A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWLETTER

Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks.
On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the “Tulip Time Festival” in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event’s organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.
Despite Prince’s attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater.
The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.
In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight “terrorists” in Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described Blackwater’s secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan.
He called those fighting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan “barbarians” who “crawled out of the sewer.” Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater “call[ed] in multiple air strikes,” blowing up the facility.
Prince boasted that his forces had carried out the “largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history.” He characterized the work of some NATO countries’ forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations “should just pack it in and go home.” Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line that Blackwater is not in Pakistan.

The U.S. government-sponsored television and radio stations aimed at bringing objective news into communist Cuba aren’t doing the job and need new leadership and direction, according to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In a new report by the committee’s majority staff, led by John Kerry, D-MA, lawmakers are calling out Radio Marti and TV Marti, both of which are funded by Congress, for a lack of quality programming and for failing to uphold the standards of a free and fair journalistic enterprise.

The aim is to bring “objective news” into Cuba? Please. It’s to replace one form of propaganda (pro-Castro rants) with pro-Washington diatribes.

The eleven-day protest of Ahmed Sabeh, released from an Israeli prison on Wednesday, April 21, 2010, and taken to the Gaza Strip – even though his home, wife and son are in Tulkarem – raises an interesting challenge to Israel’s control over the borders and population registry of the occupied Palestinian territory. Mr. Sabeh has camped out inside the Erez Crossing, refusing to enter Gaza, in protest of Israel’s refusal to allow him to return to his home in the West Bank.

The Hamas government, in turn, has announced that it will not allow him back into Gaza, in order to avoid facilitating the Israeli policy of removing Palestinians from the West Bank.

Mr. Sabeh, represented by HaMoked – Center for the Defence of the Individual, was taken to Gaza as part of a policy to remove from the West Bank Palestinians whose addresses in the Israeli controlled population registry are listed in Gaza, a policy strengthened by a new military order that gives the military broad powers to deport and arrest.

His refusal to enter Gaza – and the Hamas government’s refusal to receive him – provide a window into Israel’s double-bind policy on control of Gaza. On the one hand, Israel claims that it has ended its occupation of Gaza and that Gaza is a “foreign” and even “hostile” entity for whose 1.5 million residents – Israel bears no responsibility. On the other hand, Israel has determined, that Mr. Sabeh is a “resident” of the supposedly “foreign” entity of Gaza (through Israel’s control of the Palestinian Population Registry) and that Israel may force him to live there (through Israel’s control of Gaza’s borders).

Compare Mr. Sabeh’s plight with that of Palestinians who entered the West Bank from Jordan, but Israel refuses to “recognize” their residence and issue them Palestinian ID cards. Israel does not try to deport them to Jordan, because Israel cannot dictate who is a citizen of Jordan and cannot force Jordan, a sovereign state, to accept a deportee.

Not so for Gaza, part of the occupied Palestinian territory, where Israel decides who is a Palestinian resident and uses its control to dictate where he or she may live (in the case of Mr. Sabeh – thus far with only limited success).

Gaza Gateway will soon be adding to its weekly updates statistics about the movement of persons through Gaza’s crossings – and we’ll be sure to include data about those stuck in the middle.

The Berkeley, Calif. home of Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the progressive Tikkun magazine, was vandalized with posters.
The posters, attached to his door and the fence around his home, attack Lerner personally, and also attack liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and “Islamofascism,” according to a news release from the magazine. The attack occurred late on Sunday night or early Monday morning. It was discovered on Monday morning.
The attack follows a week in which the magazine and Lerner received hate mail,  apparently because Tikkun magazine announced that it will award Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the controversial  United Nations report that accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the winter 2009 Gaza war, with its  prestigious Tikkun Award,as well as Lerner’s offer to hold Goldstone’s grandson’s bar mitzvah in San Francisco following threats of protests outside the synagogue in South Africa.
This is the first time in 24 years of the magazine’s operation that Lerner’s home has been attacked, according to the magazine’s statement.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, though the statement blamed “right-wing Zionists.”
The case is being investigated as an act of vandalism. It reportedly is not a hate crime, according to police, because Lerner was being attacked for his politics, not his religion.

The US yesterday revealed for the first time the size of its nuclear arsenal, 5,113 warheads, in a move intended to signal Washington is serious about disarmament.