MONDOWEISS ONLINE NEWSLETTER

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01/12/2011

• Another name is registered in Gaza

• Solidarity in Lyd: ‘We strongly disbelieve that Jews can demonstrate by themselves ala Tel Aviv’

• Congressman Peter King suggests that Muslims are not American

• Amnesty calls Abdallah Abu Rahma ‘prisoner of conscience jailed solely for speaking out’

• Birthright Israel calls on its alumni to ‘take back Zionism’

• Israel accelerates rate of killing Palestinians in early 2011

• The general vanishes

• You know the lobby’s in crisis when Beinart gets microphone from Oren and Wiesel is trying to revive Zionism

• On Sale Today: The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict

• EU envoy sticks a fork in 2SS

Another name is registered in Gaza

Jan 11, 2011

Max Ajl

 

I am trying to come up with something to say about the body I saw yesterday in the morgue at Kamal Adwan hospital. That body had belonged to an old man, 65 years old, who was shot through the neck by an Israeli sniper from 300 meters away while he was tying up his donkey on land he’d been farming for 40 years. An Israeli sniper murdered him for trespassing on his own land next to his own home in the buffer zone. He is the third civilian to have been killed the buffer zone in Gaza since I got here.

No words will bring him back, and no coverage from mainstream news agencies will resurrect him. No eulogy will roll back time for his fatherless children. There’s no way to beg that IDF soldier not to murder Shaban Karmout, there’s no way to warp this world and ask him not to tie up his donkey but to remain inside his small home in Beit Lehiya where it’s safe and the Israeli army can’t shoot him. And there’s no outrage into which one can rub the faces of those who tolerate outrages that will outrage them enough to say that this is one outrage too many. It was not one too many, because there will be more, there will be many more, and tallying up their names in our notebooks with acid in our eyes will do nothing to prevent the slow filling of Gaza’s cemeteries with old men who remember fleeing in terror before Zionist militia.

What can I say about Shaban Karmout that doesn’t turn him into a statistic in the endless pile of corpses that might slowly overwhelm the psyches of the conflicted people who support this obscenity? Or those who are not conflicted but simply accept that murdering old men is OK because once our old men were murdered?

Nothing passes like that

without account

All that you have done to our people

is registered in notebooks

So that’s what I can do: register it in my notebook. It is registered, and there is an empty line after Shaban’s name. That is for those who they kill tomorrow.

This post originally appeared on Max Ajl’s blog Jewbonics.

 

Solidarity in Lyd: ‘We strongly disbelieve that Jews can demonstrate by themselves ala Tel Aviv’

Jan 11, 2011

Alex Kane

 

(Photo:  Alex Kane)

Lyd, Israel–For the past year and a half, Israelis, Palestinians and international activists have held weekly demonstrations in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, protesting against the evictions of Palestinian families there and the move by settlers to take over their homes.

The solidarity movement, which has garnered international attention, is now expanding to different threatened neighborhoods in East Jerusalem like Issawiya and Silwan, as well as to areas in Israel such as Al-Araqib.

The latest area in Israel to see Sheikh Jarrah activists demonstrating is the mixed Jewish and Palestinian city Lyd, where, on one of the stormiest days of the year in December 2010, the Palestinian Abu Eid family’s 7 homes were demolished by Israeli authorities.

 

(Photo:  Alex Kane)

Weekly protests, like today’s evening protest, have been held in Lyd against the demolitions. The demonstrations see Israeli activists involved in the Sheikh Jarrah struggle, as well as some Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah who have been evicted or are threatened with eviction, join the residents of Lyd.

“People outside of Israel have to know what’s happening,” said Revka Vetenberg, an Israeli activist involved in the Sheikh Jarrah struggle who was demonstrating in Lyd. “Our Israeli government doesn’t want peace. They want only war, to say that this is our territory.”

The demolitions left 67 people homeless, with the men sleeping in tents and the women sleeping in their neighbors’ homes. The Israeli authorities said that the Abu Eid family did not have permits to expand their homes; permits are routinely denied to Palestinians to build, while Israeli Jews can build freely at will.

Chanting slogans of resistance and unity while marching down a street with activists drumming in the Palestinian area of Lyd, over 100 people protested the destruction of the Abu Eid family’s homes early this evening. While a significant police presence was there, no arrests were made. At the end of the demonstration, a concert was held with musicians from various groups joining together.

The activists from Sheikh Jarrah say they see the struggle in Lyd as the same struggle they have been fighting in East Jerusalem. The idea, activists say, is to expand and connect the struggle from Sheikh Jarrah to other areas with similar issues.

“We believe that these things are strongly connected. We strongly disbelieve that Jews have to demonstrate by themselves inside Tel Aviv like the Israeli left usually does–demonstrating by themselves without Palestinians and even without Israeli-Palestinians,” said Daniel Argo, a leader in the Sheikh Jarrah solidarity movement. “All the local issues are drawing us a bigger picture. In the longer term, this kind of activity can mobilize a bigger part of Jewish Israeli society to see with their own eyes what is happening on the ground.”

Buthaina Dabit, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who is the director of the New Israel Fund’s Shatil project, sees the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories as similar to the oppression of Palestinian citizens in Israel.

“We are one nation. We are oppressed by the Israeli law here and there, and by the military forces,” said Dabit. “We are very happy to make this cooperation [with the Sheikh Jarrah movement], and to meet our Palestinian relatives because we are one part. Together, we are more effective.”

Alex Kane is a blogger and journalist based in New York City. He blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia in the U.S. at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

 

Congressman Peter King suggests that Muslims are not American

Jan 11, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Lee Fang at ThinkProgress. Note that even the Conservative Political Action Conference has frozen out King’s interviewer, Frank Gaffney, for being a “crazy bigot.”

Joining anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney on Gaffney’s radio program last week, King doubled down on his promise to launch a witch-hunt against Muslims…

GAFFNEY: It sounds like what you’re recognizing — thank God — is that within the Muslim community, even in this country, let alone elsewhere, folks are finding an environment in which on the one hand it is very easy to be radicalized if you will, to be brought to an adherence to Sharia which leads to jihad. But also, there’s an enomorous pressure on those within the community presumably I would imagine you agree from the Muslim Brotherhood which is much in place in this country to not to come forward, to not help us defeat what really is our common foe: namely the folks that would impose Sharia on all of us.

KING: Yeah, and Frank, this is very unusual for our country because despite a person’s ethnic background or religious background, when a war begins, we’re all Americans. But in this case, this is not the situation. And whether it’s pressure, whether it’s cultural tradition, whatever, the fact is the Muslim community does not cooperate anywhere near to the extent that it should. The irony is that we’re living in two different worlds. One is the real world that I find when I’m talking with police officers, talking with federal law enforcement authorities. And when I raise the question of Muslim cooperation, they look at me like ‘oh of course not, no there’s no cooperation, we don’t anticipate that.’ You know, ‘We never expect cooperation.’ They try but hardly ever get it.

 

Amnesty calls Abdallah Abu Rahma ‘prisoner of conscience jailed solely for speaking out’

Jan 11, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Amnesty International has taken a significant step and upgraded the status of Abdallah Abu Rahma and condemned the Israeli military court:

Detained since December 2009, Abdallah Abu Rahma, a school teacher, was supposed to be released on 18 November 2010, but has been kept in detention at the military prosecution’s request. He has now been in prison for 13 months.”By extending Abdallah Abu Rahma’s sentence the Israeli authorities appear to be seeking not only to punish him further in a case where the prosecution’s evidence was questionable to begin with, but to deter others from participating in legitimate protests,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Amnesty International believes Abdallah Abu Rahma to be a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and assembly. As such we call for his immediate and unconditional release.”

 

Birthright Israel calls on its alumni to ‘take back Zionism’

Jan 11, 2011

K. Feldman

 

One more for the “War is peace” file: Birthright Israel alumni are invited to attend a February 1st kick-off event for a new (self-described) “international movement” called Take Back Zionism. The evening’s theme:

“Zionism is Humanitarianism.” Holocaust survivor-turned-ultra-hawk Elie Wiesel is the headliner, with an introduction by co-founding Birthright father, hedge fund demi-billionaire Michael Steinhardt. Promotional materials promise festivities will include “Israel’s Special Ops Humanitarian Task force” and “Israel’s Disaster Recovery Work in Haiti, New Orleans and Sri Lankaz [sic].” Tickets are $25 a pop, $150 for the VIP reception/open bar with Wiesel. If I don’t get to hold Baby Israel and hug his Haitian mother, I’m going to be very upset.

In many ways, Wiesel is the perfect front man for Birthright’s new venture. “Jerusalem is above politics,” Wiesel wrotein an open letter in April, echoing Birthright’s insistent claims of presenting Israel through an “apolitical” lens. (Conveniently, being “above politics” helps render institutions immune to political challenges.) “[Jerusalem] belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another,” Wiesel continued, adding, “And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city.” Israel as exceptional, Israel as belonging not to its actual citizens but rather to diaspora Jewry, Israel as the perennial victim of the media’s slandering—it’s surprising Birthright and Wiesel don’t team up for hasbara more often.

Note that the evening’s headliner isn’t a David Grossman, someone to rehabilitate Zionism from the Avigdor Liebermans. Take Back Zionism is sponsored by the Birthright Israel Foundation-affiliated Jewish Enrichment Center, an Orthodox outfit that offers programming that ranges from challah baking to screenings of Crossing the Line: the Intifada Comes to Campus, the latest from the rabid anti-Muslim filmmaker who brought us Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

Take Back Zionism’s partners are the usual right wing pro-Israel groups: Stand with Us, the David Project, AIPAC, Zionist Organization of America, and so forth. But none of this should be surprising given that Birthright co-founders Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman are both former trustees of AIPAC’s one-off think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Take Back Zionism”—from whom? From the delegitimizers? “Contemporary discourse seeks to narrowly define Zionism and attack it by limiting its scope,” the website reads, as if to argue, “Despite what the Israel haters say, Zionism is not the suffering of Gazans, the interminable Occupation, the Judaization of East Jerusalem, the forced ghettoization of Negev Bedouin, or any other fiction-based headline.” Birthright’s “Zionism is Humanitarianism” endeavor invites young people to retreat into the Israel-right-or-wrong bunker—and then put on blinders, just to make sure there is no reckoning with the very real humanitarian crises underway between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Take Back Zionism exudes that familiar stink of desperation that increasingly seems to emanate from everything the American Jewish establishment does these days in relation to Israel and young people. It feels like an aging generation’s attempted Astroturf operation that’s grossly misjudged its desired base. Yes, the young will eat the old. I hope.

Then again, there seem to be plenty of Birthright alumni who’ve bought into what Bronfman calls “the selling of Jewishness to Jews.” At takebackzionism.org, visitors are invited to submit their own answers to the prompt “Zionism is…,” which are then featured on a scrolling marquis. With casual bellicosity, one woman named Hadassah offered, “The reason we have the state of Israel, to show the Arabs it is our birthright.” A visitor named Brad ventured, “Manifest Destiny of the Jews”—let’s hope, against all odds, it was intended as critique. 

“There are no right answers!” the website assures; it’s doubtful they’d approve a definition of Zionism that reminded visitors, as New Historian-turned-hawk Benny Morris put it unapologetically, “A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians…There was no choice but to expel the population.” Ditto a submission of Hannah Arendt’s formulation of Zionism as “German-inspired nationalism.” (Keep those words in mind when watching videos of the Birthright extravaganza known as the “Mega Event,” described by one former American Birthright tour leader as “a fascist rally.”)

Paging Jewish Voice for Peace: when you interrupted Netanyahu in New Orleans with correctives like “the Occupation delegitimizes Israel,” you made me proud to be young and Jewish. 73% of Birthright alumni describe their fun bus tours as “life changing”; the hawkish Israel on Campus Coalition boasts over 50% of their pro-Israel activists are Birthright alumni.

On Thursday, Netanyahu announced $100 million of Israeli government funding for Birthright over the next three years, with a goal of bringing 51,000 diaspora Jews to Israel per year. JVP, please raise hell in New York on Februrary 1st and help take back the young from Birthright’s clenches. If only a bunch of left-wing billionaires would get together and realize JVP’s alternate vision of a free, ten-day Israel trip open to both Jews and Palestinians…

 

Israel accelerates rate of killing Palestinians in early 2011

Jan 11, 2011

Seham

 

And other news from Today in Palestine:

Settlers/ Land, Property, Resource Theft & Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing

Extremist Jews raze 20 graves in Maamanullah Cemetery
Extremist Jews razed around 20 graves in the Islamic historical Maamanullah Cemetery in occupied Jerusalem in an apparent attempt to gradually erase the Islamic identity of the holy city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87Shepherd Hotel developer top donor to GOP foreign affairs chair Ros-Lehtinen
Irving Moskowitz, the retired Florida businessman who is developing a controversial Jewish apartment project at East Jerusalem’s Shepherd Hotel, is a top campaign contributor to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the new GOP chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, campaign finance records show. 
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0111/Shepherd_

Mufti’s descendents: Shepherd Hotel ours
After Jerusalem court rejects petition against construction of Jewish neighborhood on site of derelict hotel, Husseini family calls for ‘international presence to protect Palestinian residents’ property’.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011822,00.html

Shepherd Hotel Demolition an Outrage
MIFTAH strongly condemns the January 9 demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in east Jerusalem. The hotel, originally belonging to the prominent Haj Amin Al Hussein of Jerusalem was torn down to make way for a new settlement enclave in the eastern sector of the city. American Jewish millionaire and settlement advocate Irving Moskowitz supposedly bought the building although the sale is still under scrutiny. According to Israeli plans, 20 luxury homes exclusively for Jewish settlers will be built on the hotel grounds in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. 
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=23032&CategoryId=2
Palestinian Activist Attacked by Settlers in the South Hebron Hills
On Friday, January 7th, at 10am, Israeli settlers attacked Azmi Shoyokhi, a general member of all National Committees in the West Bank, while he was supporting Palestinian farmers in Om Al-Arrays, in the South Hebron Hills. About a dozen settlers surrounded Azmi, striking him in his head. Israeli military along with police were in the area and witnessed the attack, but they did nothing to intervene.
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/01/08/palestinian-activist-attacked-by-settlers-in-the-south-hebron-hills/
Silwan activists ask EU for protection against Israel’s actions
Letter to EU diplomats also requests that Palestinian activist Adnan Jith, recently banned from Jerusalem for four months, be granted political asylum.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/silwan-activists-ask-eu-for-protection-against-israel-s-actions-1.336265?localLinksEnabled=false
Activism/Solidarity/Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions

Far Left activist Yonatan Pollack behind bars
Pollack begins prison sentence after conviction for illegal gathering. ‘It seems like a bad joke’ says activist’s father, actor Yossi Pollack.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4012032,00.html

Organizers say flotilla will try to break Gaza siege
BEIRUT: A Gaza-bound flotilla comprised of 25 ships would try to break the siege on the strip, organizers said following a news conference in Beirut Monday. The Freedom Flotilla’s journey was announced by Hani Sleiman, the coordinator of the National Initiative to Break the Siege on Gaza.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=123482
Boycott roundup: US tear gas-maker CSI urged to cancel Israel sales
Four activist groups in the US are calling on a tear gas manufacturer to stop providing its products to the Israeli military following the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah from severe respiratory distress on 1 January 2011 after inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11724.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
#BDS: Palestine ad in National Geographic triggers Zionist complaint
“Jewish organisations have condemned as misleading an advert that appeared in National Geographic Traveler magazine for implying that Palestine extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.  The Zionist Federation, which has complained to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), said the advert also gave “false impressions” by describing Palestine as a country and suggesting that the city of Hebron was under Palestinian control.  The advert, which appeared in this month’s edition of the magazine, invited tourists to visit the famous city of Jerusalem, but makes no mention of Israel.  It stated: “Palestine lies between the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan River, at the crossroads between Africa and the Middle East.”
http://youthanormalization.blogspot.com/2011/01/bds-palestine-ad-in-national-geographic.html
Human Rights/Humanitarian Issues/Siege/Refugees

Gaza’s Children Dare to Dream, Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Jan 11, 2011 (IPS) – Despite the lingering trauma of living under siege, regular Israeli military attacks and the consequences of a bloody war several years ago, Gaza’s children still dream of happiness and of normal lives.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54083

Racism and Discrimination

“Cultural barriers” a euphemism for Israeli racism
“Arabs have a tremendous amount to contribute to the Israeli economy in fields such as high-tech, but they are not being hired due to cultural barriers, he said. Some of these barriers could be overcome by putting high-tech offices in Arab cities and by sector-specific training.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/cultural-barriers-euphemism-for-israeli.html

Bedouin man accused of rape after posing as Jewish pilot
Accusers claim the man lied on his internet dating service profile; he claims that his accusers also lied to him about their own details.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/bedouin-man-accused-of-rape-after-posing-as-jewish-pilot-1.336302?localLinksEnabled=false
There can be no coexistence with a racist consensus
MK Haneen Zoabi/translation Sol Salbe – +972 – The process of incitement and persecution against the “Jewish Left extremists”, set a different dynamic in motion than the persecution of Arab citizens. This time the political persecution is extending to all layers of Jewish society, permeating into political and cultural dimensions that even the Shin Bet and the establishment had not considered.
http://972mag.com/there-can-be-no-coexistence-with-a-racist-consensus/
Violence/Aggression/War Crimes

Israel accelerates rate of killing Palestinians in early 2011, Yaniv Reich
Last October, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published a report indicating that Israel murdered, on average, one Palestinian every other day between 2006 and 2009, excluding the attack on Gaza known as Cast Lead that killed an additional 1,400 people (note that including Cast Lead brings the total to an average of around 1.5 murdered Palestinians per day).  Nevertheless, Israel seems dissatisfied with that killing rate, because the inglorious Israeli occupation forces have increased it in early 2011.  A quick run-through of those Palestinian human beings already killed in the long first week of 2011.
http://www.hybridstates.com/2011/01/israel-accelerates-rate-of-killing-palestinians-in-early-2011/

Detainees

Official report: IOF troops arrested 67 Palestinians since start of 2011
A report by the ministry of prisoners in Gaza said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) had rounded up 67 Palestinians since the start of 2011 ten days ago including 13 minors and 3 fishermen. http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc

Hamas MPs slam PA for kidnapping lawmaker’s son
The change and reform parliamentary bloc has condemned the PA security apparatuses in Ramallah for kidnapping the son of Hamas MP Azzam Salhab in Al-Khalil earlier on Monday.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd
IOF kidnap MP Abdelrazeq from his home in Safit
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped at an early hour on Tuesday Hamas lawmaker and former minister of finance Omar Abdelrazeq after a violent raid on his home in Salfit city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd8
Rights group: Israeli forces mistreated Hebron detainees
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A prisoners’ support group on Monday said Israeli soldiers mistreated five Palestinians detained in dawn raids on Friday.  Israeli forces detained the men the day after their release from Palestinian Authority custody.  PA security forces released the men Thursday following an order by President Mahmoud Abbas. The men had been on hunger strike since November and the Emir of Qatar, Hamas officials, rights groups as well as family members of the men in the West Bank had all appealed for their release.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=349948
In first, Hamas allows Fatah visit to Gaza prisons
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Hamas officials have granted a lawmaker from bitter rival group Fatah the rare permission to visit several prisons run by them and to meet Fatah detainees.  The visits on Monday night were the first that the Gaza-based Hamas has permitted any member of Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, and comes as the two parties trade accusations over the treatment of detainees.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hb7mstVl3FxY5vzvKUt8pe0DGf7A?docId=CNG.f1f4be5ff8c0625cfbb007232f3c6225.11
Political Developments

Ties make Palestinian state a SAmerican priority (AP)
AP – Five South American nations have recognized Palestinian statehood in recent weeks, and several more are expected to do so soon.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110111/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_south_america_palestinians

US Embassy Cables: Mossad implicated in murder of Hamas leader
Fourteen of the suspected murders used MasterCard credit cards issued by MetaBank, in Iowa, to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel.
http://crowdleak.net/mossad-implicated-in-murder-of-hamas-leader/
Netanyahu rejects Clinton criticism
Rebuffing U.S. criticism of a new housing project for Jews in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday that the project was a private initiative in which the government “was not involved.”
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=959a96706b247078e5ae159d893464ac
Jerusalem will never be divided, says city mayor (AFP)
AFP – The mayor of Jerusalem, a rising star in Israeli politics, has vowed that the city would never be divided to allow the eastern side to become the capital of a future Palestinian state.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110111/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflictjerusalemmayor
US sets talks with Israeli, Palestinian negotiators (AFP)
AFP – Israeli and Palestinian envoys are expected to hold separate talks in Washington this week with US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part Washington’s bid to revive peace negotiations, the State Department said Monday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110110/pl_afp/israelpalestinianpeaceus
Sarkozy envoy with ‘message from Damascus’
French envoy meets Netanyahu after visit to Syria, passing along message about possible renewal of peace talks. Israeli official: No special development.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011866,00.html
Iranian ‘Mossad agent’: I was trained in Israel
Iranian state television shows interview with man who claims he was trained in espionage by Israel and participated in the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran last year.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iranian-mossad-agent-i-was-trained-in-israel-1.336288?localLinksEnabled=false
Iran ‘uncovers Israel spy network’
State television identifies a young Iranian as “main element” behind death of a nuclear scientist in January last year.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/01/2011110232331581251.html
Other News

Blackwater (or Xe) in the West Bank
“A company closely associated with the security firm once known as Blackwater has won a new State Department contract worth more than $84 million over five years.  The contract was won by International Developments Solutions, a joint venture that includes U.S. Training Center, a company until recently owned by Xe Services, which changed its name from Blackwater following a cascade of legal problems over several years.  The consortium will provide protective security in the Israel-occupied West Bank, “services that are based from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/blackwater-or-xe-in-west-bank.html

Arafat’s aide: New information on president’s death
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — The special advisor to Yasser Arafat said Monday that he will soon release new information on the death of the late president.  In an interview with Ma’an Radio, Bassam Abu Shareef said research conducted by British forensic experts had revealed that Arafat was poisoned with Thallium. New information had also come to light, Abu Shareef said, adding that he would present it to an investigation committee.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=349911
Environmentalism in Gaza
“As Plato (or possible Aesop) said, necessity is the mother of invention. Despite the almost total lack of research facilities (al-Azhar University’s Agriculture faculty and the Islamic University’s laboratories were bombed in 2009), a highly-educated population dealing with severely-restricted circumstances is a recipe for innovation. I have seen ever more elaborate (and waterproof) buildings constructed from compressed earth, with two small factories now producing cheaper and more durable blocks. I have visited a laboratory – more of a kitchen, really – where an organic pesticide (BT) is being produced so effectively that the owners sell it to municipalities for a tenth of the price it costs in Israel. That knocked mosquitoes on the head throughout Gaza; they are now working on producing the variant which attacks the dreaded tomato pest mentioned above (bane of my summer, and that of 3,500 tomato farmers).” 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/environmentalism-in-gaza.html
Video clip comes out against incitement
Following video threatening deputy state prosecutor, new youtube clip portrays incitement in Israeli society, containing archive footage with calls to murder Defense Minister Barak.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011961,00.html
Leftists: Lieberman’s comments only spur us on
Netanyahu talks to FM following comments made against leftist groups but avoids denouncing statements, chooses to focus on remarks made against Likud ministers. Meanwhile, leftist activist describe feeling of persecution, stress comments only encourage them to work harder.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011955,00.html
Report: How Arab money is transferred to Israeli Left
After Knesset approves establishment of inquiry commission into activity of leftist groups in Israel, Im Tirtzu report reveals money trail, which it says begins in Arab countries and ends with pro-Palestinian activity in the Jewish state. B’Tselem: Claims unfounded.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011914,00.html
Israeli drug dealer arrested in Peru
(Video) Thirty-six-year-old Yaniv Benaim wanted in India for involvement in Goa drug network linked to local police officers, politicians. Reports claim Benaim also wanted on 16 counts of fraud, violence in Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4011807,00.html
Analysis/Op-ed

Death by Tear Gas: On West Bank ‘Calm’, Stephen Lendman
Daily accounts can be followed on important sites such as Palestine Chronicle.com, Palestine Telegraph.com, and the Electronic Intifada.net as well as others like Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, available online in English.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16541

Demolishing another Jerusalem Landmark, Jeremy Salt
Once again Israel demonstrates its contempt for the world. This time the location is the Jerusalem quarter of Sheikh Jarrah and this time the occasion is the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel, the latest target in a process of demolition and rebuilding in the Zionist image that has been going on for the past six decades in all of Palestine.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16540
The Holocaust, Palestine and the Arab World: Gilbert Achcar interviewed
The Electronic Intifada contributor Arwa Aburawa interviews Gilbert Achcar about his latest book, The Arabs and the Holocaust.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11722.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Amb. Richard P Parker, dead
By way of coincidence, I received the obituary of Ambassador Richard P Parker the day I wrote about him on my blog yesterday (in the post about Jeffrey Feltman–please don’t compare the two otherwise it would be an insult to knowledge, education, and expertise).   I knew Parker when I lived in Washington, DC and I saw him while he worked at the Middle East Institute.  He in fact, published my first piece in a journal: a study of the internal contradiction of the PFLP which he published in the Middle East Journal back in 1987 when I was still finishing my dissertation at Georgetown.  

Parker’s level of Arabic was quite impressive and he was very impatient with mistakes in Arabic transliteration which are still common in the press and in academia.  Parker served as ambassador in Lebanon in the late 1970s so I obviously had many questions to ask him about that experience.  I remember how much he detested Bashir Gemayyel–the worst Lebanese ever–and how he consistently referred to him as “thug”.   He was alarmed when the US government would later endorse him in the Reagan administration.  

He also served in Lebanon during the time when the Lebanese government tried to deployed army troops in the South (I personally am opposed to the deployment of any Lebanese troops in South Lebanon and call for their total removal from the area–along with the UNIFI–because the South should only be home to those resistance groups, Lebanese and Palestinians, who are willing to defend Lebanon from Israeli aggression and to attack Israel from Lebanese territory.)  And for Parker, it was clear that it was Israel and not the PLO–as the Israeli propaganda in the US would have it–which prevented the deployment and bombed the troops.  

Obama needs to twist Israeli arms, George S. Hishmeh
US President Barack Obama must be very disappointed these days. He was hardly applauded in the American media which reviewed his domestic and foreign policies — especially his stance on the Middle East — at the beginning of the century’s second decade.
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/obama-needs-to-twist-israeli-arms-1.741655
The lobby has been broken because… Israel isn’t good for the Jews, Philip Weiss
A few months back, young Brandon Davis, writing thrillingly in the Daily Princetonian, blamed the American Jewish community en bloc for the crimes of Israel–   [J]ust as it is fair to criticize Israeli policies, it is fair to criticize its apologists — groups that claim to represent the entire American Jewish community. American Jews have traditionally been at the forefront of progressive movements. But in recent years, American Jewish institutions have trended toward the ugly side of Zionism, defending — or at least apologizing for — the Israeli hard right in its continuation of the occupation of the West Bank and repression of Palestinian identity. The undeniable injustices of the Israeli government and military warrant criticism; silence in the face of these injustices warrants criticism as well.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/the-lobby-has-been-broken-because-israel-isnt-good-for-the-jews.html
Why it will be said one day that anti-Zionists had a better grasp on 20th C history than Uri Avnery or Tom Friedman, Philip Weiss
“Left Zionism is the belief that destroying a people and taking their homeland is something that can be done humanely and fairly through mutual agreement and dialogue.” —Gabriel Ash of Jews Sans Fronteres
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/why-it-will-be-said-one-day-that-anti-zionists-had-a-better-grasp-on-20th-c-history-than-uri-avnery-or-tom-friedman.html
on pin-headed use of the word Shoah, Max Ajl
Someone pointed me to a recent piece about why it’s reasonable to call other atrocities Shoah, a Hebrew word that means literally catastrophe or devastation, and in its proper noun variant, is used for Holocaust. The author is of zero interest to me. What interests me is that it is taken as a point of high principle that atrocities other than those that occurred to “Jews” (but really to Roma, the disabled, gays, communists, trade-unionists, and others) should also be called Shoah, genocide, or Holocaust. Like most principles dear to the Facebook and Twitter battalions of the Palestine solidarity movement, this is stupidity of the first order. It’s stupid because under the cover of anti-Zionism, it’s Zionist to the core: a people has not endured tragedy until it has had its own Holocaust.

Atrocity must mirror the purposeful genocide of the Jews before it can enter into the historical ledger books as intolerable massacre. It’s also deeply racist: atrocity must be compared to not only Jewish atrocity but white peoples’ atrocity before it becomes real. It’s colonialist: the first atrocity to enter History was the Holocaust. Forget Leopold’s War. Forget Armenia. Forget the capitalist famines of the late Victorian Era. Shoahshoahshoah. Sorry but I had to get that out of my system.
http://www.maxajl.com/?p=4759&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+http%2Fwwwmaxajlcom%2Ffeedrss2+%28Jewbonics%29

There can be no half-measures on Palestinian sovereignty
The Arab Peace Initiative, which was adopted by the Arab League at its summit in Beirut in 2002, is a comprehensive peace initiative first proposed by then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and re-endorsed at the Riyadh summit in 2007.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=123467
Britain’s War on Islam, Stephen Lendman
Western vilification of Islam is longstanding, cruel, and unjustifiable. In his 1978 book “Orientalism,” Edward Said explained a pattern of Western misinterpretation of the East, especially the Middle East. In “Culture and Imperialism” (1993), he broadened Orientalism’s core argument to show the complex relationships between East and West by referring to colonizers and the colonized, “the familiar (Europe, West, us) and the strange (the Orient, East, them).”
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/01/britains-war-on-islam/
Partition of Sudan, As`ad Abukhalil
A lot can be said. Yes, the Arab North (with Soviet and later US support) has dealt with the South with a combination of neglect, racism, and cruelty.  But Israeli dirty hands have been present in the Southern rebellion from the start (there is no secessionist or partitionist movement in the Arab world in which Israel has not been heavily involved: either in support of the government (like in Oman) or in opposition to government (like in Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, etc).  

But the referendum is a sham.  This is one of the most illiterate areas in the world.  The US creates an artificial mark for voter turnout level as a criterion, and then the US spends lavishly on a PR campaign in favor of the secession.  I mean, this is all cooked up by the US, no matter how much I condemn successive Sudanese government, especially the US puppet, the famous kook, Ja`far Numayri.  Also, there is something very fishy about the behavior of the tyrant, Omar Bashir.  He suddenly accepts the referendum and his ambassador even said that if the South wants to establish relations with Israel, it is their business.  

Economists Foretell of U.S. Decline, China’s Ascension
“The age of American predominance is over,” he told a panel. “The (Chinese) Yuan will be the world’s reserve currency within two decades.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7082BL20110109
Lebanon

UN to help Lebanon demarcate sea borders to protect gas reserves
Beirut requested UN to protect the country’s gas reserves along the maritime border with Israel, after a huge gas field was discovered underneath the Mediterranean Sea.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/un-to-help-lebanon-demarcate-sea-borders-to-protect-gas-reserves-1.336271?localLinksEnabled=false

Moussawi: U.S. veto only hurdle for settlement
SIDON: Hizbullah M.P. Nawwaf al-Moussawi said Monday that part of the Saudi-Syrian talks to solve Lebanon’s political crisis was focused on whether to implement the agreement before or after the release of indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is probing the assassination of Former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=123477
Iraq

Monday: 5 Iraqis Killed, 13 Wounded
At least five Iraqis were killed and 13 more were wounded in new violence. Several more were wounded in Baghdad, but no figures were released. Meanwhile, Diyala provincial police reported arrested almost 10,000 suspects last year. They also noted that 1,876 policemen were killed and just over 3,000 were wounded during 2010. Many of these casualties went unreported in western media sources.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/01/10/monday-5-iraqis-killed-13-wounded/

Bombs Kill Four Across Iraq, among Them Children
Four Iraqis, including two children, have been killed and five others have been injured in bombings across the country over the past 48 hours.
http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=220396
13 killed and wounded in Iraq car bomb
The final death toll of the car bomb in Al Shirqat District, northern Tikrit, left 13 people among killed and wounded, a police source in Salahuddin province said. An official from Baghdad Secretariat was wounded in an armed attack on Monday night.
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-58801-13-killed-and-wounded-in-Iraq-car-bomb.html
Kuwaiti Coast Guards attack Iraqi boat
Three Iraqi sailors were wounded and four others went missing due to an attack by Kuwaiti Coast Guards on an Iraqi boat that was drowned, Al Sindibad Iraqi Fishermen Association said. Kuwaiti Coast Guards detained two Iraqi sailors, the Association said denying reports saying that Iraqi sailors.
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-58802-Kuwaiti-Coast-Guards-attack-Iraqi-boat.html
Iraq: cleric warns Maliki of walkout if US troops stay
Moqtada al-Sadr willing to imperil prime minister’s position if US soliders stay past expiration of security agreement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/iraq-cleric-maliki-us-troops
Iraq to buy $26 billion worth of armaments from United States
The money will be used to buy aircraft, helicopters, tanks, other armored vehicles, warships and missiles, to enter service with the Iraqi defense and interior ministries.
http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20110109/162080981.html
Occupation of Iraq destroys women’s lives
More than seven years after the US- and UK-led invasion of their country, Iraqis continue to endure an occupation that has systematically violated their basic rights. In particular, the role and situation of women and girls has declined precipitously.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11723.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Kurdish club scene booming as Baghdad bans alcohol (AP)
AP – Dozens of men gathered in the smoky little club to watch five scantily clad dancers sway their hips to the beat of a drum and the grooves of an electric piano. Once a common sight in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, the scene can now only be found in the more liberal Kurdish north.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_kurdish_club_scene
U.S. and other world news

Date set for Assange hearing in UK
WikiLeaks’ founder to face full hearing on February 7 over Swedish request for his extradition over alleged sex crimes.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/01/2011111132318207707.html

Gabrielle Giffords Brain Injury Update: Congresswoman Gives Thumbs-Up
TUCSON, Ariz. — Doctors treating U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said Monday the congresswoman was responding to verbal commands by raising two fingers of her left hand and even managed to give a thumbs-up. Giffords, 40, is in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Tucson’s University Medical Center after she was shot through the head Saturday during a meet-and-greet with voters outside a supermarket. Two patients were discharged Sunday night. Eight others, including Giffords, remained hospitalized.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/gabrielle-giffords-brain-_n_807136.html
Fox News chief tells GOP employees to ‘tone it down’
It appears that even the president of Fox News knows when rhetorical attacks have gone too far. In a wide-ranging interview with Russell Simmons, Fox News’s Roger Ailes remarked that he’d told his employees to “shut up, tone it down” and “make your argument intellectually.” You don’t have to do it with bombast,” he reportedly […]
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/fox-news-chief-tells-gop-employees-tone-down/
US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed
A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-15050027.html
NATO Occupation Force Strike Kills 3 Afghan Policemen
A NATO airstrike killed three Afghan police officers in central Afghanistan on Sunday in what Afghan officials said was friendly fire, and two more police officers died Monday in a suicide car bomb attack in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar Province.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?_r=1
Pakistan will implode if US does not leave Afghanistan
The assassination of Salmaan Taseer has shown only too clearly the growing extremism in Pakistan. – This is not just between the religious and the secular, but also the polarisation that the “war on terror” has caused between the various religious sects.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-01-09-pakistan-will-implode-if-us-does-not-leave-afghanistan
Pakistanis believe U.S. is destroying their country
America has a dilemma in Afghanistan in that there is really no face-saving formula for an exit. The Taliban are gaining more territory, and they more or less control the countryside.
http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20110110/COLUMNIST12/110109527/-1/NEWS
Pakistan governor’s killing ‘hidden hands’ at work
In her first interview following the assassination of her father, the daughter of Salmaan Taseer tells Chanel 4 News she believes there are many “hidden hands” behind his murder.
http://www.channel4.com/news/pakistan-governors-killing-hidden-hands-at-work
Did the U.S. government misuse science to justify torture?
It is also possible that CIA doctors may have “neglected and/or concealed medical evidence of intentional harm” among detainees held after the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to a separate report from Physicians for Human Rights.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=did-the-us-government-misuse-scienc-2011-01-06&sc=emailfriend
Soldier’s inhumane imprisonment
For five months, Pfc. Bradley Manning is confined to his cell for 23 hours a day, with no sheets and without exercise, while he awaits trial on charges of providing documents to WikiLeaks.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-manning-20110110,0,3558552.story
US demands Twitter release Assange details
A court order issued on 14 December ordered Twitter not to disclose the existence of the subpoena to any of those targeted because it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Only after legal action by Twitter was the order made public.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-demands-twitter-release-assange-details-2179740.html
US demands IP’s and other info of all 637,000 followers
Wikileaks says: Too late to unfollow; Trick used is to demand the lists, dates and IPs of all who received our twitter messages.
http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/23943796899184640
Original Twitter Subpoena : pdf: 637,000 #Wikileaks followers are target of US gov subpoena against Twitter
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter/subpoena.pdf
Facebook and Google under pressure over WikiLeaks
Pressure was growing for Facebook and Google to state whether they have been asked to submit data on prominent figures linked to WikiLeaks, as fresh signs emerged that a secret jury investigation will lead to an attempt to lay criminal charges against the whistleblowing website’s founder.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/facebook-and-google-under-pressure-over-wikileaks-2180281.html
Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans
President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20027837-501465.html
Iranian plane crashes
Make no mistake about it: blame the US and Israel (and their allies in EU) for all the plane crashes in Iran.  As is known, the Zionists believe that even plane spare parts should be on the sanctions list.  It is racism too: they would never apply sanctions affecting civilians if they people were white Europeans. 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/iranian-plane-crashes.html
’35 killed’ in Tunisia violence
At least 35 people have died in violent unrest in Tunisia, according to a human rights group – more than the 14 the regime said had died.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-12162096
Israeli dirty hands in Tunisia
“The Tunisian regime has killed over 20people thus far in attacks against civilian demonstrations, Tunisians have picked up tear gas cans with Hebrew writing identifying them from Israel. It is widely believed that secret relations exist. Now we know where the regime gets its tear gas. Other tear gas cans are in English and advise use for animals. This is how they treat Arabs! Not that Arab regimes need lessons from anyone as to how to kill their own people, but the regime mimics Israeli brutality against Palestinians where Palestinians have died after being hit by tear gas cans.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/israeli-dirty-hands-in-tunisia.html
Algeria unrest eases after state vows to lower food prices
ALGIERS: Algeria began cleaning up Monday following days of rioting over soaring food costs that left five people dead, hundreds wounded and 1,000 in jail, as authorities firmed up pledges to lower prices. Businesses, schools and public services opened as normal in much of the country as unrest that kicked off Wednesday last week.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=123468
Did Hillary Clinton and Jeffrey Feltman bring up her case when they met the Saudi king in NYC?
“JEDDAH – A 23-year-old unmarried woman was awarded one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery and trying to abort the resultant fetus.  The District Court in Jeddah pronounced the verdict on Saturday after the girl confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse with a man who had offered her a ride. The man, the girl confessed, took her to a rest house, east of Jeddah, where he and four of friends assaulted her all nightlong.”  Notice it said: “she confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse”.  She was raped, damn it. RAPED.  Does that exist in the legal books of House of Saud?? 
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/did-hillary-clinton-and-jeffrey-feltman.html
Woman jailed for beating maid
A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for beating her Indonesian maid.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/woman-jailed-for-beating-maid-2181139.html

 

The general vanishes

Jan 11, 2011

Yakov M. Rabkin

 

A few years ago, an Iranian general, Ali Reza Asgari, deputy minister of defence, vanished during a foreign trip. Rumours spread that he had defected or had been kidnapped by Israelis or Americans. At the end of 2010, the general once again appeared in the news. This time he was reportedly found dead in Israel. 

While no confirmation from Israel is forthcoming, there remains a strong suspicion that he was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Turkey, brought to Israel via the US Air base at Incirlik, interrogated for three years and finally died (was killed or committed suicide) in an Israeli prison. I have no privileged sources to support or deny the story. As a scholar long interested in Israel and Zionism, I can only assess the probability of such an event. Could Israel commit such acts? Is it congruent with its past record? Does it fit the ideology of Zionism that lies at the basis of the state of Israel?

Prima facie, the source of this story appears credible. This story reached me through a blog named ‘Tikun Olam”, Hebrew for Repairing the World, run by Richard Silverstein, an American Jewish activist. Jews, such as Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky and the rabbis of Neturei Karta have been among the most active and best-informed critics of Israel. This is no coincidence.

Most Jews, religious or not, rejected Zionism when it emerged in the late 19th century. In spite of the establishment of the Zionist state and its military an economic successes, Jewish opposition has not vanished to this day. My recent book on Jewish opposition to Zionism explains and interprets this important but often obscured phenomenon that sheds a different light on the century-long conflict in the Holy Land. Having looked at what motivates Jews who reject Zionism, I am inclined to trust Jewish critics of Israel.

While they are motivated by a strong desire to show that what Israel is and does has nothing to do with Jews, Jewish history and Jewish religion, their sources are usually reliable, and I have no reason to doubt this one.

Secondly, the suspected scenario fits established patterns. Kidnapping individuals in other countries and bringing them to Israel is part of the ethos that Israeli security services have developed over the years.

The history of Zionist activities even before the establishment of the state of Israel shows a taste for intrepid, often violent adventures and disdainful disregard for law, national or international. The cultivation of distrust by the state of Israel pretending to assure “the survival of the Jewish people” serves as a carte blanche to justify the use of any and all means available. Ironically, Zionism has turned the Holy Land into the most dangerous country for a Jew to live in. 

The first political murder perpetrated by Zionist organizations occurred as early as 1924, when Jacob De Haan, a prominent opponent of Zionism, was shot as he was leaving a synagogue in Jerusalem after the evening prayer. His murderers were Zionists who had infiltrated the British police. The murder was to prevent De Haan from organizing a delegation of rabbis to London in the hope of convincing British colonial authorities that Zionists did not represent Jews in Palestine or elsewhere, that Zionists represented only themselves.

As a result of De Haan’s assassination, this delegation never left for London, and Zionists continued to act as if the Jews of the world were supporting them. Among the conspirators to murder was the future President of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Tsvi. Later, Zionist assassination squads committed murders of British and international officials in Cairo, with at least one of them being attributed to the future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir. 

There is a bitter irony in the manner in which the state of Israel consistently ignores and defies public international law. In fact, Israel may be the only state to derive its legitimacy from an international organization, i.e. the United Nations. It was a decision of the UN General Assembly to partition Palestine in 1947 that gave the Zionist movement a degree of international respectability. Taken against the will of the majority of Palestinians – Jewish, Christian and Muslim – the UN resolution was a bizarre vestige of colonial mentality and a recipe for chronic violence that has plagued the region ever since.

When the United Nations later called on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees back, Israel refused and snubbed the international organization, proceeding to obliterate hundreds of Palestinian villages. Israel added insult to injury by settling the lands conquered from Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967. Israel has since ignored dozens of resolutions adopted by the UN.

Israel has acted with resolve and determination, colonizing the occupied territories, assassinating presumed enemies around the world and – with particular relevance to our case – kidnapping people in other countries. The kidnapped are a rather motley crowd, ranging from the Nazi official Adolf Eichmann kidnapped in Argentina to the Israeli nuclear technician Mordekhai Vanunu abducted from Italy. Since kidnapping is part of the Israeli arsenal, it is quite conceivable that General Asgari would be dealt this way. / Israeli security services enjoy the privilege of impunity because of unswerving protection by the United States.

In fact, there is an interesting parallel between the exceptionalism of Israel and that of the United States. Both countries have acted self-righteously in pursuit of its interests whatever the legal consequences. The only counterweight has been the threat of credible force from their adversaries: this is how, for nearly half a century, the aggressive instincts of the United States were held in check by the Soviet Union.

For decades, rather than admit that the colonial settler state generates hostility through dispossession and displacement, Israel has attributed the hostility of Palestinians and other Arabs to irrational causes, including “the new antisemitism”. This justified routine use of violence as “the only language they understand”.

The United States and other Western nations embraced this doctrine soon after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Thus the hostility of the perpetrators of the attack on the Twin Towers was attributed to “their hatred of our way of life”, rather than to perfectly rational causes such as rejection of US policies in Western Asia. The stage was set for the concept of “Clash of Civilizations”, and for the unabashed reliance on the use of force in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan as well as growing threats of the use of force against Iran.

This is how the US practices have come to imitate those of Israel. Kidnapping was renamed “extraordinary rendition”, and came to be practiced with active cooperation of several European and Arab countries. There is little doubt that Israel and the United States would cooperate in such endeavours. It is therefore quite conceivable that the kidnapping of General Asgari could be carried out as a joint venture of Israel and the United States.

To justify a kidnapping of a deputy defence minister of another country, Israel had to build up the image of Iran as a dangerous and irrational enemy. This is how the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was portrayed as an anti-Semite who threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

These two claims have been proven false. While overtly anti-Zionist, he is not anti-Jewish. Indeed, had he been anti-Semitic, he would have harassed Iran’s Jews rather than criticize a nuclear-armed regional superpower. Nor has he threatened to wipe Israel off the map, as Zionist propaganda claims. Rather, comparing it to the Soviet Union, he expressed a wish to see Israel as the Zionist state disappear “from the page of time”. Just as the Soviet regime was not wiped out in a hail of nuclear weapons, he does not suggest using force to transform Israel into a normal state of equal citizens, which would live in peace with its neighbours. Like many non-, anti- and post-Zionist Jews, he wants Israel to evolve from a state for the Jews to an inclusive state of all its citizens.

A wish to see Israel evolve this way was misrepresented as a physical threat against Israeli civilians. This is how the emotionally charged allegations hurled at the Iranian president have become established truth and, moreover, ground for action in Israel and the United States.

Zionism has been a rebellion against Diaspora Judaism and its cult of humility and appeasement. Several Jewish thinkers had warned of this predicament. One of them prophesied in 1948, soon after the unilateral proclamation of independence by the Zionist leaders: 

And even if the Jews were to win the war, […] the “victorious” Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded inside ever-threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defence. […] And all this would be the fate of a nation that – no matter how many immigrants it could still absorb and how far it extended its boundaries – would still remain a very small people greatly outnumbered by hostile neighbours. 

This warning came from the German-American scholar Hannah Arendt who understood the perils of establishing a state against the will of local inhabitants and all the surrounding nations. Secular and religious thinkers alike had feared that Zionism would endanger Jews engulfing them in chronic violence. Indeed, to impose itself onto its “hostile neigbours” Israel has acquired the mightiest military in the region. But this has brought its citizens neither peace nor tranquillity as if confirming the words of the Biblical prophet Samuel: it is not by strength that man prevails (Samuel I 2:9). 

Nowadays, when no Arab state poses a military threat to Israel it is Iran that the Israelis are being told to fear. Just next to Iran, which is as yet far from acquiring a nuclear potential, lies Pakistan, an unstable regime with a real, not imaginary, nuclear arsenal. Just as Arendt prophesied, there may be no end to existential threats if Israel maintains its Zionist character. It follows that kidnapping a deputy minister of another country in a third one would make perfect sense in the Zionist frame of mind. While I have no solid evidence that the kidnapping took place, its probability appears rather high. 

The author is Professor of History and associate of CERIUM, Centre for International Studies at the University of Montreal. His recent book on the history of Jewish opposition to Zionism has been translated into eleven languages. It was named one of the three best books of the year in Japan in 2010, nominated for the Hecht Prize for Studies on Zionism in 2008, and for Canada’s Governor General Award in 2006.

 

You know the lobby’s in crisis when Beinart gets microphone from Oren and Wiesel is trying to revive Zionism

Jan 11, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Yesterday I wrote that the Israel lobby is crumbling— because Israel’s disgraceful behavior has made Israel bad for the Jews, because the two-state solution is fading and bringing about a fight at last between liberal Zionists who want the ’67 borders (David Remnick) and the neoconservative expansionists that the liberal Zionists made the mistake of building an American coalition with (Bret Stephens).

Here is more evidence for my belief that the lobby is in crisis.

Israeli ambassador and former American scholar Michael Oren, who is a hardliner, will be speaking at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs plenum in Washington in early March. The JCPA is very conservative on Israel, but look who who else will be at the plenum: Peter Beinart, the man who turned on the Israel lobby from inside it.

Writes Jeff Blankfort:

when the JCPA invites Beinart to speak, it means that there ARE serious problems within its Zionist core. Watch for an attack on the JCPA and pressure to withdraw the invite but even that will be positive. 

I wonder where this leaves J Street? Beinart is sort of their boy. How alt will the J Street conference in February be if JCPA is offering Beinart? (I think this means J Street will have to come out for sanctions, to distinguish itself.) Here is JCPA’s remarkably tolerant/realistic intro for Beinart:

…Peter Beinart argues that as young American Jews become less liberal and less Zionist, they don’t fit with mainstream American Jewish organizations. According to Beinart, young Americans have “grown up viewing Israel as a regional hegemon and an occupying power. As a result, they are more conscious than their parents of the degree to which Israeli behavior violates liberal ideals, and less willing to grant Israel an exemption because its survival seems in peril.” He has uncovered a disconnect that will affect the future of the Jewish community’s organizations.

Some more evidence for my view comes from the hardliners. Elie Wiesel and the birthright organization have started a new outfit called Take Back Zionism that seeks to address the crisis by– making the kids even more nationalist-religious! (K Feldman addresses the issue in the post above.) The group’s vague creed:

Zionism is not just about conflict and politics. It is a centuries’ old idea deeply rooted in the Jewish community and tradition. Zionism is many things.  It is land, history, religion, politics, peoplehood, culture, national destiny, self-determination. It is innovation and tradition. Zionism is ancient and modern.

I think that is ahistorical. Wiesel is locked into an eastern European, century-old idealistic view of Zionism as a liberation ideology, and this has nothing to do with modern empowered American Jewish life. Five of the grab-bag definitions of Zionism that folks are offering at Take Back Zionism:

A love for Israel .

The only democracy in the middle east

The pursuit of a safe-haven for the Jewish people all over the world.

Having a nation-state for the Jewish people. It’s our homeland.

 

Jewish unity

A frend writes: 

So far only 213 people have sent in definitions. The site appears to be an attempt to bring together a diverse group of people who consider themselves Zionists. What’s interesting is that the views expressed dramatically clash with each other and don’t have any coherent vision whatsoever, especially those provided by various Zionist organizations. The definitions are very revealing about American Jewish youth but also provide a way for birthright to hear our criticisms directly by flooding the site with our own definitions. …

 

On Sale Today: The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict

Jan 11, 2011

Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz

 

This is a big day for us: Nation Books is publishing our new book — The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict, which is an abridged copy of the UN report accompanied by a dozen essays, exploring the political, legal and social legacy of the report and the Israeli attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.

The book comes out at an important new moment in the history of the conflict, with the collapse of talks between the two sides, and growing international calls for accountability for Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories.  

A diverse group of leading commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is assembled here. Our forward Is from Justice Goldstone’s longtime friend,   Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Our introduction, which says that the report has revived the principles of universal human rights and international law, is by bestselling author Naomi Klein.  

Human rights leader Raji Sourani describes the situation in Gaza today, legal scholar Jules Lobel explains the post-World War II standards on which the report is based, Jerome Slater takes apart the many criticisms of the report, Rashid Khalidi describes the rapidly-shifting western view of Israel that has given the report such an extended life.

Among other essayists, Noam Sheizaf explains the siege mentality inside Israel that the report has helped to generate, Letty Cottin Pogrebin says that the personal attacks on Goldstone have been a blot on the Jewish community, Henry Siegman  says Israel’s indifference to the loss of innocent life has undermined its legitimacy, and Ali Abunimah lays out the manner in which Israel’s crucial support in the west, from liberal and progressive communities, is beginning to crumble in part due to the Goldstone Report.

We include a leading critical piece on the report, from Moshe Halbertal, a professor of philosophy at Hebrew University, while former Washington State congressman Brian Baird relates that when the Report came to the House, “many of my colleagues, several of them prominent, literally did not understand either that collective punishment is a war crime, or why it is a war crime.”

The book concludes with a wrenching piece by Laila El-Haddad, about how her family survived the onslaught.

Our book can be read by newcomers to the issue and by old hands.  It anchors the historic report with a range of insights on what is happening to Israeli and Palestinian politics. It will be widely read, and we ask for your help in getting out the word.

Find out where you can buy the book here and follow the book on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest news about the book. Thanks!

 

EU envoy sticks a fork in 2SS

Jan 11, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

From a DailyKos commenter, via Annie:

EU envoy report in full [.pdf]. It describes how Israel is implementing “the progressive separation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank” and concludes that “Israel is, by legal and practical means, actively pursuing its annexation by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city”. It warns that if these trends aren’t quickly reversed the prospects of E. Jerusalem becoming the capital of a Palestinian state – that is, the prospects for a two-state settlement – are slim to none.”

And look at this, from that link. Note the global repercussions of radicalizing religious tensions.

The interlinked Israeli policies and measures continue to negatively affect East Jerusalem’s crucial role in Palestinian political, economic, social and cultural life. This has contributed to the increasing separation between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. The wider political consequences of the above measures are of great concern. Over the past few years the changes to the city have run counter to the peace process. Attempts to exclusively emphasize the Jewish identity of the city threaten its religious diversity and radicalise the conflict, with potential regional and global repercussions.