Articles

‘Zio-Nazi strike on Iran won’t end nuclear program’
June 25, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS jpost.com   Israel could cause extensive damage to Iran’s nuclear program but would not succeed in eradicating it in ...Read more
Naziyahu: Palestinians must accept ‘Jewish’ state
June 25, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS   jpost.com   On the eve of a meeting of Quartet envoys in Brussels to review ways to restart ...Read more
Egyptian gets life sentence for spying for Gestapo Mossad
June 25, 2011
Egypt
NOVANEWS Egyptian news reports that Abdel Rezek Hussein was arrested at Cairo’s airport in August, in the possession of print ...Read more
Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term US Afghan Combat
June 25, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS by Gareth Porter President Barack Obama’s speech announcing that the 33,000 “surge” troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by “summer” ...Read more
British, French agents undercover in Libya to get Gaddafi
June 25, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS     London, June 19 (ANI): A team of 130 British and French agents are reportedly on a one-million-pound-a-week, ...Read more
Ron Paul on Libya War Authorization
June 25, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS   Eric Garris   Today the US House defeated two resolutions on the war on Libya. The first one, ...Read more
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) versus Bilderberg: Where are Real Decisions Being Made?
June 25, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS By Eric Walberg Global Research As the Western elite gathered in picturesque St Moritz to grapple with pressing world ...Read more
The New Civil Liberties Fight
June 25, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS By Nick Baumann Gulet Mohamed, a 19-year-old Virginian, behind bars in a Kuwaiti deportation facility. His family and lawyer allege ...Read more
Report: Naziyahu adviser in Egypt to discuss suspected Zio-Nazi spy
June 24, 2011
Egypt
NOVANEWS   French media reports Netanyahu adviser Isaac Molho will meet Egypt’s FM in order to discuss Gilad Shalit as ...Read more
Zionist Apple removes ‘Third Palestinian Intifada’ app at Zio-Nazi request
June 24, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS   Zionist minister demanded computer giant cancel application alerting users of upcoming events and features pictures of martyrs. Haaretz ...Read more
Mondoweiss Online Newsletter
June 24, 2011
Nova Newsletter
NOVANEWS   Courageous Alice Walker to take part in flotilla in face of thuggish State Department warning Israel proves that ...Read more
A.Loewenstein Online Newsletter
June 24, 2011
Middle East
Of course the war against Libya is about securing oil Israel struggling with that narrative thing US official; we love ...Read more

‘Zio-Nazi strike on Iran won’t end nuclear program’

NOVANEWS

jpost.com
 

Israel could cause extensive damage to Iran’s nuclear program but would not succeed in eradicating it in a future military strike, leading American defense analyst Anthony Cordesman said on Thursday.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on the sidelines of the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, Cordesman also said that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was alienating Israel from the rest of the world and was a liability for Israel and the United States.

Cordesman is a senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and served in the past as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“You can achieve short-term gains but the basic structure of the Iranian efforts would remain and such a strike would do more to catalyze support of the program in Iran than undermine it,” Cordesman said of a possible Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“It would not threaten the regime and while Israel might achieve some gains, it would not be able to restrike [if it is rebuilt].”

“There is a very hard target mix and the problem is that there is a lot we don’t know about the system and there is not a lot of unclassified reporting on Iran’s program,” he said.

“If they [the Iranians] had any willingness to consider this, they would have enough redundancy and reconstitution capability so that a single strike would not have long term effects.”

Last year, Cordesman wrote a paper arguing that the US ties to Israel were not based primarily on strategic interests but rather on moral and ethical reasons. At the time, he wrote that Israel “at the best of times” provides some intelligence and some minor advances in military technology.

He said that Israel needed to use the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East to work toward peace with the Palestinians as opposed to Israel’s current strategy, which he said was to stall for time.

“We cannot afford confrontations between Israel and the Arab world,” he said. “Pushing away from the peace process and a foreign minister that constantly confronts the Arab world and alienates you from the world is a liability for us.”

Meanwhile Thursday, news reports broke that five people killed in a plane crash in northern Russia on Tuesday were Russian scientists who had helped Iran design its Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Reports said 45 people were killed in the crash and Russian security sources confirmed that five of the dead were nuclear scientists who had worked with Iran, according to The Daily Mail.

The British paper identified one of the dead as Andrei Trokinov – one of Russia’s top nuclear scientists.

Despite the presence of the scientists on the plane, investigators said the crash was the result of bad weather and pilot error, not foul play.

Naziyahu: Palestinians must accept ‘Jewish’ state

NOVANEWS
 

jpost.com
 

On the eve of a meeting of Quartet envoys in Brussels to review ways to restart the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday night that the end to the conflict will begin with the Palestinian leaders uttering six simple words: “I will accept the Jewish state.”

Netanyahu, in a speech to the closing session of the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, said that peace has eluded the sides for 90 years because the Palestinians never accepted Israel’s existence in the region, within any borders.

His comments came amid Israeli efforts to get a clear Palestinian statement about Israel as a Jewish state front-loaded into any formula on restarting negotiations that might mention the baseline for talks as the 1967 lines, with mutual agreed swaps.

Noting that he had accepted the idea of a Palestinian state in his Bar Ilan speech in 2009, Netanyahu said, “Now I say that [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas must do what I did two years ago: he must stand up to his people and say, ‘I will accept the Jewish state.’” Referring to frequent Palestinian comments that Israel can “call itself whatever it wants,” Netanyahu stressed that the issue was not over what it calls itself, but rather over what it is.

“They can call their state Palestine or Arafatland,” Netanyahu said. “I’m not talking about what they call it; but what it is. For them, it is the nation state of the Palestinian people. Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. This means that the Palestinians go there, and Jews come here.”

Netanyahu said this in no way will impinge upon the rights of Arab citizens in Israel, but that a two-state solution must end any hope of further subdividing the Jewish state and calls for a “sub-state” for Arabs in the Negev or Galilee.

At a speech later in the evening to the World Zionist Organization, Netanyahu said that Theodor Herzl and the Zionist vision spoke of settlement and development of the Jewish state in all parts of Israel.

“We are settling and developing the land – it is possible to see towns in Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion. But we are also obligated to develop all parts of the country – the Galilee and the Negev,” he said, using terminology that sounded like an effort to de-emphasize construction in the settlements.

Egyptian gets life sentence for spying for Gestapo Mossad

NOVANEWS

Egyptian news reports that Abdel Rezek Hussein was arrested at Cairo’s airport in August, in the possession of print and electronic documents that included the resumes of Egyptian youth.

Haaretz

A Cairo court yesterday sentenced an Egyptian businessman to life in prison following his conviction for spying on behalf of Israel.

Tarek Abdel Rezek Hussein, 37, was convicted of recruiting operatives for the Mossad and of giving the espionage agency information about young Egyptians and Israeli Arabs who might be ripe for recruiting, as well as of providing intelligence about the popular mood in Egypt and other Arab states, including Syria. Abdel Rezek Hussein, the owner of an import-export firm, was arrested in August. Two Israeli citizens who were tried in absentia alongside him, accused of being his Mossad handlers, were also sentenced to life terms. The two were not in Egyptian custody.

The Egyptian press had dubbed the affair the “Indian Trap,” because the Egyptian defendant allegedly first met his handlers at the Egyptian embassy in India. According to Egyptian news reports, Abdel Rezek Hussein was arrested at Cairo’s airport in August, in the possession of print and electronic documents that included the resumes of Egyptian and other Arab young people.

According to Egyptian reports, he went to China in 2006 in search of work. In early 2007, according to the prosecution, he sent an email with his contact details to a Mossad address. One of the alleged Mossad agents who was sentenced yesterday, one Joseph Dimur, called him and they arranged to meet in India. Dimur allegedly questioned the Egyptian about his motives for wanting to help the Mossad and provided him with $1,500 for expenses as well as a laptop computer.

Abdel Rezek Hussein allegedly set up two fake exim and telecommunications firms in Southeast Asia and obtained dozens of resumes after advertising for employees from Egypt, Syria and other Arab states.

Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term US Afghan Combat

NOVANEWS

President Barack Obama’s speech announcing that the 33,000 “surge” troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by “summer” 2012 indicates that he has given priority to the interests of the military and the Pentagon over concerns by key officials in his administration over the impact of the war’s costs on domestic socioeconomic needs.

And in a section of the speech that must be interpreted in the context of his past policy decisions on Iraq, Obama appeared to support the desire of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus to keep a substantial number of combat troops in Afghanistan beyond the publicly announced “transition” in 2014.

Gates and Petraeus got most of what they wanted from Obama in regard to the withdrawal of the “surge” troops.

Petraeus had argued that he needed two more full “fighting seasons” with the bulk of the surge troops still remaining in the country to wear down the Taliban before the start of the “transition” in 2014, according to a report in The Guardian.

Published reports had indicated that Petraeus wanted the withdrawal next month to be limited to 5,000 troops. Obama said the first phase of the withdrawal would consist of 10,000 troops to start in July but would be completed only at the end of the year.

The Obama decision gives Petraeus the first full season with all or almost all of the troops he had wanted.

Petraeus’s preferred option was to delay the withdrawal of the bulk of the remaining surge troops until the end of 2012, but he got most of the second fighting season with troop levels that were well within his recommendations, according to a briefing for reporters by senior officials.

Although the speech says “we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer…,” an official stated clearly at the press briefing that the withdrawal of the surge troops would be carried out by September 2012.

Obama also left the door open in the speech to leaving a significant proportion of the combat troops to remain in Afghanistan after the 2012 withdrawal for an indefinite period beyond the 2014 “transition” to Afghan responsibility for security.

“After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security Forces move into the lead,” Obama said. “Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014 this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.”

That language parallels the language used in regard to U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. In fact, a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters Wednesday afternoon drew attention to the parallel between the two withdrawal processes, saying the administration would “pursue the same type of responsible effort to wind down the war that we’ve undertaken in Iraq the last two years.”

One of the key features of the Iraq model is Obama’s retention of U.S. brigade combat teams in Iraq under the label of “non-combat troops” until the present, despite his pledge in February 2009 that they would be withdrawn.

U.S. troops continue to carry out unilateral combat patrols in Iraq, and Gates has continued to push Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a request to keep U.S. combat troops there beyond the deadline for withdrawal under the November 2008 agreement.

The language of the speech thus laid the groundwork for the retention of combat troops in Afghanistan even after declaring that all combat troops have been withdrawn.

Gates and Petraeus have assumed that the military must have the flexibility to continue the military engagement in Afghanistan indefinitely in order to avoid a collapse of the U.S.-NATO position and of the Hamid Karzai regime. Based on that presumption, Gates and Petraeus effectively maneuvered Obama last year into abandoning his initial decision identifying July 2011 as a crucial date for the transition to Afghan responsibility for security.

Even after 2014 was set as the date for completing U.S. combat operations and turning responsibility over to the Afghan government, Gates and Petraeus regarded the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces as only an “aspirational goal,” as Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morell put it.

That was the same phrase used by the George W. Bush administration in July 2008 to indicate that the United States had no intention of agreeing to a demand by Maliki for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops.

Even after the Bush administration signed the agreement with Maliki in November 2008, Pentagon and military officials made no secret of their intention to keep combat troops in the country indefinitely.

The “domestic” faction, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, had hoped Obama would withdraw the full 30,000 troops by the end of this year and continue to withdraw substantially more next year – mainly on the ground that the United States cannot afford the cost of a continued military presence.

Biden and others had argued that funding the troop levels in Afghanistan desired by Petraeus and Gates would mean further draconian cuts to domestic programs, even as the war has clearly become unpopular.

“Money is the new 800-pound gorilla,” the Washington Post quoted a “senior administration official” as saying in a front page May 31 story headlined, “Afghan war cost to be big factor in troop drawdown.”

Obama made a rhetorical bow to the issue of the war’s costs, recalling “We have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times,” but the timing of the final withdrawal of the surge troops was eight months later than the Biden faction had wanted.

Gates has explicitly argued that failure in Afghanistan is unacceptable, regardless of the costs of the war. Visiting Kabul in early June, he said, “The most costly thing of all would be to fail.”

For officials like Gates and Petraeus, the idea that considerations of cost should play a role in war policy is so unfamiliar as to make it nearly impossible to accept. Gates told Newsweek last weekend, “I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position.”

Gates added, “[F]rankly, I can’t imagine being part of a nation, part of a government… that’s being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world.”

The Gates-Petraeus posture assumes that troop levels for the next two years will be a crucial determinant of whether the war will be a failure or not, on the argument that relentless pressure on the Taliban is the only thing that will cause its leadership to negotiate an acceptable agreement.

But few independent specialists on the Taliban believe that any conceivable amount of military pressure in 2012 and 2013 could force the Taliban agree to what is widely understood to be an unrealistic U.S. demand for acceptance of a semi-permanent foreign military presence in the country.

And as a U.S. official in the regional command headquarters at Khost pointed out to Washington Postreporters Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe last week, “The insurgents can win just by hanging on. And I think we’re all aware of that.”

Gates is retiring in a few days, but Petraeus will become director of the Central Intelligence Agency – a post that will give him a continuing role in war policy.

(Inter Press Service)

British, French agents undercover in Libya to get Gaddafi

NOVANEWS

 


 

London, June 19 (ANI): A team of 130 British and French agents are reportedly on a one-million-pound-a-week, do-or-die deep undercover mission in Libya to get Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The British security service MI6 and France’s Directorate-General for External Security agents will hunt for the dictator in Operation Fire And Forget, the Daily Star reports.

According to a senior security source, these agents are personally sanctioned by UK PM David Cameron and French President Sarkozy, the paper said.

Members of the team speak the language, have lived in the country for years, and have made good contacts or landed jobs in key areas.

“These agents are very brave people. If they get caught they will disappear and won’t survive an hour,” the paper quoted the senior security source, as saying.

Money is no object and the operation could cost an estimated one million pounds a week, the source added.

Ron Paul on Libya War Authorization

NOVANEWS

 

Eric Garris
 

Today the US House defeated two resolutions on the war on Libya. The first one, to authorize Obama to conduct the war for a year, failed overwhelmingly.

The second one, sold as a war limitation measure, actually authorized most of the activities currently being waged by US forces, was also defeated (a surprise to many).

Here is Rep. Ron Paul’s statement against the limited authorization measure:

Mr. Speaker I rise to oppose this legislation, which masquerades as a limitation of funds for the president’s war on Libya but is in fact an authorization for that very war. According to HR 2278, the US military cannot be involved in NATO’s actions in Libya, with four important exceptions. If this passes, for the first time the president would be authorized to use US Armed Forces to engage in search and rescue; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; aerial refueling; and operational planning against Libya. Currently, absent an authorization or declaration of war, these activities are illegal. So instead of ending the war against Libya, this bill would legalize nearly everything the president is currently doing there.

That the war in Libya can be ended by expanding it and providing the president a legal excuse to continue makes no sense. If this bill fails, the entirety of what the president is doing in Libya would remain illegal.

Additionally, it should not really be necessary to prohibit the use of funds for US military attacks on Libya because those funds are already prohibited by the Constitution. Absent Congressional action to allow US force against Libya any such force is illegal, meaning the expenditure of funds for such activities is prohibited. I will, however, support any straight and clean prohibition of funds such as the anticipated amendments to the upcoming Defense Appropriations bill.

I urge my colleagues to reject this stealth attempt to authorize the Libya war and sincerely hope that the House will soon get serious about our Constitutional obligations and authority.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) versus Bilderberg: Where are Real Decisions Being Made?

NOVANEWS

By Eric Walberg

Global Research

As the Western elite gathered in picturesque St Moritz to grapple with pressing world crises, the outsiders met in the bleak steppes of Central Asia.

Last week’s 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kazakh capital Astana highlighted how the major rivals to empire, led by Russia and China — themselves rivals, are trying to fashion an alternative to US hegemony.
The SCO is the only major international organisation that has neither the US nor any close US ally among its members, and its influence is growing across Eurasia. Leaders of member states Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were joined by leaders from observers Iran, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Belarus and Sri Lanka have been admitted as dialogue partners, and prior to his arrival in Astana to attend the summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Ukraine.
With a Chinese rhetorical flourish, the Astana Declaration stressed the goal of combatting the “three forces” of “terrorism, extremism, and separatism”. The summit called for a “neutral” Afghanistan (read: no permanent US bases), supported by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, even as the US is actively discussing a post-2014 strategic partnership agreement with him. The prospect of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan lies at the core of current US-Pakistan tensions. India has indicated its aversion to “new cold war” tensions appearing in the region.
Russia and China fear that the US plan is to establish permanent bases in Afghanistan and to deploy components of its missile defence system. The SCO meeting supported Russian criticisms of the planned NATO missile defence shield underway in Europe . Plans by “a country or small group of countries unilaterally and without restriction to deploy an anti-missile system could undermine strategic stability and international security”.
The summit also called for Afghanistan’s neighbours to play the leading role in improving security and helping to rebuild Afghanistan, rejecting a purely military solution. “It is possible that the SCO will assume responsibility for many issues in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of coalition forces in 2014,” said Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazarbayev, echoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s call “for more intensive and deeper cooperation between the SCO and Afghanistan”.
Both Beijing and Moscow are already rebuilding their influence there, China in mining, and both countries in infrastructure projects and cooperation with Western forces to combat drug trafficking. “Afghanistan was the main reason the SCO was created 10 years ago, even before 9/11 forced the Americans to recognise the threat,” says Duma deputy Sergei Markov. “The threat of radical Islamism being exported into our region is something we’re very familiar with. And a resurgence of that threat has got to be a major concern.”
During the conference, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) signed an accord with the SCO to promote cooperation in fighting drug trafficking, organised crime, human trafficking and international terrorism. UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said, “Countries such as Kazakhstan are on the frontline of the flow of Afghan heroin headed towards the West. The work in countering organised crime and drug trafficking, which I am pleased to see is increasingly taking on a cooperative approach.” The most urgent issue is heroin trafficking from Afghanistan via Tajikistan which surged after the 2001 US invasion.
Security cooperation and economic development were described as the “two wheels” of the SCO by its General Secretary Zhang Deguang. China’s People’s Daily noted, “Among other concrete moves is the construction of a railway, highway and pipeline network linking landlocked Central Asia and its rich natural resources to the global economy.” Currently a natural gas Pease Pipeline is under construction which could eventually link Iran, Pakistan, India and China, helping to overcome India-Pakistani animosity and integrate the entire region on the basis of mutual interests, carefully shepherded by China.
Central Asian and South Asian security are indivisible, and the proposed memberships of India and Pakistan were seriously discussed. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to work with SCO members to achieve regional peace. Zardari stated Pakistan belongs to the SCO region and is keen to cooperate with the other countries in financing joint ventures in energy, infrastructure, education, science and technology. He pointed to its newly opened port at Gwadar, which China helped fund, as a useful transport hub for the region.
The SCO has been increasing security cooperation among its members, including joint Russia-China war games, and beginning in April this year, meetings of military chiefs of the SCO countries. However, the SCO is far from being a cohesive military alliance such as NATO. The admission of Pakistan and India, long term enemies, will only complicate military cooperation, with India’s patron Russia vs Pakistan’s patron China.
China is clearly the power beyind the SCO, its “wheels” offering the region much more economically than Russia, but the common will of all to keep the US at bay is a balm to all. What better way to ease tensions between all these rivals than through SCO security drills enhancing the inter-operability of militaries and law-enforcement agencies? According to MK Bhadrakumar this will make “NATO (and Pax Americana) simply irrelevant to an entire landmass”.
The high-flown words about peace, regional security and cooperation were for the press (and Obama). Behind closed doors, the leaders discussed their growing concerns about how the Arab spring might impact the region, particularly Central Asia’s most populous state and harshest dictatorship – Uzbekistan. The SCO summit is one of the few international events where its leader Islam Karimov is still welcomed.
Another topic at the SCO meeting was how to move towards a new world currency, one established not by world bankers at secretive Bilderberg meetings, but openly, by the major world resource and population centres as represented by the SCO. Nazarbayev said that a healthy supranational currency is needed and recommended a return to some form of gold standard. “The SCO is capable of doing this. The swap operations that we have started is the first step. This is necessary for equal cooperation within the SCO.”
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad provided some colour to the otherwise muted affair with his call for the SCO to take a more active role in undermining the US-led global system of “slavers and colonisers” and replacing it with a more just order. “Which one of our countries [has played a role] in the black era of slavery, or in the destruction of hundreds of millions of human beings? I believe together we can reform the way the world is managed. We can restore the tranquility of the world.”
The SCO meeting came days after the close of the Bilderberg Group’s summit in St Moritz Switzerland, which China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying attended this year — acknowledgment that without China’s approval, nothing is possible in the world of finance anymore. Like the SCO, its agenda reportedly also included what to do about the Arab spring, but also, in a more sinister vein, plans for internet censorhip, choosing the next IMF chief, more Euro-bailouts and higher oil prices.
China, Russia, Pakistan, India — not to mention Iran — the SCO brings together the most serious threats to the empire’s plans in one clutch. With the possible exception of China, Bush didn’t take any of them seriously. Obama does. But so far, the SCO has been more bark than bite. If by this time next year, India and Pakistan are admitted, and if non-dollar denominated “swaps” reach a critical mass, Bilderberg may well have to put the SCO and what to do about it at the top of its next agenda.

The New Civil Liberties Fight

NOVANEWS

Gulet Mohamed, a 19-year-old Virginian, behind bars in a Kuwaiti deportation facility. His family and lawyer allege that he was detained and beaten at the behest of the United States government—a charge the government denies. Photo by Mohed Mohamed.

Kevin is on vacation this week, so Andy Krolland I will be filling in.
During the Bush years, America’s chattering classes were engaged in a grand argument: should the people we had captured in the war on terror be handled by the courts, or by some other process? Civil libertarians argued that terrorist suspects who were not US citizens should have meaningful access to trials in federal courts.
Civil libertarians have lost that argument. The defeat is total: in the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the courts, and, crucially, in the court of public opinion. Indefinite detention of non-citizen terrorist suspects without charge or trialremains the official policy of the United States, and none of the most infamous non-citizen terrorist suspects will be tried in federal court.
President Barack Obama’s administration hasn’t added any new prisoners to Guantanamo, but as things stand, it’s only a matter of time before that happens. Eventually, there will be another Republican president, and the GOP’s position is clear: Mitch McConnell, the party’s leader in the Senate, took to the Washington Post op-ed page on Tuesday to call for two Iraqi nationals captured in his home state of Kentucky to be transferred to Gitmo. “Guantanamo is the place to try terrorists,” the headline blared.
Some liberals defend the Obama administration’s record on civil liberties by arguing that standing up for the rights of terrorist suspects would be political poison for the White House. Perhaps they’re right. But it would be foolish to assume that the battle lines on this issue are static, or that hardliners see a bright line between how we should treat non-citizen terrorist suspects and how we should treat terrorist suspects who are American citizens.
The Joe Liebermans of the world see no such bright line. If we as a society have decided that non-citizen terrorist suspects shouldn’t have the right to a real trial before we lock them away indefinitely, it’s only a short leap to the idea that all terrorist suspects should have fewer rights.
Why shouldn’t we be consistent? Why are non-citizen terrorist suspects captured abroad “unprivileged belligerents” while those captured in the US are simply criminals? Why are American-born terrorists criminals and not unprivileged belligerents? Does the difference between committing a crime and being illegally at war with the United States really just depend on where you are captured or where you are born? The Obama administration does not have compelling answers to these questions. Its compromises and cave-ins on civil liberties have left its counterterrorism policy an inconsistent mishmash of Miranda warnings for foreigners and proxy detention and Hellfire missiles for Americans.
But forget foreigners—they’re screwed. The rights of US citizens are at the heart of today’s fight over civil liberties in the war on terror. And, not coincidentally, the rights of US citizens suspected of terrorism are on retreat on a whole host of fronts.
The family of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen who is reportedly on a list of people the military is authorized to kill without charge or trial, lost their court case to force the government to explain why it believes it has the legal right to order his death. Young Muslim American men travel overseas only to discover that they’re on the no-fly list when they try to return—and that they can’t go home unless they answer the FBI’s questions. Americans with dark skin tones and “suspicious” names find US-government-owned GPS devices on their cars. The PATRIOT Act gets renewed while everyone is busy talking about how great it is that the SEALS killed Osama bin Laden. And senior members of Congress call for US citizens suspected of terrorism to be stripped of their citizenship and sent to—where else—Guantanamo.
The rights of all people accused of terrorism have been dramatically rolled back over the past ten years. So don’t expect that American citizenship will protect you when the government decides that you might be a terrorist, too.

Report: Naziyahu adviser in Egypt to discuss suspected Zio-Nazi spy

NOVANEWS

 

French media reports Netanyahu adviser Isaac Molho will meet Egypt’s FM in order to discuss Gilad Shalit as well as Ilan Grapel, the American-Zionist  spy.

Haaretz

French media reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adviser Isaac Molho had arrived in Cairo for talks with senior officials about Gilad Shalit and about the accused Israeli spy being held in Egypt.

According to the reports, Molho is meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi and other senior officials to discuss the case of Ilan Grapel, the American-Israeli who stands accused of spying in Egypt on behalf of Israel, a claim which Israel denies.

The prime minister’s office has refused to respond to the reports.

Since details about Grapel’s detainment and identity were first leaked, Arab media has reported widely varying stories, including one saying that Grapel had intended to get to Libya after stopping in Egypt.

Last week, diplomats from the Israeli embassy in Cairo met with Grapel and with officials from Egypt’s public prosecutor, in order to get more information on the status of Grapel’s detainment.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that Grapel is in good condition and that Israel will continue to work for his immediate release.

Zionist Apple removes ‘Third Palestinian Intifada’ app at Zio-Nazi request

NOVANEWS

 

Zionist minister demanded computer giant cancel application alerting users of upcoming events and features pictures of martyrs.

Haaretz

Computer giant Apple removed an application called the “The Third Palestinian Intifada” from its App Store for iPads and iPhones, CNN reported Thursday.

Earlier this week the company had authorized an application, which updates users on upcoming protests, features articles critical of Israel and pictures of martyrs.

“We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” Apple spokesman was quoted in a statement.

The Arabic-language application, developed by a Dubai-based company, was released on June 15, and was still available Wednesday for free download from iTunes.

Yuli Edelstein, Minister of Public Affairs and the Diaspora, who recently successfully lobbied to remove a Facebook page of the same name, sent a letter to Apple founder Steve Jobs called on Apple to carry out the “immediate removal” of the application, “and thus continue the tradition of Apple applications dedicated to purely entertainment and informative purposes and not serve as an instrument for incitement to violence.”

“From browsing through the articles, stories and photographs that appear in the app, it is clear that this is an anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist application that in fact, as its name suggests, calls for an uprising against Israel,” Edelstein wrote.

Edelstein went on to describe the Facebook page that he said was created by the same group behind the new application. “The Facebook page called for an uprising against Israel through a violent struggle, and included severe incitement.”

Gal Ilan, a spokesman for the Public Affairs Ministry which sent the letter Tuesday, said Wednesday that the ministry believed the letter would have the desired effect.

Facebook confirmed last March it removed the “Third Intifada” page. The company’s European and Middle Eastern policy director wrote Edelstein that it was Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg who asked him to take down the page.

Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

Courageous Alice Walker to take part in flotilla in face of thuggish State Department warning

Jun 23, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid / Settlers 
Israel calls demolition report ‘incorrect’
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 23 June — Israel’s Civil Administration lashed out Wednesday night, calling a rights group report “incorrect and misleading,” in its claim that home demolitions had spiked alarmingly in 2011. Israeli rights group B’Tselem had published a document saying more homes had been demolished in the first six months of 2011 than in the 12 months of the year before.
link to www.maannews.net
IOA orders destruction of Jerusalem home
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 23 June — An Israeli court issued a ruling Wednesday in favor of destroying the home of Wael al-Razem in the Wadi Yasul neighborhood of Jerusalem’s Silwan district, claiming the home was built without license. The family of eight, most of whom are children, was given until the middle of July to evacuate.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Israeli soldiers shoot, severely beat Palestinian
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 23 June — Israeli police are detaining Palestinian man Ahmed Ali Mahmoud, 36, in Shaare Zedek hospital west of Jerusalem, despite his injury with live bullets and bruises to his head after an assault by Israeli soldiers yesterday in Al-Issawiya town in Jerusalem. Mahmoud’s family said his condition is stable after he  was shot with a live bullet in his leg, and that he is suffering from wounds and bruises to his face, yet Israeli police continue to bind his hands and feet.
link to english.wafa.ps
Jerusalem Arab housing plan blocked by political right
IMEMC 23 June — A plan to build 2,500 Arab housing units in East Jerusalem was stopped by right-wing pressure groups and Haredi city council members on the grounds that it was “politically dangerous” and “poorly conceived.” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat had proposed a construction plan for 2,500 houses on private land in southern East Jerusalem. The vote was canceled on Monday because it was clear that it had no chance of passing.
link to www.imemc.org
High Court rules Be’er Sheva mosque to be used as Islamic museum
Haaretz 23 June — Court rules that the mosque won’t be able to be used for prayer, but rejects Be’er Sheva municipality request to turn it into a [general] museum. A petition on the issue was submitted to the court by the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel in 2002. The petition requests that the mosque be once again used as a house of worship, which it was until the War of Independence in 1948 … The struggle to have the mosque used for prayer has been going on since the ’70s, but the municipality has continuously refused the request — announcing instead their intention to turn it into a museum. Muslim residents of Be’er Sheva as well as Bedouin living nearby have been prevented from praying in the mosque, despite repeated requests to do so.
link to www.haaretz.com
Jordan Valley families left homeless
JERICHO (Ma‘an) 23 June — “The big soldier wouldn’t speak to me. He just said ‘This is my job, sit down and shut up’,” the newly homeless Ralia Darraghmeh, a diabetes sufferer in her sixties, said of the one of the crew who had come to demolish her home Tuesday morning.  She was sitting alone, crying, in Khirbet Yarza, a tiny Bedouin hamlet, as her tin home was taken down by order of Israel’s Civil Administration, which governs planning and permit issuing in the 60 percent of the West Bank categorized as Area C under the 1993 Oslo Accords.
link to www.maannews.net
Activism / Solidarity
IDF takes down Bil‘in fence
Ynet 22 June — Three and a half years after Supreme Court ruled fence was illegal, IDF begins to take down controversial barrier … The length of fence set to be removed from Bil‘in is 2.7 kilometers long. The new route which is set to replace the existing fence is 3.2 kilometers long, mostly a cement wall, due to the proximity to Modiin Elite and fears of gunfire from the Palestinian side at Israel. The new route will mean that 700 dunums of land will be given back to the Palestinians, but the fact that 60% of the lands were expropriated to begin with means that the conflict still stands.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Video: Israeli army begins dismantling the Wall in Bil‘in
link to www.bilin-village.org
Israeli court sentences Palestinian teen to 6 months
WAFA 23 June — An Israeli court in Ofer military camp near Ramallah Monday sentenced Amjad Abu Rahmeh, 15, from the village of Bil‘in to six months in prison after it found him guilty of participation in the weekly village demonstration. Abu Rahmeh had been in detention for four months before the court had passed its sentence.
link to www.bilin-village.org
Soldiers attack nonviolent protest near Ramallah
Ramallah – Ghassan Bannoura – PNN Exclusive 22 June — Israeli soldiers attacked on Wednesday a non-violent protest organized by the villagers of Deir Qadis, west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah … Nilli settlement was constructed in 1984 by the State of Israel, on land that belongs to local farmers from Deir Qadis. Recently, the Israeli state decided to confiscate 125 acres of land from local farmers to expand Nilli. Today, protesters managed to stop bulldozers from working, at which point a private security guard fired live rounds at them while Israeli soldiers fired tear gas. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation, while tear gas bombs caused a fire that damaged nearby olive crops and farmlands … Yesterday, villagers of Deir Qadis held a similar protest at the same location which the Israeli troops attacked with tear gas, causing fires that almost reached people’s homes.
link to english.pnn.ps
Detention
Netanyahu: Israel to toughen conditions of Palestinian prisoners
Haaretz 23 June — Prime minister announces that Israel will stop giving benefits to terrorists such as enrollment in academic studies, says ‘the celebration is over.’
link to www.haaretz.com
Rights group: Israel’s minor prisoners must be given broader attention
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 23 June — The inhumane conditions of Palestinian minors held in Israeli prisons must be given broader attention, said the Center for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights. This came in a report the rights center issued on Wednesday after it dispatched its legal expert for a visit to Israel’s Rimonim prison where she met with several minors. During the interview, the minors expressed strong discontent of the length of delays in court hearings, particularly those who expected to receive light sentences.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
8 detained by Israeli in overnight raids
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 23 June — A young Palestinian from Madama village south of Nablus was one of eight detained during overnight raids Thursday morning, the Israeli military said. Head of the Madama village council Ihab Al-Qit said soldiers detained Asadallah Wajih Al-Qit, 21, after raiding his house in the village. The other seven have not yet been identified.
link to www.maannews.net
Red lights across district in memory of prisoners
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 June — Traffic will grind to a halt as traffic lights switch to red for five minutes at noon on Thursday across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to a call by the Prisoners Center for Studies. The action is in support of all ill and aging Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, and is part of an effort to promote the issue among leaders from a popular level. Center director Ra‘fat Hamdoona said more creativity must be channeled to raising awareness of the situation of prisoners, as weekly protests in front of the Red Cross headquarters have become a “routine that needs to be changed.”
link to www.maannews.net
Hamas rejects Red Cross demand to prove Shalit is alive
Reuters 23 June — Hamas spokesman says the aid group should focus on ending the suffering of Palestinian prisoners instead of getting ‘involved in Israeli security games’ to reach the captured IDF soldier.
link to www.haaretz.com
Gaza
Gaza’s children march against child labour
[photos] MEMO 23 June — On Wednesday, children marched in the streets of Gaza to draw attention to their internationally recognised rights which are being violated with the on-going siege. They demanded recognition of their right to education, to live without fear for their lives and to have a decent standard of living enjoyed by children elsewhere. A large number of Palestinian children in Gaza drop out of school due to hardships brought on by the five-year blockade of the territory. Many have been forced to enter the job market in factories because of the high cost of living and loss of family members who had been the main breadwinners.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Israeli navy targets Gazan fishing boats
Gaza Strip, (Pal Telegraph) 23 June -Israeli occupation navy opened massive fire yesterday at Palestinian fishing boats off the shore of Rafah city in the south of Gaza Strip. No casualties were reported. Local sources said that Israeli navy opened fire at Palestinian boats near Rafah shore forcing many fishermen to leave the sea. There are nearly 3500 Palestinian fishermen who are exposed to daily attacks and harassments from Israeli gunboats
link to www.paltelegraph.com
The first government school for the deaf opens in Palestine
Gaza – Osama Awad – PNN Exclusive 22 June — The first government school for deaf people was opened in Gaza today … In a phone call with PNN Abu Shaqer said that the ministry has been looking for years to build this school, adding that this is the first high school that will enable deaf people to finish their basic education rather than leaving school after the 9th grade, as conditions were previously.
link to english.pnn.ps
300 loads of goods set to enter Gaza via Israel
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 June — Israeli crossings officials said they would permit 300 truckloads of commercial goods, humanitarian aid and limited construction materials into the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
link to www.maannews.net
Flotilla
Hamas: Israel will not end siege; flotilla should sail
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 June — Hamas urged organizers of the Freedom Flotilla II to push ahead with plans to sail to Gaza and break Israel’s siege “despite threats,” a statement from the party’s spokesman said Thursday. The party gave its endorsement to the convoy of 10 international ships, saying it considered them as acting within the law in their attempt to break a siege that international rights groups and UN missions have called illegal. Speaking for the party, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the flotilla – which plans to sail during the last week of June with a cargo of aid and activists – was essential, since Israel had demonstrated that “it never keeps its promises regarding the lifting or easing of the blockade” on Gaza.
link to www.maannews.net
US: Don’t go to Gaza by sea
Ynet 23 June — The United States updated a travel warning urging Americans to refrain from traveling to the Gaza Strip by sea and emphasizing risks, including a possible 10-year travel ban to Israel.
link to www.ynetnews.com
UN envoy says Israel ready to intercept Gaza-bound flotilla
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) 23 June — Israel is prepared to intercept a flotilla seeking to breach Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, the country’s UN ambassador warned Thursday. “Israel is determined to stop the flotilla,” UN envoy Ron Prosor said, as preparations were underway for about 10 ships to embark later this month to Gaza to protest the longstanding Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.
link to www.maannews.net
Author Alice Walker to take part in Gaza flotilla despite US warning
Haaretz 23 June — The celebrated poet and novelist wrote a special piece for CNN, outlining her intention to bring letters to the people of Gaza ‘expressing solidarity and love.’ … Her letter goes on to talk about the brave “followers of Gandhi,” and the “Jewish civil rights activists” who stood side by side with blacks in America’s South and places her current “mission” within this context. . 
link to www.haaretz.com
German Left Party bars MPs from joining Gaza flotilla
BERLIN (JPost) 23 June — The German Left Party earlier this month issued a resolution prohibiting its Bundestag deputies from participating in the Gaza Flotilla slated for late June and intended to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Billed as a resolution that would end the criticism that the Left Party is fundamentally anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, the resolution failed to impress the head of Germany’s Jewish community
link to www.jpost.com
Knesset: Zoabi sanctions proportional
Ynet 22 June — Measures aim to stop Arab MK from participating in ‘illegitimate’ activities, Knesset legal advisor says … The Knesset decided in July to take away Zoabi’s diplomatic passport, restrict her travel abroad and stop covering her legal fees. The measures came in response to the Knesset member’s participation in the Gaza-bound flotilla in May of last year, and her trip to Libya.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Racism / Discrimination
TA kindergarten to reject migrant kids
Ynet 23 June —  A new kindergarten in Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv has declared that it will have at least one classroom that will not accept foreign workers’ children, municipality sources said. The move is unprecedented in Israel. Residents were pleased, as was Gal Sharabi, chairman of the neighborhood committee.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Israel policy myth #2: Separation between Arabs and Jews is not racist / Roi Maor
972mag 23 June — …Outright racism against Palestinians and Arabs is quite common and widespread in Israel, and it goes beyond animosity generated by the century-long conflict between the two groups. Three-quarters of Israeli Jewish high school students believe that Arabs are not cultured, uneducated, unclean and violent. 69 percent believe they are not smart. Sadly, these beliefs are at least tolerated by the Israeli Jewish establishment. Racist comments by public officials may be condemned by prominent figures, but the racists remain on the state payroll. These attitudes have not resulted in separate lunch counters or water fountains … Nonetheless, Palestinians and Jews in the territories under Israel’s control live largely separate lives, this separation is maintained through official polices, it is invariably discriminatory towards Palestinians (usually grossly so) and in many cases, feeble excuses notwithstanding, their motivation and intent is clearly racist.
link to 972mag.com
Jerusalem mayor’s choice of woman deputy could mean clash with Orthodox coalition
Haaretz 22 June — …Over the last few days, the threats and counter-threats being hurled by both sides have been escalating. According to city council members, Barkat said he would fire any existing deputy mayor who votes against the appointment. The Haredim, for their part, have threatened to dismantle the municipal coalition.
link to www.haaretz.com
International abduction
Wife of kidnapped Palestinian sues Ukrainian president
KIEV (MEO) 23 June — The wife of a Palestinian who mysteriously vanished from a Ukrainian night train and resurfaced in an Israeli jail has begun legal action against the Ukrainian president, her lawyer said Thursday. Veronika Abu Sisi filed a suit at a Kiev court on Wednesday accusing President Viktor Yanukovych of inaction in the case of her husband, Gazan engineer Dirar Abu Sisi, who is accused of terrorism in Israel, her lawyer said
link to www.middle-east-online.com
Political / Diplomatic / International news
Israel PM agrees to return to 1967 borders
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 23 June — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly agreed to peace talks based on 1967 borders on the condition that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state and solve the Palestinian refugee issue outside of Israel’s borders, Israeli daily Maariv reported today. Netanyahu announced the position to US presidential Middle East adviser Dennis Ross, and acting envoy for the Middle East David Hale, both of whom Netanyahu met with last week, the Israeli paper said.
link to www.maannews.net
Israel surveys support for Palestinian state
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 23 June — Israel’s foreign ministry estimates under two-thirds of UN member states will recognize a Palestinian state declared in September, and is launching a campaign to keep the number down, Israel Radio reported Thursday. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed his department to survey the 192 countries in the United Nations, and send Israeli parliamentarians to nations who are yet undecided, the broadcast noted. The study said 118 nations would support the bid. On Wednesday, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon denied that there was any Israeli move to undermine Palestinian diplomatic efforts to gain recognition, in an interview with Ma’an television. However, Ayalon told Israel Radio on Wednesday that trends of mass diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state had been stemmed.
link to www.maannews.net
Ashton: Lieberman not able to undo Oslo Accords
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 23 June — EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Israel’s foreign minister could not undo the Oslo Accords in response to a Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, in an interview with Israeli daily Haaretz published Thursday. “I’m not sure that it’s up to him to declare that Oslo is void really,” Ashton said, adding, “I don’t accept that Oslo is void, [if] so, it would be a different world.” … Referring to the Palestinian UN bid for statehood, she mentioned in [the interview] that “it will depend very much on what the resolution says as to how the international community in general, and the EU in particular, votes…”
link to www.maannews.net
Palestinians easing demands for settlement freeze
(AP) 23 June — A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians [the PA?] are ready to drop their demand for a complete settlement freeze to get peace talks with Israel back on track …  He spoke on condition of anonymity because no final decisions have been made.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Hamas candidate: Palestine more important than PM
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 June — Independent lawmaker in the Palestinian Legislative Council Jamal Khudari, told Ma‘an Thursday that he is not seeking a political post and will be the first one to congratulate any Palestinian prime minister chosen by consensus … “Personification of the Prime Minister issue is a dangerous matter and is rejected and harms the national conciliation” he told Ma‘an.
link to www.maannews.net
Fatah: Hamas violating unity deal
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 23 June — A Fatah spokesman accused Hamas Thursday of being responsible for the current stall in the unity agreement process, and said the Islamist party’s preferred candidate was chosen for “factional reasons.”  Speaking for Fatah, Ahmad Assaf said the candidate Hamas was supporting for the role of prime minister in the new unity government was “away from the interests of the Palestinian people.” … “Jamal Al-Khudari is from Gaza and part of the Muslim Brotherhood which means he is with Hamas” and not an independent candidate as mandated under the Egyptian brokered deal.
link to www.maannews.net
Council of Europe Assembly head: Palestine may be partner
STRASBOURG, France (AFP) 22 June — The Palestinian National Council could this year gain “partner for democracy” status at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based body said Wednesday. The assembly’s Turkish head, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, speaking as Morocco gained the same status, said he hoped that “during our next session (in October) we shall also be able to grant the Partner for Democracy status to Palestine and that other countries will soon apply”. The Council introduced the new status last year to strengthen cooperation with parliaments of non-member states that wish to participate in debates that transcend European borders.
link to www.maannews.net
Sha‘ath: Armenia supports Palestinian state
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 22 June — Armenia will be supportive to the Palestinian people’s demands of freedom, independence and statehood, says Nabil Sha‘ath, member of Fatah’s central committee. In a statement following a three-day visit to Armenia where he met with the Caucasian country’s minister of defense Edward Nalbandian and other officials, Sha‘ath said he discussed the Palestinian plan to gain UN support for statehood.
link to www.maannews.net
Sources claim Hezbollah prepared to open front with Israel to relieve pressure on Syrian president
IMEMC 23 June — Israeli newspapers Haaretz and JPost are claiming that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah are gearing up for possible action against Israel in the case that Syrian leader Bashar al Assad’s position comes under significant threat, according to sources close to the movement.
link to www.imemc.org
Other news
Apple pulls ‘3rd Intifada’ app
Ynet 23 June — Apple Inc announced that it has removed an application called the “The Third Intifada” from its iPads and iPhones App Store. “We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” an Apple spokesman said in a statement.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Palestine one goal away from making history
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 23 June — The Palestinian Olympic Team hosts its Bahraini counterpart Thursday in a first ever World Cup qualifying match on Palestinian land, in Faisal al-Husseini stadium in Jerusalem. The game comes in the second leg qualifications for the 2012 London Olympic cup. The match is a historic one for Palestinians as it is the first to be held in Palestine after its recognition by FIFA as a home state. The Palestinian Olympic team has worked hard to secure a win which would enable it to qualify for the third leg of the Olympic cup.
link to english.wafa.ps
US Consulate General welcomes Al Kamandjati’s ‘Orchestra Ramallah’ for Jerusalem concert
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 23 June – Forty young musicians from refugee camps, villages, and cities throughout the West Bank traveled to Jerusalem on June 22, 2011, for a special concert performance sponsored by the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem. Al Kamandjati Association’s “Orchestra Ramallah” performed at Al Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem as a part of its annual Music Days Festival. The youth orchestra consists of young Palestinians whose love of music inspires them to participate in Al Kamandjati’s rigorous after-school and intensive summer musical training program in Ramallah and throughout the West Bank.
link to english.wafa.ps
‘Traitor’ sprayed on left-wing activist’s car
Ynet 23 June — Unknown elements vandalized a car belonging to Hadar Alexander, 31, a left wing activist, in Jerusalem on Thursday. The car’s windows were smashed, its tires punctured and the word “traitor” was sprayed on the hood.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Minister Dan Meridor, why are you appealing a bill to include protest activity in the definition of terror?
Haaretz 23 June — ‘We in Israel have created many beautiful things, but one of the most successful systems, in the face of which most of the world stands dumbfounded, is the Israeli judicial system.’
link to www.haaretz.com
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

Israel proves that Flotillas work

Jun 23, 2011

The Free Gaza Movement

Israel’s announcement of authorization for construction materials for 1,200 homes and 18 schools in Gaza is the latest achievement by the Freedom Flotilla, scheduled to sail next week.

In the weeks leading up to the flotilla, Israel has taken a number of steps to try to address the concerns raised in the public eye by the Freedom Flotilla 2 – Stay Human initiative. However organizers say that these steps are symbolic at best, fall far short of Israel’s obligations under international law, are insufficient to meet the needs of Palestinians in Gaza, and are fundamentally designed to maintain the occupation and system of control that Israel exerts over Palestinian lives. Ultimately, these measures fall short of the greatest test – that of freedom for Palestinians.

In addition to the authorization of a limited amount of construction materials, Israel has also recently permitted 19 trucks of medicine to be delivered by Palestinian sources from the West Bank to Gaza. This was in response to an emergency announcement from health authorities in Gaza that crucial medicines had run out due to Israel’s illegal blockade. Prior to that, Israel increased the number of aid trucks entering Gaza to between 210 and 220 per day. However, this still falls 35% short of what is required by Gaza Strip residents.

The pattern developing shows that as the sailing date of the Flotilla nears, Israel is increasing efforts to allow humanitarian goods into Gaza, including previously banned reconstruction materials. This proves three important things: (1) the Flotilla is effective in generating changes, even if they are insufficient, on the ground; (2) the ‘normal channels’ for delivering aid exist, but are useless without pressure on Israel to allow them to function; and (3) Israel’s standard excuse for preventing reconstruction material into Gaza is rendered baseless, given the approval to allow 1,200 homes and 18 schools to be constructed.

Even as the Freedom Flotilla welcomes this latest achievement and proof of the necessity and effectiveness of the Flotilla tactic, we also reiterate that our effort is not simply about delivering humanitarian aid. The goal of the Flotilla is not aid; it is freedom for Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. As such, there are no ‘established channels’ for freedom – there is only one – an end to the Israeli occupation.

Flotilla preparations continue apace, buoyed by the support of people around the world. Next week Freedom Flotilla 2: Stay Human sails for Gaza; our destination is freedom.

Learn more about The Free Gaza Movement here.

Miko Peled, the General’s son

Jun 23, 2011

annie

Miko Peled’s grandfather was a signer on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and his father was General Matti Peled, one of the Zionists who planned and executed Israel’s most definitive military victories in 1948 and 1967. In the following interview with Alternate Focus Peled talks about his book The General’s Son, from his evolution as an Israeli that was raised on the Zionist ideal of a Jewish state to his reality today. Miko’s words speak truth to empower.

I know how hard it is for many Jews and Palestinians to let go of the dream of having a state that is exclusively “our own.”  ..For the good of both nations, the Separation Wall must come down, the Israeli control over the lives of Palestinians must be defied so that a secular democracy where all Israelis and Palestinian live as equals be established in our shared homeland.

This is a powerful interview. View it, share it. And for those of you with hardcore Zionist relatives please pass it on.

(At a meeting of the General Staff after the Six Day War, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was beaming with the glory of victory. But when the meeting was nearing its end, my father raised his hand. He was called on, and he spoke of the unique chance the victory offered—to solve the Palestinian problem once and for all. For the first time in Israel’s history, we were face to face with the Palestinians, without other Arabs between us. Now we had a chance to offer them a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. He claimed with certainty that holding on to the West Bank and the people who lived in it was contrary to Israel’s long-term strategy. Popular resistance to the occupation was sure to arise, and Israel’s army would be used to quell that resistance, with disastrous and demoralizing results. It would turn the Jewish state into an increasingly brutal occupying power and eventually into a bi-national state. This was nothing short of prophetic as today we live this exact reality. As he was saying this, the future leaders of the Intifada (the Palestinian uprising) were still lying in their cradles.)

His words were ignored, his claims brushed aside and instead, blinded by their newly gained access to places with mythical/biblical names like Hebron and Bethlehem, Shilo and Shcem Israeli leaders began a massive settlement project to settle Jews in the newly conquered land. A few years later my father called on Israel to negotiate with the PLO: The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He claimed that Israel needed to talk with whoever represented the Palestinian people, the people with whom we shared this land. He believed only peace with the Palestinians could ensure our continued existence as a state that was both Jewish and democratic.) Now, all these years later people talk of creating a Palestinian state in the WB but that option no longer exists.

THE GENERAL’S SON by Miko Peled

Arab LGBT Movement: “We are not victims in need of a white male savior working in London…”

Jun 23, 2011

Seham

Arab queer activists have a voice and they will not water down their political voice to appease Western LGBT movements.  What I learned from the “Amina” hoax is that Western audiences will only embrace Arab gay movements if those movements attempt to mimic Western gay movements.  “Amina” was popular because her writing appealed to white audiences, she dabbled in erotica, she wanted to bring the Castro to Damascus and she was at best lukewarm on Israeli apartheid.  While that may be good for pieces of fiction, I prefer the real voices of real Arab queers–who are not on the radar of the mainstream media and who’s real issues will never focus prominently on NPR or anywhere else.

Thanks to Benjamin Doherty from Electronic Intifada for bringing to my attention a piece by Mideast Youth on GayMiddleEast.com (which Scott Long also critiqued in his recent piece in Mondoweiss). The statement below takes GayMiddleEast.com to task for their pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid, rejection of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and their refusal to take a stand on the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Que(e)rying the Israel-linked GayMiddleEast.com: a statement by Arab queers

Part I – Delineating Differences

As queer Arab activists working on the ground in several countries in the Middle East, our initial disagreements with GayMiddleEast.com were political in nature. But rather than respond to them or engage in dialogue with us, GayMiddleEast.com resorted to playing the victim and shrugging off those concerns.

GayMiddleEast.com’s disingenuous response to what it sees as a “smear campaign” against it not only obfuscates the legitimate reasons many queer Arab activists take issue with its work, but also presents lies so blatant that a simple Google search is enough uncover the truth. It is duplicitous to claim that pointing out GayMiddleEast.com’s extensive ties to Israel is more dangerous than those ties themselves and its lack of transparency about them.

In its response, GayMiddleEast.com claims that the campaign against them began after they voiced skepticism over the disappearance of Amina Arraf, when in fact the tense history between GayMiddleEast.com and local activists existed long before that and centered around four issues:

Interventionism

LGBT organizations and activists in the Arab region have always approached requesting foreign intervention very carefully, and it has been the topic of much debate both within activist communities and between them and international organizations that have come to understand the complexities involved and possible backlash that such action would entail.

Meanwhile, GayMiddleEast.com seems to have an open door with the UK Foreign Office and do not think twice about asking them to intervene at any given opportunity. These issues were raised with GayMiddleEast.com by several people, but they refused to engage.

Co-option of queer Arab voices

While perhaps not as vile as Tom MacMaster, GayMiddleEast.com operates on the same principle: White men speaking on behalf of queer Arabs and white men as gatekeepers of queer Arab voices. We are not victims in need of a white male savior working in London, nor do we need a conduit for our poor brown oppressed voices to be heard in the West, which seems to be GayMiddleEast.com’s intended audience.

Over the past few years the region has seen an enormous upsurge of progressive queer activism, from North Africa to the Levant and the Arab Gulf. Much of this work is being done quietly on the ground, from lobbying parliamentarians to organizing support groups, establishing solidarity networks, working with local civil society organizations, and publishing in various forums both online and off.

MacMaster’s deception brought many issues to the fore, and the least interesting are the stories GayMiddleEast.com has been plugging about how, contrary to what MacMaster has portrayed, gays are actually really oppressed. Perhaps more relevant in this context is an honest discussion about how to do solidarity work in a way that is respectful of people’s lived realities. That includes knowing what the limits of solidarity are, especially when you are outside the community you claim to care about, and when you occupy a position of privilege.

Both MacMaster and Littauer have chosen the wrong path; they have both put themselves front and center, the former by actually deceptively adopting the persona of a queer Arab woman, and the latter by acting as a spokesperson and gatekeeper for queer Arab voices with a direct line to the Western media.

It is unnerving that GayMiddleEast.com has one white name, one white face, and a handful of nameless, faceless Arab queers behind it. One of the articles listed by GayMiddleEast.com as being part of a “smear campaign” is actually a discussion about the depoliticization and orientalist tropes evident in much western (and Israeli) gay activism, including GayMiddleEast.com’s. Disagreement and critique for GayMiddleEast.com are tantamount to smears, which in itself says a lot.

Pinkwashing

Pinkwashing aims to sell Israeli racism, colonialism and apartheid as democratic and gay-friendly. This happens through bifurcation: On one hand, Israel, and especially Tel Aviv, are represented as cosmopolitan and LGBT, queer and trans-friendly places. At the same time, war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories and racist discrimination against Palestinians living in Israel are being euphemized and “pinkwashed”.

The use of LGBT rights in particular is not a coincidence: separating “gayness” from other forms of oppression and hiding behind claims of being apolitical serves this function perfectly. Ideology almost always calls itself non-ideological. Issues of racism within LGBT organizing have long been a source of tension between activists in the Global North and South, particularly as activism becomes more and more transnational and networks of solidarity are built across borders.

The idea that LGBT rights take precedence over other rights need not be stated outright: by claiming that LGBT rights and activism are apolitical, and by refusing to address these issues head on and recognizing that they are interconnected, that principle is made apparent. GayMiddleEast.com’s particular pinkwashing was first addressed here. If GayMiddleEast.com is indeed against pinkwashing as they claim they are, then it would have paid attention when Arab and Palestinian queers took issue with their supposedly “neutral” manner of reporting. Instead, it chose to ignore the questions raised completely. And again, they were characterized as “smears”.

Violations of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign against Israel 
GayMiddleEast.com claims that it does not have a position on any particular solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fair enough – no one has ever asked it to comment on the right of return, the settlements, Jerusalem, or two-states vs. one state, and no one has held it to task for that. What GayMiddleEast.com was criticized for was its rejection and violation of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign to end the Israeli occupation.

As a “fair”, “honest”, and “apolitical” reporter on news in the Middle East, why did GayMiddleEast.com not even report on the very loud global call to boycott Jerusalem World Pride in 2006? If they are simply an apolitical news site, this would at the very least qualify as news. GayMiddleEast.com have failed to report all subsequent queer call to boycott or news related to it such as the disinvitation of the official Israeli delegation to the Madrid pride parade – one of the largest in Europe –  following Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla. They did however report on everything else surrounding Pride in Israel.

Far from being “neutral” and “apolitical”, GayMiddleEast.com have taken very clear political stands – ones that privilege gay rights over Palestinian rights. GayMiddleEast.com has also patted itself on the back forsponsoring “Arabs of neighboring countries to participate in the march” in Tel Aviv, a clear and blatant violation of BDS. What is even more upsetting about the political stands that GayMiddleEast.com has taken is its refusal to admit that it has taken them.

That is the background of the problematic relationship between GayMiddleEast.com and many queer Arab activists, which it is very aware of and chose to completely bypass in its response. Far from being “smears”, these are legitimate political issues taken up by many activists in the Global South.

However, ignoring these critiques is not even what is most disturbing about GayMiddleEast.com’s response: the very blatant and sloppy lies it has presented about its extensive ties to Israel is cause for much concern. Being Israeli itself is not a crime, yet GayMiddleEast.com have gone to great lengths to deny these ties precisely because it knows that what it is doing, and has been doing since its inception, is dangerous.

Continue reading here.

J.J. Goldberg uses Bob Dylan to make a perfect argument for the cultural boycott of Israel

Jun 23, 2011

Yaniv Reich

A series of recent discussions in my life (with very well intentioned people) have focused on whether cultural boycott of Israel is perhaps a bit too extreme of a position. Doesn’t it just run the risk of alienating Israelis and making them less likely to make sacrifices for peace and justice?

The problem with this question is its framing. In my reading, Israelis are far too comfortable with the status quo and will never make any sacrifice or question their tribalist and commonly racist ideology without increased incentives to do so. And one of the primary ways Israelis are made to feel comfortable is by their (largely erroneous) self-image as a modern “Western” democracy, which includes, among other things, gay pride parades and visits from prestigious internationals.

Today, JJ Goldberg captures this argument about normalization to an immaculate degree today in The Forward. It really is one of the finest arguments forcultural boycott I have ever heard:

If you’re one of those people who tries to follow the news out of Israel, late June probably found you feeling anxious about the impending launch of the next Gaza protest flotilla. You’re worried about a repeat of the May 2010 fiasco, when the Israeli navy boarded a Turkish protest ship to enforce Israel’s Gaza blockade and ended up killing nine Turkish citizens. You’re saddened and angry about Israel’s growing isolation, and hoping its navy gets it right this time.

If you actually live in Israel, on the other hand, there’s a pretty good chance your thoughts were focused on Bob Dylan. You might be one of the 25,000 people who paid to hear him June 20 at Ramat Gan stadium outside Tel Aviv and left feeling confused, annoyed, cheated and perhaps wondering why, after the fiasco of his last appearance in 1993, he couldn’t get it right this time. And, yes, saddened and angry about Israel’s isolation. Fans expected Dylan, the maverick moral voice, spiritual seeker and sometime Chabadnik, to show some sign of love. What he gave was a flat, mechanical performance, 15 songs and then back to the airport without so much as a hello or goodbye, leaving Israelis as alone as before.

Mind you, there’s a part of Israel that revels in isolation, believing it is meant to be, in the Torah’s words, “a nation that dwelleth apart.” For most Israelis, though, it’s a source of mounting dismay. Most Israelis believe their country is unfairly blamed for a conflict that isn’t their fault. They pack their sons off in uniform, worry about rockets and bus bombs and then read that their leaders have been indicted for war crimes and international rock stars are canceling local appearances in protest. Sometimes it feels as though the very walls are closing in.

When celebrities do show up to perform, therefore, it’s more than just a night out. It’s an affirmation that Israel is still part of the world.

Obviously, JJ Goldberg thinks this a fine thing. But for anyone concerned with Israel’s reckless, continuous program of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in service of 19th century ideals of ethnic purity, then this statement is one of the best arguments for cultural boycott you are likely to find.

This post originally appeared on Yaniv Reich’s blog Hybrid States.

‘We recognize neither the legality, nor the morality, nor the wisdom of the walls between us’: Israeli academics endorse civil disobedience campaign against Israeli entry laws

Jun 23, 2011

Adam Horowitz

The following press release offers an update on the Israeli civil disobedience campaign to illegally transport Palestinian women and children into Israel to enjoy the beach. Although many Palestinians living under occupation live just miles from the Mediterranean, Israeli law prevents them from traveling freely. These actions were inspired byreporter Ilana Hammerman who planned the first of such trips and wrote about it in Ha’aretz. The press release follows:

300 Academics Join 40 “Civil Disobedience” Women Willing to Break Israel’s Entry Laws

About 300 lecturers and teachers from institutes of higher education throughout Israel have signed a public advertisement in support of civil disobedience actions of a group of women who openly infringe the law of entry to Israel. The academics put their full names in an advertisement which was published in Ha’aretz newspaper last Friday, 17 June 2011, next to an advertisement – the third in recent months – published by the women’s group called “Civil Disobedience”. (For the advertisement itself, see attachment.) The women, who have all been investigated by Jerusalem police and who now have official criminal records, called for the Israeli public to join them in their protest activity which consists of driving Palestinian women and children for a day at Israeli recreational sites and the beach. These actions come in the wake of writer and translator Ilana Hammerman’s initiative, who started publicizing such activities last year.

“We recognize neither the legality, nor the morality, nor the wisdom of the walls between us and our neighbors which have been erected with brute force,” stated the group in its advertisement.

Alongside the women’s statement, a support letter from the academics appeared, including the following words:

We, the undersigned women and men, state that we are willing to collaborate with the actions of the “Civil Disobedience” women. In these dark hours, we are willing to drive their guests, Palestinian women and children, to hide them and to support their challenge in any other way, whether in deeds or in words. The action of these women shows the right way for any Israeli citizen who truly supports a democracy respectful of human rights. Should Israel’s legal system find it appropriate to prosecute and penalize these women we shall be willing to support them, to join them and to be tried alongside them.

Seeing Fateh’s flag, and the Palestinian flag, in the Gaza Strip

Jun 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

Helena Cobban has a long, moving account of her visit to Gaza at her site, Just World News. An excerpt:

One first fruit of the May 3 [unity] agreement: As you drive along the Strip, within or through the sprawling cities, towns, and heavily built-up refugee camps that cover most of its surface, you often see Fateh’s distinctive, bright yellow pennants raised high over residential blocks. Yes, Hamas’s green flags still strongly out-number them. But the green flags have been flying longer and many now have a slightly grungy look to them.

The choice of flags has been a key decision made within all the popular uprisings that have made up the Arab Spring. In both Tunisia and Egypt, participants in the mass demonstrations made a point of carrying only their respective national flags on the demonstrations, leaving their party affiliations at home. Back in late February, after Mubarak’s toppling, young social activists in Palestine decided that they wanted to organize a mass popular action. Their main slogan was “The people want an end to the division.” Not surprisingly, as they organized for what they designated their #mar15 action in both the West Bank and Gaza, they argued strongly that participants should carry only the Palestinian flag.

In both Gaza and the West Bank, the status quo powers viewed the young people’s activism as posing a worrying challenge to their own control, and the ruling powers in both territories moved swiftly to co-opt and dominate the movement.

Brilliant young Palestinian blogger Sameeha Elwan, a recent graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza’s English-language program, blogged movingly about the dismay she felt when she saw many participants in the Gaza City march carrying Hamas flags as well as Palestine’s four-color emblem.

She wrote,

    I could see nothing but the Palestinian flag, hear nothing but Palestine’s name, I could not but be totally involved as everyone else who like me were chanting, walking proud, holding up their Palestinian flag, their voice at its highest, their hearts hopeful for a unity that this demonstration proved every Palestinian, regardless of his favourite colour, is eager to have back… 

    Amidst the beauty of the scene rose that unusual green flag tied to the Palestinian… [H]onestly, I think of it as an absurd attempt to prove the Hamas presence while none has denied them the right to. The demonstration was aimed at calling to end division. It aimed not at ending the presence of any party.

In Gaza, Hamas’s well coordinated mass organizations easily outnumbered the intentionally non-partisan demonstrators on March 15. Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas luminaries came to the city center’s Square of the Unkown Soldier to address them. The independents moved elsewhere to continue holding their notably smaller demonstration.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, the pro-Fateh security forces succeeded in limiting access to Ramallah’s Manara Square to only a small proportion of the would-be demonstrators. A low-level Fateh official addressed the crowd, coming hand-in-hand with a Hamas official. But soon after the speeches the Palestinian gendarmerie cleared the square, fearing that if the protesters stayed too long their movement might, as in Tahrir Square, gain momentum.

Since March 15, there have been few signs of the Palestinian “youth” movement undertaking any further similar demonstrations. But the leaders of Hamas and Fateh had both gotten some important messages: from the March 15 action; from the pro-reconciliation diplomatic activism of Egypt’s new government; and also– in the case of Fateh, whose leaders have long pinned all their hopes on getting some real from Washington in pushing for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands– from the evident failure of that strategy, including the derailing of that previously long-running (but never arriving) roadshow, the “peace process.”

Amb. Michael Oren dishes out anti-fotilla ‘marching orders’ in private Jewish Federation call

Jun 23, 2011

Max Blumenthal

On June 22, the Jewish Federation of America’s new, multi-million dollar “Israel Action Network” hosted a conference call with Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. The call was an urgent response to the flotilla preparing to cruise towards Gaza in order to challenge Israel’s maritime blockade of the destitute coastal strip. David Sherman, the vice chair of the Federation’s board of trustees, introduced the new initiative and Oren’s involvement in it as a key to combating Israel’s “delegitimization.”

Throughout the call, Oren seemed more concerned about the Arab Spring, Israel’s relations with Turkey, and the Palestinian unity arrangement than the upcoming flotilla. He opened his remarks by launching into a fast paced survey of the myriad regional threats Israel supposedly faced, then explained how the state would tamp down on each one:

Egypt – Oren was convinced that the only parties that are poised to win upcoming elections are “well funded, well led extremist movements.” Presumably he meant the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Egyptian army’s stance reassured Israel. “The army has been telling us that they have every intention of maintaining Camp David and that there will be no substantive change in Egypt’s foreign policy,” Oren said. Israel’s biggest concern at the present moment was attacks on gas pipelines in the Sinai Desert, which Oren claimed were being carried out by Bedouins to extort protection money. He said that Israel’s gas supply was only at 2/3 capacity, forcing it to import environmentally hazardous coal.

Syria — Oren expressed frustration with rumors that Israel was urging a “go slow” approach to the Syrian revolt against the Assad regime. He referred indirectly toan article by Jerusalem Post military correspondent Yaakov Katz (he did not cite Katz by name, but was clearly pointing in his direction) claiming Israel’s military and political establishment would quietly support Assad because he was “the devil we know.” Complaining about Assad’s recent failures to keep the Israeli occupied Golan frontier quiet (Oren misleadingly described it as “Israel’s border”), Oren claimed that “no one in Israel will shed a tear” if Assad is gone.

Iran — Oren claimed Israel possessed intelligence showing that Iran had enriched uranium past the 20 percent level. “The 90 percent dial where they can develop nuclear grade material is a short leap,” he said. He went on: “We are in communication with the Obama administration about another round of sanctions. They are effective; they have taken a major chunk out of Iran’s economy, resulted in high inflation and high unemployment. This is a direct result of sanctions, but they have not had a big impact on nuclear program — we haven’t seen that yet. So in the next round the administration will announce various designations this week that will impair [Iran’s] ability to import and export oil; that will hurt transportation and the airlines of Iran. It promises to be quite painful. Throughout, the policy of the State of Israel and America remains that all options are on the table to prevent Iran from developing nukes, the policymakers in Iran believe us when we say that. Look at Gaddafi: he was convinced by a credible military threat from the United States to stop developing nuclear weapons.”

Turkey — Israel’s greatest source of friction with Turkey, according to Oren, was Turkey’s demand that Israel formally apologize for killing several of its citizens on board the Mavi Marmara last year. “We’re trying to find some language to satisfy them that holds up to the unwritten constitution of the democratic state of Israel,” he remarked. He said Netanyahu had congratulated Erdogan for preventing the Mavi Marmara from sailing with the new flotilla. “The Marmara was too large and we couldn’t stop it with technical means,” said Oren, suggesting that the cruise boat’s exclusion from the upcoming fleet to Gaza was a source of great relief to both Israel’s military and diplomatic corps.

The new flotilla — Oren attacked the organizers of the flotilla as “radical anti-Israel organizations…known also for anti-American activities.” He cited statements by the US State Department and UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon criticizing or condemning their actions. Then Oren claimed that the flotilla could simply deliver its aid through a “responsible organization” like UNRWA, or bring their materials through El Arish and allow Israel to offload it. “It’s not a fight between us and the people of Gaza,” Oren claimed. “It’s between us and the group Hamas which is determined to destroy the state of Israel.” (Never mind this Israeli government document). He went on to claim that Israel’s maritime blockade was “in full accord with international law,” though he did not explain how besieging a civilian population that was not actively engaged in a full-scale war against Israel comported with the 4th Geneva Convention or the San Remo Accords.

Next, Oren proudly announced that Israel had tentatively authorized an aid shipment to Gaza containing construction materials for 1200 new buildings and 18 new schools (UNRWA officials were skeptical that the aid would actually arrive as Israel said). The timing of the shipment and Oren’s promotion of it suggested that the flotilla had already made an impact. Would Israeli authorities have authorized the aid in without outside pressure? Whether or not they would have, Israel was seeking to extract as much propaganda value as it could from its agreement.

The Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood — The ambassador seemed far more troubled about the Palestinian Authority’s plan to introduce a statehood resolution at the United Nations General Assembly in September than about any other issue. Oren suggested that Israel would attempt to force the Palestinians back to the negotiating table in order to keep them away from the UN. In other words, the peace process would be Israel’s tool for blocking Palestine from winning statehood on a unilateral basis. In this effort, Oren described Dennis Ross, the White House special advisor on Middle East affairs, as Israel’s ally.

“We are working closely with the Obama Administration in trying to find a common framework that would enable the European Union to support negotiations in the framework to get them back to negotiations and keep them away from General Assembly,” Oren commented. “Dennis Ross is in Israel today conducting negotiations so we have reasons for some optimism. But we have to prepare for the worst. [With the statehood resolution] we are preparing for various scenarios of unrest in the West Bank, further attempts by the P.A. to use their improved status to delegitimize israel a la Goldstone type initiatives. Netanyahu has been meeting with the Italian government about this, and they are working tirelessly. And he is working closely with the Canadians who are very supportive.”

When Oren finished his remarks, the administrators of the call allowed time for a few questions. One caller asked Oren what Jews in the United States could do about the flotilla. “Stress that there’s no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the border is open for all materials, there is no shortage of food or medicine, and that our maritime blockade is upheld by the United States as completely legal and necessary for Israel’s defense,” Oren said.

Before I could ask a question about the legality of Israel’s siege of Gaza, Martin Raffel, the director of the Israel Action Network, came on the line to conclude the call. “I want to echo [what Oren said],” Raffel remarked. “Our role is not to be passive observers. We have to shake the public discourse so we’re sending message points and program guidance to everyone involved. And we hope you have some marching orders for when you go back to your communities.”

This post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal’s bloghere.

Israel’s future weapons unveiled in Paris

Jun 23, 2011

David Cronin

For the past few years, Ehud Barak has generally visited arms fairs in Paris during June to help drum up business for Israel’s weapons-makers. The exception was 2010, when the international outcry over the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla prompted the defense minister to cancel his trip.

Barak’s annual routine has now been restored. He was in France once again this week to cut the opening ribbon for the Israeli pavilion at this year’s Paris Air Show. His trip follows the announcement that Israel’s weapons exports were worth $7.2 billion in 2010, a growth of $300 million over the previous year.

Predictably, hacks working for the business and “defense” press were happy to regurgitate the promotional material pumped out by Israeli exhibitors in Paris.

Rafael, a Haifa-based firm, must be especially pleased with the attention devoted to it. In a fawning feature published by Aviation International News, Rafael signalled it is adapting well to these times of austerity. Ilan Biran, the Rafael chairman, said he is running a “boutique” firm, which is hoping to benefit from the increased willingness of countries to share military technology, rather than to rely on domestic suppliers, in order to lower their defense spending.

Like the state of Israel itself, Biran has been able to depict his firm as both tiny and terrifying. The “boutique” Rafael has teamed up with the American behemoth Raytheon to develop David’s Sling. This “air defense missile system” – likely to replace Hawk missiles already in Israel’s arsenal – is making its debut in Paris. Rafael is also being lauded as the innovator of the Iron Dome system. Reportedly capable of intercepting rockets such as those fired by Hamas into southern Israel, Iron Dome has become a useful tool in Israel’s never-ending propaganda war.

Another big draw in Paris is the new medium-weight laser-guided bomb (MLGB) from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Though only 253 pounds in weight, these sound obese compared to the  22 pound nano-satellites that IAI is working on.

It is surely obscene that the display of weapons that may well be used to kill Palestinians and attack other countries in the future elicits no criticism in the press. How can journalists specialising in “defense” really know so little about the realities of war that they faithfully regurgitate the canard that Israel’s weapons are designed to minimise “collateral damage”? When was avoiding harm to civilians ever on Israel’s agenda?

David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.

Site news: Introducing Mondoweiss’s new home

Jun 23, 2011

Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz

logoWe have great news: As of today Mondoweiss is a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. CERSC is a great fit for us because the Center is fearlessly dedicated to ideas that are outside the mainstream. With the help of Anthony Arnove, it is best known for its pathbreaking publishing arm, Haymarket Books, which has published Omar Barghouti, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Wallace Shawn, Amy Goodman, Dennis Brutus, Amira Hass, and Ilan Pappe, among others.

The CERSC partnership ends our two-year relationship with the Nation Institute. We are grateful to the Institute for helping us to establish ourselves and grow in the years after the Gaza conflict, and for helping to publish our book on the Goldstone Report. We are especially thankful to Hamilton Fish, the former director of the Nation Institute, for his vision and bravery in bringing us in.

We expect great things of this partnership. CERSC has intellectual courage, it is used to daring thinking, and it will help us to get to the next level, both in substance and influence. This is a day of celebration for us because we are gaining an enthusiastic partner, with whom we hope to grow and learn. Soon we’ll announce a fundraiser to launch the relationship– today we’re popping corks.

A.Loewenstein Online Newsletter

Of course the war against Libya is about securing oil

Posted: 23 Jun 2011

And yet most in the corporate press prattle about human rights and “humanitarian intervention”.
Yes, Gaddafi is a brute but that’s nothing new. “Saving civilians” is the catch-cry of those backing NATO action.
But a close examination of Wikileaks documents and more honest reporting shows that Libyan oil nationalism was deeply worrying Western governments and multinational oil companies.
Hence, a bombing was justified on spurious grounds. Medialens examines the evidence.

Israel struggling with that narrative thing

Posted: 23 Jun 2011

Joseph Dana in South Africa’s Mail and Guardian:

In the wake of the Arab Spring, Israel is starting to lose its edge in convincing the international community that the conflict is simply about peace and not rights. Palestinian demonstrations on Israel’s borders and checkpoints have highlighted the sea change taking place.

US official; we love the internet (as long as views approved by State Dept)

Posted: 23 Jun 2011

Let me get this straight. A web evangelist, working for the US government, admires the ability of the internet to assist Arab revolutions and compares its power to Che Guevera, a man the establishment regards as a terrorist.
I guess backing real freedom in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is a bridge too far for this real lover of democracy:

Hillary Clinton‘s senior adviser for innovation at the US state department has lauded the way the internet has become “the Che Guevara of the 21st century” in the Arab Spring uprisings.
Speaking at the Guardian’s Activate summit in London on Wednesday, Alec Ross said “dictatorships are now more vulnerable than ever” as disaffected citizens organise influential protest movements on Facebook and Twitter.
The US has pledged to back the pro-democracy movements that have swept the Middle East and north Africa since January. Ross welcomed the “redistribution of power” from autocratic regimes to individuals, describing the internet as “wildly disruptive” during the protests in Egypt and Tunisia.
“Dictatorships are now more vulnerable than they have ever been before, in part – but not entirely – because of the devolution of power from the nation state to the individual,” he said.
“One thesis statement I want to emphasise is how networks disrupt the exercise of power. They devolve power from the nation state – from governments and large institutions – to individuals and small institutions. The overarching pattern is the redistribution of power from governments and large institutions to people and small institutions.”
Ross said that the internet had “acted as an accelerant” in the Arab spring uprisings, pointing to the dislodging of former Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in little over a month. The internet had facilitated leaderless movements, Ross added, describing it as the “Che Guevara of the 21st century”.
However, he said it was a “bridge too far” to describe the Egyptian uprising as a “Facebook revolution”.

Should society be promoting privatised education?

Posted: 23 Jun 2011

In my view, no damn way. Making a huge profit from rich students who buy their way into a system where learning comes second to scoring that corporate job after completion is troubling. Of course, many publicly run universities are sadly moving in a similar direction these days:

A private, run-for-profit university has launched an aggressive expansion plan to jointly run at least 10 of its publicly funded counterparts, the Guardian can reveal.
BPP, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate business and law degrees at 14 UK study centres, said it was in talks about managing the business side of the universities’ campuses. Talks with three are at a “serious stage”, but commercial negotiations are yet to begin.
Under the model, universities would control all academic decisions, while BPP would be responsible for managing the campus estate, IT support, the buying of goods and services and other “back office” roles. BPP would not hold equity in the universities.
Chief executive Carl Lygo said his firm stood to make tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds from working with each institution, but that it would be “too radical at the moment” to bid to take over a university. “The partnership model is more palatable in the UK … we have a long tradition of higher education being publicly funded, rather than run for profit.”

Ethnic cleansing by another name

Posted: 22 Jun 2011

Yes:

There has been a sharp rise in the number of Palestinian structures razed by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank this year, with over 700 people left homeless, rights groups said on Wednesday.
So far, Israeli forces have demolished “103 residential structures … most of them tents, huts, and tin shacks, in which 706 persons lived,” Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a statement.
This was up from 86 structures in 2010 and 28 in 2009, B’Tselem said.
The Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank could not immediately be reached, but in the past Israel has said that it only demolishes structures built without permits.
B’Tselem said the Palestinians had no choice but to build illegally because Israel, which controls the occupied West Bank, rarely gives Palestinians permits to build.