MONDOWEISS ONLINE NEWSLETTER

This is how the grassroots works. A year ago when Gaza freedom boats tried to sail into Gaza and were rebuffed by the Israelis, there were movement people on them mostly. Well now we hear John Ging and Brian Baird calling for the world to break the siege, and Turkey too, talking about a new Berlin airlift. And a large flotilla is set to sail to Gaza by the end of the month. From the Free Gaza movement:

Later this month the Freedom Flotilla, consisting of three cargo ships and five passenger boats, will set sail to Gaza… The ships are being readied in Greece, Ireland and Turkey to carry 5000 tons of reconstruction materials, school supplies, and medical equipment, as well as 600 passengers from over 40 countries.
“We welcome Mr. Ging’s statement, which recognizes the responsibility of the international community to oppose the illegal blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza,” said Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and participant in the flotilla.

A couple of the ships will have Turkish flags, and an Irish one is called the MV Rachel Corrie! Marian Houk notes that the Turkish human rights org involved–

a Turkish relief organization, IHH(Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, or Insani Yardim Vakfi), is making major preparations to participate in the coming “Freedom Flotilla”–

is the same one whose West Bank director, Izzet Sahin, was arrested last week at the Bethlehem checkpoint. Huh.

Felice Gelman of Wespac and the Free Gaza Movement sent the following letter to the public editor of the Times:
The NY Times never ceases to amaze with its casual adoption of mythology as fact. From your article this morning on American Jews becoming more critical of the actions of the Israeli government: “You know, the Israelis are not the ones launching rockets and placing fighters in houses with children inside.” Actually, the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead cites instances of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian human shields and invading homes with children inside. (Page 19, page 180, page 280 et seq.)
On the other hand, it was not able to document instances of Hamas fighters using human shields. (Page 145 – 146) In addition, although Palestinians in Gaza have certainly fired rockets at Israeli territory, Israel itself fired a far greater number of rockets at Gaza and its civilian population during Operation Cast Lead. The Goldstone Report and its conclusions are hardly unknown to anyone with an interest in the Israel Palestine conflict.
Therefore, one cannot credibly say that Israelis are not the ones launching rockets, nor can one say they are not the ones placing fighters in houses with children inside. I’m sure your reporters are at least as well informed as I am. Don’t you think it would be helpful for your readers for the New York Times report the simple facts of the conflict accurately rather than just parroting PR spin? Can you at least let me know that you have brought this to the attention of the editors?

A young man in Florida named Marco Rubio is delighting the Bill Kristol crowd by saying that Israel can go ahead and bomb Iran and the U.S. should back Israel up.
Put another way, Rubio is running for Senate as a Republican.
Here he is on his own site, giving me goosebumps. Is he saying I should leave the U.S.?:

Sadly, even as Jewish people around the world commemorate this day, the state of Israel continues its fight for survival and existence.  On a daily basis, they struggle to build a homeland for all Jewish people, and for the right to live in peace.

Today I am going to try and do hopeful posts that don’t scare anyone off. Because I think our side is winning, and it is important to reach out to the middle. The neocons really are on an ice floe these days. It’s a big ice floe, but it’s an ice floe. The broad middle is now in transition.
Mainstream types are beginning to question the ideology of permanent war that grew out of Israeli intransigence. They are beginning to see that Israeli intransigence is as important a factor here as “Palestinians not being a partner for peace,” the old mantra. I bet even Rahm Emanuel sees that. Certainly David Axelrod is questioning that mantra.
Netanyahu did us a huge favor by coming to the U.S. and defying Obama in front of AIPAC. It was like the ’92 Republican Houston convention, a giant political misstep borne of arrogance. When he said Jerusalem is not a settlement and we were building there 3000 years ago, secular Jews have to be sick to their stomachs.
They understand the principle of Palestinian self-determination, and recognize at some level that our community has helped to destroy that principle for six decades. Oh but I said I wasn’t going to scare anyone off! Decaf!
Why am I optimistic?
Well I deal in straws in the wind, and here is the latest: an announcement about Budrus, the documenary, from Ronit Avni, a filmmaker and social activist whom I saw at J Street (I believe she’s a liberal Zionist). Note all the signifiers in her exultant email of popular culture; note that all the signifiers are lining up in favor of Palestinian freedom.
Note the wonderful mixing of American celebrities and Palestinian names. Note that the left is now clearly aligned with Palestinian freedom; the old days of Progressive Except for Palestine are evaporating before our eyes. Avni:

We are off to an unbelievable start. Budrus kicked off its North American premiere with a private event at the Tribeca Film Festival hosted by Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan. Protagonist and Palestinian nonviolence leader Ayed Morrar joined the filmmakers in a panel hosted by Christiane Amanpour.
The movie was introduced by Jane Rosenthal and the audience included many of our supporters as well as festival founder Robert De Niro. Meanwhile, producer Rula Salameh screened the film to a cheering audience at the Bil’in annual nonviolence conference in the West Bank.
Several days later Budrus sold out every screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. Arab, Jewish, Christian and Muslim community leaders, academics, journalists and celebrities attended, including filmmaker Michael Moore and Jessica Alba. On Thursday we even won the Special Jury Mention! You can view photos of these events on our Facebook page by clicking on “photos” and visiting the various albums.
It was very moving to see so many familiar faces joining us to show their support. The film received terrific reviews and media coverage in outlets ranging from ABC News, the Jewish Week, Al Jazeera International and Arabic, NY1, the Washington Post, Channel 10 in Israel and The Nation.
To review this coverage, visit www.justvision.org/en/Budrus/press. We were especially honored to meet with journalists at a private discussion hosted by the New America Foundation following a screening.

Article about the “Shadow Elite” on Huffpo by Janine Wedel, from her book of same title, that talks about the neo-cons and how they are motivated primarily by memories of the Holocaust. Says my friend Koozie: “Yet the author beats around the bush about the common denominator.
 Gee, they must all be African-Americans.” Myself I think it is important to talk about their Jewishness, as Stephen Sniegoski does in his book The Transparent Cabal. Or as Adam Garfinkle does in Jewcentricity. In his fine new book on the Middle East, Beware of Small States, David Hirst of the Guardian espouses the Walt and Mearsheimer line, that Iraq grew out of neoconservative Zionism. So it’s an important conversation.
And having that discussion will permit Jews to both describe their political diversity to others–and develop it, separating themselves, those who choose to, from the ultra-Zionist thinking about a permanent war that characterizes neocon idea, that has sort of ruined the Jewish relationship with the Arab world, and done no good for the American relationship to the Arab world. Wedel’s piece:

“For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our time, and the war against this evil, our generation’s great cause. . . . There is no middle way for Americans: it is victory or holocaust.” -Richard Perle, co-author, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, 2004
Note the small “h” on the word “holocaust” from the book co-authored by Bush White House advisor Richard Perle, one of the most influential instigators of the war in Iraq. It suggests that to Perle and his ideological allies, the Holocaust was not a singular event, but rather the first of other potential holocausts that must be prevented.
As I detail in Shadow Elite, Perle is the linchpin of the Neocon core, an informal group of a dozen or so members of the far bigger and more diverse neoconservative movement, who’ve worked with each other in various incarnations for some thirty years to realize their goals for American foreign policy through the assertion of military power.
In their conviction that the U.S. must identify and eliminate future Hitlers or potentially murderous regimes, they were willing to bend and even break the rules of democracy and traditional procedure. And they sidelined checks and balances, helping to expand executive powers in the process.

Haaretz’s new website design. They cleaned up the logo and made it look international/generic. It used to look like something out of Jewish-Israeli culture, blue and big with Hebrew. Now it’s lean and clean. I know, it’s for international traffic, Haaretz is one of the most important newspapers in the world right now, and god bless them, but it’s deracinated. I remember when Rolling Stone cleaned up its funky handmade logo back in the ’70s. Another giant mistake. It was downhill from there. I ought to be in publishing.

The green line is certainly getting blurry. Thursday morning at 3:00 am sixteen Israeli Security Agency (ISA) agents accompanied by Israeli police raided the home of Ameer Makhoul, a well known Palestinian human rights activist in Haifa, and detained him. According to a statement made by Palestinian human rights organizations:

The 16 ISA agents and police officers immediately separated Makhoul from his family, including wife Janan and daughters Hind, 17 and Huda, 12, and conducted an extensive search of the home. According to Janan, the police confiscated items including documents, maps, the family’s four mobile phones, Ameer and Janan’s laptops, the hard drives from the girls’ two desktop computers, a camera and a small tape recorder containing un-transcribed oral histories Janan collects as part of her work. At one point during the police search, Janan says, one officer violently restrained her, twisting her arm and pushing her when she attempted to leave the home’s living room to observe the confiscations.
The security forces also refused to identify themselves and showed her a warrant authorizing Makhoul’s arrest only after she repeatedly insisted. The order was signed on 23 April 2010 and cited unsubstantiated “security” reasons as the grounds for Makhoul’s arrest.

Makhoul is the the director of Ittijah, a network on grassroots Palestinian organizations throughout Israel. Police also raided Ittijah’s offices and confiscated documents and the hard drives from all of the organization’s computers.
The raid came two weeks after Makhoul, an Israeli citizen, was placed under a travel ban by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior. Before his detention Makhoul sent a piece to the Electronic Intifada about his travel ban. He explains:

Last month, when I traveled from Haifa to the land border between Jordan and Israel, the Israeli border police prevented me from leaving my country. The police handed me an order issued by the Israeli Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai prohibiting me to leave Israel for two months.
The travel ban imposed on me is part of an increased campaign to intimidate and to spread fear among Palestinian civil society. The repression is meant to divide us, but it has had the opposite effect. We Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora are only more determined and united to claim our rights and to build a nation where we can live in freedom and have equal rights.
The Israeli minister of the interior holds the opinion that my travel outside the country “poses a serious threat to the security of the state,” according to article 6 of the 1948 emergency regulations. I am the director of Ittijah, Union of Arab Community-Based Associations and the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms, which is a sub-committee of the High Monitoring Committee of Arabs in Israel. All three bodies unite Palestinian Arabs in Israel and we jointly decided not to appeal my travel ban at the Israeli high court.
Any meeting in the Arab world or with any Arab person anywhere in the world arouses the suspicion of the authorities. The accusations against me are made on the basis of secret evidence that I am not allowed to see, and the high court merely acts as an extension of the Israeli General Security Services (GSS), or the Shin Bet.
 Israel does not need to prove that there is reason for suspicion; instead, I have to prove that there is no need for their suspicion. The Israeli legal system is far from fair for Palestinians.
Israel is intimidating Ittijah and the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms because we are reasserting our community’s stake in the Palestinian struggle. Twenty years ago few considered the Palestinians in Israel as a part of the Palestinian people or the Palestinian cause.
During the Oslo process of the 1990s, we were considered an internal problem for Israel to deal with, but our networking, advocacy and lobbying has changed this. Israel is increasingly repressing us to divide Palestinians from each other and isolate us from the outside world.

The human rights organizations’ statement referenced above makes a similar point and connects Makhoul’s arrest to the wave of Israeli repression against dissent on both sides of the green line: 

Makhoul’s case is only one example amidst a recent escalated campaign by Israeli authorities against Palestinian human rights defense and civil resistance. In addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have met Palestinian human rights activism in recent months with a variety of measures, including raids, deportations, travel bans, visa denials and media attacks against nongovernmental organizations.
 Moreover, Palestinian communities involved in grassroots human rights defense efforts are frequently levied with collective punishment measures in the form of curfews, sieges and destruction of property, threats to individuals and the community as a whole, beatings, the use of lethal and “non-lethal” ammunition, including 40mm high velocity tear gas canisters, denial of permits, tear-gassing, army incursions and intentional injury and killings.

More than seven years ago, the Israeli military crushed to death U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie who was nonviolently protecting a Palestinian home from being demolished in the occupied Gaza Strip when she was repeatedly run over by a Caterpillar bulldozer.
Shortly thereafter, Rep. Brian Baird, whose constituents include the Corrie family, introduced H.Con.Res.111, calling for an independent U.S. investigation into her death. Although the resolution garnered an unexpectedly large number of cosponsors—77 in all—due primarily to the Corrie family’s tireless lobbying efforts, the resolution failed to make it out of the largely AIPAC-friendly House International Relations Committee.
To date, the United States has not undertaken an investigation into Corrie’s killing, even though to do so is standard procedure when a foreign government kills a U.S. citizen.
Impunity for criminal acts spurs criminal behavior. Therefore, Israel’s shooting of U.S. citizen Tristan Anderson almost six years to the day after Corrie’s killing was horrific, yet hardly unexpected, given previous U.S. failures to hold Israel accountable.
On March 13, 2009, the Israeli military shot Anderson in the forehead with a high-velocity tear gas canister during an unarmed protest against Israel’s illegal Apartheid Wall in the Palestinian West Bank village of Ni’lin. Anderson was critically injured and suffered brain damage; he remains today in a Tel Aviv hospital.
An extremely graphic and disturbing video of the Anderson’s shooting can be viewed by clicking here.
After the Israeli Ministry of Justice announced in February that it would not file any indictments stemming from Anderson’s shooting, Rep. Barbara Lee, in whose Oakland-based district Anderson lives, introduced H.Con.Res.270 on April 28, calling “on the United States Government to undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation of the circumstances that led to the injury of Tristan Anderson.”
In a press release, Rep. Lee noted that “It is with great urgency that we must seek accountability in this matter, and most importantly, ensure that such an unfortunate event does not occur again.”
Her sense of alacrity unfortunately does not seem to be shared by many of her colleagues. As of this writing, the resolution has attracted only three cosponsors. Clearly voters disturbed by Anderson’s shooting will need to make their voices heard with their Members of Congress for this resolution to stand any chance of passing.
Since May 4, more than 1,000 people have done so by asking their Representatives to sign on as cosponsors to this resolution through an action alert sponsored by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. People wishing to add their voices can do so by clicking here.
During the great Netanyahu-Biden settlement expansion dust-up of March 2010, Vice President Biden pledged that the Obama Administration would hold Israel “accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks.”
Israel’s gruesome shooting of U.S. citizen Tristan Anderson is an occasion for Congress and the Obama Administration to demonstrate that its talk of accountability for Israeli actions is more than empty rhetoric. Pass H.Con.Res.270. Tristan Anderson deserves justice, and this resolution is a first step towards it.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change U.S. policy to support human rights, international law, and equality.

Susan Johnson is on the road doing a Gaza report, details below. Her note:

Presbyterians solemn, emotionless faces but positive feedback. Downers Grove Episcopalians in Downers Grove, Illinois. Fantastic Mediterranean dinner. Donations for my return to Gaza–amazing. Responsive, asked questions, interested. “Why does Israel do that???” Especially border-crossing restrictions….One pro-Israel guy showed. “We will not go down” at end…mistake..too graphic. Tonight, Des Moines, tomorrow Ames.

May 6, Des Moines IA, 7:00 PM, Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting, 3211 Grand Avenue, Des Moines
May 7 Ames Iowa, 7:00 PM. Ames Friends Meetinghouse, 121 South Maple. Ames
May 10 Iowa City IA, 7-9 PM, Iowa City Public Library. Room A. 123 South Linn Street, Iowa City  

Does this look like Jerusalem to you? This is footage from earlier today in al-Walaja, a hillside village miles south of the Holy Basin in Jerusalem, and across from a Jewish settlement called Gilo. The settlement wants to expand, and Israel is seizing more land, all east of the Green Line, to build the sprawling Jerusalem that slouches toward Bethlehem.
You will see Palestinian-American geneticist Mazin Qumsiyeh being arrested as he tried to stop the bulldozer. “Why are you doing this?” he cries. Yes why are they doing this? I gather Qumsiyeh has been released. P.S. Al-Walaja is only there because villagers were forced off their lands to the west in 1948.