NOVANEWS
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Netanyahu has nothing to worry about
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On a NY stage, four strong characters seek out the meaning of Gaza and the Arab spring
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‘Obama gave a speech? Really? As if I care’ – Egypt’s Hossam El-Hamalawy
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With one signal — 1967– Obama decides to take on Netanyahu on the Arab Spring
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Challenging Pastor Hagee on his home turf: “We caught him off guard…with just our thoughts and our courage.”
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Nakba Day, in the Atlantic no less
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Ethnic dry cleaning
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Three Haiku for the JNF
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Caterpillar tries to project a caring image
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Praise for Obama
Netanyahu has nothing to worry about
May 20, 2011
David Samel
Israeli PM Netanyahu has expressed dismay about President Obama’s Middle East speech. Bibi supposedly was outraged that Obama mentioned the pre-1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations.
Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far – a point driven home during a furious phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, during which the prime minister reacted angrily to the president’s plan to endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders for a future Palestinian state. Mr. Obama did not back down.
Another Times article notes Obama’s sharp break from past approaches.
Mr. Obama declared that the prevailing borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war – adjusted to some degree to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank – should be the basis of a deal. While the 1967 borders have long been viewed as the foundation for a peace agreement, Mr. Obama’s formula of land swaps to compensate for disputed territory created a new benchmark for a diplomatic solution.
By the way, was there any communication between these reporters and the Times editorial staff, who more sensibly noted:
There was much hand-wringing in Israel over the president’s call for a two-state solution based on “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” The language was new, but it was not a major change in American policy. It must not become another excuse for inaction.
Bibi’s point man in the US, Alan Dershowitz, decried that Obama “insisted that Israel must surrender all of the areas captured in its defensive war of 1967, subject only to land swaps.” Dershowitz added for good measure that in 1967, a unanimous Security Council passed Resolution 242 with the explicit understanding that parts of Jerusalem, including “the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and the access roads to Hebrew University,” would be retained by Israel “without the need for any land swaps.” He would know, you see, because he “played a very small role in helping to draft” the resolution, and that was at least his understanding even if this provision was somehow omitted from the final text.
Relax, guys. Nothing’s changed. The old formula is still in place.
Of course the 1967 lines have always been the starting point for discussion – they were in Barak’s “generous” 2000 offer at Camp David, the more promising Taba negotiations in 2001 that were cut short due to the impending Israeli election of the rejectionist Sharon, and in Olmert’s 2008 “even more generous” offer.
Why the uproar now? What was Obama supposed to say – that the starting point was complete Israeli control from the river to the sea, and that Israel could expect concessions for each square kilometer that it graciously yielded? Even in our poisoned political atmosphere, that would never fly. The 1967 lines are the only logical starting point. The devil has always been in the details, and Obama explicitly included those devilish details in his speech.
First, there’s the “mutually agreed swaps” of land to determine permanent borders. By definition, such swaps require negotiations, which would be between the elected legitimate government of the only democracy in the Middle East and, and… Uh oh. The Palestinians have reached a unity agreement in which Hamas will be part of any negotiations. The Palestinians themselves and most of the international community applaud this reconciliation as a necessary step to meaningful progress, but to the US and Israel, it spells “DQ”.
Obama: “the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel – how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist.”
So negotiations are required to determine the “mutually agreed swaps,” and negotiations are impossible with Hamas included in the decision-making process. When Palestinians insist on their right to choose their own leaders and to have a more inclusive group represent them, guess whose fault it is when these land swaps cannot be agreed upon for lack of a legitimate negotiating partner?
And what about Jerusalem and right of return that Obama postpones for future consideration? We don’t even have to get there. The “peace process” will enter its 45th year of hopelessness, with those issues remaining trump cards to be called upon only in the unlikely event that there appears to be real progress toward a settlement.
It used to be that Israel could not negotiate while the threat of Iranian nuclear annihilation was hanging over its head. Before that, Ariel Sharon could not negotiate in the midst of terrorist attacks, and when such attacks were curtailed, he had forgotten about his promise to do so. Now the problem is the inclusion of Hamas in the Palestinian “government.” In September, it will be the confusion and uncertainty brought on by possible UN recognition of a Palestinian State. That’s another future obstacle already identified by Obama as a potential deal-breaker.
The certainty of unresolvable conflict, blamed on the Palestinians, is built in to Obama’s plan. The status quo has served the Israelis well over the past 44 years. Sure, they’ve had to endure various rounds of “terrorism,” that is, a small fraction of the violence they have visited upon the Palestinians and Lebanese. But the land has been theirs to play with. They get to rule over millions of stateless, powerless people, making extrajudicial decisions over every facet of their lives and even whether they have lives at all, and still get to call themselves a “democracy”; only a few people, and none who count, snicker in disgust.
The occupation may be intolerable, but only for its victims. Israel can continue for another 44 years, creating new “facts on the ground.” Such opinions presently are expressed only by its more outspoken politicians (e.g., Avigdor Lieberman, who dismissed peace with the Palestinians as being “decades away”), but they are shared by much of the government and the country as a whole. Netanyahu doesn’t really care where the starting point is. He just wants to make sure there’s no realistic possibility of an end point.
The fear that Obama has grown a spine is greatly exaggerated, though Netanyahu’s pretend “furious” reaction surely is designed to make Obama look and maybe feel tougher than he is. This doesn’t even address the underlying problem of the illegal settlements which make the two-state solution impossible. Obama’s criticism of the settlements was limited to the fact that they are “continuing,” and of course the Palestinians were to blame because they “walked away from talks.”
So Obama has endorsed a blueprint for no progress toward an unachievable outcome, and we are supposed to believe Netanyahu’s howls of outrage over a single reference to the long-standing “starting point” for the road to nowhere. How transparent is this? Even Jeffrey Goldberg doesn’t buy it!
On a NY stage, four strong characters seek out the meaning of Gaza and the Arab spring
May 20, 2011
Philip Weiss
Last night we had an event about Gaza in Manhattan with the Culture Project. It was so great and affirming that I was up most of the night savoring the experience. It was in a grand hall in midtown Manhattan, it was sold out, people actually paid money to go in, and they were rewarded with wisdom about Gaza, Goldstone and the Arab spring. Of the five people on the stage that night, four were women. Many people commented on that, and god knows I’m proud to have had a hand in that staging. But what did they say?
The four experts were like four big characters in a David Hare play. They were all so distinct. Each time they spoke you wanted to hear that character come out then, in the life of the evening. No one dominated, until the end. The thaumaturge (I think I get to use that word, you know I am a helpless showoff) was the moderator Laura Flanders, host and founder of Grit-TV, who called the players out of the shadows with deft phrases.
Naomi Klein was the headliner, and she did what she always does, takes a conversation to a big plane. At the start she said, we did not need human rights reports and international law and the 450 pages of the Goldstone Report, we knew what we saw in the last days of 2008 in Gaza and it was wrong. That is why we are here tonight, because we all saw that– and when she went to Gaza in June 2009 she met people who felt abandoned by the world.
Then at the end she tied it into global warming, and Jewishness too. She is working on a book and a movie on the subject and she said we will face more intensified water wars (implying that they have already begun) and people will become countryless. They will lose their land. And how can I as a north American Jew, Klein said, justify having not one but two countries, one as a possible refuge, in these circumstances. There was huge applause. I was deeply grateful to her for the injection of the privilege/selfishness note, and the Jewish note.
Seated across from Klein was Colonel Desmond Travers of the Goldstone Mission. He has a clipped white military mustache and a military mien and a twinklin sense of humor. He said that he had wanted to go to Gaza because it was a perfect lab for studying the new theories of asymmetrical warfare and counterinsurgency. He spoke of shells and command posts and control towers and tanks and mortars and reminded me a little of the fabulous Uncle Toby of Tristram Shandy, the hobbyhorsical military man. But a moral thread ran through everything he said: he doesn’t know what this asymmetrical warfare means, it is a justification for killing civilians whenever anyone walks toward a post.
Many an army practices scorched earth, many of them poison (pysen he pronounced it) wells, but Travers has never witnessed the terrain-destruction he saw in Gaza. 140,000 olive trees destroyed, 130,000 citrus. Farms and factories bulldozed and sacked, the border turned into a no-man’s land. The intention, he felt, was to burn into the Palestinians’ minds that they must never resist, and in answer to Goldstone’s reconsideration in the Washington Post, Travers said that were he to write the Goldstone Report all over again today, it would only be more emphatic.
But Travers offered a ray of hope. He spoke about Northern Ireland. He said the British had actually learned: you cannot arrest and abuse boys for throwing stones, they will be resistance fighters. And yesterday the Queen came to Ireland and bowed before the monument to the Irish resisters. We never thought we would see that day. Oh, can the Israelis learn?
Lizzy Ratner is my co-editor on the Goldstone volume and she was the storyteller of the event. She laid out what Gaza was, that Guernica of 22 days, she laid out the meaning of the Goldstone Report as a utopian document about international law and accountability. I know this stuff, but afterward a couple friends told me it is a rare thing to have a speaker so vigorously and clearly lay out the matter of the evening. “She was incredible,” says my sister-in-law, a film editor. “She opens her mouth and you’re just comfortable being in her space because she’s so confident and clear and speaks directly to the problem, and she’s accessible.” Ratner has a beautiful voice and I liked it when she took apart the Obama speech of earlier yesterday. She had found it so inspiring when he talked about the democracy movement in the Arab world, and the suicide of the Tunisian peddler. Then as soon as Obama came to the Palestinian case, “it was tsk-tsk.” He began by warning them not to undertake the “symbolic” action of seeking statehood at the U.N. in September. But what was the Tunisian peddler’s electrifying act if not a “symbolic” gesture? All the ideals ended when it came to Israel and Palestine… And in the Goldstone Report, she said, the U.S. fears the enforcement of international law to our drones and disproportions, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Isn’t that what shock and awe was all about?
Finally there was Noura Erakat. She is a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist and at the end of the night she stole the show. For she spoke almost entirely in political terms. To Travers’s fear that the imprisonment of stone-throwers would create resistance fighters, she said that she honored acts of resistance to occupation, on the part of Hamas and Hezbollah. There was applause, I was surprised how much; but it shows how much the left has now accepted the Palestinian cause. The way to express Palestinian solidarity is through supporting the boycott movement, with its nonviolent language of human rights.
The politics of the Arab spring… Erakat spoke of the effect of Oslo on the Palestinian movement. It splintered it into three or four parts: Israeli Palestinians, Palestinians under occupation, refugee populations in the Arab world, and the Palestinian Diaspora in the west. The Palestinian National Council was to represent the Diaspora but it has only met twice in the last 18 years, so it is “defunct.”
But the Arab spring has reunified the Palestinian national movement. It is coming to Palestine, liberating Palestine. People were thrilled; the affliction of the Palestinians was so much the matter of the evening that again, I say, the left is with her all the way.
But I also heard her selfishly. That was Laura Flanders’s specific effect on me: she said that solidarity must come from a selfish place, and I believe her all the way. I am in this movement selfishly, as an American Jew, two damaged communities. Noura Erakat and the refugees are the Jewish inheritance, they are ours. We rewrote the European Jewish experience on the backs of the Palestinians. We dispossessed them, we transferred them, we cleansed them, we subjugated them, we did to them much of what was done to us. And in the process we built what Europe created, a powerful Diaspora. However you feel about such power, such emotional displacement, the Jewish American achievement on my parents’ generation and mine was built out of such materials.
And now the Palestinian Diaspora is rising, and no one will be able to shut them out, and the world’s abandonment is coming to an end.
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‘Obama gave a speech? Really? As if I care’ – Egypt’s Hossam El-Hamalawy
May 20, 2011 12:03 pm | Seham
and other news from the Arab uprisings:
Bahrain
Amnesty International: Bahrain’s ‘revenge drive’ against protesters
Amnesty International researcher Said Boumedouha criticizes the ongoing detention and trials of pro-reform activists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1A9G1LW6Q&feature=player_embedded
Bahrain wants to expand military bases (Reuters)
Reuters – Bahrain floated the idea of expanding military bases within a bloc of Sunni-led Gulf Arab allies that helped it quash Shi’ite protests in March, while U.S. President Barack Obama criticized Manama over its crackdown.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110519/wl_nm/us_bahrain
Cameron’s “rolling out the red carpet for Bahrain’s torturer-in-chief…”
“… David Cameron raised concerns over the use of violence against protesters in Bahrain (as he) met with Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa at his home at London’s Downing Street for discussions on the uprisings across the Middle East and north Africa, …. Al Khalifa’s visit with Cameron — who posed for photographs shaking the leader’s hand outside Downing Street — comes after he declined an invitation to Prince William’s royal wedding …. In talks, Cameron “emphasized his support for the crown prince…”
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2011/05/camerons-rolling-out-red-carpet-for.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+friday-lunch-club+%28%22friday-lunch-club%22%29
Bahrain activists jailed following ‘politically motivated’ trials
A military court has sentenced 15 activists to between one and four years imprisonment for “participating in illegal demonstrations and inciting hatred against the regime”.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bahrain-activists-jailed-following-politically-motivated-trials-2011-05-18
Bahraini troops raid Nuwaidrat village
The Saudi-backed Bahraini soldiers have conducted several raids in the village of Nuwaidrat as a deadly crackdown continues against peaceful protesters. Activists say gunshots have been heard in the area on Wednesday and several checkpoints have been set up. According to witnesses, thugs attacked residents as they did the previous night in other areas.
http://jnoubiyeh.com/2011/05/bahraini-troops-raid-nuwaidrat-village.html
Bahrain court adjourns Shiite death sentence appeal (AFP)
AFP – A special security court in Bahrain postponed Wednesday the appeal hearing of four Shiites sentenced to death and three others jailed for life for killing two policemen.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110518/wl_mideast_afp/bahrainpoliticsunresttrial
Bahrain: Shiite cleric sentenced by security court (AP)
AP – A Bahraini security court has sentenced a prominent Shiite cleric and eight others to 20 years in prison for the alleged kidnapping of a police officer.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110519/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_bahrain
Bahrain editors deny charges amid reports of continuing bloodbath
Three former editors of Bahrain‘s main opposition newspaper have pleaded not guilty to charges of unethical coverage of Shia-led opposition protests against the kingdom’s Sunni rulers. Among the charges faced by the Al Wasat journalists is one of “publishing fabricated news.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/19/press-freedom-bahrain
Bahrain solidifies its Orwellian system
“Bahrain has set up new units within its Information Affairs Authority to monitor the output of foreign news services and social media, it was announced on Wednesday. Nawaf Mohammed Al Mawadh, the IAA’s director of publication and publishing and acting director of foreign media, said the move was part of a new strategic plan for 2011-15. Al Mawadh said that the IAA had restructured its directorates and created new ones to “further help project the kingdom’s achievements and respond to false information that some channels broadcast”. He said in comments published by state news agency BPA that new directorates included one for media monitoring, another for media relations and one for social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/bahrain-solidifies-its-orwellian-system.html
Bahrain Regime Tactics Squeezing Protests
Security force deployment around the country has significantly restricted the size of demonstrations – but people are determined to continue their struggle. We feel the world and its media have forgotten about Bahrain and this is really disappointing. The violence against its citizens is definitely working – but it is not a solution.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/bahrain-regime-tactics-squeezing-protests?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+iwprstories+%28IWPR+Stories%29
Egypt
Obama to offer debt relief to Egypt in Mideast speech (Reuters)
Reuters – President Barack Obama will unveil an economic aid program for Egypt and Tunisia on Thursday as part of a broad effort to support democratic reform in the Middle East and North Africa, U.S. officials said.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110519/wl_nm/us_obama_mideast_aid
Egypt: Victims of protest violence deserve justice
The Egyptian authorities must provide justice to all of the victims of violent repression that took place during mass anti-government protests earlier this year, Amnesty International said in a comprehensive report into abuses that led to at least 840 deaths.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/egypt-victims-protest-violence-deserve-justice-2011-05-17
Egypt teenager’s death sentence condemned
Ahmed Marous Ibrahim was one of four people sentenced to death by hanging by Cairo’s Supreme Military Court for abducting and raping a 17-year-old girl. Amnesty International today condemned the death sentence handed down by a Cairo military court against a 17-year-old boy, warning that unfair military trials are corroding Egypt’s criminal justice system.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/egypt-teenager%E2%80%99s-death-sentence-condemned-2011-05-18
Egypt FM: Renewal of our ties with Iran shouldn’t worry Israel
Nabil Elaraby, who is known for his hard line regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, says resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict is was the key to a regional peace agreement.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/egypt-fm-renewal-of-our-ties-with-iran-shouldn-t-worry-israel-1.362888?localLinksEnabled=false
Need confirmation : Hussein salem arrested in Israel !? “Updated”
Ya people I need a confirmation quickly , Youm 7 “Which I do not trust or read” claims that the National Egyptian “which I do not follow” has announced that the Interpol arrested Hussein Salem in Tel Aviv , Israel. Allegedly he is using an Israeli passport and is currently staying in Israel. The ministry of interior allegedly has reported these details to the Interpol from couple of days in order he would be arrested yet there is nothing about his arrest yet. “Based on a tweet by an alleged police officer tweep” Here isHussein Salem’s page in the Interpol. Here is my post about him , my early post as I want to write about him but I need time.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/need-confirmation-hussein-salem.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29
Interpol “arrests Egyptian businessman in Israel”
Reports in Egypt claim that Interpol, the international police body, has arrested the Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem in Israel. He has been wanted in his home country on charges of damaging Egyptian interests, including wasting public money for the benefit of others and selling Egypt’s natural gas to Israel below the contractual price and global market rates. Interpol posted a picture of Salem in the “wanted” section of its website along with some of his personal details. The Interpol site added that the fugitive businessman is wanted for questioning by the First Attorney General of Egypt’s Supreme State Security Department in Cairo, Mr. Hisham Badawi.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2375-interpol-qarrests-egyptian-businessman-in-israelq
Tahrir protests back in Cairo to renew the revolution
Egyptian activists and revolutionaries are gathering today in Tahrir square in a Friday protest called “Renewing the revolution and in memory of the martyrs.” Thousands have gathered so far, calling for the release of political prisoners and trials of corrupt regime figures, including ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons. Some protesters are also calling for national unity in response to recent sectarian violence.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/12543/Egypt/Politics-/Tahrir-protests-back-in-Cairo-to-renew-the-revolut.aspx
25 activists detained at the Israeli Embassy released with suspended sentences
Twenty five activists and journalists detained during nakba day demonstrations in front of the Israeli Embassy took suspended sentences at military trials today. The demonstrations turned ugly when military police and Central Security Forces broke up the protest, arresting 135 activists. Fifteen were sentenced to one year and 10 were sentenced to six months. All sentences have been suspended and activists are to be released tonight or tomorrow, according to Mona Saif, a rights activist with the No Military Trials movement. Several protests, supporting the detainees took place this week.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/12517/Egypt/Politics-/-activists-detained-at-the-Israeli-Embassy-release.aspx
Ex-housing minister and Alaa Mubarak’s father-in-law referred to criminal court
Prosecutor-general Abdel Megid Mahmoud has referred former housing minister Mohamed Ibrahim Soliman, four of his deputies and businessman Magdi Rasekh to the criminal court on charges of embezzling public funds.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/12406/Egypt/Politics-/Exhousing-minister-and-Alaa-Mubarak%E2%80%99s-fatherinlaw-.aspx
Nabil Fahmi
If Nabil Fahmi becomes the foreign minister of Egypt, you know that he will be a front for Saudi Arabia/US/Israel. He is Mubark incarnate. It would be the biggest setback since the beginning of the uprising. A campaign should be mounted against his candidacy for the job.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/nabil-fahmi_18.html
Reflections on the (In)Visibility of Copts in Egypt
I’ve been thinking lately about the circumstances under which Coptic Christians emerge on the Egyptian socio-political landscape. Those circumstances tend to be, in a word, ugly. Copts become a visible religious community when they are attacked. And then Westerners in particular wonder: “Who are the Copts?” (I should also point out, however, that although well aware of the existence of Copts, or al-aqbat in Arabic, most Egyptian Muslims are equally unfamiliar with Coptic religiosity.) This strange play between visibility and invisibility is the problematic that I take up here, arguing that what is desirable for Copts in a new Egypt is a visibility that takes seriously their religiosity. I do so by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork I have been doing among Copts and reflecting on recent events in Egypt.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1624/reflections-on-the-%28in%29visibility-of-copts-in-egyp
Egyptian uprising’s reporter: ‘Two Egypts have emerged’
Ayman Mohyeldin was the face of al-Jazeera’s coverage. Time magazine named him one of the most influential people of 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/19/egptian-uprisings-reporter-two-egypts
Egypt’s uprising brings DIY spirit out on to the streets
In the hundred days since Hosni Mubarak was toppled, there has been an explosion of creative energy in the alternative arts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/19/egypts-uprising-diy-art-cairo-streets
Hamdy Reda, “To the Spanish People, a Message of Solidarity from Ard al-Liwa, Egypt” (Video)
All of the Egyptian people are behind you and anyone who wants to make a revolution, anyone who wants to achieve something. There is a saying: If the people want life, destiny should give it to them.”
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/reda200511.html
Libya
NATO: Libya Warships Sunk
BRUSSELS (Reuters) NATO aircraft sank eight warships belonging to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in overnight attacks, the alliance said on Friday. The ships were sunk in coordinated attacks on the ports of Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte, an alliance statement said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/nato-libya-warships-sunk_n_864618.html
NATO: Gaddafi forces ‘significantly degraded’
Head of military alliance says military and political pressures are weakening the Libyan leader’s hold on power.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2011/05/201151914159509484.html
Rebels: Gaddafi fighters shell western mountains
TRIPOLI, Libya, (AP) – Hundreds of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists staged a show of support in the capital early Thursday, claiming the rebel insurgency is nearing its end, even as the Libyan leader’s forces have intensified their campaign to take strategic [..]
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=25225
Tunisia denies Gadhafi wife, daughter in country
Pan-Arab television channels quote the Tunisian Interior Ministry as denying that the wife and daughter of Muammar Gadhafi crossed into Tunisia several days ago.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/mideast-in-turmoil/tunisia-denies-gadhafi-wife-daughter-in-country-1.362684?localLinksEnabled=false
Libya releases four journalists
The Libyan government says it has freed four foreign journalists detained for illegally entering the country, amid the uprising by rebels.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13447254
Defending Misrata
The Libyan footballer now trying to tackle Gaddafi’s forces.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13462311
Libya: The Lives they Leave Behind
“My father didn’t even recognize me,” Abdel Wahed, 32, told me when I interviewed him in a hospital in southern Tunisia in late April. His entire face was blackened with serious burns from what he believed was a Grad rocket launched by Gaddafi forces that landed just outside his home in Zintan, in the Nafusa mountains of western Libya.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/18/libya-lives-they-leave-behind
Religious controls lifted in Benghazi
In the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi the opposition’s version of governance is in full swing. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports on the city where reforms are already being put into action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAzT1s62AFs&feature=youtube_gdata
Libyan rebel TV channel trying to reach more people
DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) – Rebels fighting to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi have launched a television channel to promote their cause, but part of their broadcast is blocked by a regional satellite, a rebel media official said on Thursday.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/libyan-rebel-tv-channel-trying-to-reach-more-people
Libya Revolt Sidelines Women, Who Led It
While Libya’s fledgling rebel government has more than doubled in size, women now occupy just 2 of the 40 or so positions in the leadership.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=83d3dc3b206ad207b1ef478f37a8e4d6
Oman
Oman must charge or release detained protesters
A group of people detained following recent pro-reform protests in Oman’s capital Muscat must be charged or released.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/oman-must-charge-or-release-detained-protesters-2011-05-18
Saudi Arabia
A Saudi crude propagandist explains Saudi counter revolution
Enjoy his reference to Saudi Arabia “leading” the Arab world. This is like saying that Fouad Ajami speaks for Arabs. “Saudi Arabia will not allow the political unrest in the region to destabilize the Arab monarchies — the Gulf states, Jordan and Morocco. In Yemen, the Saudis are insisting on an orderly transition of power and a dignified exit for President Ali Abdullah Saleh (a courtesy that was not extended to Hosni Mubarak, despite the former Egyptian president’s many years as a strong U.S. ally). To facilitate this handover, Riyadh is leading a diplomatic effort under the auspices of the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council. In Iraq, the Saudi government will continue to pursue a hard-line stance against the Maliki government, which it regards as little more than an Iranian puppet. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia will act to check the growth of Hezbollah and to ensure that this Iranian proxy does not dominate the country’s political life. Regarding the widespread upheaval in Syria, the Saudis will work to ensure that any potential transition to a post-Assad era is as peaceful and as free of Iranian meddling as possible.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/saudi-crude-propagandist-explains-saudi.html
Syria
Syrian forces ‘fire on Homs protesters’
Witnesses say at least nine killed, including two boys, in latest protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201152013723847215.html
Iraqis flee violence in Syria, return home (AP)
AP – It’s easy to identify the Iraqis fleeing the violent uprising in Syria as they arrive by bus in Baghdad.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110520/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_returning_home
Dorothy Parvaz recounts detention
After returning to Doha, Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz has described her experiences while being detained in Syria for three days and then in Iran for 16 more. Parvaz was first held and interrogated in Damascus, Syria’s capital, upon her arrival there on April 29 to cover anti-government demonstrations. She was then deported to Iran. She was finally freed on Wednesday morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZY5KeGqo3c&feature=player_embedded
Syrian president admits mistakes
Syria’s president has said his security forces made mistakes during the uprising against his regime, blaming poorly-trained police officers for a crackdown that has killed more than 850 people in two months.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-president-admits-mistakes-2285763.html
Syria condemns US sanctions on Assad
US says sanctions meant to pressure Assad to end violent crackdown, Syria condemns move as “serving Israel’s interests”.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011518164713908756.html
US to impose sanctions on Assad
The Obama administration will impose sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad and six senior Syrian officials for human rights abuses for their crackdown on anti-government protests, for the first time personally penalizing the Syrian leader for actions of his security forces, officials said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-to-impose-sanctions-on-assad-2285859.html
Joshua Landis, “Who Benefits from Sanctioning Syria’s Assad?”
Sanctioning President Assad — what can it accomplish? Oddly, the sanctions against Syria’s top government figures come at a time when the regime is gaining control over the protest movement and suppressing dissent. The opposition failed to divide the Syrian army from the president as happened in Egypt. They also failed to provoke a confessional split in the army as happened in Lebanon. Sunni soldiers have not split from Alawis, despite all the talk about “shabbihas,” which is code for Alawis. Who in the world do they think is going to unseat Assad? This is most perplexing. Western leaders will certainly get a weakened Syria and a more isolated Assad from these sanctions but not regime change. Obama gains. Opposition leaders get more support. Syrians will get poorer.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/landis190511.html
Hassan Khaled Chatila, “The Revolt in Syria”
The revolt is not generalized across the country and society. It is more like a series of neighbourhood uprisings than a centralized revolution. The main actors so far have been educated youth and unemployed youth seeking access to modernity. . . . These youth do not put forward social demands; they think that political democracy and liberty can solve all the problems they face in their daily lives. . . . This movement has not been able to seriously threaten the regime’s existence. . . . The situation in Syria is far from generalized civil disobedience, principally because of the almost complete absence of slogans putting forward social and economic demands, notably the struggle against hunger, poverty and unemployment. Such slogans could come to the forefront alongside calls for democracy only in a broad democratic united front in which the left played an important role. But in Syria there is neither such a front nor a left.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/chatila190511.html
Report from Syria
A Lebanese comrade who works in Syria sent me this (I cite with his permission): “I spent the day…first the road to there was normal, nothing special, on the way back there were two checkpoints before Damascus. Intelligence guys, young with their dirty looks and clothes, you would think the regime is smarter than that even in PR. I mainly spoke to 3 colleagues who are from Dar3a and surroundings. They know me so they are comfortable to talk and share details. The main point the 3 confirmed separately is Aljazeera coverage is not even 10 % of the truth !! they confirmed the story of the mass grave found, the media spoke of 1 but they are 4-5 so far. People even saw when the bodies were being disposed. All these stories about confessions is bullshit, they know some of the guys who appeared on TV. They were put in prison and forced to say what they said Even the images of people throwing rice on the army as it left Dar3a were staged, they can confirm from the people’s accent (not from Dar3a) and even the location of these images, close to govt headquarters. The 4th division (Maher Asad) is in Dar3a as it was reported. The big and somehow strange story is the 4 and 5 division fought each other ! but not cause of dissent but because how the 4 division treats the other army divisions. Apparently they bombed each other with tanks !! and literally hundreds of them were killed. People saw how they came with trucks and bulldozers to take the bodies. The stories about army being killed is either army killing army or security killing army.One guy said, the point of no return was crossed like 2 weeks ago. They are hopeful that it will pick up soon in Allepo where students on campus there are the ones who are trying at the moment. Two of them criticized a bit the people in Damascus and Allepo (one called them cowards) Three of the arrested in Da3ra in the mosque were christian doctors. The Sunni families fleeing Dar3a were taking cover at christian families around the city, so the stories of Salafis and religious fantaticism is so untrue in that region. The regime is playing this card in Homs and Banias where they are arming the A3lawee areas surrounding the Sunni centers. There are thousands of prisoners in Dar3a, and a security officer at each door, that is why it has calmed down a bit lately.The events at the Golan border last Sunday… Initially they wanted the Palestinians (7000-8000) to carry Bashar pics and Syrian flags but they refused and only carried Syrian flags.
One of the guys had to take out his family ouf of Dar3a because they were literally eating old stale bread at the end after 2 weeks of heavy curfew. They all confirmed that there was no party leading the events, no muslim brotherhood, no Khadam, nothing. They are all weak. it is just a popular revolt where in each area, people are calling the shots. We drove back yesterday night, all seemed fine on the surface but I had the feeling that it is all brewing and there is much more to come soon. it cannot go on like this. that is all I remember now, but they will be giving me more info from now on.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/report-from-syria.html
Tunisia
Knowledge Liberation Front, “Notes from the Liberation Without Borders Tour in Tunisia”
This afternoon we also witnessed the arrest of a young activist by political police, only a short distance from the Interior Ministry. Another result of the rising tension, beyond the indefinite curfew imposed between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., is the new ban on all demonstrations in the city. In response to this growing repression, demos and strikes across the country have been called for the coming days. As one activist commented, “It was an error to have abandoned the Casbah . . . but now we will take back the streets to push the revolution forward.” . . . Contrary to the image portrayed by the Western media, far from being just a bread riot, what happened in Tunisia is an insurrection due to the global economic crisis: its genealogy lies in a long process of proletarian struggles (specifically the 2008 strike in a mining district) and conflicts in southern Tunisia. Moreover, its social composition of highly educated and yet precariously employed or unemployed workers and students has much in common with that of the movements in Europe and elsewhere. An example of that commonality can be seen in the fiercely contested decision made by the transitional government to continue to respect the existing agreements with the supranational institutions of global capitalism like the IMF and the World Bank and to pay the country’s debts, rather than investing in education and social welfare. It all underlines the transnational character of the struggle in Tunisia, which, however, goes well beyond the antiquated notions of international solidarity. “To liberate Palestine, for example” one activist forcefully pointed out, “we must liberate ourselves.” What is at stake in this extraordinary political laboratory, it appears, is whether the insurrectionary movement can find new forms of collective organization, building a constituent process and a new social relation.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/klf180511.html
Yemen
Saleh calls for early Yemen elections
Yemeni president’s call for early polls comes a day after he pledged again to sign a deal to end his decades-long rule.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201152042816774534.html
Yemen rivals fail to sign GCC-brokered deal
Gulf mediator leaves Sanaa after president refuses to ink plan that would have seen him stepping down in a month.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/201151817048705436.html
Obama’s Speech
Obama’s speech
It is not that it brought nothing new: It was not even novel or original rhetorically. I don’t see any reason why he delivered it. I know that Obama’s administration, like previous US administrations, assumes that Arabs are fools and can be deceived easily, but did those who worked on the speech really think that any Arab would be fooled with those words? Don’t forget that his speech in Cairo came early in his administration and Arabs had high hopes about him. But Obama is giving the speech in light of his lousy record. I doubt that any Arab would follow it with interest even.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-speech.html
Obama’s racism
Typical of US policy, Obama rehashed the typical US racism where the deaths of the Palestinians is not not mentioned when only the deaths of Israelis is mentioned. They invent a false equation: between “deaths of Israelis” and some vague formulation of “suffering” of Palestinians as if Palestinians are not victims of Israeli terrorism. I watch the speech and remember all my friends who could not understand why I would never ever vote for Obama.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-racism.html
Swaps
Obama suggested that any Arab-Israeli “solution” should be based on the 1967 borders provided that Israel decide how much it wants to retain from those lands. He suggested that a settlement would entail exchange of “swaps” of lands. Let me translate: Israel would get to keep the West Bank and Gaza while Palestinians would get to retain the bones of their ancestors.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/swaps.html
Obama on Bouazizi
I don’t know why but it offends me deeply when Obama or any US official mentions the name of Muhammad Bouazizi. I feel that they should not dare mention his name.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-on-bouazizi.html
Street vendor in Tunisia
How dare Obama feign respect for Albouazizi? He bows down to oil potentates and not to streets vendors in Arab cities.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/street-vendor-in-tunisia.html
Translating Obama’s speech
He said that the US supports “reform” and “transition to democracy” in the Arab world. By reform, he means the repressive measures of the Bahrain dictatorship that his government has endorsed. By transition to democracy, he means that the US fully supports democracy in Saudi Arabia and other monarchies provided the transition takes place over a period of at least two centuries. Arabs are expected to cheer his words in the streets.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/translating-obamas-speech.html
Denying Israel’s right to exist
No, he got it wrong. We are not saying that Israel does not exist. It does exist. But we certainly don’t want that state to exist, just as Apartheid South Africa should not have existed.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/denying-israels-right-to-exist.html
Women in the Middle East
Obama said that US supports women in the Middle East. He added that US calls on US allies in the region to treat their multiple wives and concubines equally. Feminist Majority applauded the speech and called on the US to invade any Muslim country of his choosing.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/women-in-middle-east.html
What Obama could not possibly say, Pepe Escobar
Facts on the ground will decide whether the United States really “values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator”. So let’s start with a fact. For US President Barack Obama, Saudi Arabia is not in the Middle East. Maybe the House of Saud has relocated the deserts and the oil to Oceania without telling anyone. In his major speech on Thursday from where the opening quote comes, and where, according to the Reuters gospel, he would “lay out a new US strategy toward a skeptical Arab world”, the skeptical Arabs, and the whole world for that matter, never heard these fateful two words, “Saudi” and “Arabia”. Even India, Indonesia and Brazil were mentioned.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME21Ak01.html
Robert Fisk: Lots of rhetoric – but very little help
It was the same old story. Palestinians can have a “viable” state, Israel a “secure” one. Israel cannot be de-legitimised. The Palestinians must not attempt to ask the UN for statehood in September. No peace can be imposed on either party. Sometimes yesterday, you could have turned this into Obama’s forthcoming speech to pro-Israeli lobbyists this weekend. Oh yes, and the Palestinian state must have no weapons to defend itself. So that’s what “viable” means!
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-lots-of-rhetoric-ndash-but-very-little-help-2286711.html
Obama’s Middle East speech missed ‘historic opportunity,’ say many Arabs
While those involved in Arab uprisings welcomed Obama’s support, others were disappointed with his failure to apologize for US support for Middle East dictators.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/Z-pZu0VL6IM/Obama-s-Middle-East-speech-missed-historic-opportunity-say-many-Arabs
US urged to ‘learn from mistakes of the past’ in Middle East and North Africa
US president Barack Obama urged to use his speech on the Middle East to commit to the pursuit of a more even-handed approach to Arab states, with human rights at its heart.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/us-urged-learn-mistakes-past-middle-east-and-north-africa-2011-05-19
What Obama will not say, Issandr El Amrani
Tonight, US President Barack Obama will make his first major speech touching on the situation in the Middle East since the uprisings began in late 2010. The speech is intended to bring some clarity to US policy in the region in reaction to the tumultuous and ongoing changes it is facing, and counter criticism that the Obama administration has responded to these events in an haphazard and confusing way. It is meant to be, some have speculated (no doubt informed by leaks from the White House), a “reset” of relations between America and the Arab world.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/443218
Another major policy speech on the Middle East? Yawn, Stephen M. Walt
I know I’m supposed to get excited about the “major policy address” on Middle East policy that President Obama is going to deliver today, and you can be sure that plenty of people will be standing by to parse and spin every syllable. And then they’ll do the same thing to his speech at the AIPAC policy conference on Sunday, and will hover with equal intensity over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next week.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/19/another_major_policy_speech_on_the_middle_east_yawn
OBAMA ON THE MIDDLE EAST: STICKING WITH A FAILED SCRIPT
In an effort to define the dominant narrative about the on-going Arab awakening and America’s role in the Middle East, President Obama will give tomorrow what the White House is billing as a major address on Middle East policy.
http://www.raceforiran.com/obama-on-the-middle-east-sticking-with-a-failed-script
ANALYSIS-Arabs see Obama speech as late, not enough
Reflecting that disillusion, Egyptian activist Hossam El-Hamalawy wrote on social media site Twitter: “Obama gave a speech? Really? As if I care”.
http://af.reuters.com/article/tunisiaNews/idAFLDE74I0G220110519?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Other Middle East News/Analysis & Op-ed
UAE to be first Arab country with NATO embassy
The United Arab Emirates is to make a landmark move, becoming the first Arab country to send an ambassador to NATO, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Wednesday.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/19/149686.html
Gates and Mullen: Stop leaking details of the bin Laden raid!
The nation’s top civilian and military defense officials are calling on their government colleagues to shut up about the details of the May 1 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen held their first press conference on Wednesday since the mission to kill bin Laden. Gates stood by a remark he made May 12 at Camp Lejeune, in which he said there was an agreement by top Obama officials in the Situation Room to not reveal details of the raid — but that the agreement fell apart the next day.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/18/gates_and_mullen_stop_leaking_details_of_the_bin_laden_raid
Nir Rosen on Western media fraud in the Middle East
Journalist and author Nir Rosen writes the following in an article for Al Jazeera about the myriad obstacles to the dissemination of truth in Western reporting on the Middle East: Relying on a translator means you can only talk to one person at a time and you miss all the background noise.
http://pulsemedia.org/2011/05/19/nir-rosen-on-western-media-fraud-in-the-middle-east/
The future of the Arab uprisings, Joseph Massad
The US, with its allies, has already begun plans to subvert the Arab Spring to save its own regional hegemony.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201151885013738898.html
Dressing Like a Terrorist
Like many others, I was dismayed to learn of the two imams wearing traditional Muslim garb who were forcibly removed from an airplane that was to carry them to a conference on Islamophobia. The passengers who were removed from a Delta/ASA flight in Memphis, Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul, apparently frightened other passengers and upset one of the pilots, who refused to fly with them on board. Not everybody was dismayed, however. The Delta/ASA pilot and the frightened passengers have received support from numerous voices among the American commentariat.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1622/dressing-like-a-terrorist
With one signal — 1967– Obama decides to take on Netanyahu on the Arab Spring
May 20, 2011
Philip Weiss
I’m sure I misinterpreted the power-politics aspect of Obama’s speech yesterday. For players this speech boiled down to one word, Obama’s reference to the 1967 lines, and the signal he has sent with that word that he will not back Israel through thick and thin in days to come. The New York Times has a shocking story this morning saying that the speech was delayed 35 minutes because Netanyahu angrily called Hillary Clinton to try and jawbone 1967 out of it. So a foreign leader had a copy of the president’s speech. And Netanyahu failed. “No wonder Hillary looked pleased,” says a friend.
The evidence of 1967’s significance is the outright blitz from the right over this issue today. “The Auschwitz borders,” the Simon Wiesenthal Center affirms today in a crazy post. John Podhoretz in the Post: “he is an Israel-basher.”
And Obama is taking up the battle. Ben Smith reports that the Obama people are “furious” at Netanyahu.
What is this all about? What stand did Obama take yesterday? What is being signalled? Is it about the alleged two-state solution? No. I think it is the warning that when the Arab spring comes to Israel, as it has already, with Nakba Day, that Obama will not support Israel all the way. Obama saw the ugly Israeli response and knows that he is dealing with Mubarak redux. The Israel lobby wanted an outright affirmation of support. It wanted “the only democracy” language and even explicit condemnation of the demonstrators and support for Israel’s facts on the ground. It didn’t get that. The speech contained no praise for Netanyahu, it gave Israel no assurance on the continued occupation. Haaretz sees the writing on the wall: the American climate is changing, and thanks to Netanyahu we are on our way to becoming “a pariah state.”
The game is on in the U.S., the Arab spring is thawing our frozen discourse. Says Ed Moloney: “His remarks measure the change in the debate about the Middle East that has come about in the last few months and years. although they may well be undermined by lobby money, or its threatened absence, in 2012, the words ‘1967 borders’ cannot be unsaid. ‘Auschwitz Borders’ is desperate language for a desperate situation and surely a sign of how much things have changed. The iceberg is cracking…. What’s important here is the size and symbolism of the gesture, the acknowledgement of where the settlement lies, the fact that he has said what no other US president has dared say and what every sensible person knows is the way forward. For evidence of the significance of this look at Bibi’s reaction and that of his disciples – all going ballistic because they know they are losing the PR game and the balance is tipping away from them. Although i have little faith in Obama’s willingness or courage to put rhetoric into practice and that the devil is truly in the detail, it is now out in the open in a new way. and if he set out to frustrate any effort at the UN to recognise a palestininan state, that goal was immediately undermined by the 1967 stuff. Who could object to the UN recognising what the US president now says should be?! What would be really wonderful now would be if he won 2012 in the face of AIPAC hysteria.”
Challenging Pastor Hagee on his home turf: “We caught him off guard…with just our thoughts and our courage.”
May 20, 2011
Max Blumenthal
On May 15, a group of San Antonio-based community organizers disrupted a service at Pastor John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church dedicated to celebrating Israel. The Christian Zionist Pastor Hagee has sent tens of millions to Israeli organizations, including illegal settlements and the far-right McCarthyite student group Im Tirtzu. After the action, which was dispersed aggressively by members of Hagee’s congregation, Glenn Beck posted an open letterfrom Hagee on his website. Incidentally, Beck will be delivering the keynote speech at Hagee’s upcoming Christians United for Israel Washington-Israel Summit, an event I covered back in 2007. Following publication of the letter, an organizer of the action against Hagee, Genevieve Rodriguez, began received death threats by phone and email. I interviewed Rodriguez about the protest and its aftermath.
MB: Why did you decide it was necessary to protest Hagee from inside his church, and in such a confrontational way?
GR: First of all, we are a group of 24 who are community organizers working on a range of issues. We were not from any single organization, we are just people coming together. We were keeping up with what was going on in Palestine and the call from action from Palestinians on May 15. And for organizers here in San Antonio we feel the effects of the racism and Zionism and homophobia that comes out Hagee’s church every day. The corporate executives that go to his church go downtown every day and carry out the message they get from his church. They treat people that work with them the way he teaches them to treat people — so they are treating gays a certain way or taking away the message that brown people should be persecuted. That gets carried out in the way working people are treated in this city. And all the while he’s getting rich off a message of hate. So we decided that we couldn’t sit here in our city and not hold this man accountable when what’s happening here and what’s happening in Palestine is atrocious. How can we sit here in the same city as him and not take action in a non-violent way? So in a matter of four days we came up with this action.
MB: Did any other actions by others inspire you, at least from a tactical point of view?
GR: One of the really recent actions that inspired us was by young Jewish people in New Orleans who interrupted Netanyahu in New Orleans and told him that he delegitimizes Israel. It was really moving. We realized Hagee’s sermon was being broadcast live to 35 countries on the web uninterrupted. So we realized we had to do it.
MB: How were you treated once the protest began? It seemed like things got pretty rough after it became clear you weren’t going to stop.
GR: The EMS was called after I was dragged off the pew. An usher in front of me grabbed me and dragged me over a pew and I hit my head on the pew. Then 5 or 6 men were grabbing at all parts of my body and they lifted me up like a roasted pig and hoisted me in the air. It was all congregation members including a guest pastor — no security. A young white man involved in the action stood up and some woman said, ‘Oh my God, he’s a Palestinian!’ Apparently these people didn’t even know what palestinians look like. And they curse them every day. As a young woman was carried out shouting, ‘Free Palestine!’ she was slammed to the ground. Then she was getting dragged out. Several congregation members stood up and began accusing a group of brown women of being with the demonstrators. They were just singling out all kinds of brown people because of the way they looked.
MB: Was there any fallout after the action?
GR: John Hagee sent an open letter to Glenn Beck trying to give his version of the story, saying this is all the more reason to show support for Israel and that our congregation acted like it was the Super Bowl after this demonstration, they were so unified. beck is speaking at CUFI, coming up this year. There are infomercials inside Cornerstone for the CUFI conference that includes glenn beck highlights, really using the event to promote him. Our goal was to stand in solidarity with Palestine and tell San Antonio that we are not going to let this happen without Hagee being held accountable. He’s doing this for profit, and we caught him completely off guard just entering there with just our thoughts and our courage. And they didn’t know what to do, they were completely shaken.
MB: So how did the group feel afterwards? Did you feel like you had succeeded?
GR: It was really hard afterwards for us to hear that Israeli forces were opening fire on protesters after we got home. It was such a moment of righteous anger and feeling like we were right in our actions and that they [the congregation members] should be embarrassed for the comments they made about us. During the service people were literally being killed. And Hagee said, ‘Isn’t this exciting?’ Well, we weren’t there to have fun.
MB: Why do you think Hagee commands so much influence in San Antonio? And why besides the obvious theological reasons does his message resonate with people who apparently know very little about Israel and Palestine?
GR: There is so much fear of the other in this city and the fact that they live a different way. It sounds childish, I know. But all those people who go to that church have a much better economic reality than a lot of the other people on the other side of town. These people in this church are going to hold on to anything and stick to anything that’s going to protect that because they don’t want to face the reality on the other side. The israel issue has been cloaked in religion but with the settlements and Hagee, well, we’re talking about money. This is about money and resources. And i feel bad for some of the congregation members who are kept in the dark and are so ignorant. They shouted at us stuff about us being Muslims. We didn’t make a single reference to islam. We were Latino, white, queer, including brown queer women, people with Middle Eastern heritage, and almost all of us are young. Religiously, there were Christians among us and every other kind of religion including atheists.
MB: I heard you received death threats as a result of the protest. Is that true?
GR: I put my phone number out in the video because I believed there were people who were ready to do something about this racism that is taking over San Antonio. And we want people without access to internet can call in to join us. As a result we’ve connected with organizers who don’t even live here. Then we also got death threats. one guy called me this morning and said he was going to rape me. I’ve received messages since my address is public that people from Dallas are going to come to my house and picket me. I got a phone call today from a man who said, ‘I want to destroy arabs and i’m going to destroy you too.’ A reporter from the San Antonio Express News was there and she recorded the whole call.
MB: Do you plan to do any similar actions in the future?
GR: We want to do more actions in solidarity with the Palestinians and we want to continue to expose Hagee financially. We have contacts inside his church and we want to set a serious campaign up that makes a dent into his support for the settlements and to Israel since they depend on people like Hagee. People inside Hagee’s organization are starting to realize the hypocrisy that he represents and are starting to build relationships with us. As far as the way he handles business [our inside contacts have] hinted that he’s corrupt, that he mistreats women and workers, and that there’s a whole lot of evidence of it.
This post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal’s website.
Nakba Day, in the Atlantic no less
May 20, 2011
Philip Weiss
Great series of photos at The Atlantic no less on the Nakba Day protests on the borders. 35 pictures showing the Palestinian uprising. Check out 20, Israeli border officer dressed as a Palestinian woman complete with hijab.
Ethnic dry cleaning
May 20, 2011
Max Ajl
Jerry Haber, in a mostly sensible comment on Peter Beinart, writes that
Tony Kushner was, in my view, imprecise when he referred to the “ethnic cleansing” conducted by the Zionists at Israel’s founding. The phrase conjures up mass murder and genocide along racial, ethnic, or religious lines. What we have had in Israel for over sixty years is not so much ethnic “cleansing,” with its implication of blood and destruction, but rather ethnic “dry-cleaning”, ridding the homeland of most of its Palestinian population through legal stratagems that ensure that the natives of Palestine will be effectively barred from full participation in their homeland.
I don’t know what Haber is talking about. It’s pretty clear that Israel is a state founded on ethnic cleansing, and I’m sure Haber is aware of that too. Palestinians know that very well, and many Israeli Jews will obliquely acknowledge it, even if they do their best to feign ignorance. We’ve all read our Ilan Pappé. But it’d be good to understand what happened as a result of that process of ethnic-cleansing, and so move from condemnation to consciousness-raising.
The Ashkenazi over-class is the richest class in Israel precisely because of its proximity to the land and resources-theft that occurred in the context of that process of ethnic-cleansing, not “dry-cleaning,” as Haber puts it.
The nexus of ethnicity, wealth, and proximity to the original dispossession has been systematically erased from Zionist historiography. Furthermore, Zionist ideology distracts lower-class Israeli attention from the fact that Mizrahis were not the beneficiaries of ethnic cleansing. They were the human material with which Zionists stocked their newly-formed nation-state, complete with a Jewish working-class, a Jewish bourgeoisie, and a Jewish peasantry. Mizrahi did not get to become bourgeoisie.
Instead, in Zionist-induced flight from their homelands, they staffed the lower ranks of the socio-economic ladder and were settled in “development towns” near the borders or in moshavim. Badly treated by the immigration absorption system and the MAPAI governments, the Mizrahim formed the social base for the Likud party in the post-1967 era and, later, the Shas movement, both in rejection of labor Zionism’s ideological hegemony over Israeli society and because the occupation became a means for socio-economic advancement denied to them within pre-1967 Israeli society. As a group of Moroccan Jews explained to Amos Oz,
I’ll tell you what shame is: they gave us houses, they gave us the dirty work; they gave us education, and they took away our self-respect. What did they bring our parents to Israel for? … Wasn’t it to do your dirty work? You didn’t have Arabs then, so you needed my parents to do your cleaning and be your servants and your laborers. And policemen, too. You brought our parents to be your Arabs. But now I’m a supervisor. And he’s a contractor, self-employed. And that guy has a transport business. Also self-employed. Small-scale—lives off the crumbs Solel Boneh leaves—but so what? If they give back the territories, the Arabs will stop coming to work, and then you’ll put us back into the dead-end jobs, like before. If for no other reason, we won’t let you give back those territories. Not to mention the rights we have from the Bible. Look at my daughter: she works in a bank now, and every evening an Arab comes to clean the building. All you want is to dump her from the bank into some textile factory, or have her wash the floors instead of the Arab. The way my mother used to clean for you. That’s why we hate you here. As long as Begin’s in power, my daughter’s secure at the bank. If you guys [i.e., Labor] come back, you’ll pull her down first thing.
