NOVANEWS
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Here she comes to save the brand
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Swedish chain boycotts ‘Sodastream’ (West Bank fizzy-water device sold at Brooklyn’s Park Slope coop)
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On hasbara visit to U.S. MK Wilf praises Fayyad as ‘first Palestinian leader to stop focusing on what the Jews are doing’
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Colonel Qaddafi’s Tech Support
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Rep. Allen West says Obama is Neville Chamberlain (to Arab Nazis)
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Meanwhile, in Israel . . .
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‘Chicago Tribune’ runs Khalidi piece faulting Rep Jackson for going on ‘magical mystery tour’ to Israel
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Seeing past Rothschild Blvd
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1948 tents versus 2011 tents
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In the sacred story of American empire, Israel is the ultimate symbol, dammit
Here she comes to save the brand
Aug 31, 2011
Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz
The map Martha stewart is using to plan her Israel trip. See the green line? neither do we. (h/t Maureen Murphy)
“Despite the horrible hurricane, a life must go on. Planning a wonderful trip to Israel!”
Martha Stewart’s tweet. Haaretz says it could be soon. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism is organizing and funding the trip as part of a push to include the Dead Sea as one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
Swedish chain boycotts ‘Sodastream’ (West Bank fizzy-water device sold at Brooklyn’s Park Slope coop)
Aug 31, 2011
Kate
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Land theft / Ethnic cleansing
Netanyahu examining future borders of a Palestinian state
Haaretz 30 Aug — Ehud Olmert’s map adviser, Colonel (res.) Danny Terza, steering the current prime minister; Terza considered one of leading experts on issues of Palestinian state borders.Terza [is] a 52-year-old resident of the Kfar Adumim settlement….
link to www.haaretz.com
Google Street View comes to Israel but won’t reveal its plans for the occupied territories / Benjamin Doherty
The unique problem for Google Street View in Israel is where is Israel? According to the JTA,“Google reportedly plans to photograph only Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa”. Whether this includes parts of Jerusalem occupied by Israel in 1967 is not clear. In other reports, representatives of Google Israel refused to say where they intend to operate.
link to electronicintifada.net
Video: Halhul and settlements
AIC video (2:22 min.) 30 Aug — Saeed Madia of the Halhul Popular Committee – The Palestinian town of Halul counts 20,000 residents and sits in the southern portion of the occupied West Bank. Much of the village’s lands have been annexed to build the nearby Jewish-only settlement of Karmei Tzur, and Palestinian farmers continue to have their work impeded by the presence of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military. The settlement is between Halhul and Beit Ommar.
link to www.alternativenews.org
Israeli court rejects Al-Walaja’s appeal against wall / Jillian Kestler-D’Amours
EI 29 Aug — For Sheerin al-Araj, the Israeli plan for the occupied West Bank village of al-Walajais clear: make daily life impossible for its Palestinian residents in an effort to force them off their ancestral lands and empty the village entirely.. They cannot afford [to displace] people by force, in front of cameras with little children and women crying and screaming. So they have to do it more strategically. And the way to do it is by making life impossible for us, and making life impossible is actually building a wall, building a settlement, [building] a gate where we will all be hostage to one 18-year-old [Israeli soldier who] will decide for us when to leave and when to come in,” al-Araj, a member of the Walaja Village Council, explained.
link to electronicintifada.net
Settlers
VIDEO: Turning tables: ‘Israel illegal occupier if Palestine recognized’
Russia Today 30 Aug — ‘Every settlement is basically a military base’ — The Israeli Defence Force is reportedly preparing settlers for the mass uprising of Palestinians, expected after the UN votes on a Palestinian statehood in September. The preparations include handing out tear gas and stun grenades to civilians. Military resistance to Palestinians will only bring international sanctions on Israel after Palestine is recognised in September’s vote. That’s the view of Jeff Halper, a political activist and co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
link to www.youtube.com
Israeli military arms settlers in preparation for Palestinian protests / Harriet Sherwood
Guardian 30 Aug –The Israeli military is arming and training West Bank settlers in preparation for mass protests by Palestinians that it expects to erupt around the time that the UN is asked to recognise a Palestinian state, according to a leaked document. Teargas and stun grenades are being distributed and training sessions held with settlement security teams, according to the document obtained by Haaretz.
link to www.guardian.co.uk
Jewish settlers attack Qasra village and damage hundreds of olive trees
NABLUS, (PIC)– …Ghassan Daghlas, in charge of settlements file in the northern West Bank, said in a press statement that settlers from the Aish Kodesh settlement outpost attacked the village and started inflicting damage to fields planted with olive trees. He pointed out that this was the second attack by the settlers on the village in 48 hours, as the settlers attacked the village two days earlier and damaged dozens of olive trees before the villages confronted them and chased them away. Local sources also said that settlers Monday night uprooted 270 olive saplings from villagers’ fields at the edge of the village and that the settlers’ attacks increased since evening hours.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Israeli forces
Israeli occupation closes August with one demonstrator shot in Ni‘lin
Ni‘lin Village 29 Aug — For more than three weeks Ni‘lin village has been witnessing several brutal midnight invasions and raids of local houses. But this time it’s different. The raids are not for arresting people, but instead just for training and getting ready to suppress the popular struggle uprising next September in different villages of the West Bank such as Ni‘lin, Bil‘in, Nabi Saleh, Ma‘sarah and Beit Ommar.
The Israeli army is adding new units of soldiers who are in the army reserve, training them to get ready for this event. The recent night raids into the West Bank village of Ni‘lin over the past three weeks, as well as comments made in Israeli media, attest that a new type of gas has been developed for next September which causes the diarrhea. Demonstrators in Ni‘lin on 26 August reported a new type of gas being used by military in the last peaceful demonstration.
link to www.nilin-village.org
Border tension – Egypt/Gaza/Israel
IDF remains on high alert in south
Ynet 30 Aug — IDF forces stationed in the southern sector and on the Israel-Egypt border remained on high alert Monday night, as military intelligence indicated a viable terror threat in the area. The southern sector, and especially the area adjacent to the border, has been virtually flooded with military forces, deployed in a manner defined by one security source as “unprecedented.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
Report: Israel sends 2 warships to Egyptian border
News agencies 30 Aug — The Israeli Navy (INF) has decided to boost its presence and patrols near Israel’s maritime border with Egypt due to a viable terror threat in the area.
Israeli security sources told the Associated Press on Tuesday that two additional warships have been dispatched to Israel’s Red Sea border with Egypt. Another source stressed that the operation was routine, telling Reuters that “two naval craft have been sent to the Red Sea. This is not unusual.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
Report: Egyptian forces raid Jihad cells in Sinai
Ynet 30 Aug — Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm quoted Egyptian security sources as saying that forces continue to raid terrorist strongholds in Sinai as part of a special operation on the event of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. The operation includes some 1,500 soldiers as well as tanks and armored vehicles … The newspaper noted that Egyptian security forces have raised the level of alert for fear of acts of violence during the holiday. They are scanning the border areas of Rafah, El-Arish and Sheikh Zweid, working alongside Bedouin tribal leaders who are trying to convince the [Islamic] Jihad operatives to abandon violence.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Gaza
VIDEO: Gazan students restricted from study abroad
Al Jazeera 30 Aug — A group of Palestinian students who have won scholarships to study abroad should be getting ready for the new experience. Instead, they are stuck at home in Gaza because their government will not let them leave. Al Jazeera’s Stafanie Dekker reports from Gaza.
link to www.youtube.com
Miles of Smiles and Africa 1 convoys reach Gaza
GAZA (PIC) 30 Aug — Miles of Smiles and Africa 1 aid convoys reached the Gaza Strip on Monday evening through the Rafah border crossing. The higher committee for receiving delegations in Gaza said that Miles of Smiles5 from Europe which was dubbed the “border martyrs” to honour the Egyptian soldiers killed by the IOF, and Africa 1 convoy arrived at the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing at sunset (time for iftar) on Monday.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Gaza NGOs express ‘horror’ at new Hamas travel restrictions on Palestinians / Amira Hass
Haaretz 30 Aug — Anyone leaving Gaza in the framework of NGO activity must now provide details of the trip to the government — The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip recently imposed new travel restrictions on Palestinians active in non-governmental organizations in what the Palestinian NGO Network regards as another Hamas attempt to control and hamper them.
link to www.haaretz.com
Hamas journal: Mashaal to discuss Shalit deal in Cairo
Ynet 30 Aug — Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal will arrive in Cairo next weekend together with fellow officials to discuss a prisoner exchange deal, Hamas journal al-Risala reported Tuesday. A Palestinian source told the paper that the delegation members will be briefed by the Egyptians on recent talks between Egypt and Israel regarding a prisoner exchange deal which will see Gilad Shalit released. Meanwhile, prominent US Muslim figures, including two congressmen, have sent a letter to Mashaal calling him to release the captive IDF soldier.
link to www.ynetnews.com
The loneliness of Gaza’s long-distance runner / Donald Macintyre
The Independent 30 Aug — Nader al-Masri is battling the stopwatch – and Israel’s blockade – to secure his Olympic dream — As the sun sinks slowly behind the stands of the Yarmouk Stadium, it feels a fraction cooler after a day of blistering August heat. Which is just as well, as it is Ramadan and Nader al-Masri, 31, has not eaten or drunk anything since before dawn and will not do so until dusk, still a couple of hours away. Before that, this quiet, slightly built man will have completed 25 circuits of the stadium in around 45 minutes, concealing the arduousness of the task by his straight-backed but graceful, easy running style.
link to www.independent.co.uk
Detention
Trial of West Bank organizer Bassem Tamimi to resume Sunday
PSCC/ISM 30 Aug — After telling the judge that he does not recognize the legitimacy of the court and of military law during his arraignment on June 5th, Bassem Tamimi’s trial is expected to open this coming Sunday, when prosecution witnesses will take the stand for the first time. On June 14th, the EU has expressed its concern over Tamimi’s incarceration in a statement given during the 17th session of the UN’s Human Rights Council. Tamimi is incarcerated since late march and the coming hearing, after more than 5 months of imprisonment, is the first in which the allegations will actually be discussed in court. Proceedings in the case have been prolonged after prosecution witnesses did not bother to show up to a previous hearing on June 27th
link to palsolidarity.org
Child arrests: Mohmad Ibrahim Abu Maria
PSP 29 Aug — The past year has seen a rapid increase in child arrests in Beit Ommar, as the Israeli army escalates this tactic of occupation. Last week, PSP visited the family home of one of these children. Mohmad Ibrahim Abu Maria is a 16-year-old high school student from Beit Ommar. His case is one which sounds all too familiar in Palestine. Seven months ago, the Israeli army arrested him from the passenger’s seat of his father’s car. He is still in jail today, and has yet to be tried for any offence. Mohmad’s father, Ibrahim Abu Maria, told us more about his story.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org
Palestinians call for investigation into high incidence of illness in Israeli jails
MEMO 30 Aug — …The Palestinian Centre for Defending Detainees stated that hundreds of detainees develop serious and chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, pleurisy, kidney failure, back pain, persistent headaches and ulcers while in Israeli prisons. These are all exacerbated by the apparently deliberate Israeli policy of medical neglect and lack of adequate treatment. The PCDD added that Israeli prisons lack specialist doctors and Palestinian detainees are given nothing but pain killers.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Interview sheds light on Israel prison-colonial complex
ISM 29 Aug — …We were keen to know about what kind of treatment the recent detainees could expect, and [Bardran Jabbal] seemed to be the perfect person to speak to, considering he has spent 20 years in Israeli prisons over the course of his life as have each of his sons, under the British mandate laws that allow people to be arrested without any evidence or charge for up to six months, a sentence which can be renewed at any time … Discussing what conditions the prisoners could expect to face, he told us [because of] that human rights organizations’ pressuring since the 80s, the torture has shifted more to psychological methods. One example he provided was when they produced a fake document from the International Red Cross Society saying that his wife had died and that his five children were now living on their own. They wanted him to sign it to “hand custody over to their grandparents.”
link to palsolidarity.org
Israeli court extends remand of Palestinian responsible for Tel Aviv attack
Haaretz 30 Aug — The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday extended the remand of the Palestinian man suspected of carrying out the recent terror attack in Tel Aviv, which left eight people wounded. The court extended the man’s remand by 10 days, despite the police’s request that it will be extended by 15 days. The Petah Tikva court has imposed a gag order on the entire investigation, and the court hearing was held behind closed doors. link to www.haaretz.com
Cairo called to oversee reconciliation after Ramadan prisoner deal breached
RAMALLAH (PIC) 28 Aug — The families of the West Bank political prisoners committee have released an important report documenting statistics on the West Bank security services in Ramadan as the holy month comes to a close. Officials from Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo before Ramadan when promises were made to release all political prisoners in the occupied territories before Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the month. However, arrests across the entire West Bank continued even after those agreements were made. In conjunction with an arrest campaign by the Israeli occupation authorities, the sweeps saw the detention of more than 150 of Hamas’s supporters.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Refugees
Palestinians in Jordan refugee camp long to return / John Ridley
EI 30 Aug — The market is busy, shop and stall owners are shouting to advertise their wares to the crowds on the street; food and essential goods only … The sense of community is apparent, everyone has a purpose, many stop to welcome me, or just shake hands and say “hello.” But just beyond the bustling market lays the reality of Baqaa. Mahmood, my guide, explains — “Four generations of refugees have grown up with little hope of escaping poverty, let alone reaching their true potential; despite their hardships the community remains strong.”
link to electronicintifada.net
BDS
Swedish chain kicks out drink machines made in Israeli settlements
EI 29 Aug Stephanie Westbrook — …Meanwhile, in Sweden, the Israeli maker of home carbonation devices, Sodastream, took a direct hit when the Coop supermarket chain announced on 19 July that it would stop all purchases of its products due to the company’s activity in illegal Israeli settlements. This marked another important victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, as Sweden is Sodastream’s largest market, with an estimated one in five households owning a Sodastream product.
link to electronicintifada.net
Discrimination
Rights activist: Israeli government should finance couples forced to wed abroad
Haaretz 30 Aug — …”Some 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union are not recognized as Jews according to the halakha and are denied the right to marry in Israel,” says Alex Tentzer, an activist for civil marriages in the Russian-speaking community … “Until there’s a law in Israel stipulating that everyone can get married here, the trip abroad must be financed by the state. If the state denies people their civil rights, it must pay up,” he says.
link to www.haaretz.com
Statehood bid
House bill to cut funds to pro-Palestine UN groups
WASHINGTON (AP) 30 Aug – The head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is asking Congress to block U.S. funds for any United Nations entity that supports giving Palestine an elevated status at the U.N. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in legislation unveiled Tuesday, also would ban U.S. contributions to the U.N. Human Rights Council and an anti-racism conference seen as a platform for anti-Israel rhetoric … The bill, with 57 cosponsors, comes forth as the U.N. General Assembly prepares to vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood regardless of the outcome of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. In an op-ed in the Miami Herald on Sunday, Ros-Lehtinen said her bill follows the example of George H.W. Bush, who in 1989 succeeded in stopping the U.N. from recognizing a Palestinian state by threatening to cut off U.S. financial support.
link to old.news.yahoo.com
Israel warned against sending Peres to UN vote on Palestinian state
Haaretz 30 Aug — Sending President Shimon Peres to the United Nations General Assembly for the vote on Palestinian statehood in September will only harm Israel’s interests and give more weight to the Palestinian move, pro-Israeli diplomats in New York warned Tuesday.
link to www.haaretz.com
St. Vincent and the Grenadines recognizes Palestinian state
IMEMC 30 Aug — The Palestinian Mission at the United Nations received, on Monday evening, a letter from the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines officially recognizing an independent Palestinian State.
link to www.imemc.org
Other political / diplomatic / international news
Palestinian medical group headed to Libya to help treat wounded
Ramallah (Pal Telegraph) 29 Aug – President Mahmoud Abbas is going to send a medical delegation to Libya to contribute to alleviating the suffering of the Libyan people and to treat the wounded, Monday said official sources. Minister of Health Fathi Abu Mughli said Abbas issued instructions to send a medical team specialized in disaster treatment to Benghazi after the Eid Al-Fitr holiday. He said that he will personally head the team, which will include a staff of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and administrators from the ministry of health, to contribute to ease the Libyan people’s suffering in the hard times they are going through. He stressed that in spite of the Palestinian Authority’s critical economic situation in Palestine and its negative effects on the medical sector, the medical delegation will nevertheless carry take with it medical equipment, medicine and supplies.[including those rightfully belonging to Gaza, by any chance?]
link to www.paltelegraph.com
Egyptians demonstrate outside the Israeli embassy on Eid day
CAIRO (PIC) 30 Aug — Dozens of Egyptians demonstrated on the first day of Eid outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protest the flying of the Israeli flag on the embassy after it was removed by a protester a few days ago. The demonstrators reiterated their demands to expel the Israeli ambassador, close the embassy and retaliate to the killing of Egyptian soldiers by the IOF. They said that the fact that it was Eid day did not stop them from demonstrating for the lives of the soldiers who were killed and chanted to this effect.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
WikiLeaks: Special treatment gives Israeli mobsters free access to US soil / Ali Abunimah
EI blog 28 Aug — Known Israeli organized crime bosses are able to travel freely to the United States, unlike counterparts from Italy, China and Central America, because the State Department has failed to apply US law to them. It appears that at least one prominent Israeli crime family member was able to reach the United States with a specific intent to commit murder, as a result of this exemption. This revelation comes in a May 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv titled “Israel: A Promised Land for Organized Crime?”
link to electronicintifada.net
Other news
In photos: Al Quds Day at Qalandia
Pal. Monitor 29 Aug — Photos by Michele Monni and Silvia Boarini. Written by Michelle Monni. On the last Friday of Ramadan (the holy month for Muslims), around 100 members of the “Olive Revolution” movement gathered at Qalandiya checkpoint to protest against the severe restrictions for Palestinians who wish to reach Jerusalem. Most Palestinians in attendance wanted to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site for Islam. Protesters, and those who were refused to get through, decided to pray in front of the soldiers standing at the entrance of the checkpoint. Following prayers, participants started singing for the freedom of the Palestinian people and against the Israeli occupation. After a short while, the IDF shot tear-gas canisters and sound bombs to disperse the demonstration.
link to www.palestinemonitor.org
In photos: Ramadan in the Old City of Jerusalem
Pal. Monitor 30 Aug — Photos taken by Silvia Boarini through Ramadan, the holy month of Islam, in and around the Old City of Al Quds, Jerusalem.
link to www.palestinemonitor.org
Analysis / Opinion
Israel’s image won’t improve without policy changes / Gary Wexler
Forward 29 Aug — Sexy Photo Shoots Amount to Marketing Mission Impossible — …The unfortunate truth, though, is that “Israel,” associated with anything except hi-tech and security products, is proving to be an increasing liability, especially when it is identified with mass consumer goods. Even with all the efforts of Camera, the Israel Project, the Jewish Federations and all the other organizations that blast my email inbox daily with defensive statements, Israel is increasingly emerging as the world’s pariah nation. Yet, as strange as it may sound coming from a marketer with an advertising background, who has represented hundreds of Jewish organizations worldwide, I have arrived at the conclusion that the solution will not be found in branding, marketing, public relations or the writings of political pundits.
link to forward.com
The OECD has lost 4 million Palestinians / Shir Hever
JNews blog 26 Aug — The OECD’s recent report on the statistics of Israel shows that the Israeli government succeeded in manipulating the organization into accepting Israel’s perspective – according to which Palestinians simply do not exist.
link to www.jnews.org.uk
On hasbara visit to U.S. MK Wilf praises Fayyad as ‘first Palestinian leader to stop focusing on what the Jews are doing’
Aug 31, 2011
Eleanor Kilroy
Last year, Shimon Peres famously dubbed Salaam Fayyad “the Palestinian Ben-Gurion.” Yesterday, Knesset Member Einat Wilf of the Haatzmaut, or ‘Independence’ party gushed about Fayyad during a press briefing organized by the Israel Project in Washington D.C. to derail the Palestinian push for state recognition at the UN. Wilf said the UN effort is “a non-violent strategy with very violent purposes.” From the Israel Project:
Wilf praised Palestinian Authority President Salaam Fayyad for his practical work in creating the infrastructure for a future Palestinian state and for condemning what he has declared as unconstructive Palestinian efforts at the UN.
The former IMF economist “is truly the first Palestinian leader to stop focusing on what the Jews are doing and actually focus on how to build a Palestinian state,” Wilf said.’
Perhaps because he has been paid to look the other way.
Wilf is on a four-day speaking tour in D.C. and New York sponsored by The Israel Project, an organization which aims to help ‘protect Israel, reduce anti-Semitism and increase pride in Israel’ and whose annual budget has surpassed $7 million. The same woman championing Fayyad spoke at the Glenn Beck rally earlier this month. Fayyad’s friend is also the former foreign policy advisor to the then Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and it seems she is going places; Le Figaro, looking into its crystal bollock 20 years into the future, has designated Einat Wilf as Prime Minister of Israel.
Colonel Qaddafi’s Tech Support
Aug 31, 2011
Paul Mutter
Reporting from Tripoli, The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Sonne and Margaret Coker reveal the depths of collusion between Colonel Qaddafi’s spooks and their foreign tech support:
The recently abandoned room is lined with posters and English-language training manuals stamped with the name Amesys, a unit of French technology firm Bull SA, which installed the monitoring center. A warning by the door bears the Amesys logo. The sign reads: “Help keep our classified business secret. Don’t discuss classified information out of the HQ.”
French-owned Amesys was just one of those whose wares were on display. Narus, a subsidiary of Boeing, the ZTE Corporation of China and a small (but apparently important) South African firm called VASTech SA (Pty) were all represented. Other names will likely follow. So far, they are all following the hush-hush urgings of the Amesys sign, offering limp responses to the WSJ’s inquiries, or just declining to comment.
But the HQ records speak for themselves: the government recorded thousands of online conversations, phone calls and web histories, from regular citizens to human rights activists (those who had overseas contacts were priority targets, of course). And just in case the snoops heard something good on all those hours of recordings, the place was also equipped with “a windowless detention center,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
As the Wall Street Journal points out, none of this is especially shocking. Foreign companies and their products have been actively involved in suppressing the Arab Spring, and from the Middle East to East Asia, multinationals have made hefty profits from providing surveillance capacity, security contracting and arms sales to repressive regimes. This SIGINT Road, if you will, is the e-version of the old Silk Road running from Beijing to Tunis with many stops along the way.
Libya is a good example of the political dealings that are so common when multinational corporate interests stand to gain. When Qaddafi extended an olive branch as the Second Gulf War began, Western (and non-Western) governments and firms leaped at the chance to do business with a seemingly older and wiser dictator.
International trade and arms sanctions were imposed on Libya between 1988 and 1992 in response to the country’s support for terrorist organizations. These sanctions were lifted from Libya starting in 2003 because Qaddafi agreed to disclose and dismantle its nuclear program,help track down Libya’s international nuclear black market contacts and started “cooperating” with the UK’s Lockerbie bombing investigation.
Qaddafi made a shrewd choice when he decided to cooperate with the U.S., the UK and the IAEA. Having seen where the WMD “smoking gun” justification had led the U.S. in Iraq, he had no desire to give the Marine Corps cause to pay a visit to “the shores of Tripoli” once again. A grateful West began restoring diplomatic niceties.
But there were other benefits as well. Diplomatic niceties paved that way for what the Libyan government really wanted: new technology and new money to help maintain its power at home. Qaddafi looked at Western arms manufacturers, investors, security-surveillance providers and oil majors in the same way that a tech junkie would salivate over an Apple Store’s fancy gadgets and efficient tech support.
Big EU arms manufacturers like BAE Systems and the Finmeccania Group basically just picked up where they left off in 1992, selling everything from surveillance networks, firearms, andaircraft. Oil majors, discouraged from going into Libya during the Cold War because of nationalization efforts and Libya’s late pariah status started negotiating contracts.
If there was one sector of Libya’s economy that Qaddafi believed benefited from free enterprise and globalization, it was the surveillance market. The aforementioned Finmeccania Group, (although not mentioned in the article) also helped the Libyans with surveillance work, according to a report put out a few years ago by the partly-government owned Italian multinational.
So what will happen to all these poor multinationals now that their chief Libyan sugar-daddy is gone? Don’t cry too hard for them. Ever resourceful, some are already dipping their toes into post-Qaddafi waters to keep or expand these contracts – joined by security contractors who hope to do a brisk business protecting VIPs and pricey machines. Let the second surveillance rush begin!
Rep. Allen West says Obama is Neville Chamberlain (to Arab Nazis)
Aug 31, 2011
Philip Weiss
Florida congressman Allen West just returned from a visit to Israel. He sent out a long letter to his constituents. These are extended excerpts, and boy are they wild. (Photos here. In the first one, titled The Wall, West is accompanied by a man I believe is Dan Senor.) Paragraphing below is mine. My headline comes from an insight the congressman conveys a few paragraphs from end of this note.
Having just returned earlier today- Sunday, August 28th- I want to first extend my sincere thanks to all the great Americans and Israelis that I met on this trip who came up to meet me to personally shake my hand. This was my second visit to the modern State of Israel and it will certainly not be my last.
People always ask you, “What did it feel like to be in Israel?”
For me, the response is quite simple. America is my physical homeland. It is a Constitutional Republic in which my entire adult life has been spent under an oath to support and defend. It embodies the fundamental principles of liberty, freedom of will and conscience, and democracy. Israel, however, is my spiritual homeland. It is a place about which I have read and studied my entire life. It is the place where my Judeo-Christian faith heritage was born. Israel is the place that completes me as a person.
When you consider the shared values, culture, faith, and commitment to democratic principles, it is easy to understand why many believe America is not complete without Israel.
…Our delegation visited the so-called “settlements” and all we found were neighborhoods and suburbs. When we went to Bethlehem to visit the birthplace of Jesus- a Jew- our group was not allowed to have our regular Jewish guides or bus drivers because Israeli citizens are not allowed in Bethlehem or the ancient city of Jericho where the Bible teaches us that Joshua blew down the wall with trumpets….
I believe the most important question we must begin to ask ourselves is, “What is Palestine?”…
The Peel Commission, the British Mandate, and the United Nations Mandate all sought to create a region where both Jew and Arab could coexist, which the Jews accepted, but the Arabs rejected. Therefore, let us no longer operate under the misconceived notion that Palestine has anything to do with being Arab. For those who tout, “Free Palestine,” I agree, return it back to the inhabitants who had the land taken from them back in the early 1st Century AD by the Romans.
When we walked last week through a 2,000-year-old tunnel under the ancient City of David to the Western Wall, there can be no historical or archaeological argument to refute that there has always been a nation of Israel. It is a nation whose borders are clearly stated in the Bible, Numbers Chapter 34, a people who have a definitive bond to the land, their homeland.
So where does that take us today? As one sits back and assesses the strategic and operational environment across the Middle East and the Maghreb, one thing becomes quite apparent. This so-called “Arab Spring” is less about a democratic movement, than it is about the early phase of the restoration of an Islamic Caliphate, the last being the Ottoman Empire. We are witnessing secular Muslim leaders being deposed in very volatile and unstable nations. This growing Islamic Totalitarianism manifested in militant Islam has had a modus operand of capitalizing on unstable political situations (Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia). Now we see these same types of instances occurring in Egypt, Libya, and Syria and the rose-colored glasses of some seek to portray this as a great awakening of liberty. History does not support this in the Middle East.
We must evaluate these occurrences through the prism of keen strategic and operational insight which looks out 10, 20, or 30 years. If we had done so during the deposing of the Shah of Iran, we might have been able to prevent what arose. The Iran with which we must contend today is the major exporter of Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism. In the midst of it all is Israel, that tiny defiant bastion of freedom, liberty, and democracy in an evolving storm.
One only needs to survey a map of the Middle East, and the immediate peripheral states to see the very threatening situation. And with that analysis, comes the resulting conclusion that Israel lacks one clear asset, and that is strategic depth for defense. This is why any intonation of reverting to pre-1967 lines for Israel is not just ludicrous, but insane, and clearly evidences a lack of strategic security intelligence.
Slowly Israel is being surrounded on all sides: Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, an unstable Egypt and Syria, and a theocratic regime in Iran led by a 21st century “Madman.” As well, Israel must contend with an internal infiltration. How many Americans would tolerate having some 50-100 rockets and missiles launched across its border? Then why should we expect Israel to tolerate the same? The objective could not be any clearer to a seasoned military strategist: isolate and eliminate the modern day Jewish state of Israel. And what is most appalling, western civilization is watching it happen, again.
It all comes back to visionary leadership. Israel has it with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whom I had the distinguished honor of meeting. America is so severely lacking this type of leadership, which is why the enemy is making its move now. The enemy knows that America has a Chamberlain, not a Churchill at the helm.
During our trip, we met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad. He spoke of freedom and dignity — but what of recognition and respect of Israel? Let me be clear, I do not see a credible peace partner in the Palestinian Authority. While we were in Israel, the PA never denounced the most recent heinous terrorist attack….
If the United Nations really wanted to do what is right, they would settle the homeland situation for the world’s largest ethnic group without a homeland, our dear friends, the Kurdish people. In closing, let us realize that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a college fraternity but an organization with a well-developed strategic plan.
Let us no longer operate in the realm of irrational emotionalism, but rather study and come to learn true geopolitics based upon history and fact. There is an inextricable bond between America and Israel, and we must stop denying it or feeling ashamed about it. …
Meanwhile, in Israel . . .
Aug 31, 2011
Adam Horowitz
‘Chicago Tribune’ runs Khalidi piece faulting Rep Jackson for going on ‘magical mystery tour’ to Israel
Aug 31, 2011
Jeffrey Blankfort
What is not as important as Rashid Khalidi’s restrained, but nonetheless perceptive critique of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s trip to Israel, courtesy of AIPAC, is the fact that the Chicago Tribune elected to run it. Jackson Jr. has been one of the most unabashed supporters of Israel within the Congressional Black Caucus, at one point even disassociating himself from his father’s criticism of Israeli policies. Given the mood of the times and the serious economic problems facing the voters in his district, however, he may now begin to have second thoughts about where his priorities should be. Khalidi:
Jackson also approvingly quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the forcible transfer of Israel’s Palestinian citizens and whose stances have regularly been criticized internationally for their thinly veiled bigotry. The day that a prominent African-American and the son of a civil rights icon embraces a man like Lieberman for the sole purpose of greasing wheels in Washington is a sad one for anyone who cares about equality and justice.
Jackson’s submission to the lobby of a foreign state is a tragic illustration of the abdication of progressives and others in the United States over the rights of Palestinians. Such behavior is one of the reasons Israel has been able to dominate Palestinians for decades with little protest from the United States.
It is no wonder then, that peace and security for all in the region is still so elusive.
Seeing past Rothschild Blvd
Aug 31, 2011
Gabriel Ash
Joseph Dana and Max Blumenthal published their promised article on the J14 protest movement, and it is disappointing. The only part of Israel they see is the Ashkenazi middle class of Tel Aviv. That, the protest of that sector, which started the #J14 events, they dismiss as nothing more than an attempt to return to the Zionism of the “good old days.” Fair enough. Everything they say about the limitations of the protest movement, I agree. Although their attempt to offer a pop psychology of the “radical Israeli left” (two people, to be precise) should have been beneath them.
Then there is the bad part. Look at whom they interview, a media professional, a mainstream journalist, a young labor apparatchik, a think tank fellow. That is Israeli society? Tent protests happened all the way from Sderot to Kyriat Shmone, places as far in social outlook from Rothschild Blvd as Gary, Indiana is from the East Village. Even in Tel Aviv there were multiple protests, of very different social make up. Dana and Blumenthal note how the Rothschild encampment chose its location to resonate with the Zionist narrative. Yet veteran Mizrahi activists set up an alternative camp near the “New” central station, amidst piss poor residents, emaciated sex workers, Sudanese refugees and foreign laborers, picking a pre 1948 Arab-Jewish neighborhood destroyed by Zionist “development” as a counter-historical symbol of the crushing brutality and racism of Zionism in Tel Aviv itself. The authors apparently were in Tel Aviv, so why not interview activists who specifically decided against joining the Rothschild camp? Dana is Israeli and Blumenthal is American. Why is it that the only Israel they notice, the only people they care to ask for their opinion, even if only to dismiss them, are the Ashkenazi middle class of Tel Aviv? Is it because these are the people in Israel who are most like themselves?
Then there is the question of expectations. They challenge the idea that this protest movement could “initiate a process that will eventually lead to the unraveling of the occupation and discrimination against Palestinians.” There are no doubt those in Israel, as well as in the world, who want to see Israelis leading the movement for Palestinian liberation. It is therefore essential to repeat a thousand times. Only a Palestinian led movement can liberate Palestinians. Besides, Palestinians have already initiated that process. So there is nothing for #J14 to initiate. But unless the Palestinian strategy involves new weapons coming out of science fiction movies, changing Israeli consciousness is going to be part of the struggle and part of the victory. That cannot happen overnight. It will be a process. Nor can it happen of itself. Activists are going to be an essential ingredient, and they will have to have strategies of engaging with that process that is going to be messy and often unpleasant. Israelis cannot see the occupation. That some of them might be able to see the state’s war against the Bedouins, perhaps for the first time, matters. That’s what a process means. This by no means implies that the process has a predetermined direction. On the contrary, the odds are bad, all the exits are in the wrong direction, and it would take both labor and luck to steer it anywhere better. Radical left activists in Israel only stand a chance of succeeding to turn their society around if BDS succeeds in the West and if the Arab revolutions really fulfill their promises, which is far from guaranteed. These different tracks impact each other even if they are not communicating with each other. This is what the petulant keyboard brigadiers like Yossi Gurvits, who whine about lacking “solidarity,” don’t understand, that what the left in Israel (the real left) needs most, is not a pat on the back, but our success in all the struggles that relate to Israel. On the other hand, it could probably do without being criticized for not staying home and watching TV.
This post originally appeared on Jews Sans Frontieres.
1948 tents versus 2011 tents
Aug 31, 2011
Ali Zbeidat
I was asked about my stance on the Israeli protest movement that has been taking place for over two weeks, and the effect of the so-called Arab Spring on these protests, and most importantly: what the role of Palestinians living in the colonial state of Israel should be in these protests. Should they join these protests and tents and adopt the same demands? Should they erect their own tents and make demands relative to the Palestinian cause? Or should they quit, stand aside, and say: These protests don’t concern us at all?
Ultimately, the main theme of the Israeli protests, taken from the Arab Spring movement, and tweaked, is: “The people demand social justice!” This slogan summarizes the essence of previous, current and future Israeli protests. First: when they define “people”, we, the Palestinians, find our selves not only outside of this definition, but in the category of “enemy of the people”. Second, what does social justice mean when the entire state, from its inception, has survived on social oppression embodied in colonizing the land of Palestine and displacing its people.
Hence, I came to a definite non-negotiable answer: Any struggle in the State of Israel is necessarily a reactionary struggle as long as it opposes and ignores the struggle for natural rights for indigenous Palestinian people, including the liberation of the land and the return of the refugees.
In summary, The Israeli protest movement is reactionary regardless of its demands and our attempt to give ideological excuses/explanations to it, as some parties are trying. The demands of young couples, university students, doctors, and others can not be progressive demands if they ignore the demands of the indigenous people and instead race to steal their land and destroy any person opposing them.
The aim of these protests is to improve the situation of the colonizers/occupiers while our job is to hold them accountable. Is it my job, as a homeless Palestinian refugee, to make certain that my occupier can live a nice life and acquire a bigger and cheaper apartment on my land? Let this occupier go to hell and wander homeless on the streets. What do the inhabitants of these new, clean, colorful, tents in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem think of the black Palestinian tents that filled the area in 1948? Do they recognize their responsibility to these tents? Anyone who wants to live in a comfortable apartment at reasonable price cannot ignore these questions!
Social demands cannot be separated from political demands, especially in this country.
I am not, nor will I fall into the Zionist traps. I am not claiming that the Israeli society does not suffer from class struggles, nor am I someone who is narrow-minded by my nationalist ideals. I do not believe that the “Jewish nation” is an exceptional case because I simply do not believe in the existence of a Jewish nation outside of the sick imagination of some racist Zionists. We have enough meaningless bickering between the Israeli Communist Party and the BALAD party (party that represents Palestinian), which is just as Israeli as the Communist Party.
What I have said above does not lessen the significance of the Israeli protest. In actuality, a positive and important consequence of these events is the truth that came out about our local leadership and political parties. In spite of our continuous empty talks about housing problems, lack of building permissions and land confiscations, our leadership was too cowardly to take initiative and waited two weeks into the Israeli protest movement to join, fearing we wouldn’t be welcomed among the various Israeli protest groups.
Another reason for the importance of the protest movement is its expression of the crisis of the Israeli state locally, and the rising crisis with capitalist systems worldwide.
Finally, these protesters, united, from the right and left, liberals and conservatives, will find themselves faced with a question that will continue to follow them as they attempt to escape it: Will the State of Israel give them any solutions? Or will they discover that the State is in fact their real problem?
Ali Zbeidat is a writer and political activist from occupied Palestine 1948. He writes the blog Good Morning Sakhnin.
In the sacred story of American empire, Israel is the ultimate symbol, dammit
Aug 31, 2011
Jack Ross
Jewish Ideas Daily has run a critical review, by Lawrence Grossman, of Jack Ross’s important new book, Rabbi Outcast. Ross responds:
The review itself begins with a very intellectually dishonest premise. In the context of negotiations with Palestinian Arabs at a minimum, the demand that Israel be recognized as a “Jewish state” is entirely new to Netanyahu’s current administration, and if it is in fact now American policy – and it is not clear that it is – it can not have been for more than three or four months.
The author goes on to make the ad hominem insistence that it is “factually inaccurate” that “the Conference of Presidents functions as the mythical elders of Zion” and that “AIPAC was implicated in the genesis of the Iraq War”. The point is that Rabbi Elmer Berger and the American Council for Judaism foresaw that Zionism, particularly with its insistence on the emergence of an “official governing body” of American Jewry obsessed with enforcing “the communal consensus” would bring to life the anti-Semitic myths typified by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The sole commenter on the review poses the following question:
Whether the book’s author, Jack Ross, is capable of making the distinction between the anxieties of, say, pre- and post-1989 Zionism. From the birth of Zionism, through both World Wars and after, US (and British, etc.) anti-Zionism (non-Communist anti-Zionism, at least) asserted that Zionism was a threat to the perceived and actual loyalty and Americanism (Britishness, etc.) of the national Jewish community. Whereas the anti-Zionism of Tony Judt, Phil Weiss and Max Blumenthal (to name exemplars of 3 generations) is anxious to identify itself not with patriotism toward one’s own nationality, but patriotism to something larger and better – “progressive politics,” “good Europeanism and anti-nationalism, anti-xenophobia and anti-racism.