NOVANEWS
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Nabi Saleh protester injured by live sniper fire during Friday protest
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Glasnost: Prog thinktank sacks Block, saying ‘Your actions cause many to fear’ criticizing Israel
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Isikoff’s double standard on religion and politics
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Rightwing ‘Israel Project’ finds welcome mat at NYT and ‘Daily Show’
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‘This is awful,’ Bush said, coming into Bethlehem
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Obama, don’t be like Jimmy Carter. Or Reagan either
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Europe asks: Where’s Israel’s proposal?
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Let us forget Iraq
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Israeli university gaining a toehold in Manhattan specializes in weapons development
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Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein
Nabi Saleh protester injured by live sniper fire during Friday protest
Dec 23, 2011
Adam Horowitz
From the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee:
Two weeks after the killing of Mustafa Tamimi during a demonstration in the village, an Israeli sniper shot a protester with live 0.22″ caliber ammunition, banned for crowd control purposes.
Earlier today, an Israeli military sniper opened fire at demonstrators in the village of Nabi Saleh, injuring one in the thigh. The wounded protester was evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Salfit hospital. The incident takes place only two weeks after the fatal shooting of Mustafa Tamimi at the very same spot. Additionally, a Palestinian journalist was injured in his leg by a tear-gas projectile shot directly at him, and two Israeli protesters were arrested.
The protester was hit by 0.22″ caliber munitions, which military regulations forbid using in the dispersal of demonstrations. Late in 2001, Judge Advocate General, Menachem Finkelstein,reclassified 0.22” munitions as live ammunition, and specifically forbade its use as a crowd control means. The reclassification was decided upon following numerous deaths of Palestinian demonstrators, mostly children.
Despite this fact, the Israeli military resumed using the 0.22” munitions to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank in the wake of Operation Cast Lead. Since then at least two Palestinian demonstrators have been killed by 0.22” fire:
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Az a-Din al-Jamal, age 14, was killed on 13 February 2009, in Hebron,
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Aqel Sror, age 35, was killed on 5 June 2009, in Ni’lin.
Following the death of Aqel Srour, JAG Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit reasserted that 0.22” munitions “are not classified by the IDF as means for dispersing demonstrations or public disturbances. The rules for use of these means in Judea and Samaria are stringent, and comparable to the rules for opening fire with ‘live’ ammunition.”
Contrary to the army’s official position, permissive use of 0.22” munitions against demonstrators continues in non life-threatening situations.
Background
Late in 2009, settlers began gradually taking over Ein al-Qaws (the Bow Spring), which rests on lands belonging to Bashir Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh village council. The settlers, abetted by the army, erected a shed over the spring, renamed it Maayan Meir, after a late settler, and began driving away Palestinians who came to use the spring by force – at times throwing stones or even pointing guns at them, threatening to shoot.
While residents of Nabi Saleh have already endured decades of continuous land grab and expulsion to allow for the ever continuing expansion of the Halamish settlement, the takeover of the spring served as the last straw that lead to the beginning of the village’s grassroots protest campaign of weekly demonstrations in demand for the return of their lands.
Protest in the tiny village enjoys the regular support of Palestinians from surrounding areas, as well as that of Israeli and international activists. Demonstrations in Nabi Saleh are also unique in the level of women participation in them, and the role they hold in all their aspects, including organizing. Such participation, which often also includes the participation of children reflects the village’s commitment to a truly popular grassroots mobilization, encompassing all segments of the community.
The response of the Israeli military to the protests has been especially brutal and includes regularly laying complete siege on village every Friday, accompanied by the declaration of the entire village, including the built up area, as a closed military zone. Prior and during the demonstrations themselves, the army often completely occupies the village, in effect enforcing an undeclared curfew. Military nighttime raids and arrest operations are also a common tactic in the army’s strategy of intimidation, often targeting minors.
In order to prevent the villagers and their supporters from exercising their fundamental right to demonstrate and march to their lands, soldiers regularly use disproportional force against the unarmed protesters. The means utilized by the army to hinder demonstrations include, but are not limited to, the use of tear-gas projectiles, banned high-velocity tear-gas projectiles, rubber-coated bullets and, at times, even live ammunition.
The use of such practices have already caused countless injuries, several of them serious, including those of children – the most serious of which is that of 14 year-old Ehab Barghouthi, who was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet from short range on March 5th, 2010 and laid comatose in the hospital for three weeks.
Tear-gas, as well as a foul liquid called “The Skunk”, which is shot from a water cannon, is often used inside the built up area of the village, or even directly pointed into houses, in a way that allows no refuge for the uninvolved residents of the village, including children and the elderly. The interior of at least one house caught fire and was severely damaged after soldiers shot a tear-gas projectile through its windows.
Since December 2009, when protest in the village was sparked, hundreds of demonstration-related injuries caused by disproportionate military violence have been recorded in Nabi Saleh.
Between January 2010 and June 2011, the Israeli Army has carried 76 arrests of people detained for 24 hours or more on suspicions related to protest in the village of Nabi Saleh, including those of women and of children as young as 11 years old. Of the 76, 18 were minors. Dozens more were detained for shorter periods.
Glasnost: Prog thinktank sacks Block, saying ‘Your actions cause many to fear’ criticizing Israel
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss

josh block
The continuing drama of Democratic Party institutions making room for criticism of Israel….
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post reported last week that the Progressive Policy Institute would likely bounce former AIPAC aide Josh Block for smearing critics of Israel at the Dem-Party-aligned Center for American Progress as anti-Semites. Ben Smith confirms that this has happened today:
A progressive group that is working to remake the Democratic Party’s approach to national security has drawn a line around the heated Israel policy debate, expelling a member who criticized the Center for American Progress for breaking with Clinton Democrats’ traditional staunch support for Israel.
Truman National Security Project founder Rachel Kleinfeld emailed the critic, Josh Block, to inform him this morning, Block said.
“This has nothing to do with your policy views, and is a decision solely made on the basis of the need for this community to privilege the ability to debate difficult topics freely, without fear of mischaracterization or character attacks,” she said in the email. “Your actions outside the community have caused too many to fear conversation within the community. That fear is not baseless, given your own actions. As the point of the Truman Fellowship is to help the next generation of leaders think about hard topics together, we need people to feel that they can debate with security.”
Kleinfeld’s concern about open debate comes after decades of heated and sometimes personal debate inside the Democratic Party on questions of the Middle East. That argument has long run in both directions, and Truman is choosing a side here.
Update: Bill Kristol has a long face. He understands the significance of this move. Expulsion, good word:
Doesn’t the expulsion of Block suggest that it is now impossible to be unapologetically pro-Israel—and publicly hostile to those who are anti-Israel—and remain a member in good standing of the liberal and Democratic foreign policy establishment?
Come on, Bill, why did your father urge Jews to leave the Democratic Party 40 years ago? :
“Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States… American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”
Note that your late father cited a Jewish interest, which I believe he said Jews should be willing to embrace publicly, but which I don’t see you embracing forthrightly.
Isikoff’s double standard on religion and politics
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss

Adelson
Last night on NBC, Michael Isikoff did a good piece on the new terrain in campaign finance since the disastrous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. He focused on Super PACs, which help out a candidate unofficially and can collect unlimited contributions. One such PAC, called Restore Our Future, is raising money for Mitt Romney’s campaign and has gotten $2 million from “Steven Lund, a leader of the Mormon church.” Lund is a businessman who’s made his money in cosmetics.
Then Isikoff mentioned Sheldon Adelson’s bigtime support for Newt Gingrich, and failed to say anything about Adelson’s greater Israel agenda. It’s not the first time. Here is a long reportIsikoff did on Adelson last spring, without a word about Israel!
Thank god for Amy Goodman. From Democracy Now! today (11:21):
[From the Democracy Now release on the show:]
Greg Gordon, an investigative reporter for McClatchy Newspapers who has been following the Gingrich campaign’s finances, discussed one of Gingrich’s latest beacons of support: Sheldon Adelson.
[These are Gordon’s first words:] “Sheldon Adelson is a rabidly pro-Israel donor and he operates two of the most elite casinos in Las Vegas: The Pallazzo and the Venetian. And he is also listed by Forbes as the 16th wealthiest person on the planet. Mr. Adelson is a huge backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he in fact publishes a free newspaper that circulates in Israel that basically is an extra voice to boost the Israeli Prime Minister. Gingrich and Adelson have been friends for quite a while and Gingrich is a big booster of Netanyahu as well. And perhaps it is no surprise, after all these donations from Adelson–totaling 7.65 million–that Gingrich has recently…talked about the Palestinian people as an ‘invented people,’ and he talked about moving the [US] embassy on his first day in office…from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would be an extremely provocative move to make in the Middle East,” Gordon said. “According to Politico…[Adelson] is planning to put $20 million into these Super PACs that support Newt Gingrich.”
Peter Stone, of the Center for Public Integrity, echoed Gordon’s findings on Adelson and the Gingrich campaign.
Rightwing ‘Israel Project’ finds welcome mat at NYT and ‘Daily Show’
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss

Laszlo Mizrahi
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of the Israel Project, which is essentially a propaganda outfit for the Israeli government, promoting everything Netanyahu says, sent out an email blast the other day seeking to raise money by boasting that she and others at the group met with Isabel Kershner of the New York Times to “facilitate” an article featuring an Israeli settler’s claims about Palestinian attitudes:
December 20, 2011 Dear —–,
I want to wish you a deLIGHTful Hanukkah!
There has been a lot of coverage lately about The New York Times and its problematic reporting/editorials on Israel. Thus, I thought you might want to see a piece that we helped facilitate in today’s NYTimes by making sure the reporters have the facts. I personally met with the reporter on this topic, as have others from our team. As key facts were not in the piece, I just sent a letter to the New York Times. I hope they publish it as it’s important to point out that the majority of Palestinians self report in polls that they admire terrorists. It’s not just a fringe issue. Still, overall I was pleased that there was attention paid to this critical topic. A
ll the best, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
P.S. Our supporters helped make this possible. To continue to help us support and secure Israel by getting reporters and leaders facts, please
The piece Laszlo Mizrahi cited is by Isabel Kershner, and ran in the NYT three days ago: “Finding Fault in the Palestinian Messages that Aren’t So Public.”
JERUSALEM — A new book by an Israeli watchdog group catalogs dozens of examples of messages broadcast by the Palestinian Authority for its domestic audience that would seem at odds with the pursuit of peace and a two-state solution….
Another constant theme is the Palestinian denial of any Jewish historic or religious connection to Jerusalem.
Now below, this is from the Israel Project regarding the Jon Stewart show. It’s a year old, but does that matter? Why is Jon Stewart’s Daily Show giving access to a rightwing Israel lobby organization? Here is a column from Laura Kam published in November 2010 that says TIP “media fellows” have been visiting Daily Show tapings and meeting with their producers for the past 5 or 6 years:
‘The Israel Project (TIP) long has understood the importance of Stewart’s “fake” news program. Quite often it deals with Israel and the Middle East conflict, mimicking how the American media inordinately and sometimes perplexingly focuses on Israel. TIP sends the show’s producers the same news releases and background information we send to tens of thousands of “real” journalists across the globe. And each year for the past five years, our summer media fellows go to a taping of the show live in New York City and meet with some of the writers and producers.’
FYI, another page of the TIP website states that reporters such as Wolf Blitzer, Eleanor Clift of Newsweek, and Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune have all addressed past TIP media fellows
‘This is awful,’ Bush said, coming into Bethlehem
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss

Welcome to Bethlehem
A piece in the New York Review of Books on Condoleezza Rice’s new memoir is weirdly absent the word neoconservative when author Joseph Lelyveld tries to explain why we invaded Iraq–we were seeking to establish a “foothold” in an Arab land with oil. But it does offer some gems about George Bush’s Israelophilia:
[Secy of State Colin] Powell wanted early on to resolve gaping differences with the White House over Israel and the Palestinians at a time of suicide bombings and severe reprisals and plans to augment settlements, which the State Department thought excessive. She was “sympathetic to him because he was on the front line every day.” But, she goes on, “I talked to the President every day, and I knew where he stood.” If there were a policy showdown, she suggests, Powell would have lost. The result “would be so pro-Israeli as to inflame an already bad situation.” The kind of clarity to which the President was given, she seems to be saying, served no one’s interest in that and other cases….
[Later Rice is herself secretary of state, and:] The secretary, who calls her approach “transformational diplomacy,” is hoping for a breakthrough also with the Israelis and Palestinians. Considering that she served the friendliest administration the Israelis will probably ever see, it’s instructive to compare her complaints about Israeli trickiness and maneuvering to those that have seeped out of the embattled Obama White House. Israel was a close ally and a democracy but its leaders were “sometimes a nightmare to deal with”; they had to be warned not to lobby Congress; in any conversation “there was a ‘but’”; they “always seem to overreach”; getting the Israelis “to actually carry through on promises relating to the Palestinians” was a continuing frustration, particularly promises involving Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
On a presidential visit to Israel in 2008, Bush travels to Bethlehem by car rather than helicopter against the wishes of the Israelis because Rice wants him to see “the ugliness of the occupation, including the checkpoints and the security wall…for himself and [because] it would have been an insult to the Palestinians if he didn’t.” The barriers were taken down, the convoy traveled at speed, but Bush got the point, according to Rice: “‘This is awful,’ he said quietly.”
Obama, don’t be like Jimmy Carter. Or Reagan either
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss
Some notes for President Obama on “the Jewish agenda” historically in presidential politics.
First, from Leonard Fein’s book, Where Are We? The Inner Life of America’s Jews (1988), in which Fein insists that American Jews vote liberal, and wrestles with the fact that they jumped from Carter to Reagan in 1980 but began to abandon Reagan in 1984:
In 1984, Ronald Reagan, widely perceived by Jews as a truly splendid friend of Israel, won less of the Jewish vote than he had in 1980. A puzzlement, and an irritating disappointment to conservative Jewish intelletuals such as David Sidorsky, who in the aftermath of the election complained that American Jews, despite their devotion to Israel’s security and Soviet Jewry, had preferred a party “antagonistic to the security needs of Israel” and given to “the most accommodationist approaches to the Soviet Union.”
The historian Lucy Davidowicz summarized the neo-conservative view:
“The Jewish agenda requires a strong government in the United States to insure Israel’s security. Jews who care about Israel are obliged to use their vote to that end. They did so four years ago, when for the first time in over fifty years the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, Jimmy Carter, failed to win a majority of the Jewish vote. In 1984, by contrast, a great many Jews seemed willing to ignore the drift of the Democratic party into isolationism and defeatism, not to mention the party’s embrace of Jesse Jackson, a man overtly hostile to a strong America and a strong Israel.”
The year 1980 was not, then, the beginning of a trend; it was an ephemeral anomaly. Milton Himmelfarb concluded that “what misled the forecasters was the exceptionalness of 1980. It now seems clear that a big part of the 1980 Jewish vote for Reagan was the desire of many Jews to punish Carter.”
Fein’s comments on Jews punishing Jimmy Carter reminded me that Chemi Shalev in Haaretz recently wrote about Reagan actually taking Israel on. Is that why his vote dropped, from 80-84?
Imagine if Israel would launch a successful preemptive strike against a country that is building a nuclear bomb that threatens its very existence [1981], and the American president would describe it as “a tragedy”.
And then, not only would the U.S. administration fail to “stand by its ally”, as Republicans pledged this week, but it would actually lend its hand to a UN Security Council decision that condemns Israel, calls on it to place its nuclear facilities under international supervision and demands that it pay reparations (!) for the damage it had wrought.
And then, to add insult to injury, the U.S. president would impose an embargo on further sales of F-16 aircraft because Israel had “violated its commitment to use the planes only in self-defense”.
…And what if that very same president, only a few months later, would decide to sell truly game-changing sophisticated weaponry to Saudi Arabia, an Arab country that is a sworn enemy of Israel? And not only would this president dismiss Israeli objections that these weapons endanger its security, but he would actually warn, in a manner that sent shivers down the spines of American Jews, that “it is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy”. And his Secretary of State would mince no words, just in case Walt or Mearsheimer hadn’t heard the first time, saying ominously that if the deal would be blocked by Israeli influence, there would be “serious implications on all American policies in the Middle East… I’ll just leave it there.” And then the two of them would extend the abovementioned arms embargo, just to twist Israel’s arm a little bit more.
I mean, what words would be left to describe such behavior, after the entire thesaurus’ arsenal of synonyms for “insult” “perfidy” and “knife in the back” have been exhausted to describe the official White House photo of President Obama talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu with his shoes on the table?
And what if this same president – you know who I’m talking about by now, but let’s keep up the charade – what if this same president, time after time after time, not only failed to exercise the U.S. veto in the UN Security Council to block anti-Israeli resolutions, but actually joined Muslim and Communist and other heathen countries in supporting Security Council decisions that condemned Israel for assassinating well-known terrorists; for annexing territories that Michele Bachman has clearly stated belong only to Israel; for killing violent jihadist students at Bir Zeit University; for waging war against the enemies of Western civilization in Lebanon; and even for “Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.”
Europe asks: Where’s Israel’s proposal?
Dec 23, 2011
Annie Robbins

Latuff (public domain): Netanyahu will be a partner for peace
Maybe you noticed that all hell is breaking loose at the United Nations. But over what? Israel had a fit over what it alleges were European countries’ intrusion into its “domestic affairs.” Stick with me for a minute as I try and lay out what is really going on: diversionary bloviation to protect Israel from its obligations to submit border and security proposals for the 2 state solution.
Here is the back story. After Palestinians put in their bid for statehood at the UN, on September 23 the Quartet issued a request for information from both Palestinians and Israelis. The Quartet’s deadline for the proposals is fast approaching: January 26th.
On November 14th Palestinian Authority President Abbas turned over proposals for Palestinian state borders and security arrangements to the Quartet “as a demonstration of flexibility and to garner the support of the international community. Abbas also committed to suspending any unilateral steps at the UN until January 26.”
The Quartet then requested that Netanyahu provide a counter proposal. The Israeli premier balked, citing as an excuse that such proposals should be presented in direct negotiations. Thus far Israel has refused to submit a counter-proposal.
It wasn’t always like that. Haaretz (3 weeks back) tracked the changing line:
About a week after it was issued, Israel welcomed the Quartet’s plan. Since then, envoys from the Quartet have come to the region twice for talks with the two sides.
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A day after meeting with [Fatah rep Saeb] Erekat, the Quartet delegation met with Netanyahu’s representative, Isaac Molho, and told the Israeli that they wished to receive a counterproposal from Israel on both issues by the end of January. Molho replied thatIsrael would not cooperate with this approach, saying the Quartet should instead get the Palestinians to return to direct talks with Netanyahu rather than conducting negotiations on Israel’s behalf. Molho said talks should be direct and confidential.
Both the senior Israeli official and the European diplomat said Netanyahu’s response to the Quartet made Israel look recalcitrant, and made the Palestinians appear to be the party taking the initiative and interested in advancing the peace process.
That Haaretz article was written on December 1st. Israel initially welcomed the Quartet’s plans, then demanded adjustments. So: Abbas submits an unbelievably reasonable proposal, acquiesces to staving off Palestine’s UN membership bid, demilitarization of the West Bank with limited weaponry, international peacekeeping force on the Israeli border and in the Jordan Valley, and all the usual ’67 lines and willingness to swap stuff. And who has reversed course, refused to submit a proposal and proceed to announce new settlement expansion and flips the narrative as if the Quartet is the one who’s changed their position?
Just look at what’s buried within the Jerusalem Post’s hubristic “Europeans are ‘irrelevant’ to the peace process” article yesterday– the Israeli rationalization of footdragging:
However, the part of the statement that most infuriated Jerusalem was its backing of the Palestinian interpretation of the Quartet’s September 23 statement, which set out a framework for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“We call the parties to present as soon as possible to the Quartet comprehensive proposals on territory and security,” the council members said.
This contradicted a statement put out by representatives of the Quartet – which is made up of the US, EU, Russia and UN – just last week, which said these comprehensive proposals should be presented by the sides to each other in direct talks.
The Palestinians said earlier this month that while they have presented the Quartet with comprehensive proposals on security and territory, Israel has refused to do so, creating the impression that Jerusalem was obstructing the process.
Israel’s position is that these comprehensive proposals need to come out of negotiations between the sides, and not as a result of the Quartet mediating between them. The US has publicly backed this position.
And the NYT echoed that view, addressing the proposals in the 9th paragraph of the Wednesday article, “Israel Accuses 4 Countries of Meddling in Its Affairs.” Same framing, thanks to Isabel Kershner:
Moreover, the Europeans called on the Israelis and the Palestinians to present comprehensive proposals on territory and security as soon as possible to the “quartet” of Middle East peacemakers — the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia. Israel said that was a shift from past statements by the quartet, which it understood to call on the two sides to present their proposals to each other. The Palestinians say they have already presented their proposals to quartet representatives. Israel says that approach contradicts the very principle of trying to bring the sides back to direct talks, which broke down in September 2010.
Whoa!! What shift? What contradiction? Israel doesn’t want to submit proposals for borders and security. It wants to build settlements, complain, and frame the Europeans as irrelevant busybodies as well as directing our attention, via their hasbara affiliates, to Palestinian recalcitrance.
OK, change of scene. Back to America. Check out the latest scuffle with State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland at Wednesday’s Daily Press Briefing. Watch Nuland piping the Israeli line. Notice the reporters’ impatience. Notice the stark double standard between US response to Israeli intransigence and to any other country on the face of the earth.
QUESTION: Yes, Toria. Yesterday, the four members of the European Union on the Security Council issued a statement calling occupied territories and settlements in the occupied territories and East Jerusalem as illegal under international law. Do you concur?
MS. NULAND: Said, as you know, we declined to join that statement for all of the usual reasons. It doesn’t change the fact that our longstanding policy remains that we don’t recognize the legitimacy of the continued Israeli settlements, but we don’t think statements in the UNSC [Security Council] are the way to pursue the goal of getting these parties back to the table. The best way to deal with this issue of land, settlement, et cetera, is for these parties to talk to each other, come up with borders, and then have two states living side by side in agreed borders.
QUESTION: Okay. Also, after the closed session, 14 members of the Security Council, one by one, criticized the position of the United States for not condemning the continued expansion of settlement. Do you have a response to that?
MS. NULAND: We do not believe that this is business that needs to be done in the UN Security Council. We are absolutely clear with Israel where we stand on these issues. But shouting from the rooftops of the Security Council is not going to change the situation on the ground, which is that these parties have to get back to the table and settle these issues together, and that’s the way we’re going to have a lasting, stable peace.
QUESTION: And lastly —
QUESTION: And yet shouting from the rooftops from the Security Council on Syria is going to make a difference?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’ve spoken about the concrete actions we want to see the Security Council take.
QUESTION: Well, you don’t have a chance of getting them through if the Chinese and the Russians still aren’t onboard. So what’s wrong with – why is it – what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander here? Why – I just don’t get it. Do the – why does screaming and yelling at the Security Council on Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, North Korea – why does that – what is that all a good thing and something – on Burma, for – and yet – and when it comes to Israel, it’s absolutely not?
MS. NULAND: Every situation is different. In this case, the answer to the problems in Israel with the Palestinian people can only be resolved when they sit down and talk to each other. They cannot be resolved in the Security Council. That’s our longstanding view. The Security Council can take action, we believe, on Syria. It can take action on other issues. So you need to use the appropriate tool at the appropriate time.
QUESTION: Well, I don’t get it. Why can they take —
MS. NULAND: I’m sorry you don’t get it.
QUESTION: Why can they take action in Zimbabwe and Syria and they can’t take action in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
MS. NULAND: It’s not going to lead to the result that we all want, which is —
QUESTION: Well, it’s not going to lead to the result anywhere else, either.
MS. NULAND: — two states living side by side. Well, I’m sorry that you’re so cynical about the UN’s ability —
QUESTION: I have one —
MS. NULAND: — to have an impact.
Please.
QUESTION: — final question on this issue. Mr. Churkin, the Russian Ambassador, said that one delegation – meaning you – one delegation believes the thing will miraculously sort themselves out. Do you believe that things will miraculously sort themselves out on the Palestinian issue?
MS. NULAND: There are no miracles to be had here. There is hard work to be done by the parties, supported by the international community. That is why we’ve been working so hard to try to get the Quartet proposal implemented, why our negotiator David Hale’s been in constant motion on these issues, and why we continue to talk to these parties and try to get them back to the table.
Please.
(my bold)
Let us forget Iraq
Dec 23, 2011
Roqayah

Iraqi prisoners
The war in Iraq has ended so why do you continue in grieving an invasion that has officially been closed? There is no open case, we have stamped “mission accomplished” over the Iraq war file.
The American troops have left Iraq, is that not what you’ve asked for? Now let us alone. The Iraq war is over, why can’t we simply just forget it?
As cold as the aforementioned statements sound, they are real; now that the Obama Administration has seemingly ended the 8 year, 8 month and 25 day occupation of Iraq there are too many asking for us to bury the rotting corpse that is Iraq. Hide it away, mask its odor – do what we please, just so long as they can omit from their minds the name: Iraq.
I was 13 that March in 2003 when it was announced that the United States et al. were indeed invading Iraq. I remember my mother’s words, haunting me now as I look upon a world map dotted in bloody U.S. interventions and sponsored massacres; “They’ve ruined Iraq. That’s it, they’ve ruined Iraq.”
A year later, in 2004, I excitedly got my hands on a DVD copy of Fahrenheit 9/11, the documentary by filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore covering the War on Terror. As I was the eldest and most politically astute of the sisters I was allowed to sit alongside my parents and watch. I recall one scene from the film, vaguely now; U.S. soldiers standing above a corpse, mocking a dead man and making perverse sexual remarks as he lay motionless. I walked out of the living room and into my bedroom and cried. I couldn’t stand watching this grotesque humiliation happen before my eyes. I did not want to see. To this very day I have not finished the film.
It angers me, listening to so many mourn the financial losses the United States Gov’t has forced upon the citizens of this empire. The cost of the war. That is seemingly all we hear of. The day the war “ended” I forced myself into watching, briefly, a few mainstream media outlets; the cost to Americans was all that mattered – their troops, their money – them. A selfish media for a selfish people.
But, we must put this into context, the Liberals say. How else will Americans care for Iraq if we do not put this into perspective.
This rationale is one I deplore. I find it disgusting.
That even suffering, even the loss of life of some 1 million people we must make marketable to an American audience, we must make it easier for them to swallow so as not to make them feel too guilty, so as to help them towards another path wherein they can feel something, anything, for Iraq.
They wish for us to forget that it was American troops and their lackeys who raped, tortured and pillaged Iraq; who raped, tortured and devoured its people.
In Abu Ghraib prison, notrorious for heart-wrenching torture and abuse of prisoners taken captive by US soldiers, there were photographs found, and among the photos are images of soldiers raping a female prisoner, a male detainee, and committing “sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and phosphorescent tube.” Not only did US troops sodomize and rape adult detainees but there are accusations of child abuse, rape; women have been left pregnant, after being raped by US soldiers. In the 2010 edition of Newsweek it was written that the photos “include an American soldier having sex with a female Iraqi detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex with juveniles.”
In 2004, Professor Huda Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University, said an Iraqi girl was raped by a U.S. military serviceman and became pregnant.
The Obama administration refused to release said photos as “the most direct consequence of releasing them would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger,” according to US President Barack Obama.
And they want us to forget, because it is seemingly all over for Americans. Their war is finished. But for Iraqis, the suffering is endless and the consequences of the occupation have only just begun to surface; only now have they begun to mourn.
“The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them,” said Khazim, whose father was killed when a mortar shell struck his home in Sadr City. “Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans. The Americans did not leave a free people and country behind them. In fact, they left a ruined country and a divided nation.”
(This is crossposted on Roqayah’s blog The Cynical Arab)
Israeli university gaining a toehold in Manhattan specializes in weapons development
Dec 23, 2011
Allison Deger

The IDF used a Rafael weaponized variation of this Hermes 450 drone in Operation Cast Lead. Both Elbit and Rafael have partnerships with Technion. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
On Monday, December 19, New York City and Cornell University announced a “historic” partnership with Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where the two universities will build an applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, supported by a $100 million capital gift from New York City. The project was also funded by a $350 million gift from an anonymous donor (now revealed to be philanthropist Charles Feeney).
Following the city’s decision, Israeli Consul General Ido Aharoni spoke with The Jewish Weekabout the engineering campus project, stating, “this is of strategic importance in terms of positioning Israel not only in America, but all over the world, as a bastion of creativity and innovation.” Technion is a major educator in the field of science–the university produces approximately half of the leadership of Israeli NASDAQ companies. But what was not discussed in the bid run-off, is Technion’s entrenchment in systems of militarism and discrimination. These systems of violence and discrimination in education, practiced in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, respectively, raise ethical and legal questions for New York City in entering a contract with Technion.
An April 2011 report by Tadamon, a Montreal-based activist organization titled Structures of Oppression: Why McGill and Concordia Universities must sever their links with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, investigates these issues: Technion’s links to Elbit Systems Ltd. (an Israeli military security and surveillance company) and Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd. (founded in 1948 as part of the Israeli Ministry of Defense), the technologies developed at Technion, and the school’s discrimination towards Palestinian students–by way of institutionalized preferential treatment towards active duty and reservist IDF students.

Elbit’s computer vision, eye tracking device developed
with Technion. (Photo: Elbit Systems Ltd.)
Elbit Systems Ltd.
A multi-billion dollar company that provides security equipment to the IDF, including “unmanned aerial and ground vehicles,” Elbit’s current partnership with Technion is a joint-venture since 2008, the Visions Systems Research Initiative, which according to Elbit, designs “an advanced eye tracking laboratory that enables real-time measurement of gaze and eye movement.” WhoProfits.org reported:
The company supplied UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to the Israeli army, which are in operational use in during combat in the West Bank and Gaza. The cameras in these UAV are manufactured by Controp Precision Tehnologies.
The security contractor previously has lost contracts with the Norwegian Finance Ministry and Danske Bank because of Elbit’s work with the IDF in the West Bank occupation. WhoProfits.org researched Elbit’s security contracts with the Jerusalem section of the wall, where Elbit provides “surveillance cameras in the Ariel section and for the A-ram wall,” which constitutes aviolation of international law.
Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd.
An Israeli government-owned weapons producer and major Israeli employer, Rafael Advanced Systems Ltd., has provided the IDF with security services since the 1970s, and is partnered with Technion through a specialized degree program. Tadamon chronicles the academic/weapons producer partnership:
The company has maintained a research and project-based relationship with Technion for many years. In 2001, Technion announced a three-year in-house MBA program tailored specifically for Rafael managers. In partnership with Rafael, students and faculty members of the Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering launched a ‘two-stage research rocket’ in May 2006. The Ramtech rocket took five years to build, and was completed by approximately 20 different students under the supervision of Technion Professor Alon 21 Gany and Yitzhak Greenberg from Rafael (also a Technion graduate).
Rafael produces medium range missiles that outfit Elbit drones, used during the 2008-9 Israeli assault on Gaza. The unmanned aerial vehicles, weaponized by Rafael, were used in cases of indiscriminate violence on civilians and internationals, including 87 deaths in Operation Cast Lead, as reported by Human Rights Watch.
From the 2009 Human Rights Watch report:
Israel’s primary armed drones are the Hermes, produced by the Israeli company Elbit Systems Ltd., and the Heron, produced by Israeli Aerospace Industries. The Hermes can stay aloft for up to 24 hours at altitudes of up to 18,000 feet and has an array of optical, infrared, and laser sensors that allow the operator to identify and track targets as well as to guide munitions in flight. The Hermes carries two Spike-MR (medium range) missiles, sometimes called the ‘Gil’ in Israel, produced by the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The Heron drone, which can fly for up to 40 hours at 30,000 feet, has similar optics to the Hermes and can carry four Spike missiles. In Gaza, Israel used both the Hermes and Heron drones armed with the Spike, though it may have also used other missiles.
Technion Develops Weapons
Technion, through the Technion Autonomous Systems Program developed Rafan, a small helicopter, weighing approximately 1 kilogram, used for surveillance, and unmanned bulldozers. This program has the support of three different academic centers whose focus is creating weapons to support various branches of military.
Discrimination against Palestinians
Tadamon details IDF programs with Technion, in which active-duty and reservist students are privileged over Palestinian students, through academic incentives and programs. As Palestinian citizens of Israel are exempt from military service, these programs are effectively exclusively for Israeli-Jewish students. Tadamon reviews the two programs, Atidim and Brakim:
The Technion is a partner in the Brakim academic reserve program, ‘the latest in a series of joint Israel Defense Forces (IDF)/Technion academic initiatives.’ Taking place in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Brakim program allows 15 students to complete both their Bachelor’s and Master’s in Science degrees in four years. ‘Like other students in the Atuda (academic reserve program), Brakim participants will complete their undergraduate degrees and apply their education during their military service,’ as stated in the publication Technion Focus. According to a brochure released by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the, ‘Brakim program [was] initiated to meet the request of the IDF to create an elite group of mechanical engineers to become the future R&D leaders in IDF.’
Also, in 2009, the university exhibited a double standard toward dissent by Palestinian students and Jewish-Israeli students. A Palestinian protest was criminalized. Tadamon notes, when two protests were held in 2009, one protest “ended with the arrest of 10 Palestinian students, although the Zionist right-wing counter protest was much larger and unapproved.”
The Tadamon report recommends the universities sever ties with Technion, based on the partnerships with “the Israeli military, the Israeli military-industrial complex, and Israel’s grave violations of international law and Palestinian rights.” Furthermore, Tadamon charges Technion has “full knowledge” of the development of weapons specifically used for violations of international law, and asks other universities to not normalize these abuses to law and human life.
With human rights organizations calling for universities to sever ties with Technion, New York City’s and Cornell’s decision to build a partnership with the school on Roosevelt Island should be closely scrutinized.
Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein
Dec 23, 2011
Philip Weiss
Editor: In recent public appearances, Norman Finkelstein, long a leader on discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue, has had differences with some activists over political questions. This site has great respect for Finkelstein, and Weiss regards him as a vital friend, but we thought it important to air these differences by publishing two posts from writers who’d attended events. The first is from a regular commenter on this site, Daniel Crowther, who works in Boston in the technology development industry. The second is from Noura Khouri, a Palestinian-American community organizer in the Bay Area. The video below is of the Boston University event that Crowther attended late in November.
Daniel Crowther:
Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani have teamed up to write a book, one with a very ambitious title; “How to resolve the Israel – Palestine Conflict.” On Nov. 30th, they came to the Morse Auditorium at B.U. (after a talk at Occupy Boston earlier in the day) to explain the book, and why it should be read when it comes out. Radical stuff, I know.
Gathered to hear their pitch was a disparate group of students, citizens and school officials. There had been talk of a B.U. Hillel anti-Finkelstein action beforehand, and possibly a walk out during the lecture, but neither came to fruition.
While very few knew that Finkelstein holds views similar in many respects to what we call Zionism, everyone knew that he once called Israel a “lunatic state.” Many of the assembled students were on the edge of their seats, waiting for the fireworks. They didn’t come. Funny thing about most modern day “radicals,” they’re usually the only ones making a rational argument. To be sure, there were points where Finkelstein delved into sensationalism, but his analysis was very sober and careful.
Finkelstein, as he has for many years, said that “the international consensus” is what will drive the settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the larger, Israeli-Arab Conflict. According to Finkelstein, we need to look no further than the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for our definition of “international consensus.” Both bodies accept the two-state settlement on the June 1967 border, and end to occupation, including East Jerusalem, a “just settlement of the refugee question” and security for both parties.
Advocating one state, without the two- state international consensus in Finkelstein’s view, is potentially damaging and could lead to these advocates becoming “a cult.” He used the language of Gandhi, saying that “politics is not about changing public opinion, or bringing enlightenment to the benighted masses, it is about trying to get people to act on what they already know is wrong.” Because two states is what has been accepted, by the UNGA, the ICJ, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Quartet, and basically every other international organization– as well as civilian populations throughout the world, including a plurality in the U.S.– this is what the general Palestinian solidarity movement should strive for.
Finkelstein had some mildly critical words for BDS and its “vagueness,” stating that in order for the movement to attract a wider audience, goals must be clearly stipulated – to include the final settlement, which in his view, should be based on the June 1967 borders, “two states for two peoples” and all that jazz. This drew the ire of many Palestinian Solidarity movement activists in the crowd. Jamil Sbitan, who is with Boston University’s Students for Justice in Palestine, remarked – “As the Palestinians have a right to self-determination and have called for this movement, it is unfair to tell them that the opinion of international institutions and states is more legitimate than their right to determine their own future.”
Perhaps most surprising of all was the constant stream of students getting up from their seats and leaving, not out of protest, but because they have heard lectures like Finkelstein’s before and- and maybe, just maybe- along the way they have come to agree with the burgeoning “cult” Finkelstein continually warned the audience of. While Finkelstein stressed the importance of mobilization of people toward a resolution based on his definition of international consensus, he eschewed audience member’s questions about the moral question of a two-state settlement, which would undoubtedly leave many Palestinians out in the cold.