. Or they might have mistaken the basement for a bunker or command post. Or they might have thought only the commander and his guards were there.

In any of these cases the killing of the civilians would not have been deliberate. It would have been – in the horrible language of modern war – not intentional but “collateral”.

Some might argue – as I do – that trying to assassinate someone far from the battlefield in this way is wrong. However the point is that it is precisely what the Western powers do all the time – with barely any complaint from Amnesty.

To take one example amongst legions: during the 2011 Libyan campaign the Western military made what were obvious attempts to kill Gaddafi.  The fact Gaddafi was being intentionally targeted was not even denied, though the Russian government complained about it.

One such attempt involved an air strike on a residential villa. It missed Gaddafi – who was not there – but killed one of his infant children and three of his grandchildren. Here is what I wrote about it.

At the time I called this an “ongoing descent into barbarism”.

If Amnesty condemned it I never heard about it, and I have found no record of it. If Amnesty did condemn it, they certainly don’t draw attention to it. Certainly they have not accused the Danish government – whose aircraft carried out the strike – of committing war crimes.

Why then does Amnesty find the attack on Al-Ghantu so much more objectionable?

The short answer – there is no other – is that it is because the attack on Gaddafi’s villa – like scores of other attacks on civilian facilities in any number of countries before and since – were carried out by the Western powers, whilst the attack on Al-Ghantu was – allegedly though not definitely – carried out by the Russians.

It is impossible to avoid the feeling that for the authors of the Amnesty report it is that – not the deaths of civilians – that is in the end what matters.

Amnesty International was once a universally respected organisation, greatly admired for its courage and integrity. Its founding purpose was to campaign for political prisoners – people imprisoned not for their crimes but for their beliefs – regardless of their political views or of the political views of those who had imprisoned them.

As someone who has supported Amnesty’s campaigns in the past, it pains me to see it departing so far from its founding purpose by taking sides in conflicts so openly and in such a brazenly political way.

I hope and believe there are still people in Amnesty who realise the folly of this, and who will fight back against it before it is too late.

As for the report about Russia’s military campaign in Syria that Amnesty has just published, it falls so far below its old standards that it has to be treated more as a piece of anti-Russian propaganda than as a serious critique of the Russian military campaign.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Amnesty International: Imperialist Tool

AI

By Prof. Francis A. Boyle | thewallwillfall

July 31, 1998

Dear Amnesty Friends:

I am in receipt of the response by three members of the AIUSA Middle East Coordination Group to my message that was entitled “NGOs As Western Tools.” You will note that they never denied any of the basic facts set forth in my original message. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and murdered 20,000 Arabs/Muslims with the full support of the United States, both Amnesty International and AIUSA said absolutely nothing at all despite vigorous efforts by AIUSA Members to get them both to say and to do anything. When it became clear that AIUSA was not going to say or do anything about Israel’s wholesale slaughter of Arabs/Muslims in Lebanon because of the marked pro-Israel bias by the AIUSA Staff, Board, and Funders, I called the Irish Nobel Peace Prize Winner Sean MacBride at his home in Dublin and asked him to intervene with AI/London. What little AI/London said and did about 20,000 Arabs/Muslims in Lebanon murdered by Israel with the full support of the United States was due to Sean MacBride.

MacBride then convinced the then AI Secretary General to appoint me a Consultant to Amnesty International on the human rights situation in the Middle East. In that capacity, I attended the founding meeting of what would become the AIUSA Middle East Coordination Group. In other words, I was one of the founders of the AIUSA Mid-East Co-Group, some of whose members are now defending its work. At that founding meeting I said quite emphatically that Amnesty International and AIUSA would have absolutely no credibility whatsoever in the Middle East unless they dealt forthrightly and vigorously with violations of the human rights of Arabs and Muslims by Israel, and, in particular, Israeli atrocities against the People of Lebanon and the Palestinian People. Soon thereafter, I found out that the Members of the AIUSA Mid-East Co-Group had been instructed to have nothing more to do with me by a direct order coming from the AIUSA Board of Directors.

It is fair to say that Amnesty International has quite recently released some reports dealing with Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinian People and the Lebanese People. But Israel has been consistently murdering, torturing and destroying the Palestinian People since at least the time when the occupation of their lands began in 1967–and with the full support of the United States Government. And only now has Amnesty International got around to condemning it. Almost a decade ago while on the AIUSA Board, I tried to get AI/London and AIUSA to act on the basis of the infamous Landau Report whereby the Israeli Government officially sanctioned torture against Palestinians. Over a decade ago while on the AIUSA Board, I pointed out that this made Israel the only state in the world to officially sanction torture. It is nice to see that a decade later Amnesty International has finally agreed with me and said something about it.

Likewise, Israel has been rampaging around Lebanon with the full support of the United States to the grave detriment of the Lebanese People and Palestinians living there since at least the time when Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1978. The primary reason why Amnesty International has put out these latest reports condemning Israeli human rights violations in Lebanon and against the Palestinian People after decades of silence is because there are now several other human rights organizations which have acted against Israel when AI/London and AIUSA refused to act because of their marked pro-Israel bias. When it comes to protecting the human rights of Palestinians, Lebanese, Arabs/Muslims from atrocities by Israel, the United States, and Britain, AI/London and AIUSA have always been too little, too late, and on purpose.

While on the AIUSA Board I once saw the itinerary drawn up by AIUSA for the visit to the United States by the then AI Secretary General coming from London. On the list was almost every major pro-Israel group in New York and Washington and about one Arab Group. Given their standard operating procedures, I am confident the pro-Israel groups threatened the AI Secretary General that they would have their members withhold or reduce their contributions to AI and AIUSA if AI/London did not reign in its pathetic, pitiful, and meager criticisms of Israel. While I was on the AIUSA Board, AIUSA paid about 20% of the budget for AI/London. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

You will also note that the three AIUSA Mid-East Co-Group members’ response to my original message said absolutely nothing at all about the scandalous Kuwaiti Dead Babies Report and Campaign that both Amnesty International and AIUSA used for the purpose of promoting war against Iraq. As a Member of the AIUSA Board, I received a pre-publication copy of the Dead Babies Report. I read it immediately and quite carefully. First, this report contained technical errors that should have precluded its publication. Second, even if all these sensational allegations had been true, it was clear that publication of this report at that critical moment in time (December 1990) would only be used by the United States and Britain to monger for war against Iraq. I expressed these opinions in the strongest terms possible and that this report should not be published because it was inaccurate; or that if for some reason it were to be published, it must be accompanied by an errata sheet. Amnesty International published the Dead Babies Report anyway despite my vigorous objections, and launched their Disinformation Campaign against Iraq. From this episode I could only conclude that AI/London deliberately intended the Dead-Babies Report and Campaign to be used in order to tip the balance in favor of war against Iraq.

This is exactly what happened. In January of 1991 the United States Senate voted in favor of war against Iraq by only five or six votes. Several Senators publicly stated that the AI/AIUSA Dead Babies Report and Campaign had influenced their votes in favor of war against Iraq. That genocidal war waged by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, inter alia, during the months of January and February 1991, killed at a minimum 200,000 Iraqis, half of whom were civilians. Amnesty International shall always have the blood of the Iraqi People on its hands!

Once it became clear that there never were any dead babies in Kuwait as alleged by Amnesty International, AI/London proceeded to engage in a massive coverup of the truth. For all I know, the same people at AI/London who waged this Dead-Babies Disinformation Campaign against Iraq are still at AI/London producing more disinformation against Arab/Muslim states in the Middle East in order to further the political and economic interests of the United States, Britain, and Israel. Because of its Dead-Babies Disinformation Campaign against Iraq and its ensuing coverup, Amnesty International will never have any credibility in the Middle East!

During the past eight years, about 1.5 million People in Iraq have died as a result of genocidal sanctions imposed upon them primarily at the behest of the United States and Britain, including in that number about 500,000 dead Iraqi children. While on the AIUSA Board of Directors, I tried to get them and AI/London to do something about this genocidal embargo against the People of Iraq, and especially against the Iraqi Children. Both AI/London and AIUSA adamantly refused to act despite the grievous harm that their Dead-Babies Disinformation Campaign had inflicted upon the People of Iraq. It was clear to me at the time that there was no way AI/London and AIUSA were going to take on Britain and the United States on behalf of the completely innocent People of Iraq.

Now we are told that there is something in the AI Mandate that precludes AI action against such genocidal economic embargoes. Of course this is nonsense. While I served on the AIUSA Board, one of our Board Chairs personally put me in charge of handling Mandate issues for the AIUSA Board. I know all about the Mandate. It was my responsibility.

Generally put, when AI/London and AIUSA want to take action on a matter because it will bring them publicity, money, members, and “influence,” they pay no attention whatsoever to their so-called Mandate. Likewise, when AI/London and AIUSA decide for political or economic reasons that they will not work on human rights problem, they trot out their so-called Mandate to justify non-action.

The same type of bogus argument was used by AI/London and AIUSA to prevent the organizations and their memberships from taking any effective action against the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa that had been oppressing millions of Black People for decades. To the best of my knowledge, Amnesty International is the only human rights organization in the entire world to have refused to condemn apartheid and work against it. The spurious argument made here was that Amnesty International could take no position on a type of government. But the truth of the matter was that Amnesty International is headquartered in London, and AIUSA is headquartered in New York and Washington. The biggest political supporters of the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa were the governments of Britain, the United States, and Israel. Likewise, the biggest sources of economic investments in the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa came from Britain and the United States. Once again, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

There was no way AI/London and AIUSA were ever going to work against the political and economic interests of Britain, the United States, and Israel operating together in support of the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa. So AI/London and AIUSA concocted this spurious rationale for non-action. The same is being done today by AI/London and AIUSA to justify their non-action in light of the genocidal economic embargo imposed now primarily by the United States and Britain against the People of Iraq. There is no way AI/London and AIUSA will ever act against the political and economic interests of the United States, Britain, and Israel in the Middle East, and certainly not on behalf of the People of Iraq, whose blood AI and AIUSA now have on their hands.

Notice too how this latest specious justification for AI non-action fits in quite neatly with the strategic objectives of the United States around the world. Right now the United States Government is primarily responsible for imposing genocidal economic sanctions against the People of Iraq, the People of Cuba, and the People of North Korea. Amnesty International will do nothing at all about it. In other words, by their deliberate non-action AI and AIUSA are supporting the genocidal policies of the United States, Britain and Israel against these Third World countries–just as AI and AIUSA supported the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa by their deliberate non-action. If you want to do effective human rights work in opposition to the imperial, colonial and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, or Israel, there is no point working with Amnesty International or AIUSA. You will simply be wasting your time, your efforts, your resources, and your enthusiasm.

Permit me to further substantiate this assertion that Amnesty International and AIUSA are imperialist tools by reference to other areas of the world. It is well known that AI/London has done little effective work to help Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. As Sean MacBride once said: Amnesty International will never treat Irish Catholics fairly so long as it is headquartered in London. The long and sordid history of AI/London non-action in the face of genocidal violations of the most fundamental human rights of Irish Catholics living in Northern Ireland by Britain is well known among Irish Americans and Irish People living in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and around the world. For example, a letter by a former AI Secretary-General sabotaged public support for the defense of Joe Doherty here in the United States. Just recently, it required a massive internet campaign to force AI/London to do anything at all to save the life of Loinnir McAliskey and to obtain the freedom of Roisin McAliskey.

Let me now move from the British colony in Northern Ireland to the American colony in Puerto Rico. While I was still on the AIUSA Board, a fellow Board Member asked me to draft a resolution for adoption by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of AIUSA calling for a comprehensive AI Campaign against human rights violations by the United States in Puerto Rico. This resolution passed the AIUSA/AGM overwhelmingly, and without any dissent that I could detect. I was then invited by Amnesty International/Puerto Rico to give the Keynote Address at their Annual General Meeting in San Juan on the subject of the right of Puerto Rican political prisoners in American jails to be treated as prisoners of war. Immediately thereafter, AI/London and AIUSA applied massive pressure on AI/Puerto Rico to prevent this speech. AI/Puerto Rico refused to cave in.

I went down to Puerto Rico to attend their AGM, gave the Keynote Address, and also investigated U.S. human rights violations in Puerto Rico, including torture, summary executions and disappearances. Upon my return home, AIUSA attempted to stiff me out of my expenses despite the fact that I was attending the AI/Puerto Rico AGM in my official capacity as an invited AIUSA Board Member. Perhaps I missed it due to the press of other duties at the time, but I am not aware of any comprehensive Amnesty International Campaign against U.S. human rights abuses in Puerto Rico as overwhelmingly called for by the AIUSA/AGM.

Finally, let me say a few words about the deliberate non-action of AI/London and AIUSA on behalf of indigenous peoples living in the United States and its imperial ally, Canada. Back when I was on the AIUSA Board, AI/London decided to launch an international campaign on behalf of indigenous peoples. As usual, I received a pre-publication copy of the campaign material. On reading it, I immediately noticed that almost nothing was to be done to help the indigenous peoples living in the United States and Canada. I protested this to AI/London and AIUSA, and demanded that the indigenous peoples living in the United States and Canada be added as an integral part of this campaign. To the best of my knowledge, this was never done. I leave it to the indigenous peoples living in the United States and Canada to decide for themselves how helpful AI/London and AIUSA have been to them.

I will not belabor the obvious any longer in this brief Memorandum. But based upon my over sixteen years of experience having dealt with AI/London and AIUSA at the highest levels, it is clear to me that both organizations manifest a consistent pattern and practice of following the lines of the foreign policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel. You can certainly see this in all of AI’s non-work with respect to the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, South Africa, indigenous peoples living in North America, etc. Effectively, Amnesty International and AIUSA function as tools for the imperialist, colonial and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel.

There are many people of good will and good faith working at the grassroots level of Amnesty International and AIUSA who genuinely believe that they are doing meaningful and effective work to protect human rights around the world. But at the top of these two organizations you will find a self-perpetuating clique of co-opted Elites who deliberately shape and direct the work of AI and AIUSA so as to either affirmatively support, or else not seriously undercut, the imperial, colonial, and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel. The Leadership Elites of AI/London and AIUSA have always considered themselves to be the so-called “loyal opposition” to the imperial, colonial, and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain and Israel. I would ask the people at the grassroots of AI and AIUSA whether you want to continue being part of the “loyal opposition” to imperialism, colonialism and genocide perpetrated by the United States, Britain and Israel? It is not for me to tell those people of good faith and good will currently working with AI/London and AIUSA what to do. But I have found other organizations to work with and support.

Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1988-92), Co-Founder AIUSA Middle East Coordination Group, Consultant to Amnesty International on the Middle East

Cover Image:  Courtesy of WrongKindofGreen.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CNPS: Birth of first European organization against Zionist lobbying

Palestine Information Center – December 24, 2015

-1978625936BRUSSELS – European experts and academics have announced the launch of the Center for NGOs and Policy Studies (CNPS) in London and Brussels, which primarily aims to expose Zionist lobbies in Europe and the US.

The announcement was made following a closed meeting held on Wednesday in the Belgian capital Brussels by a galaxy of European experts and academics versed in the field of lobby groups and their influence on policy makers in Europe and the US.

The CNPS, which is considered the first of its kind in this arena, aims, among other things, to delegitimize and blacklist the Zionists lobbies and their institutions, debunk their objectives and activities, and expose their funding sources.

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Some 100,000 People Flee Homes Amid Clashes Between Ankara, PKK

Sputnik — 24.12.2015

ANKARA – Some 100,000 people have been displaced due to armed clashes between Turkish security forces and militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the country’s majority-Kurdish southeastern regions, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

Severe clashes between Ankara forces and PKK militants have been arising sporadically since a July terror attack in the city of Suruc, which killed over 30 people, most of them Kurds. As Kurds killed two Turkish policemen soon after the attack, Ankara launched a military campaign against PKK. The clashes intensified earlier this week in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

The Turkish forces’ operations are being carried out in the southeastern districts of Diyarbakir, Silopi, Silvan, Sur and Cizre, where the PKK has a strong presence.

The authorities also declared a police curfew in area most affected by the armed clashes, with a population of 1.3 million civilians.

Over 100,000 of them have been forced to flee their homes due to the ongoing violence and domestic hardships, according to an Interior Ministry report that was cited by the Hurriyet newspaper.

According to the ministry, the security forces have taken control of eight of the 13 high-risk areas where the PKK militants were trying to establish autonomous areas, not controlled by the central government.

The Kurds, Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, are striving to create their own independent state and gain independence from Turkey. The PKK was founded in the late 1970s to promote the self-determination for the Kurdish community. The PKK is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey.

The Kurdish struggle for independence gave rise to a conflict between Ankara and various Kurdish militant groups that has been ongoing since 1984.

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Bethlehem-area village sealed by Israeli military for weeks

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Ma’an – December 23, 2015

BETHLEHEM – The movement of residents in Ras Al-Wad southwest of Bethlehem has been cut off for weeks by Israeli military forces, locals said Wednesday.

A resident told Ma’an that the forces closed off the main entrance to the small village with large mounds of dirt around three weeks ago, and the road has remained closed since.

The road was used by residents in Ras al-Wad to access a main highway nearby. While they have been able to find an alternate route — a one-way dirt road that connects to the nearby village of Beit Sahour — access to the highway is severely limited, locals said.

“They just don’t want Arabs accessing the highway,” a Ras al-Wad resident told Ma’an.

An Israeli army spokesperson did not have immediate information on the closure of Ras al-Wad, but in the past has told Ma’an that Palestinian towns and roads were sealed in accordance with “security measures” taken in the area.

The isolation faced by Ras al-Wad residents has taken place in Palestinian areas throughout the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem that have been cut off in recent months.

Following attacks carried out by Palestinian individuals on Israeli military and civilians that began in October and have continued into December, the military has been sealing villages and cities in the area around the attack or hometown of attacker.

In the West Bank, where Palestinian movement is already placed under a myriad of Israeli restrictions, the recent closures have had wide-scale repercussions in what rights groups have termed collective punishment.

The military never contacted residents of Ras al-Wad with warning or reason of the closure, and locals told Ma’an they have no idea how long the dirt mounds will remain in place.

While Palestinians in other areas have removed dirt mounds shortly after their placement, locals told Ma’an that Ras al-Wad residents have yet to remove them.

Ras al-Wad is a relatively quiet village and locals told Ma’an that residents generally avoid confrontation with the military, locals said.

“They’re not confrontational and they’re not political,” a resident told Ma’an. “They would just rather try to live their lives than deal with any trouble.

“No one from the village has gone to move the dirt mounds, everyone here just turned their head and found alternate routes,” the resident continued.

December 23, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Turned a Deaf Ear to Palestinian Suffering

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | December 22, 2015

As Jodi Rudoren exits the Jerusalem bureau of The New York Times, she leaves behind a series of gaping holes in coverage of Palestine-Israel, above all in her failure to expose the treatment of the most vulnerable, who suffer disproportionately under the constant brutality of the Israeli occupation.

Readers of the Times have never been told of the international outcry over the abuse of Palestinian children detained by Israeli security forces. They know nothing about the myriad Israeli breaches of the 2014 ceasefire with Gaza, especially the frequent attacks on fishermen and farmers; and they are uninformed of the cruel measures imposed on struggling Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere.

Rudoren, who leaves her post as Jerusalem bureau chief at the end of this month, replaced Ethan Bronner nearly four years ago. She has written from inside an Israeli Jewish perspective, giving voice to official Israeli spin and omitting the stories that beg to be told.

Thus, although Rudoren visited Gaza, she had nothing to say about the numerous attacks on defenseless farmers and fishermen there, some of whom have died simply trying to do a day’s work. These attacks are in violation of the truce that ended the assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014 (as well as previous agreements), but Rudoren’s reporting from the enclave has strained to deflect the blame from Israel.

Instead of telling the stories we need to hear, Rudoren has written about individual Gazans who are anything but typical—a woman artist who defies the authorities, a man who goes against the grain by advocating for the two-state solution.

In this way she has given us the appearance of entering into Gazan society, of “balance” in covering both Israeli and Palestinian affairs, while she actually provided a smokescreen to avoid looking at the urgent issues.

The Bedouin of the West Bank received even less attention during Rudoren’s term in Jerusalem, but their stories are equally disturbing and compelling. In the Jordan Valley and east of Jerusalem (and also within Israel, in the Negev), Israeli forces often confiscate and destroy the basic necessities of life in these poverty-stricken communities.

The Israeli Civil Administration, a branch of the army, routinely destroys tents, latrines, animal shelters, water pipes, cisterns, wells, houses, solar panels and storage sheds, usually under the pretext that they lack building permits. Many of the confiscated and destroyed items have been donated by the International Committee of the Red Cross or other aid organizations.

The Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, has documented these acts of destruction and the many times Israeli troops have forced entire communities to leave their homes for hours and days at a time under the pretext of needing the area for “military training.” These live fire training sessions have more than once set the Bedouins’ fields on fire, destroying valuable crops and grazing land.

And yet, as she ignored these depredations, Rudoren chose to write about illegal settlers in the Jordan Valley, presenting them as plucky and determined and ignoring the plunder of indigenous communities in the area.

Although B’Tselem, the United Nations, Amnesty International and other monitoring groups have exposed the contemptible actions and policies of the Israeli government and its security forces, Rudoren has almost totally ignored the reports and even worked to undermine them.

Numerous groups, for instance, have raised alarm over the abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli custody, but Rudoren never saw fit to address the issue in the Times—except for a somewhat oblique attempt to defuse the charges. Thus, she wrote about stone throwing as a rite of passage in one West Bank village, presenting the youthful efforts at resistance and the Israeli response as a kind of game, nothing to be taken seriously.

The story mentions the arrests of children and military interrogations, but readers never learn that Israeli courts and security forces have been accused of serious mistreatment, amounting to torture: beatings, forced confessions, sleep deprivation, threats and more.

Instead, Rudoren says that it can be cold in those infamous interrogation rooms, as if that is the worst of it.

In the latest uprising, marked by a series of lone wolf stabbing and vehicular attacks, Rudoren continued to ignore the reports of monitoring groups, saying nothing about the well-documented charges that Israeli security forces are carrying out street executions of Palestinians who pose no threat.

This kind of news is deemed unfit to print in the Times. Rudoren, who goes on the join the international desk at the paper’s headquarters, played her part well, according to Times protocol, which expects that its reporters will maintain the Israeli narrative of victimhood, suppress anything that contradicts this claim and betray its readers under a camouflage of “balanced” reporting.

December 22, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Police killed over 1,100 people in US in 2015 – report

RT | December 22, 2015

Relying on grassroots rather than federal data, the Mapping Police Violence project said over 1,100 people were killed by US police in 2015. It also found that 321 African-Americans were killed by police in numbers disproportionate to their populations.

Mapping Police Violence, a research group, said the data showed that African-Americans were three times more likely to be killed by police than white people per million, with 321 deaths recorded in 2015. In the killings, 33 percent of black victims were unarmed, compared to 18 percent of white victims, while 71 percent of the victims were killed during non-violent encounters with police, such as a traffic stop, or a family’s call for help.

The project compiled data on the use of fatal force due to gunshot, asphyxiation, vehicles or Tasers. It also included data on unintentional kills, such as those that resulted from a medical emergency while being arrested or restrained, and off-duty incidents.

Other findings were that charges against police officers who used deadly force were rare, with 98 percent of cases resulting in no one being held accountable. Additionally, the group found that lethal force doesn’t appear to be related to violent crime rates in an area.

Other findings were that African-Americans are six more times likely to be killed in Oklahoma than Georgia. The police departments with the highest rate of police killings per capita were Bakersfield, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Oakland, California; Long Beach, California; New Orleans and San Francisco.

In the top 60 largest police departments, African-Americans were 41 percent of all victims despite being only 20 percent of the population living in these cities, the data showed.

Instead of federal statistics, Mapping Police Violence relied on a crowdsourced databases such as FatalEncounters.org, US Police Shootings Database, and KilledbyPolice.net, and the Guardian’s recently created database The Counted. The raw data came from media reports, social media, obituaries, police reports and other sources. The federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, which mandates law enforcement record deaths, was only just recently signed into law and is yet to show results. Prior to that, police-involved death reporting was voluntary.

According to The Guardian’s The Counted, there were 1,103 people killed by police this year.

Some of the deaths were news headlines and became focus of many of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2015 in cities across the US. One such victim was Sandra Bland, 28, an African-American pulled over for an alleged traffic violation in Texas, taken into custody, and who authorities claim hung herself in her cell three days later.

Another case was that of Zachary Hammond, a white teen on his first date buying ice cream who police shot thinking he was buying drugs. The family’s lawyer said police murdered Hammond.

Others on the list are perhaps less innocent. There is the teenager Faisal Mohammad, who stabbed four people in November at University of California, Merced campus. He is alleged to have planned to hold his classmates hostage and systematically kill them before he was killed by police.

Also included is the engineering student, Mohammad Abdulazeez, 24, who open fired on two military institutions in Chattanooga, Tennessee in July. He shot and killed four Marines on the spot, while one navy sailor died of his wounds two days later. He injured two others before being killed by police.

The Justice Department has open investigations with 22 police departments over possible civil rights violations, some begun as far back as 2009. Their most recent investigation involves the Chicago Police Department for civil rights violations following the release of police dashcam footage of the police shooting death of African American Laquan McDonald.

December 22, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Israel has ‘deprived 23,000 orphans of monthly sponsorship’

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MEMO | December 22, 2015

The Deputy Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Shaikh Kamal Al-Khatib, said on Monday that Israel’s banning of the group has deprived 23,000 orphans from their monthly sponsorship payments, Anadolu has reported.

“The Islamic Relief charity run by the movement,” explained Al-Khatib, “used to pay a minimum of $40 monthly sponsorship for each orphan spread around the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.”

The Israeli government banned the Islamic Movement on 16 November. Any person or group which associates with it officially is now subject to criminal penalties, including arrest. The authorities confiscated property belonging to the organisation and its bank accounts were frozen. Seventeen affiliated organisations, including charities, were closed down.

The sponsorships, explained Al-Khatib, were donated by Palestinians. He suggested that a solution for the problem is for wealthy Muslims to take over the orphan sponsorships and pointed out that efforts are being made in this regard, although, understandably, he gave no details.

The Palestinian Islamic Relief charity was established by the movement in 1988 and its main activity was sponsoring orphans; it has no connection to the UK-based Islamic Relief or Islamic Relief Worldwide. The charity has been closed by the Israeli authorities several times. “Israel seeks to crack down on all projects which lie behind the persistence of the Palestinians,” added Al-Khatib. He stressed that the charity’s accounts have always been subject to Israeli monitoring.

December 22, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Apartheid Wall destroys Palestinian lives

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Palestine Information Center

On 29 March, 2002, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) conducted a large-scale military operation in the West Bank, called “Operation Defensive Shield”. During the operation, the Israeli forces raided many Palestinian towns and villages and committed heinous crimes against the Palestinians.

The operation brought to light the Israeli government’s plans to conquer more Palestinian lands and to expel the Palestinians from their own homes. A major step in these plans was to build the Apartheid Wall, or what Israel calls the Separation Wall.

The Israeli government commenced building the Apartheid Wall on 23 June, 2002, at a planned length of 770 km. Now, around 406 km, i.e. 52.7%, of the Wall is completed.

The Wall in numbers

The Wall is 60-150 meters wide in some areas. This includes a buffer zone and roads on both sides of the Wall that the Israeli military uses to watch the Wall. The Wall is 8 meters high, and it contains:

1. Barbed wire
2. A 4-meter wide and deep trench, aiming to prevent the vehicles and pedestrians from passing
3. Military patrol roads
4. A sandy road to track footsteps
5. An electric fence with an 8-meter high cement wall
6. Watchtowers with cameras and sensors

The Wall separates an area of 733 km2 of the Palestinian lands that falls behind the Wall from the West Bank. In other words, these 733 km2 would be under full Israeli control, besides the occupied lands of 1948.

The Wall would also occupy 220 km2 of Jordan Valley, east of Palestine. The Valley is a main source of food for Palestinians, and is also known as their “food basket”.

The Wall passes through eight Palestinian governorates. In Jerusalem, building the Wall accelerated in 2006-2007. It separates a number of heavily populated Palestinian neighborhoods, like Shufat and Kafr ‘Aqab.

Effects of the Wall

In spite of the claimed Israeli security motives behind building the Wall, it negatively impacts the Palestinian people and cause.

First: Effects on the Palestinian daily life

As the Wall passes through the West Bank, it negatively impacts the lives of 210,000 Palestinians, who live in 67 Palestinian towns and villages.

Because of the Wall, 13 Palestinian neighborhoods would be isolated between the green line and the Wall. Furthermore, a second wall would create a security belt, stranding 19 Palestinian neighborhoods in isolated areas.

The Wall would also hinder the Palestinians’ movement and would prevent them from reaching their farms and selling their goods and produce.

Second: Economic and environmental effects

37% of the Palestinian villages, cut with the Wall, would lose their economic resources. Moreover, 12 km of irrigation systems were destroyed.

Confiscating and bulldozing Palestinian farms would cost the Palestinians 6500 jobs, in addition to harming the olive oil industry and fruit and vegetable farming.

The Apartheid Wall would affect the Palestinian water resources, as the West Bank would lose 200 million cubic meters of the Jordan Valley water.

Third: Effects on movement

Statistics show that the Wall would violate the right of movement of two million Palestinians. They will have to seek Israeli permits to be able to reach their houses and farms in different Palestinian areas. Such restrictions would force at least 2.8% Palestinians to leave their homes and find other places to live in.

Fourth: Effects on education and medical sectors

Many Palestinian students and teachers were affected by the Wall, as it prevented them from reaching their schools, forcing 3.4% Palestinians to drop out.

On the medical level, it is getting increasingly difficult for Palestinians to reach the hospitals and medical centers to the east of the Wall, and the Palestinian villages to the west of the Wall have no medical services at all.

Fifth: Effects on Palestinian water resources

The Israeli occupation has strategically chosen the path of the Wall in order to guarantee Israel as much water as possible and thus depriving Palestinians of a basic right. Once finished, the Wall will enable Israel to confiscate and control 165 water wells and 53 springs, which in total culminate into 55 million cubic meters annually. Furthermore, the Wall now means Israel controls an additional amount of 679 million cubic meters annually.

December 21, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces injure 3 Palestinians before shooting tear gas at passers-by in the market of Hebron

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Israeli forces used the roof of a Palestinian family’s house to shoot
International Solidarity Movement | December 20, 2015

Al Khalil, Occupied Palestine – Sunday, 20th December 2015, Israeli forces shot and injured three Palestinians at Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), before arbitrarily firing towards civilians and journalists in the area.

Israeli forces shot a girl in the head with live ammunition. A Palestinian bystander, trying to help the girl and pull her towards the Palestinian side of the checkpoint right after she was shot, was shot in the mouth by Israeli forces. The man was trying to help, knowing that Israeli forces would most likely deny the girl any medical aid if the Palestinian ambulance was unable to reach her. Another Palestinian bystander was shot. The Palestinian girl, according to eye-witnesses, did have a knife, but instead of trying to disarm her, Israeli forces directly shot her in the head.

Whereas the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, at the scene after only a few minutes, was denied access to the girl in order to deliver first aid, the two Palestinians injured were taken to hospital. After this happened, the Israeli forces threw stun grenades and shot tear-gas at passers-by and Red Crescent medics to prevent them from coming any closer and seeing what happened. Journalists that arrived at the scene were also attacked with stun grenades and threatened by Israeli forces with rubber coated steel bullets.

Israeli forces entered the H1-side of al-Khalil, that is under full Palestinian control, running into the Palestinian market and indiscriminately shooting tear gas at civilians going about their everyday life. They entered the roof of a Palestinian family’s home to use it as a base for shooting tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at Palestinians in the street. A 5-year old boy was injured when Israeli forces fired directly at a school-bus passing by the checkpoint.

Shuhada checkpoint has recently been closed for ‘renovations’, stopping Palestinians from accessing the Palestinian neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, located in the H2-area under full Israeli control. This neighbourhood, including the small stretch of Shuhada Street that Palestinians still had access to, has been declared a ‘closed military zone’ on November 1st. With the closure of the checkpoint, the restricted freedom of movement of Palestinians, has been completely brought to a halt.

December 21, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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