NOVANEWS
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‘Shame on you’
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National Press Club suspends journalist over tough questions for Saudi prince
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Barak says he would want nukes if he was Iran
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NPR story on Dead Sea Scrolls makes listener feel like a goose being force-fed Israel propaganda
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Sumrains, prominent family in East Jerusalem, face eviction for settlers (and where is Hillary?)
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Phoenix Jewish columnist says Obama’s complaint about Netanyahu made American Jews feel unsafe
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Pinkwashing Lieberman, whitewashing fascism
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Derfner slams Jason Alexander as yet another ‘evenhanded liberal failure’
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Israeli gov’t employs guilt to try and reverse reverse-aliyah
‘Shame on you’
Nov 19, 2011
annie
Feel the energy of unified power as these non violent students at UC Davis shout down police and demand they exit their quad after police pepper spray protesters. Then, they literally chant police away.
Chris Wong, one of the students pepper sprayed: “We just successfully booted the police off campus in a nonviolent way”
The Youtube descriptor:
During peacefully Occupy Movement, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprays the students to open a path for the rest of the officers
Students across several UC campuses are protesting budget cuts, tuition hikes and tax policy.
National Press Club suspends journalist over tough questions for Saudi prince
Nov 19, 2011
Adam Horowitz
Journalist Sam Husseini was suspended from the National Press Club this week over the exchange above with Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal al-Sa’ud. The transcript his here, and here is an excerpt with al-Saud responding to Hussieni’s question “What legitimacy does you regime have?”:
Turki: I advise anybody who has these questions to come to the kingdom and see for themselves. I don’t need to justify my country’s legitimacy. We’re participants in all of the international organizations and we contribute to the welfare of people through aid program not just directly from Saudi Arabia but through all the international agencies that are working throughout the world to provide help and support for people. We admit this, as I said that we have many challenges inside our country and those challenges we are hoping to address and be reformed by evolution, as I said, and not by revolution. So that is the way that we are leading, by admitting that we have shortcomings. Not only do we recognize the shortcomings, but hopefully put in place actions and programs that would overcome these shortcomings. I have mentioned the fact that when you call Saudi Arabia a misogynistic country that women in Saudi Arabia can now not only vote, but also participate as candidates in elections and be members of the Shura Council. And I just refer you to your own experience to your women’s rights, when did your women get right to vote? After how many years since the establishment of the United States did women get to vote in the United States? Does that mean that before they got the vote that United States was an illegitimate country? According to his definition, obviously. So, until, when was it — 1910 when women got to vote — from 1789 to 1910 United States was illegitimate? This is how you should measure things, by how people recognize their faults and try to overcome them.
Husseini: — So are you saying that Arabs are inherently backward? —
Politico has the Press Club’s statement here, and Husseini discusses the National Press Club’s action on his blog:
I should note that there have been tensions at the Press Club before, some with me, some with other journalists. See “Banned from First Amendment Room.” Several years ago, [National Press Club Executive Director Bill McCarren] and I were in the elevator together at the Press Building and he told me that I was causing him a great deal of grief because of my questioning of officials. He said that there were a lot of other places in Washington, D.C. — think tanks and such — that host officials without the officials having to deal with such questioning. I told him I understood his point, and even sympathized to a degree. I wasn’t trying to drive officials away, but that this was the National Press Club, that it should be known for its independence and not be a place where officials would come because they expected to avoid serious scrutiny. I said I thought that events at the Press Club would carry more weight and be more interesting the more critical the questioning was — and that events that were simply flacking for an official were hollow and less deserving of thoughtful attention. I walked away feeling like we had understood each other better.
Another issue is that tough questioning seems to be done selectively, and of course this is an issue not just at the National Press Club. When individuals who seem at odds with the establishment, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Jeremiah Wright have spoken before to the Press Club, they were very critically questioned. Others, however, are treated rather reverentially. I have participated, and at times benefited from some of this. When the Austrian Neo-Nazi Jörg Haider came to the Club, Hickman, the same moderator at the Turki event, allowed me to give him quite a grilling with several followups — at least four or five, much to my joy — and congratulated me for my efforts afterwords. During the beginning of Turki’s reply to my question, McCarren continued speaking to me, he had walked right up to me and spoke in a rather obnoxious tone, telling me to let Turki answer the question. I told McCarren that I was simply responding to Turki’s question to me. McCarren continued speaking in an obnoxious manner to me and I said to him “are you threatening me?” He responded: “Absolutely.” We had an exchange after I left the news conference as well. After the event, I sent an email to Hickman asking if he knew where I could get video of the news conference and he replied cordially but could not help provide the video, which I was finally able to obtain after several days.
Later that afternoon, I got an email with the notice of suspension signed by McCarren. The letter states: “We are suspending your membership for two weeks, effective immediately, due to your conduct at a news conference held at the National Press Club on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. Your action was in direct violation of House Rule 4 and grounds for immediate suspension.
“House Rule No. 4 states: ‘Boisterous and unseemly conduct or language in or about the Club premises or in connection with any Club-sponsored event is prohibited. Any member so offending shall be liable for immediate suspension by any Member of the board or the manager or his designee pending investigation by the board, which shall render final action.’
“This matter will be review ed by the Club’s Ethics Committee. A meeting will be scheduled prior to the end of your two week suspension to discuss your conduct and the violation. The Chairperson of the Ethics Committee will contact you to schedule the meeting.
“In the meantime, you should not come to the Club or use its facilities for any reason.”
The charge is false. I did not engage in “boisterous and unseemly conduct or language” — I engaged in tough journalism with a powerful government official from an autocratic regime that is allied with the U.S. government. This apparently warrants suspension from the National Press Club in Executive Director McCarren’s view.
Barak says he would want nukes if he was Iran
Nov 19, 2011
Jasmin Ramsey
Barak on Charlie Rose Tuesday night
In addition to declaring that the Obama administration is deeply committed to Israel, defense minister Ehud Barak made comments on this week’s Charlie Rose Show that oppose the Israeli state line that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons because it wants to bring about Israel’s destruction.
First the former prime minister said that he would not “delude” himself about the logical reasoning behind Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, adding that he would “probably” want nuclear weapons if he was Iran:
Charlie Rose: If you were Iran wouldn’t you want a nuclear weapon?Ehud Barak: Probably, probably. I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They have their history of 4,000 years. They look around and they see the Indians are nuclear. The Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan in nuclear as well as South Korea, not to mention the Russians.
U.S. foreign policy analyst M. J. Rosenberg wrote that Barak has also “gaffed” or told inconvenient truths in the past, citing Barak’s 1999 comment that if he was a stateless young Palestinian, he would “have joined one of the terror organizations.”
Barak attempted damage control on Thursday by telling reporters that his remarks were misunderstood and amounted to “could be, I don’t know”, according to an Al Jazeera English agencies report.
While Barak’s initial comments have received attention, under-reported is his acknowledgement that nuclear weapons serve as a fail-proof deterrent against foreign intervention:
“If Qadafhi were allowed to turn nuclear, no one would have dared, neither Berlusconi or Sarkozy nor Cameron, to order the recent events there.”
Barak added that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons because a “Mideast with a nuclear Iran is a totally different place” with “no way to hold any discipline about non-proliferation.” But taken together, these comments seem to make a strong case for why Iran should seek nuclear weapons.
Barak’s statements line up with Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld’s 2004 declaration that the Iranians “would be crazy” not to build nuclear weapons considering the security threats they face.
“Crippling sanctions” that prevent Iranian exports of crude oil would “stop” Iran’s nuclear program if they were backed by countries like China, India and Russia, said Barak, but he claimed that he did not have any “illusions” about those kind of sanctions being multilaterally enforced.
When asked if the “military option” should be pursued if all other alternatives did not work, Barak resisted a direct answer:
“Yes, that is an easy question but one that should be contemplated before you answer it. I prefer to stick to our old usual answer. We think that any means should be used and at the same time we recommend to our friends all around the world and we take it upon ourselves not to remove any option from the table.”
Experts have argued that strikes against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program would not impede it for a useful amount of time, but when Rose asked Barak if military strikes would work, he refused to comment, saying that he preferred “not to answer this question during this interview.”
Barak also rejected allegations by U.S. pro-Israel advocates that the Obama administration is not pro-Israel enough, stating that the reason the Palestinian bid for statehood through membership in the U.N. security council “failed” was because of a “huge diplomatic effort” by the U.S.:
“I am saying very clearly that this administration in regard to Israel’s security–and we are traditionally supported by each and every American president in our generation–but under this administration we went even further into a clear, deep, deep commitment to the security of Israel. And beyond. I see the administration is ready to veto steps which are somewhat go against or perceived by us as being against the interests of Israel.”
This post originally appeared on Lobelog.
NPR story on Dead Sea Scrolls makes listener feel like a goose being force-fed Israel propaganda
Nov 19, 2011
Philip Weiss
How I felt listening to NPR’s report on Dead Sea Scrolls Thursday
NPR did a breathless story Thursday on an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in a space called Discovery Times Square– an exhibit mounted in partnership with the IsraeliAntiquities Authority, an Israeli governmental authority. But reporter Margot Adler didn’t tell you that.
Adler: … you can roam past artifacts from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, some never shown before. Statues, pottery, jewelry, Roman Hellenistic and objects from ancient Israel, the first and second temple periods.
I don’t know that that’s properly described as “ancient Israel.” These artifacts are from all over lands ruled by many different kingdoms. Qumram, the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, is today in the Occupied West Bank, what we now call Palestine.
Adler: [Curator] Risa Levitt Kohn says there are 350 active excavations going on in Israel at any time
Again, I don’t think these excavations are going on in Israel. The Israeli Antiquities Authority — with whom Levitt Kohn works closely — lists many excavations underway in occupied territories, including the Golan, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank.
Adler: and one purpose of the exhibit is to help people appreciate the ancient world.
